This is a fan translation of The Treasure of the Kapitana (Сокровище «Капудании») by the Russian science fiction and fantasy author Vladimir Vasilyev.
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Chapter 25
Ralph Kingfisher, the waters, Tendra, summer of 864
"What do you mean anywhere?" the prince asked in confusion. "Did you look belowdeck?"
"I did. In the enclosure, in the berth, in the holds… He's gone."
"Don't panic, my friend!" Alexander gave Kingfisher an encouraging pat on the shoulder. "We'll get the soldiers, and they'll search every corner of the ship. Your cat isn't going anywhere!"
Ishmael Judah gave the prince a questioning look. He didn't need a verbal command, even a nod would do.
"Do it," the prince told him.
Judah nodded briefly, turned to the guard lieutenant, and started telling him something quietly.
Meanwhile, Alexander grabbed Ralph by the sleeve and dragged him to the ram, "Come to my cabin, Ralph! We'll get some wine and calm our nerves! In the meantime, Judah's guards will search the ship."
Ralph followed the prince without complaint.
"Oh!" the latter suddenly stopped. "Milady, please come with us! I will send servants to a guest cabin, they will help you tidy yourself up."
At Alexander's cabin, Ralph sat down gloomily onto the bench by the table, waited for the valet to serve wine, and, not even tasting it, drained half the glass. Alexander quickly gave the necessary orders and also sat at the table.
"When did you see him last?" the prince asked, doing his best to keep his voice from being sympathetic. On the contrary, he was trying to speak in a deliberately everyday tone, maybe a little more cheerfully than usual.
"When we were getting out of the Capudanie's holds," Ralph answered gloomily. "When they started loading the gold, the cassat headed for the Queen Svenja. He always did that when he lost interest for what was happening — went back to his spot. To the cassatorium if ashore. To an enclosure if in the waters. That's why I didn't worry until the island sunk completely."
Alexander sipped some wine and placed his glass back on the table.
"All right," he said. "Let's think this through. Where could the cassat have gone?"
"I have no idea," Ralph replied in a sunken voice. "I'm telling you, this has never happened all these years! I've always known where he was, I could always sense him, even when I was in Southampton!"
"I haven't gone anywhere," said a voice from the far bulkhead.
The prince and Kingfisher turned their heads as one.
The cassat, alive and well, was sitting next to the prince's narrow bed.
Ralph leapt to his feet.
"Where have you been? I was worried…"
He dashed over to his friend, crouched, and embraced the cassat, the way a child might embrace their dog.
"That's why I came back," the cassat informed him.
Then it finally hit Ralph.
"Wait!" he pulled away and peered into those round inhuman eyes. "You're talking!"
"I am," the cassat confirmed. "What's so strange about that?"
Kingfisher caught his breath.
"You… you can talk? And understand everything? Literally?"
"Of course I understand! Always have."
"And… the other cassats too?"
"And the others too."
Ralph was frozen in shock.
"But why? Why, damn it, have you been silent until today? Why are all the others silent?"
"Because we don't like idle chatter," the cassat explained. "I'd have remained silent even now… But you turned out to be the one who did what we came to humans for. There's nothing more for me or the other cassats to do in your world, Kingfisher. Our mission is complete. That's why I left. But I didn't think that my disappearance was going to upset you this much."
"Upset?" Ralph asked in amazement. "What are you talking about, damn it? I'm a shtarkh! How will I call to the elements without you? How will I make a living?"
"The same way as before," the cassat replied in a perfectly calm voice. "You don't need me anymore for that."
"What do you mean?" Ralph couldn't understand anything, which didn't escape the cassat's notice.
"You don't need me. The world has changed, Kingfisher. Because of you, by the way."
"Is… is it connected to our visit to the Capudanie's hold? Those strange chests?"
"You're incredibly perceptive," the cassat noted with obvious sarcasm. "It is connected, directly."
"But what? What did we do there?" Ralph continued asking.
The cassat shifted his triangular ears.
"Right. And here I thought you and Alexander were going to figure it out. After everything that… what was his name… Sirhan Günüç did."
"I don't know about Ralph, but I think I'm starting to understand," Alexander interjected carefully.
"Bravo," the cassat said. "Forgive me, but I'm not going to applaud. That would be too much."
Ralph still remained ignorant, making him nervous.
"Damn it!" he said angrily, getting up from his knees and now looking down at the cassat. "Everyone around me is incredibly smart, I'm the only dumb one. Will someone please tell me what's going on? Or I'm going to go crazy!"
"I think," Alexander suggested, "that we've brought magic back to the world. Am I right?"
"Close enough," the cassat confirmed, glanced at the still confused Ralph, felt pity on him, and explained, "What your friend called magic was pushed out of the world aether some time ago, sealed in a nearly impenetrable shell, and sunk along with the Capudanie not far from Tendra. Because many things and phenomena became either impossible without it or started to happen differently, it ended with the event you call a catastrophe. Only here, a short distance away from the sunken Capudanie, the weak emanations from inside the shell allowed people to do simple things like changing the wind or summoning waves. Hence the unique Euxinian seafaring thanks to shtarkhs, which was impossible beyond the Dardanelles. Do you understand?"
Ralph nodded several times, but he still had questions.
The cassat could sense it or maybe just knew it. So he gave them another portion of information, "Certain informed entities decided to restore the old status quo and remove the misalignment in the aether and the lace spheres… don't ask, it's not important. Let's put it this way: they wanted to bring the lost magic back into the world. The problem was that it was the humans who pushed the magic out. For a number of reasons, going into which is pointless and too long, only humans could bring the magic back. Humans who came to the Capudanie with certain intentions and under certain conditions… basically, there's a lot of stuff there that most people wouldn't understand: chemistry/alchemy and other symbolism. The cassats appeared among the humans for a single purpose: to complete all these conditions and bring the necessary humans to the right place. It wasn't a simple task since we couldn't just tell you, and the desires and actions had to come from the humans themselves. But I… and you finally succeeded."
