With the tail horn of the moon passing from the face of the sun, dawn began to flood Alchemist City and its mostly groggy residents. Mook Pearler though was a fisherman, and fisherman got up early. In fact he was late and should have been out at sea over an hour ago. This wasn’t his fault however, unless he could be blamed for agreeing to take on that lousy Quird Cunes as a partner.
“You need help,” his wife had said. “You’re not a green dragon anymore.” She did that sometimes, belittle him, but he’d long ago learned that she could talk spider webs around anything he said so Mook usually kept his soreness to himself.
Why Quird though? He was half a devil if he was anything and may have only been a half at that. The man was unreliable. He was always going off in the middle of dock work on who knows what and then would show up at the Sunken Hull without any attempt to explain himself. Since Quird’s magician acts tended to end with him sitting at their local tavern, Mook initially suspected he was sneaking off to go drinking. But the man was never drunk! And that in itself bothered Mook because what type of self-respecting mariner spent all his time on land sober? No, the whole thing was a mystery and an irritating one at that. When it came to trouble however, his nets always came up full, so Mook Pearler did his best not to let the shackle of Quird bother him and instead stuck to taking care of the morning.
Mrs. Pearler was baking in a frenzy at the small wooden table by the hearth when he entered. Their house only had three rooms; the one with the bed, the one with the fire, the one with the chamber pot. And of course all of these put together didn’t even add up to the space he had on his boat. The Pearlers however were childless so that helped, although sometimes Mook could sense that the long periods of quiet shared between him and his wife at home didn’t please her as much as they did him. Lately she’d been making herself busy with all sorts of things though and, if it kept her from cracking the whip at him, he was fully supportive.
“Morning girl,” he said to the woman he’d married over sixteen years ago when her first husband died. “Looks like you’ve been at it for some time now.”
His wife, who was concentrating on her rolling pin technique, didn’t look up as she replied. “Can’t all fuss around in the bedroom all leisurely like can we?” Mook was stung by this sudden cannonball and, despite his better judgement, he fired one of his own across her bow.
“Not much I can do until your boy Quird Cunes gets here with a new net!”
Mrs. Pearler paused in the middle of her kitchen engineering and scowled at him with one eye like the stare of a giant squid. “My boy!” she snapped. “What chu mean by that!?” Sensing some real heat coming off her words now, Mook Pearler attempted an ungraceful retreat.
“Nothing at all,” he sputtered meekly. Not really the best thing to do is it Mr. Pearler? thought Mook to himself. Starting a row with the missus first thing into the dawn. His professing innocence didn’t alleviate the tension in the room but, after glaring at him for a few more seconds, Mrs. Pearler went back to work and Mook let out a quiet sigh. For a moment he wasn’t sure what to say next but then the smell of baked apple pie decided for him.
“Working on some pies I see. Very nice. Are these ones done over here?” The abrupt weaponizing of the rolling pin here caused him to take a step back.
“Don’t be touching the pies!” growled his wife. “They ain’t for you!”
Throwing his hands up in the air, Mook decided he’d dug a deep enough hole before breakfast and figured he’d take a break from trying to bury himself. Grumbling quietly, he attempted to think of some satisfying jokes he could make about his wife that would give the fellas a laugh down at the tavern. As always, nothing emerged from the fog and he’d have to rely on the one he stole from someone else many years ago. Yes, Mook liked to repeat the joke that he had two anchors; one in his boat and the other in his bed. What he wasn’t able to admit to himself however was that he deeply needed his wife. He wasn’t the same man long ago when he was a bachelor. Someone who could arrive home to an empty shack without a single pang of loneliness. And he was too old, and ugly frankly, to try and trade her in for another woman now. Like wives were just islands to be hopped on and off. No. His life was set in stone now and at this point it could only break.
Mook poured himself the last bit of warm coffee in the Pearlers’ dented metal tankard and carried it over to the window. At the far end of the hearth room, away from his toiling wife, he stared out at the harbor adjoining their second story abode. The sails of tall ships buffeted in the breeze and cresting waves rasped with curling white lips as they briefly lived and died. It was typical weather for the start of the month of Glooming but today it put an icicle through Mook’s heart as the weariness of his life swept over him. Must be nice to work in one of those spires they got in the Tower District, he thought before adding a, I should’ve tried and been a clerk. Instead he’d be spending the next eighteen hours out at sea in the briny slop throwing stinking nets and traps into the water and it wasn’t likely he’d bring in anything more than a coffin’s worth of catch. And he’d have to listen to Quird and his endless prattle. Maybe he could just go and get the boat ready and leave word for Quird to meet him there? Or he could have a second cup of coffee. Before he’d had a chance to justify to himself the latter choice, fate decided for him and a third decision imposed itself. Quird appeared.
