“You should feed your stomach then, not deny it. And as far as unsealing the surrounding cargo, I wouldn’t dream of it.” X’on’s face was solemn. “These are their rations, to be portioned out by the cook and his galley. I made arrangements with the captain in regards to the odd hours we’ll be keeping. There should be some kind of meal waiting for us, I assure you.”
There wasn’t.
The cook, a boorish Redcap with beady eyes and a sullen, wiry frame called Windht, groused and growled about kitchen hours while X’on attempted to cajole and Ven just leaned against the galley’s wall, watching and trying not to gag on the stale yellowy-gray scent of dead fish and flour. If this is a sign of the journey to come, we’ll never make it out of the harbor.
After a prodigious amount of wheedling, X’on managed to earn them some leftover onion soup and a heel of bread. Even by the standards of rationing for a long sea journey, it was mean fare.
“Arrangements with the captain, huh?” Ven needled, when they had returned to their compartment. He dipped his bread into the soup, slurped it down. “I have a feeling you got taken.”
“Nonsense,” X’on said. He was chewing slowly, trying to make his meager portion last. “I’m sure this was a singular miscommunication, and tomorrow night all will be well.”
It wasn’t.
After the third night of such mistreatment, X’on at last conceded that Ven was probably right, that the captain had made no such provision to feed them, and most likely had never planned too. If he had been in better spirits, Ven would have gloated. As it stood, he poked in distaste at the runny poached eggs he'd been given and just nodded.
*
When he wasn’t jousting for his nightly meals, Ven tried to make the best of a bad situation by walking the decks, attempting to conquer his fear of the boundless abyss that surrounded them by getting to know the crew. That turned out to be a fruitless endeavor, since everyone who was up at the hours he kept were there to do a job, not chat with unwelcome passengers. After a few nights of one-sided conversations and occasional trips to the railing to heave when the ship got too unsteady, he gave up and stayed in his quarters. Where he devoted every waking moment to thinking of new ways to screw with that lumpy-arsed obstinate cook.
X’on, who had taken to meditating when he wasn’t eating, did not appear thrilled with Ven’s machinations.
“He’s just trying to do his job,” X’on argued.
“He’s just trying to be a dick!” Ven countered.
“So your brilliant retort is to be a bigger one?”
Ven shrugged. “What the cold hell else have I got to do?”
X’on sighed, closed his eyes, breathed deep. “You could try meditating. It would do wonders for your disposition.”
Ven let that one slide, and headed off to the galley.
What followed was three days of snarky comments, barely concealed lewd gestures, and off–color remarks about redcaps and their questionable parentage. Ven found himself delighting in first the indignation, then growing rage he detected in the eyes of the one he had come to see as his tormentor. Never mind that it was probably the captain’s negligence that had caused all this, and that it was a pathetic, churlish way to pass the time. It was better than staying cooped up in his cabin.
Chapter 28
There was a full moon and almost no wind the night Windht lost his shit and came at Ven with a bastard sword.
To be fair, Ven had been the one to draw first. Or, more accurately, he had been flipping a carving knife around in his hands and making note of the fine eateries he’d discovered in his travels--even the most dire of which had provided more and better cuisine than anything he’d seen here--when the blade caught against the edge of the table he was lounging on, sprang out and forward, and embedded itself a hair’s breadth from the cook’s foot.
“Oh, hey, sorry about that,” Ven said, though the timbre of his voice gave the lie to that statement.
The toned gray slab just stared at him for a heartbeat before saying, with an inflection devoid of malice, “Enough. I will kill you now.”
Then he pulled a bastard sword, chipped and dulled from long use and short attention, from under his counter and stalked towards Ven, who was already scrambling off the buffet.
“Hey!” he said, drawing his own sword. He didn’t want to use it, but he wanted to defend himself if necessary. “I said I was sorry! Calm down, I’ll just head back to my bunk, okay?”
“Not okay,” Windht said, his voice and his stride smooth and solid as the tide. “Not sorry. You use too many words. Think you are clever. You are wasteful. I will kill you now.”
