Sea of Two Suns

by Nicholas McAuliff

  Isaac felt cold. A cold rush ran to his belly like it had during the swim to the island after The Roc’s demise.

  McDaniel was smiling and he spoke as if he were conversing with the writer about an upcoming ball. “He shall be pleased,” he said. “And perhaps after that I will serve him Dupan’s head on a platter. Now you shall see what I have wrought. Not silver, I fear.”

  Isaac shook his head. “Think you I fear death, Irish? No. Nor did my brothers of the sea.”

  McDaniel spun abruptly, looking toward the sea and treading backward into the shallows. “Why were you left here?” he asked. “Where is Jacob the pirate and the silver haul?”

  A tentacle shot fast and silent from the water and had McDaniel wrapped up and lifted. Nothing else was seen from the sea: no finned mantle, eye nor arms dancing as they had in the dance of death that took the crew of The Roc.

  Miska barked hard and Isaac held him by the nape.

  The tentacle lifted McDaniel higher. He still grasped knife in hand, and his face swelled as he was pulled up and back.

  He dropped the blade. “No destiny,” he wheezed, even as his eyes distended.

  “And yet it is,” answered Isaac.

  Eholg slowly drew the Irish mercenary under the waves.

  Isaac felt his heart lift when he looked upon the schooner. “Alright,” he said. He looked to the sky. “Alright Miska!”

  At that instant, a nest of arms wrapped methodically about the small ship and in seconds rendered it to kindling and board and useless iron and mast.

  Isaac sank to his knees and watched the ruins disperse calmly atop the blue.

  Under the cover of night man and dog slept, Isaac feeling a constant hunger in his belly just a notch above starvation and thus that much worse. As he drifted into sleep Miska growled and the writer screamed and rolled and looked forward and back. The dog’s growl transitioned to barking toward where McDaniel had been taken to his wet grave.

  Small gleams of light appeared upon the shore. More and more and though his head was not seen, Eholg lifted coin and miniature statue and silver bar and pushed them back to the sand.

  “Enough!” the writer shouted at Miska.

  Finally the Newfoundland ceased its cries and they both watched until dawn as the silver of the sea was again replaced and scattered shoreside like a carpet of stars under the moon. The treasure was placed with order and care and at last the silver pillar, missing most of the gems, was thrown inland and landed dangerously close to the writer and dog, the latter of which resumed its bark.

  Silver piles again stood around the island as they had when the men sailed and anchored at its deathly port.

  XXXIII

  Dupan walked toward the trade post. Wind blowing in ghostly screams. Past the sentries who stepped aside, under the great moose horns which glowed about the braziers like an old stag god beckoning the Frenchman inside. Along void halls he walked flanked by candles flickering from hourglass shaped lamps, red felt edging the walls, carpets lining the wooden floors red too. He approached the chamber which was guarded by none.

  He knocked on the dual doors.

  “Enter Dupan,” came a voice.

  He opened the doors and there stood the Ordained wearing white trousers and a cotton shirt, no hat nor furs adorned him and in his hands he fiddled with the long rapier once wielded by the goliath Frenchmen.

  “Sir!” said Dupan.

  “Word at last from New Fort Chimo,” said the Ordained. “North even of here my scouts were more use than you it seems.”

  “Word sir?”

  “Yes, Dupan, that is what I said,” said the Ordained. And he spun and speared Dupan with a long thrust, the Jesuit’s tippy toes extending and sliding on the polished tile like a ballerina of death.

  The goliath Frenchman stumbled back and grasped the long blade two handed but did not fall. “Sir,” he said.

  The Ordained downed drink from a silver goblet sitting upon his desk. “McDaniel has not returned, meaning he is likely dead,” he said. “Nor have any who set sail, not the witch Turner nor the degenerate pirate and Mexican. And returned they should have after these months at sea. Which means they most likely have!”

  “Forgive me sir,” Dupan replied in a whisper. He slid down the wall and looked through the porthole as he breathed hard.

  “No, no, my son,” said the Ordained. “Do not backtrack now.”

  “They may yet have been taken by the sea,” whispered Dupan.

  The Ordained shook his head and pulled out the blade and following was a waterfall of blood soon pooling on the tiled floor.

  “Remember you when we would sit on the banks of the Rhine, and you listened so intently before the word of God?” asked the Ordained as he wiped the blade clean. “You were just a boy. Before we came to our New World.

  “I remember father. They may have become ice locked, father. They may-”

  “I can feel these things,” said the Ordained. “And in my bones I feel God coming, his wrath with him. For they will bring the silver back and now all will go to their beck and call. Now Fur and Pine hath more enemies than friends.”

  “Forgive me father.”

  “No my son. Shame that you were not better made. These things men do not decide, nor their fathers. Go now to his will, whatever that may be for you.”

  Dupan gasped and closed his eyes.

