“Is the galley fine?” Someone yelled, and as his fearful gaze swept across the main deck, Albrion found the owner of the hoarse, high-pitched voice belonging to a dwarf. A quite ugly one with a haggard face drenched, the salty seawater trickling between the bulbous nodules growing across his face. Everyone laughed, and even Albrion found himself chuckling that that would be the first thing anyone yelled after living through the vast storm.
“Are you alright little brother?” Oshiuth inquired after her laughter died down amidst the waves hitting the broadside. A bit splashed onto the two as he answered a bit meekly, holding back the bile from spurting out from his mouth after the long and arduous experience of being in that storm. “We were close to meeting a serpent.” He added, recalling the slithering, gargantuan form he spotted as the wave lifted their vessel close to the infinite filament.
“Forgot to mention, but during Mineirvia’s season, those beasts like to prowl the seas for lone vessels like ours.” Oshiuth said whilst he followed her up the stairs, forcing every fiber and muscle in his body to not give in to the wild spinning.
“I’d face the beasts of the sea rather than experience that once more.” She chuckled at his explanation when they arrived up to the quarter deck where most things seemed intact, though a few of the mates who remained up here were claimed by the waters as they noticed only the half-blood captain and Alcinous at the wheel.
Whilst his elder sister made a report and waited for the orders of the Captain who unfurled his fingers from the spokes after holding onto them for more than half a day, Albrion meandered towards the bulwark, leaned onto it – nearly collapsed even – and stared into the interminable fog surrounding the vessel. The vessel which pace gradually lessened, as if pulled, held by invisible hands.
First his pale visage reflected mild terror, disgust at the floating pus like things swimming aimlessly amongst the floating land of crimson with a mild, dim purplish iridescence. “Seaweed, just our luck.” Alcinous commented, stopping beside him just as Albrion thought to as his sight cleared, the spinning halted as if the sight mended him. Even the urge to lay out the contents of his stomach ceased completely. After Oshiuth received her orders, Albrion joined her as they inspected the vessel’s lower decks, searching for any dents, possible leaks incurred by the violent sea. For two hours, they made turns around, but finding nothing distressing, only the morose sight of a few sailors mangled, their heads bashed in by the few beams, or their own weapons plunged into their bodies during the storm.
Finished with their inspection, they collected the dead after relaying the good part of the news, then on the eve, the whole remaining crew slowly lifted the dead mates into the sea, their final bed where the Solemn Mistress shall claim their souls. Watching the corpse of a young grekhian with a hawkish nose be swallowed by water and seaweed, he noticed a faint pinkish or violet gleam in the upper corner of his eye, far in the fog lit by the lanterns and maghieth stones. But by the time he looked, the glow was no more, so he returned inside, to fill his stomach, empty and finally calm.
****
The following few days, the Menelaith made little traction through the Land of the Seaweed, though there was something portentous in the air, putting the weight of unease onto Albrion’s heart. Though he was unsure whether it was him being simply alert at the thickening masses of crimson surrounding them. A feeling he was not alone with. Many a times, the mates cried out, including Polyphemus whose lone eye could pick up on the faint movements in the seaweed. But each time their unease was proven needless, as the smaller denizens mockingly bounded over before disappearing into the sea.
Mostly uneventful days passed as they searched for a way out from the thick fog encompassed land. Albrion spent most of it down on the second deck, continuing his practice with either Oshiuth or Alcinous when the latter was free from the steering, parting away the clingy seaweed holding back the vessel. Yet on the second night, Albrion suddenly jerked up from his bed, hearing something from across the wall. Perspiration trickled down as he heard the queer sound of something viscous slither up the broadside, then by the time he grabbed his sword and walked up, found nothing in the lit darkness.
