"I am a member of The Family; I am needed back in Capital City."

"I know."

Dybo looked at the tough, salted strip of meat he had been eating. Finally: "We would have fresh meat if you killed this serpent?"

"That we would, good Prince."

"How much time do you need?"

"Surely no more than forty days…"

"Forty days! An eternity."

"It’s not easy to close the distance; Kal-ta-goot is swift. But I beseech you, Prince. I want this monster."

"It’s just a dumb animal," said Dybo gently. "To be enraged with a dumb thing seems, well, pointless."

Keenir looked up. "I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. I want this monster."

Dybo looked Keenir up and down. Scarred face, bitten-off tail. He thought of the hunt against the thunderbeast and how, when worked up for that battle, he had wanted the thing dead. And he thought of the sun. At last he said, "I might strike it, too." A pause. "Forty days. No more."

Keenir bowed deeply.

"God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Kal-ta-Goot to its death!" Keenir’s words, presumably meant to inspire, seemed to have the opposite effect. The crew, although fiercely loyal to him, was visibly nervous. The passengers were terrified. But the Dasheter pressed on, Keenir and his walking stick ticking across the deck.

No ship had ever sailed this way before, heading eastward, past the pilgrimage point where the Face of God had hung at the zenith. At each daytenth, Afsan took careful note of the Face’s position as it slipped slowly toward the western horizon, astern of the ship.

Kal-ta-goot stayed maddeningly out of reach. Afsan had only one chance to glimpse it through the far-seer before Keenir demanded it back. He had seen a snake-like neck, and, intermittently, a round hump of a body moving among the waves. At the end of the neck was a long head with — it was difficult to be sure at this distance — dagger-like teeth that stuck out and overlapped even when the thing’s mouth was closed.

Keenir stood constantly at the ship’s bow, occasionally barking an order, but mostly just staring through the far-seer at his elusive quarry, and muttering swear words under his breath.

Afsan spent most of his time up on deck, all but unaware of the chill spray, the biting wind, as he watched the sky with a fascinated intensity that matched Keenir’s own. As day gave way to the ever-so-brief twilight, Det-Bleen, the ship’s priest, approached Keenir within earshot of Afsan. Afsan understood that although Keenir had known Bleen for kilodays, the captain never really liked the priest, considering him a necessary part of the baggage for such journeys, but certainly not a colleague or friend.

"Good Captain," said Bleen, bowing deeply, "our vigil beneath the Face was not yet over. We had three days of prayers and rapture left."

Keenir kept his eye scrunched to the lens of the far-seer, the yellow scar on the side of his head a close match in color for the brass tube. "Does not God hear all?" said Keenir.

Bleen looked perplexed. "Of course."

"Then She will hear your prayers whether we are directly beneath her or not."

"Yes, but, Var-Keenir, for many aboard this is their first pilgrimage. It’s important they stay the twenty days, do the thirty-seven penances, read and understand the nine scrolls of the prophet."

"There will be other trips."

"My fear is that there will not be. You take us into unknown waters. You take us into parts of the River that God Herself has not checked for us."

The ship rocked as it moved against a large wave. "I will have that monster, Bleen. I will have it!"

"Please, Keenir, I beg you to turn back."

The captain swung the far-seer around, trying to refocus on the distant serpent. "I have the authority of Prince Dybo for this journey."

"So Dybo tells me. You’ve got forty days."

"Then talk to me again at the end of that period."

"Keenir, please, it’s blasphemy."

"Talk not to me of blasphemy. Before I’m done, these waters will be red with blood."

Bleen reached out to Keenir, bridging the territorial space between them, and touched the captain on the shoulder. Keenir, startled, at last lowered the eyepiece and looked at the priest.

"But whose blood shall it be, Keenir?" said Bleen.

The captain squinted at the holy one, and for a moment Afsan thought that Bleen had finally gotten through to Keenir. But Keenir shouted out, "Onward!" and went back to peering through the far-seer. One of the officers ran to sound the ship’s beacon of loud and soft bells and drums, and Bleen, tail swishing in despair, moved to the aft deck, turned toward the setting Face of God, and began chanting prayers for mercy.

The Dasheter had chased the serpent for thirty-nine days now. Keenir was more agitated than ever. Sometimes they would lose sight of it for daytenths at a time, but whether because it had dived beneath the water or simply had slipped over the horizon, Afsan couldn’t say. The lookout in the perch high atop the foremast always managed to catch sight of the beast again, and the chase continued. It occurred to Afsan that perhaps the monster was toying with Keenir, that it was deliberately staying out of reach. Regardless, the Dasheter continued its eastward journey, until eventually the Face of God touched the westward horizon behind the ship, a huge striped ball sitting on the water.

At last a cry went up from the lookout officer: Kal-ta-goot had turned around and — no mistake — was barreling toward the Dasheter.

Afsan and Dybo ran to the foredeck, looked out through the choppy waters toward the eastern horizon. Without the far-seer, it was difficult to tell, but, by the prophet’s claws, yes, the long gray neck looked closer.

Keenir, nearby, did have the benefit of the magnifying tube. "Here it comes," he muttered in his gravelly voice. "Here it comes."

Afsan’s first thought was that the Dasheter should turn around, should run from the approaching serpent. But Keenir, perhaps sensing the fear rippling through the passengers and crew, shouted out, "Stay the course!"

Soon the beast was close enough that details could be seen with the unaided eye. The long neck, something like a thunderbeast’s but more flexible, did indeed end in a drawn-out flattened head filled with incredible teeth, teeth that stuck out and overlapped like a spilled drawer full of knives, even when the creature’s mouth was closed.

The monster’s body, round and gray, striped with green, was only partially visible. The bulk of it seemed to be beneath the waves. Periodically, though, Afsan saw parts of four diamond-shaped fins or flippers clearing the water, churning it into foam with their powerful strokes. The tail, only glimpsed occasionally as the creature weaved left and right, was short and stubby, and seemed to have little to do with the beast’s locomotion. The long, sinewy neck and the round, flippered body made Afsan think of a snake threaded through the shell of a turtle, but the thing’s torso seemed unarmored and its head, with those terrible interlocking teeth, was more horrible, more deadly looking, than the head of any snake Afsan had ever seen.

The monster was easily as long as the Dasheter itself, although better than half its length was its protracted neck.

Closer and closer it came, a dynamo charging through the water, a wake of foam trailing behind it almost to the horizon.

And then, suddenly, it disappeared, diving beneath the waves, the tip of its short tail the last thing Afsan saw before it was gone completely from view.

Afsan tried to calculate the thing’s speed and trajectory. At the rate it had been moving, it would only be twenty heartbeats or so before it would reach the ship. He grabbed the railing around the edge of the deck, bent his knees, leaned back on his tail, stabilizing himself with five points of support, waiting, waiting…