Ticking Wood

The iron bolt on the middle deck hatch had jammed twice since sundown, and Sayano intended to drive the third wedge home before the stench from the lower hold reached Prince Sukenari’s bier. She leaned her weight onto the copper mallet, the hem of her soot-darkened court sleeves pinned beneath her forearms. Beneath the five-inch cedar planks, something soft scraped against the grain, dragging wet bulk through the darkness below.

"You cannot hammer the rot out of the wood, Lady Sayano," Botan said from the tier steps.

The musician sat cross-legged against the balustrade, a silk cloth cradled in his lap as he wiped resin grit from his eleven-string harp. His fingernails, pared to clean curves, caught the yellow grease-lamp light.

"I am securing the hatch," Sayano said, not looking up as she struck the cedar wedge. "Your duty was to keep the mallet against the drum topside. Kazuma’s voice sounded three minutes ago, yet you abandon your post to sit plucking dry gut."

"The patched silk holds the tension, and the cedar mallet was raising blisters on my palms," Botan said smoothly. "Besides, Kazuma said to wake the sentry, not bar the door against him. Teruo is already climbing the lower companionway. He brings the smell of crushed marsh-beetles and old vinegar."

The copper grating in the deck rattled. A bronze spearhead nudged the hatch lid upward by half an inch. Sayano did not move her boot from the rim.

"Lower that point, guard," she ordered.

Teruo’s face appeared in the gap between timber and bronze grating, slick with grey sweat and bilge grease. His sleeveless tunic showed fresh splatters of pale slime across the shoulder seam. "Open the hatch, mourner. Kazuma needs the resin censer from the upper tier, and every scrap of lead caulking we have left in the locker."

"The upper tier is sealed by royal decree," Sayano replied, her fingers tightening around the mallet handle. "The fourth nephew’s chamber will not be stripped to patch the commoners' bilge. If the lower hull is taking water, bail it through the aft scuppers."

"It is not taking water," Teruo said, his voice flat with exhaustion as he shoved his shoulder against the wood, forcing the hatch another handspan wider. "The mud-things are inside the lower ballast. One is chewing the linen off the third rank of provincial levies right beneath your slippers. When it finishes with the soldiers, it will smell the cloves in your prince’s belly."

Sayano held her position for two breaths, her gaze locked on the smeared bronze blade. The scent rising past his tunic was not mere river mud; it was the rancid, honey-thick reek of marsh-gall mingled with spoiled cedar oil.

"Let him up," Kazuma’s voice drifted up from the well behind Teruo. The old embalmer climbed slowly, his pitch-crusted knuckles gripping each ladder rung with deliberate care. When his grey head cleared the coaming, he carried a square of scraped cedar in his palm. The wood was riddled with yellow, bubbling pores that hissed faintly in the cool air.

Sayano stepped back, allowing the hatch to rest on its stays. "Explain this intrusion, embalmer."

"The hull was salted before we left the estuary docks," Kazuma said, holding out the ruined chip. "Marsh-gall in the pine pitch. Every joint along the keelson is honeycombed. The beasts did not find us by misfortune. The barge was built to summon them."

Sayano stared at the blackened sap bubbling on the cedar fragment. Her court training demanded dismissal—treason of such scale required an imperial mandate—yet the stench of the gall was undeniable. "The court commissioned eighty ships of the line. The Ministry of Rites sealed every cask of pitch with the vermilion seal."

"Then the Ministry of Rites bought graves for eighty ships," Teruo muttered, resting his spear butt on the middle deck. "Kazuma says the lower ribs are softened to pulp. If we do not burn out the breach in the common hold, the whole aft frame will drop into the mud."

"We do not burn the hull that holds Prince Sukenari," Sayano said, her voice dropping into a hard register. "And we do not guess where the rot ends based on a single splinter from a soldier’s bunk."

She turned to Botan, whose fingers had stilled upon his harp. "Stringer. Bring your instrument to the main rib."

Botan raised an eyebrow, his chin resting against his collar. "The harp is tuned for the imperial litanies of departure, my lady. It does not play well with bilge gas."

"You will use the copper strings," Sayano commanded. "Bridge them directly against the cedar floor joints. When you strike the lower harmonics, sound will travel through the timber. Sound wood rings clear; hollow wood ticks."

Teruo frowned, lowering his spear. "A harp cannot mend a broken frame."

"No," Sayano said. "But it will tell us whether we are standing on solid cedar or an empty shell. Bridge the fifth rib, Botan. Now."

Botan sighed, shifting his weight. He selected three heavy bronze bridge pegs from his lacquer box and stepped onto the middle deck. He drove the sharp pins directly into the seams between the deck planks until they bit into the thick oak joists beneath. He laid the harp across them, resting the instrument's soundboard against the bronze pins.

"This will ruin three seasons of lacquer work," Botan murmured. "The gut strings will fray before the third chord."

"Prince Sukenari’s linen cost more than your village," Sayano replied. "Strike the root note."

Botan set his thumb to the thickest bronze wound string. He plucked it once, a heavy, vibrating strike.

The low thrum pulsed through the middle deck timbers, vibrating through the soles of Sayano’s straw sandals. The sound traveled forward toward the bow, humming deep and steady through the cedar ceiling beams—a clear, sustained resonance that filled the narrow corridor.

"Solid from the mast step forward," Kazuma observed, his ear pressed against the bulkhead.

"Strike the eighth joist," Sayano said, pointing toward the aft companionway. "Directly over the common dead."

Botan moved the bridge pegs four paces aft, pressing the bronze points into the dark seam where the salt had crusted white along the grain. He drew his plectrum across the third string.

The note broke instantly.

Instead of a deep chime, the wood produced a dry, stuttering rattle—a rapid, hollow clicking like beetle husks trapped in a wicker basket. The vibration died within two feet of the pegs, swallowed by empty space.

Sayano knelt, pressing her palm against the deck seam. Beneath her skin, the timber did not feel like five-inch seasoned mountain cedar. It felt thin, paper-dry, and brittle, vibrating with faint, irregular tremors that had nothing to do with Botan’s music.

"Strike the keelson line," she ordered quietly.

Botan adjusted the pins, his casual demeanor vanishing as he positioned the bridge directly above the centerline of the barge. He struck the lowest fifth string with full force.

The response was a dead, flat slap, followed immediately by the sound of something cracking deep within the swamp beneath the bottom strake. A shudder ran through the barge, shifting the entire deck two inches to the port side. Overhead, the copper hanging lamps swung wildly, their chains squealing against the iron ceiling hooks.

From the dark bilge below the hatch came a long, wet heave, as if thousands of gallons of thick mud had shifted beneath the barge's keel. A heavy timber groaned, followed by the loud, gunshot snap of a secondary steering joint fracturing under immense external weight.

"That was not a scout," Teruo said, his knuckles turning white around his spear shaft.

"No," Sayano said, rising to her feet and smoothing the torn silk of her sleeves. "The spine of the ship is gone. It is hollow from the rudder post to the main mast."

Kazuma looked down the open hatchway, his old face set in grim lines. "The scent is spreading upward through the hollowed ribs. It has reached the prince's tier."

Sayano looked back toward the lacquered double doors of the royal berth. The air around the carved cedar lintels was already growing warm and sweet with the smell of waking mud.