It takes just shy of five seconds to fall two hundred feet. In that time, Ruby tried not to think. The protective sigils around her head brightened as she fell until she could see them through her eyelids, and a moment later she hit the water. The sigils burst apart, their job done, and she was plunged into darkness, at the same time as she was plunged into the icy waters. They stung, but distantly, as though she were wearing a thick coat.
Ruby opened her eyes and saw the portal through the water, a pulsing blob of aqua light, and she knew she was being drawn into it, because she wasn’t slowing down as she should be but accelerating. She reached the light, and fell in. She felt no change, except that she was falling faster still. Her wake left a trail of bubbles behind her. The acceleration started to press the rim of her goggles into her face. Her lungs were burning. How long had she been holding her breath? But she couldn’t try to take a breath now. Her vision was tunneling.
In the growing darkness at the edge of her vision, she thought she could see things, darker than the blackness around them. Stygian blue, she remembered, an imaginary color found in the depths. She saw a great serpent coiling around her field of vision, coiling tighter and tighter as her vision grew darker. Her head was pounding, her chest burning. And then, as her vision faded to a single point of light, she saw another shape.
The creature from her dreams, stalking toward her through the dark, arms out like a bird making a threat display. Would it reach her before she drowned? Was she already unconscious?
Ruby crashed through the vision and felt herself no longer sinking but rising. She broke the surface with a gasp that turned into a coughing fit. She flailed around, trying to get her balance, and found her vision still blurry, not helped by the mask. She wiped at it but of course just got it wetter, and so she tore it free. Her vision was still recovering, but she could get her bearings.
The water went on in every direction, with no sign of land. The light was different here, brighter than the moonlit night she’d left on. Looking up, she saw the Earth, with the half moon next to it. The earth looked bigger than the sun did back home, and was ringed with a deep blue aura that spanned most of the sky, but the horizons were dark and tinged with stars.
Ruby spent a minute or so struck with wonder at the amazing sight, surprised that she’d actually made it to a whole other world. Undaina. The Realm of Water. The world seemed full of a serene stillness; the only sound was the gentle lapping of small waves forming and breaking all around.
The moment passed and she remembered she was alone in the middle of the sea, with no land in sight. The sea was calm but not still; she bobbed in the water, and it threatened to wash over her head at times. Was that it then? She would be stuck here, floating? Well, she had food enough for six days, perhaps she could last until the return spell activated.
No, that wouldn’t work. She was exposed and vulnerable. Something would happen to her if she just sat there. So she picked a direction, strapped her goggles back on, and started to swim.
Ruby was not strong, nor did she have a lot of endurance, but she could swim, and while she had never swum in the sea back home, her mother sometimes simulated ocean conditions in the pool. She hadn’t disbelieved her mother’s assertion that she’d been training for this, but she appreciated now that she really did know just enough to keep herself from dying instantly. Now she knew she was underprepared, but at the very least swimming here felt natural. The wind picked up, loud enough that she could hear it, but at least it was to her back.
In time she started to hear a new sound, a rushing sound, like something moving quickly through the water. Ruby started to swim faster, fearing sharks. Then she heard a very human sounding voice, and stopped.
Ruby turned her head, scanning the horizon behind her, and there in the distance she saw the masts of a tall ship. As she stared and listened, she heard a loud clear voice carried by the wind.
Ruby weighed her options and decided to head for the ship. Maybe they’d be friendly.
She found after a few minutes that the ship was going very quickly, faster than she thought a sailing ship could probably go. Soon she could see that it was a brigantine, a two-masted vessel, but it had been modified with two big lumps protruding from either side, toward the rear. As she got closer, she could make out that the singer was a young woman, or maybe even a girl. She was singing some kind of sea-shanty, but the words were laden with power, making the winds blow harder.
Ruby swam until she was parallel with the ship, some twenty yards out, close enough to be sprayed by its wake. She didn’t think she could safely get any closer, so she started waving her hands. No one seemed to see her, though she could see the crew on the deck.
She drew her red rod and started waving it. She thought perhaps a head turned to look at her, but no reaction. Ruby fired the rod into the sky, and two things happened. Firstly, a blast of red light like an aurora condensed into a sphere shot up twenty feet in the air and exploded, lighting her up like a flare. Secondly, all her strength left her and she fell limp for a moment, only coming to in time to keep the rod from slipping through her fingers. Right, she thought, mother said not to use that except to save her life. Well, she probably would have drowned without, right…?
Her ears were ringing from the blast (or perhaps from the wave of sickness), so she didn’t quite hear the voices calling out until she saw a boat being lowered from the brigantine.
