by Ember Lane
“What?” he spoke, but no one heard.
The silence was too loud.
“He came, and he was riddled with fever. Sweat drenched his robes. He told us, begged us to take him to Tzeyon Bay with all haste, to drop him there no matter what, and then make haste to Harrison’s Reach and wait. He said that he would return with another wizard and a boy or girl, and we were to wait in the bay while they wrestled The Staff of Morrison White from the drexen welt. All of this had to be done before we could take him to The Isle of One.” The giant slumped, defeated, and sobbed. “What have we done?” Stormsurfer wailed.
Merl furrowed his brow. He was missing something. He was sure he was. “But…” he said, and then it dawned on him like a goblin’s Warhammer hitting him straight on the noggin.
“Ricklefess had the zombay disease, didn’t he?”
Stormsurfer nodded. “Aye, and we moved it halfway around the world and let it destroy a whole new land.” The giant met Merl’s gaze. “We killed all of them, Merl. We killed the lot.”
“You killed my father.”
“Yes.”
Merl jumped from the sofa, landing with a thud on the bar’s planked floor. He bolted for the deck. He couldn’t breathe, even though he was gasping hard. His legs shook, and his head wobbled as if his neck had suddenly lost its ability to hold it up. Tears streamed down his face as his feet slapped on the ship’s deck. He heaved and gasped, staggering along the deck, barely hearing someone was call his name. It sounded distant. It didn’t apply to him. Merl lurched from side to side until he came to the little flight of steps that led down to the adventurer’s bar. Billy stood in the tavern’s middle and tried to block Merl’s way, but Merl shoved him, screaming at the lummox to get out of his way. Frank too, Frank tried to grab him, but Frank didn’t know. He couldn’t know.
“Ricklefess is dead!” Merl shouted. Merl growled, Merl spat, and he saw Frank’s face fall. He saw the life drain out of the man, and Merl easily pushed the beaten wizard away. “They’re all dead!” he screamed, trying his hardest to hurt Frank the way he’d been hurt. Trying to pass his pain on, to unburden himself and be free. But it didn’t help. It made things worse. His breaths fled him once more. He heaved and threw his ale up.
Merl darted out onto the figurehead, slamming the door shut just after Gloomy Joe snuck through. They climbed the wooden steps up to the top of the mermaid’s head and sank down, leaning against her headband. Gloomy Joe snuggled up tight as Merl’s shoulders heaved, and the pain of the last week ripped through him as sure as Scaramanza would.
His life was over.
There was nothing left.
The moon glowed. It was unlike the moon that usually sat between Three Face and No Face mountain. That moon was a drop of quicksilver, a brush of molten tin. That moon had gray fractures over it like an old china plate. It was a familiar moon. It was Merl’s moon.
This moon glowed, but it was tainted. Merl knew it was the same moon, but this moon was stained with the faintest of crimson hues. This moon was impure. The fractures were deeper welts that coddled more shadows. Craters pocked its face, blemishing its once pure surface.
Merl’s moon was perfect, but this one wasn’t, and yet it was the only moon he had left.
He sat on the mermaid’s headband, and Gloomy Joe sat with him. They both stared up at the moon. Merl had no idea what Gloomy Joe was watching. Perhaps the dune dog could see something within the heavens. Starturner had told Merl that giants used the stars to set their course, but Merl couldn’t see anyway that could be true. Sure, some were bigger than others, but that was that. Perhaps it was the swirls of color that looked like someone had brushed a rainbow across the night’s sky. Or maybe it was the comets that sometimes darted across it, but the stars, no, it wasn’t them, he decided. They couldn’t guide you. They didn’t know where you were going.
He’d have liked to have remembered his dad telling him about how the stars were the dead looking down from the heavens. He’d have liked to have remembered his dad weaving a great tale about Gods and heavens and mighty battles, or yarns of love. But his dad had never been like that. Even the day his dad had taken him to see Frank, he knew it was to move him on. It was to get rid of him like he’d done his reluctant duty and now it was over. He knew that, because Merl now knew something else about his dad, and that was that he wasn’t. He wasn’t Merl’s dad.
