Galen Vesa

People stare. At me. Often. My pillows also gather a fair share of stares. That I know. That I can handle.

But them?

As if they saw their own death. In me.

“That is as close as we go. “

Ilo stopped beside me.

They dropped the anchor about ten Olympic pools away from the wreckage. Even from out here, I could see the eerie white shapes glowing in the light of the noon.

“It is close enough.”

I gave him my fake smile and climbed onto the rail, frost crackling under my bare feet.

“You have until sunset. After that we set sail and let the sea have mercy.”

I waited for the wave to pass and jumped. Even though I spent the whole night improvising a bikini, my pillows caused a lot of drag. At least this time I didn’t sank like a rock. Without the weight of the chain my buoyancy felt about neutral.

I swam going down at an angle.

Why the heck did I even considered doing this? Because… a voice told me to. I see a pattern here. One I probably shouldn’t follow. Right. Next time. Next time I’ll say no. That’s a given.

I kicked one more time and let my momentum carry me over to the hull.

Pellicora.

The name still could be seen from under the layer of corals eating away the wood. I swam along the sides but as the legend had it, I found no holes that could sink this ship. Its sails did rot away, but the masts were still standing.

Also, the crew waited on deck. Rows of skeletons stood arm in arm waiting for someone or something.

I poked the lantern hanging around my wrist but as before it showed no signs of life. The dull metal band banged against the manacle locked around my wrist without a care in the world.

That’s good, I think?

Also, the skeletons weren’t exactly standing on their own. Here and there some of them lost support and collapsed but others were held upright by vines wrapped around them. Some looking as if they grew through their bodies.

Vines sprouting out of the deck.

Ok. Now I’m not sure if I want to go anywhere near this horror show. Whatever twisted magic did that, could still be active. Best if I don’t but… a shark swam between the bones. Unbothered and undisturbed. A part of a femur sticking out of its maw.

Nice. Just give me a backpack and some hot pants and I can go explore it…

So, what do I do? Option number one, play it safe, go back to the ship and lie my way out of it. Option two, get some gold and buy a ride back to Fenira. Dead don’t need gold anyway. Or so I hope.

Another shark stalked me from behind and chew on my ankle. I felt his teeth snap and skid over my skin. It swam away disappointed.

Alright. I'll look. If there’s no easy way in, I’ll leave. And sure, enough I found an open hatch leading inside. Avoiding the bones, I dived in.

Below deck turned out to be more of the same. Bones trapped by vines growing from the walls. Room after room, deck after deck. Nothing but bones. And what am I supposed to do here? I asked the void, but no one answered. Hunting for gold it is.

So, where do you put gold on a ghost ship? The bottom level is it? All those rooms I checked had a wide variety of bones but no gold. Then to the bottom we go. Curious thing. The lower I go, the less bones I find. If that’s an indicator of where to go, then perhaps this empty corridor leading to those inconspicuous doors… locked. I’m not an expert but something heavy got dragged through here often enough to leave deep groves in the floor. Now only if I could somehow open those. I don’t think that chanting open sesame would do the trick.

Except, they suddenly flung wide open and several vines shoot out and ensnared me. Oh. It seems the dolt did something very dolty.

My very own, fully extended nails raked through the walls as the unknown pulled me in and shut the gate behind me.

And that is how the dolt met his demise. Chewed to bits and pieces by an unmentionable horror from the depths.

“Why do you disturb me?”

Oh. For a moment I thought I might face one of the many Lovecraftian creations but when I opened my eyes, instead of reeking maw of countless fangs, I saw a woman kneeling on the floor. Her arms tenderly wrapped around a fallen sailor. Or what left of him. The captain perhaps? The remnants of his elaborate suit mark him so.

“That…”

I coughed out some water from my lungs. Somehow this room had air inside. Stale but breathable.

“That was not my intention.”

