Ghosts of the Sea Moon

by A F Stewart

  Hugh nodded.

  She giggled. “Wrong.” She grabbed the prison bars, and swung back and forth, rattling the cage door. “No. No. No soul. Had one, now it’s lost. Lost to the pain. Lost to the monsters. Lost to...” She stopped, sat quietly and folded her hands in her lap. “I listened to the darkness. To the caw of crows. Promises of worlds gone. Of my suffering obliterated. Promised the end of hope. End of all futures. Eternal oblivion. Make them all pay. Be the soulless destroyer.” She smiled. “That’s who I am.”

  “No.” Hugh smiled back, tenacity and words tumbling out of his mouth. “No, and no again. People without souls don’t feel pain. They don’t feel anything. Your soul is lost. But not gone. And all lost things can be found.”

  She tilted her head as if pondering his words. “You are more mad than I, sir. Yes, mad, mad, mad.”

  Hugh laughed. “I may be. But I stand by what I said. Or maybe sit.” He grinned and plunked himself into a seated position on the floor in front of the cell. “Whatever you are, you’re not soulless. And despite everything, I like talking to you. Around you, I don’t have to pretend.”

  “Yes. Talking is nice. I missed that. Nobody talks to me anymore. Except for my children. And they just grunt and scream and wave their tentacles. No conversation.”

  Hugh blinked and sucked in his breath, a shock shuddering down his spine. “Your children?”

  “The monsters.” She tapped her fingers across her knees. “Creatures only a mother could love. Sometimes. Yes, a sometimes love for my children. I do and I don’t.” She let out a sigh as wide as the sea. “I love them mostly, you know. They’re not as bad as, well...” She shrugged. “You know. You’ve seen them. That’s why I never love when the moon is full. No, not then.” She fidgeted, running her hands along the wooden floor. “But I sing to them. When it’s quiet, and the air is still. Pretty lullabies about the moon. The same ones I used to sing to your captain when he was a child. They always liked the lullabies.” She started to hum. Softly, just under her breath. “Yes, they’re good children when I sing.”

  “Are they just trying to please you? When they hunt in the moonlight?” The questions slipped out from Hugh’s brain and past his lips without a coherent thought of what he asked.

  She looked surprised, but not shocked or displeased. “I don’t know. I never asked. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe they’re good children doing bad things for their mother.” She sighed again, an exhalation ripe with compunction. “It all got confused and jumbled. Puzzle pieces and pawns. Bits that don’t fit anymore.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “Are you? A piece that doesn’t fit?”

  “Yes, I think I am. Maybe that’s why I’m here. Looking to find where I fit. Hoping you know—” His words broke with a bang from above deck and a shout of his name.

  “Hugh! Where you’d get to? Hugh Corwin!”

  He scrambled to his feet. “I’d better go.”

  “Wait. Is that your name? Hugh?”

  He nodded and disappeared into the shadows to rejoin the crew.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Waning Moon

  THE BREAK OF DAWN FOUND Rafe watching the cherry tinted sunrise, a frown wrapped around his face. Few sailors were on deck, and all gave the moody captain a wide berth, for Rafe had no cheer for any of his crew this morning. He didn’t even smile at the approach of familiar footsteps. However, he anticipated the question before asked. “It happens this morning, Blackthorne. Everything’s prepared. Give the crew extra grog at breakfast. They’ll need it.”

  “Am I getting that predictable, sir?” Not waiting for an answer, the first mate continued, “I’ll let the cook know about the rations. Is there anything else you need me to do?”

  “Dig some shackles out from storage. The crew will feel better if she’s restrained when we bring her above deck.”

  “Aye, Captain,” came the answer, followed by retreating footsteps. Rafe contained another sigh but felt relief at being alone once more. Today was not the day he wished for company. No. Today was a day for mourning.

  “You’ll live, sister, but everything you were, and everything you are will cease to be. Who will you be tomorrow, I wonder? More broken than that shell of a creature in my brig, or free of your burdens?” He tossed a heavy exhalation into the sea. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  The sound of voices made him turn his head. The crew had roused with tankards of grog in their hands.

