Chapter 19: Encounter

…

Link was hard-pressed to get the Island Sonata caught up with the other ship, and only having Irleen to help him made the matter all the more drastic. Unfortunately, the schooner was not the kind of vessel that could simply be brought to life in a matter of seconds. Without a crew to do it, he and Irleen had to set the gaff angles on the main and aft sails before they could depart. And because they were running out of time (the sun had already disappeared over the edge of the storm clouds above, leaving the inside almost as dark as night), he decided to have the gaffs open to larger angles to increase the Island Sonata's speed once they entered the Sky Line, despite the risk that the gaffs could fall apart from the wind. Next, he taught Irleen how to raise the jibs so he did not have to stop the ship to do it himself. After that, he had to hand-start the feed belt for the ship's boiler while Irleen untied and dumped the moorings over the edge. He opened the airship's engine to full throttle and steered it around the tree. Using his compass, he determined where the Sky Line was and rounded Forelight Island.

Every second he spent making sure the ship got into the Sky Line made him a little more nervous. He silently prayed to whatever god would hear him that they would make it in time to at least save the crew of the Horizon's Eye before it was too late. His knuckles turned white from his death grip on the helm's handholds. When the airship was close enough to the Sky Line, he shouted at Irleen to put the jibs up. Then he dropped the schooner into the Sky Line with a jerk that made the ship growl. But they were on their way. And Link could only hope that they could find the other ship.

Unfortunately, Link had forgotten a vital part of the rescue. The ship's lamps were all out. He had to call Irleen up in order to ask her to light the forward lamps so that the Horizon's Eye could see them coming. She said that she would handle it, and then the lamps on the bow lit almost at once.

She came up onto the bridge just as the ship entered the storm. As Link had expected, someone had used the Wind Waker to open a hole in the storm. So when she was close enough, he asked her, "How much do you know about this storm?"

"Enough, I hope," she answered, holding a lamp up to better see his face.

"I know the Smiling Gunner's going to attack the Horizon's Eye," he told her. "But can Cunimincus get out of the storm because of the holes we made in it?"

"From what I remember," she replied, "the storm is supposed to deter him from attacking anyone stupid enough to approach where he's being held. It also blinds him, making it hard for him to simply lob fire at anyone close to this area as well as just firing on our island. His ship would be demolished if he tried to leave."

"Could he take another ship out?"

Irleen shrugged. "I don't know. It's like I said. Magic books don't give you all of the rules. It would imply that someone actually had a lifetime to figure it all out. Besides, I didn't look into it that deep."

"Okay, okay," Link quickly told her, although he was the one who was growing tense. He realized it, too, but he could not think of how to alleviate it other than finding the Horizon's Eye. He kept hoping that there had not been any substance behind his dream, that everything he had seen and all of the different connections to real life had merely been coincidence.

"Say we do find them," Irleen said. "What do you expect to do? I couldn't help noticing that your ship doesn't have guns."

"I know," Link replied, tightening his grip on the helm until he thought his bones would shatter. "We couldn't fire them anyway; we don't have enough people to load them."

"Then… what do we—?"

"I don't know!" Irleen quickly clapped her mouth shut. Link gritted his teeth for a moment. Then he sighed. "Just… just give me a moment to think." Irleen nodded and stepped back. "Assuming the Horizon's Eye is in trouble and we could catch her, we wouldn't do any good in a shooting match. But if the other ship's busy, it would give us a chance to offload the crew onto the Island Sonata."

Irleen tilted her head. "How?"

"We can drop one of the jibs to slow the Island Sonata down. We can also press against the hull of the Horizon's Eye. With my crew back, we can open up the sails a little more and put the jib back up. From there, we just have to hope we can make it out of the storm before the other ship catches us."

"Link, are you sure it was the Smiling Gunner? Because, if it is, this could be suicide."

Link sighed and looked over one shoulder at her. "I hope it isn't," he confessed. "I keep hoping that what I saw was just a dream. But I can't shake it off."

Irleen glanced around the bridge for a moment. Then she remembered something and, setting her lamp on the deck, pulled out her bag of gemstones. She had to sift through them for a moment until she squatted down on the deck so that she could pour them into the lamplight. Finding the one she wanted, she scooped the rest back into the bag. Then she stood and offered an amethyst shaped into an oval to Link. "Here, take this."

Link stared at her hand for a moment before accepting the stone. He watched the light of her lamp dance off its polished surface for a moment. "What is it?"

"Trust me, if we're leaving the storm, you'll need it."

Link would have asked more, but Irleen had turned and stepped back down to the lower deck. Shrugging, he pulled aside the hem of his tunic so that he could put the gem in the pocket of his undersuit. He leaned forward to glance between the sails and the helm, looking for a sign of ships ahead of them. But if they were still in the storm, they still had a good lead on the Island Sonata. If the airman back at the docking tree was right, the Horizon's Eye had her studded sails deployed for extra push from the Sky Line's tremendous winds. For a fully rigged vessel, it meant a great speed boost. A schooner like the Island Sonata could not gain that sort of speed unless it had more masts and much larger sails, and that could not be accomplished without increasing the ship's weight and potentially tearing its timbers apart from the sheer force the Sky Lines provided. Still, if the studded sails of the Horizon's Eye were out, then there was a chance that they could escape on their own.

