by Elliot Burns
Mav paused his story. “Ever been thirsty?” he asked Jack.
“Sure I have.”
“No, I mean really thirsty. Where your throat feels like it’s made of dried of bark. Your skull throbs, and it feels like some bloody giant is crushing it. Where you’d drink your own spit if only you could make any. The kind of thirst that makes men do things they know are just plain stupid.”
“I guess I’ve never been that thirsty,” said Jack.
After three days, continued Mav, they were all that thirsty. The five survivors had become four after one sailor swore he saw a crab. He tried to grab it, when he lost his footing. He hit his head on the rock with such force that the others heard his skull crack. Before they could do anything he slipped into the Lyassa, and the waves carried him to their depths.
That left four of them. It had been days since they’d even seen the sky without a covering of clouds, let alone any hint of civilization. Not even the ocean gulls came out this far. They were done for. A few of them made their peace with it. One man, a dungeoneer who was new to Mav’s group, disappeared while the rest of them slept. Whether he’d slipped from the rock or just jumped off it, none of them knew, but he was gone.
Just three of them remained. Mav’s tongue was like dried parchment. His brain rattled around in his skull. Sometimes it throbbed so bad he couldn’t think straight. In fact, none of them were particularly rational.
“That was when we did the stupidest thing imaginable,” said Mav, breaking from his story again. “Can you guess what we did?”
“Don’t tell me you tried to swim to shore?” asked Jack.
“We didn’t have the energy. No, we did something worse. We were so parched that we tried drinking Lyassa sea water.”
“Is that really so bad?” said Jack. “Kind of seems reasonable. I mean, you weren’t in your right frame of mind. The worst you’d get is a bit of salt in your mouth.”
It turned out that salt was the only thing in the Lyassa water, as Mav soon found out. On the night of day five, another sailor disappeared. This left just Mav and a fellow survivor named Reece.
Reece was a big bastard, according to Mav, and he’d spent so much time on the seas that he was practically made of salt. They spent their final hours telling each other about their lives, so they could think about their families one last time before the ocean claimed them. Mav's share of the conversation was brief since he hadn't seen his family in years. Reece, it turned out, had a wife, three children, two dogs, and a goat. At that moment, if Mav had even a drop of water, he would have given it to the sailor so that he’d have a chance to get home.
It was at the dawn of the sixth day when the sails of a clipper billowed in the distance. Mav’s first thought was that he had gone insane. When the sailor saw it too, it took all his strength not to let joy burst inside him. He knew there was every chance the ship would go in a different direction. Maybe it wouldn’t see them.
It was only that night, when he and the sailor were safe in the cabin of the ship, that he allowed himself a jot of relief. This was an Arcus missionary ship coming back from Etile. Most of its crew had disembarked there to spread the worship of the colors to the Eastern reaches. As such, only the captain and a skeleton crew of five sailed it back for the journey home.
This meant that Mav and the sailor were granted a cabin to themselves so that they could recover. For the next few days, all they did was drink water and sleep. It was three days into their rescue that Mav learned about the curse of the Lyassa sea.
He awoke to a breeze slapping his face. Reece’s bed next to him was empty, and the cabin door was open. Mav went out, only to find bloodstains just outside the door. There were no weapons to be had.
He followed the bloodstains to the deck, where he saw Reece slumped on it, blood pouring from a wound in his chest. Just across from him, two crew members were also dead. This left the captain and three others.
Betrayal was his first thought. But if the sailors had murder on their minds, there was nothing he could do about it. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape to except to jump overboard, but Mav didn’t want to be anywhere near the Lyassa sea ever again. He decided that if the crew meant to kill him, he’d rather go down fighting. He’d prefer to meet a blade than the ocean depths.
‘Okay, you sons of whores,’ he told them. ‘If you mean to kill me, I’ll make a job of it.’
But then a curious thing happened. With every step Mav took, the crew backed off. They were scared of him. And that was when he started to feel the change. Then, he understood.
“Can you guess what happened?” Mav asked.
Jack was glad to see that Mav’s pupils were back to normal now. He still didn’t see how Mav’s story led to his current state. “Not a clue,” said Jack.
“I was infected with Tantalus’s Bane,” said Mav. “It’s carried in the Lyassa sea, but you’ve got to be bloody unlucky to catch it. Not only do you have to be stupid enough to gulp salt water, but you have to have pissed off the Blue God for the parasite to be in that little bit you drank. As it turned out, me and Reece were unlucky.”
“You had some kind of condition?”
“Have, Jack. I’m still infected. Tantalus’s Bane triggers aggression. It can happen anytime, anywhere. Reece had woken up in a fit, and he’d murdered two of the crew before the captain gutted him with a buckler. No idea why the bastard hadn’t attacked me in my sleep.”
