Poseidon's Scar

by Matthew Phillion

  “So, you stole a bad guy’s soul,” Artem said.

  “It’s not a bloody soul, you plank,” Muireann said.

  Artem whipped his head to Echo.

  “What did she call me?” he said, genuinely confused. “And seriously, you stole a man’s life force and then ended up on a ship full of butchered sailors. Why are we helping you again?”

  “The guy you took this life force from. He wouldn’t do something like what happened on the ship?” Echo asked.

  Muireann shook her head.

  “He’s a vicious bastard, but that,” she said. “That was not done by human hands. You know that.”

  A silence fell over the group. Artem and Echo stared at each other expectantly for a moment, neither sure what to say or do.

  It was Barnabas who finally broke the verbal stalemate.

  “A nasty old crook on your tail we can handle,” Barnabas said. “And I know what that is you stole. If he had it coming, I believe you. I don’t know why, but I believe you. But that doesn’t explain what happened on that ship.”

  Muireann closed her eyes for a moment, then met Echo’s gaze.

  “I have seen many strange things in my life,” she said. “But I can tell you, with complete honesty, I have never been so afraid as I was on that ship. I don’t know what killed those sailors, but I will hear their screams the rest of my life.”

  “Well then,” Echo said. “I guess we better find out what it was.”

  “I can help with that,” Barnabas said.

  “I somehow knew you were going to say that,” Artem said. “How do you plan to do that?”

  “Magic,” Barnabas said, grinning broadly. “Of course.”

  Chapter 8: The vast emptiness of it

  There was so much Yuri struggled to adjust to in his new life, but the one thing he felt as though he’d never get over was that he had so little to fear now.

  He hadn’t been a man given to fear back home. He was a big dude. He hit his growth spurt early, so despite a gentle and easygoing nature, he had been left mostly alone by bullies and thugs. Yuri looked like trouble, even though he was the furthest thing to it, and he knew, and even resented that: people looked at him and saw trouble. He was profiled often, hassled occasionally, and often just simply avoided by those who were uncomfortable around his appearance.

  But he’d lost his father to the sea, and the ocean scared him in ways both primal and logical. The ocean was predictably unpredictable, generous in its cruelty, and egalitarian with who it turned its wrath upon.

  Yuri wasn’t afraid of the water. He was afraid of the sea itself, the vast emptiness of it, the way it could swallow up the bodies of its victims so easily. And, of course, the way things lurked in its depths. Particularly in New England where Yuri grew up, the sea was dark and mysterious. It lacked the glasslike clarity of tropical waters.

  Sure, deep blue sea. Yuri thought. More like an endless darkness.

  And yet now, Yuri thought as he moved quickly through the ocean in his man-shark form, I’ve lived to become one of those things lurking in its depths. And worse, I’m one of the scariest creatures down here. Nothing challenges me. Most fear me. I’ve become the thing I feared.

  But Yuri was still afraid.

  The way the daylight broke through the water’s surface in filtered streaks of golden light. The way shadows in the distance moved, obscured by water itself, ghostly and vague, their true size unknowable, their intentions even less so. The way sound carried here, whale songs drifting over miles and miles, rocks clattering like percussion instruments across the ocean floor. He could swim for hours or days without seeing another living thing, but they were there. The world around him was forever alive. He sensed creatures flee from him, an apex predator in their waters.

  I never wanted to be terrifying, Yuri thought. It’s the last thing I ever wanted. I’ve spent my whole life working to be just the opposite, and yet here, living creatures flee from the very sight of me.

  What did I do so wrong that I became a monster? he wondered.

  Yuri wanted to go home.

  He felt his heart tighten in his chest at the thought. Meredith’s kitchen. Breakfast with Echo. Working in the icehouse, the comforting ache of his muscles as he hauled huge blocks around with a pick.

  He missed home so badly. He missed Meredith. He missed being ordinary.

