The Shadow of Everything Existing

by Ken Altabef

  “How many are there?”

  “That’s not just one creature. It can’t be.”

  “Who can tell?”

  Numerous coils had appeared now, reaching mostly for the upper parts of the ship, wrapping around the crosstrees, cradling the spars malevolently.

  “The cannon!” shouted Gekko.

  “It’s no use,” said the mate, his arm flung toward the side gunwale. “There’s nothing to shoot at. She’s right on top of us.”

  “And below us too,” remarked Gekko. His words were nearly drowned out by the groan of steel plating as the deadly coils squeezed the hull. Shattered sea ice sprayed the main deck as a score of tentacles, each thicker than the main mast, slithered across its planks. Men went at them with axes and halberds only to be battered senseless for their efforts.

  Gekko stared overhead at several toothy tendrils that had fastened themselves around the masts. They moved like gigantic snakes. All three masts were bare of canvas and rigging but, used as levers, they jerked the entire boat from starboard to port and back again. The top mast went first. Snapping with a sound that stabbed Gekko’s ears, it flew away. The topgallant mast followed directly after. The tentacles converged on the heavy main mast, raking spear-sized splinters from its base with their teeth. One of the main spars snapped, bounced once off the deck and impaled some hapless seaman straight through the chest.

  The hull plating roared as Gekko stared helplessly on. The plight of the Vengeance seemed completely hopeless. He considered a retreat to the lower level. At least he might offer some last-minute comfort to his wife who must be terrified, waiting below.

  At last the main mast broke in half. The heavy mast end went crashing through the top deck, lower deck, and orlop deck to rest in the ship’s hold. From the sound of it, the pole had stopped only a few feet from breaching the hull.

  Staring at the broken stump of the mast, Captain Feeney stood dazed. Jagged splinters of wood rained down upon the men on deck. The hull, three inches of the finest English oak, banded with two layers of steel an inch and a half thick, groaned madly. The planking shrieked and buckled under their feet.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” said the Captain. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  He watched as the last of the longboats, held fast to the starboard side, was smashed into kindling.

  Ikik thought the change was entirely wonderful. Whereas his old body had been soft and difficult to control, his new form was lean and muscular beneath its hard shell. He flexed corded muscles along the length of his spine with a resultant pivot in the water that adjusted his course precisely as intended. And the best of it was the magnificent tail. Broad and flat, and thick with powerful muscles, he snapped the tail in a whipsaw motion that sent him flying through the water.

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” he said.

  Uuna and Siqi, desperately clinging to his spiny hide with their pincer claws, could barely answer, “Yes!”

  Ikik clenched and unclenched his massive claws, two on each side. The pincers were long and sharp and the crusher claws felt strong enough to crush an orca’s skull. He arched his back up and did a full-circle flip in the water.

  “Ahhhhh!” screamed Uuna.

  “Brother!” scolded Siqi. “Are you trying to shake us off?”

  “Sorry,” he said. Ikik decided it was best to keep straight on and see how fast he could go. He flailed his tail faster than ever. He only knew he must go north. Some newborn instinct told him he must face enemies in those frigid waters.

  Eventually he sighted the icebreaker ship. Clinging to the hull, enveloping the ship with their long, thick tentacles were two massive sea beasts. Each was twice the size of Ikik, a nightmare of writhing tentacles and hideous teeth. These, he knew, were his enemies.

  “These things helped destroy the Whale-Man,” he said.

  “We know,” replied Siqi.

  Whether the sea beasts were aware of the lakespawn’s approach was unclear. Ikik couldn’t tell if they possessed eyes or even a face. The monsters each had a huge circular mouth on their underbellies, full with a vicious spiral of teeth, much like the sucking mouth of a lamprey eel.

  Ikik sped directly at the nearest monster, his claws snapping through the water. The sea beast’s hide was thick and oily like an octopus, but Ikik’s claws were fresh and new and sharp. In no time the sea beast’s black blood plumed into the water. The lamprey mouth released a gurgling wail of pain and anger. Its many tentacles pulled back from the ship as the sea beast turned to face its attacker.