"Who is Sirhan Günüç, the former leader of the skeletons?" Alexander asked with burning curiosity. It seemed that he'd already known some of what the cassat was telling them.
Ralph was incredibly envious of him at the moment.
"Günüç is one of the most powerful mages on Earth. In the years prior to the catastrophe, probably the most powerful. He was also interested in restoring the magic. I hope I don't need to explain why."
"Yeah," Ralph muttered. "Who's going to agree to live without magic?"
"Not only live, but also die, and soon," the cassat corrected Ralph. "Only here, in relative proximity to the sunken Capudanie could he have existed all these years, although in a form that was incredibly strange to you humans. The emanation from inside the shell was too weak to allow him more. But he didn't give up and got what he wanted in the end."
"And Nazim Socrates?" Alexander kept asking. "Who is he?"
"An ordinary human. Although a very greedy one. We figured it out right away, but Günüç initially bet on him. But when Nazim's daughter became interested in the Capudanie, her daddy was immediately removed from the board. He fluttered about, of course, but, I assure you, his chances were low. But he did manage to do a few useful things, like delaying your brother, Alexander."
The cassat turned his head in a very canine manner and shifted his front paws.
"All right, guys," he said, clearly hinting that the time for questions was over. "Got carried away with chatting with you. Time to leave."
He lifted a suddenly heavy gaze at Ralph.
"I'm leaving, Kingfisher. Goodbye. You're a nice guy, and someone is going to see that, very soon. Thank you for your help. Keep doing everything as before, the way you know, feel, and able to, and you're able to do a lot, and your feelings are in the right place too. Don't feel down, it's going to be all right. Keep in mind, I'm not just giving you platitudes, I actually know that you'll be all right."
"Goodbye…" Ralph whispered, losing all touch with reality.
"Goodbye to you too, prince. Your chats with Ralph have always entertained me. You two are good. People like you make me want to still believe in humanity."
"Last question! Truly last!" Alexander pleaded.
"All right, go ahead," the cassat sighed in a very human way. "Well?"
"Who are cassats? Who are you?"
Ralph thought the cassat was about to burst into laughter. Kingfisher would no longer be surprised at that, after hearing his friend talk after not uttering so much as a word for over twenty years. But the cassat didn't laugh.
"Who are we?" he asked. "How to put it best… Let's say, we're the ones the Tauricans call the lord of the skies. And the lord of the waters at the same time."
"Is that how it is?" the prince muttered. "I knew the legends were lying."
"I know what you mean," the cassat noted. "You're thinking of the episode from the legend of Ingul and Almea when the lord of the waters bargained with the lord of the skies over the day given to Ingul. Right?"
"Right…" the prince sighed, being forced to come to terms with the fact that there was no way to hide anything from the cassat, whatever it was.
"Then know that even the lord of all things can get bored sometimes. So he entertains himself any way he can. Maybe he splits up, or turns into someone… But that's not important."
The cassat rose on all four legs and seemed to be about to go right through the bulkhead.
"By the way, Kingfisher, Alexander,": he noted, turning back for the last time. "Tell your people to stop looking for me! They're going to turn the entire ship on its head!"
And then he did go right through the bulkhead, without any effort, as if the bulkhead, made out of strong larch boards, wasn't even there.
But something told Ralph and Alexander that they wouldn't find him in the neighboring cabin.
They were silent for some time. They didn't even have the strength to drink wine.
"Wow…" Ralph finally muttered. "Magic… It's enough to lose your mind."
"Why?" Alexander replied thoughtfully. "On the contrary! There are now more possibilities to add to the mind. I think, my friend Ralph, that I finally understand what question Sirhan Günüç was talking about. And I really am prepared to ask him that question when we next meet."
"What question?"
"If he will take me on as his apprentice. Since we've let magic loose upon the world, then we need to learn to use it. Don't you agree?"
The Queen Svenja rendezvoused with a part of the squadron under Prince George's command not far from Tarkhankut. The Cilicia was sailing first, followed by the barquentine Saint Lucy and the ketches Iscah and Tantalus, then the schooner Ordovician, while the barque Saint Aurelius was stuck on a shoal a few miles to the south under the guard of the third ketch named Irish.
With joint efforts, they managed to get the Saint Aurelius free; the particular credit for that goes to the shtarkh and Prince Alexander's flag lieutenant Ralph de Kriam. The reunited squadron immediately set course for Kirkinitis, where it resupplied and redistributed the ballast that had been taken off the ships. In addition, Prince Alexander personally escorted a certain young individual on board the Saint Aurelius thanks to a promise he'd made. Even the santona Cilicia, taken from the Tjekers, had been prepared to sail to Albion — Prince Alexander had no intention of throwing trophies away, plus the cargo was fairly large. At the start of the Taurican month of Libeccio, the Albionian squadron set sail for the Bosporus. In the fall, it successfully reached the shores of Albion. By that point, King Terence was quickly recovering. Still, soon after returning to Londinium, he placed the crown on Prince George's head and retired from the affairs of state, unexpectedly starting to spend more time in the library tower with Prince Alexander. The people of Albion accepted their new ruler with joy, especially after the announcement of the lowering of certain taxes, the payment of long-delayed salary to the army, and large-scale celebrations in Londinium and several large cities with abundant libations and feasts paid for by the new King George. A new young mistress of Prince Alexander named Amrita appeared at the palace, while his new flag lieutenant Ralph de Kriam began to frequent the bookshops of Londinium. Nothing else of note happened in Albion that fall.