  Yuri felt the enchanted compass within the cuff he wore on his wrist pulsate. The compass knew where Echo was. The last person who remembered home for what it was, Yuri thought. I guess Echo is my home now, wherever she is.

  Yuri let his eyes drift from side to side. Yes, he repeated in his head, the vast emptiness of it. The ocean, reaching out in all directions, the sort of unknowable distance that made his chest tighten and his heart hurt. Agoraphobia of the sea.

  “You are the master of this place,” Whitetip had explained to him. “I understand your hesitation, but you have nothing to fear from it. The ocean is your kingdom. Enjoy it. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  I’m afraid of being alone, Yuri thought, a flick of his were-shark tail propelling him faster toward wherever Echo was, the compass telling him clearly he was swimming the right path. I’m afraid of being alone in this vast, empty place.

  He thought of the Atlantean bodies washed up on his shore. They believed they had nothing to fear either, Yuri thought. Above or below, the ocean punishes those who don’t respect it. Maybe a little fear is what you need to survive down here.

  I’ve spent too much time alone, Yuri thought. I’m stronger now. I’m braver.

  But the ocean will devour you if you’re alone.

  He surged forward, a relentless, elemental power the tides had no control over. He followed the mystical beacon on his wrist.

  And he let the ocean scare him, as it always did. Because Yuri knew he wouldn’t be alone much longer. And that was all he needed to know.

  Chapter 9: Scouting party

  Grimmin took three men out to Poseidon’s Scar, and with them a nagging feeling they’d never come back.

  He left the young soldier—whose name, Fenn, Grimmin was embarrassed to admit he’d forgotten—back in the city with orders to tell Rhegis where they’d gone if they did not return in a day.

  “But shouldn’t we tell him… now?” Fenn had said, genuinely concerned.

  “We needn’t escalate this to royal intervention level until we know for sure we need it,” Grimmin said. “Besides, I’m sure whatever ate that seahorse has moved on to other prey further away by now.”

  And that was absolutely a lie, Grimmin thought, reining in his own seahorse to look at the darkened expanse where the Scar lay. He’d brought along two veteran rangers and one of the magic wielders the Atlantean army considered a battlemage. Grimmin held up a hand, signaling for them to go no further. The seascape near Poseidon’s Scar was a murky, empty space, bleary with heat from the lava below and filled with odd shadows cast from the molten rock’s light.

  “I think this is close enough,” Grimmin said.

  “I don’t see anything, who knows what’s down in the crevice,” one of the rangers said.

  “I believe this is why you brought me along,” the magician said.

  Grimmin nodded.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve got some divination spells you could call up for us to take a look down that ravine from a distance,” Grimmin said.

  The magician nodded and rolled up his sleeves, producing a clear crystal sphere from one.

  “I assume you want to see what I see,” the magician said.

  “If that’s doable,” Grimmin said.

  The magician beckoned Grimmin over. He held the sphere with one hand, then put the tips of his fingers on the other splayed out on Grimmin’s forehead.

  “This will be disorienting,” the mage said.

  “Not my first divination spell,” the old spymaster said. “I’m ready.”

  The sphere lit up and instantly Grimmin’s vision went blank. Seconds late
r, it returned, but he did not see through his own eyes. Instead, he looked through the sphere itself like a camera. The sphere darted up out of the magician’s hand and shot away, heading for the ravine.

  It began to descend. The walls, unsurprisingly, were scarred by time, cracked in places, melted in others. It was clear some of the more ragged stone had been recently broken, too jagged to have been smoothed yet by the passage of time and tide. When he looked closely, Grimmin could make out pieces of shrapnel embedded in the wall.

  “One of the bombs must’ve gone off,” he said. His voice sounded far away, his words slurred.

  “Focus,” the magician said, his voice eerily close, as if he spoke right into Grimmin’s ear. “Talking risks detaching you from the enchantment.”

  Grimmin nodded, unsure if the mage could see the gesture or not.