Only then did she realize what was protruding from the sides of the ship. They were paddlewheels, but instead of being turned by an engine, there was a gigantic, skeletal creature, straining against the wheel to slow the ship. Its lower body faded away from the waist so it didn’t touch the water. It turned its head and looked at her with glowing red eyes. Ruby screamed.
The boat had hit the water and was rowing right toward her, and she saw that the crew were all dressed in masks made of stitched together rags. They had no eye holes, but each had two spots of red light growing through the cloth. Ruby screamed again and started to swim away, but the rod got in her way and she was too weak, too slow even if she’d been at her peak. Soon she felt arms grabbing her around the shoulders and hauling her up into the boat. She’d been treading water for so long that she felt too heavy to move at all. She let out a third scream that turned into a coughing fit. One of the masked men turned her over, pulled off her backpack, and clapped her back ineffectually.
Ruby was not doing well, and she cursed herself for shooting up the flare. It had eaten up whatever driplet of magic she had in her body, and almost all the energy she’d had left after her swim alongside it. She wished she’d had a real flare gun. She wished it had been a nice ship that had found her. She wished she wasn’t sick. She wished Henry hadn’t died. She wished her shitty lungs didn’t feel like there were knives in them whenever she made any kind of effort.
She may have actually passed out in the boat, because the next thing she knew she was being held up on the deck by the masked men (their hands were cold and hard and sharp and inhuman), dripping water onto the deck.
“What kind of creature is this?” It was a girl’s voice, her accent rolling and rhotic. “Some kind of sea frog? Or an eelwoman?” Ruby looked up stiffly, dreading what she might see. There was a girl in a striped dress, black and periwinkle, like the masks of the crewmen and the sails of the ship. The style of the dress was something between “Victorian” and “pirate wench.” She couldn’t tell if the girl was putting on some kind of pirate accent or if she was actually British.
One of the men hissed out, “ Human,” and wrenched back Ruby’s hood so hard that her goggles popped off. She yelped, more at the sudden cold than from pain.
The girl laughed. “You look like a pumpkin.” The girl herself looked nothing like Ruby;1 her hair was reddish, but more like a deep burgundy, and it was densely curled instead of straight. It hung in two tails from under the girl’s tricorne hat. Furthermore, she was tall and fit, and looked like she’d eaten recently. She was dark where Ruby was wormy pale, and her bright eyes were upturned as if barely holding back a laugh.
She took a step (her shiny leather boots made sharp clacks on the polished deck) and snatched the red rod out of Ruby’s hand. “An awfully fine weapon,” she said.
“Oh, yeah,” said Ruby, who had no energy to say anything else.
“Callisto Pellinger,” said the girl. Then she fired the rod at one of the raggedy creatures. It let out a metallic shriek that was suddenly cut off as its body shattered into tiny chunks.
Ruby yelped and Callisto pointed the rod at her. “What’s your name, lass?”
“Hi I’m Ruby!” she spat out, having never introduced herself before.2
Callisto snorted. “I like the enthusiasm. Now tell me, lass, what are you doing in Undaina all on your lonesome?”
“Umm,” Ruby struggled to think of a lie, then realized she probably didn’t have to. “I’m doing my quest?”
“Quest?” Callisto squinted and leaned in to look at her. “Oh, you’re one of those Achlydes. That’s odd, I’d’ve thought you’d be named Hecate or Terpsichore or Hellen or something.”
Ruby twiddled her fingers. “No one would name their kid Hecate, it’s too presumptuous. And I’m not pretty enough to be a Hellen. I can dance a little though.”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything,” said Callisto. “Right, Poppy, search her.” she snapped her fingers and one of the raggedy creatures lumbered over. Ruby whimpered as it snatched her backpack and bandolier, spilling their contents out onto the floor. Another one skittered in to inspect the pile, and Callisto joined in as well, poking packets of rations with the stolen rod.
She immediately took the knife, giving Ruby a knowing look, as if she’d caught her out. The second raggedy man slung her pouch of spell components over its shoulder like a rucksack.
Callisto picked up the atlas and leafed through it. “Bah, mine’s a newer edition.” She tossed it over her shoulder and hit one of the raggedy men in the face. Then she tested the green rod on the creature, laughing when its body locked up. She tucked it into her belt. One of the creatures accidentally activated the blue rod and sprayed itself in the face, and Callisto laughed at that too. “You can keep that one, it’ll spare me the effort of having to water you.”
Ruby took a moment to wonder if this small mercy might mean things were looking up.
Callisto picked up the canteen and opened it. A prismatic burst of light sprayed out into the sky. She let out a low whistle. “Now this is the good stuff,” she said, shaking the canteen, and then, to Ruby’s horror, she took a swig.
