Tong Lashing

by Peter David

  I made my way to Captain Stout. He looked up at me quizzically.

  “Just me,” I said.

  “I see it’s just you. Who else would you be?”

  “I mean,” I sighed, “that I won’t have a lady with me on your boat. It’ll just be me booking passage.”

  His face brightened. “Ah! Excellent,” he said, and stuck out a hand, which was thick and greasy. I shook it reluctantly and then quietly rubbed it clean on a napkin. “Don’t get me wrong,” he added hurriedly. “I like the ladies. I do. They certainly have their uses, especially if you need somewhere to dock your dinghy, if you get my drift,” and he laughed a raucous laugh.

  I forced a smile. “Yes, I get it,” I said.

  “But really, they’ve no place on a ship. Just cause trouble. Once you’re at sea, mark my words, you’re better off without them. We’ll have a much smoother crossing with just the blokes running the show.”

  I marked his words. And some time later, when I was floating in the ocean, fighting what I was certain was imminent drowning, I would have cause to curse them as well.

  Chapter 2

  The World According to Larp

  It was some hours later that I brought my meager belongings, in a sling over my shoulder, down to the Grand Jetty. There was an impressive number of ships docked there of varying size and quality. The sky was clear and blue, and the salt of the sea air stung my lungs, but in a refreshing way. I should have felt a sense of exhilaration.

  Instead all I had was a distant emptiness.

  All the way to the gangplank of the ship on which I’d booked passage, I kept glancing over my shoulder. I thought she would come. I thought she would come dashing down the Grand Jetty, waving and calling my name, and Mordant would be flapping behind her, like the romantic end of some great novel.

  There were so many people, hustling and bustling about, and a few times I actually thought I did see her. But it was always someone else.

  I shrugged.

  “She was a pain in the ass,” I said to no one except myself, and even I didn’t entirely believe me as I turned and made my way up the gangplank. I knew it was the right ship because I saw the name of the vessel, Larp, painted proudly on the side. When the captain told me the ship’s name, I asked him from where it derived. He looked at me knowingly, as if waiting for my reaction to his next words:

  “Say it backwards.”

  I paused. “Pral?” When he grinned broadly, clearly expecting me to say something more, I forced an expression of comprehension and said, “Oh! Pral! Of course!” He leaned back in his chair and smiled in triumph, and I never got any more explanation than that.

  I boarded the vessel and headed down to the passenger level. There I encountered my fellow travelers. Two of them were traveling together, and they seemed rather chummy with one another in a way that I considered, frankly, a bit unsettling. The one was a barrel-chested, red-haired barbarian named Farfell. His companion was smaller and rat-faced, dressed in shades of gray, and wore his hair long with some sort of thick gel in it that kept it elaborately wavy. He went by the curious name of Gay Mousser. I’d never met a man named Gay. It certainly seemed a convivial moniker.

  Still, as I noted, the camaraderie between them… disturbed me. When I was but a lad still living in Stroker’s tavern, the sinkhole in which I spent my formative years, I once heard mention of men who preferred to be with other men. In my childish voice, I had piped up, “As well they should. Girls are stupid.” This had prompted a round of raucous laughter, which pleased me greatly until Stroker cuffed me in the ear and told me to mind my own business.

  Later, I asked my mother about it, and after her face flushed with embarrasment, she explained to me the true significance of such preferences. I was appalled, of course. As did anyone else, I knew it for the unnatural abomination that it was. Even I, who challenged the reasons of gods for everything, had to acknowledge that certain things had a right and proper place to be put, and one simply didn’t put them in places they were not intended by nature to go. As far as I was concerned, it was no more complicated an issue than that. There was no question of morals or ethics. I simply couldn’t comprehend why anyone would choose to do such a thing.

  My mother, Madelyne, did not seem to see it that way. Instead she said to me gently, “Strange are the ways of love, Apropos. Very curious indeed. It can propel us in directions that all the great wisdom of youth such as yours cannot begin to envision. You should not be so quick to judge others.”

