by Philip Blood
It smelled like week old fish.
I started to get up and out of the now murky tub water, but Hydan held onto my arm, and then I felt it, kind of a tingling on my scales, and a warm sensation, somewhat pleasurable.
He nodded his head and said softly near my ear, "You feel it now? That is your skin-absorbing nutrients from the chum mix."
The Innkeeper headed to fetch our drinks.
When he was out of earshot Hydan spoke quietly, “She has no use for killing mundanes, there is no point to it since they cannot rise up and challenge her without mages on their side. All she has to do is keep them from getting magical aid. Better yet, by rewarding the mundanes for turning in visiting mages, she has a spy system throughout the lands. She need only make an example out of someone now and then to keep these mundanes in line, which is the real reason she probably burned that other Inn. I doubt there was really a mage there anyway.”
A male saeran kind of staggered past, one of those large mugs clutched in his long-fingered hand. “More craalm!” he bellowed. Then he turned and saw Myrka looking at him stoically from our tub. His large black saeran eyes squinted a moment and then a grin spread across his lips, exposing some of those pointed teeth. “Wow, nice swimmerets!” he slurred.
Myrka scowled, “Move along, citizen, I have no interest in a liaison with one of your kind!”
I moved over in the tub near Myrka and whispered, “Careful, they can’t know we aren’t natives.”
The saeran, a pretty big one, I noted, immediately changed direction and headed for Myrka, “Liaison! What in Morgain’s barnacles are you talking about? I want to lay some eggs with you, Sweety!”
Then he reached out a hand toward Myrka’s upper arm, which she had draped over the side of the tub.
Myrka moved back, and her left hand came up out of the water, her palm pointed at the saeran.
“Hold on there, Myrka!” I barked.
But she sneered and said, “This… fish, dares…”
I interrupted, “To think you are a desirable saeran, nothing more,” I said, trying to remind her she shouldn’t reveal herself as a sorceress, let alone a Derkaz sorceress like Morgain.
I turned to the saeran and said, “This is my wife, good sir, so I would take it kindly if you would move on to a more fertile hunting ground.”
He blinked rapidly, which was a very saeran mannerism, I’d come to discover, and then said, “Would you sell her to me?”
Myrka tried to move around me, but I stayed between them and replied, “No, she is not for sale.”
He scowled at my statement, and considered his next move, at which point Myrka said, “May I kill him?”
I turned and noticed the blue energy which had flowed down from her hand and onto her knife blade. She was currently gripping the hilt tightly with her right hand, but it was mostly hidden inside the sheath. I kept my body between the saeran and Myrka and whispered, “No, and stop using your power!”
The blue glow stopped, and then I turned back to the saeran.
He had heard Myrka's earlier threat and his grin was wide, “She’s a feisty one!”
“No doubt, she cut off the hand of the last male who tried to touch her; I have a few scars myself.”
He laughed, lifted his mug in salute and said, “You’re a braver male than I! Good night and good luck!” And then he staggered off.
“You should have let me kill him,” Myrka snarled, but turned away and moved back toward the edge of the tub.
That’s when I saw the little saeran girl, she was the equivalent of about a twelve-year-old human girl in size. She was crouched down and peeking out from behind a counter where the workers of the Inn prepared the drinks. Her eyes were wide, with a look of astonishment.
I frowned; I hoped she hadn’t seen Myrka’s use of Derkaz.
She ducked her head back when she saw me looking at her.
You would think sitting in a tub of cold water after having been in the river for hours would be the last place you would want to be, but with the chum in the water, it was strangely soothing to the saeran bodies to relax and absorb.
The Innkeeper showed up with our mugs of craalm, which turned out to be a strange oily beverage with a fishy, but oddly pleasant flavor. I guess saeran taste buds liked different things than humans.
