Tales of Arilland

by Alethea Kontis

  He picked her up and carried her to a place that hid her from the sky and set her somewhere softer than the deck. She liked this place and this man who now worshipped her. He had given her a gift, and now he would take care of her. If only there was a way she could tell him why she was there. She was sure he would help her. Perhaps he could see into her heart and just know.

  The man removed his shirt, and she relaxed even more. He wanted to put her at ease. By looking like her, he would make her feel like she belonged. He took off the rest of his clothes and came up beside her. He patted her head, ran his hands down her hair. He touched her breasts, her belly and her legs. Still sensitive, she brushed his hand away. He put it back. She tried to push it away again, but he was stronger. She frowned. He smiled all those flat teeth at her once more. She wondered if she might have been mistaken. He moaned, parted her knees and entered her.

  The misery she had felt before was nothing compared to this anguish. She inhaled the excruciating air and screamed a hoarse cry. She clawed at him, pushed at his weight on top of her, but she could not move him. Agony ripped her body apart again. A tingling sensation washed over her and the light in her eyes began to dim. Somewhere in that darkness, through the pain, she could feel his heartbeat. The emptiness in her cried out. He had something she needed.

  She reached up, pulled him to her, and sunk her pointed teeth deep into the skin of his neck. She drank him down, consuming his soul, filling the barren places inside her. He collapsed on top of her and still she drank, until there was nothing left.

  The door burst open and the hairy man entered. He pulled the naked man off of her. He could tell what the man had done from the blood between her legs. He could tell what she had done from the blood she now licked from her lips.

  “Siren,” he whispered.

  She gasped. In her brain there was an avalanche.

  Words flooded her, images and thoughts, smells and sounds. Knowledge. She cried out again and slapped her palms to her head. She had taken the man’s soul, and his life right along with it. She watched as the shafts of her golden hair turned deep red, filled with the captain’s blood.

  The first mate had named her. He knew what she was. She was death, the shark, the thing to be afraid of. She lured men to their graves with her beauty.

  In one swift motion he pulled the knife from his belt. She did not flinch as he approached her. There was nothing left to fear.

  The knife swept down and split the captain’s throat open, hiding the teethmarks in the cut. He stared deep into her eyes as he pulled a large ruby ring off the dead man’s finger and put it on his own. The knife, streaked with what little crimson was left in the captain’s body, he brandished at the crowd of men gathered at the door.

  “Eddie Lawless, what’s goin’ on?” the man in front asked. The men behind him whispered low, words like “magic” and “evil” and “witch” catching in her ears.

  “It’s Lawson, Cooky,” the hairy man responded. “Cap’n Lawson. An’ don’t ye forget it.”

  “Yessir,” the men mumbled. “Yessir, Cap’n.”

  “Leave me,” Lawson ordered.

  “But sir, what about Cap’n—”

  “I am the cap’n,” he told them. “Ye can collect the carcass later. Leave me now.” He slammed the door in their faces.

  The mattress shifted under his weight as he sat down across from her. She did not want to look at him, concentrating instead on the ends of her new hair and the line across the dead man’s throat.

  Lawson shoved the body onto the floor. “Siren.”

  She looked up.

  “So. Ye can understand me then.”

  She nodded once.

  “Good.” He pulled the sheet down and wiped his knife blade with it. “Understand this. I know what ye are, what ye need and what ye do. If ye do exactly as I tell ye, I won’t kill ye.”

  If she had known how to laugh, she would have. It was unsettling. She knew what laughter was, what caused it and why someone did it, but she didn’t have the slightest idea of how to make her body perform such a feat. It was the same with the words – she could understand them, but she couldn’t get her tongue around them and speak back. She would have laughed at the thought of this man killing her, for she would have welcomed death. But there was one task she meant to accomplish before that happened. She had to find her lover.

  She nodded her head once more.

