Caesar drove the heel of his boot into the doppelganger’s chest. The creature flew backward from the tremendous force, landing — with a loud splash — several yards from the dock.
Hawkins turned on his heels and ran, but Caesar was on him.
A quick slash across the back of Hawkins’ neck from Manta stopped the Brit cold.
Caesar walked around Hawkins to face him. “You are paralyzed, but you can still feel pain. The paralysis lasts about an hour. During that time, you will feel every cruelty I inflict upon you. I promise you — I will make your death quick if you tell me exactly where I can find Captain Delaney.”
A gurgling sound rumbled in Hawkins’ throat as he tried to scream, but no sound could escape his lips.
“The Devil’s Triangle is purported to wreak havoc with navigational systems and clockwork, sir.” The smell of copper filled Caesar’s cabin as a puff of steam escaped the bronze lips of the metal man that sat opposite Caesar. “We do not want to the entire crew to shut down on us.”
“I believe it’s Captain Delaney who is wrecking havoc in The Triangle, Kol,” Caesar replied.
“Only one way to find out.”
A beautiful woman, with smooth, cocoa skin, entered the cabin. On her back — strapped snugly and securely with a colorful blue-and-white cloth that matched the woman’s dress — was a plump, dark-brown baby who possessed a head full of curly, black hair.
Caesar smiled warmly. “Fatou, is the crew well-fed?”
“Wood chips, iron shavings, and hot water for all, my husband,” Fatou replied.
“And what about my Binta?” Caesar snickered. “Are you well-fed too?”
The little girl peeked under her mother’s arm and smiled. “Yes, Baaba. Baama’s milk was quite satisfactory.”
“So, when does The Anunnaki set sail?” Fatou asked as she sat down beside Caesar. “My blunderbuss has not tasted battle in months!”
“You do love a good fight, don’t you, ma’am?” Kol sighed as he tilted his head in order to tip the iron top hat attached to it.
“That I do, Kol,” Fatou replied. “It’s in the blood: Fourteen generations of warriors.”
“Fifteen,” Binta said, raising a tiny hand.
“Apologies, love,” Fatou said. “Fifteen generations of warriors!”
‘We set sail for the Devil’s Triangle immediately,” Caesar said. “Captain Delaney won’t wait long before he sends more of his monsters to kill me. I want to take this fight to him!”
Kol rose from his seat. The hum of gears and the steady tick of a clock could be heard behind his thick, iron breastplate. “I will get the crew into gear, Captain.”
“Into gear?” Caesar chuckled. “That was a good one, Kol.”
“I try, sir,” Kol said as he exited the cabin.
Caesar turned to Fatou and placed a gentle hand upon her cheek. “Eat and rest well, my love. We’ll have to be at our best when we come up against that monster and his hellish ship!”
The gentle breeze felt warm and pleasant against Caesar’s skin. He turned his gaze from the still, deep, azure ocean to his crew — 30 men of iron and bronze — standing shoulder-to-shoulder upon the main deck. Steam billowed from their top hats as Kol and Fatou fed iron shavings into the flames that burned within their bellies.
“Don’t let the calm fool you, hearties!” Caesar shouted. “The stone ship will show and when she does, we will all step to and give no quarter!”
A metallic cheer rose from the crew and echoed across the noonday sky.
In answer, a sound, like thunder, rolled across the still waters, kicking up waves as it grew louder and louder.
The Anunnaki rocked from side to side as the waves became more violent.
“Prepare yourselves!” Caesar shouted over the terrible din of thunder.
Suddenly, the clouds above The Anunnaki grew thicker and turned from pristine to a muddy brown.
Out of the clouds descended a massive war-galley of earth and stone.
“Sink me!” Caesar gasped. “That old bastard has given the ship the power to fly!”
Caesar turned to his wife, who stood a few feet away, nursing Binta to keep her calm. “Are you ready?”
“Of course,” Fatou answered, nodding her head, which was covered by a large oval hat that made it look like the bulbous cranium of an octopus.
“Cannons!” Caesar shouted.
“All hands…cannons!” Kol repeated as he pulled a cart full of cannonballs toward the crew.