  “Why not? If you cannot judge others, who can you judge?”

  She smiled in that way she had, as if she found adorable everything I said. “Yourself.”

  “I don’t see the point in that,” I told her.

  “You will.”

  And eventually I grew up, and she died a violent death, and I had judged myself repeatedly and had to admit I still didn’t quite see the point in it.

  I encountered a third passenger who was a rather odd individual. Tall, with a distant look as if he felt he should be somewhere else, with stringy white hair and pale skin. He tended to spend inordinate amounts of time adjusting a gold ring he sported on his right hand. I felt a slight chill looking upon it, for rings and I had not gotten along all that well. He was sharing my cramped quarters, which annoyed me. On the other hand, it certainly was going to be easier to be with him than with that barbarian and his hairstyled companion.

  “Hello,” I said upon first meeting him in our quarters. He had taken the higher-hung hammock and was seated in it, swinging back and forth gently, just shaking his head. “Problem?”

  He looked at me and, upon closer inspection, I noticed that his skin was peeling. Odd condition. “I don’t believe you’re here.”

  “Ah,” I said, not quite sure how else to respond.

  “And I’m not here either,” he continued.

  “Ah,” I said again.

  “I am simply an antihero thrust into an enforced heroic situation not of my own making.”

  “I can certainly sympathize,” I said readily, and I could. However, I was becoming equally convinced that this fellow was a lunatic.

  “I’m Apropos.”

  “I’m completely irrelevant,” he replied.

  I stared at him blankly for a moment, and then slowly closed my eyes and cursed under my breath. Then I opened them and forced a smile. “It’s my damned name. What’s yours?”

  “I am called… Doubting Tomas.”

  That was an easy name to believe, although I would have been inclined to switch the letters and make him “Touting Dumbass.”

  “All right,” I said. “I suppose that’s marginally better than ‘Apropos.’ “

  Tomas glowered at me. “I do not belong in this world,” he told me.

  I nodded. “I know exactly how you feel.”

  He stared as if I were an idiot. “You couldn’t possibly. You’re of this world.”

  “To be fair,” I pointed out, “it certainly seems as if you’re of it as well.”

  “You know nothing.”

  There was so much I could have said. But then I realized the utter pointlessness of engaging in an extended debate with the fool. So I smiled and simply said, “One thing I do know: This conversation is over.”

  Whereupon I turned over in my hammock and promptly fell out as the sling swung out from under me. I hit the floor and lay there as the annoying Tomas guffawed slightly, but offered no other comment. Without a word, I hauled myself back to my feet, balancing myself on my left as best I could, and pushed myself back into the hammock. It swayed violently once more, but the second time I was able to hang on, albeit ungracefully.

  I drifted off to sleep and dreamt of Sharee and Mordant. Sharee, who I had thought would be staying with me because she perceived some sort of greatness within me. Mordant, who I had convinced myself was some sort of reincarnation of my mother. Both gone now. Both gone.

  No reason for them not to be. After all, wasn’t that what everyone in my life
did? Leave me, sooner or later?

  I took that self-pitying attitude and, even in my sleep, clung to it with as much dedication as I’d hung on to the hammock.

  I had no idea what to expect in terms of sea travel. I had never been on a boat in my life, and I had always heard that those who were new to such transport could have some trouble with illness.

  I did not have some trouble. I had an excruciating amount of trouble.

  We set off and immediately it felt to me as if the entire world was incessantly rocking. I was grateful for the absence of mirrors because, by all accounts, my face was such a repulsive shade of green that rumors began to float around the ship I was some sort of leper (which, for no reason that I could determine, seemed to amuse Doubting Tomas no end). The hammock swayed with the boat, which did nothing to improve my disposition. I started lying on the floor. That wasn’t much better. From time to time I would emerge upon the deck, lean over the nearest railing, and be sick into the sea. My discomfort provided endless amusement for the experienced sailors, who walked with confidence, swaying in perfect synchronization with the boat. Every so often one would clap me on the back and say, “Don’t worry! You’ll get your sea legs soon enough.”

