by A. J. Markam
“What did you do?” she whispered, then frantically pushed me away and scrambled backwards across the floor.
“Nothing,” I said, though I knew I was the worst liar ever.
“What did you do?!” she demanded, tears streaming down her face. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”
I couldn’t lie to her. I’d made a terrible mistake in convincing
(blackmailing)
Desmond, but it was a mistake. It was supposed to have been harmless.
If I lied to her now to get out of any consequences, that really would make me a grade-A asshole.
But I was faced with a dilemma.
I asked your programmer to change a variable in your code.
How the hell do you explain that?
“I… I sort of made an offering to the gods trying to get you to… to only want to sleep with me.”
She stared at me in wide-eyed shock for almost ten seconds.
“You interceded with the gods to change me?!”
I was kind of hoping she would throw her arms around my neck and cry, How romantic!
Didn’t happen.
“YOU ASSHOLE!” she screamed.
I felt like absolute shit.
“I didn’t know it would hurt you – I’m sorry – I’ll never do it again – ”
“You’re Goddess-damn right you’ll never do it again, because you and I are THROUGH!”
“…what?” I asked, stunned.
“You heard me!” she screamed, then leapt up, ran to the door, and raced up the stairs.
I scrambled to my feet and ran after her.
“KRUG!” I heard her scream as I bounded up the steps two at a time. “Throw Ian off the ship and get us out of here!”
I burst out onto the deck about ten feet behind Alaria. “No – wait – ”
Krug was standing there with several other members of the crew. Stig was sitting on a barrel drinking from a bottle of rum. They all looked at Alaria in alarm.
“What? Why?” Krug asked.
Alaria pointed at me furiously. “He tried to mind-rape me!”
“WHAT?!” I shouted in shock as much as anger. “NO I DIDN’T!”
“He made a sacrifice to the gods to change my nature behind my back! And it almost worked! It felt like I was losing my mind!”
The pirates all looked at me in horror.
“Oh shit,” Stig muttered.
“Alaria – Alaria, it was an honest mistake – ”
She turned on me in a fury. “An HONEST MISTAKE?! What, did you just stumble into a temple and accidentally talk to a priest and somehow make a burnt offering?! You lying son of a bitch – ”
“I swear to God I thought it was going to be nothing! Just a little tweak – I thought you wouldn’t even notice it!”
“It was the single most terrible thing I’ve ever undergone!” she screamed at me. “Everyone else who abused me, at least they only hurt my body. YOU invaded my MIND! YOU made me think I was going INSANE!”
“I’m sorry – Alaria, I swear to God, I am SO sorry – please forgive me – ”
“I’ll NEVER forgive you!” she screamed, but she was crying again. “HOW DARE YOU?! I thought you LOVED me!”
“I do – you know I do – ”
“I thought you were DIFFERENT from the rest! But NO – you just want me for whatever you can get out of me! You want my body, not ME!”
And then she threw a fireball at me.
She was in a frenzy when she did it, almost out of her mind from rage and pain.
I was able to duck out of the way. The fireball overshot the deck and blasted out into the harbor.
“ALARIA, STOP!” I yelled.
She didn’t listen. She threw another, and this one hit its mark.
Scalding pain raced across my shoulder.
“STOP – ALARIA, STOP – ”
She didn’t. Another fireball hit me in the side.
I didn’t have a choice.
I Soul-Sucked her.
Blue lightning shot out of my hand and pierced her chest.
She screamed in pain.
“Just STOP!” I shouted. “Don’t make me DO this!”
She turned to Krug, tears streaming down her face. “HELP ME!”
“Krug – stay out of this!” I ordered angrily.
Krug looked back and forth between us, not knowing who to help.
But Alaria knew how to get to him.
“Your bargain is with me, not him! Help me and I’ll reduce the number of voyages! I’m the only one who can!”
She was talking about the oath Krug had sworn in exchange for his freedom: a promise to ferry us around OtherWorld six times, anywhere we wanted to go.
Although I was the one who had freed Krug, Alaria was the one who had sealed the pact with an oath and demonfire.
I was afraid she might be right – that she was the only one with the power to change the agreement.
Whether she was or not, Krug was a businessman first and foremost. Well, if piracy can be called a business.
He drew his cutlass and stepped towards me. “Stop.”
“Krug, I didn’t MEAN anything by it!” I roared.
“You’re the one hurting her.”
I stopped the Soul Suck spell. “Only because she would have killed me!”
“That’s not what I meant.” Krug shook his head sadly. “You used her like you thought you still owned her.”
Oh SHIT.
That hit me harder than if he’d punched me.
I staggered backwards. “No…”
I looked around at the demons onboard.
All of them stared at me with accusing eyes.
Even Stig was wincing as I tried to defend the indefensible.
I wanted to scream, She’s a computer program! You’re ALL just computer programs!
But I guess you could say the same to a cow you’re slaughtering for food.
You’re just a cow! That’s all you are!
Wouldn’t matter to the cow. It still wants to eat and sleep and make little cows and not feel any pain.
It still wants to live.
And then, out of nowhere, a new player entered the field.
Dorp rushed up the stairs from below decks and stopped beside me.
