Toni’s Miracle Potion Tastes a lot like Ma’s Ginger Spice Cake
I leaned over the side of the boat, the waves rocking the ship in a steady flow up and down as we cast off from shore. The world spun around me, and I threw up my breakfast into the Golden Sea.
“Oh-ho, somebody’s still missing their sea legs,” a sailor yelled from behind me, laughing loudly. Finnan had retreated somewhere else on the boat, far away from me. Not because he was also seasick but because he was a sympathy puker. He’d bolted the minute my pink, freckly face started to turn green. Coward.
Captain Serpentis was at the Onyx Glory’s helm, steering us through the rough patch of tumbling wake as we set sail toward the depths of the sea. “If I’d have known you had the stomach of a babe, I might not have let you join my crew, Kithri,” he shouted over the crash of the salty waves. The rest of the crew chorused in laughter, going about their duties on the deck of the ship.
The mainsail unraveled as we got further from the shore, catching in the wind and pulling us into the cerulean waters. Why’d they call this the Golden Sea if the water was blue?
My stomach settled a little as we transitioned from shoreline to deep waters, but it could just have been that I had nothing left in my stomach. I groaned, sliding down against the wooden hull of the ship to sit on the deck with my eyes squeezed shut. Only six days of this. I could make it that long. At least, I was pretty sure I could survive it.
Who’d have guessed that adventuring took a stomach of steel?
The sun’s warmth disappeared as a shadow loomed over me, dulling the light behind my eyelids. “Finn, it’s still not safe for you to be over here,” I said, assuming my friend had rejoined me instead of cowering wherever he’d run off to.
“Not Finn,” an unfamiliar, nasal-toned male voice answered me. “I’m assuming your friend isn’t interested in learning the medicinal arts with how fast he ran from you when you started getting sick.”
“You could say that again,” I muttered, not opening my eyes. Water crashed against the side of the ship and the deck tilted. I groaned again, feeling the dizzying, stomach turning coming back to me.
A large hand picked my limp arm off the ship deck and held it up, placing a smooth ceramic in my grip, and gently pushing the item toward my face. “I’ve been perfecting this anti-nausea tonic for years,” the man said. “Half the ship is on it, so I don’t know where they get off laughing at you for being sick. They’re sailors and they can’t all keep their biscuits in their bellies.”
I sipped at a hot liquid, a sweet-spicy smell curling up my nose and momentarily dulling the scent of seaweed and sweating, unbathed seamen. The tonic’s taste matched its sweet and spiced scent, reminding me of one of Ma’s special Wintertide desserts — ginger spice cake. My stomach finally truly settled. I finished a few more gulps of this miracle potion before opening my eyes and releasing a sigh of relief into the hot air of open waters.
The man was squatting in front of me and grinned a wide, toothy smile, after seeing me come to. His expressive brown eyes lit up happily as I took another grateful sip of the tonic. His thick, dark brown hair was styled in a short, slicked back cut that didn’t budge, even with the sea wind.
“Have we met before?” I asked. Few humans came to Hill Hollow since our accommodations for tall-folk were severely lacking, but it wasn’t out of the question. There was something familiar about him.
The man inspected me with a thoughtful curiosity but then shook his head. “I’m not sure. I’ve been to many places in my life, so it’s a possibility.” His cheerful and easygoing nature became more apparent with every second we spent staring at each other.
“Have you gone to Hill Hollow Shire in the last ten years or so?” I asked. “It’s only a few days’ walk inland from Bhay Bridge Harbor. A small farming community, mostly.”
He shook his head again. “I did learn about Hill Hollow after news of the Stormreach raid but haven’t had the time to venture that far into Dellegan, unfortunately.”
“Hmm,” I said, ignoring the fact that he mentioned the raid. I squinted, hoping that would spur further recognition. He did sort of look like a man I remembered from one of my dreams. It was a dream about six humans, three men and three women, who were all living in a big city and good friends with each other despite having very different lives. Some of them even lived in separate homes that were connected by a shared hallway. The man before me looked exactly like the sweet one who really liked eating food.
I probably shouldn’t say he looked like someone I’d dreamed of, right? I didn’t even know his name.