The crew sprang into action, forming five columns of six steambots each. Kol busily snatched cannonballs from the cart, placing a pile of the ammunition at each steambot’s feet. In unison, each metal man reached down, grabbed a cannonball and then stuffed the heavy, iron round into the muzzle of its top hat.
“Fire!” Caesar shouted.
“Fire!” Kol echoed.
The steambots fired a pulverizing volley into the hull of The Golliwog. Pebbles of stone and gray dust fell upon The Anunnaki’s quarterdeck.
The Golliwog answered The Anunnaki’s attack with a storm of fist-sized, flaming stones.
Kol darted about the main deck, spraying jets of water from his mouth to extinguish the fires set by the stones as the crew fired another volley of cannonballs.
More flaming rain pummeled the main deck of The Anunnaki.
The Golliwog descended lower. Ropes dropped from the sides of the hovering ship.
“They are about to try to board!” Caesar shouted. “Prepare to drop!”
The steambots maneuvered themselves into one row that ran the length of the ship. Each steambot locked arms with the one on either side of it. The metal men folded themselves over the cannonballs, forming a pipe-like structure. A whirring sound from beneath the floor of the main deck signaled the activation of the massive magnet that locked the crew into place.
“Let’s go!” Caesar shouted to his wife.
Fatou nodded and — with Binta cradled in her arms — sprinted through the door that led to the bowels of the ship.
Caesar followed closely behind them, taking a final look toward The Golliwog before darting into the doorway. Creatures with flesh of moist soil descended the ropes with one hand. In their free hands, the dirt-creatures carried cutlasses forged from jagged stone. Yams and other tubers grew, in rows, down the center of each creature’s back like a fin.
The Anunnaki began to sink into the ocean.
The force of the ship’s descent generated a column of air that snatched the boarding crew of The Golliwog from their ropes and the creatures went, screaming, into the deep.
The Anunnaki disappeared from sight moments before The Golliwog belly-flopped into the water, kicking up a massive wave. And then ….
Stillness. Silence.
The Anunnaki shattered the silence, rising up through the surface of the water less than two yards from The Golliwog’s starboard.
Caesar burst from his cabin.
Fatou — with a giggling Binta on her back — sprinted behind him.
“Kol, have all hands beat the barnacles of The Golliwog’s keel if we haven’t returned within the hour!”
Kol unfolded himself and craned his neck up toward the quarterdeck. “Boarding The Golliwog, sir?”
“Yes,” Caesar replied. “Fatou and I.”
“Ahem,” Binta coughed, placing her little fists on her plump hips.
“And Binta,” Caesar sighed.
“Very good, sir,” Kol said with a slight tilt of his head.
Caesar took a knee.
Fatou climbed onto his massive back, placing the brass barrel of her blunderbuss — which she gripped in both hands — across his barrel-like chest, and wrapped her legs around his sinewy waist.
Caesar exploded upward, propelling himself — and his passengers — from the quarterdeck of The Anunnaki to the main deck of The Golliwog.
Fatou climbed down from Caesar’s back and pointed the flared muzzle of her blunderbuss under her left arm.
B
inta reached her hands into a slit in her mother’s “octopus-head” hat and withdrew two fistfuls of small, white cowry shells.
Binta dropped the shells into the muzzle of the blunderbuss and then repeated the process.
“Ready yourselves!” Caesar shouted. “Here they come!”
A score of the dirt creatures charged toward Caesar and his family. Their stone cutlasses were at the ready as they sprinted from The Golliwog’s fore to its aft.
Caesar hurled two skipping blades toward the deck. The heavy, sun-shaped blades ricocheted off the deck and struck two of The Golliwog’s crew.
One creature collapsed onto its back as the blade sank deep into its earthen neck. Slick oil sprayed from the wound as the creature flopped violently on the deck.
The other creature staggered backward, clutching at its groin. It let loose a raspy scream as two turnips fell from the tear in its trousers.
“Kill these wretched abominations while I deal with Captain Delaney!” Caesar said, pointing up toward a hulking figure standing on the poop deck.