“Please don’t drink that,” said Ruby, taking a step forward only to be menaced with a hooked claw by one of her guards. “I only have enough for a few days. Without it I’ll probably die.”
“Can’t fool me, this is pure concentrated magical energy,” Callisto snorted. “Mighty useful, but not life saving.” She hiccuped and a puff of iridescent mist came out of her mouth.
“I have a really weak spirit,” said Ruby. “I really do need it. I’ll keel over!”
Callisto clicked her tongue. “What you want is monster meat. Taoist wizards would eat monster meat to cultivate their spirit and body. They’re linked, you know. That’s what I do to keep fit,” she started shadowboxing. “I eat bladefish or sharkhound steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
“Can I have some?” Ruby asked.
Callisto aimed a kick at Ruby and she shrank back. Callisto laughed. “No, that’s for me. If you’re as weak as you say I don’t need you getting stronger.” Ruby whined.
Callisto put her hands on her hips. “Course, I could use another hand aboard, so I’ll be holding onto this,” she raised the canteen. “Keeping it safe for you, like. Don’t dare try to rebel or mutiny or what have you.”
Ruby’s face fell. “You’re gonna make me…sail?”
“Depends, can you cook? Wait, no, I can’t have you sneaking bites of my food.” She twisted the rod and it extended suddenly to cane length. Ruby winced; she hadn’t known it could do that. She shouldn’t have been dissociating during Morgause’s various lectures. “Cleaning then.” Callisto tapped the rod on the ground authoritatively.
The creatures let her go and Ruby fell to her knees. One of them tossed her a sponge and a bucket. “Starting now,” said Callisto.
“I need my medicine!” Ruby moaned.
Callisto clacked her heel against the wood. “Get to it! I wanna be able to see myself in this floor. You’ll get your potion at meal times and no sooner.” She strode off to the prow, whistling “Santiana,” and the wind picked up again.
Ruby spent the next several hours scrubbing the deck. She did her best; she hadn’t ever cleaned before, and only knew how it worked in theory from books. Still, there wasn’t much to it. Just sit on your knees and scrub with both hands. She found that scrubbing in circles worked best, once she’d scraped off the top layer of gunk with back and forth motion.
It was tiresome work. She was shaking and sweating an hour in. But neither the raggedy creatures nor Callisto seemed to care how fast she went, as long as she didn’t stop.
It gave her time to think. The first hour was mostly spent moping and holding back tears, but after that, she started to observe. Despite being a captive of pirates, she was a little more confident in her survival for the foreseeable future now that she had something solid under her feet. But to stay alive, she’d need to gather information.
Firstly, she noticed that this ship was very magical. When she asked permission to use the bathroom, she was escorted to a small water closet and was shocked to discover that the light source was a little glowball set in a glass sphere on the ceiling, and the toilet just seemed to make anything put into it disappear without a trace.3 Ruby’s mother had many bound spirits to do the chores around her house, and many enchantments laid on the walls and beams, but she still had mundane plumbing and electricity. On top of that, every enchantment on the ship had to be top notch to avoid dissolving away in the saltwater.
She seemed to recall the Pellinger family being one of the great magical families of Europe, though she didn’t know much about them other than they were very rich. Would she see the same excessive magicality in an Achlydes vessel? Regardless, she doubted this was all Callisto’s work.
The wood of the deck looked very new, aside from the crusted on dirt. It wasn’t brand new, she figured, or there’d be no crust at all, but the slightest cut or scrape revealed the bright yellow wood beneath. She didn’t know much about wood, but she suspected it might have been built for Callisto, or only been handed down once.
The skeletal creatures on the wheels4 were dead spirits of some kind. Perhaps wanyudo or perhaps gashadokuro. They possessed titanic strength and the tireless nature of the dead. Definitely another feature of the boat, rather than something Callisto did herself. Now and then a wave splashed up against them, and a little of their substance crumbled away. Terribly wasteful. The ship must have an impressive power source for all this magic.
The skeletons would turn to look at Ruby sometimes. She tried to ignore this.
Callisto would speak with the raggedy men as if they were her toys, and occasionally slammed them into each other like they were toys as well. At one point, one of them removed its mask and Ruby let out a strangled cough at the sight underneath; a brass skull with burning red eyeholes. She deduced they were kratts, minor demon-imps that had no corporeal form on Earth, and probably not here either. In old days they would construct bodies out of tools, weapons, and miscellaneous junk, but these ones had been summoned directly into bespoke bodies. They all wore identical wool sweaters, striped in Callisto’s colors, that made them look a bit like Freddy Kreuger, in Ruby’s opinion.5
Their masks were all similar in shape, but not identical. While they lacked eyeholes, eye-like shapes had been stitched roughly where the eyes should go on the mask, which gave them each a distinct expression. Per Callisto, their names were Choppy, Floppy, Poppy, and Bob.6
Choppy had billhook machetes for hands and the expression on its mask could be described as angry.
