Sand and Scrap

by Chris R. Sendrowski

  Gorbin hesitated. “Truly a wonder.”

  The Scavenger scoffed. “A wonder we’re pleased to part with. There’s a darkness about it, an ill wind even the sands reject.” He gestured toward the felltowers. “The beasts are yours if you want them. A present from our deceased chieftain.”

  Gorbin smiled. “You are too generous.”

  “That is not a word I would use.” And with that, the Scavenger turned and shuffled back toward the caravan.

  Minwar and Lyotane approached Gorbin.

  “What did he mean by that?” Minwar asked.

  Gorbin shrugged. “What does it matter? Sand superstition is of no concern to us now.”

  Lyotane stood aghast, his bravado all but forgotten in the presence of the chamber. “It’s enormous!” he breathed.

  “Yes,” Minwar replied. “And an unfortunate thing for us, too.”

  Lyotane turned to him. “What do you mean?”

  “It will draw much unwanted attention on the morrow.”

  Gorbin circled the device, scanning every inch of its frozen exterior. Each of its four faces was perfectly smooth; not a single weld or bolt protruded from its surface.

  “Well I guess there is only one question now,” Lyotane said. “How do we open it?”

  “It requires a Karna-bara key,” Gorbin replied. “One impregnated with meridium.” He took several steps back to take it all in. “I dare say this is far beyond my grandfather’s knowing, though.”

  “Well whatever is inside, it’s best we keep it there until our hands weigh heavy with Tritan gold,” Minwar said. “I can already feel hungry eyes watching us from the shadows.”

  Gorbin turned back to the ruins, where dozens of traders stood eyeing their prize. He’s right, he thought. It’s far too dangerous to keep it out in the open like this.

  The felltowers groaned miserably in their yokes, as ice began crusting atop their fur. Gorbin approached one and ran a hand across its frozen hide. Such bizarre creatures, he thought. Until today, he’d only read of them back on Tritan. But like so many things in the Waste, descriptions did them little justice.

  Lyotane stepped beside the beast and tugged on one of its thick locks. “These fools parted with a fortune here. Just one of these beasts could fetch a thousand gold back in Cumlety.”

  “They’re no fools,” Gorbin said. “Such beasts require food and water, even if they’re desert born. Why waste profit on mere pack mules when there’s always others to steal or scavenge in the Waste?”

  “I don’t understand their ilk,” Lyotane grumbled. “To live like. . . like garbage men.”

  “Some consider it a great honor to walk amongst them,” Minwar said. “It’s rumored to be no easy task to enter their ranks.”

  Lyotane huffed. “No harder than catching your first shark.”

  Minwar shook his head. “You’re a fool, fish man. A simple-minded oaf. Who do you think found the Bell of Isis? Or the lost city of Jenrawan? No mere scag could have sniffed out such wonders. These men are masters of the sand, and before you or I die they will have seen wonders beyond comprehension.”

  “By the gods,” Gorbin groaned. “If not the sea, then your prattle will be the death of me.”

  The winds howled hard around the chamber, as if trying to pull it back into the desert. It’s time, Gorbin thought. “Bring it to the docks,” he said. “I want it stowed in the laxore as soon as possible.”

  Minwar bowed. “And what of the beasts?”

  Gorbin glanced at the two lumbering felltowers. “Trade them if you can. If not. . . dump them into the sea.”

  “The sea?” Lyotane cried. “What of their weight in coinage?”

  Gorbin shrugged, staring up at the chamber. “There’ll be plenty enough awaiting us on Tritan.”

  Minwar glanced at Lyotane and shook his head. “As you wish.”

  The felltowers sluggishly advanced down the narrow, Ixian street, their desert born legs clicking uncomfortably atop the sandy cobbles. Every now and then one emitted an eerie howl, tugging at its harness as the enormous wagon gradually rolled behind it.

  Merchants and whores dropped what they were doing and stood in awe as the wagon passed. Even the indifferent beggars crawled out of their shadows to watch its slow procession.

  Gorbin and the others marched close behind the wagon, their senses attuned to the many eyes now sizing them up.

  They realize its worth, Gorbin thought. And it will only take one fool to spurn an ambush.