  Uuna and Siqi set about harassing the other beast, but it was slower to react to their smaller cuts.

  With blinding speed the sea beast’s tentacles moved as one, propelling the monster directly at Ikik. He swung his claws, cutting here and there as fast as he could. One of his arms was caught in mid-stroke by a pair of thick ropey tentacles. The sea beast’s many teeth, all strewn along the line of the tentacle, couldn’t pierce Ikik’s armored shell. They merely raked uselessly across the surface. But the tentacles caught one of Ikik’s arms at an odd angle. With a sudden yank, each in an opposite direction, the tentacles snapped off the lakespawn’s arm.

  Ikik smarted at the pain but wouldn’t relent. His three remaining claws continued to wreak havoc on the tentacles. He flexed his tail and spun underneath, attacking the beast’s soft underbelly.

  The other monster shrugged off the attacks of the two smaller lakespawn, hardly even noticing them at all, and converged on Ikik as well. The valiant lakespawn fought on.

  CHAPTER 27

  SHIPWRECK

  The men aboard HMS Vengeance were surprised when the sea monsters suddenly withdrew. The Captain stood firmly on deck, barking out orders to his crew. He sent men down to inspect the engine and assess the hull.

  “We have a spare mast,” he told Gekko, “and six skilled carpenters. Thank the Lord God our sails were stored away. If we can get the repairs done, we’ll be good for sailing at least. So long as there’s open water, at any rate.”

  “I doubt we have that much time,” said Gekko. “Those things will be back.”

  The Captain grimaced. “I don’t think so. They’ve tasted our vessel and found they have little tongue for wood or iron. If I know anything about the sea, those things will slink back into the murky depths and let us alone.”

  Gekko thought the Captain was discounting the ripe, salty taste of the several seamen who had gone over and likely been devoured, but he didn’t see fit to bring it up. He stepped cautiously to the rail. He couldn’t see anything below the bobbing rafts of jagged ice. He looked at the water in a new way, seeing it now as an icy death. He had never before considered the possibility the HMS Vengeance might go down.

  “Walter?”

  Gekko turned to find Noona standing behind him. He said, “Are you all right, darling? You shouldn’t be up here. It’s not safe.”

  Noona gripped his bicep and pulled him back from the rail. She took his hand in her own. Gekko felt nothing, his fingers already numb. He’d not had time for mittens.

  He leaned in close. “What were those things?”

  She shook her head. He had never seen her so frightened.

  “Do you have any idea what the devil’s going on?” he asked.

  Noona cocked her head, listening intently. Gekko could hear only the growl of the ice, the Captain bellowing orders, the moans of wounded men.

  “Do you hear something?” he asked.

  “They’re fighting.”

  “Those monsters? I suppose that’s good. Maybe they’ll kill each other.”

  “It’s not good. Step away.” Gekko and Noona walked back from the rail, although it was unclear who was pulling who.

  Gekko sought out the Captain.

  “D’you think you should have the men load the cannons, just in case?”

  “Aye,” said the Captain. “But we’re running low in the water. We have to pump her out and see to the hull first.”

  The ice to the starboard
side exploded upward. One of the tentacles, dripping black bloody ichor, broke the surface. A terrifying sound rang out from below the water line, a cross between an agonized squeal and the bellow of a maddened bull walrus.

  The Captain leaned down toward the fore hatch. “Load the cannons!”

  Underwater, the battle raged on. Ikik struggled against both sea beasts now that the second had joined the attack. He worked his claws feverishly, slashing and snapping with a newfound desperation. There were too many tentacles. He couldn’t see Uuna or Siqi, though he occasionally heard a little cry of alarm which sounded as if it came from his little sister. He knew they wouldn’t abandon him, but their efforts to help couldn’t amount to very much.

  Too many of the tentacles had wrapped themselves around his tail. He couldn’t swim. All he could do was slash and snap. The sea beast’s blood tainted the water with an inky dark that stung his eyes. His adversaries didn’t seem to have eyes. They didn’t need eyes to squeeze the life out of him, for they already had him well in their deadly grip. The pressure was enormous, despite his armored shell. At last Ikik found he couldn’t move his arms. His claws had lost their bite.