“Yeah? Well you’re a lousy cook!” Oh yeah, super clever, that’s me.
Then the bastard sword was swinging towards him, and he threw his own weapon up to meet it. The clang of steel on dwarvish steel rang through the galley, setting Ven’s teeth on edge. His arm shuddered under the impact, but it held. Had his blade been anything less that dwarven forged, it would have shattered.
What the redcap lacked in speed it more than compensated for in sheer strength. Ven countered each of the blows with almost time to spare, but after only a few swings, his arms were beginning to feel leaden and less responsive. He couldn’t keep this up, and he certainly didn’t want to take a swing of his own; verbal assault was one thing, but all-out physical attacks? Windht was a jerk, sure, but he hadn’t earned that kind of reprisal.
Besides, what if I hit him and don’t deal a mortal wound? How pissed will he be then?
“What the cold hell, can’t you take a joke? Your poached eggs certainly seemed like one--poached eggs aren't supposed to run!” Ven was getting desperate. His arms were starting to burn, he couldn’t keep up a defense much longer. And Windht wasn’t joking, every blow he struck was intended for murder.
“So many empty words,” Windht said. His voice hadn’t raised a notch the entire conversation, not had the exertion of swordplay dulled it. “So much wasted breath. I will kill you, save your words for someone more deserving.”
Ven blocked another swing (too close that one got too close) and stuttered out, “Or, hey, new idea, you let me go and I just shut up and fish for the rest of the trip?”
“No.” The finality of the response told Ven that he really wasn’t talking his way out of this one; that this time, maybe his mouth had finally taken him too far. He was considering just laying down his sword and falling to the redcap’s mercy--this wasn’t a fight, it was a battle of attrition, and there was no way he could compete with the bigger creature’s stamina--when the door of the galley burst open and Captain Drednam strode in, death in his eyes and a low growl rumbling in his throat. He took a moment to size up the situation, pointed at Ven, and snarled, “You. My cabin. Now.”
*
For the first time since Ven had met him, Captain Drednam wasn’t laughing. He found this more worrying than he was prepared to admit.
The captain stared at him across a small timbered desk, its surface covered in maps, compasses, ink bottles, and meticulously handwritten notes. The delicate nature of the captain’s scripting contrasted so completely with the rest of his demeanor that Ven had to swallow a snicker, lest it escape and do even more damage.
“You lads,” Drednam said after a moment’s study, “did no’ pay enough fah me to allow yeh to distress me crew in such a mannah.”
Ven bit back a complaint and said nothing. Maybe Windht’s lesson had made an impact after all.
“If theh was a breakdown in communication, yeh should have brought tha mattah ta me,” he continued. “I tol’ ye and yer mate that yeh’d be taken care of, an’ I mean’ it. But me cour’esy only exten’s so fah. Me ship--me crew--they’e me life’s blood. And I will nay tolerate threats... ” he held up a finger as Ven opened his beak “…real or imagined, to any one of them. Understood, mate?”
Ven swallowed some sarcasm, a couple of pejoratives and a rather detailed description of just where the Captain could shove said shi
p and crewmen, and replied, “Sure.”
“Okay.” Drednam bared his teeth in a familiar, feral smile. “Ye’ll be confined to quar’ers fer the remainder of yer stay. We’ll ‘ave yer meals brought to ye and the biggun by a cabin boy. Keep out from undah foot, and we migh’ even see about a partial refund, eh?” He laughed at his own jest.
“Dismissed,” he finished, when it was clear Ven didn’t intend to join him.
*
“You’ll wear a trench in the floor if you keep that up,” X’on mused from his bunk. His eyes were still closed, his legs folded underneath him. A creature at one with the universe.
Ven stopped pacing long enough to toss off an angry glare that, of course, had no impact whatsoever.
“I’m just…uncomfortable,” he admitted through gritted beak. “I don’t like…I’ve never been good in small spaces.”
