I would have described it as a vast demon serpent, although I suppose Dabir was accurate to a point. He likewise neglected to mention how the monster had smashed our vessel with its huge armored head until the ship buckled, like a warrior with a broken back.
At Dabir’s words excited chattering broke out all along the rail, but as I do not speak any tongue from Chin, I could not understand them.
“What are they saying?” I asked Dabir
Even in the dimming light there was no missing the droll look he gave me.
“Well,” I said defensively, “you speak all sorts of languages.”
“Aye, and you eat all sorts of foods. That doesn’t mean you can cook them.”
I would gladly have retorted with something clever, save that nothing occurred to me. Besides, a new figure had thrust past the others and now gripped the rail. Someone slender, and my suspicion was confirmed the moment the woman leaned out and addressed us. Her accent less pronounced than that of the man.
“How long ago did the monster attack?” Her voice was tense and commanding. “Is it near?”
“A day and a night past,” Dabir relayed. “We may have driven it off,” he added, for she was looking now to her ship’s stern, almost as though she expected the great beast to pop up from the waves and start gnawing. “We wounded it severely.”
Those words gained her full attention. Though I could not see her eyes, I felt the strength of her gaze fasten upon Dabir. “How did you do that?” she asked.
“If you wish to hear more,” my friend answered, “perhaps we could discuss matters aboard your ship.”
A bare pause was quickly followed with warmer tones. “But of course. We would have welcomed you in any case. Dewei, put the ladder overside so that our guests may join us. We will haul up your boat as well,” she added
She stepped from the rail, and the fellow she’d named as Dewei began barking orders to the rest of the crew in the language of his people.
“I’d have liked it better if she’d been swifter to offer help,” I said.
“I’m surprised she wasn’t more skeptical of my claim,” Dabir told me quietly. And at my questioning look he explained: “She knows of the monster.”
I wasn’t entirely sure how he knew that, but before I could ask, the lanky helmsman interrupted.
“For myself,” he quipped, “I’d have liked it better if her ship didn’t look like it’d been coughed up from hell and painted by Iblis, but I’ll take what I can get.”
Ghassan shushed him.
Dewei let down the rope ladder. I sent the cook up first, and Ghassan went close behind, to steady the fellow should he have trouble with his bad ankle. The helmsman went after, and then me.
My legs were stiff after sitting so long within that boat, and I stretched as well as I could whilst climbing the high side of that black ship. Now that I was beside the hull I heard not just one loud clanking, but others besides, as though mad musicians, bereft of drumskins, kept time by beating pipes together.
The weather deck resembled none I had ever seen. Long metal tubes projected out from various holds, and some of them moved up and down, letting off puffs of noxious steam that smelled of foul eggs. Also there were sharper chemical odors, and chains affixed to clanking winches. Lanterns hung upon masts and dangled from the nearest spar, and by their light I discovered that the majority of the crew were folk of Chin, although their numbers were sprinkled with a few Arabs and Indians. In amongst all the strangeness was the faint cluck of chickens, for the crews of ocean going ships cannot subsist solely on preserved foods.
Dewei proved a massive fellow who wore his hair tied back from his broad forehead. His narrow eyes fell immediately to my sword, and he demanded I relinquish it.
“Nay,” I told him. “I guard Dabir.”
“You will give up the sword,” Dewei instructed me imperiously, “or die.”
I smiled at him. “Then we will die together.”
At that moment Dabir reached the deck. I would have stepped to offer him a hand, but Dewei and I were gauging one another.
“If he is the captain’s bodyguard,” the woman’s voice said from somewhere in the gloom, “let him keep the sword a while longer.”
This sounded reasonable enough save for that final phrase. Dewei bowed his head to her and she drew closer.
The woman of Chin was petite and spare, wrapped in a scarlet robe, and lovely in a severe way. I would tell you of the beauty of her almond eyes, but their fine form was undercut by a calculating coldness. Do not think I demean the wit of women, for Dabir’s wife could talk rings around me, and my own Najya was shrewder than I in many affairs. What I mean is that she was one of those who gauged everything in sums and balance sheets, be it beast or man.