  I didn’t see how acquiring new legs would stop me from hanging over the edge of the boat and heaving into the sea.

  After a while I ceased vomiting for the simple reason that I had nothing left to vomit, short of heaving up internal organs.

  And then, days into the voyage, as I hung over the railing and contemplated simply throwing myself overboard to terminate my misery, I heard a repetitious thump from behind me that I recognized quite readily. It was the sound of someone moving with the aid of a staff. I managed to lift my head in time to see a man approaching me. He was tall, with thick red hair and bristling beard, and he was wearing what I recognized as an article of clothing called a “kilt.” It was red plaid, and he wore a crimson cloak about the shoulders of his thick white shirt, trimmed around the edges with red fur. His staff was ornately carved with images of what appeared to be dancing goblins cavorting its length.

  “Ye got a problem, laddie?” he inquired.

  I managed a nod, and the world seemed to bob and weave mercilessly, even though the water was remarkably calm. I dreaded the notion of our hitting even a mild squall. Gods only knew what it would have done to me.

  He had a pouch hanging on the front of his kilt, strategically positioned over his manhood. He reached into the pouch. I wasn’t sure why, and the gesture was disconcerting, because I didn’t want to think what he was about to pull out and show me. I was hardly in a position to leave the immediate area, though.

  A moment later he extracted a vial with a blue liquid. He looked at it as if to double-check the contents, then strode over to me and extended it. “Drink it,” he said.

  Now, of course, I had no idea who this fellow was. A total stranger was offering the always-suspicious Apropos some sort of liquid pulled from the general vicinity of his crotch. For all I knew, it would kill me on the spot.

  Which is why I took it from him and downed it immediately. That should go to show you just how little affection I had for life at that point. There are few creatures walking the surface of the earth who are more eager to stay alive than me. So if I was so uncaring of life that I was willing to risk throwing it away by swallowing a blue fluid from a total stranger, that alone should tell you a lot.

  By way of a stray thought… why do we say that, I wonder? “Total stranger.” Those words always seem to go together. As if someone could be a partial stranger. Or a half stranger. He’s completely unknown to you, except for that torrid weekend you spent in a cabin in the Elderwoods.

  Then again, I have had lovers who turned out to be not remotely what I thought they were. And there have been those who called me “friend” who had no inkling of the true depths of darkness and resentment that resided within me. Perhaps we’re all strangers to each other in a way, and the only thing that makes someone a “total” stranger is that they haven’t yet had the opportunity to betray you.

  All that flitted through my mind as the blue liquid burned down my throat, and then suddenly there was an easing of the ache in my stomach and the world seemed to clear. I blinked several times, scarcely able to believe it.

  “Good fer what ails ye, eh?” He smiled, displaying large, crooked teeth. He patted his pouch, a gesture that I couldn’t help but think he’d best not repeat in mixed-gender company. “Feeling better?”

  “I am…” I admitted, surprised at the sound of returning strength to my voice. I couldn’t believe how quickly the stuff had worked. “I am! Yes! Thank you. I… I wish I’d run into you earlier. I could’ve saved myself days of suffering. What do you call that stuff?”

  “Just a little home brew. Frankly, ye looked like a lad who deserved a break from his sufferin’. Ah’m glad Ah could help.”

  I had to listen carefully to all he said, for his accent was so thick (far thicker than I’m conveying here) that it was all I could do to comprehend. I stuck out a hand. “I’m Apropos.”

  “Ronnell,” he replied. His arm was brawny, his shake firm.

  “Whereabouts are you from, Ronnell?”

  “Ach,” and he shrugged his broad shoulders, “Ah like t’think of muhself as a citizen of the world. It’s not where ye’ve been that matters. It’s where ye wind up, ye know what Ah’m sayin’?”

  Oddly enough, I felt I did, and nodded. “Will I need more of that stuff?” I asked.