Merl’s mind was like a fragile egg, and that egg had held a secret for a very long time. Stormsurfer’s revelation and Merl’s ensuing sorrow had shattered that egg’s shell, and in doing so it had laid a memory bare, and that memory was of his birth. Now Merl knew. He understood. He also comprehended the world a little more, but it had changed now.
So, he sat, and he sat looking up at the moon knowing it wasn’t the same moon as before. He could see it plainly. This moon was cursed in the same way the land was cursed, and slowly but surely the moon would change as the land grew darker, until all was crimson. He also understood why Pandemonium had chosen that color. It was the heritage of the old lords. They had reveled in carnage. They had boasted of their slaughter. Crimson was their color.
While Merl knew a lot of new things, it didn’t really change matters much. He was still Merl, and he couldn’t become Frank just because he wanted to. He couldn’t become some great warrior righting the wrongs of the land. He knew that, and he understood it. But at least he had a direction.
He also knew Stormsurfer hadn’t killed his father, though he doubted the giant would ever forgive himself. Whoever had unleashed the plague had ended his father, and Walinda Alepuller, Amos Applepicker, and Fred the Quarryman. Whoever had unleashed that terrible disease had wanted chaos.
Even though the tainted moon was high in the sky, it was a new dawn for Merl Sheepherder. He was born again. He was born again and was ready to begin his new life.
Merl smiled.
Before he could start anything, he had some apologies to make.
“Come on, Gloomy Joe. Let’s go make amends.”
They found Frank sitting at the counter in the adventurer’s bar. Frank was staring into nowhere, and Merl knew exactly where that was. He poured himself an ale and topped Frank’s up, and he sat with his friend, the Wizard of Quintz.
“I’m sorry,” Merl said.
“I know,” Frank replied, and they both stared off into nowhere without another word being said for a long while.
It was Frank who broke the silence. “Let’s go. You might as well get it over and done with. An apology is like an itch. It needs doing or it’ll keep annoying you.”
“Let me say something first, Frank.”
Frank drained his ale. “If you must, but there’s no need.”
“Thank you, Frank, for everything.”
“You’re very welcome, Merl.” And they left the bar, leaving Billy and Desmelda, but with Gloomy Joe in tow.
Stormsurfer was still sitting by the hearth. Merl walked up to him and climbed on to his lap.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“And so am I.”
Frank clambered onto the sofa. Gloomy Joe spread himself before the hearth.
They all stared into nowhere.
16
The Isle of One broke the horizon. Merl stood on the tips of his toes and embraced the shore’s distant black line as if it were his salvation. He needed to get off the ship. He wanted to smell something other than wood and tar. The voyage had become long, each day stretching impossibly beyond the bounds of taps, turns, and phases, beyond even morning, noon, and eve.
Frank was getting on Merl’s nerves with his constant demand to study words when all Merl wanted to do was train with a sword, or practice with a staff. Desmelda was annoying too. She was on him the instant Frank was done with him, teaching him potions, chants, and the principles of magic that he had no interest in and was utterly incompetent at. Billy, well Billy was Billy and sometimes he was a grouch, and sometimes he was Merl’s best friend. All in all, it was like everyone su
ddenly wanted Merl to be something different, when all he wanted to be was himself.
Since Stormsurfer’s revelations, the giants had been a little distant. They carried their shame poorly and could do nothing to scrub their souls of their guilt while trapped aboard Wave Walker. Starturner acted like he wanted to hurl himself into battle and slaughter all of Merl’s enemies. Stickback fussed over Merl’s perch, asking if he needed handrails or extra cushions, or the top of the mermaid’s noggin sanded down. Chef piled food on wagon-wheel plates, and Starturner constantly hid behind his great wheel.
They all wanted something from Merl, yet all he wanted was to understand.
Everyone had one thing in common, and that was that none of them knew why Ricklefess wanted them to go to The Isle of One. The sight of the distant isle brought an immediate buzz of excitement to the ship. A long call came from the crow’s nest. “Land ho!” Blustercatcher immediately adjusted the trim of his sails. Merl ran down from the mermaid’s head, and Gloomy Joe bounded after him. They both burst into the adventurer’s quarters and down to its bar.