Fatou nodded as she twisted a knob on the mahogany stock of her weapon. The hissing of steam rose from inside it.
Caesar leapt up to the poop deck in two powerful bounds. Below, he heard the first thunderous shot from Fatou’s blunderbuss, followed, a second later, by the screams of those whose bodies were ripped to shreds by the blast of cowry shells.
“So, the prodigal son returns.”
Caesar locked eyes on Captain Delaney, who was even more monstrous than his crew. His head and chest were still that same Captain Delaney that Caesar knew — and loathed — so well — tan, well-groomed and a bit of a fop. The rest of the Captain, however, was quite … different.
His mid-torso downward was what looked to be a massive squid tentacle. His lean arms were human, but his hands had been replaced by the gaping maws of Great White Sharks.
“If I am your son, demon, then I have only returned to commit patricide.”
Captain Delaney extended his arms. His shark-maw hands bore razor-sharp teeth. “We have unfinished business, boy, so come, let me send you to Davey Jones’ Locker!”
Caesar drew Manta from a sheath on the leather gauntlet strapped to his left forearm.
Captain Delaney slithered toward Caesar, the suckers on his underside leaving a moist trail behind him.
Caesar swung Manta at Captain Delaney’s head.
The Captain parried the blow with his left shark hand. The teeth sank into Caesar’s right forearm, rending flesh and pulverizing bone.
The onyx colossus screamed in agony as the shark hand maintained — and tightened — its grip on his arm.
Caesar somersaulted sideways, grabbing the shark hand with his left. At the apex of his somersault, Caesar twisted the shark hand forcefully, breaking its “neck.”
Captain Delaney released his hold on Caesar’s arm. The shark hand flopped lifelessly and a line of spittle fell from its mouth.
Caesar exploded forward, slamming his shoulder into Captain Delaney’s chest. A loud crack followed the blow and a mist of bilious, green ichor escaped the Captain’s quivering lips.
Caesar felt something spongy and slick encircle his right leg. He looked down — Captain Delaney’s “tail” had wound itself around his leg from ankle to thigh. Caesar screamed as the tentacle tightened its grip. White-hot pain burrowed through flesh and sinew as hundreds of needle-like teeth — forming a circle around the inner edge of each sucker — bit into his leg.
Caesar slashed downward with Manta.
A chunk of Captain Delaney’s flesh flew across the deck.
The Captain flipped into a one-armed handstand, hoisting Caesar high into the air by his thigh.
The Captain slammed the giant onto his back, driving the air from Caesar’s lungs.
Captain Delaney collapsed onto his back next to Caesar. Delaney’s chest heaved violently and his muscles tensed.
Caesar could tell the Captain was trying to fight the paralytic effects of Manta’s neurotoxin — as he was struggling to shake off the effects of the neurotoxin searing his veins.
With tremendous effort, Caesar shoved his left hand into his vest.
Captain Delaney roared as he whipped his arm toward Caesar’s throat. The shark hand opened its maw wide and a hiss escaped its “throat.”
Caesar snatched his hand out of his vest and thrust his fist — and the bowl-like object he held within it — into the shark mouth.
Captain Delaney smiled as the shark hand slammed its powerful jaws shut.
Caesar screamed as his hand separated from his wrist.
The giant fought back the pain and rolled sideways, quickly distancing himself from Captain Delaney.
A moment later, the Captain erupted into a ball of fire and then burst into chunks of smoldering, black meat.
“Caesar?!” Fatou screamed.
Caesar crawled to the edge of the poop deck. He peered over the side.
Fatou was nursing Binta as she stood amidst a sea of dirt and yams.
“That was the grenado,” Caesar replied. Captain Delaney is dead. I’m afraid I’ll soon follow.”
“Hush,” Fatou said, placing her index finger to her lips. “You’re supposed to be the smartest man in the world. You should know better. The Devil’s Triangle can’t claim Black Caesar!”
Caesar stepped onto the quarterdeck. Fatou, with Binta on her back, Kol, and the steambot crew stood on the main deck, looking up toward their Captain.
Caesar raised his left arm and formed the mechanical, bronze hand at the end of it into a fist.
The crew cheered.
