Strange Lands: Book Two of "The Tales of Sky and Evening"

By Alex Green

Sky, Whip and Evelyn are aboard the ‘Silver Dolphin’, leaving Braeden but not their problems. They are still pursued, and there are more dangers to face – but they also find friends in Kittiwake and the crew and have time to enjoy shipboard life. It is not to last. An unfortunate accident causes Sky to doubt everything he has believed: and when he and Eve arrive in Arami, Eve finds herself confronted with her greatest challenge yet – one that may threaten both Arami and Braeden.

Strange Lands is Book Two of ‘The Tales of Sky and Evening’, following Escapade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brown Dog Books
• Release date: Oct 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781839525582

Book preview

THE STORY SO FAR

Following a devastating nuclear war that has destroyed nine tenths of the world’s population, women have seized power and negotiated peace. A new form of society has developed. Women govern from the safety of cities (Holds), while men have been banished to small rural communities (Giftings) in the wilds outside, and their access to anything harmful restricted.

Evelyn is a rebellious and strong-willed girl who feels stifled by the perfectly organised life in the Hold and longs for adventure in the wild. Sky is a boy growing up in the nearby Gifting with his ‘father’, a healer called Rahim.

Evelyn’s cousin gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The boy, Whip, is handed over to the men in the Gifting, as is the custom, but when Alice, the girl twin, falls ill, Whip is taken back to the Hold for an organ transplant. Rahim and Sky break into the Hold, determined to rescue him. In the course of their mission they encounter Evelyn, who helps them escape on condition that they take her with them.

With Evelyn disguised as a boy, Rahim, Sky and Whip flee through the wild pursued by security forces from the Hold. They are saved by the men of a rogue Gifting – one that has been ostracised by the women, who no longer bring it boy-children. Its ruler, the Forest Lord, decrees that Rahim can travel on, but that Sky, Eve and Whip must stay. When Rahim refuses, the Lord challenges him to a fight. Although injured during their escape from the Hold, Rahim succeeds in beating the Forest Lord, and extracts a promise that they will all be free to leave.

The following day the Lord breaks his promise and they are pursued again. Sky’s beloved horse, Mist, is shot and Rahim succumbs to his injuries. Realising that he cannot go further, he orders Sky to travel onward with Eve and Whip while he tries to hold up the Forest Lord long enough for them to get away. He tells Sky to go to Brill, a west coast port, and gives him a letter to a merchant called Driss, who will help them.

After a difficult journey to Brill, Evelyn decides it is time she went home, but when she tries to enter the Hold there she is mistaken for a boy and turned away. She, Sky and Whip are befriended by Kittiwake, a young man from one of the ships in the port, and he takes them to Driss. While Driss is reading Rahim’s letter, Eve seizes a chance to stow away in a vehicle heading into the Hold. The driver, Grace, is sympathetic and arranges for her to be taken home. Lilith, a security guard from WinterHold, arrives to collect her, but says she must wait until Whip and Sky have been captured too. Driss has betrayed them, and they are imprisoned in his cellar.

Determined to save Sky and Whip, Eve persuades Grace to drive her back to the port, where she enlists the help of Kittiwake. With some of his crew members he bursts into Driss’s shop, rescues them and takes them back to his ship, the Silver Dolphin. Eve decides that she will go too, and they set out to sea for new adventures.

PART ONE

THE ‘SILVER DOLPHIN’

1.

There was a stifling darkness which lurched and plunged.

There was a cacophony of creaks and groans, howling wind, and a deafening hollow wet slapping sound.

There was a stench of fish, salt, tar and – inexplicably but unmistakeably – a strong smell of goat.

Sky moaned and opened his eyes, but he might as well not have bothered. The darkness was total. His stomach heaved again. He reached blindly for the bucket on the floor beside him and begged for death.

When he woke again there was a thin grey light creeping through a grating in the ceiling above him and the sickening plunging motion had steadied a little. He heard a noise and weakly rolled his head to one side.

‘Feeling better?’ Eve asked.

‘No. I’m dying.’

‘You’re not. You’ll get used to it. It’s calm today – only enough breeze to keep us under weigh.’ She put down the empty bucket beside him and held a tin mug up to his mouth. ‘Drink.’