  The Ordained sighed and smoothly slid the rapier into Dupan’s throat, in and out, and the black bearded giant fell sideways and still as his eyes fell back open.

  “Now,” said the Ordained. “On to our next play. Lord above, show me the way,” he said.

  And with a cotton cloth he wiped the blade clean once more and placed it on his desk and leaned onto the windowsill peering at the nothingness outside, where dead leaves scattered in the wind and the last lingering candle of the adjacent barracks extinguished to nothingness too.

  Whatever time there was seemed to merge with the and unforgiving crashing tides. Months seemed more easily distinguishable by the stars’ alignment in the sky, that which Isaac had learned to discern before doom befell the crew. The chill of the air was frigid but subtle layers of a softer chill hinted at coming summer.

  Diablo Verano thought Isaac.

  Diablo Verano and the frozen sea, where summer typically had no bearing.

  Isaac surveyed the beautiful treasure and picked up a coin. “No tarnish,” he whispered.

  He saw the outline of the men fade from their last night together before they had set sail. Each imprint the writer tried to preserve and wailed in despair as finally despite his efforts they meshed again to loose sand and scattered driftwood until the memory of life and warmth was too stolen from the writer by only nature itself and thus there was no enemy to wail at but he did anyway. He saw a bizarre northern sapling now more robust than it has been when they had first landed.

  The remains of Jerimiah washed now onto the sand and the Radial and Ulna bones sat there until Miska came happily inland with them both between his teeth.

  The dog munched at the bones until they broke apart and white flakes fell to the sand.

  Isaac grimaced and turned his head and heaved though nothing voided from his gut. “Yahweh if you still gaze upon this world take me from it,” he said.

  Miska trotted to the writer and set his black bulbous wet head on the man’s lap, pieces of white bone dropping from his fur.

  Isaac shoved the dog and slapped its face and when it tried to stumble up again he kicked it and it yelped hard. Finally the beast shied away and circled for a few moments before sighing and bedding down into the sand.

  Isaac awoke to a searing itching and he grasped the back of his neck. It was swollen and hot to the touch. He brushed away debris and on the ground were raised bumps almost fleshy to the touch, the indent of those bumps in the back of his neck.

  He rose and scanned the island far as his eyesight allowed from the risen dune. The outline of the dog’s sleeping place remained but the beast
was nowhere to be seen.

  “Miska!” Miska!”

  Isaac descended the dune and circled the island until beads of sweat formed on his head despite the cold.

  He cupped his hands and bellowed deeply, calling for the beast. At last when he neared the rune stone there was a black mass floating out to sea, too far to wade to yet close enough to see the dog and soon he heard him whimpering, sideways Miska floated atop the sea but did not kick or paddle.

  “Miska!” yelled the writer and he ran out to the tide and loosed his shirt and threw it behind him but it simply sailed in the wind farther seaward.

  The dog whimpered in response as two tentacles rose, their tips pink fleshy spears. One wrapped the animal’s hind quarters and Miska let out a rising wine. The other wrapped around the dog’s head until no more sound came from the loyal beast.

  Isaac wailed and dove headfirst into the sea and swam towards the madness as the tentacles retracted and Miska soon disappeared into the deep blue.

  Isaac’s brain went black and though fear remained something else was dominant in that instant. “Damn you!” he screamed. “Fucking have me!”

  He swam to where Miska had been and as he approached Eholg revealed itself in full bloom rising out of the sea, dwarfing the writer underneath him and showering him with dripping seawater and salt and brine.

  “End it!” he screamed in a twisted scream. “End it!”

  The thing had deep lacerations all about its head. A mapping of scars and punctures. One tentacle was missing the very tip and a fin on the mantle was missing its pointed end to where a crust had grown over.

  Eholg peered down at the writer who though shirtless still wore the captain’s aquamarine around his neck. It glinted under the morning sun; an aqua-turquoise glint as if it were a crystallized piece of the ocean itself.

  The writer stared at the thing and felt not fear but a blinding wrath though it was impotent in the face of the squid.

  “Do it!” Isaac screamed.

  Its monstrous head was exposed more than it had been thus far. Eholg leaned down and into the writer so that the monster’s good eye shadowed Isaac’s own head. The fetid stink of the primordial sea assailed the writer’s nostrils.

  It turned its head and the broken spear came into view.

  “Aye you want it out!” the writer yelled.

  And the one open eye blinked and looked through Isaac. In the eye sat hate and intelligence and a still intent driving those two things. With an arm the squid wrapped about the butt of the harpoon and pulled yet even such it would not wrench from the swollen closed flesh where a giant eye had been before being extinguished by the giant Cree.

  The writer grasped the splintered butt of Nukilik’s harpoon, feeling the wet slime of Eholg’s arm as it retracted. The writer pushed it inwards and Eholg grew red as a rose in bloom and the squids mantle shook and quivered.