  Gorbin slipped his hands into his empty pockets. What had taken Lyotane almost a turn to mint was now completely gone. It made him feel sick to his stomach. He was a prince, son of the Head Alchemist of Tritan. Should he not be sitting atop a palanquin, rather than slogging it out alongside a bunch of dregs?

  Things will be different in time, he thought.

  The dock creaked and groaned as the cart lumbered across its ancient metal beams. Turns of exposure had weakened its supports, and with the felltowers added weight, chunks of rust dropped from its underbelly into the putrid sea.

  Gorbin stepped from the chamber’s shadow and stared at the ice-choked harbor.

  “This is unnatural,” he said.

  Minwar nodded. “No one has seen ice like this in the Acid since before the war.”

  At the far end of the docks, a graveyard of half submerged hulls jutted above the acid: freighters, skiffs, sloops, corsairs, cogs, clippers. Fragments of tattered laptane sails still flapped atop their many masts, bleached and cracked from turns beneath the sun.

  Beggars Wharf, Gorbin thought. The last resting place for many a pirate and thief who thought to plunder Ix’s shores.

  Gorbin swallowed as he stared at the mess. Every turn for as long as anyone could remember, captured pirates and thieves were brought to the Wharf and drowned with their vessels. It’s no guess how it got its name, Gorbin thought. To be drowned was bad enough. But to be drowned in acid while an entire town looked on. . . that was diabolical. He could almost imagine the pleas of the damned as they stared into that green soup. That’s no way to die. Even for a murderer.

  Gorbin approached the edge of the dock and stared at the steaming surface. Few creatures lived in its depths, save for laptane sharks, jellyfins and laxore. And they were all alpha predators released for the sole purpose of destroying the Western sea’s ecosystem.

  “This place is beyond death,” Gorbin mumbled.

  “Not beyond an easy profit, though,” Lyotane said. “Look!”

  Not more than a dozen footfalls from the dock, a pod of laptane sharks splashed about the harbor, tearing into a dissolving corpse. Lyotane watched the feast with a fisherman’s greed. “Strange to see them so far inland,” he said. “Them beasts aren’t prone to shallows.”

  “Perhaps they are a sign of luck,” Minwar joked.

  Lyotane chuckled, his ravenous eyes scouring the frothing sea. “It’s a shame then that we’re leaving on the morrow. Just two of those could keep us in adreena for a turn.”

  “Just keep your eyes on the prize,” Gorbin said. “More than enough coinage awaits us on Tritan.”

  “So you say,” Lyotane said. “But I’ll feel better when it’s in my palms.” The Garfaxman then turned back to the Acid, a powerful craving in his eyes. Gorbin watched him closely; if not for the wealth he had promised him, the Garfaxman would have gladly donned an acid suit and taken to the sea with knife and net. A barbarian, Gorbin thought. Lucky for me the promise of Tritan gold was too strong for even a brute such as he.

  The felltowers halted within footfalls of the dock’s edge, grunting and slobbering as the wagon rolled to a halt behind them.

  Gorbin turned to Minwar. “When is the beast to arrive?”

  Minwar pointed across the harbor. “If my eyes serve me correctly, she already has.”

  A thousand footfalls to the east, a massive fin sliced through the surface of the harbor.

  Lyotane smiled as the pod of laptane sharks scattered before it. “Sure got em spooke
d! Look!”

  The laxore breached, its gray, parasite-encrusted flesh glinting in the sunlight as it rolled through the air.

  Gorbin stood in awe. The whale-like beast was enormous, its girth spanning that of five felltowers. It had both a pair of dorsal and pectoral fins, and a thick, elongated neck that ended in a serpentine head with jaws upturned in a vicious grin.

  “By the gods,” Gorbin proclaimed as it splashed back down with a guttural thump. When it caught up with the slowest of the sharks, it instantly tore the poor beast to pieces. Gorbin’s stomach turned as a great crimson cloud blossomed in its wake.

  “She’s born of the hells!” he breathed.

  Minwar laughed. “And that one’s not even full grown.”

  Lyotane spat into the sea. “A damn waste of good shark meat, if you ask me. I don’t see why the dockmen even allow it in here.”

  “Could they do otherwise?” Minwar laughed.