“I am the Lady Xin,” she told Dabir. “You will dine with me, Captain, and tell me how you wounded the monster. Your man can go with the others of lesser station. They will be cared for, I assure you.”
“Captain Asim’s station is as high as my own,” Dabir told her, and for a man with untamed hair and a bedraggled robe he managed a great deal of dignity.
“He is captain? Not you?” she asked.
“He was captain of the vizier’s guard,” Dabir continued, “and has often sat at the right hand of the caliph himself. I am the scholar Dabir ibn Khalil, and it has been my fortune to be likewise favored.”
Once more her eyes fell to me, and then back to Dabir. “So the ship’s captain…”
“Drowned or devoured, Lady Xin,” Dabir told her.
“It was Dabir’s plan that lured, then harmed the monster,” I told her. “The ship’s captain but followed his orders.”
“Very well,” she said. “Dewei, have the others tended below, then join us. And get under way as soon as their boat is pulled aboard.”
Dewei bowed formally to her, then moved off without so much as another glance at me or Dabir.
Ghassan and the others looked a little nervous, but Dabir advised them to stay together, and go with God.
“Yes, honored one,” Ghassan said. “Come on lads.” He made a brave show of following a beckoning sailor, and the helmsman lent a shoulder to the cook. I did not like this but had grown accustomed to the separation of folk by class and station when nobles were involved.
A wizened Chinese servant led us after the woman and up a long gangway. We passed a burly helmsman, and then Dabir and I were directed into a tiny cabin back of him. The ship rose higher yet, at least two decks, to that ridiculously high stern.
We found ourselves in a dainty water closet, complete with a cushioned toilet and a wash basin and two large pitches of water. The servant mimed for us to wash hands and faces and gestured likewise to some scented soaps lying upon a shelf before he left us.
Dabir and I cleaned up as best we could. We might have accomplished more had we not simply drunk two thirds of the water before we even set to our efforts. He and I were both men of discipline, but we had a great thirst, even if that water tasted of long storage in wooden barrels.
When we finally decided we had done our best, the servant outside led us through a door beside the water closet. We found ourselves in a paneled cabin hung with beautiful silk paintings of strange pointed buildings and misty mountains. Two quiet guardsman, all in black, girded with swords, waited against the wall, swaying alike with the three paper lanterns hung above the table. A pair of wizened Chinese servants placed covered dishes in the table’s midst. Some other must recently have set the stunning white and blue plates.
Lady Xin already sat at the table’s head, and she gestured to empty places two chairs down from her. “The cooks were preparing the evening meal just as your little boat was sighted,” she told us.
Wine was brought, but I demurred, and Dabir explained to Lady Xin that such was forbidden. I had seen Dabir imbibe wine many a time, but I think this night he wished to keep things simple, and perhaps keep his mind clear. Thus were we served more of the stale water.
Stra
nge delicacies were laid before us, and it was to my sorrow that most were fish of different sorts. I do not care for fish, be it fried or broiled or steamed or sliced into tiny pieces and smothered in sauce. Truly, I had a great hunger, but there was nothing for me but rice, fresh fowl, and a platter heavy with dried peaches and apricots.
The woman sipped at her wine, nibbled on the fish, and watched us closely.
I had lived long in Baghdad and ventured far, so I had seen folk of Chin before, but never a woman such as this. I had judged her a noblewoman, and wondered whether many noblewomen of Chin commanded ships. I did not think so. Under her loose silk robe she wore a stiff collared black blouse parted just at that lovely feminine juncture between her collar bones, where she displayed a petal cinnabar necklace. Her fingernails were scarlet, long almost as the talons of a beast, though her manner was extremely refined. Indeed, she held herself with the stiff dignity of the caliph’s chief wife.
“You say that you harmed the serpent,” she said at last. “How was it done?”