Arriving from down the street with a glint in his eye and a strut in his legs, Mook could not help flicking out his tongue and horking in disgust at the man’s inconsiderate timing. His wife glanced over at him with an arching eyebrow’s worth of curiosity but he said nothing and instead watched as his partner made their way along the sparsely crowded walkway. He was a peacock, Mook would give em that. Not pretty like a dandy though but presentable, yes that’s the word, by the standards of the dock crowd. He was always clean shaven except for a thin black awning of mustache and he kept his hair slicked tight with lard and his trousers neat and his shirts tucked in. Not a big man though. Mook had about forty pounds on him; admittedly that was with extra around both the arms and waist. Not that Quird couldn’t handle himself in a rowdy patch of the briar but Mook was sure he could take him even with his almost decade head start into the downhill years. But it’d never come to that. They weren’t brawlers; they were working men. More anvil than hammer really.
Mook was just putting on his boots when there was a flurry of hard raps at the door. Quird as usual didn’t wait to be let in.
“There’s the old gruff,” he said to Mook as he bounded up to him with a smile. Mook clenched his teeth but nodded as pleasantly as he could before thinking of a response.
“Saw you through the glass,” he said. “Looking like a man who’d just found buried treasure.” Quird laughed.
“Every day’s a treasure captain!” he replied before glancing over at a spectating Mrs. Pearler. “Happy Woesday to you Mrs. Pearler,” chirped Quird. “Not wasting the day at all are ya!” Mrs. Pearler seemed to fluster a little bit as she tried wiping some of the flour off her hands with her apron.
“Just trying to do my part Mr. Cunes,” she said with a blush. “Us wives always have plenty to do while our men are who knows where.” Quird shrugged his shoulders comically in Mr. Pearler’s direction before looking back at the man’s wife.
“Well, Mr. Pearler most certainly is a lucky fella,” he proclaimed and Mrs. Pearler blushed again while feigning to wave away the compliment.
“We’ll see how the day goes,” answered Mook with a grunt as he put on his sealskin jacket.
There was a lull in conversation as Mook searched a shelf drawer for the pipe he seemed to recall leaving there. Still looking, he asked Quird a question a few seconds later.
“Get the net?” Quird gestured in light hearted dismissal despite not having Mook’s attention.
”Of course captain. It’s hanging off the boat as we speak. I mean, I wouldn’t let you down now would I?”
Mook exhaled sharply through his nostrils “Right,” was all he said before finding the pipe a moment later. He’d started to hate the way Quird said “captain.” Like there was a private joke in it or something. And Mr. Pearler had loved being called captain once. Back when he and Mrs. Pearler still chased each other around like starlings, she would call him captain, dripping the title like honey into his ears. But those days were long gone and it was no use moaning about them. Walking over to his wife, he surprised her with a quick peck on the cheek and then squeezed her hand and turned to leave. She looked at Quird awkwardly for a moment before recovering.
“When’ll you be back?” she asked. Mook stopped at the door and exhaled.
“Twelve hours past the noon or thereabouts,”” he said, meaning twenty hours hence or a full two thirds of the thirty hour day. When it would be dark then.
The men walked out together into the chill of the morning. Both of them put their hands in their pockets as Mook noted that Quird was pensive and silent. Well that’s a nice spell of change, thought Mook. Moving briskly, the pair soon left behind the Pearler’s apartment in the Angle District, so called because of the random layout of its streets and correspondingly odd shaped buildings, and crossed over into the Port District. Sailors and longshoreman, mostly human but with the occasional dwarf or orc, attended to the hoists and cranes as cargo was unloaded from as far away as Equatoria. Here and there were also various scoundrels and scavengers recovering from their earlier nightly exploits but the cold and the morning hours quelled any lust for trouble in their hearts and they mostly went about in huddled quietude. No, the only sounds were industry and the cries of seagulls which everyone there was so used to they barely even heard them anymore. As Mook and Quird made their way through a throng of day-laborers waiting on a dwarf foreman checking his ledger while standing on a crate, they were greeted with the unwelcome sight of Alga Strimer.
You couldn’t imagine her young. You couldn’t imagine her clean. She was as rancid a witch as they came. Picture a piece of dead wood pulled from a swamp that was shaped like a human woman. Then cover this in rags and dangling oyster shells and cat skins before finishing it off with raven eyes and a tangled bramble of dreadlocks. Also her nails looked like long twisting yellow roots and she was barefoot so you could see all twenty four of them. Worse for Mook and Quird as they approached, she recognized the men. Alga Strimer lived in a shanty she’d built under one of the docks and all the fisherman did their best to avoid it. This included Mook and Quird but apparently fortune was against them today.