  The ever efficient Blackthorne. What would I do without him?

  And with those thoughts, the captain went below deck.

  AFTER THE MORNING MEAL, Rafe stood outside his sister’s cell with shackles in his hand. “It’s time, Manume.”

  “Is it? Time to go. Time to lose. Time to die.” She giggled. “What is time, to us? Time, time, time. Never enough.”

  “Or too much. Too much time passed. Too much time lost.”

  She looked at him. “Has there been? Maybe, maybe. Too much of everything between us. Can’t go back, can’t go forward.”

  “Yes. We can only end.”

  “Will it? Or dangle like a fish? I don’t know, I don’t know. I think we are forever. Whatever we do.” She sighed. “That’s the tragedy.”

  “On that, we agree. We are a tragedy.”

  “So what now? Parade me in pomp and circumstance? Break me? Throw me to the fishes, and let them eat my soul?”

  “You let me open the door and put these shackles on your wrists.” He jangled the restraints. “Then we go up on deck.”

  Dutifully she did as her brother bid and allowed herself to be shackled and led topside like a docile spring lamb. Much of the crew had formed a loose half-ring around a double triangle rune Rafe had inscribed and imbued with magic on the quarterdeck planking. He walked his sister into the middle of the intersecting geometric shapes.

  “A spell ward and binder. Is not this collar not enough?” She sneered.

  “No. Not for what must be done. The power that must be unmade.”

  She stared into his face as if some horrid secret finally dawned. “You truly mean to do it, then? No taking me back, letting them deal with me? I die here today? Or do you castrate me, instead?”

  “I’m making certain you stop hurting people. Hurting yourself. You’ve forfeited your right to be a god, sister. After today, you will no longer have that power.”

  “So, it’s cut out all the bad bits and see what’s left.” She sneered. “Not much, I’d wager.”

  “And whose fault is that, sister?” A snatch of temper frayed through his composure. “You’ve brought this on yourself. I’m sick of pretending there’s anything left of you to save. You’re no better than your monsters that roam the sea. Devouring the innocent to feed your hate!”

  She rocked back on her heels, silent, and Rafe pushed her down on her knees. She thrust her hands in front of her and rattled her chains. “Is this the part where I beg for mercy?”

  “Do what do like. You always have.” He turned his back and walked beyond the edges of the etched rune.

  He took the Ankara Stone from an inner pocket of his coat, holding it in his palm. He took a breath, steadying his nerves for what he knew came next. He closed his eyes and recited the ancient spell.

  “Dywch ar werc! Ymerch endr urd!”

  The incandescent flash of light and the stone burned with a shining glow in his palm. He gritted his teeth against the pain he knew was coming as the stone again burrowed its way into his flesh and fused with his own innate magic. It took mere moments for the gem to disappear within his hand. He inhaled, enjoying its power coursing through him. He looked at his sister. She said nothing but smiled. A grin that said volumes in mockery and hate.

  “So be it.” He held up his hand, palm facing towards her. “Time to end it.” Their eyes locked and he spit out the spell words. “Indd demwys!”

  White energy marbled in blue spun from Rafe’s hand and engulfed his sister, stabbing at her essence, connecting to her magic.
She fell to her knees her body pulsing in white and blue sparks, the runes on her arms glistening red like a bleeding heart. She shrieked her sorrow and her agony, a frenzied howl of the enraged and damned.

  Undeterred, Rafe continued to recite the spell, “Incean aryl andia, scryos andia.”

  The sky quaked, the clouds turned crimson, and the ship shuddered as it bounced on the sudden roiling sea. The air snapped cold and dripped in bitter angst, wind smacking at the sails. Skin shivered, and sorrow seeped to the bone of every sailor standing on deck. A sorrow so profound that tears came unbidden to the eyes of the crew.

  But her brother stood dry-eyed and maintained a stoic demeanour. Rafe remained still, his voice steady. “Aganis, tosaionn, an deiradh.”

  Manume screeched and for a moment the light of the perpetual moon above the ship wavered and dimmed. From the sea came responding screams. The heartbreak of monsters sailing on the prevailing winds.