  “Let it feed,” Gorbin said. “The less of those accursed sharks surrounding us the better.” Blood’s copper stench slowly crept into his mask as crimson waves rolled beneath the dock. I don’t envy us for the coming journey, he lamented. Unlike the extinct kron whales his father’s father had used before the war, laxore were notoriously aggressive and prone to traveling thousands of miles without surfacing. That meant sitting for calls in endless dark with only a set of Tritan air tanks to keep one alive.

  And that’s still not the worst of it, he told himself. Beyond the safety of Ix, even larger pods of laptane sharks awaited them. There were also rumors of rogue elemental clouds and fire typhoons that could swamp even the largest sea creatures.

  And there’s still the whalers, he thought.

  The chamber’s black steel drank in the gray sky like a doorway into another dimension. It was perfection incarnate; not a single blemish or dent intruded on its four visible faces. It was even protected by an onyx crusher-seal, which incased its outer shell. If tampered with, the entire device would spring in on itself, destroying the contents within.

  A problem the engineers can deal with on Tritan, he thought.

  Behind him, two men clad in black laptane flesh stepped onto the docks. As they drew closer, Gorbin noticed large white scars streaking their faded suits.

  The lead man halted several footfalls from Gorbin. When he peeled back his breathing mask, Gorbin shuddered. The wrangler’s face was a mess of wax-like scar tissue and taut flesh stretched across corded muscle and bone.

  “I am Ocane,” the man said, his voice a mere rasp. “Mircala’s heardmaster.” On his chest, he wore a large, ornate patch depicting a gold laxore diving across a blood red sun.

  Mark of a ferryman, Gorbin thought. Few held such rank, and those who did rarely stepped upon land. This man is no dock lackey, he told himself. Best not to treat him as such.

  “We depart as soon as the cargo is properly stowed,” Ocane said.

  Gorbin lit an adreena stick and gazed into the man’s dull, gray eyes. “And who will handle the stowing?”

  The man standing beside Ocane stepped forward and nodded.

  “Karak Drow,” Ocane said. “Master prodder and feedman. He is my finest sailor.”

  Gorbin exhaled a slithering green cloud. “He best be. Your services have emptied my pockets.”

  Ocane smiled. “While we are on the topic of gold, we will require an additional thousand coinage before we depart.”

  Gorbin coughed. “Oh do we now?”

  “Rumors abound that the Circle has laid claim to your bounty. If I am to gamble the lives of my men and beast there best be profit in it.”

  Gorbin clenched his teeth. “The Circle has no claim. I obtained it from the Blind Scavengers. And at an excessive price.”

  “Even so, I will require further payment.”

  Gorbin glanced to Minwar, who was quietly unsheathing his blade. I have but to nod and he would put an end this, he told himself. But that would be a foolish mistake. The laxore was bonded to these men, trained and reared within earshot of their voices. If anyone else tried to wrangle her, she would simply crush them in her jaws.

  Gorbin shook his head, gesturing for Minwar to stand down.

  “Very well,” he conceded. “But not until we arrive on Tritan.”

  Ocane studied him, his acid-washed eyes emotionless and dead. “Do I look a fool, gob? Why don’t I just slit my throat now and save your father the trouble?”

  Gorbin laughed. “It is my throat that will most likely be slit, whale man. Don’t you know my standing on the metal island?”

  “That is exactly my concern.”

  Gorbin removed a ring from his index finger and held it before the handler. “Do you see this? My birth band. Mark of my blood. Made of pure meridium.” He handed it to the wrangler. “Worth five thousand coinage to even the shrewdest Ixian merchant.” The wrangler examined it, sniffing and biting the metal. “Take it,” Gorbin said. “Count it as part of your new rate, the remainder of which will be paid upon our arrival.”

  Ocane stared at Gorbin for a moment and then emitted a dull laugh. “Very well, cast out. I will take you on your offer. But if you break your word. . . “

  “I will not.”

  Ocane laughed. “Very well.”

  Without another word, the wrangler snatched the ring from Gorbin and marched back to the awaiting laxore.

  Gorbin stood silent, watching as the dreg stepped into the beast’s gapping maw.

  “What did you do?” Minwar asked.

  Gorbin looked down and rubbed his bare finger. The ring was all he had had left, the last link to his bloodline. And now even that is gone.

  “I bought us Tritan,” he said.