“More bones for the sea eh?” she cackled. “The great mother’s always hungry!” Neither of the men said anything but Quird made a sign with his hand he hoped would ward off her powers. Alga just laughed at this and, pulling on the chain of a two foot tall imp she had in a collar, she addressed the creature.
“Have a peek Vexly! You’ll not see them both again!” Vexly, a little red devil with clawed feet and hands, a goblinesque head, and two purple veined bat wings, obeyed. Then he smiled and the mouth that did this was filled with rows of scorpion stingerish teeth. Mook and Quird needed no further encouragement; they hastened away as inconspicuously as they could, checking more than once over their shoulders as they did to make sure they’d left the witch far behind. Then Quird began to stammer in Mook’s direction.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Uh, I have to uh, see about something. At my hostel. Won’t be long though.” For a second Mook failed to react.
“What!” he said with a scowl as he finally realized what he’d just heard. But it was too late. Quird was already sprinting down the street, away from whatever it was that awaited him out on the water.
After sending a shower of glass flying with an angry kick to an empty bottle of Golem’s Blood Rum, Mook continued on his way. Of course! he thought. Couldn’t do it on his own time! Mook was still seething when he reached the fisherman’s wharf. At the sight of his own boat however his mood picked up a bit, as it always did. There she was, all eighteen feet of her. The Regal Swan. Not the name he’d have chosen personally but that’s what she was called when he bought her and Mook Pearler was scrupulous when it came to superstition. You don’t rename a ship that’s had as good a run as hers. Looking lovingly at the boat like it were a daughter, Mook noted with relief that Quird hadn’t lied about the net. Deuce’s urn! What was he doing then? Mook spat into the sea as he climbed about his ship. Well, all I can do is get ready and see if he shows up. Heading out on his own however would’ve been a considerable challenge so Mook didn’t prepare as fast as he might have and frequently indulged the sights of nearby distractions. As he was sweating away at his bilge pump for example, he gazed with a judgemental eye at the quintet of leisurely attired patricians taking a sailing vessel out for a romp. In the middle of the week? In this weather? Anyone who lived so idly had to be a cad, he thought. The waves seemed to take mirth in this, in his private misery, and splashed around the boat with glee.
“Blast you too,” he muttered and then turned to coil some loose rope. Despite working as slowly as his conscience would allow, Mook Pearler was still by himself when he finished with all the preparations he could attend to. Might as well have a smoke, he decided as he pulled out his pipe and began stuffing it with tobacco. He had just gotten it going properly when a large shadow flew over him. The darkness didn’t even last a second but it was enough to get his attention and, looking skyward, he soon found the drake banking a hundred yards to the right. Probably an eighty footer, he mused to himself. I wouldn’t do that though, ride one of those things. As a child Mook had met a drake wrangler and the man had only one hand and a half a face. It was enough to leave a lasting impression. Got to credit those city warders though, he continued as he noted the silver gleam of the rider’s armor. Sometimes they’re all that keeps us from falling into orc-dom.
Quird appeared thirty minutes after Mook set foot on deck. The man seemed to have recovered himself and Mook, eager to get underway, commented on his vanishing act with the sparest of venom. Working the rigging of the sails together while Mook simultaneously went back and forth from the helm, they maneuvered their way efficiently through the other ships in the area and set out for open waters. A wall of dilapidated tenement housing to their left, in the east, stood at the shore of Gaol Island like exhausted alms seekers pleading to them, but Mook gave this as much attention as he would actual beggars and steered his speeding craft true south and then west, past the southern edge of his own Angle District borough. Mook noted with satisfaction that the chop of the sea had softened a bit since earlier and the two crew of the Regal Swan soon found themselves in a decent location off the small, lighthouse topped island of Senfrey. A dunce’s cap, Mook recalled. A warning. Again, this was not a witticism of his own invention but one he’d heard from an elderly oarsman once, during his junior years aboard a galley barge. Mook Pearler now was ready to order the anchor thrown but, after doing so, he observed a snag up the main mast. As he went and stood under this, he craned his neck so he could study the problem. It was a pulley, caught in one of the mast rungs. He could climb up and take care of it himself but he might as well get something for his coin out of Quird.
“Mr. Cunes!” he shouted with a hint of wicked zeal. “There’s a snare here begging your enthusiasms!” Quird wiped his brow and made his way over in a series of grabs along the rail while the Regal Swan listed against the tug of its anchor.