During the frugal breakfast they had – imposed by Outis for the reason of uncertainty in regards of their escape from these unchartered waters – Albrion mentioned the sound to Oshiuth, Alcinous and Polyphemus, each offering a different view. Oshiuth mentioned the krakens who frequented the northern waters tending to play with their prey. Alcinous agreed but also offered that it could have been a sea-snail slithering up the vessel, then sliding down when the defensive enchantments sensed it whilst the augmented orkh brought up the elementals of the sea, but the other two disagreed as they tended to stray from the mortals. Albrion personally agreed with Oshiuth, recalling a bit about the krakens Moirstyria showed him once.
And at night he and Oshiuth got proven right, when most of the crew awoke to the screams of one of theirs. By the time they reached the main deck, their fellow’s scream was muffled after he got pulled beneath the seaweed, followed by two imposing, massive tentacles rising high. “Damned pirates.” Outis cursed them, looking at the main mast with glowing eyes. Noticing the meager dent made into one of the carved runes, Albrion understood that the vessel’s protection was slightly weakened, enough for the kraken.
Flames appeared around his free left hand, and after thrusting it towards the closest tentacle reaching down, a sphere of flames shot out and as it screamed across the darkness, lengthened and sharpened. Upon impact, half of the upper portion severed, fell towards the Menelaith, but only a few cinders arrived, weak enough to not set ablaze their one sanctuary. Although, they all expected the creature to roar from beneath the waters, it remained silent eerily as if it felt no pain.
The other was halted just a few meters above the main deck, with Oshiuth bravely standing on the bulwark, tendrils of condensed, whirring air shackling her to the floor, wrapped around the sash of her kimono. Her glaive pointed high, its sharp tip penetrating the one of the larger suckers, pouring ink black blood and water onto her pale form. She pushed it deeper and with seemingly languid movements, sliced the flesh, leaping out from the blood showering the spot where she stood.
Noticing the disk like eye after rushing to the edge, protruding through the thick crimson masses, hatred and the lantern’s flames glimmering in large eye. Quickly aimed, Albrion released another fireball and watches as the flames continued devouring the gargantuan octopus even as it completely submerged. Then after a long silence they spent staring out into the fog, their eyes kept on the seaweed, their weapons grasped strongly, a singular arrow was released by a feline demikin with steel gray fur.
It quickly tore through the air, stopped in the thick, smooth and black hide of the kraken, and to their relief, no retaliation came from the monster. It was dead as they all deduced from its floating, limp tentacles bulging the thick layer of seaweed. The eye Albrion shot out was hollow, charred still as smoke and a baleful odor arose from it. “Say, don’t you wanna serve on this vessel for a few more years?” Outis asked him as he patted his waist whilst gloatingly looking at the gargantuan corpse slowly returning to beneath the waters.
As he nearly turned, Albrion ceased and stared into the foggy darkness. Not far he heard the disturbance of water, as if something arose, and vaguely he saw six spikes, like the legs of gargantuan arachnids he and Drussaev hunted beneath the colorful dunes of the far-south arise from the waters and the seaweed. A low growl reverberated and worried Albrion who reached for his blade, but only a long, near silence followed as the Menelaith barely moved through the land of the seaweed.
****
On the seventh day following the storm, Albrion dreamt of queer things and feelings. He was alone, sitting surrounded by interminable darkness when suddenly, he grew aware to a strange sound in the dark. A sound which reminded him of clambering snails. Mucous smearing upon the myriad grain of glistening sand, accompanied by the vile stench of wet death. As if a corpse was covered in some viscous material, and it neared behind him. Yet when he lurched suddenly, there was only the black emptiness staring back at him.
Then a sudden bump pulled him out from the dream, and with one hand upon the handle of his resting sword atop his thighs, he sat upright, still. His dark pupiled eyes swept across the darkness, slowly diffusing into a soft dimness. At first, he believed some specter may have been the culprit, hiding in the shadows, melded into the wood awaiting Albrion to sleep once again. But then came another thud, from his left, from the other side, followed by a series from the corridor. “Come brother, this night shall be not so merciful to grant us sleep.” Oshiuth swung open the door, holding her glaive already dressed in her battle garments.