Sky managed to take a couple of mouthfuls, and holding the mug against his chest felt the shape of Rahim’s ring under his shirt. ‘Father’s papers!’ he exclaimed in a sudden panic. ‘Where …’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got them safe. Nobody’s seen them.’

He lay back and took another sip of water, then pushed the mug away. Eve put it on the floor. ‘Is there anything else you want?’ she asked. ‘Some hot tea? A bit of fish stew?’

‘Urgh – gh,’ groaned Sky, and leaned over the bucket. ‘Go away.’

The next time he woke up sunlight was streaming through the grating and he could see a patch of blue sky. The up-and-down rocking hadn’t stopped, but it didn’t seem quite as bad as before and he found he could breathe without feeling the need to throw up. He was even a bit hungry. He managed to lever himself into a sitting position and found that he had been lying under a blanket on a roll of heavy cloth, and that Whip was sitting on the end nearest his feet, laughing at him.

‘What’s so funny?’ Sky growled – at least, he meant to growl, but it came out as more of a croak.

‘You’re all white and sweaty and your hair’s sticking up and your eyes are red like you’ve been crying,’ laughed Whip. ‘Why are you sick?’

‘Why are you so annoying?’ retorted Sky. ‘How long have I been down here?’

‘Yesterday afternoon and all last night and some of today. Evening’s been looking after you. He’s been washing you and making you drink and everything. Are you better?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Sky doubtfully. ‘I’m hungry. Do you think you can find me something to eat?’

Whip bounced to his feet. ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing much. Bread and cheese or something. I don’t know what people eat on ships.’

‘I’ll see what Belly’s got,’ said Whip, and was gone before Sky could ask what that peculiar utterance meant.

Left alone, he pushed back the blanket and swung his feet to the floor. He could still feel the movement of the ship, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been. He stood up gingerly – his legs still felt weak and rubbery – and took a look round his sickroom. Light came through the grating overhead, and opposite the door where Whip had disappeared, one wall curved inwards until it met the other in a point at the far end of the room. It seemed to be some kind of storage area. On the floor were more bales of coarse cloth, and various heavy ropes coiled up, with more hanging from beams in the ceiling. He traced the smell of salt and fish to three barrels in a corner by the door, two sealed and one empty, and the smell of tar to a pot on a workbench along one wall. The smell of goat came, unsurprisingly, from a goat. It was tethered to a ring where the walls started to converge and regarded him malevolently with scornful yellow eyes.

There was a clatter outside and Whip erupted back into the room, followed by Kittiwake carrying a fresh mug of water and a tin plate with a loaf of bread and two apples on it. He grinned at Sky. ‘That was a rare wicked go of the sea-sickness you had, matey, but you’re looking better. How are you feeling now?’

‘Okay, I think,’ acknowledged Sky. ‘Where am I?’

‘This here’s the port bow storage locker,’ Kittiwake said. ‘We put you here for your sake and everyone else’s. You weren’t in any state to sling your hammock with the rest.’

‘Why did I get sick?’ Sky asked. ‘Evening and Whip weren’t, and you don’t look like you were?’

‘Me?’ laughed Kittiwake. ‘Love you, haven’t I spent all my life on the salt seas, now? It’s on shore I’m more likely to feel the queasies. But never you fret – it’s over now it’s over, and it won’t come back. You’ll have your sea legs in no time at all, so you will.’

‘What’s that thing doing down here?’ Sky asked, nodding towards the goat.

‘Ah, ’tis only old Nancy. She’s a cross-grained old item, but we keep her for the milk.’

‘It’s my job to feed her,’ put in Whip proudly. ‘She eats everything that’s thrown out of the kitchen – I mean, galley,’ he corrected himself with an apologetic glance at Kittiwake.

Sky finished eating an apple and tossed the core towards Nancy, who sneered at him and ignored it. ‘So – tell me what’s been happening. The last I remember, we’d just sailed out of Brill Port.’

‘And so we had,’ agreed Kittiwake. He took a seat on one of the bales. ‘Good weather it was that morning, and fine sailing. Likely you remember. But when we rounded the point and started across the channel, there was a wicked scamp of a nor’easter set in, with some heavy seas. Tossed about a bit, so we were, and that’s what did for you. We had goods to land at one of the Federation ports, so we beat up there and lay to outside it for the night, did our trade in the morning and set sail again at noon with the wind at our tail and smoother running. If it stays fair we’ll round the shoulder of Federation lands tomorrow, and then you’ll get sight of the true ocean.’