“Don’t worry, master – I’ll save you!” he yelped.
Then he did his James McAvoy/Professor X thing –
On Alaria.
A vision of Alaria appeared. She sat slumped on the deck of the ship – naked, about eight months pregnant, with a screaming demon infant in her arms and another two at her feet. Around her neck was a chain that was bolted to the floor of the ship – but it appeared to be a chain made of wedding and engagement rings, glittering with gold and diamonds.
My initial reaction was to laugh. I mean, the demon babies were kind of cute – small, red, with tiny horns and bat wings – although seeing her pregnant was a little shocking.
Then I saw the look on Illusion Alaria’s face.
It was an expression of complete and utter despair.
She looked despondent.
Hopeless.
Trapped.
Any laughter died in my throat.
The illusion definitely wasn’t funny to the real Alaria.
She screamed and staggered backwards, her hands gripping her hair like she might tear it out.
“Dorp, stop!” I commanded.
He did, and the image of her faded away.
Now Alaria was sobbing again. “Is that what you wanted to do to me?! Expose my worst fears in front of everyone?! My deepest shame?!”
Shame?!
Why would it be her shame?
But I wasn’t about to argue with her. Not at that moment.
“No… baby, I love you…” I said as I walked slowly towards her, the way a cop might approach somebody threatening to jump off a bridge.
“Then why would you try to change me?! Why would you ask the GODS to change me?! And without my knowledge!” Her voice changed from a
nguished to bitter. “You don’t want a girlfriend or a wife – you want a slave! To dance for you, to fuck you, to be whatever fantasy you want – but you don’t want me! Not the real me, anyway!”
“I do, I swear I do – ”
“THEN WHY DID YOU TRY TO CHANGE ME BEHIND MY BACK?!”
“Alaria – ”
“JUST GO!” she screamed, then burst into tears again. “Just go…”
Krug stepped between me and Alaria. “I want you off my ship. At least for the moment.”
I became frantic as I tried to sidestep Krug. “Alaria… please, I’m so sorry… please don’t do this…”
She turned away from me and sobbed uncontrollably.
Krug put his oversize hand on my shoulder – gently but firmly. “Ian.”
This wasn’t going to get fixed easily. I had to accept that.
And there wasn’t any use in fighting a ship full of my friends over something stupid and insensitive that was totally my fault.
“Okay…” I whispered to Krug. “…okay.”
I turned and slowly walked down the plank to the dock. Stig and Dorp followed along behind me.
I sat down on a pile of coiled ropes and held my head in my hands.
How the fuck could I have been so stupid?!
I had a great thing going, the best thing in my entire LIFE – why the fuck would I RISK that?!
Dorp tried to be nice. “Master, if it’s any consolation – ”
“DORP,” I shouted, my voice unsteady. “Not now.”
He nodded, then fell silent – a minor miracle in and of itself.
I sat there on the dock rocking back and forth like an insane man until Krug came down the wooden plank.
“Well?” I asked, my stomach churning and twisted.
He slowly shook his head ‘no.’
I stood up and moved towards the plank, screaming at the top of my lungs. “ALARIA!”
Krug put his hand on my chest and held me back. “Don’t.”
“You’ve got to talk to her, Krug – you’ve got to make her see I didn’t mean anything by it!”
“She’s locked herself in your – ” Krug caught himself. “…in her quarters, and she won’t come out.”
“Did you at least try to talk some sense into her?!”
“I asked her if she really wanted to leave.”
“And?!” I asked, unable to bear the suspense.
“She said yes. She wants to leave immediately.”
I collapsed back down on the pile of rope and put my hands over my face.
“I’m sorry,” the pirate captain said.
“I fucked up, Krug – but that’s it. It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“I know.”
I stood up and began yammering feverishly. “Just let me on board – let me stow away – she won’t know I’m onboard, and then when she calms down, everything will be better – ”
“My deal is with her, not you. I swore by the Seven Hells to her, not you.”
I glared at him. “Is there a way for me to contest that agreement?”
Krug hesitated. “…yes… but is that what you really want? To violate her like you did, then force yourself on her even further through the law? Let her go. You’ve done enough already.”
SHIT.
I felt like I was about to throw up. Luckily I held it in.
“There’s still the matter of the debt,” Krug continued. “You’re the one responsible for it. I realize that’s a bitter pill, seeing as you won’t be able to use the ship anymore – ”
“I could give a flying fuck about the ship right now. Or the debt.”
“You will when Varkus sends his Rogues after you.”
“FUCK his Rogues,” I snarled. “And fuck you, too. If you’re so concerned about me, why don’t you pay Varkus off? It’s your goddamn ship.”
Krug squinted in anger. “Which I sacrificed to save you. And which you promised to make right, no matter what.”
I bowed my head in shame. “…I know.”
“I’ll cover a thousand out of appreciation for you freeing me and the crew, but I don’t have it right now. We’d have to go get it, and the nearest burial spot is thousands of miles away. We wouldn’t be back for more than a week… and I’m not sure Alaria would be willing to return that soon.”
“…never mind,” I mumbled. “I’ll handle it.”