Floppy had an innocent, curious look on its face and excess material from the mask gathered around the neck like a scarf. It was the one that took Ruby’s spell pouch, and continued to wear it.
Poppy’s mask bore a furrowed brow that was likely meant to portray worry, and its hands were longer and spindlier than the others’, with more fingers. It was the one that Callisto had blasted apart earlier, though she’d had no trouble re-summoning it. Its body was much more cobbled together than the rest, thanks to all that.
Bob appeared fat, and Ruby wondered if an overstuffed scarecrow had been used as a base, until she saw that its clothing rippled sometimes, as if there were something under there. Or worse, lots of somethings. Its mask had a jolly disposition.
As they sailed, Ruby noticed that the Earth was moving across the sky, like the sun and the moon do. However, well before it reached the horizon, the world started to get dark. The Earth was turning, going through phases like the moon, and as the darkness spread, its blue halo dimmed as well. The moon orbiting around it seemed to move at the usual pace, and at the moment, it was hidden. The kratts lit the glowballs on the deck, and Callisto called out, “dinner time!”
The girl stopped her singing, somehow not hoarse from hours of taming the winds, and tossed Ruby a foil packet. One of the rations her mother had packed her. Callisto clapped Bob on the shoulder. “Once she’s finished eating, send her right down to the brig.”
“My medicine,” Ruby called out.
Callisto groaned and produced a shot glass with a bit of prestidigitation, then took the canteen off her belt and pulled off the stopper with her teeth. Soon the glass filled with iridescent liquid from Ruby’s canteen. She watched Ruby drink it down and stomped her way to the hatch and snapped her fingers at Choppy. “Sushi! Now!” It stumbled after her.
Bob was stood there, watching Ruby. She looked up at it and tried to smile. It made a mechanical noise at her that sounded almost like laughter. Okay, that was…good?
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“I need water,” Ruby said, reaching for the blue rod, and tried not to watch an…appendage? Slither under Bob’s sweater.
Bob nodded and stood by as she tore open the packet with the sharp tip of her rod, then carefully took out the individual components of her MRE. It watched her until it was certain that she was preparing food and not some kind of spell or ritual.
It tasted a bit like spell components, despite claiming to be scalloped potatoes with ham. She added half the packet of salt it came with—her taste ran fairly bland—and watched the world go dim. What time even was it? Ruby was exhausted, but felt that she should probably be much sleepier than she was. Maybe she really did have an affinity for this place.
Some fifteen minutes later, Ruby carefully stuffed all her wrappers back in the main wrapper (so wasteful! She thought). It had gotten darker while she ate, and Bob, unprompted, had gone to get her a glowball, for which she was grateful. It took the bundle of garbage and hurled it into the sea, which made Ruby frown, because littering is bad.
Bob took her by the shoulder and walked her to the hatch. She picked up the glowball, but it sputtered and died in her hand.
In the distance, barely visible in the darkness, was another ship with black sails. Ruby wondered if they could help her, but then Bob shoved her through and into the passageway, and she forgot about it for a moment.
Her exhaustion was catching up with her by now, so she was too tired to dread the brig. Honestly, she was almost excited to see what a pirate brig looked like—then she realized that Callisto was just playing pretend and not a real pirate, and Ruby had no idea what the girl was doing here. Stupid, stupid…
The brig was in the lowest deck, near the stern but not at the very end. There were two cages across a narrow passageway from each other, with a single glowball hanging between them. Ruby grimaced. Well, it was never going to be glamorous.
Bob opened the cage on the left and pushed her inside. “Thank you,” said Ruby, taking a seat on the bunk.
Bob made a noise that could have meant anything and shambled off. Ruby curled herself up on the cot and covered herself with the blanket. It was a new, but cheap, fleece blanket, with a hideous pattern.
She peered down the passageway to see if it went all the way to the aft, and it did. There was some kind of machine with wires sticking out of it, threading up through the deck. A single wire led over to her glowball. The machine had at least a dozen of what looked like cathode ray tubes sticking out of it, but they were filled with some kind of liquid that glowed pale blue. Ruby presumed it was the ship’s magical power source.