“Thalassophobic and claustrophobic,” X’on sighed. “This may not have been my best idea.”
“You think?” Ven snapped. He stopped pacing, rubbed his eyes with thumb and index talon. He took a deep breath. “I’m not claustrophobic,” he muttered. “But being restricted to a single room, it feels like, it feels like I’m in a cage.”
“Or a prison cell?” X’on asked quietly.
“Never been in prison, so I wouldn’t know,” Ven sighed. Not for real. Dungeons, torture rooms, holding cells, yeah. More than my fair share. But I've never done time. “But before Jakat…before Uncle Michi relaxed around me, I kind of… I was basically in a… kennel, for lack of a better word. Anyway, being told I can’t leave a room stresses me out. Makes it hard for me to think, screws with my stomach…. Never mind, I’m sure this isn’t making any sense to you.”
X’on unfolded himself and stood before Ven, his eyes awash in sincerity…and something else.
“It certainly does,” X’on said. “And I for one have had enough of this. The captain took our good gold and had treated both of us with discourtesy bordering on disrespect. I think I shall go have a word with hi--”
But X’on was cut off mid-diatribe as a sudden thunderclap echoed through the ship and the deck fell away beneath them.
Chapter 29
Dazed, one foot on the floor as he knew it and one on the wall angled beneath him, Ven tried to stand up and get his bearings. Boxes and barrels rolled cracked and ruptured around them, their contents decorating the space in foul-smelling nonchalance.
“What… the cold hell?” he managed.
X’on was already up, strolling serpentine towards the door to their quarters, leaving a wake of detritus as he charged forward. “We hit something!” he screamed, and the sound of rending metal and snapping wood permeated the air. “Or more accurately, I believe something hit us!”
Ven jogged behind on unsteady legs, grabbing his sword as he made his way to the door. He lost X’on in a group of sailors who charged from the sleeping quarters below up to the top deck, but found him again just in time to watch him dive away from what appeared to be a flaccid tree trunk. After half a heartbeat, Ven realized it was a tentacle.
Everyone on deck was drenched through in seconds. Freezing water soaked them all, weighting their clothes. Ven thought the beast had attacked during some freak thunderstorm; he realized a moment later the downpour was caused by the ocean spray the monster kicked up as it tried to pull their ship into the depths.
Drednam rushed up behind Ven, flourishing a cutlass in the air and uttering a reedy, high-pitched cackle. “Thought I tol’ you to stay in yer quarters, mate!” he shrieked, then barked out a laugh. It was manic, demented, the laugh of someone whose sanity had snapped like a switch in a whirlwind. “Oh well, come on, join the fun, then! KRAKEEEEN!” He screeched out another titter, then threw himself at the next oversized appendage he saw.
Here be monsters, Ven thought grimly, drawing his sword for the second time that night. At least he tried to warn us.
Two crewmen, Vanarans by the look of them, were swept from the deck screaming into the ocean below. Ven charged the tentacle that pushed them off, running his blade deep into the creature’s mottled brown flesh, then hacked upwards, rending the limb open. A geyser of green-brown blood fountained out onto the deck, reeking of pale white calamari and rust. Something underneath them bellowed and shook the brig even harder. Ven jumped forward without thinking and grasped at the torn appendage, throwing all his weight into hanging from it, pulling it back towards the deck. It tore after a moment’s hesitation, and both he and the amputated muscle flopped unceremoniously to the careening deck. The injured limb rose into the air, an ocean of forest-colored blood mixing into the raining spray, and fell back into the sea. Ven crouched, trying to look on all sides for the next attack.
One down. If I don’t do anything else in this life, I took one down.
Up to that point, he’d been moderately successful at blocking out the screams, roars, and other such vocalizations from the crew. Now, however, when he needed it the most, his concentration was broken by the piercing, convulsive mirth of Captain Drednam above him. The captain was entwined in another of the kraken’s arms; he hovered in midair, hewing at it in a wild frenzy. As he was pulled below, his brayed laughter crumpling into a desperate howl just before he hit the water.