  Manume looked up and glared at him, hissing through clenched teeth, “My children know. They mourn.” She bowed her head, only then noticing the vibrating shade of the runes. She raised her head again, slowly, and looked into the crowd, searching. She whispered, “Maybe gods can change, maybe they can’t. But they need to be free.”

  Then she smiled and stared into her brother’s eyes. “My children weep for their mother. They are dutiful creatures. They obey. They will do bad things for their mother. My children will do anything for me.” She reached out slowly and placed a quaking hand on the wooden deck. “You made a mistake, brother. You forgot things. Things with black wings. And red runes that fight back.” Her body shook and she moaned as the Ankara stone spell stabbed at her once more. But then she laughed, spewing out more words. “This ship is magic, brother dear. Magic. Magic is the key. I may not have my own, but I have his power, and I can use yours against you!”

  Groaning and lashed with energy that drained her strength, she closed her eyes. Her lips moved, mumbling sounds, and the scars on her arms glowed a deeper red. A tendril of blue energy ascended from the core of the ship, snaking through her palm, and encircling her wrist. Where it touched her skin, the colour changed to scarlet. She jerked her hand upward and yanked the strand of magic free. She whipped it sideways, extending the now crimson power like a fishing line, out towards the sea. Then she screamed.

  In an instant, her children bellowed a reply and leapt from the water. The filament of energy grew and branched out, a dozen or more strands blossoming. The multiple lines of energy twisted around her creatures and ensnared a willing pack of sea monsters. Matter and bone, sinew and blood transformed into raw power and sucked down this lifeline of magic to the casting source: Their mother, Goddess of the Moon.

  She glowed white hot and cherry-red, and her shackles shattered into chunks of flying metal. The binding glyphs painted on the deck seared to ash, and the collar around her neck dissolved in a flash of light. She let out a roar, a cry of anguish and triumph. The ship beneath her feet shuddered and heaved with an unrestrained assault.

  “I am free and I will destroy you all!”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Shipboard Battle

  THE STENCH OF A NEWLY-born lightning storm engulfed the ship, and the sizzle-snap of wild magic echoed along her lines. The Jewel shuddered again as if a giant fist squeezed her bones. Red radiance shimmied across the deck, and bolted up the mast, curling around the wood. The sails billowed in a shower of sparks and the smell of burning salt air.

  “Your ship is mine!” Manume cackled and the ship rocked violently, rising on a sudden surge of tide and wave.

  “Never!” With all the power of his magic and the Ankara Stone, Rafe punched his sister in the face, knocking her off her feet with an audible smack and a thump. She kicked out as she fell, but he sidestepped the blow. She used that moment to scramble upright, and then she charged at her brother.

  A free-for-all fist-fight ensued. A screaming, smacking, clawing, kicking, punching brawl, flashing feral energy and power around the open decks. Sailors ran, yelping and scattering for cover and fleeing below deck as the pair careened off post and stanchion, splintering wood and noisily flinging gear in their wake. The ship heaved, bucking like an untamed horse of the Outlaw Keys, its timbers groaning, adding to the sizzling, reverberating din of two gods at war.

  “Did you really think you could best me, little brother? I’ll tear you, your ship, your crew, and the worlds apart! I’ll make you all pay!”

  “Pay for what, sister? Your mistakes? Your inability to accept the fact that your human lover would die someday?” Rafe smashed a blue ball of energy and fury at Manume throwing her across ship into the fo’c’sle. He leapt after her, landing on the main deck.

  “I warned you! I told you not to try! I told what would happen to him! Humans can’t be gods! But you wouldn’t listen! And we now all have to pay your folly? I’ll never let that happen!”

  “It was your fault! Yours! Why didn’t you stop me? Protect him!” She screamed, a hellion of rage and lashed at him with a sizzling tentacle of magic. Rafe dodged and it gouged a burn mark down the length of the deck. “You are the God of Souls! Why didn’t you protect him! Him, of all people! You let him die!”

  “You killed him! Face it, Manume! Your arrogance, your belief that I was wrong killed him! You should have listened to me!”