The long passageway between them was mostly empty, with a few crates and barrels here and there wherever there was free space. There were cabins on the deck above her. She wished Callisto had thrown her in one of those instead of the brig. Hell, she wished she’d at least been placed in the other cage. There was a big pile of coats there. It would be softer. Her eyes fluttered shut watching it, and moments later she was asleep.
She was so tired that night that she did not dream, or at least, she did not remember. She awoke feeling ill, and knew that she would be feeling like that every day until this was over. When she blinked, she saw the stygian blue afterimage of the crow woman’s face on the inside of her eyelids. It made her yelp and slam back against the bulkhead. Maybe she did dream after all.
Bob the kratt came down to fetch her shortly thereafter. “G-good morning,” said Ruby. Bob looked at her, but did not reply as he unlocked the door. She stood up and immediately tripped, but Bob caught her. “Thank you,” said Ruby, and tried to ignore the thing slithering under his sweater. He clicked in response.
Moments later they were out on the deck. Callisto’s voice rang out from the crow’s nest where she was belting out “Look Down” from Les Miserables. Ruby certainly felt miserables .
Bob gave her an MRE and Ruby sat down on the poop deck, struggling to get it down (it was tuna noodle; she could barely eat fish on a good day) until Callisto swung down on a hawser. “Up and at’em lass!” she shouted. “Don’t tell me you’re not a morning person?”
“I’m not really a day person,” Ruby muttered. “Or even a night person.”
Callisto scoffed. “Sounds like you’re hardly a person at all! Anyhow, get up, let’s get you your medicine.”
Ruby took it and drank it down. She wondered if she could maybe break the glass, attack Callisto with it and escape, and immediately shot it down as a stupid idea. Not only was she entirely physically incapable, she didn’t think her life was in danger here, so it seemed a bit excessive.
Once she was done eating she was put to work. Once again a kratt threw her garbage overboard, and once again she felt bad for the environment. But she had little time to dwell on that. Ruby got down on her hands and knees and started scrubbing away. She wondered about the crust on the surface of the planks. It was mostly salt, and a bit of dirt. And plenty of white spots that were definitely gull poop.7
She passed much of the day the way she had the previous evening; moping and feeling sorry for herself. She was self-aware enough to try to look busy while actually conserving her strength, and when no one was looking, she altered her outfit to include kneepads, because the hardwood deck was killing her.
After a few hours, the Earth was full and bright overhead, the moon waxing gibbous. Ruby squinted up at it. It wasn’t as bright as the sun and definitely nowhere near as hot. Undaina was pretty chilly, on the whole, but a warm breeze was blowing from somewhere, and that kept it from being fully cold. Ruby figured it was close to lunch, and her stomach rumbled. It was definitely hunger this time, and not the tuna noodle waging war on her intestines again.8 She hoped she’d be allowed to choose her MRE this time, or at least given a nice one by random chance.
She was fantasizing about US Military Grade Corned Beef Hash when a number of thunderous honks sounded off the port bow, so deep she could feel them in her chest. Ruby stood up and stumbled to the railing on numb legs, then fell back on her rear and scuttled away almost as quickly. Looking back over the railing at her was the head of a massive swan. Its beady black eyes blended almost perfectly into the black of its snood and mask. It hissed and opened its mouth, revealing a beak full of jagged teeth.
Another swan head joined it, and another. A woman scrambled to the top of the swan’s head. She was dressed in light and breezy clothes, including a deep red headscarf that did not fully hide her kelp hair. Her skin was blue, and she had the eyes of a frog. It took Ruby a moment to process what she was seeing; a marid, one of the water djinni. “Salaam aleikum!” she shouted.
Before Ruby could say anything at all, Callisto hopped down from the rigging (Ruby was discovering that Callisto liked being high up) and shouted back, "waleikum assalaam!"
"Apologies for startling your crewman there," said the marid.
"Just a lowly cabin girl," Callisto shot Ruby a look. "Who should get herself downstairs." Her tone was warning, and Ruby complied immediately.
Ruby heard the marid say "We've come to your ship to trade for provisions—" as she scampered belowdecks, cut off as the hatch slammed shut.
Still, she was alone for once; no one could stop her hurrying for a cabin. She opened the door carefully and crept up to the porthole. Outside she saw five greatswans, all white, except the fifth, which was black streaked with coal grey, floating in the surf so they looked like paddleboats in the park, only bigger. Each carried a sort of howdah on its back, made of ivory, bearing a retractable mast and sail of brightly colored cloth. She saw that each swan had a pilot of sorts, sitting at the front of the howdah, manning comically long reins. She supposed the sails were for when the swans got tired.