‘And where then?’

‘Who knows? Where the trading takes us. South, that’s for sure. Maybe look in at one of the western ports, maybe sail straight round to the Frontier Sea. It’s for my old man to decide. He wants to see you as soon as you’re fit, by the bye.’

Sky finished the second apple and lobbed the core towards Nancy. The core of the first had disappeared when they weren’t looking, and this time she grudgingly accepted his offering straight away. Sky wasn’t sure he was overkeen on meeting Kittiwake’s father. He remembered the captain from their first visit aboard and had seen him again from a distance before he got sick. A heavy-set, bearded man who looked both determined and decisive, but above all fierce as he bellowed orders at his crew. He wasn’t looking forward to explaining how they came to be there and was relieved when Eve, coming through the doorway, said ‘Not yet. Give him a day to get his wits in order first.’

Kittiwake shrugged. ‘Sure, and there’s no rush.’

‘Are you fit enough to come on deck?’ Eve asked Sky. ‘The fresh air will do you good.’

Sky was only too glad to get away from his foetid sickroom. There was a ladder just outside the door, and he heaved himself up it onto the deck, blinking in the weak sunlight.

The day they left Brill had been grey and blustery, but now the sky was a washed-out blue above the deep blue-black of the sea. A stiff breeze was chopping the surface of the water into feathers of white, and although the sunshine raised a gleam on the ship’s silver dolphin figurehead, there wasn’t much warmth in it. Sky was glad of the thick woollen jersey he seemed to have acquired. Eve was wearing one as well, with a canvas jacket over it and a woollen cap on her cropped hair. They made her look no different from the men and boys dotted around the deck, all busy with mysterious shipboard tasks, most of which seemed to involve rope.

The deck tilted and righted itself as the ship breasted a particularly big wave, and Sky was relieved to find he was keeping his balance without difficulty and without any protests from his insides. The fresh air was making him feel a lot better. He squinted at a grey-green smudge on the horizon to their left. ‘Is that land?’ he asked Kittiwake.

‘It surely is. That’s the northern coast of Federation lands. Now will you look at that!’ he broke off as he spotted something on the other side of the deck. ‘Not like that, you lubber, Kelp!’ he shouted, striding away. ‘That’ll never hold in a gale …’

Eve and Sky leant on the rail and watched the distant land slip by. ‘I wonder when we’ll see Braeden again,’ Sky said.

‘I asked Kittiwake. He said we’d be back in under a year.’

‘Long time.’

‘He said we’re going south. To something called the Frontier Sea – it’s the frontier between Federation lands and Arami.’

Sky’s face brightened. ‘That’s where Father came from. Where I promised I’d take his papers.’

‘I don’t think he meant you to take them yourself.’

‘I haven’t got a choice now, have I? And I’ve got nowhere else to go. What about you? Why didn’t you stay behind in Brill?’

Eve was gazing out to sea and paused so long that Sky wondered if she had heard his question. Then she said, ‘I don’t know. It just … it just feels as though it isn’t over yet. That there are still things I have to do, places I have to see. Exciting places. Strange lands. I’m never going to get this chance again. I miss Mother, and my friends, and I worry about what’s happening with Alice. And since I left home I’ve sometimes been really frightened, and always disgustingly uncomfortable. And yet …’ She glanced across at him, frowning slightly. ‘I don’t want to go back. One day I will, of course, but not yet. Even though I’ve got landed with an idiot who can’t find his way along a river bank, and who leads us straight to the one person determined to betray us, and who gets sick just looking at a few little ripples on the sea.’

‘You got sick as well,’ Sky retorted. ‘Whip told me.’

‘Not properly sick. Not like you. You were throwing up like some kind of storm drain.’

‘Great. But thank you, I suppose, for …’

A sudden bellow interrupted him and they looked round to see that the captain had appeared at the end of the deck. At his shout several of the men dropped the jobs they were working on and scrambled up into the rigging. ‘What’s happening?’ Eve called across to Kittiwake.