Yeah. I didn’t want to disturb anyone, dead or alive. I just came to appropriate some gold for my expenses. Although I don’t need voices in my head to know I shan’t tell her that. Logically speaking, what on earth do I tell a woman growing out of the ship’s floor. Now when she stopped jingling me with her vines, I could see her bark like skin and rotten leaves all around her.

“A dragon told me to find Pellicora.”

The vines holding me tightened when I spoke the name. She blinked and turned her face towards me.

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“And you have found her. I am Pellicora and wood is my life. Why the fire spiting lizard would call upon my name? I have no love for their kin or their fire.”

She hoisted me up and brought my body even closer. My pillows dangled before her face.

“Fire you have brought with you. Have you come to kill me?”

Dolt, the sword for hire. Assassin of monsters and the like. Erta would laugh her scales off.

“No.”

“Shame. I hoped you may grant me my freedom. Instead, I shall grant you yours.”

The vines tightened around me, strained and… nothing happened.

“What are you?”

“At this point? I no longer have a clue. Up on the surface there’s a ship full of people who think I’m a mermaid, a daemon or some other abomination. I look like an elf, stink like a ferru and a witch has stolen my banana. I may be something even less acceptable than an elf since the water spirit had a go at twiddling with my guts. Oh, and I shouldn’t be here at all. By some cosmic brain fart I got transferred from my world to this one, as if I wasn’t fucked up enough to begin with. Ever since I came here, I got stabbed, punched, kicked, burned, drowned, skinned alive, chopped, reassembled, cursed, chased by zombies, sold, betrayed, kidnapped, traveled through time, got soulbound to a dragon, nearly killed by the said dragon, got raped by a perverted spirit, got mistaken for the long dead daughter of a forest elf. Almost every day I pretended to be someone I am not. I have sung the songs of dead for gods I do not know. I have fought evil I cannot name, and I can’t even remember the last six months of my life. I have no clue where the hell I am and now some shroom infested lunatic on a sunken ship wants to kill me for no reason!”

It came out like a freight train rushing out of a tunnel with horn blaring at full power. Loud and unexpected. And my eyes leaked. Why?

“I’m sorry. It never happened before.”

My eyes kept on leaking.

“I consider apologizing for truth to be bad manners. You may regret the way you delivered it, but the truth does not need your excuses. I am cursed by my own wild foolishness and I can do nothing to stop the mold in this place. It reigns over damp and dark places.”

The vines lowered me carefully to the floor. One even pated my head. Another scoped up one of my tears.

“Salt.”

The woman tasted it.

“Perhaps you are a hume child? You do carry the ocean with you.”

She let out a sigh. An air of familiar loneliness emanated from her.

“My life is wood and wood only. I cannot live without it. I am bound to my wood. I do not have the freedom the humes abuse. They can go where they please. They can see what lies behind the horizon. They can move because they carry their world with them in their bodies.”

“Dirt of the earth. Salt of the sea. Passion of the wind. Rage of fire. All that and more humes carry with them so they could live away from home.”

“Once I too thought I could escape my roots and be free. I listened to the sweetest whispers of a hume in love. What good it brought me? I had fed on his fallen flesh and his bones are my only company.”

“I cannot feel your pain, but I can tell you of mine. My wood does not want me anymore, yet I am bound to it. I long for this misery to end yet I fear what might become of me. I fear I will not see him again.”

Her voice felt oddly comforting. Her resignation very familiar. I hugged my legs and let my head rest on my knees. I had no idea what to do now.

“Tell me thief, what is that you seek?”

“Thief? I did not come to steal anything.”

“I doubt that only my name brought you here.”

“Gold.”

“Ah. So you are a thief.”

A hint of anger?

“No. I thought I was looking for a ship. Not a person. I believed all on the ship to be dead and since dead have no need for gold.”

A shiver vent through my spine. An alien thought, as if…

“Thief, had I any power left I would kill you for those words and feed on your corpse.”

