Chapter Three: The Kidnapped Bandit (Part One)

After they broke free from the seaweed belt, that miraculous tailwind returned once more. The Celeste’s sailing speed brought such delight to helmsman Bold that he spent his days humming cheerful tunes, and the sailors threw themselves into their work with renewed vigor. It meant they might return home ahead of schedule. For the homebound Celeste, could anything be more wonderful?

Nearly a month passed. Amango gradually began learning the duties of a surveyor, only to find that it was far less interesting than he had imagined—indeed, it was dreadfully tedious and demanded a daunting breadth of knowledge. The surveyor had to regularly measure the changes in the positions of the horizon, the sun, and the stars, comparing these to the sea chart to estimate their location. The charts themselves were the fruits of maritime exploration and the astrologers’ division of the heavens; based on this correspondence, astrologers had parceled the earth and seas into numerous star zones.

“The earth shines beneath the starry sky, and the stars guide our way,” the astrologers would say.

On their celestial maps, the Western Continent naturally occupied the world’s center, belonging to the Zodiac, which served as the charts’ point of origin. Newly discovered seas would be named after new star sectors, with fresh charts drawn in turn. The division of star zones was three-dimensional, but the map unfurled before Amango was merely a flat surface, its known lands and seas roughly sketched with crude lines and divided into gold-edged squares of unequal size—because, as the astrologers insisted, the stars themselves were not all of equal rank.

This was how the sea was charted by star zones, using a coordinate system, though only mapped regions could be charted. For example, the sector where the Celeste now sailed—the Lyra Sea—used coordinates set from the lower left corner of the chart as the origin, with the two axes stretching vertically and horizontally. Thus, the ship’s position would be recorded as “Lyra X-axis, Lyra Y-axis,” or simply “Lyra” in seafaring shorthand. The accuracy of the chart depended on its projection, scale, method, and workmanship. The one before them was crude, with the scale shifting one unit for every 200 kilometers. Such a map was barely sufficient for known routes at sea; only with the help of compass and sextant could they hope to stay on course.

For military or exploratory purposes, however, charts were as precise as humanly possible. Especially with military charts, the smallest scales could be accurate to a single kilometer. The finest maps demanded the collaboration of mages, astrologers, and navigators alike. It was said that the most wondrous set of charts was kept in the Tower of Mages, crafted by the great sage Hammurabi, himself also an astrologer. That chart marked the dawn of high-end nautical cartography, fashioned from a single block of magic crystal. It contained seven different scales of the seas near the Broomflower Kingdom, all etched with magic and astrology onto the same crystal pane, so that the chart could be magnified or reduced at will, with the largest scale reaching one to one kilometer. Such a wizardly chart could only be created with the aid of stellar projection spells. For this reason, this historic set of charts was named the Hammurabi Map. Originally commissioned by the Broomflower Kingdom, the work was seized by Hammurabi’s own students after its completion, for to mages it was not merely a sea chart, but the pinnacle of magical research.

Even so, Hammurabi, for all his renown as mage and astrologer, was not the most significant figure in the history of navigation chart-making. Before him stood at least two: Hipparchus, the Father of Navigation from Landia, and Manila, who established the division of surveying. Manila was known as a tragic figure—he systematically organized previous methods of maritime positioning, invented the coordinate system, and brought astrology and navigation into closer harmony. His tragedy lay in his insistence that the world was round. Having failed to prove it through mathematics, magic, or astrology, he even assembled a fleet to demonstrate it by sailing west from the continent to the Far East. He never completed his journey; the Church arrested and executed him for heresy before he could set sail. Yet his invention of the right-angle coordinate system lived on and became the foundation of modern chart-making.

What Amango and Wei Wujie learned, in truth, was how to use charts, not to make them. The monotonous routine of measurement and comparison, vital for keeping to the right course, grew wearisome for both of them. Hearing the legend of Hammurabi, Wei Wujie was eager to learn the art of chart-making, but the Celeste’s only mage had died en route, leaving no one capable of explaining the crafting of magical charts. All they had was an inferior map.

As Amango and Wei Wujie labored over their measurements, the Celeste crossed from the Lyra Sea into the Swan Sea. They took turns using the sextant, moving the small stone marker that represented the ship’s position on the chart, tracing the Celeste’s course with erasable ink, and regularly reporting the coordinates to captain and helmsman.

Thus the days slipped by—until one morning, a shrill alarm sounded across the deck, and the lookout in the mast’s crow’s nest shouted a warning.

“Alert! Three kilometers off our bow, a huge dark shape—possibly a sea beast!”

Captain Kaplan sprang nimbly onto the deck, standing at the slanting foremast, drawing a spyglass from his belt. When he saw the distant shadow, the unflappable captain’s face turned pale. In a low voice to his first mate and the chief sailor, he said, “It’s the Feshi.”

Fulton, hearing that it was the Feshi, was far less composed than the captain. His face blanched white as paper, and he stammered, “God above—it’s the Feshi! What should we do? Should I resist, or try to escape?”

First Mate Anderson, terrified as he was, managed to keep his wits. “Escape? At this distance? How?”

“Fight them? Can we possibly win against the Feshi?” Fulton’s voice trembled.

The three fell silent. Some sailors climbed the rigging and confirmed that a black shape was indeed closing in on the Celeste.

“There’s no need to be afraid. The Feshi can be negotiated with. My friends say they’ll accept a toll,” Kaplan said with a strained smile.

“With this wind, can we outrun them?” Anderson licked his lips, daring to hope.

“It’s too late. If they were pursuing from astern, we might risk it,” Kaplan sighed. The dark shape was approaching fast, and now, even with the naked eye, they could make out a massive sea ray.

The Celeste furled her sails to slow down—otherwise, she might crash into the leviathan. In these seas, the Feshi ruled; to lower sail was to show submission. To do otherwise was to invite slaughter.

The gigantic sea ray, as large as a small mountain, stopped thirty meters from the Celeste. The crew had already gathered, armed with whatever weapons they could find. The Celeste was a merchant vessel, ill-equipped for battle—ten bows, eight muskets, and various knives. Amango, having learned of the danger too late, had to borrow a kitchen knife from the cook, while Wei Wujie went to the deck empty-handed. Such a force might hold off a few pirates, but against the Feshi, the overlords of the sea, they were nothing more than food for the rays.