We inquired about rooms and arranged for two for the evening. As we headed upstairs I felt something odd, call it a hunch, or maybe it was one of these ‘senses’ things mages can do. I looked with my peripheral vision and noticed the same little saeran girl kind of dogging our heels, darting from cover to cover, like we were circus animals she wanted to see.
As the rest of them went around the bend into a new hallway, I ducked behind a post and waited. A moment later the little saeran girl came up the stairs. Just as she got there, I stepped out and said, “Boo!”
She leaped back, hitting the wall, and I reached out and steadied her so she wouldn’t fall down the stairs.
“Hang on there, little guppie,” I said and gave her a friendly smile. That’s when I noticed the nautilus Glyph on her cheek. In the dim light, the blue of the Glyph blended into the blue color of her skin and scales, so I had missed it.
Some of the quick fear which had shown on her face subsided, and then she smiled ruefully at me, “I didn’t think you saw me following you.”
“Well, I did, and now I think I know why you think we are so interesting, you can see our Glyphs, can’t you? And you know what these mean.”
She nodded, “I haven’t seen any other free mages since my parents were killed.”
“Free mages?” I asked.
She nodded, “Not controlled by the Island Witch.”
Interesting, I thought.
She continued, “We don’t see a lot of strangers anymore, not since the war. Most people stay home, or in their own villages. And certainly no one with a Glyph, they don’t want to run into the Island Witch or her Living Husks, and get taken.”
“Living Husks?” I asked.
“Yeah, her servants, saerans she has captured and turned into living dead. They’re like the dead husk of a fish which has been lying in the sun too long, rotted, dried, and stinking, but they move like they are alive.”
I nodded, “I’ve dealt with some creatures like that before.”
She sighed, “But there are worse things, there are mages who have been turned. Eventually, they are going to find me and then make me into one of those things. I don’t want to be one of them, I’d rather die first,” the girl stated sadly.
I looked at her for a moment, and then said, “What’s your name?”
“Ziny,” she answered pertly and awarded me with a kind of crooked smile.
“Well, Ziny, you’ll be fine, they aren’t looking for a little girl like you.”
Her smile faded. “They took my parents, but my mom hid me from them under the floor,” she stated sadly. “The Innkeeper was a friend of my mother, so he took me in after the Living Husks left.”
I had an instant hatred for Morgain, and her foul husks. To Ziny, I said, “Don’t you worry, just keep your head down and everything will be fine. I’ll see you later on, OK?”
The little waif nodded, her big dark eyes watching me.
As I turned away and left her, I felt terrible, for no apparent reason.
I caught up with the others, who were together in the first room we had hired; they wanted a chance to talk in private. I noticed the beds were not like a human bed, they were a soft gel-like substance, which formed around your body, kind of like lying in dense jelly, but it didn’t stick to you at all.
Hydan explained we were about forty mectors from the capitol city of Poseidon, and would be able to reach there by tomorrow. The Celadon River went right into the city and then emptied into the ocean. The capital city was right on the coast, using the fresh water from the river and the sea for trade routes.
Myrka and Toji were going to stay in the second room, and once we’d decided on a departure tim
e, they headed for the door. I was just going to tell them about Ziny when I saw Myrka suddenly freeze like she heard something sinister from the hallway.
She moved to the door quickly and yanked it open. Ziny was leaning against the door, and half fell into the room as the Tarvos sorceress pulled it open, landing on her hands and knees beneath Myrka. It was obvious she had been eavesdropping.
Myrka snarled, and then grabbed the girl by the thick strands at the back of her head. It wasn’t hair, but more of a kind of noodle consistency, but thicker and stronger. Myrka threw Ziny to the center of our room, and then turned in a crouch, lifting her hand in the gesture she used when she was going to use one of those Derkaz blasts of energy.
I leaped between them, starting to say, “Now hold on, she’s a…”
That is when the dark beam of energy lanced out from Myrka’s palm and struck me in the gut, burning a massive hole in my saeran body.