  The sphere dove deeper, slowly and carefully scanning the walls of the ravine. They found nothing unexpected. Grimmin, like all Atlanteans, had never gone spelunking in the ravine, where the pressure was unbearable and the fluctuating temperature dangerous, but what they saw didn’t deviate at all from his expectations. Just rock, some magma, a lot of shadows.

  And then they found writing.

  “Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Grimmin said.

  “It’s language,” the mage said. “I can’t read it. Can you?”

  “It’s not an alphabet I’ve ever seen before,” Grimmin said. “How deep down is this?”

  “With the mystic nature of the orb, I’ll be honest with you sir, it’s hard to judge how far. The sphere travels very quickly,” the magician said. “It’s a few miles at least.”

  “So we’ve been ignoring an ancient, deep-sea society for entire generations because none of us bothered to look down a hole in the bottom of the sea,” Grimmin said. “And we call ourselves a pinnacle of civilization.”

  The globe went even deeper, but the connection seemed to fade, slightly, whether due to lack of available light or the distance itself loosening the connection.

  “I’m reaching the furthest extent of my spell, sir,” the mage said. “We…”

  The mage trailed off, and Grimmin saw exactly why. The sphere had settled over a depression in the trench wall, an enormous gash in the stone. It was littered with bones. Large bones.

  And it was empty.

  “Son, drop the spell,” Grimmin said.

  The spymaster’s vision snapped back into his body. He felt weirdly disoriented and weightless for a moment, his eyes readjusting to place and time. He immediately tugged on the reins of his seahorse, turning it away from the trench and back toward Atlantis.

  “Gentlemen, we’re leaving. Now,” he said.

  He waited only long enough for the others to turn to leave before spurring his steed on. The two rangers rode on either side of the mage, who had clearly used up much of his own energy maintaining the divination spell. They guided his seahorse expertly, enabling the wizard to rest in the saddle.

  “What did you see, sir?” one of the rangers asked.

  “I’m more concerned about what we didn’t see,” Grimmin said.

  “Sir, forgive me for saying so, but you look…”

  “You can say it. I look scared,” Grimmin said. “I didn’t live this long by not listening to my fear instincts. And that back there, that scared me more than anything I’ve seen in a long, long time.”

  Gods damn the sibling rivalry that got them here, Grimmin thought. We’ve been looking at the demons on the surface for so long, we’ve forgotten monsters live down in the depths as well. We need to fix this. I hope it’s not too late.

  Chapter 10: The man with no soul

  There was an ache in Anson Tessier’s chest he could not ignore.

  It’s a broken heart, he joked bitterly. There was some merit to the jest, as bitter as it was. The pain felt vaguely vascular, for one, not a heart attack, but a similar sort of tightness in his chest. And the reason for it was a woman, though she certainly hadn’t stolen his heart, metaphorically or literally.

  No, she was just a thief, and she took something from him, and no one steals from Anson Tessier without consequence.

  Normally, Tessier would send someone to fetch whatever might have been stolen. He had goons and bounty hunters aplenty in his pool of resources. They came in handy for the work he did, the work that had built an empire, through blood and corruption. But this, this felt personal. It felt different. It needed a direct hand for rectification. Anson Tessier would find this woman and take back what was his, and she’d look him in the eyes when he enacted his revenge.

  A shooting pain arced across his chest, down to his fingertips. Tessier clutched the rail in front of him where he stood on the private sea craft, fighting back the urge to gasp.

  “Sir?” one of the hired sailors said. Tessier grunted, steeling himself against the pain, and turned, composed.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “We’re about to hit some serious weather,” the sailor said. “Just wanted to give you a head’s up in case you wanted to head inside. The captain said not to disturb you unless absolutely necessary, but we’re going to be hitting some rough conditions. I mean, ‘sweep you off the deck’ type rough.”

  Tessier grunted again, but then softened his expression.