“Brilliant work, sir!” Kol said.
Caesar studied his handiwork. The clockwork gears ticked, whirred and hummed as they brought life to the hand.
“Where to now, my love?” Fatou inquired.
“To the nearest port,” Caesar replied. “I have to figure out how to make The Anunnaki fly!”
AND AFTER THE FIRE,
A STILL SMALL VOICE
BY E. CATHERINE TOBLER
The winter was cold — that is to say, winter was as it ever had been, gray and hazy at the outermost edges, every tree clawing snow from the sky with skeletal hands. This land I found myself in could well have been my own Domremy, for they shared this bleak nature, though I knew it was not. The air tasted differently upon my tongue, everything in this place foreign. It was not the strangeness of another country but another world entire.
Far from the point where the leaden mountains folded against the sky (as one might fold linens, so flat did they appear from the ground), beneath the crackle of the ever-present roiling light that streamed across the sky, I dropped to my knees and built a fire upon the cracked peat bog. Fire was a thing I both required and loathed, and it took some measure of encouragement to get my benumbed hands to work the stones that would summon a spark.
The angels told me how fire was to be made in this world, though I had not heard their voices since waking here. I could not say how I otherwise knew, so surely it was their silent work. They told me to take of the beasts that frolicked in the sludge rivers, to sever their tentacled arms and dry them until hard as wood. It was only the dried flesh that would ignite and provide any warmth. These tentacles were to be arranged in triangular shapes, one piled atop the other, no more than three high. Indeed, I tried four and there came no fire that long blue night.
The stones were reluctant to give up their sparks, my hands aching with every strike I did make. Would fire fail me at last? Part of me cheered this turn of events, because fire was ever my doom, but the other part, the logical part that yet remained and guided me from day to day, knew I required heat were I to survive another night of bitter cold. When the stones at last sparked, I held my breath and tipped them toward the precise stack of tentacles. The dried flesh was slow to catch. When at last it did, the spark burrowing into the cup of a sucker and deeper down where it illuminated the tentacle, I bowed my head.
“Holy God, I pr
aise You, even in this wretched place.”
He gave no reply; nor did the angels that had followed me for so long. If this was to be part of my trial, it was difficult indeed. I ached for their voices, but there was only a sodden breath from the mammoth I had christened “King Charles,” so majestic was he against the strange sky of this world. He shuffled his weight from one foot to the other, to the other, and the other. If he was cold with even his coat of coarse hair and fat, I could not imagine what hope there was for me; the air felt colder than it ever had, the tentacles reluctant to heat.
“Have I not done all You asked?”
Was it doubt that thickened my voice? I cast my eyes to the sky and it stared in return, brooding and blackening with the swift fall of night. One might blink and miss the transition in this place; there was no sun to set. Scudding clouds parted to reveal the pinpricks of stars and the pendulous spheres that hung in configuration, ever moving. They rotated as if on center pikes, revealing their different faces as the days wore on — this was the only way I had of truly knowing time’s passage, for day and night seemed to come when they would, without evenly paced hours. In the early days, I had tried to touch these spheres, but they were pinned beyond my reach. Some seemed made of copper dust, others wholly of water, be it fluid or frozen.
King Charles shuffled closer as the tentacles began to burst open and expel their heat. We both sighed in relief as the fire pushed the cold night backward. I extended my hands toward the heat, which burned without flame. I knew what flame would feel like, could remember the searing lick of flame up my skirts and calf — I smoothed a hand over my hose now, to remind myself that was long ago and also far away. This was a new trial. This was — I did not know. The angels would not say.
I thought them about to speak, the quiet of night torn with a sudden shriek, but the mammoth reacted to this sound as well. Would such a beast know the voice of Michael or Catherine? Had Mary ever touched his broad brow to soothe him into sleep? I did not doubt it possible, for I have seen such spectacles in my few years, and came to my feet. I am here, I wanted to say; I have awaited your word and am ready for whatever task you have for me. I am your servant, as ever. But these words did not come, for the shriek was true and human and in the near distance. It pierced me like a spear, for I had not heard such a sound in — Was it years? I could not say.
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