“I can talk to Varkus – ”
“I SAID I’ll HANDLE it.”
Krug went silent. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Goodbye.”
He turned to go back up the plank –
“Krug?”
“What?”
“Will you take Stig and Dorp with you?”
Krug paused. “I don’t think she’ll take too kindly to Dorp being aboard.”
“It doesn’t matter, because I’m not going,” Dorp declared. “I’m staying with Master.”
I looked at Dorp in alarm. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
It wasn’t often that the blue demon endeared himself to me – but now was definitely one of those times.
I gave Dorp a bittersweet smile, then turned back to Krug. “Will you take Stig, then?”
“Of course.”
“No,” Stig said resolutely.
I looked at him in surprise. “But you’re free. You can go.”
The little imp shook his head. “I don’t want to.”
“Go look after Alaria for me.”
“I think somebody needs to look after you.”
That almost broke my heart.
I turned back to Krug. “Will you do something else for me, then? Will you tell her I’m sorry? Tell her I never meant to hurt her, and… tell her I love her.”
Krug nodded once, then started up the gangplank. After he was aboard, the crew members drew the wooden board up onto the ship.
Less than a minute later, the turbine engines began to whir, smooth as silk. Varkus’s men were very good at their jobs.
Within seconds the whirring became a roar, and it felt like I had been transported into a wind tunnel. The ship lifted up from the docks, rose into the air, and began to ascend into the dark sky.
The entire time I watched the windowpanes of the captain’s quarters in the rearmost part of the ship.
I could have sworn I saw a hint of red behind the glass.
“ALARIA!” I screamed, though I could barely hear my own voice over the engines.
She must have turned away, because the red disappeared back into the shadows.
Within twenty seconds the ship was far, far overhead. Ten seconds more and it was gone.
I stood there on the dock, staring at the starry sky, feeling like I’d had my insides torn out.
Then my knees buckled, I collapsed back down onto the coiled rope, and I gripped my head in my hands.
I didn’t mean to hurt her!
I didn’t DO anything! Nothing that deserved THIS!
She’s deliberately doing this to hurt ME!
Fucking BITCH –
I’d cried when she left me the first time in Abaddon.
I’d be goddamned if I’d do it again.
Dorp and Stig stood nearby in silence.
Finally Stig asked hesitantly, “…what should we do now, boss?”
I pressed the palms of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars.
Like the stars she’d flown away into, leaving me far behind.
I forced myself to get up and start walking.
To do anything but stay here.
“I don’t know about you,” I growled, fighting to keep control, “but I’m going to go get fucking wasted.”
11
The next few days and nights were a blur, a perpetual alcoholic haze.
Bar after bar, bottle after bottle, shot after shot… I have no idea how much dwarf ale and goblin hooch I poured down
my throat. All I know is that the coins in my bag rapidly diminished in number.
I also discovered something right away: Exardus had a raunchy, sleazy side. Oh, sure, there were the gleaming white buildings, the thin patina of beauty and bourgeois respectability – but beneath that was a dark underbelly crawling with the nastiest vermin imaginable.
They called it the Underneath.
Beneath Exardus was a literal criminal underground, a second city extending hundreds of feet down into the earth. An elaborate network of shops and walkways built in right next to the sewer system, populated by a shadow society of criminals and villains. An actual hive of scum and villainy. Gambling, drugs, poisons, pimping, prostitution, death magic, murder for hire, slavery – any illegal thing you wanted, any dark desire you had, could be sated in the Underneath.
The Underneath itself was kind of fascinating in a weird, fucked-up way. Imagine cobblestone streets and shops from a 17th-century European city, built in a Dante’s inferno system of descending levels, with rivers of sewage flowing under an endless night of underground darkness. There were fountains, manmade waterfalls, underground rivers, all of it exuding the stench of filth and bile. And the occasional dead body floating in the water, waiting to be fished out by someone or washed out to sea.
Part of me wondered how an underground city that existed beneath sea level right next to the ocean could keep from being flooded.
Probably magic.
Fuck it. I was thinking too much. Time for another drink.
As far as the population of the Underneath, you had your regular assortment of orcs, trolls, goblins, sketchy humans, sketchier dwarves, and scarred and disfigured elves, not to mention every other race that OtherWorld offered. But there was a new element I’d never seen before.
Demons. Shit-tons of them.
You’re probably saying, Of course you’ve seen demons, dumbass. You freed 10,000 of them in Abaddon, and until recently you were gallivanting around on a ship full of them.
Yes, but I’d never seen them unenslaved unless I’d been the one doing the freeing.
I’m not even sure ‘unenslaved’ is the right word. More like ‘feral.’
They formed the gangs of the Underneath – roving bands of vicious assholes that preyed on the weak and unsuspecting. And unlike my muppet-colored pirates, these fuckers were straight out of an HP Lovecraft coloring book. Mostly greys and dark greens and blacks. Some navy blues, a lot of wormy whites, the occasional blood-red crimson. Repugnant creatures with nightmarish faces. Cthulhu-like tentacles. Lecherous satyrs. Things that looked like they belonged in a Hieronymus Bosch painting, or a John Carpenter movie, or a mashup of the two.