Without unneeded words, Albrion leapt onto his feet and followed after her and the other mates awakened from their blissful rest. Unlike them, they had sour expressions, no doubt after being wrung from a pleasant dream spent with the phantasmal manifestation of a mermaid or beautiful nymph of the sea. Nearing the stairs, the melody of struggling and a vile stench stirred them all fully, and stepping out, the djinn sailor before him swept away into the sea in a manner of seconds.
Albrion swiftly unsheathed his blade, held it before himself as his senses screamed at him, whilst the stench of the approaching horror of the sea neared in a frightful velocity. The creature swiftly altered its trajectory, and in the mere second, Albrion swung and cut into the cadaverous, damp flesh eliciting a queer shriek from the hideous form before him. Ignoring the pain, the creature arose, balancing deftly as it stood at the same height as the towering Albrion who grew nearly to three meters by his one and the hundredth year.
Staring at the adroit creature balancing on its fin, striking at him with its stretching, tentacle like fingers, Albrion agreed mentally with Alcinous’s comment from two weeks before – these creatures were truly hideous. Then evading, and skirting close to the creature, Albrion cut its head off with a clean, swift and deft strike, then turned as another lunged at him shrieking like a bird.
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Content at seeing what he deduced to be the Weedkin they talked about in Zaocaes, he wasted no more time. At once time halted to a near stop all around him, and with one step closed the distance. His blade made no sound as it cleaved into the creature’s neck, severing the seaweed like jet black hair. As its head flew off into the lit darkness, oily blood spurted forth the gaping hole, tarnishing Albrion’s refined form as he turned and cut through another of the vile weedkiin.
A bellow drawn his attention beyond the mast. Rushing towards Polyphemus whose voice he recognized through the rhythm of the battle, Albrion noticed immediately a group of the hideous, savage merkiin stand queerly on their tails, their tentacle hands wriggling, writhing whilst a sinister ethereal mist wreathed and flittered about. From the floor, the viscous crimson seaweed sprouted and wrapped around the massive wrists and ankles of the one-eyed orkh. A fifth lunged out suddenly and cinched his neck, dampening the cry for aid.
Fearing the approach of dusk, ethereal grains of fiery orange and red flittered, then head of the nearest creature exploded, chunks spraying the entrance to Outis’s cabin, breaking the window and setting alight the curtain. Albrion fearing the Menelaith being devoured by hastily conjured flames leapt at the nearest, and drove his blade through its heart, then freed his blade by pulling it up, across its body.
The other noticing the demise of its kin, altered the spell, the viscous tendrils now lurching at Albrion whose smiled upon the warm sensations spreading across his form. The thrill of the kill mingled with the tinging of maghia as his blade severing the right tentacle arm of the creature spread a curse upon its hideous form. In seconds, the creature’s shrieks ceased into oblivion, as its form withered into a mound of dust carried away by the rocking ship.
With another swing, a whirling, slim wheel of flames rolled out from the left edge and cut through the remaining seaweed tendrils, freeing Polyphemus who thanked him before planting his hardened fist into the beaked visage of a weedkiin. Cutting through another, Albrion averted his gaze for a moment, watched with excitement as Polyphemus quickly grabbed one by the head, squeezed it into a bloody and bony pulp, then hurled the hideous corpse towards another slithering over the bulwark, sending it back to the seaweed covered sea.
For a moment, victory seemed close, yet the numbers of the enemy dwindled not even as Albrion released withering and burning black flames; Oshiuth swung her glaive, from its blade a wintry wind freezing three of the wicked denizens of the seaweed; Alcinous planted his triton onto the bosom of one, that from its three prongs, thunder zigzagged through four more; Outis on top of the aft swung his maul, caving in the chest of one, and with the same breath, swung and squashed the head of another. Yet as he glanced over the bulwark, he saw as hundreds upon hundreds of the weedkiin glided beneath the rippling waves, and as he looked up daunted at the sight far ahead in the fog.