  The great Mircala splashed restlessly beside the dock, spitting frothy water into the freezing sky as rent pieces of shark bubbled around her.

  “Keep her still,” Karak shouted as two men tugged at poles attached to the beast’s incisors.

  “Quite the leviathan, yes?” Ocane purred as Gorbin looked on.

  The two stood safely on the wharf, several hundred footfalls from the beast. But no matter their distance, Gorbin’s stomach still churned.

  “Abominable,” Gorbin replied, itching his new suit. The wrangler had given one to each of his men. The thicker flesh was supposed to protect them during the dangerous journey. But right now, the leathery, black skin only weighed heavy on Gorbin’s shoulders. “How long will the journey be?” he asked.

  “Two days,” Ocane replied. “If the currents favor us.”

  Gorbin’s heart sank. Might as well be an eternity in that thing. To cheer himself up, he thought of a dagger protruding from his father’s chest. For that alone, my exile will have been worthwhile, he told himself.

  Behind him, Minwar and Lyotane struggled to get into their new suits. “Damn this slop,” Minwar growled, fumbling with the black flesh. “I would sooner boil in the sea, than wear another one of these.”

  Ocane shook his head. “Tis a sad thing, to see laptane end its days on the flesh of such dregs.”

  Minwar grunted. “Stuff it, whale man. You’re paid to prod, not talk.”

  Mircala reared out of the water, her mighty jaws snapping at Karak’s men as they positioned the chamber at the end of the dock.

  “Bring her to bear, damn it!” Karak shouted as a massive wave rolled beneath the dock.

  Gorbin sat down on a pile of tangled nets, staring nervously at the laxore. “Your pet seems quite spooked by our cargo. Anything we should be worried about?”

  “Nay,” Ocane said. “Her senses are far more powerful than ours. Could be just the weather… or acid patterns.”

  Ensconced in his ill-fitting suit, Lyotane dropped down beside Gorbin with a grunt. “Your people best shower us in gold,” he grumbled. “This suit is enough to drive a man to madness.”

  Gorbin sat back and smiled. “Just be thankful we’re not taking a surface skiff.”

  At this, Ocane chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” Gorbin asked.<
br />
  Ocane gestured toward the whale. “Wait until you sit inside her, gob. It will make even the leakiest dinghy seem a pleasure barge in comparison.”

  The other wranglers now stood inside the beast’s maw, prodding at her throat with elongated, wooden poles. With every thrust, Mircala grunted indignantly and vomited a foamy white substance across the dock.

  “Good god,” Gorbin spat as the stench enveloped him. Dozens of laptane skulls lay glistening amongst the bile, some with flesh still clinging to bone.

  “Stinks like a corpse,” Minwar said.

  “More like wasted profit,” Lyotane added, gesturing towards the skulls.

  “It’s pron,” Ocane said. “A natural chemical emitted to protect her digestive track from your cargo.”

  One of the wranglers began lashing at the felltowers with a bone whip, driving the beasts closer to the laxore’s mouth.

  Karak waited a few footfalls beside Mircala’s jaws, his pole held at the ready. When the felltowers were within arm’s reach, he jabbed it between her teeth and retreated backwards.

  With a roar, Mircala lunged forward, snatching up both felltowers into her enormous maw. The beasts groaned in agony as bones snapped and organs ruptured. When their cries finally ceased, Karak jammed the rod back between her jaws and forced them open.

  Chunks of bloody felltower dangled from her flat teeth, as well as great tangles of ropy, crimson stained hair.

  “My god, man,” Gorbin said.

  Lyotane shook his head. “A fucking waste. Could have gotten at least a thousand for the beasts.”

  “I’d rather be on the wranglers’ good side,” Gorbin said. “A little gift goes a long way atop the Acid. Besides, they tell me the beasts will satiate the laxore’s hunger for a month. Better them than us, right?”

  Lyotane simply grunted.

  On the docks, Karak’s men quickly rolled the chamber toward the laxore’s yawning mouth. When it was close enough for Mircala to sniff, Karak thrust his pole deep into the back of her throat.

  With a deafening croak, the laxore regurgitated another river of white bile, coating the chamber from top to bottom.

  Gorbin gagged. “Your men will be cleaning that upon our arrival, yes?”