  Rafe roared the last words, the tenor and echo shaking the ship. They glared at each other, Manume at the fo’c’sle bulwark with the sea behind her back, and Rafe standing below, opposite from her. Between them ran the charred gash in the deck planking.

  She whispered, “It’s your fault,” and lashed out, a line of scarlet energy arching towards her brother.

  Rafe smiled and caught her makeshift whip in mid-flight before the blow could land. He yanked, and she yanked back sending a frisson of energy across the ship.

  “A game, a game!” She cackled a trill of madness.

  “This is no game!” A boom of anger reverberated and was answered with an abrupt crack and snap. The deck between them split. Rails shattered, and the ship shuddered, threatening to rip in twain.

  Hugging the upper rail, Manume laughed again.

  “Sink the ship! Sink the ship!” She pulled on her end of the energy strand only to be countered by her brother. “Who will win? Who will die? Maybe all!”

  The shriek of wood and men’s voices raised a din of bedlam as the ship shuddered and two gods battled for control. Blackthorne’s voice sounded above it all, “What are you doing? Let go before we tear apart! Your magic is destroying us!”

  The pair ignored him, as each vied to wrest dominance from the other. The widening crack separated brother and sister as each yanked on the magic tether in an ever-desperate tug-of-war. Between them, the ship shrieked like a beast being slaughtered. Around them, the crew shouted in terror and clung to whatever solid they could grasp as the vessel threatened to tear itself apart.

  “Shall we shred this earth-bound ship and everyone on board? See how many die in the destruction and how many drown? I wonder if any of my children linger to gobble up the remaining souls?”

  “You will not be alive to see that happen! I will kill you first!”

  “No!” Hugh scrambled between them, dancing around the fissure and ducking the energy of the tether. Fear coloured his eyes wild and his voice shook.

  Rafe snarled, “Get out of there! What are you doing?”

  “This can’t continue! You’re going to kill everyone!”

  Rafe hesitated, a slack in their tug of wills and magic. His vacillation reverberated down the energy and, in that same instant, Manume smiled. And then she let go, lunged forward, and leapt to the main deck.

  Simultaneously, the backlash from the magic hit Rafe, knocking him off his feet, and his sister landed like a cat. She grabbed Hugh by the arm and yanked, narrowly dodging the split in the deck. The captain tumbled over broken wood and flying energy, scrambling to his feet in time to witness his sister jump from the ship, dragg
ing Hugh with her. He raced to the rail and watched them both sink into the sea.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Isle of Bones

  PULLED UNDER THE SURFACE of the water, memories exploded in Hugh’s mind. Waves of expectation crowded all other thoughts. He remembered the night he died. The sensation of constriction, the choking, salty water filling his lungs, his thrashing desperation, and then the soft fading of awareness. Surrounded by the dark ocean, he anticipated it all again.

  But nothing happened.

  He calmly sank, the serene silence enveloping him. No end awaited him. No final fall into oblivion. Then he realized. The dead cannot drown.

  The dead. Oh no! The monsters! I have to get out of the sea!

  Panicked, Hugh flayed his limbs and tried to swim to the surface. A rough hand reached out and yanked him farther below the water. Hugh fought the grip, jerking his head to see what held him.

  The Goddess of the Moon smiled at him. She held a finger to her lips in a gesture of quiet. Hugh stopped struggling. She pulled him closer and took his hand in hers. Hugh closed his eyes as a soft red glow encircled them and they sailed away on the currents of the sea.

  FAR ABOVE THEM, CHAOS reigned.

  “She’s listing, Captain! Starboard! If she continues, we’ll heave over! Whatever you’re fixing to do, do it now!”

  Ignoring the shouts and the frantic crew trying to keep the Jewel afloat and sailing, Rafe held the ship together by force of will. He poured the soul of his magic, fuelled by the Ankara Stone, into the frame and the vessel’s life, knitting the broken structure back together fibre by fibre. Near human wails and groans echoed from the galleys and the darkest corners of the Jewel as if the ship suffered in agony. Slowly, sliver by sliver, board by board, the fractured ship became whole. She shuddered, shaking from prow to stern, and Rafe collapsed to his knees.