Far ahead, a massive worm ducked beneath the waves, rocking the Menelaith and undulating the unremitting, entwined seaweed upon the dim, azure wastes. And the repugnant creatures who marched beneath suddenly diverted their path, away from the vessel with great haste. The sailors cried loudly in triumph as the few on the vessels also scurried away, terror in their deep-set, lidless eyes. Their cries died away in the same breath, just as Albrion turned back from the waters. A cavernous bellow shook the world, halted the little wind breezing through the ship, and even the fog ceased its existence.
“Whirlpool, ahead!” A truscian mate shouted grasping onto the bending bow. Albrion loomed over the bulwark and noticed far ahead the water twirling into itself, and a stench most hideous to his nostrils contorted his face, and filled him with the dread of approaching death.
Outis’s maddened laughter boomed through the whole deck. “That is no whirlpool my friends. That is our doom, the doom of all sailors.”
Dread spread across the countenances on the Menelaith, an infectious curse digging its roots deep within the hearts. Albrion being the sole exception, turned towards Oshiuth and Alcinous, but before he could inquire further on the source of the captain’s sudden madness, both uttered the same word. A dreadful name feared by all sailors. “Charybdis.” Then she grabbed him by the shoulder and imparted a thought into his mind, and at once followed after the two and lined behind a few sailors.
All aboard the main deck began to wave their arms, attuned their wills to the seas, the water brushing wildly against the polished bulk at once. Albrion listened intently as the sea around their meager vessel – a speckle in the azure eternity – warred upon itself. Near the bottom, a current formed, heading away from the whirlpool emanating putrescence, carried to them by the silent wind, whilst the rest, flown to cease the thirst and hunger of Charybdis. Closing his eyes, he felt not just the conflict of the water, but the wild beating of his heart, the perspiration crawling out from his spores whilst a chill gripped his spine.
For a moment, hoped seemed to thaw away the dew of terror encrusting his soul and heart, Albrion chuckled softly, though it was muffled by maddened laughter of the half-blood captain, the rhythmic grunts as the sailors neared their limits, beckoning another less palpable horror and the cascading waves heading down to the hideous sprout that was the maw of the great beast, Charybdis, Doom of the Seafarers. Looking to his right, he watched as a fair man collapsed onto his knees, his last shrieks drowned out by the flowing, effervescent water leaving his body until he remained a dreadful mummy.
A few more followed, standing on the precipice of one doom and another as they gave in, accepted their fates and began to pray on their knees to the One and the Eight, their winged divine pets and many being Albrion heard not before. “Forgive me brother, for I bewitched you into doom!” Oshiuth ceased too, and turned with a mirthless grin before she gave in and collapsed near below the bulwark. Her gaze focused on the peaceful skies where clouds billowed away, as if they too feared what lurked beneath the waves with an insatiable hunger.
“Forgive not, as I stepped onto this vessel accepting whatever fate awaits all sailors of the seas.” He said, sitting beside her, strangely devoid of fear, a queer assuredness veiling serenity upon his soul. He sprouted his fist, and his claws dig into the vessel, in his mind the wave of arkhaine euphoria lifting his spirit from the shadow of the Night itself.
“See you all in the Antechamber of Asphodai my brothers and sisters.” Otius shouted as the Menelaith reached the putrid chasm’s precipice, and leaned towards its own doom. Albrion took a glimpse at him, and watched as his weirdly long and bulky fingers unwrapped from the spokes, and lifted into the air, flying for a moment before taking to the depths where light ceased to be.
All around, a hideous wall of cadaverous flesh circled, protrusions of all kinds, including nodular ones forming glowing colonies like corals on the shores; tendrils nestling against the viscous, horrid flesh; and curving teeth the size of hills which the vessel landed on and upon impact shattered in two, taking most of the crew down with itself into the abyss. Their shrieks muffled by the waterfalls pouring in all sides, Albrion stared down only once whilst burying his claws into the tooth forming a jagged crescent of a blackened tooth.