“Land!” he cried, and Frank slumped as if only a bucketload of tension was holding him up. Billy yelped with delight, and Desmelda let out a long sigh.
But almost the exact instant that their euphoria and relief reached its crescendo, the dawn of realization that the unknown was closer broke over them. Frank jumped to his feet and began to pace the floor.
“First, we don’t know if the isle is zombayfied or not, so we need to be alert from the minute we beach. Second, we don’t know where we are going, nor what to expect when we get there, so we need to pack everything we might need. Third, we have no idea if it’s big or small, we just know it’s an island.” He paused. “Fourth… nope, that’s about it.”
“We should go out onto the deck and see what our giant friends are up to,” Desmelda added.
Merl loped toward the door and climbed the steps to the deck. Stormsurfer was resting on the gunwale, a large telescope in his hands.
“What’s it like?” Merl asked him, hoping to get most of Frank’s questions answered in one go.
Stormsurfer grunted. “Like? It’s like an island. It’s hotter that Harrison’s Bay and perhaps a little more remote. The guild named One, was a strange one, if that makes any sense.” The giant leaned close. “We giants know a little more about them than most others.”
“Why?”
“Why do we know more, or why were they strange? We know more because we are giants and giants live a long time. Why were One strange? Because they weren’t the norm, why else? This island was their headquarters. It had a huge castle and maintained quite the army, though not as large as some. One was like an assassins guild in many ways.”
Merl pondered Stormsurfer’s words. They were like a river blocked by a beaver’s dam and had clearly been gathering behind, and now his dam had buckled, bursting under the pressure of their pent-up thought, and now soaking Merl with their deluge. He grabbed one of the words as it flowed past.
“What’s a guild?” Merl climbed up a box, and then inched up a few of the turned pilasters that made up the ship’s sides. He perched atop its rail, swung his feet around, and sat on it. Stormsurfer curled a protective arm around him.
“Their guild was like a gang. It had a leader, a second, and a committee under, and then dedicated members all of whom worked for it. The lords loved them.” He scoffed. “No idea why.”
Merl narrowed his eyes. “What happened to their castle?” He strained his neck, trying to see some indication of the building, but at the moment it was just a black scrawl at the edge of the sea.
“Same as what happened to a lot of folk, they faded away and their legacy turned to dust. Except…”
Merl waited, but Stormsurfer fell silent. They closed on the island. Merl felt drawn to its familiar shape, one of thrusting green-cloaked rock and tapering ends. The verdant green oozed life. Its vibrancy was like a halo of goodness. Merl had never seen its like, not in the angular meadows that clung to Three Face mountain, nor in the burbling streams that carved their way west. The lush green was edged with sand and black rock before succumbing to the deep blue, which heaved and sighed under the pounding sun.
“Is it getting hotter?” Merl asked.
Stormsurfer drew him closer. “The wind has fled. It’s afraid.”
Merl wondered how wind could be frightened of anything, but as soon as Stormsurfer said it, he felt creeping tendrils of inquiry curling toward him. He blinked, wondering what the feeling was, not even coming close to understanding it. It wasn’t visible. As far as he could tell, it didn’t even exist. Except, Stormsurfer had told him there was fear—that the island was afraid.
“How…”
“I think you know.”
Merl huffed. “Trust me, I don’t know half the things people think I know.”
“Or maybe,” Stormsurfer replied. “You don’t know half the things you know.”
Scratching his head, Merl let the comment pass. Of all the things he knew, one was as certain as a billy goat’s kick. Giants reveled in being cryptic. Merl wasn’t sure if they did it because they really didn’t know as much as they thought they did, or whether they did it to protect folk. He accepted they had huge noggins, and huge noggins meant huge brains. It followed that they must be able to store a load up top, and that if Stormsurfer actually told Merl everything he knew, Merl’s bonce would almost certainly explode. Merl didn’t want his bonce to explode like a soft-headed zombay, and so he was grateful that Stormsurfer was cryptic.
