The world was grey. Thick fog enveloped the Rex Ventorum, swallowing the horizon line and muffling every sound. The ship seemed to be wrapped in layers of cotton. Eva had completely lost her sense of direction and no longer knew which way was up or down. Not wanting to show her confusion, she held on to the wheel tightly. Only a keen observer would have noticed her knuckles, which were white with exertion. Her eyes feverishly searched the milky nothingness for a point to hold on to. Finn was standing next to her. The navigator appeared calm, but his jaw muscles were also tensed. He held his spherical compass in his hands and turned it without looking at it. ‘North-northwest, two degrees steep climb,’ he murmured, and Eva corrected their course.
‘I don’t like this,’ Nora’s timid voice sounded from her place at the chart table. “This fog feels somehow… wrong.” ’Come on!’ Eva shook her head as if to shake off the concern, but of course her friend was right. They could barely see past the tip of the bow and their safety was entirely in the hands of the navigator. Hopefully he wasn’t steering them into the middle of Bloody Bay. Nora seemed to read her mind. ‘Pirates could be lurking anywhere!’ ‘Give me a break! There are no pirates here!’
No sooner had Eva spoken the words than there was a dull boom in the distance, followed by a sound reminiscent of the screeching of a harpoon. Nora screamed and held on to the doorframe. ‘Tell me that was just thunder,’ she stuttered. ‘No,’ Finn said tonelessly, without looking up. ‘That wasn’t thunder. That was a warning.’ ‘A warning? About what?’ Nora asked, her voice now noticeably louder.
The answer came in the form of a second boom, this time much closer. A shadow detached itself from the fog and glided towards them. It was a huge three-master, painted black, with tattered sails and a pointed bow that jutted forward like a spike. The black flag was flying unmistakably from the highest mast. ‘Damn it – pirates!’ hissed Eva, seizing the tiller. A shrill laugh pierced the wall of fog, followed by a high-pitched, sharp voice: ‘Surrender, lads, and the Black Mara will let you live!’
Eva didn’t hesitate for long. ‘To your posts!’ she shouted to her friends. While Finn obeyed her command immediately, Nora stood frozen. ‘Nora! Hoist the sails!’ Her friend’s shouting finally woke the girl from her stupor. She sprinted to the ropes and soon the bright sails of Rex Ventorum shone through the haze and the ship picked up speed. Eva held the rudder tightly, her eyes flickering from her command desk to the deceptive shadows dancing around her. ‘Finn! Which way?’ she called over the howling wind.
‘Three degrees south!’ The navigator stood at the railing, the small binoculars in his eye, trying to see his own path in front of him and the silhouette of the enemy ship behind him. Suddenly, a thunderous crash broke through the silence – a shot, far away, but close enough to answer the question of whether the pirates were still on their heels. ‘Over there!’ Nora pointed in a direction where a dark outline glided through the fog. Their airship, larger and heavier than the Rex Ventorum, ploughed effortlessly through the fog, as if it were cutting through the haze itself.
‘We have to shake them off!’ Eva yanked the wheel around and the ship tilted dangerously to one side as it entered a narrower strip of mist. Visibility was minimal. ‘There’s a deep pocket of fog to the right ahead!’ Finn warned. ‘If we go too fast, we’ll never get out again.’ “And if we go too slowly, they’ll get us,” hissed Nora, as she frantically pulled on a rope to realign the sails.
The pirate ship was now dangerously close. Its wooden hull loomed as a menacing shadow and another shot crashed through the fog. This time it was much closer, and a bullet grazed the starboard side of the Rex Venturum, sending splinters flying in all directions. ‘The pirates just want our cargo!’ shouted Finn. ‚They won’t risk shooting us from the sky! “I’m not very comforted by that,” murmured Eva, gritting her teeth as she steered the ship into a sharp turn. And then she saw it – a bank of fog so dense that it almost looked like a wall. ‚There!‘, she shouted, without waiting for objections.
The Rex Ventorum plunged in and the world became even greyer, even more opaque. Every breath was full of haze and the air felt as if it could be chewed. ‘Hold on!’ shouted Eva, and it was only just that her friends were able to follow her command, because she yanked the wheel down. Rex’s nose stood almost completely vertical and loose objects flew like missiles through the wheelhouse. But Eva held her breath and kept the wheel straight. Seconds felt like hours as they plunged into a seemingly endless void. With all her strength, Eva turned the ship back into a horizontal position and dared to breathe again. Clattering, everything that had been stuck to the walls due to gravity fell to the floor. All three listened intently, but nothing could be heard. No shot, no engine noise. Silence. They listened, and for a moment there was nothing but the soft creaking of the beams and the irregular beeping of the instruments.
‘They’ve lost us,’ Finn whispered at last, and Eva’s hands trembled as she let go of the wheel. Nora sank to the floor and began to laugh nervously. ‘That was damn close.’ ‘Too close,’ Eva said under her breath. How many more risks would they have to take to reach the end of the map? But for now, the fog was their ally and the Black Mara was far away – at least for the time being.