Tears formed in her black eyes. I had stabbed a festering wound. Nothing I intended. No wonder people say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and carelessness leads the way. We sat in silence for a long while.

“You’re not running thief?”

She asked not looking my way.

“Would you let me go?”

“No.”

“Then why would I run?”

It got her attention. Her black eyes studied me with new intensity.

“Are you perhaps daft?”

Oh. The dolt got found out.

“I may be missing some marbles, but it does not mean I’m daft. I just have issues. Interacting with others is one of them. “

And getting myself caught up in some mess all the time.

“Look, I’ll be blunt. You’re not strong enough to kill me and I’m not strong enough to run away. Instead of turning this into battle of attrition and wasting our time waiting for the other to die, can we come to some sort of agreement? Please? Oh, and that vine that is trying to pierce my back, can you cut it out? It is not working.”

She raised her arm and aimed it at my head. Before I could react, I had her wooden palm wrapped around my head, squeezing. Suddenly something snapped and hail of splinters sprayed me. Her hand did not stand the pressure. Another awkward silence followed that.

“Why do you need the gold, thief?”

An odd question but at least she stopped trying to kill me.

“So I could pay my fare on a ship or cart going to Fenira. I wish to return there.”

“Fenira… You speak of the place I know. Does the serpent still live?”

“The serpent?”

Ah, yes. The snake lady. Nahira.

“As far as I know, Yes. From what I can gather, she was the one who wished me to find you. The dragon told me; the serpent had her pass on a message. Unless there is someone else with the same name. In that case I am wrong on this one.”

Also, a certain, pesky hallucination had its hands mixed in all this. But I don’t think I should mention it. No point of mudding the water any further.

“That does seem like what that blood sucker would do. Cursed be the day I listened to her voice.”

Not a fan of fortune tellers I see. Although, if I were to put two plus two together, finding Erta’s child seemed less plausible the more I learned about that seer.

“You speak of truce. Prove it. Swear upon your life you shall fulfill my request.”

“I will not swear blindly. What is that you want? I will not kill or harm anyone on your behalf.”

“Take me to Fenira with you. Take me to the serpent that sent you. That wench is due a debt she shall pay. In return You can take as much gold as you wish from here. “

My guts turned in a familiar way as if to say I will regret this.

“You have my word.”

Suddenly her vines constrain me.

“I thought me had a deal?”

“And we do,”

She raised the skull of her captain and pressed it against her wooden cheek.

“Farewell my love. If gods allow it, we shall meet again.”

Tenderly, she put it away and watched as entwined branches formed a coffin around the bones. With that done, she spoke.

“Fear not thief. You have given me your word and I honor mine.”

Out of her palm a flower bloomed. Among its violet petals, a large pearl shone electric blue.

“However, for me to go with, you must accept my core within your body. I would die without a host. Please swallow it.”

Somehow, my jaw just closed shut on its own.

“Do not be difficult. I will not harm you. If you could withstand my attack, you must possess enough mana to keep us both alive. Besides, your body has more than one opening.”

Her eyes turned below my pillows and my imagination served me with a graphic description of what if. Nope. Naa-aah. Not happening.

I opened my mouth wide.

“A wise choice.”

She plucked the pearl out of the flower and put it in my mouth then watched as I swallow. Her core tasted like, nothing I ever ate before. Maybe, a bit bittersweet. The moment it disappeared in my stomach, the woman’s body and the ship, collapsed in a cloud of dust. The bubble of air her magic sustained, disappeared as well and walls of water came crushing down on me. When the dust settled, I found myself beside a coffin overgrown with coral and a mound of gold twice my height and about as long as the ship was.

So, I got the gold. And something glowing in my stomach. Now what? As if I know. As if I ever know…

No matter. One issue at a time.

I grabbed a coin and pushed up towards the surface.

I hope they have some barrels and a lot of rope.

And a shovel. I am not going to pick all that up with my hands.