  “Excellent.” He left the bed and went to open a trunk on the other side of the room. He rummaged through it for a moment, and then tossed a bundle of burgundy material into her lap. She stared at it, marveling in the slight difference between it and the color of her hair. She reached out and stroked its softness, drawing patterns on it with her finger.

  His chuckle brought her out of her state. “Ye ‘ave no idea what to do with it, do ye?” He took her by the hand and gently eased her off the bed. “Come on, stand up.”

  She placed one foot flat on the floor, then the other. Then she pushed up with all her might, locking her knees and propelling herself forward into him.

  He caught her before she hit the floor. “Whoa. Easy. Ye ‘ave to get yer sea legs.” He helped her balance enough to stay upright. Surprisingly her feet held her without too much trouble.

  “Now,” he said, grabbing the bundle off the bed, “ye’re lucky I ‘ave a daughter an’ I’m used to doin’ this.” He spun her around so that she faced the wall. “Six years ago I only knew ‘ow to undress a woman.” He pulled her hands up above her head and eased the material down around her. He moved her hair to one side so he could button up the back.

  “There.” He turned her back around. “It’s a bit large an’ it’ll probably be a tad warm. But it’ll keep the sun off ye, and the...my...men away from temptation.” He looked her up and down. “Not that they’ll need much warnin’, mind. But ye get enough rum into a man…well…stranger things ‘ave ‘appened.”

  He looked down at the former captain’s body. “Ye won’t need to…eat…again for a while then?”

  She shook her head.

  “Right. Best if ye only do it when I tell ye.” He shoved the knife back into his belt.

  Her eyes widened.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he chuckled. “Ye’re aboard a pirate ship, darlin’. If there’s one thing we’ve always got more than our share of, it’s blood.”

  He wasn’t wrong.

  They encountered a ship three days later. There were blasts from cannons spread amidst the cries of men. She lost her footing when the ship lurched sideways, hooks pulling the losing ship close enough so that men might cross over. She peeked through the windows at the smoke of the guns, swords clashing as the blood flew.

  Lawson came back to her room when the battle had died down. He opened the door and threw a man down at her feet. His clothes were ripped and his face was a bloody mess. Gray eyes looked up at her from the red-stained face and filled with terror.

  “No…oh, God, no” were the last words he spoke.

  His fear was intoxicating.

  She closed her eyes when she was finished and let the magic wash over her. It wasn’t just the blood she craved; it was everything. She needed the senses and the feelings, the emotions and the pain, the good and the bad. She needed his life, his soul.

  Rejuvenated, she tossed her hair back and peered up at Lawson. He cupped her cheek and wiped a spot of blood away from the corner of her mouth. “There’s my girl.” He threw open the door and kicked the man’s body over the threshold. “There’s yer cap’n, men,” he bellowed. “Seems ‘e got into a spot of trouble. Any of ye want the same trouble, just cross me.”

  Crews were mixed and booty was swapped, and then they were off in search of the next victim.

  The second ship they burned. It was spectacular. She ran to the railing and held her hand out to the beautiful, live thing that danced on the sea as it consumed sails and timbers and bodies alike. She had seen candles and lamps, but this was a beast, wild and hot and bright as the su
n. Hands grabbed at her clothes to keep her from falling over the rail, and they pinned her down when the magazine finally exploded, taking the rest of that ship’s crew with it.

  On the third one, she found him.

  The battle this time was a long one, and by the time Lawson brought her the captain of the other ship, he was half dead. She drank him anyway. And somewhere in the memories of this man was the someone she had been looking for.

  She gasped when his face came to her. She drew back, her teeth disengaging from her meal, blood running down her chin and staining her dress. This man knew her lover. Not well, but he knew him. She tried to make sense of the jumble of images that flowed through her, but nothing connected. She searched his body for a sign, a hint, something. She found it on the smallest ring he wore, a gold band stamped with the crest she had traced over and over on the beach that day.

