Emilie & the Hollow World - By Martha Wells Page 0,23

look at it. Lord Engal was down there with a few crewmen carrying lights. Kenar started to climb down, and Emilie realized she would have to relinquish her ax to follow him. Curiosity won out, and Emilie set the ax down on a handy fire equipment box and followed Kenar down the ladder to the launch platform.

The first thing that struck her was the smell; it was more like rotting meat than any kind of plant. The men were poking cautiously at the mass of weeds with boathooks. One of them drew a lump in close to the platform, and another hacked it free of the weeds. “It's a broken cask,” he reported. Looking up at Lord Engal, he added, “Could even be from the Scarlet Star, My Lord.”

“They seemed to try to take anything they could grab,” someone said, and Emilie recognized Oswin's voice. “They got two of our life preservers and a coil of rope.”

“It explains why the wreck was stripped of everything movable,” Kenar added, stepping around Oswin for a closer look.

“At least they didn't get any of us,” Lord Engal said. He glanced at Kenar. “Is Miss Marlende all right?”

“Yes. She's tending to the man who tried to help her.” Kenar crouched down to get a better view of the weeds. Emilie felt she could see well enough where she was, and stayed near the ladder.

“Perhaps she'll be more cautious next time,” Lord Engal said.

Emilie snorted quietly to herself. Typical and unfair, she thought. With some asperity, Kenar said, “She was cautious. She was two decks above the water. Sometimes caution doesn't help.”

Lord Engal didn't reply to that.

“Look at this,” another crewman said, holding up a clay sculpture in the shape of bird.

Kenar stood up to examine it. “That's a net weight,” he said. “The Lothlin hang them off the rails of their boats.”

Lord Engal turned to him. “These plant-creatures are called Lothlin?”

“No, no. The Lothlin are fisherfolk, peaceful. Nothing like those things.” Kenar sounded disturbed. “If one of their boats was driven this far from their home territory, trapped in the mat-”

The first crewman said, grimly, “It looks like they didn't make it out.”

Emilie stepped forward to look. Prodding at the mass of vines had released dozens of small objects that had been wound up in it. They bobbed free in the water: sticks, odd-shaped knobs, round things like smooth rocks. She tried to see them as wood, the debris of a wrecked ship, but the colors were bleached white, dull yellow, rotted brown... Then a round object floated closer, turned as the crewman poked it with the pole. It had a face, or what was left of one, with empty eye sockets, a hole for the nose, teeth, and the lower jaw broken away.

Emilie pressed back against the ladder, cold shock washing over her. They were bones, all bones, wound up in the vines. Long bones, knobs of bone, fragments, skulls. She swallowed hard as a whole ribcage bobbed up out of the weeds. The sausage from this morning tried to exit her stomach and she took a deep breath, willing it back into place. That's a lot of dead people, she thought. Pieces of dead people. Emilie had seen the dead laid out decorously in coffins, but never anything like this.

Lord Engal stepped back, his grimace of distaste visible in the lamplight. “I think we've seen everything we need to see. Cut this mess free of the ship and draw up the platform.”

Emilie realized she was in the way and turned to climb the ladder back up to the deck. She had to grip the ladder extra hard because her hands suddenly felt numb and chilled, as though it was freezing out here rather than only pleasantly cool. Eaten, we definitely would have been eaten, she thought. On reflection, it seemed obvious. Plant-creatures with sharp teeth didn't try to pull people off ships in the middle of the night for a good reason.

She stood near the rail to watch the lights bob as the men hacked and prodded away at the mass. Bits of it broke off and swirled away, caught in the ship's bow wave, then the whole thing finally gave way. Kenar came to stand beside her as the launch platform was hauled up and Lord Engal gave muttered orders to Oswin and the other crewmen.

Dr. Barshion came out on the deck a little distance from them, and she heard Lord Engal congratulate him on driving off the creatures. But Barshion