“It makes people go crazy, then?”
“For a while, yes. And then it wears off. But there’s no warning to when a fit will start. When it does, anyone in the vicinity is fair game.”
It was starting to make sense to him now. He thought he could guess the gaps in the story.
“And you have it too,” said Jack. “And you use Teyroot because it helps with the fits or something?”
Mav nodded. “Teyroot is such a sedative that not even a Tantalus fit can break through. That’s why I take it, Jack. Because if I don’t, you’ll hear me trying to smash down your door in the dead of night.”
Jack knew all about sedatives. A doctor prescribed them to Mum when she was hurting herself in her sleep. He’d taught Jack about dosages, and sometimes it was his job to administer them. It made him look at Mav in a new light. If the thief was anything like his mum, he’d feel an overwhelming shame that he couldn’t control himself.
“What exactly is Teyroot?”
“Just a weed. If you didn’t know what to look for, you’d walk right by it. Heaps of the stuff grow in Holuum. Another reason for me being here in the first place,” he said.
“That makes sense. Do you have a large supply?”
“Tons of it,” said Mav. “But the problem is, the longer I take Teyroot, the more I need in each dose. Soon, I’m going to have to take such large amounts that my body can’t handle it. It’s either that or let Tantalus take over. The day’s coming. No idea when, but it's lurking there all the same.”
Mav was more dangerous than he’d realized. Jack felt like he’d been sharing a castle with a dosed-up wolf. One that could flip out at any moment and go on a violent rampage.
“I don’t know if I can have you around,” he said.
“You’re safe if I take Teyroot. Believe me.”
“I don’t doubt it. But look how you act even when you’re on it, Mav. You’re a danger to yourself.”
“Jack…”
Jack turned toward the door. “Let me think on it.”
Mav’s story had worried him. Now, though, it wasn’t a worry about trust. He finally felt that he could trust Mav, and with that change, he felt concerned for his friend. He needed to help him somehow.
As he walked away, Mav caught his wrist. “You need me for now, Jack. Let me stay here. When it gets so I can’t control it, I’ll leave. Until then, let me stay and get myself together. I can be a lot of use to you.”
He’d never seen Mav looking so vulnerable. It caught him off guard. “We need to find you a cure if you’re stayin
g,” he said.
“I tried. There isn’t one. And you have to be careful who you talk to about it. If someone gets a whiff of you having Tantalus, they chase you out of town with pitchforks.”
“Is it contagious?”
“You can only catch it by ingesting it in liquid form. So, unless I took a piss in your flask, you’re safe. The more simple-minded townsfolk can’t get that into their empty skulls, though.”
“I’ll let you stay on two conditions,” said Jack. “One: when you take Teyroot, you lock your door. I want this room padded; you’re no good to anyone if you smash your skull.”
“Fine.”
“Two, we’re looking for a cure. We’re not just sitting back and waiting until you overdose on Teyroot.”
Mav stuck his hand out. “I’ll shake on that,” he said. He spat on his hand.
“I’m not shaking your fucking hand.”
“One more thing,” said Mav.
Jack stopped near the door. “Yeah?”
“Don’t tell Elena yet. I’ll do it in my own time.”
“She already guessed about the teyroot, Mav. She’s probably half way toward guessing it. We better tell her.”
Chapter Sixteen
Two mornings later, Jack woke up to the sound of someone pounding on his bedroom door. When he looked out of the window, he saw that Royaume’s first sun had barely started to climb the sky.
“Whoever it is, piss off!” he shouted.
“Get up, you lazy sod,” said Mav. “It’s time to train.”
Groaning, Jack got dressed. They headed east out of Castle Halberd. To the north were the peasant houses, and most of the farmers were already a couple of hours into their daily toil. To the east was the brooding forest where even the morning sunlight feared to tread. The wind carried tiny drift seeds from flowers nearby. When Jack ran his fingers through his hair, he found that some of the seeds were entwined in his locks.
There was no dirt path to follow. Instead, Mav led him through fields of grass so overgrown that they could have hidden tigers. Plants grew amongst the green blades, some with oversized, flappy red petals, and others with tiny blue buds.
As they walked, Jack saw that Mav was huffing. “You’re looking a little out of breath, buddy,” he said.
“Nonsense. I could go for days.”
“I hate to say it, Mav, but maybe you need to cut down on the beer. You’re not getting any younger.”
“We’ll see who’s out of shape,” said Mav. “Just you wait.”
Mav had taken a blade to his hair before starting the day, and he’d razored his tresses down to the scalp. Evidently, his hands hadn’t been steady enough, because he’d nicked his skin more than once, revealing tiny welts where blood had dried.
