XIX.
Eastend – 200 years later
Vagari sat upon the dust-encrusted dock staring out across the water. An immense lake sat between him and what all knew as the frontier. They were uncharted lands, forgotten lands, drawing lands. They were lands of the distant past and now the future. He felt their draw stronger than ever – the draw of wonder. It had been a month since their fateful battle with Xu and the rediscovery of the Book of Portals. There he sat at the very edge with the tome laid in his lap, eyes drifting between it and the lapping waves. It looked exactly the same as it had the first time he set eyes upon it, over two-hundred years ago; exactly the same as in his nightmares. “Where did they find you?” he wondered as he traced the strange face carved in its cover with a fingertip. “Or did you find them?”
Now that he had the book, he didn’t rightly know what to do with it. Before, it had been so clear in his mind, but now it was all fogged and forgotten. Had he ever had a plan? Or was it the draw of the tome that promoted that idea, seeding it in his mind? He no longer knew, and that troubled him more than anything. “I’m going with you,” BP said as she shuffled down beside him on the salt encrusted dock in her newly tailored outfit: a vest and pants of canvas, and a backpack that was nearly as tall as she was. She had shoes now too, but they hung from her bag. Having walked barefoot her entire life she simply wasn’t used to the confinement. “No ifs, ands, or buts! I heard that from someone yelling in the market. Seems appropriate.”
Vagari wanted to protest – he might very well be going to his death – but he needed her and he needed her powers. He was bound to run into more of her siblings, Xu’s homunculi soldiers, and worse out in the unknown, so having her abilities handy could only prove advantageous. He hated the thought of it; it terrified him to drag her out there with him, but the thought of going alone scared him even more. It was obvious to him now that his desire to go alone in all things, in truth was a guilty conscious’s call to suicide. Vagari wasn’t alone, and despite what Val dead and gone inside him swore, he never was. That was what he needed most from her, he thought, that constant reminder – her voice over his own. After all was said and done, his enemies didn’t act alone, so why should he?
Vagari reached behind him and gathered up all his long black hair and twisted it into a messy bun at the back of his head. It would be windy across the lake and full of sights unseen that he would like to see. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…” Vagari uttered as he stood up and pointed across the vast distance, “or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.” BP stared up with a curious confusion and Vagari smiled. “A poem of sorts,” He told her. “It’s a line from Henry V, by William Shakespeare. Men are only as alive as their will to fight for life. ‘But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect…’”
“Oh – OH! Right…” BP returned with mock-sureness. “So… does that mean you’re not going to try and stop me?”
Vagari shook his head ‘no’ and then said, “We’ll go across the lake, as far as we can go, as far as anyone has gone in two-hundred years. I’d like you at my side, no ifs, ands, or buts. Charming company aside, I’ll be honest with you… You have a power, BP, and it’s the exact power I need. I’ve never been a man of faith, but I can see now that our meeting couldn’t have been anything less than fate. Without you I would have died a handful over. So no, I won’t stop you. I’m asking you to come. We’re in this together, BP. I believe that now.”
BP stared at him with bulging watering eyes for a quiet moment before slipping out of the straps of her backpack to plop down beside him. “Well, you don’t have to ask!” she proclaimed firmly. “I already said I was going, no matter what! I’d just like to see you try to pry me off,” BP announced, snapping her maw of jagged teeth dramatically before continuing in her avian croak. “But… I am glad you did – ask, I mean. I don’t want to be left behind again. Ha – what if I get trapped behind a door again? Terrible aspects don’t open locked doors, trust me.” Vagari laughed and wrapped an arm around her. “I suppose it doesn’t,” he admitted. “In the end we need each other, don’t we? Together I think we actually have a chance. For the first time in a very long time, I feel like I’m on the right track. We’ll find this… being of light, BP, and we’ll save the world. But first,” Vagari said, standing up before offering her a hand, “we find a boat.”
What at first sounded like an easy venture, the whole harbor was filled with boats after all, turned into a week-long door-to-door slog to find anyone willing to part with their vessel. It wasn’t for lack of good-will or for an abundance of greed either, but do to the absolute futility of their mission. Vagari was well known in Eastend and had plenty of favors to call in, but the perils of the Deep Lake, as they called it, were even more well known. No one who had ever ventured far from shore had ever returned and the rumors why were as varied as the cobbled-together ships dotting the harbor.