Each greatswan carried three to five people, all either maridi or merfolk. They were easy to tell apart. Merfolk were humanoids with fishy body parts; fins, scales, webbed feet and hands, skin tones in blue and grey. Some paddled in the water by the swans, their legs fused into long fishy tails, but most were on swanback, watching the proceedings.
Maridi were more spirit than flesh, made up mostly of water. With that said, they could look like anything, but typically it was on theme with water and the sea. There was a man who seemed to be carved entirely from pearl, a woman with water for hair, a man covered in armor plates like a crab, but made of coral instead of chitin.
The black swan's howdah was the most colorful of all, made of coral and wood instead of ivory. Within its silken pavilion sat a tall marid woman with four arms, wearing a headdress shaped like a horned moon made of crimson shell. Some dark substance—lacquer?—filled in part of the moon’s curve, making it look like it was waxing. The headdress covered her eyes, but Ruby felt like somehow, she saw her.
Ruby got a sudden, terrible feeling, and started banging on the glass. The woman kept looking at her, but said did not act. Ruby drew her blue rod and sprayed the porthole with freezing water until the glass frosted over, then again with boiling. The porthole exploded outwards. "They're pirates!" She shouted. "They took me and they'll take you too!"
After a moment of blind confusion, harpoons began to fall onto the party of strangers. Screams broke out, and a swan let out a terrible boom as a harpoon struck its flank.
"Protect the Keeper!" Came a cry from above, and the woman who'd gone aboard leapt back onto the swan, shooting off a blast of steaming water from her hand asn she flew.
Ruby heard Callisto scream in rage. The travelers returned fire on the ship with magic, and shortbows, and their own harpoons. Ruby stuck her head out the porthole; she didn’t quite know why, but she thought perhaps she might escape, or at least see what’s going on.
She squeezed herself into the hole, the thick material of her drysuit resisting the broken glass. She got a shoulder through by twisting herself around, getting a good view of one of the swans lashing at a kratt with its beak. The demon was smote to the deck, and then the beak closed around its arm. The other kratts rushed to help it, and with a harsh wrench, it tore off one of its arms.
Ruby got one arm all the way through, then another, and just then, Callisto leapt off the deck, smoothly sliding down a swan’s neck. She drew the red rod and aimed it at the black swan howdah.
Ruby moved without thinking, shooting a stream of ice cold water from her own rod. She hadn’t even realized she was still holding it, but she was, and somehow her aim was true. The stream hit Callisto in the small of the back and she yelped and jerked hard upright, shooting a blast into the air as she lost her balance and fell into the water.
Someone gave the order to retreat, and the greatswans started paddling away. The portside skeleton reached out with its massive arm, grasping for the black swan with the implacable slowness of construction equipment. The woman with the headdress stretched out her own hand and touched its finger, and the arm transmuted, collapsing into a deluge of blood that stained the ocean red. Ruby stared in horror. Then she looked at the woman once again and reached out her hand. The woman replied in kind. Whether it was just a gesture of thanks for the warning, or the beginning of some working, Ruby never knew, because at that moment, her swan took off flying with a sound like thunderclaps, four massive wings as big as sails pushing it into the sky. Callisto bobbed in the water, pushed down by the gales every time she surfaced.
Once the black swan was clear, the others began to rise one by one. The kratts sent out a boat to rescue Callisto, and here Ruby pulled herself back into the ship, realizing she was as good as dead.
Thinking quickly, she shrank the water rod down to the size of a pencil and hid it up her sleeve, then ran up to the deck and got back to scrubbing, sobbing to herself.
Within minutes, Callisto was back on board, sopping wet and howling abuse at her kratts. “And you!” she shouted, looking at Ruby. “Stop acting so innocent, I know you warned them!” She marched right up and kicked Ruby in the midsection, sending her sprawling out on the wet floor.
Callisto loomed over her, fists clenched. Ruby could barely see her through her tears, but she was sure her face was contorted in rage. “I would’ve had them anyway if they hadn’t gotten off a lucky shot. Next time we run into someone out here though, if you don’t keep quiet, I’ll kill you!” She upended Ruby’s bucket over her head and stomped off. “And you better forget about your medicine until dinner time! Serves you right!”
Ruby lay there shivering, counting her blessings. Callisto hadn’t seen that Ruby was the one who’d shot her. Otherwise…
She pushed herself up. The kratts were working, except for one; Poppy, whose chest was torn open, arm missing. Callisto had sat it down on the deck and was fixing his arm. She wasn’t terribly handy; she was just slapping bits of metal and wood onto it for it to absorb, one piece at a time. Ruby looked around for something to dry herself off with, and got back to work.
In all the day’s excitement, Ruby had completely forgotten about the night terrors. Once again she passed right out as soon as she was in her cell, and so they caught her by surprise.