  Siqi stabbed at one of the sea beasts with her little pincers. She couldn’t see her brother through the dark, obscuring mist of blood in the water. She thought she heard a muffled crack. His shell! As she looked on in horror, the flexing tentacles pressed their relentless attack.

  “No. No!” she said, jabbing ineffectively with the pincers.

  With a heartbreaking sound, a huge tear appeared in Ikik’s shell. After that it was all over very quickly. Siqi saw a frothy pink substance, the meat and sinew of her poor dear Ikik, spurt through the shell. Pulverized muscle and organs and brains, the mass twitched and quivered for a moment and then went still. Ikik was dead.

  The sea beasts disengaged. One floated lifelessly in the water, its tentacles all gone slack, extending straight out from the central mass like a grotesque starfish leaking black ichor. The other beast began its rise toward the surface and the ship above.

  The two lakespawn hovered over the corpse of their brother. They gagged on his salty taste in the water.

  “He’s dead!” cried Uuna.

  Siqi couldn’t think of that now. Her mind was full of a desire to seek revenge on the other beast.

  “Now. Up!” she said. “We have to try and kill that thing.”

  We have to try, she thought. Though it seemed impossible to succeed where their gigantic brother had failed. We have to try.

  Standing on deck, Gekko was the first to notice the dead carcass floating up.

  “Hie!” he shouted. “Look alive! Broad on the starboard bow!”

  Once again, the crew stepped cautiously to the rail.

  “Praise the Lord above, it looks dead!” remarked Captain Feeney, and the men began to cheer. “Get me Beacher and Rallye on deck, with tools to fix the mast. I want canvas rigged--”

  The Captain’s last order was cut short by an enormous tentacle that swept over the deck. The coil caught the stalwart commander amidships, crushing him below its weight. Gekko stepped forward to try and help, but it was clear the Captain was already dead, his head thrown back against the deck, his eyes vacant and bloody.

  All around the ship, tentacles rose up to come writhing over the sides. The men began to scream in hopeless despair.

  Gekko was mostly concerned for Noona. He felt completely helpless as he threw his arms around her. The huge tentacles snaked their way along the deck, their ends feeling their way along, converging from all sides until they hooked into the gigantic rent in the deck that had been created by the fall of the main mast.

  The pressure on hull must have been immense, judging by the sound of steel groaning under the assault.

  “She’ll never hold,” shouted Gekko. “They’ll tear her apart!”

  The men went at the tentacles the only way they knew how, with hand axes, harpoons, and pocket knives.

  Gekko noticed that the thickest tentacles came over the deck from the starboard side directly amidships. It seemed to him the main body of the beast must be sitting very close to the cannon port. He gave Noona’s hand a hopeful squeeze and rushed to the open trap leading to the deck below.

  “Fire guns!” he yelled down. “Starboard! Fire starboard cannon! Aye?”

  He listened carefully but didn’t hear a reply above the noisy pandemonium on deck. A lot of the men were on deck, preferring to meet their fate face-to-face rather than to die cooped up below. He couldn’t blame them.

  “Is there no one down there?” he yelled.

  The many tentacles dug deep into the mast hole and pulled relentlessly apart. The main deck was torn asunder, a huge rent opening amidships. Men scrambled away from the gaping hole. The entire silhouette of the ship had changed, growing narrower in the center, both ends rising up out of the water. The hull was being crushed. No doubt about it.

  “Damn it all!” spat Gekko. He descended into the hatch. The ladder was missing several rungs already, leaving steel brackets sprung from their sockets to hang limply aside. Raw nails snatched at his great coat as he made his way down.

  As Gekko had suspected, there was no one left below. The lower deck canted severely downward as he glanced back toward stern. He was glad he needn’t go that way.