“I see it,” he said with a furrowed face and then began clambering up the mast. Mook remained at the bottom, prepared to stand vigil, when he noticed a trivial little detail that struck him with calamity. Indeed, it was a disaster as horrible as any the sea could summon but this one didn’t have any involvement of storm or water. Rather it was simply this; Quird Cunes had flour on the buttocks of his pants.
With sudden brutal clarity, Mook realized what this meant and he had to hold himself up by one of the mast rungs to keep himself standing.
“Don’t be touching the pies!” he heard his scolding wife say. Ah! But Quird had been having his share of pie alright! He was getting his fill, no doubt about that! Suddenly everything made sense. Quird’s behavior, his wife’s recent distance. And all this time he’d been happily playing the part of the fool. What a world! A pair of angry tears now swelled in the corners of Captain Pearler’s eyes but he quickly had to wipe them away as Quird Cunes descended from on high. The man landed with a thud and stood there brushing off his hands for a moment.
“Easy enough Captain!” volunteered Quird with a grin. “You’ve just got to know how to handle the old gal!” Mook could only stare at him with seething disbelief before turning and stumbling away.
“Curse you,” muttered Mook to the deity. Maker of crap is what you are. He was leaning on the railing at the prow of the Regal Swan, staring at the lighthouse across the waves. Quird, having absolutely no idea what was going on with the crazy albatross, coped with his confusion by baiting and throwing traps. For over an hour they said nothing to each other as Quird worked and Mook fumed. Mook thought about killing Quird outright but it was still too decisive an action for him and, after a couple of hours fantasizing about it, he would eventually admit to himself that he didn’t have enough ice in his heart to murder the man cold. In the meantime though he contemplated other scenarios. He thought about confronting the miserable cuckolder on the boat but didn’t want to deal with whatever that would unleash for the rest of the day. He thought about when he got home to see his wife; what would he say then? And, more importantly, what would she say? She couldn’t turn it around on him. Well, he couldn’t see how. Also, there was what other people would say since he knew that once he exposed the fact he’d discovered the affair, word would get around. Or maybe it already had? Could he have been the last one to figure it out? In a flash of fevered paranoia, Mook ran his mind through the interactions he’d had over the past few weeks but nothing he could remember confirmed this fear. No. The treachery of his wife and partner had not only destroyed his marriage, it’d stranded him on a ship of sinking uncertainties and no matter what he chose the outcome would be bad for him. Even if he just went home, packed his stuff and left, he still couldn’t escape the consequences of their actions. He had no family besides a brother locked up in Squidings; there was nowhere for him to go. Sighing and then rubbing his hands together for warmth, Mook realized the only power he had in this situation was when he himself was going to dump the bubbling pot of tar on his own head. When he was going to pour the mess over his life. That was it, thought Mook. That’s all I’ve got left. Oh, for sure, he’d have it out with Mrs. Pearler and Mr. Cunes at some point, preferably one on one, but he wouldn’t let their adultery force his hand. He would control how it happened. When it happened. Gazing over at a now aimless Quird pretending to look for things to do, Mook Pearler made a decision and approached.
“Time to throw in the net,” he said to his startled partner.
They worked together that day better than they ever had before. Quird, realizing Mr. Pearler was grappling with something immense but being otherwise clueless and unwilling to broach the matter, clung to the tasks he was given like they were driftwood in deep water. Mostly he didn’t even want to look at the captain; Quird, a man whose main concern in life was making sure he enjoyed himself, didn’t have the experience or inclination to engage anyone in matters of serious emotion. He was the sort of guy who made excuses about missing funerals and he was content to live his whole life that way. Mook for his part was as perfunctory as a gear in a machine, moving only as the external forces of necessity demanded. When he brought traps up out of the depths, he didn’t care what was inside and so he just threw their contents in the hold or tossed them back into the sea out of indifferent obedience to memory. Such small whims of fate had momentarily lost their sway over him and and it was with apathetic surprise that, as he checked the relative positions of the sun and moon with his compass, he realized it was five hours past the noon; five hours into the evening. He told his wife he’d be back past twelve but that was with two hours added for a stop at the Sunken Hull. So really five hours of fishing was left for them minus the time it’d take to get home. Quird was examining a horned helmet covered in rust and barnacles they’d dredged when he caught Mook looking at him and discarded it into the water.
“I’m goin’ ta take her in closer to the mainland,” said Mook to Quird. “There’s a spot there that hasn’t been touched in a while.” Quird nodded.