“I think it’s better if I just don’t know stuff,” Merl said, “but me nose gets me into bother. It’s like the more I know, the more I need to know, and that’s only gonna cause me trouble.”
“Very wise.” Stormsurfer exhaled long and hard, and Merl knew it meant the giant was done talking and caught up in thinking.
Merl turned his attention back to the island. Its green was even more distinct, like it was growing in intensity. Vast, broad leaves adorned mighty bushes and grass-cloaked hills rose from its coast. The Isle of One looked like an idyllic refuge from a cruel world. Billy clambered up beside him. Frank and Desmelda looked through the balustrade.
By midafternoon, the giants had weighed anchor, and Stormsurfer’s rowboat had been lowered. Merl and the others were winched down in a rope basket, while Stormsurfer and Starturner climbed down the ship’s rope ladder.
“Cannot wait to feel firm ground under me feet,” Billy said, near leaning over the rowboat’s bow.
Desmelda let out a longing moan.
Frank directed Stormsurfer to a small cove, just to the side of the beach. Merl asked him if he could feel the island’s fear, but that just got him a queer look from the wizard. After beaching the boat within the rock’s shelter, Starturner jumped out, standing tall and erasing any danger with his mere presence alone, but looking awkward at the same time. Frank scrambled out to stand by him, and then Billy and Desmelda joined them. Merl hung back, holding Stormsurfer’s lingering gaze.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to come,” Merl told the giant. “Nor Starturner. But you know that already, don’t you?”
Stormsurfer turned his eyes away from Merl as if he were brutally ashamed. The giant’s eyes softened, and he reached out and cupped Merl’s cheek in his huge hand. “See,” he said, “you do know more than you know.” It was clearly no news to Starturner either, and he hopped back in the boat without question.
Stormsurfer shook his head and swept his hands through his long hair, regarding Merl carefully, as if he could protect Merl with a long, lingering look. “Stay safe, Merl, and when you’re done, light a fire on the beach to signal us, and we will come.” Stormsurfer readied his oars. “And pick some mushrooms if you see any.”
“Mushrooms,” Merl muttered as Starturner lifted him out and set him down on the rock. “If you’ve just set me a quest, then it didn’t take, coz no words ended up between me ears.”
“No, Merl,” Sto
rmsurfer said. “I asked you a boon. It’s different.”
Merl had suspected it before, but just watching the giants row away told him he had new friends, one in particular, and that was a giant called Stormsurfer. Merl regretted his dad’s passing a lot, no matter who he was, but especially then. What would he have made of Merl having giants for friends? How proud would he have been?
New friends had been a rarity in Morgan’s Mount, mostly because new anything was as rare as dreamy moss. But since he left, he could count at least three more—on top os Stormsurfer. There was Desmelda, Gloomy Joe, and Portius. Frank didn’t count. He was a friend from Morgan Mount.
“Where are they going?” Billy asked.
“This task is not for them,” Merl told him. “It’s afraid of them.”
“It?” Desmelda tugged on Merl’s tunic. “What it? What’s afraid of him?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Merl told her. “This way.”
He walked toward the island’s green fringe, edging its border for a few hundred yards before turning and taking a path into the lush forest. It was more crowded than the woods he was used to. Unlike the forests around Morgan Mount, thick undergrowth sprung up all around. Merl it was because there were no pine needles to stifle it, and that was probably because there were no pine trees. It was humid too, and Merl’s hair stuck to his face. His back itched. He hated the Isle of One, but he liked it too. It didn’t stink of wood and tar.
“Don’t ferget to pick any mushrooms,” Merl called back, determined to gather some for Stormsurfer.
Frank called from behind. “Wait, Merl, just hang on. Are you sure this is the way?”
It was a good question. “Sure it is. I can feel it,” Merl lied. He could feel something, but whether it was the right way was another thing.
The island’s fear had lessened as soon as the giants had rowed away, and now its consciousness pulled at him and drew Merl inland. It pressed at his mind, testing him with probing enquiries, but then passed into a part of his mind that was closed to him, and so whether he passed its subtle tests or not, he had no clue. All he understood was that he was getting more and more tired.