  Instead he fought his way along the debris clogging the narrow corridor that led amidships. Various bits of sailing gear had erupted out of the officer’s cabins. Gekko tossed aside an elaborately gilded phonograph and pushed through a heap of books, elegant leather-bound volumes from the Captain’s private collection. Verne, Dickens and Thomas Hardy. He kicked them all aside.

  The alcove housing the starboard cannon had already been compressed to half its normal width. As Gekko squeezed into the room the metal walls groaned further. He had no doubt the Vengeance would soon be crushed beneath the strain, or torn in two. The ship’s heavy armament was a 50-pounder cast iron cannon, the Royal Navy’s finest, firing a Paixhans explosive shell powerful enough to take down an enemy ironclad. The muzzle was only halfway extended from the breech, and Gekko suspected it had been run out all the way but then pressed back by the scaly flesh of the monster. Good enough. The purple mass of the beast was visible as it squirmed, hard-pressed against the gunport. The stink of the thing up close was preternatural, calling to mind the muck of ten thousand years.

  The acrid scent of gunpowder meant that the firing cartridge, wad and shell had already been packed in. He was thankful for that. Loading the heavy cannon was the work of a team of three men at the least. A small sack of fine gunpowder hung from a peg near the breech and Gekko primed the touch hole, sparing none of the stuff. At this point-blank range he fully expected the gun’s effects, both on the monster and on the ship, to be disastrous. But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to fire the damn thing anyway.

  He stood safely to the side, thankful that he had no need to sight down the barrel nor account for the roll of the ship.

  He gave the lanyard on the gunlock a hearty yank.

  The starboard cannon fired its load directly into the creature as it embraced the hull. A bubbling shriek came from somewhere below water level, such a terrible inhuman sound as no sailor’s ear had ever heard. It was parade-ground music to Gekko.

  At the gunhole he could see an open wound, blown clear through the beast, revealing a circlet of open sea beyond. But his enthusiasm was soon drowned in a more terrible sound, the buckling of the hull itself. The cast-iron crossbeams reinforcing the hull, designed for bracing against the slow and steady expansion of ice, had been strained to their limit by the sudden recoil. Bolts popped, shooting from their sockets with little explosions like heavy musket fire.

  The ship had been nearly torn in half before the explosion. Now the fore half of the ship pitched upward at an alarming angle. The stern must already be submerged. Gekko had to get topside immediately.

  The corridor along the lower deck was tilted wildly off kilter. Its further reache
s were lost to a jumble of casks, boxes, wooden kegs and other ship’s stores settling into the rising waters. The main hatch and ladderway lay beyond that pile, now impassable beneath two-hundred-pound casks of pitch and sand.

  The ship was sinking. Gekko had to make his way across the lower deck to the forward hatch before it submerged completely. As he stumbled across heaps of debris, only one thought raced through his mind. The ship was going down. What would happen to Noona?

  The lower deck was a shambles. Gekko fought his way across the mess room with its huge cookstove still sizzling. Some of the seamen’s dining tables had been blown through the bulkhead partition that separated the sick bay from the warrant officer’s sleeping area. To his great dismay Gekko found he could not reach the forward hatch. The corridor was completely blocked by the fallen main mast. His only hope was to drop down to the next lower deck, the orlop deck, and continue to work his way uphill toward the prow. Gekko didn’t much like the idea of going down in order to go up, especially on a sinking ship, but there was no other choice.

  The gaping hole the mast had created made an easy way to drop down to the next level. If only he could have climbed up as easily. The orlop deck suffered the same crazy tilt down to the stern, and the back half was already underwater. Gekko’s boots landed in a few inches of icy seawater that lined the corridor. Already the splash was freezing his legs up to the knee. He rushed headlong along the tunnel.

  The lanterns had all been extinguished but a murky half-light rained down from gaps in the planking above. He passed along the dank and narrow corridor, climbing over heaps of frozen provisions. He batted away a stream of fleeing rats working their way between the coal-sacks in a chittering panic.

  The soot-stained wooden beams buckled inward, metal brackets whining as they stretched. The water level in the corridor was rising too quickly. It had reached his waistline by the time he passed the Captain’s private storeroom.