“I did not say it was a serpent,” Dabir answered.
The two stared at each other. She tapped the rim of her goblet. “Very well, scholar. I know of the beast you described, and I would very much like it dead. Do you believe you killed it?”
“It is possible,” Dabir told her. “But unlikely. What do you know about it?”
She answered his question with one of her own. “Why are you after it?”
I could not guess what Dabir was thinking, for his expression was unreadable. Likely he debated how much to reveal. In the end, he apparently decided upon frank disclosure.
“The monster’s been harassing merchants of the caliphate for the last two months, all along the main sea route between Basra and India. It followed two or three of them for long hours, and a half dozen others have disappeared entirely.”
“And so your caliph sent you to hunt it?”
“Yes,” Dabir agreed. We had actually left under orders of the vizier, who dispatched us whenever some strange issue vexed the caliphate. He did this in part to please the caliph and, for reasons too complex to relate here, in partial hope that we would fail to return.
She lifted her fine goblet to ruby lips and took a dainty sip before returning it to the table. “So how did you attack it?”
Dabir then related how we had gone out in one of the fastest of the caliph’s ships, with a trained regiment of spearmen, and told her how the barbed spears were tied to weighted drogues, which he hoped would drag against the beast’s weight and tire it.
“Alas, the monster proved even larger than I had been told.” Dabir smiled wryly. “And I’d hoped there had been some exaggeration. We pierced it with at least a dozen spears before it destroyed our ship. It was so enraged that it set upon the men amongst the wreckage. It was swimming after our boat until Captain Asim plunged a spear through its right eye.”
He omitted the following moment where I tumbled backwards and struck my head against an oarlock.
She considered me without any great interest as Dabir spoke on.
“The creature thrashed about in the water before diving deep. We thought it would rise up and chew our boat to splinters, but never returned.”
The woman tapped the side of her goblet. “I had hoped you had something more clever.”
“I do,” Dabir said.
Her eyes snapped up to him once more, but neither spoke. There was nothing to be heard by the creak of the ship upon the waves and the ever present metal clanging.
“What is your plan, scholar?”
“First I wish you to tell me why the serpent hunts you.”
She stopped in the very midst of taking a breath. Her delicate nostrils flared. “How did you deduce that?”
“The only common feature of the ships the serpent harassed,” Dabir said, “were high stern decks. Like your own. Then was the evident concern when we told you we’d encountered it. You know and fear it.”
At that moment Dewei announced himself with a knock and was granted permission to enter. He came to stand behind Lady Xin, reporting quietly in Chin to her ear.
“How are our men?” Dabir asked. “Do you have a doctor aboard to look at our cook?”
“We have bandaged him,” Dewei said, looking self-satisfied.
Lady Xin shot him a disapproving look. “They have, of course, been well tended. Scholar, you are astute. The monster does hunt me. I have been cursed by a sorceress who desires my secrets. If she cannot have them, she would sink my ship. Thus must I remain upon the move.”
“Why haven’t you simply left the ocean?” Dabir asked.
She spread her hands. “The Black Lotus is my life’s work!” Her voice rose indignantly. “Now tell me. What is your plan? Is there some way to defeat the serpent?”
“Its efficacy depends in part upon your stores. Lovely as your skin is,” he said, “there is no missing the stains upon your fingertips. You speak of your life’s work, I assume there is alchemy involved?”
“You are entirely too clever,” she told him coolly. There was admiration in her voice, yes, but there was no missing the threat there besides.
“I’ve spent much time around alchemists,” Dabir said easily, then offered a slight smile. It might have disarmed some other woman.
“As to your plan,” she pressed.
“As to our fate,” Dabir countered. “If I share this plan with you, I want food and water set within our boat, and to be set free upon it with my comrades.”
“Done,” she said easily. “You do not want transport to Basra itself?”