  “The dose Ah gave you should last ye about a week. We’re supposed t’be at sea fer four weeks, so I’ll be happy to supply ye wit’ refills.”

  “You’re a gift from the gods, Ronnell,” I told him fervently. Then I paused, suddenly suspicious, certain I wasn’t going to like the answer to my next question. “How much will it cost me?”

  He laughed as if that was the most ridiculous question he’d ever heard, and draped one of his huge arms around me. “Ye needn’t worry! We’re all travelers together, are we not? Tell ye what. Are ye anxious to repay me?”

  I wasn’t particularly. I was a big believer in obtaining as much as possible for as little as possible. But I figured I was going to have need of his services and goodwill for a few weeks more. So it made sense to play along with him. “That would be nice,” I lied.

  “Then join me! T’night. Fer a wee game.”

  “A game?” I asked cautiously. “I… have to warn you. I don’t have a lot of money on me, so if it involves gambling of some sort…”

  “Nah!” he said, forcefully expelling air. “Nah, it’s nothin’ like that! Ah saw we have some other hardy voyagers aboard, and Ah thought it might be fun to play a wee adventure game.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about…”

  “Then come down to th’ galley this evenin’, and ye’ll find out.” He elbowed me playfully in the ribs in such a way I was sure that I’d felt one break. “Ye’ll never ferget it.”

  That much, he was right about.

  It appeared that my newfound friend, Ronnell, was a rather convincing sort. Either that or he had quickly managed to amass a series of debts from the other passengers and conned them, on that basis, to join the festivities. Because that evening discovered not only myself down in the galley, but also the other voyagers whose acquaintance I had earlier made, and my unwilling roommate as well.

  They were already seated when I arrived. The galley smelled of seawater and slightly rotting food, and it would have been enough to send me into spasms of nausea if it weren’t for Ronnell’s cure-all. So that was enough to remind me that I did owe the redheaded, boisterous fellow, and perhaps participating in his silly game was the least I could do. And as I have made abundantly clear in the past, I always endeavor to do the least I can do.

  They were seated ‘round a long table that was ordinarily used for meals. None of Captain Stout’s dozen or so crewmen were about, presumably having eaten earlier and turned in or gone to their evening
stations or gone off to dance jigs and tell ludicrous stories about sizable fish or whatever the hell it was that sailors did at night. It was just the five of us, with Ronnell, who was seated at one end of the table and grinning lopsidedly. I was at the opposite end, Farfell and the Gay Mousser on the right, Tomas on the left. Every so often the Mousser would giggle in a high-pitched tone that made me just want to yank my sword off my back and cleave his head from his shoulders. But Farfell was a brute of a barbarian and would likely have something to say on the matter.

  I had taken to keeping my weapons on my person whenever I wandered about the ship. Although Stout’s men seemed innocuous enough, I’d heard far too many tales about unexpected mutinies—or even abrupt attacks by pirates—to allow myself to be out of reach of my weapons. The staff was natural enough for me to keep with me at all times. The sword was a hand-and-a-half sword, also known as a bastard sword, given me by one who had every reason to know about such things (“such things” meaning bastards).

  “Expectin’ problems, Apropos?” inquired the Mousser, giving another of those annoying laughs. I restrained myself, partly out of self-control, and partly out of the firm conviction that Farfell would break me in half if I tried it.

  “I expect nothing,” I replied, voicing one of my favorite philosophies. “But I anticipate everything.”

  “A solid philosophy!” said Ronnell. Not that I lived or died on his approval, but the sentiment was appreciated. It was at that point I noticed that Ronnell had set something up in front of himself. He had erected three small upright boards, hinged together, and placed them so that they were blocking from our view the table in front of him. He had an assortment of small scrolls in front of himself, and it appeared to me that they were color-coded in some fashion, with a series of blue and yellow and red ribbons designed to make them easier to differentiate at a glance.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I admit to being somewhat curious about that myself,” said Farfell.