  Then the arms embraced Isaac and he was lifted high. The monster’s entire body trembled and fluctuated red and pink and it held the writer there and squeezed enough to take the breath from Isaac and the writer felt one, two ribs pop and his mouth opened in a silent scream.

  Holding writer up high Eholg descended and jetted back towards the island and placed the man gently on the shore.

  The embrace was released. One lingering tentacle wrapped around Isaac’s forearm and gradually tightened until the bone splintered and then immediately it loosed and was gone as the writer shrieked and rolled on the sand under the ever-brightening sun.

  As the writer passed out he heard a blaring horn, like an earthquake and thunder at once, beyond rage or wrath. He drifted to unconsciousness and came to through the day, rolling on the sand and clutching his arm which though broken was still in one piece and no bone penetrated the flesh. A precise and tempered and simple fracture.

  As the early moon relieved the sun’s watch Isaac dreamed of golden angels like balls of light descending from that moon and blowing that terrible horn. A sound that no man should hear. Later as cold stiffened his body and his arm pulsed with red torment no angels came from the heavens. No Valkyries with sparkling silver helmets to lift him upwards nor any sun gods riding golden chariots to scoop him up and save him from the eternal wrath of all that surrounded him both alive and dead.

  Under the deeper moon, the writer fashioned a rustic sling from shreds of sailcloth as tears fell to the sand. He wore shredded and wet breeches and layered himself with whatever cloth he had left. He stilled himself under the lean-to and tended the fire and shivered and prayed that the morning would never come, just this once that he could best the sun and outwit its cycle.

  As his eyes closed he felt a kinship grow with the monster Chief Panuk called Eholg. A twisted kinship based in loathing and mutual curiosity. At least it was alive. At least it was aware, like him and of him. Not like the maddening sea and sky. They were eternal and too vast to grasp in their entirety.

  XXXIV

  There was no story to be told now. No letter to be sent by stagecoach or rail, no newspapers to be printed telling the tales of wonders afar or economic troubles of a dying trade. There was just the ocean and the frozen air and the sand about Isaac, and the monster that was his only living companion.

  The writer wondered if the thing heard his cries in the night and he pondered if giving his nemesis relief would somehow beget his own.

  He walked again to the waterline where Miska had met his fate. He scooped up a fistful of coins and hurled them at the sea with a growl but they fell pathetically short and sank. His feet wettened and he remembered the same constant wet from when he almost lost those feet back on The Roc. This time though whatever pain there be was dwarfed by the torment of his mind and soul that had enveloped his existence.

  He felt the pangs of surrender behind his hollow eyes but felt no sadness nor regret nor happiness like the masquerading captain Hildale seemingly had. King of his own deathly frozen island permitted such an existence only by the grace of a greater entity.

  Before the writer had need to swim, he felt a rising trembling behind him and beneath him. The sea started to ripple and he spun back. The island moved and rose and the tiny trees started to shake and from them the remaining yellow fruits fell to the sandy deck.

  Isaac plodded back toward the island and by then it was a full-on earthquake such that even the sea trembled furiously around it. He fell to the sand and covered his ears as another roar came about, the great horn sounding as an angelic trumpet might.

  He rose and raced to the top of the dune and braced himself on the lean-to but that also came undone. A lone spring bubbled sideways and crumbled in on itself. He looked beneath him and the sea was far under him as if he were atop a massive frigate. Higher and higher the island rose and he sprinted to the edge of the dune and screamed again and covered his ears as another roar was let out, yet the writer’s scream was overshadowed completely.

  He remembered Julius’s proclamation of the eye and the moving ship for which Jerimiah was blamed: a senile old alcoholic not of sound enough mind to properly drop anchor. He remembered the words of the hunter: Men will prevail, whether by sea or sand. And at last he remembered the laugh of his fat companion from the messenger and the smells of hot corn and hot breads and the warmth of his solitary life in his apartment overlooking Bleeker Street.

  As the monolith turtle that was the island opened its beak again no sound thrust out of it. Honey-colored eyes the size of ships. They blinked rapidly and stilled. Its gargantuan stony beak was still ajar as its head extended far outward so that a leathery neck allowed it to look around.

  The ocean raced by the writer faster than that of which any ship could accomplish, and the sensation was like the old railway back in Boston that had carried the men over metal and under the power of steam.

  The writer saw the pink of Eholg below him. Now but a speck in the face of the titan around which it swam and served and guarded.

  The squid seemed to swim with joy and at one moment propelled itself
out of the water. A pink nest of tentacles and arms all folded like an aquatic writhing arachnid and then down again.

  A symphony of monsters and the sea.

  Isaac Isaacson sat down cross legged and looked at the sky, clouds whisking by. He thought again to Bleeker Street, thought again to home and felt something beyond fear as he submitted to the will of the thing upon that which he sat. Before he accepted that he remembered last the crystalline whale oil lamp near her divan, that which shone for seven years but would never again.