It felt like someone had shoved a hot poker into my guts the size of a frying pan, and then turned on electricity, powering it like a continuous cattle prod.
I flew back and hit the wall, and then slid to the ground, unable to even move.
Myrka snarled in frustration and sent another blast at Ziny, but the little girl dodged and the blast went through the floor, opening a two-foot hole to the common room downstairs.
There were screams from below and yells of ‘Magic!’ and ‘Wizardry’, I even heard someone yell, ‘Summon the witch’s hunters, those strangers are mages!”
Toji yelled at Myrka, who was angling for another shot at the crawling Ziny, “What are you doing, you fool! You have revealed us to these people, and likely killed Nicholas! I was sworn to protect him if he dies, YOU DIE!”
He placed himself between Myrka and my fallen form, weapons ready.
For me, the world was going in and out of focus, and starting to darken around the edges of my vision. I could barely see Hydan as he got between our insane Derkaz sorceress and my fallen form.
Then I dimly saw little Ziny, and even with Myrka trying to kill her, the little girl was crawling toward me swiftly.
“She knows we are mages, she must die!” Myrka snarled in a deadly voice, and tried to get an angle on the crawling form of the little saeran girl, but Hydan stepped between them.
“Everyone in this Inn knows we are mages now, thanks to you!” he noted, and I heard some of the first anger in his voice which I’d ever discerned.
Myrka stopped and finally listened to the voices of the patrons coming up through the hole in the floor.
Right then the door burst open and three saerans bearing weapons appeared in the doorway. Myrka spun around and incinerated them with a gesture.
Toji spoke in a deadly voice, “Attack anyone here again, and I will end you.” His tantos were in his hands, ready for action.
Meanwhile, Ziny had reached my side, and she put her hands over my stomach. It hurt so badly I didn’t dare look; I knew I would see my saeran organs falling out, or worse, burnt to a crisp. I certainly felt like I was dying; I was holding onto life by the thinnest thread.
Suddenly I felt the pain lessen, and a strange sensation of things pulling together.
Hydan arrived, but he just frowned and then smiled slightly, but didn’t do anything.
“A little help here?” I croaked when the pain had receded enough for me to even speak.
He shrugged, “Your little sorceress friend is doing a fine job, she is quite talented.”
Myrka glanced around Hydan, and saw what was happening, “She is a mage?”
“Yes,” Hydan said, “And skilled for her age.”
In a few moments, I felt back to normal and sat up. Then I turned to Ziny and said, “Thank you, I think you just saved my life.”
She just looked at me and blinked those big eyes.
I looked up at Myrka, and spoke angrily, “Would you stop killing people, especially ME!”
She didn’t even apologize, “I did not know she was a mage, and you should know better than to get between me and my target.”
My eyes narrowed, “She is a little girl, not a target. Do not attempt to kill any more children or you will be breaking your oath to me.”
“If that is your wish,” Myrka replied coldly.
I decided the sooner I could get rid of Myrka the better; she had no, for lack of a better term, humanity. She was a cold-blooded killer.
Ziny looked up at me, and I realized I had somehow gotten to my feet and I was standing over the smaller Myrka and scowling down at her. I turned away from the Tarvos sorceress and looked at Ziny, and my face softened as I said, “Thank you for healing me, how did you get so good at that? I swear I was nearly dead.”
“You were near death, but my mother taught me how to heal, she was very good at it,” Ziny said softly, remembering her mother, and feeling the pain of her loss. I could read it in her small face.
We could all hear the commotion from below, and Hydan sighed, “Looks like no sleep for us, we’re going to have to depart before they try something foolish, and Myrka slaughters them all, or they summon some of Morgain’s necromages and we get in a real battle. Come on, back to the canal, then out to the river!”
I nodded toward the little saeran girl and said to the others, “Ziny comes with us.”
Hydan looked at me strangely, and then said, “She would probably be safer here.”
“No, someone may have heard us, and know she is a mage, so she is coming with us to the capitol,” I ordered.