  “I apologize. I’m just in a foul mood. Thank you for the warning. I’ll head inside.”

  The sailor walked away, and Tessier followed soon after.

  He went to his private room, a suite with a view on the starboard side. The ship was quite large, the best money could buy. Money Tessier had endless amounts of, more than he’d ever need in ten lifetimes. What Tessier valued more than money was control. And this woman had taken that control from him. No, not a woman, a creature, Tessier knew, something not quite human masquerading as a human woman. Tessier, like many who grow too wealthy to be satisfied with ordinary entertainment, had explored the unknown in his spare time, and he knew this world had a shadow world, an entire reality often unseen or unexplored by ordinary people. You could go your whole life without encountering that other layer of reality, without ever knowing that monsters exist. Perhaps you are better that way, Tessier thought.

  But they do, and a monster stole some piece of me, and I will have it back, and more, Tessier thought. He poured himself a glass of wine and watched as clouds the color of rage surged toward them, rain so heavy he could see it approaching like a wall of water. The storm seemed to have a life of its own, a will. Maybe this was another monster, he thought. The wrath of some sea god, protecting the little trickster whole stole a part of me.

  Tessier finished his wine, then crossed to the luxurious closet along the back of the suite. He removed the light suit he wore, hanging it up precisely, folding the shirt though he knew he would have it laundered before he wore it again. He pulled on more rough and tumble clothing, a waffled long-sleeved shirt and jeans, shoes with no-slip soles. He slipped a survival knife onto his belt and strapped a slim knife onto his forearm, pulling his sleeve back down over it. He thought about adding the pistol he had packed to the ensemble, but changed his mind. If he ended up out in the elements helping during the storm—he might be paying top dollar for this trip, but he knew his way around a vessel and would lend a hand if needed, wealthy patron or not—he didn’t want to risk the weapon getting waterlogged and unusable.

  The rain slammed into them like a solid object. Tessier could hear it pounding against the deck, the crew running around, a sense of urgency and panic in their voices. This was no ordinary storm. Maybe it really is a monster, Tessier thought.

  Tessier made his way up to the bridge and stood in the back, out of the way. His presence caught the captain’s attention, who seemed torn between his duties to the ship and acknowledging his employer’s presence. Tessier waved him off. Outside, lightning arced across the sky like blue fireworks.

  “Are we sure we’re headed the right way?” a crewman asked, not realizing their benefactor was in the room
.

  Again, the captain looked to Tessier, but this time for an answer, not an acknowledgement.

  “We’re headed right for our target,” Tessier said. Finally, the captain spoke.

  “How can you be sure?” he said.

  “Because in this case, my heart is a compass,” Tessier said. “I know where the target is, and for better or for worse, we need to sail through the gauntlet to find her.”

  Chapter 11: You could have knocked

  Echo dreamed of dark things roaming beneath the waves.

  She hadn’t had this sort of dream for months, not since her Atlantean powers began to surface. She found herself briefly seeing through the eyes of sea creatures, which occasionally felt magical and thrilling, but more often than not left her shaken, witnessing the casual brutality of nature through the eyes of predator and prey.

  But tonight, she dreamed of a great shadow, a many-armed thing moving slowly in the depths. She could not make out its complete shape, and the size of it was hard to judge as well. She couldn’t tell how close the vision was to the creature, and there was nothing in the murky depths to provide scale.

  Things swarmed around it. She thought at first they were parasites, but they were too organized, too structured in their movements. They seemed to be an extension of its massive body.

  What are you? she thought in her dream.

  And then the colossus, whatever it was, turned its eyes toward her, a pair of burning orange orbs burning through the foggy salt water. She felt her blood turn cold, her stomach turn to acid; but there was no malice in its gaze. If anything, it seemed disinterested in her, as if it took her measure and, in an instant, deemed her utterly unworthy of its attention.

  But the creatures that swarmed around it had other thoughts.