Dabir shook his head, and I knew not why, lest he wanted away from the ship as soon as possible. He looked over to me, but I could offer no reassurance. I did not trust her, yet perhaps she was eager enough for the information that she would honor her word. What other hope did we have?
He must have decided the same. “The matter is simple. The monster eats.” Dabir’s voice grew grim, for he had seen it chase down sailors from our crew. “We entice it to eat something that will kill it.”
The woman leaned forward intently. “You mean to poison it.”
“Aye. I do not know your stores, but I see you have apricots and peaches. Their pits, if ground, will produce a fine poison. So too is cinnabar poison, and likely you have arsenic and other potent powders known only to Chinese alchemists.”
She touched her necklace with one long nail. “I would be loath to part with my cinnabar. I have a priceless collection.”
“How much do you value your life?” Dabir asked her.
The Lady ignored this question. “How do you judge how much of any of these substances to give the creature? We had many pits, I’m certain, when first we took on stores–“ here her eyes flickered to the dried fruit “—but the cooks may have been pitching them overboard since.”
“Hazard all your poisons at once,” Dabir advised. “I am certain I smelled sulfur mixed in with the steam when we boarded. Such would not kill the creature, but it certainly wouldn’t aid its health. “
Dewei broke in, scoffing, “How do you propose to entice the serpent to consume foul smelling substances? Ask it to hold still while we pour them down its throat?”
Dabir answered him as though his question had been phrased politely. “Fill a watertight barrel with all the most potent poisons in the ship. Smear it with the flesh and blood of some of your fowl.”
“And suppose something else eats the lure?” Dewei demanded. “There are sharks in these waters.”
“That’s the most dangerous part,” Dabir agreed. “Are you willing to risk much for your freedom?” He looked down the table at Lady Xin. “If the monster tracks you, all you need do is slow, and wait for its arrival.”
Dewei made a rude noise.
“Silence,” the woman told him, then studied Dabir. “Your plan has greater merit than any I’ve yet heard. It will be expensive… but having the thing dead will be worth any price. Very well. Dewei,” She spoke to him in Chinese and
he listened, nodding. He considered us with a frown, then a smile, then his expression cleared.
“I am giving you and your man access to my chemical stores, scholar,” Lady Xin told us. “Dewei will accompany you. A barrel will be provided. It should not take long to prepare this little trap,” she went on, “so I will order the ship to slow now. Dewei?”
Her man opened the door and gestured for us to precede him.
The woman did not rise to bid us farewell, nor offer any word of parting.
The sky was shot with stars, obscured by strands of cloud hung upon the sky like tattered banners. Truly, only in the deep desert and upon the sea can one gaze upon the heavens in their greatest majesty. Staring into that immensity I held the brief fancy that I was in danger of falling up into the darkness.
Dewei guided us through a forest of those strange sliding pipes and then we descended after him into a long cramped narrow underdeck, small enough that I was forced to duck my head. The clanking was most loud, though I could likewise imagine I heard the pounding of my own heart. No matter the woman’s assurances, I did not trust her.
Finally Dewei opened a door to starboard and, still smirking, gestured within.
I stepped through into a chamber of horrors.
The scent of blood permeated the place. Dozens of men lay on pallets thrown over low tables, still as death, dim light shining down on glazed eyes in slackened faces. A sickly green object was fastened about the chest of each man, and attached to each was a snaking, jerking tendril that led off towards a clanking metal contraption alive with spinning wheels.
Those upon the pallets came from many lands: Chin, India, Arabia, Ethiopia, and others I could not name. Most were dressed as sailors. All but the nearest, our comrades, were emaciated, and even Ghassan, the cook, and the helmsman were paling. Three burly crewman were advancing around the tables toward me, bludgeons in hand.
“You shared your plan,” Dewei crowed. “Now all the captain needs is your blood!”
He stood still in the hallway, with Dabir, at whom he had pointed a sword.
You may wonder how it was I survived such a moment, but it was simpler than you think. If Dewei wished to assault us and win he should not have stopped to gloat.
Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters Page 13