“Stay away from the red plants,” said Mav, as they walked. “They might look nice, but the prettier something is, the deadlier its intentions. Trust me, I had a wife once. That makes me the world’s expert.”
“They just look like flowers to me.”
“Trust me – keep your distance from the red buggers. The petals are coated in acid. A little bit of it won’t do much more than sting for a while, as long as you wash it off. But god help you if you get some of that on you and it starts raining. It’ll spread over you like the clap in a Borethean brothel.”
“Delightful imagery, as always,” said Jack.
After an hour of wading through fields, they reached a tangle of bushes and vines that were taller than Jack. There were some trees that spread their branches wide and hid whatever was beyond from view.
“Where now?” asked Jack, eyeing the impenetrable wall of bushes and vines ahead of them.
“Get your dagger out and put it to good use. You’re going to learn how to wield it today.”
They hacked their way through the vine jungle. Mav swung his blade with special venom, slashing at the flora as if they were his worst enemies. Jack had to take a more delicate approach since thorns seemed to latch on to his hand every swing of his dagger. He hacked one vine when a spray of juice hit his cheek.
“Some green crap just spurted out on me.”
“Don’t worry,” said Mav. “that’s harmless. Cut open anything in this area and it’ll bleed green. Everything here’s connected. The grass, the soil, the trees. They have a hive mind, and the vines carry the green paste to wherever requires it. Don’t ever try eating though, unless you’re desperate. Stuff burns like hell and tastes like crap.”
“If this is a hivemind, does that mean it’s sentient? Hacking through it seems wrong.”
“It’s about as sentient a drunk five days into a binge. These vines can’t think. Even if they could, if the concept of stabbing a plant gets your hackles up, what are you going to do when you have to fight a person? Bake him a pastry?
“Good point.”
Soon they had carved a path through the vines, and they reached an opening where the throng of plants gave way. It was a wide area with grass only knee-high. The trees and vines enclosed it in a rough oval, hiding it from the view of the outside. The breeze didn’t reach it. There was a bitter smell in the air, like nettle tea left to boil. It seemed like a secluded, tranquil spot.
On one side, there was a framework of three walls and a large oval hole for a door. It was the remnants of a building that once stood here, though the framework was the only thing that still stood. The archway was made from rectangle stones jammed together to form a curve that seemed impossibly stable, as though it defied physics. A ray of light shone through the doorway, drawing Jack’s attention to something beyond it.
Over in the corner, a giant stone stuck out of the ground like a tooth. It was blue and covered in intricately carved writing. Moss had spread along the base, but not on top of it. Even the vines seem reluctant to intrude in its space. The stone had markings on the front – two eyes and a mouth, and a carved Halberd weapon that was supposed to be a nose. Four steel tubes lined the front, mostly hidden by grass. They were full of flek coins.
“Can you guess what this is?” asked Mav.
“Looks like some sort of worship was going on. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about the stone that I recognize. The color, maybe. It’s got something to do with the castle though.”
“People around here used to be idiots,” said Mav. “They used to worship the kingdom stone. Not Lord Halberd, not the castle, but the kingdom stone itself. They believed that any Lord Halberd sat in his chair eating pies was a conduit for the powers of the stone.”
“It looks nothing like the kingdom stone, except for the color. The shape is wrong, and the face they’ve carved into it is just…I don’t know where they got that idea from,” said Jack.
“Nobody can enter the stone room except you, so they got creative. They did what most people do when they don’t know the facts but are itching to pretend they do. They plucked them out of their nether regions.”
“Still, this is a nice place to come to, decaying religious idols or not. It’s quiet.”
“There are a couple more like this in Holuum. Nobody remembers this one, and it’s not on any map. I only found it by accident. I like to come here sometimes, but every time I do, I have to hack my way in. Still, it’s good for my arms.”
The four tubes in front of the stone were full to the brims with flek coins, though the ones on top had started to rust. Rain water had sneaked in through the gaps in the coins and had soaked them.
Jack scooped a handful of coins from the first tube and put them in his pocket.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said Mav.
“You’re not superstitious, are you? I thought you said they were idiots.”
“Never hurts to at least keep one eye open for the gods. Doesn’t mean I’m about to start attending Sixfe day worship or anything.”
Jack looked up at the sky. It was steel-blue and clear save for the flapping of birds as they journeyed across it. He spread out his arms.
“Gods,” he said. “if you’re listen
ing now, give me a sign I shouldn’t take this flek. Anything? No? I guess the gods would prefer that I use it to build walls and wells, rather than have it sat in a steel tube.”
Mav folded his arms. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Jack collected the rest of the coins from the tubes.
25 flek gained!
[Total: 229]
Status gained: Thief of the Gods
[You have stolen flek that was given to the gods. They will look on this unfavorably, and you may find that luck doesn’t always go your way.]
