Free Ship of Dreams by Brian Lumley Page B

gardens through all the lands of Earth’s dreams. Did you see Kuranes’ ship fall? Aye, and how much more wonderful his entire sky-floating city !”
    And these terrible words that fell so naturally from the strange woman’s lips, and her wicked laughter tinkling over the Southern Sea, were the last sounds Dyrill Sim heard before falling back unconscious upon his raft of shattered timbers …
     
    Hero awoke with a start and grabbed at the massive fist which bunched around his nightshirt and roughly shook him. Eldin, already dressed, grinned down at him and said: “Wake up, lad, for a new day’s a-dawning. Limnar Dass is downstairs waiting for us, and I can smell breakfast hot in a pan.”
    “Dass? Here?” Hero mumbled. “What the hell for? Has he fallen in love with you or something? Is that what’s made you so happy?”
    “We’re rich, aren’t we?” Eldin replied. “We should be rich and miserable? Is that what you want? Anyway, Dass has been chosen as captain of the vessel Kuranes promised us. He’s really pleased about it. Him and his entire crew, at our disposal. Aye, and the good ship Skymaster too.”
    All omens and miseries and memories of bad dreams fell quickly away from Hero as he dressed. Then the
two descended from their garret room into the tavern proper and breakfasted with Dass. While they ate the captain told them that Skymaster and her crew were waiting, all provisioned and ready to set sail, and in less than half an hour they were riding the Tilt down to the sea wall and Serannian’s harbor.
    As they parked their bicycles and made for Skymaster ’s gangplank, a sudden commotion in the crowding sailors and sightseers who thronged the wharf side some distance away attracted their attention. Something striding, metallic, purposeful, was coming toward them. Eldin took one look at Hero’s suddenly frightened face and yelled:
    “All aboard who’s going aboard! C‘mon, Dass, let’s move it. Make way, there! Make way for the cap’n.’ And he dragged both Dass and the strangely dazed Hero through the crowd and up the gangplank. Once aboard, without pause, while Dass looked on in utter astonishment, Hero shook off his peculiar paralysis and he and Eldin directed that the gangplank be raised at once and the ship steered away from the quay.
    Finally, in a tone which bordered on the hysterical, the captain demanded: “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’ve got us all aboard, fair enough, but I’m the captain of this ship. We sail when I say we sail!”
    “And are we ready to sail?” asked Hero breathlessly, his anxious eyes staring at the wharf where the colorful crowds melted to let through a metal, vaguely anthropomorphic being.
    “Yes,” answered Dass, “we’re ready.”
    “And do you really want to go a-questing with us for the sake of the King and for Serennian?”
    “You know I do.”
    Before Hero could say another word, Eldin roared: “ Then get this bloody hulk away from the quayside! ”
    Now Dass spotted the Curator making straight for Skymaster as she pulled slowly clear of the quay, and the look of blank amazement on his face slowly turned to one of boiling anger. “Why, you—” he began.
    “Later,” said Hero, his face regaining a little of its color as the gap widened between quayside and ship. “For now—please tell your crew to make haste!”
    Dass swallowed hard, then shouted out a few tense commands. The ship’s scarlet sails billowed and she rode out onto the ocean of air. Now the Curator stood on the quayside, his arms extended to their full—which fell short of Skymaster ’s dangling ropes by a good yard. Dass looked down at him briefly, then turned to Hero. “Give it to me,” he commanded. “Give it to me now, or damn you—I’ll take her in again!”
    “Come now,” Hero began, at which the captain put his hands to his mouth and made as if to bellow more orders. “All right!” Hero shouted. “Here, take the damned thing!” And he