> She stood by, helpless, disembodied, in a room lit with red neon lights. The crow woman was there, with Henry and—
>
> Fenetre!
>
> They were both on the floor, and Ruby remembered everything. The fight at Girasol’s, Leila, her avatar being taken into the dark. She realized she’d been in the dark for years, for an infinity of time, brought out now and again to be tormented by this thing.
>
> For a moment Ruby saw herself as an adult, the woman she had been in Rhone. She took a step forward, to—do what, exactly? Fight back? Darkness began to gather in her hand. This was a dream, and she could do anything, even channel and forge—
>
> Then the creature stomped on Henry’s chest and he let out a whimper as his bones crunched. “You can’t stop.”
>
> Instantly, Ruby collapsed back into a little girl, her weapon dissipated.
>
> “Ruby,” Fenetre muttered, struggling to lift himself up from the ground. Blood dribbled from his mouth as he tried to smile. “You can. You can b—”
>
> The crow woman leapt over to him and kicked him in the face. “You can’t stop!” She brought her taloned foot down on Fenetre’s head—
>
>
Ruby woke up screaming, flailing, her heart pounding. She clutched at her chest, breathing hard, and at her head, trying to will herself to remember this time. She didn’t want to forget Fenetre, even if it was horrible—
“You have such terror in you.” The voice drew her attention away—and Fenetre was gone. “Does it hurt?”
She opened her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks without knowing why, and saw that the pile of coats across from her wasn’t that at all. While she slept, it had unfurled into a…creature. It was like an octopus…no, a nautilus, in the shape of a man. The head was a flat lump protruding from a lumpy trunk. The top portion of a shell poked just slightly over the back of its head, before disappearing into the folds of its skin, which even now was assuming the color and texture of a good overcoat. A dozen tentacles hung down over its mouthparts like a very long beard and mustache, while several more seemed to extend from the body, twisting together into clawed hands and feet. It definitely wasn’t “octo” anything; Ruby couldn’t quite count the number of tentacles that it had. “Does it hurt?” it repeated, in a deep, burbling voice, tone slow and halting, as if unaccustomed to speaking this language, or at all. It was quiet, halfway to a whisper.
All things considered, it was probably less scary than Ruby’s night terrors, considering the sight of him didn’t set her off screaming. She raised a hand in greeting. “Hi, I’m Ruby.” Its voice made Ruby want to speak quietly too.
“Ruby. A sensible name,” it replied, flashing a pinkish red when it said her name. It enunciated ‘sensible’ carefully, and any word with three or more syllables. “Every year humans come up with stranger and stranger labels. Just…sounds. Not images or ideas. But ruby at least, is a mineral, beautiful and strong, of striking hue. Yes, yes. I am—” Its body flashed golden yellow, then faded to a gradient of pink, orange, and purple, which darkened to stygian blue.
“Uhh…” Ruby squinted. “Is that…sunset?”
“Indeed,” it brightened, literally. “That is, a specific sunset, at a specific time of year, in a specific place, and with a masculine diacritic. But you can just call me Dusk.” With every word its skin flashed different colors.
Oh good, Ruby thought. It would be hard to say all those colors. “Enchanted to meet you, Dusk.”
He laughed, mainly through a spout on the side of its head. It sounded like the bubbling of the drowned. “Fascinating to meet one who is so young, yet so unafraid.” Ruby realized she had no idea where Dusk’s voice was actually coming from. Not the spout, certainly, nor where she assumed his mouth was; it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
“Well, you aren’t. Usual,” said Ruby, twiddling her fingers. “But I’m under a lot of stress right now. And we’re in separate cages.”
“Despite that, I would call you brave.” It didn’t have body language exactly, though its tentacles never stopped squirming.
Ruby swallowed. “Do you… want me to be scared of you?” Was this a trick? Was he some kind of fear eating demon?
He tented his hands, tapping his long fingernails together. “You don’t know what I am, do you?”
“Uhh. No. But it would have been rude to ask.”
Another laugh. “Ahh, so it was ignorance. Well, I won’t take advantage of that. I am a child of Kanaloa.”
“Oh…” Kanaloa, an octopus god of the underworld, had many spawn; horrible, manipulative creatures, mimics that brought civilizations to ruin. “Aren’t you…evil?”
His big yellow eyes had rectangular pupils, and they bent upward. Ruby thought this might be the equivalent of a smile, or his attempt to make her think that. “Oh yes.”
Ruby bit her lip. “You’re very polite for being evil.”
“I have my standards, that is all.” The tentacles around his mouth gave a dismissive wave. “Surely you’re old enough to know that mere politeness is not incompatible with evil.”