A moment later (how long exactly had been lost on Link), Irleen ran up the stairs to the bridge. "I see it!" she cried just before making the last step.

"What?" Link asked.

"There's a light ahead of us!"

"Hold the helm for me!" Irleen stepped in to take the wheel. Link moved to the starboard bulwark so that he had a clearer view. Just as she had said, there was a light in the tunnel in front of them. Unfortunately, there was still some distance between the two ships, and Link could not see if there was another ship there or not. The lightning surrounding them had chosen just then to not be as revealing of the scene before them.

Link stepped back into the helm. "Keep an eye on them," he told her, pointing to the starboard side of the bridge. "Let me know when you have sight of the ship itself."

"Got it."

Link's heart raced. This close to learning, this close to finding out if his imagination was getting to him or not. Irleen's silence felt like torture. He wanted to know now. Was he right, or was he crazy? Between the two, he would prefer the latter; it simply meant that he was cautious.

"What was that?"

Link almost leapt at Irleen's words until he realized that they were nothing like he had been expecting. Concerned, he looked over at her. "What was what?" he asked.

"Something… there it goes again," she replied. "Some kind of flash."

"A flash?" Link asked. He meant to ask more.

WHUM—BOOOM!

The whole ship quaked from impact. Link held firmly to the helm, but Irleen collapsed to the deck with a cry of surprise. The controls of the schooner jerked in Link's hands, forcing him to put effort into keeping the ship straight.

When his eyes fell on the weather deck below, he saw a large hole where the hatch used to be. Pure terror set into his mind, draining his body of all its heat.

The Island Sonata was under attack!

WHUMP! CRRRRRCK! The helm jerked in Link's hands as the foremast, broken by another direct hit, twisted. The sail caught in the wind of the Sky Line, the mast ripped out its stays as the wind carried it over the bow. The subsequent impact with the bowsprit pulled the tacks of both jibs until their lines snapped. Link barely had time to realize this and pulled back hard on the ship's ballast control. The bow dipped for a moment, then suddenly rose when the final stay to the foremast broke away. Link slipped and fell but kept a hold on the helm. As a result, the ship bucked to starboard before it leveled itself again.

Link got back to his feet and set the ship on course again, correcting the ballast. "Irleen!" he called out, looking over his shoulder.

"I'm okay!" Irleen cried back, stepping up behind him.

WHUM—BOOM! Again, Link felt the ship jerk hard. The hit blew away the port shroud holding the main mast along with the bulwark and some of the deck in that area. Miraculously, the fact that the main gaff had been opened to port seemed to keep the starboard shroud tensioned instead of letting the main mast fall over. For a moment, Link thought they still had a chance.

Phwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…

But that whistling sound caught his attention. Looking down, Link saw that the small emergency whistle on the ballast controls had popped out.

The ballast, the tank of thin steel holding pressurized hot air, had been ruptured from that last hit. Only the release of the pressurized air would cause that whistle to sound.

The Island Sonata was going down.

As if to confirm this, Irleen took a hold of Link's sleeve. "Uh… Captain!" she said as she stared in horror at the ascending light in the distance. Despite her plea, Link was lost for a moment.

Then he turned and grabbed her wrist. "Come on!" he cried as he could already feel gravity releasing him from the deck. He dragged her to the stairs. The descent was difficult because each step felt as if the ship would fall away very soon. Both kept a firm hold on the rail and made it to the weather deck.

Meanwhile, the Island Sonata fell out of the Sky Line and its blue, guiding radiance. It plunged into the darkness of the storm clouds beneath. Just as Link set foot on the lower deck, a bolt of lightning flew out of the darkness with a burst as bright as the sun and punched the starboard hull hard. The impact nearly jarred Irleen off the steps, forcing her and Link to wrap their arms around the rail. Crackling sounded from above as a swarm of smaller strikes stung at the only sail still standing on the ship.

Link urged Irleen on, pushing her toward his cabin while they both maintained a grip on the stairs. When they released, they quickly fell against the door, and Irleen pulled it open. Link entered after her and slammed it shut. He met a cabin littered with all of his navigating equipment and writing utensils.

"We've only got one chance at this!" he shouted at Irleen as he forced her into the hollow where his hammock had been set up. "Get in!"

"How is this going to help us?" Irleen cried as she tried to climb into the wild hammock.

"If we get this right," Link responded as he picked up his bag, "the hammock might absorb all of the fall for us, and we'll survive." He dumped his clothes on the floor, kicking them under the hammock.

"What if we…?" Irleen trailed off before finishing the question, realizing that she did not need the answer openly explained to her.

"Just get in!"

Irleen pulled herself into the hammock. Since the hammock had been made for someone twice Link's size, he managed to climb into it with her.

When he was in, he felt Irleen's arms wrap around him. "I-Irleen!" She pulled him tight against her body. Through the lightning striking the ship's hull and the raging of the ship as its timbers flew apart around them, he could just barely make out Irleen's whisper.

"I'm… I'm scared…"