  When Lawson returned, she pointed at herself and then held up the ring. He smiled and patted her on the head. “O’course ye can keep it, darlin’. Ye can ‘ave all the trinkets yer little ‘eart desires.”

  He didn’t understand. How would she make him understand? She slid the ring over her red-tipped thumb. She would save it until she thought of a way.

  The fourth ship was a long time coming.

  She spent most of that time at the bow of the ship. The crew didn’t grumble much about having a woman on deck. Most of them apparently didn’t consider her a woman. Lawson made it plain that he enjoyed having her there. Word was getting around about Bloody Captain Lawson and the Siren. They struck fear in the hearts of men and made quite a profit as a result, so if anyone had disagreements, no one made mention of them.

  Lawson called her their figurehead. It was an apt description, based on what she had seen on the prows of other ships. She would lean against the rail, arms spread, red hair trailing behind her in the breeze. She liked letting the wind slip through her fingers. It reminded her of home. The currents of air were not that different from the currents of water. Men did not have the freedom of movement that her kind enjoyed, but the principles were the same. They walked among it, breathed it in, let it give them life. It brought sounds and smells to them. They did not see it or think to taste it, but it was always there in them, touching them, surrounding them.

  She stood there, day after day, until the salt encrusted her lips and her hair was a burnished orange. What little red appeared in the tips of her fingers had been burned there by the sun. The men avoided her and prayed hard for another ship. They tread lightly around the captain. No one wanted to be the Siren’s next meal.

  Lawson finally bade her return to the stateroom, and she was too weak to disobey. The table was covered in maps and charts. She walked past them on the way to the bed and glanced down at the area Lawson was plotting. A symbol caught her eye, and she jumped back. She waved at Lawson. She pointed to herself, and to the ring around her thumb. She pointed to herself, and to the same symbol down on the map.

  “There?” he asked her. “Ye want to go there? Why?”

  She could not answer, so she just kept pointing to herself and the map.

  “That’s ‘ome,” Lawson told her. “Where Molly is. I promised never to go back until I ‘ad a ship full o’riches. She deserves no less.” He shook his head. “No, darlin’, we can’t go there. Not yet.”

  Frustrated, she closed her eyes. Disjointed thought flashes skipped through her mind. She tried to remember the man with the ring, tried to bring his soul to the surface. But it had been so long, and she was so weary…and there was a port…

  Her eyes snapped open. She moved her finger on the map to an island just off the coast of the country bearing her lover’s symbol. She pointed at Lawson, and then stamped her finger back down on the map.

  “There? What’s there?”

  She threw her hands up in exasperation and scanned the room. She held up the medallion of her necklace to him.

  “Gold?”

  She nodded and kept searching. She found his knife on the table, picked it up, and then shook her head.

  “Swords?”

  She shook her head again.

  “This?” He removed the pistol from his belt and held it out to her. She nodded emphatically.

  He cocked his head and grinned. “Siren, if ye’re right about this, I’ll take ye anywhere in the world.” He strode out of the room and hollered to his first mate. “Hard to port, matey!”

  “Cap’n?” the first mate asked.

  Lawson hooked his thumbs in his belt. “We’re goin’ ‘ome.”

  The greatest tale of Bloody Lawson and the Siren is the Massacre at Windy Port. Legend has it that their ship, cloaked in dark magic, slipped by the watchmen unnoticed. Once docked the crew cut a gruesome swath through the town, led by Lawson and his Sea Witch. Lawson brandished a rapier in one hand, a pistol in the other. The Siren, dressed in fine burgundy velvet, marched through town before him, seducing men to their grisly deaths. Her eyes were as black and cold as a shark’s, her hair a mass of ebony fire waving about her. They left none living in their wake, took what they wanted and stole back into the night as invisibly as they had arrived.

  Like most legends, not a word of it was true.

  They sailed into Windy Port under a royal flag they had appropriated from a previous hunt. They docked without incident, the crew scattering to the winds to pick up intelligence, hefty bar tabs, and the occasional whore.