And suddenly, Windht was at Ven’s shoulder, his bastard word skewering the tentacle that was fast approaching Ven’s foreleg.
“Pay attention,” the redcap said. “Kill this now.” And he was up and over the railing, sword in his teeth, diving straight for the creature itself.
“Ven!” This time it was X’on. Ven looked up, towards the stern of the ship, when X’on was standing, waving his hands wildly--
When another tentacle, the largest Ven had yet seen, smashed into the deck before him. A cracking noise filled the world, and Ven fell forward, into the rigging, entangling himself in the thick, coarse ropes the crew used to command the sails, and he was falling again, the ship had broken in half and he was falling through, he was falling into the ocean, the ship was broken and he was falling, falling….
The water rose up to meet him with a crack. He kicked and struggled, and after what felt like an eternity of fear managed to paddle his way to the surface. He was still tangled in the ropes , but he was in luck; they were no longer attached to a mast, and while a tremendous weight themselves, they weren’t enough to drag him under. He dog paddled to a scrap of floating debris and tried to take a measure of his surroundings.
The ship was gone. Or at least, it would be; both halves were sinking without fanfare a few meters away from him. He couldn’t see anyone else. He called X’on’s name; no answer. To the west, he could see the kraken that had attacked them. It was silent and still, the ocean around it dyed greenish brown with its pulsing gore. Maybe that redcap bastard got to him. That thought brought a ragged, tired smile to his face. He turned to the east, opening his beak to shout for X’on again, and saw his death.
Oh no. Oh, Lathshia, no. Jakat… I’m so sorry.
He’d lost all track of time. It was too late.
The sun crested the horizon, bathing the ocean in rich, red ember. Ven closed his eyes, took his final breath, and fell asleep.
His stony form sank a moment later.
Part 6: Revelation Rag
Chapter 30
…he awoke, freezing, surrounded in darkness on all sides…
…trying to scream, water rushing into him, through him, gagging, choking…
…and pressure enormous pressure, crushing his chest…
…he had to be dead, am I dead? Is this my punishment?
To drown forever, for the water to erode his soul to nothing…
….
Awake (again)
How am I awake (how am I alive)
…weightless breathless (flying?)
(But my wings are broken I’m broken)
…he was limp, pendulous; cradled like a babe in arms
(I never knew my mom)
but cold, so cold….
&nbs
p; *
His back was hurting. His everything was hurting, but his back was complaining the loudest, so that’s what he noticed first. The second thing he noticed was that he couldn’t smell anything, and he wondered if his nose was somehow broken. The third thing was that he was, in fact, not dead.
After some practice and no small amount of effort, Ven opened his eyes.
There was a large fire crackling a few feet away, the blaze so intense it blurred his already murky vision. He appeared to be in some kind of cave. The fire’s smoke was pooling at the top, blackening the rough stone above them, before meandering out the entrance and into the sky outside. The flames that danced and leapt revealed other details with a painful lethargy: the cave’s floor was some kind of sand and shale mixture, but Ven himself was resting on a pile of damp cut grass. He’d been wrapped in a thick blanket was well; it was rough and scratchy, but offered an astonishing amount of comfort. He was pretty sure he heard the patter of raindrops just outside. As his vision cleared, he craned his neck, trying to get a better understanding of his surroundings--
--and looked straight into the face of a little pink thing with a shock of black hair and tiny, knobby little teeth that it was putting on display.
Ven wanted to jump up, to put himself in some kind of defensive position; he really did. What he managed was a polite groan. Several other small pink creatures, all wearing strange garments and speaking odd, high pitched gibberish to one another, began to crowd around him. They all looked vaguely like X’on, now that he could see them properly, only they were much smaller. And skinnier. And hairier.
As the strange beings chattered to each other, running their hands over Ven’s weakly protesting body, another ran in through the cave’s mouth. It was dragging along a very familiar, bedraggled figure by his overly large pinkie finger.
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