“I’m Toni Piccnich, by the way,” he said like he was reading my mind or something. We shook hands, and he smiled again. “Feeling better now?”
My stomach hadn’t roiled in protest in at least two minutes. That was a record at this point. “My name’s Kithri. Is your job to be the ship’s miracle worker?” I asked, laughing and accepting his help to stand. He was about the height of two of me stacked on top of each other.
Toni laughed. “It has a nice ring to it. But it wasn’t a miracle, I’m afraid to say. However, I grew up and studied at a convent on the Whispering Isles to be a traveling healer. I was looking for work in Port Grendlys when the captain found me.”
“Port Grendlys?” I asked.
Toni nodded with a flinch of understanding. Apparently, it was very evident that I’d not been far from the shire. “A port city in X’onair, right above the western Aridlands.”
X’onair? That was so far away. Was that where these Whispering Isles were, too? “I’ve never heard of it,” I replied.
“Most haven’t if they haven’t lived a life at sea, so you’re in the majority here.” Toni said, patting my shoulder with a flat hand. “Anyhow, Captain Serpentis offered me the job on board after I cured a couple of his sailors of scurvy.”
“Did they not think to bring fruits or veggies on the ship with them?” I asked, scratching my head. I’d never stepped foot on a ship before, but knew those were essential foods for staying healthy.
“They do now,” Toni cackled, “And I’m happy to make a wage telling them things they outta already know.”
Finn’s curly back hair caught my eye from across the ship. He was peeking at us as we chatted, over a banister on the upper deck at an incredibly safe distance. I waved him over.
“Toni, this is my best friend, Finnan Windwick. He’s an extraordinary librarian’s assistant from Hill Hollow Shire. And, now that we’re friends, you can call me Kit, if you like.”
Toni shook Finn’s hand vigorously, speaking in fluent Gnomish, too fast for me to understand. Finn’s eyebrows practically disappeared off his forehead for how fast they shot up.
My Gnomish wasn’t the most practiced. Finn and I only used it for code when we were around my family and wanted to talk about something Ma and Da would disapprove of my partaking in. I also learned all the Gnomish curses, which came in handy at this particular moment.
“Snail’s eggs! You know Gnomish?” Finn gasped, responding in his native language.
Toni nodded enthusiastically and said, “Yes! Something, something the Whispering Isles, and insert more details explaining what he was talking about, Veeshray.”
Veeshray was the ruling deity of those who lived on the Whispering Isles, as well as in different religious sects around the world. It was said that the god built the archipelago to house all those who wished to serve the god of prophecy and salve of the downtrodden. No wonder Toni’s medicine had worked a miracle on my stomach.
The cool touch of shadow hit my back as I attempted to interpret the speedy Gnomish conversation between my best friend and new friend. I looked behind me and craned my neck to meet Captain Malcolm Serpentis’s gaze. His cool, gray eyes sparked with the same kind of trickery I recognized in Finnan’s general existence and demeanor.
“Captain,” I said, saluting. I’d been told I didn’t need to, but I liked to salute. Conversation halted behind me as Toni and Finn realized we’d been joined by another member.
He stared down at me, a sense of humor hiding behind his commanding presence. “I’m happy to see that our new recruit is no longer greener than the sea,” he said after fully appraising my state of being. “Now, there’s rigging to be collected and a poop deck to scrub. Mr. Piccnich, I ask you to see a couple of sailors who suffered rope burns when untying the sails. There’s plenty of time to chatter after the dinner bell rings tonight.”
Finn caught me glancing sideways at him and put a finger on his long, pointed nose. “I won’t be going near anything named a poop deck,” he said once the captain had walked away. “Best of luck to you on that chore.”
“What a gentleman,” I scolded him while also worrying about what in the world a poop deck was.
***
Over the next three days, I learned about the different parts of a ship. A poop deck wasn’t what I’d initially thought it was — it was much less grotesque than I’d first imagined — and I quickly learned all of the different duties of a deckhand. It was pretty similar to doing chores around oak home. The same amount of complaining about chores happened around me on the ship as it did at home, that was for certain. Only it was towering grown-ups muttering about their tasks this time.
