Downpours of rain fell—precipitation that resembled a storm. A drumroll—and crack! Lightning ripped across the stormy sky. For the briefest heartbeat, the darkness disappeared.
"Oh, damn it!" yelled Bory, clinging to the mainmast rope. "I'll kill you all, you rotten fish!"
"It's that grunt Lurcard's fault! He's the one you should die first!" Sassa snapped as she tied her waist to the gunwale.
"Shut up, wench!" Wylgol, who was at the helm, snapped. "Bad luck is having a woman on board a ship! That's bad luck!"
"Shut up yourself, Wyl!" Sassa replied. "I'm telling you, it's thanks to me that we got this boat!" "Well, I have to admit... You're a hell of a thief," Wylgol admitted.
The sky thundered again, and a lightning bolt struck the sea. The wind-whipped ocean grew even wilder; massive swells rose up, and a wall of water loomed ahead of them."Watch out, dead ahead—a wall!" shouted Mathurin from atop the mast. "Wylgol, there's a wall dead ahead!"
"Which way do I turn?" he asked.
"To starboard!" the lookout called out.
"Hard to starboard!" yelled the helmsman as he yanked the wheel sharply.
To keep up the pace, Garr the Fat doubled his force on the drum; the rowers then pushed with all their might."Come on! Come on!"
Soon, the crest of the water wall came crashing down on the vessel."Hold on tight! It's coming down!" Wylgol bellowed.
"We noticed! We're not blind!" Bory snapped back.
With its sails furled, the boat veered sharply around the towering wall of water—but the deep trough behind the wave created a sudden vacuum. In an instant, the vessel was caught in its pull.
"No! Damn it, row!" bellowed the helmsman, gripping the tiller with white knuckles. Garr, pounding the drum with renewed urgency, picked up the tempo. The rowers responded in unison, muscles straining as they fought against the drag.
Then the wave crashed back into the sea with a thunderous roar, sending fresh surges rolling across the surface. The backwash slammed into the hull, propelling the boat forward like a slingshot.
"Pull in the oars!" Wylgol shouted, eyes fixed ahead.
The twelve oarsmen moved without hesitation. The starboard oars rose and were pressed flat against the hull, followed swiftly by those on the port side. Carried by the surging waters, the boat cut through the sea like an arrow loosed from a bow—racing deeper into the heart of the ocean's fury.
The boat was quite literally skimming across the surface of the sea. The waves crashed relentlessly against the hull, but the vessel's momentum remained undeterred. Wylgol knew what he was doing. Hands steady on the helm, he guided the ship forward, even in the shrouding darkness and under the relentless battering of rain that obscured the horizon beyond the prow. The man had a gift—he could feel the sea.
"You see anything, Mathurin?" he called out.
"Just lightning in the distance! Nothing else!" came the lookout's reply.
Bory, the stocky deckhand, unlatched himself from the mainmast and crossed the swaying deck, weaving through the rowers to make his way to the prow. Just as he reached the front, a sudden and violent jolt shook the entire vessel.
"Rotten fish guts!" he cursed, his voice tight with fear—as his body abruptly lifted into the air.
Panic swept through him. He looked around for something—someone—to grab hold of, only to see his crewmates also suspended midair, caught in the same unnatural lift. Up above, the lookout Mathurin had been unable to latch onto anything and now soared terrifyingly high into the storm-tossed sky.
"What the hell is happening?!" screamed Sassa, her body yanked backward as the rope tied to the gunwale snapped taut to hold her in place.
"How the hell should I know?!" snapped Wylgol, still clinging to the helm.
"Ask the one who dragged us into this mess—that damn rotten fish...!"
"Lurcard! Lurcard, get your ass up on deck!" Sassa shrieked, her voice near hysterical.
"Yeah, show your face already!" Wylgol echoed.
Around them, barrels of drink and cannonballs hovered eerily above the deck, some lodged in corners beneath the beams. Amid the chaos, Lurcard stood with parchments raised before his face, struggling to read through the flickering light and shaking timbers.
"Well? What does it say, for god's sake?!" Allan demanded, his voice tight with fear.
"We should be close to the Heart of the Oceans," Lurcard replied, reaching out for another parchment. He managed to grab it and unfolded the document, scanning the script quickly.
"When one draws near the Heart of the Oceans, the fury of the seas awakens—to drive back all defilers."
"And what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Allan asked, bewildered.
It was the question that had seized every sailor's mind—and it struck hardest the moment they all felt it: the ship was levitating.
Wylgol, the navigator, stood stunned, casting anxious glances in every direction. Bory, Garr the drummer, Sassa, and the rowers followed suit, all of them equally shaken. They had no explanation for this extraordinary phenomenon—their ship suspended in the air while waves raged below and lightning danced wildly across the sea's surface in a frenzy of fury and light.
They stood, transfixed by the spectacle, until Mathurin's alarmed voice snapped them out of it from high atop the mast.
"What the hell is that?!" he yelled. "Look down!"
"What is it, kid?" Bory called back.
"There's... there's—" Mathurin stammered. "There's a hole underneath us! A—a chasm!"
In unison, the crew rushed to the gunwale and leaned over, peering into the depths.
There it was—an immense, gaping void beneath them. A vast chasm in the sea. And somehow, impossibly, the ocean refused to pour into it. The waters bent around its edge, held back by some invisible force.
Then, to everyone's horror, the ship began to descend—slowly at first—into the yawning darkness below.
"AAAAAAHHH!" they screamed, panic tightening every breath.
"Lurcard, you damn grunt! This is all your fault!" Bory bellowed, voice cracking with fear.
And then the ship vanished, swallowed whole by the abyss.