  The moment Lawson set her down on the dock, she fell. The hollowness inside her throbbed. She could not believe anything could have been so still as land. There was no life in it. The air was not strong enough to keep it fluid. It was rock. Still, empty, dead rock. She was but a shell, a humble reconstruction of the world upon which man walked every single day. How did they survive without a connection? She hugged her stomach, doubled up and gagged, only emptiness escaping her dry heaves.

  “You okay, honey? Take it easy. It’ll pass soon.”

  The words spoken to her had a cadence she had never heard before, and it surprised her so much she didn’t understand them at first. The hands that pulled her hair back away from her face were small and delicate. The woman had on a black dress. Her hair was pinned up on her head and decorated with shiny black beads. She smelled…soft and nice. And she was gentle when she accepted the Siren’s embrace.

  “It’s all right,” the woman said as she patted her back. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  She didn’t scream when pointed teeth pierced her flesh.

  Everything was going to be just fine.

  Suddenly conscious of her appearance, she pulled her dress over her head and began tearing at the woman’s clothes. Lawson knelt beside her and motioned for his men to surround them so as not to draw attention to the scene. “Discovered vanity, ‘ave we?” he chuckled as he helped her undress the woman’s corpse. Once she had changed, the men weighted the body and rolled it into the ocean.

  Lawson helped her stand. He tossed a dark cloak about her and covered her hair with its hood. She was glad he didn’t force her to wear shoes—it was hard enough enduring this much separation from the water. She didn’t know how much more she would be able to bear.

  The inn they went to almost pushed her sanity over the edge from sensory overload. The room was filled with people of all shapes and sizes. There were smells from the food, the ale, the dogs in front of the fire, the fire itself. Men and women talked and shouted and joked and laughed. A scrawny youth crawled up beside the dogs at one point and sang for his supper. She was mesmerized. These were so different from the songs of the water, the flash of fish in the currents, the mating of whales in the deep. Some were slow and soft; some were fast and loud. And when the rest of the room joined in, she clapped her hands in merriment.

  The crew dropped in one by one to report and consult with Lawson throughout the night. There were nods and low whispers. She watched as papers were signed and money changed hands. Thus Bloody Lawson conquered Windy Port, without ever leaving his seat. When
the festivities ended he paid for his meal, tipped heavily and left, dragging his cloaked companion behind him. It was the sailors and merchants that returned to their vessels the next morning and found them empty or missing who took their anger out on the citizens of the port. Lawson and his crew were miles away before the massacre even began. Bloody Lawson and the Siren were never heard from again.

  Several months later, Edward Malcolm opened a waterfront inn in the capitol city named The Sea Lass. He purchased the house next door as well. It had a master suite and a nursery and a very large kitchen that could be used to supplement the inn’s in case of overflow. One of the rooms in the house had a door with seven locks. They were installed the day before Molly’s return from school.

  Molly’s homecoming was a grand event. Lawson, now called Edward, had covered every flat surface in the house with sweets and cakes and flowers. He had hired a seamstress to take Molly’s measurements for a whole new wardrobe, the only one that didn’t seem overly preoccupied with the Prince’s upcoming wedding. Paper-wrapped packages of all sized littered the largest of the tables. A doll and a rose waited on the chair for his princess.

  The Siren sat on a stool in the corner, cut off from the sun and the earth, the water and wind. She waned as she watched the miniature cherub-faced human run through the door to embrace her father. Her mop of dark brown curls disappeared in her father’s coat as she hugged him, right before he picked her up and twirled her around the room. There was something about this strange apparition, this child, and she could not decide what it was.

  Molly giggled as she snuggled her doll. She reached out to the rose.

  “Be careful,” her father warned her.

  “Yes, Papa,” she said smartly. “I will watch for the pricklies and the thornies.” She buried her nose in the crimson petals and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, Molly saw the Siren there in the shadows.