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Every single captain had a story to tell leading up to a firm unshaking denial of business. One suggested there was an actual sea-monster living at the heart of the lake, like myths of old, readily eating up all who passed within its domain. Another suggested that at the far end was some kind of utopia that people simply refused to return from upon reaching. A companion of his built upon it by saying that those who reached it didn’t have a choice – that the residents of the Edenic fantasy were fiercely territorial and murdered all who even laid eyes upon their kingdom. BP asked how they knew of such a place if no one ever returned – and similar deflating questions to all the captains tales – but usually just got huffs and grumbled half-answers in return before they were sent on their merry way.
At weeks end however, they finally managed to find someone willing to sacrifice a ship to their cause, though the one they found was hardly a sacrifice. It was an old pontoon boat, retrofitted and cobbled together by the scrappiest scrap and salvaged salvage. It was so old, in fact, it didn’t even have a rudimentary onboard A.I. system installed, and the solar panels it did have were cracked PV panels instead of algae based. In short, it was already old two-hundred years ago and Vagari was astounded it still existed, much less floated. As the pair boarded the ancient thing it groaned in such a way that both quickly departed. “Ay, it’s fine,” its previous owner said through sagging jowls that nearly covered his mouth. The man was bag of rolls and sagging flesh squeezed into a makeshift military tunic that smelled just as bad as it looked. “Just don’t lean on the rails none… OR go up into the look out. The wee snapper might be fine, but anything over a child will send it tumblin’ down. Can’t take the weight.”
Vagari reached out with a tender foot to re-test the deck. Same groan, but all did appear to be fine when he dared to put his full weight into it. He supposed it had to be, looking back at the tumorous man who was by no means of a lithe nature. Before the inspection he had claimed the boat was his pride and joy, his main vessel for his many years of service, and if he hadn’t fallen through, maybe it was as sturdy as he claimed. “But,” the former captain announced, “I’s not sayin’ she ain’t dangerous… Docked as she was, I’d not step foot in’er, I not.”
“W-what?!” Vagari snapped. “You said this was your main vessel!”
“Years ago, me boy, years ago!” The man cackled as if it had been apparent. “Look at me – I’s been landlocked for the better part of a decade! But – worry ye not, she’ll serve you well enough, she will.”
“Well,” BP began with shaky optimism as she dared to join Vagari aboard, “at least she’s still your pride and joy, right?”
“Aye, little snapper, she be,” he replied before pointing at the ship’s heavy coat of algae and grime. “Says so right there on the side – jus’ cant see it, is all. Pride & Joy, named after me daughters, it was. BUT – this ain’t the deathtrap you need to be frettin’ about, no. Whatever is out there, that’s surely to kill ya, it is. You’s both has to know of what people be saying right? I’s heard of you’s both goin’ door to door… No sane Captain’d send you out there… But lucky for ya, I’s not sane – HA-HA! You’s going to die – ‘orribly probably – and this not only saves me the scrapin’ fee, but gets me a year of rotgut to boot.”
“Jesus Christ,” Vagari exclaimed, staring at the chortling man with disdain.
“Oh – the Good Lord ain’t gonna save you, only yer wits,” He snorted as he began to retreat from the docks. “A smart man ‘d go around, he would. Stick to the shores and you might survive. People’ve had some luck on foot – not much, but some! Some of’em even come home.”
The two watched in a mix of disbelief and resignation as the trollish man hobbled away to enjoy his ill-gotten gains at the bottom of a bottle. “I hope he gets an ulcer,” Vagari spat before pressing his forehead to the mast. He let out a heavy sigh and uttered, “It is what it is, and what it is is shit – but shit is what we’ve got. We’re scraping at the bottom of the barrel, so I guess we don’t have the luxury to complain. So, lets make this work. Between the two of us, we can make this… survivable. Right?”
“Right…” BP replied, looking less than optimistic about their current challenge than the perhaps literally monstrous one ahead. “Us and what army…?”
“He’s right, only our wits will save us,” Vagari said firmly as he slapped the mast. It groaned, causing him to flinch, but nothing disastrous came of it. With a nervous chuckle, Vagari continued. “I was never a master engineer, but I’ve picked up a thing or two over the years. And you? It takes nothing short of a genius to do what you’ve done so far. You taught yourself how to hack into a heavily secured system to take control of a city’s A.I.! Most people needed a four-year degree just to understand how to operate one normally. To find a backdoor and infiltrate it? That’s something else.”
“To be fair,” BP said with a blush tinging her mottled cheeks, “I had about that long… Reading was my treat. When I did my part, I got to read. Xu didn’t care what – but his selection was all technical.” She paused and thought on it for a moment. “I suppose I’m grateful for that, even if it was all just an experiment to him. He won’t be, I bet. Because, I’m gonna use every bit of that technical know-how to stop him. I won’t let him hurt anyone else… So,” BP said as she looked the boat up and down, “lets fix this boat!”