No one else had anything to say, so I took Ziny’s hand and led her down the stairs.
At the sight of us emerging several of the saerans brandished weapons, but when Myrka pulled her knife, and blue energy ran down to coat it, they all backed away. The Innkeeper saw Ziny’s hand in mine, and gave me a little nod, he understood; Ziny was going with her kind.
Once we made it into the basement, shed our cloaks and got into the canal, we started swimming for the river and were soon out into the swift current.
Chapter Eight
When the true kings murderers
Are allowed to roam free,
A thousand magicians arise in the land
-The Doors
It was dark in the wide Celadon River, and much harder to navigate, but I found my saeran eyes saw much better than human eyes in the dark. Things were in black and white, with lots of shades of gray, yet it was brighter than what I was used to seeing at night.
Ziny was swimming circles around us, literally. The girl was a speed demon and showed what a lifetime, or even twelve or so years, could do for you as a saeran. Hydan was having fun with her, trying to swim as fast and gracefully as the native girl. She took him to the bottom of the Celadon, where they disturbed a large bottom dwelling fish which was down in the mud. It had a head too large for its body, and long whiskers. It was pulling itself along the bottom by those stout whiskers, and the body only had a vestigial tail and fins.
Hydan laughed at the odd fish, and called to Ziny, “Is that really a fish?”
“Yes, we call it a snogfish,” Ziny replied.
Hydan then exclaimed, “You mean it’s a fish, but it can’t swim?”
“It pulls itself along the bottom by those whiskers,” Ziny clarified.
Hydan guffawed, “Snog, like those fat, mud snorting animals I’ve seen on land?”
“Yes,” Ziny said with a smile, “Their heads are similar, and they both have long whiskers.”
“Snogfish, that’s just lovely!” Hydan exclaimed.
After we swam for two hours the Celadon widened out into a vast lake. We were all tired and needing sleep, so I popped to the surface and looked around; we were in some tall hills, not mountains really, maybe 2000 feet higher than the lake. The hills were covered in patches of thick trees or meadows of tall grass.
Off in the distance, further up the lake, was a lone sentinel poking up out of the flat lake surface, like a massive tombstone. It was a rocky island, with some kind of tall dark to
wer sticking up into the night. There were no lights, and I thought I could make out one crumbled wall. It seemed uninhabited.
I ducked back down and said, “Follow me.” Then I headed for the island.
After ten minutes we came to the island and saw the rocky underwater hill rising out of the depths of the dark lake.
We all went to the surface, and I said, “It looks disserted; perhaps we can find a place to rest inside until morning.”
The others started moving toward the shore, but Ziny was treading water next to me, and said, “That is Dal Kavem.”
“Oh, what do you know about it?” I inquired.
She blinked at me and then said, “They say it is haunted, and anyone who goes there never returns.”
“Haunted, by what?”
“Ghosts, Shades, I guess. I’ve never been here, nobody comes here, anymore. Not since it was destroyed by the Island Witch a long time ago. They say in olden times it was once an outpost of the capital, a place where mages dwelled.”
I started kicking toward the shore, “Come on, I don’t believe in ghosts, it’s just an old ruin.”
Ziny reluctantly followed.
We clamored up onto the rocky shore, and then found a path which led toward the short wall that went around the tall tower. There was an arched opening, which once had massive gates, but these were ripped off and piled to the sides. I had no idea what forces it would take to do that without gunpowder or other explosives. We walked under the dark arch, and could see the doors to the tower, also standing open and broken, ahead of us.
“There was a lot of magic power used here,” Myrka noted clinically.
As we approached the opening Hydan reached down and picked up a short piece of wood, but by the time he raised it over his head it had transformed into a torch, already lit. This provided us with some light and chased back the dark shadows. It also revealed an entry hall, strewn with saeran bones, broken armor, and weapons, all long rusted and decaying.