I also learned why the Golden Sea was named as such. Each morning and evening, when the sun descended into or ascended from the water, the entire sea lit up sparkling gold, like the very touch of the sun set it on fire. It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. More beautiful than fresh honey cakes out of the stove.
In nineteen years, I’d never said a sight was more beautiful than honey cakes. Finn had to agree with me when I told him about my ranking of the Golden Sea that first evening on the ship.
On our fourth day on the sea journey, the sky darkened, and the sea began to thrash about with terrible violence. In the far distance, I saw an island with giant, craggy mountains reaching up into lightning-filled clouds, like they were grasping for the power of the storm.
Toni had muddled some strange yellow-green plant in a bowl next to me as I mended some nets for Captain Serpentis. I pulled out my coal and drawing pad, quickly sketching the island as it grew incrementally bigger on the horizon. I’d fill in more detail when I had time later when we were finally off this rickety, rocking ship.
“I expected Tonirn to be a lot bigger than this,” I said absentmindedly as I sketched a mountainside disappearing into the fog of clouds.
Toni looked up from his muddling, confused. “We’re not sailing that fast to already be there,” he said, but then followed my gaze to the landmass ahead of us. “Oh, that’s not Tonirn, Kit.”
How was I supposed to know what a faraway country would look like when approaching by ship if I’d never seen it before? “Well, what is that then?”
The stone muddler clinked against the bowl as Toni continued to press his mush. “It’s Stormreach. I should have thought to warn you…” Toni said an apologetic sigh followed after he trailed off.
I gulped but found it hard to swallow. Some of the raiders who attacked my village were probably still alive, living on that island. “I didn’t realize we’d be passing Stormreach as we traveled to Tonirn,” I said, trying my best to keep my tone flat.
“We never usually run into problems with the–” Toni halted mid-sentence, very clearly thinking about what he was about to say. “We’ve never had problems with the inhabitants of Stormreach before now. We’ll pass by and be on our way.”
Finn rushed down to us from the helm on the main deck. He’d helped Captain Serpentis navigate the last couple of days while I learned some map-making skills or practiced another one of my useful talents, such as sewing, for instance.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said, looking back frantically at the looming island of Stormreach.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “You have to be joking. Toni just said they’ve never had problems.”
“It was wishful speaking,” Toni admitted. “When the inhabitants of Stormreach are on their island, they’re are harmless. But when they’ve set sail… “
Finnan closed the distance between us and grabbed my trembling hands. This couldn’t be happening to me. I wasn’t ready to face them yet.
“Captain Serpentis said to prepare the ship for boarding. He told me to go with you into the captain’s quarters.”
“Why do we need to go into his quarters?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer to my question, but I did need to know why.
“Captain Colten Hellbringer, dread captain of the Stormreach, has a thing against the small-folk. Doesn’t matter who you are,” Toni said, nervously adjusting the binder under his loose, black shirt. Why would a pirate who mostly stuck to the seas have a vendetta against small-folk, who generally stuck to farmland? Was this pirate Captain Hellbringer part of the raid on my village? Had he continued on in other shires like Hill Hollow?
My mind wandered to the northern shire of Dellegan, Deep Root. Finn grew up there and never mentioned an attack.
A moment passed in painful silence. Neither Finn nor Toni could answer the question burning its way to the surface within me. But then, Captain Serpentis strode down the stairs from the helm toward us. “You two need to get below deck now,” he instructed, pointing at Finn and me and motioning for us to leave. “Piccnich, he’ll be looking for salves. Best go start preparing them now so Colten spends as little time on our ship as possible.” Captain Serpentis’s tone gave light to his true feelings — Hellbringer was a menace.
“I won’t go until you answer a question I have about this Captain Hellbringer,” I said, keeping my seat despite Finn tugging on my arm. Captain Serpentis looked away from me in shame, and I already knew what his answer would be. But I wanted to hear him say it. “Did Captain Colten Hellbringer lead or take part in a raid on Hill Hollow Shire ten years ago?”
Captain Malcolm Serpentis didn’t meet my gaze. “He led it. He brags about quite often,” he said, clenching his fist until his knuckles turned white hot.
I couldn’t stop the words from leaving my mouth as I thought them. “I’m going to kill him for what he did.”
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