“I suppose I am…”
After a pause, he asked, “Do you know why you’re here?”
“I’m on my quest,” said Ruby, looking away. It was going terribly.
Another laugh. “No, I mean why you’re on this boat.”
“Oh.” She blushed in embarrassment. Of course that’s what he meant. “I’m a captive. I clean and stuff. Mostly clean.” She looked down at her fingers, pushing the tips against each other.
Dusk sounded equal parts sympathetic and exasperated. “My child, you are to be a sacrifice.”
Her head snapped up. “What?”
“Did you not think to ask what our captors are doing in this world?” He scratched the top of his head with a tentacle. “None of them belong here, neither the sorceress nor her demons.”
Ruby realized that she hadn’t even tried to get information out of Callisto even once and felt herself growing red again. “No...”
“That girl is seeking the Red Anemone,” Dusk intoned. Three of his tentacles stretched out, twisting together into the shape of an anemone, glowing softly red and green. As best as Ruby knew though, anemones didn’t have thorns. “A fragment of an old god,” Dusk went on, “a piece of his living crown. It could be used to draw upon his power.”
Ruby’s mouth suddenly dried up. “And she’s close to finding it? And she needs a sacrifice to get it?”
“It is what she is going to do,” said Dusk. “She is close, yes. There is an island that only passes into sailable waters once every six hundred years. I, her captive, have also been her guide. But now she is so close, she mostly uses me as fuel…” He hissed in pain and frustration, glancing down the passageway at the generator. But he collected himself quickly. “A sacrifice is not strictly necessary to access the island. But it is guarded by a fearsome beast. The easiest way through would be to feed it, and it eats only living flesh.”
Ruby’s heart was pounding again, so hard she could feel it in her right arm, pulsing so hard it made her hand twitch. Callisto was going to feed her to a monster and stroll right past her as she died, all for a treasure that could save Ruby’s life. The irony was unbearable. She thought her heart might give out just thinking about it. She took a deep breath and reached out to steady herself against the bars.
“Is something wrong?” asked Dusk.
“I have a bad heart,” Ruby muttered. “And bad lungs. My bones aren’t too good either. But the heart is the worst thing.”
“I could help,” Dusk extended a clawed hand, and it stretched out, through the bars, into the passageway between them. “Grant you the power to shape your flesh. Then your heart will be as strong as you want it to be. And your night terrors? They are not new, are they? A persistent terror. I could eat your dreams for you. Then you will always have a peaceful night’s sleep. You just have to help me escape.”
Ruby listened to the pounding of her heart and started at the hand; clawed, wriggling, many-colored. A deal with a devil, certainly.
But would it be enough? She had to consider that she would be adding his power to the dark hole that was her spirit. No, he would have escaped the ship himself already if making a deal could save them both. She could fix her heart, but then she would die to the beasts anyway.
“No,” said Ruby.
Dusk shrugged and withdrew his hand through the bars of his cell.
“But, I think I know a way we can help each other,” said Ruby. He stopped, tilted his head, as if to say go on. “Please, tell me everything you know about the island.”
----------------------------------------
1. And therefore nothing like a pumpkin.
2. Ruby didn’t get out much due to her condition. Of course she did occasionally meet new people, but in those situations her mother would introduce her, and then Ruby would say “enchanted to meet you” and curtsy like she’d been taught.
3.You may think, “well, I thought Ruby couldn’t use regular magic items?” Well, don’t worry about it. You’ll figure it out soon, or else forget it happened. It doesn’t really matter. I know the answer though.
4. Yes there were two of them.
5. Ruby had seen A Nightmare on Elm Street with Henry; Morgause had no idea.
6. Ruby doubted those were their real names; a real practitioner could steal control of the imps with that information. Or maybe Callisto thought Ruby was so little of a threat that it didn’t matter. Ruby thought that would be an accurate assessment.
7. Seagulls can freely travel to other realms via some unknown mechanism. If you ever find a gull so far inland that you have no idea how it got there, it probably just popped in from Undaina or some other realm filled with sufficient amounts of water and/or garbage.
8. A frequent criticism against escapist fantasy is that the characters never do “human” things, like go to the bathroom.* Well, Ruby is a sickly girl who had preserved tuna for breakfast, so you can imagine that she has been suffering like Christ on the cross all morning. She has been very brave about it, holding it in so that the pirates don’t think she’s plotting something in the bathroom. But that’s the last I’ll weigh in on this subject.
> *Incidentally, the protagonist of Dream Quest, this story’s companion piece, did not go to the bathroom for about six months, for reasons that make perfect sense if you think about them.