‘Sure, the captain reckons we can make an extra knot or so if we drop a reef out of the mainsail,’ said Kittiwake, strolling back to them.

‘Thanks,’ muttered Sky. ‘That makes perfect sense.’ He shielded his eyes and peered up to where the two towering pyramids of canvas billowed out in the wind. They looked impossibly huge for such a narrow boat. Suddenly his attention was caught by a pair of tiny figures high up on the main mast between the top and middle sails. ‘That isn’t Whip, is it?’ he asked in a panic.

‘Oh, never you fret about that one,’ said Kittiwake. ‘he’s as nimble as a cageful of monkeys, so he is. He’s up and down those lines now like he’s been doing it all his life.’ He put his fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle, then made a broad downward sweep with his other arm. One of the small figures waved an acknowledgement and they both started tumbling down the rope lines – part climbing, part sliding, and a good part, or so it looked to Sky, just plain falling. A few minutes later Whip was standing in front of them panting, together with a stocky child of about his own age with a broad, freckled face and a wild shock of red-gold hair.

‘Out of the way, you two, while the men are working the sails,’ scolded Kit.

‘Are you safe up there?’ Sky asked.

‘’Course I am. It’s easy,’ Whip said eagerly. ‘Cop showed me. This is Copper – Coppertop.’ The other boy grinned and gave a mock salute. ‘He showed me all about where to put my feet, and always to hold on with one hand, and we’ve been right up to the rooks’ nest!’

‘Crows’ nest,’ hissed the other boy, poking Whip in the ribs.

‘I meant crows’ nest. Everything has a different name on a ship,’ explained Whip importantly. ‘Left isn’t left, it’s port, and right is starboard, and you go forward to the bows but you go – er – aft to the stern. Did I get it right?’ he asked Kittiwake anxiously.

‘So you did,’ laughed Kittiwake, ruffling his hair, ‘and sure it’s an old sea-dog you’ll be before many days have passed.’ (‘Sea-puppy, more like,’ muttered Eve, but not so that Whip could hear.)

‘Right, Cop, across you go and lend a hand to the gang over there,’ ordered Kittiwake, ‘unless it’s washing-up in the galley you’d rather be at? And you make yourself useful too, young Whip,’ he added as the red-haired boy scampered away. ‘Take your father round the ship, now, show him where to sling his hammock and suchlike.’

‘I’m not his …’ started Sky, but Kittiwake was already striding away.

Eve shook her head at him. ‘Get used to it,’ she said. ‘Whip’s decided you are, everybody else thinks you are, you might as well accept it.’

‘I’m too young.’

‘No, you’re not. And it’s not as if he’s got anyone else, is it?’

Sky sighed. ‘Alright. Just for now. Come on, then, son. Are you coming?’ he asked Eve.

‘No, I did it yesterday. Once is enough. But listen,’ she lowered her voice, ‘when you’ve finished, we need to talk. The three of us. We need to get our story straight for the captain tomorrow.’

Sky nodded glumly. Whip grabbed his hand. ‘Come on,’ he commanded. ‘We’ll start in the bilge.’

2.

The bilge was damp and foul-smelling and of very little interest. Above it were the deep holds where the sacks and bales of trade merchandise were stored. They weren’t very interesting either. Forward of them were the bow lockers – two of them, the one that had been Sky’s sickroom, where Nancy regarded them contemptuously, and another on the opposite side which housed a coop of six chickens along with the inescapable piles of rope and canvas. Then down again and aft, to the small area Whip announced as the ‘heads’ – just a plank with a hole in it, open to the sea below, whose purpose was obvious. Back and up another ladder to the middle deck. Most of their tour seemed to involve climbing up and down ladders, and Sky was relieved to find that he’d got the strength back in his legs and arms.

From the middle deck on, their progress slowed. Whip seemed already to know everybody on board, and they all wanted to stop whatever they were doing and talk to him. Sky met Chips the master carpenter in his workshop, shaping a new tiller for one of the ship’s boats, and was given thick black tea and oatcakes in the kitchen (‘Galley!’ insisted Whip) by Belly, the spectacularly fat ship’s cook. Then up more ladders to the upper deck where he met Sheets the sailing master with his team, and the steersman at the