“I’ll go up front to keep an eye out.” A sensible course of action, thought Mook as he steered his boat starboard so they’d be facing into the waves when they cast anchor. This he did in a wide arc and, after travelling somewhere over two thirds of a large circle, he motioned to Quird to go ahead and drop the chain. This Mr. Cunes did immediately, knocking down the lever of the anchor mechanism with a loud thwack and sending its weight rattling into the abyss. Or so they both thought. Instead it hit something on its way down and that something rose up in a furor to meet them.
Quird shouted as soon as he saw the surge in the water and Mook was already halfway to him when the serpent reared its head. Or at least it appeared to be a serpent at first. Then it became two and three, and long finned tentacles began to coil around the railings. Therefore it was not a serpent; it was a hydra. Now, in general, hydras aren’t found in that region of the Thalassic, and are really only frequent around the eastern shores of distant Panhallia but, unfortunately for the two men, their day had just decided to veer into the extraordinary. And, other than a briefly precarious encounter with a pair of feuding water elementals in the month of Perspis, the crew of the Regal Swan hadn’t seen any danger all season. As such it certainly couldn’t be said that they were in peak fighting form.
They did have some luck however. The hydra was a juvenile so it couldn’t simultaneously attack them from both sides. In fact its fray of snapping heads could not even reach half-way over the deck and its tentacles were ineffective beyond latching on to the ship’s railing. Using this to their advantage, as well as a pair of seven foot hook-poles, the two fishermen held the beast at bay and the contest settled into a stalemate. They knew they couldn’t kill it; any flesh they destroyed would just regenerate unless it was cauterized and this was too big a job for Mook’s meager pipe flint. Their only hope then was to flee but, even if they raised the anchor, the hydras tentacles would still have them in its clutches. What they needed was a plan. Mook recognized this though so among the bouts of frantic swinging and alarmed yells, he went about giving the matter some thought. In fact, it was only moments later, as Mr. Cunes happened to be briefly thrown to the deck while hanging on to a hook-pole embedded in the monster’s flesh, that Mr. Pearler realized the utter simplicity of their situation. Pull anchor, lock the steer, and assault the beast until it went away.
“Mr. Cunes!” he shouted to Quird as the man scrambled to his feet. “I know what needs to be done!” Panting as he swept some disheveled hair out of his eyes, Quird Cunes was eager to hear it.
“I’m faster at the winch,” continued Mook, “So I’ll handle that. Meanwhile you distract the creature so it doesn’t come around at me and then once I’m done I’ll put the steer on a course and we’ll repel the fiend for good!”
Although not especially enthusiastic about the part where he’d be facing the hydra alone, the Captain’s promise to get rid of the thing had enormous appeal and Quird was persuaded by the sureness with which he declared it. Making a fist in a gesture of solidarity and determination, Quird then went grimly towards his task as Mook turned around and set to work on the winch. This took just over a minute and, fixing the steer, even less time, so soon Mook was right beside his partner; battling the hydra’s dozen fanged mouths and prying at its coiled tentacles. Helped by the drag of the water as the Regal Swan picked up speed, both the men were amazed to find themselves making steady progress. Moments later they were even standing together on the precipice of victory with the hydra, now mostly submerged, clinging in vain frustration against the hull. Quird, elated, leaned over the railing to try and jab the creature fully away.
“We’re almost free Captain!” he shouted excitedly. Here, at the last second, Mook had a spontaneous change of heart. Grabbing Quird around the knees, Mook lifted him up and tumbled him overboard. On the way down, Mr. Cunes was kind enough to dislodge the hydra by colliding with it but proceeded to disappear under the water after doing so. Mook watched for a moment as the rippling area of the sea where Quird landed began to float away; then the man came thrashing to the surface. “Mook! What have you done!?”
Surprising himself, Mook roared with laughter. “I’ll tell Mrs. Pearler you made off with a mermaid!” he promised before punctuating this with a maniacal whoop.
Captain Pearler didn’t immediately leave the area; he made sure he saw the man who’d been giving his wife the rod, wrapped up in the hydra’s tentacles before doing so. Then he headed home. We’ve had enough drama for one day, he thought. The weather had calmed hours earlier but now at last he could enjoy it. Sort of. Mook still wasn’t sure what he was going to do about Mrs. Pearler but at least the two of them hadn’t got the best of him. He’d won. And despite the fact that his marriage was a fraud, there was satisfaction in this. Chaos had been held back at the gates. Later, nearing the harbor front of Alchemist City, Mook pictured Quird, as he must be now, torn to pieces inside the hydra. The thought made him smile. No more dividing the spoils, he mused. A seagull riding on an updraft shrieked here and Mook admired it with a benevolent eye. Ah! I wish I could be as free as you my friend, he thought. Soon however Captain Pearler returned to shore, and all he said by way of explanation on arrival was.
“A monster got him.”