Albrion groaned, staring down as he began to lift his arm up. The four formed a chain, below him Oshiuth who grasped Alcinous, and Alcinous grasped firmly Polyphemus whose weight pulled them towards the putrescent abyss. A doleful fact reflected in his singular eye. His lips trembled a little before he looked down and back. “It was a honor to fight alongside all of ya. May the Judge of the Dead be fair and kind upon us.” With a sorrowful cadence, he released his grip, the shadows swallowed his shrinking form as the three cried out his name in unison.
Yet Albrion felt a mixture of shame and relief, now his arm bulging with veins beneath the dark sleeves pulled Oshiuth and Alcinous closer. When mana poured into his arms, the veins glowing ethereally, he cried out as pain slipped besides the arkhaine euphoria as he reached his limit. Suddenly, his arm twitched back and once more the two dangled. Looking up, they watched as Charybdis began shutting her maw.
Shadows crept over them slowly, the light of day barred moment by moment. “Though we spent little time in this life, I am glad to be fought besides two dragons. May we meet again in the next.” Both looked at him down.
“No!” Oshiuth repeated, tears flowing from the corners of her mesmerizing eyes, blue as the ice covering the lakes of the north. He whispered a few words whilst laxing his own grip, whilst Oshiuth held on, yet when he conjured forth a thin layer of water, he swiftly slipped into the abyss with a mirthless smile. The two stared into the abyss, silent before Albrion began to strain his arm once more, hoping to threw her onto the tooth.
Each effort failed, and the light nearly slipped, enveloping the two in utter darkness. Albrion’s heart beat wildly, and he fought tooth and nail to triumph over the slowly numbing terror. There were still myriad things he wished to achieve, witness the dream his father and uncle sang odes for the decades he spent cooped up in their radiant den. And he wished to fight besides Moirstyria and Drussaev a hundred or thousand more times before he fell triumphantly in a battle against the hordes of Dusk and other malevolent forces wishing to break the dream of his kindred. He wished not to die in the belly of such a monstrosity as Charybdis.
“Tell me brother, have you realized your Calling?” She asked, her voice filled with a false hope, a kindness that warmed his being.
“Only in passing moment, yet I am certain it is not on the accursed waters of this promised land.” He answered, mustering his strength to throw her above. “It is either on land or if I think more, possibly above it, in the endless skies where our forefathers sored guiding our lesser brethren before the Six graced us with intelligence and refined form.” Hearing her give strangely prepared him to even give his own life, and for a moment he desired to dream eternally of flying across the skies of Elhyrissian.
“Good, there you may be free from even father.” The words stupefied him little, as he heard the same sentiment from Moirstyria and Drussaev. “For centuries I walked the lands of Vhalleryon, looking for my own Calling before I found it in the seas, I returned home to take my place in our Dream, yet when I expected to meet my beloved, kind though seldom temperamental father, I found him no more. I pray you shall seek and find your Calling in the skies, where true freedom lies like on the sea.” Unease crept into his eyes, feeling her touch grew distant, slip away and when he looked down, he glimpsed at her falling form only for a moment.
Before Albrion could take one last glimpse at his elder sister, she conjured a strong gust of wind, lifting him out from the hideous maw of Charybdis – his claws remaining within the fang, a forever reminder to the worm that one got away. He could still feel the tender coldness of her hand as he flew for the first time in his life without mounting a graceful dragon of House of Dawn and Heavens. Freedom and sorrow danced in his heart, pushing dread out as he approached the azure wastes clashing against each before swallowing him.
Down there, beneath he gazed upon the worm, Charybdis slithering into the unbroken darkness, before he shut his eyes and awaited either mercy or death decreed by the One and the Eight. Neither came as he sunk further down into the Land of Oneiron, though before he stepped through its billowing gates, a brilliant trilobed glow flashed into his eye and mind, easing the pain of his frame. Then he sat upright, to the cold breeze of the north. Hours passed, dusk approached whilst Albrion watched with a gloomy gaze as the waves bashed against and onto each other like wrestling siblings…