The “training” session with Saul truly hadn’t been what Kane had expected.
Kane thought Saul would be an august training instructor who would punish him thoroughly should he step out of line at any point. But at the end of the day, Saul hadn’t really even had a lesson or anything planned out at all. They ended up just shooting the breeze as they took turns striking at the dummy and then, mixing it up at times with random objects they found around the ship.
It had finally been Saul’s opportunity to flex on Kane and also showcase his old vinyl collection. Kane didn’t mind in the slightest.
“I was the third person to arrive on board,” Saul started, after taking a clean vertical swipe at the dummy’s new broom-handle arm with his scimitar. A translucent, paper-thin sheet of wood slipped off the very end, floating down to the floor like a feather. “All my memories still aren’t back yet. Either way, I’ve always been more of a gut-feeling type of guy.”
He sliced off two more sheets with effortless and unnatural ease. A calm jazz track played on the record player in the corner, adding to the hangout vibe they’d somehow created. “And one thing I do have a gut feeling about, even though I don’t have all the memories to back it up, is that that record player belonged to someone that mattered to me.”
Kane made slashes at the dummy from the opposite side, being careful to stay very far away from Saul and his strikes. “Sounds like a memory on the tip of your… brain.” He had that feeling whenever he looked at the photo of himself and Isabella. Like there was some major, recontextualizing piece of the puzzle he was just barely missing.
Saul nodded thoughtfully. His typically stormy demeanor had dissipated for the most part, and now he was showing a side of himself that Kane hadn’t witnessed before. He gave off the vibe of a simple man who seemed to have only two goals: to look out for himself and to enjoy himself. Why do the others hate this guy again?
“As you could probably guess, we found the record player and vinyls in a grave chest.” This time, he tossed the scimitar from one hand to the other before thrusting its tip into dummy’s sack torso. “I was the one who found it. I knew there was something different about this one. I knew it was for me. And when we opened it up, it was the turntable brand I knew, and they were the vinyls I remembered listening to. I don’t know how to explain it. A sixth sense, if you will.”
Kane, in the midst of a swing, froze at that. Did Saul also have this sixth sense Kane found he was developing?
He dismissed the notion. Likely just a semantic coincidence.
“So let me make sure I get this all right,” he said, reaching to the side for a small crate and then stacking it on top of a barrel so they together reached his height. “Your power allows you to cut anything, literally anything, with any piece of metal.”
Saul raised one shoulder lazily. “Close enough.”
That gave context to everything Kane had seen Saul do before. That was how he was able to cut through the kraken’s stomach with his swords, and how he had been able to push the nails into the deck to patch the leaks.
Kane eyed his makeshift opponent with mock wariness. Stocky build, average height. Good defensive ability, but mostly incapable of landing a hit. I might be OK. “So what’s the catch?”
“Eh?” Saul said it like an old man who couldn’t hear as well as he used to.
Kane’s opponent, the Brooklyn Barrel, refused to make the first move — a coward, clearly, and perhaps not as experienced as he seemed — so Kane make the first attack, a swipe at the torso, drawing a clean cut through the foe’s stomach, one that would spell certain death for an ordinary man.
But this barrel was no ordinary man.
“Esau has to burn through things he values in order to use his power. Tal’s power drains his energy in some way; he hasn’t fully explained it to me yet. What’s the price you pay?”
Saul paused, lowering his scimitar, the flat side of the blade cradled in one hand as he gazed down at his reflection in it. “You don’t want to know.”
He didn’t say it like it was dark and mysterious, but more dismissively, as if it were simply something Kane would find stupid or unpleasant. The clandestine bullshit down here never ceases to amaze.
“I’ll find out eventually,” Kane said, his voice carrying the weight of a promise with none of the verbiage. He met Saul’s eyes briefly, and the man met his too before looking away, just like what had happened earlier that morning.
Kane’s opponent was gushing gallons and gallons of imaginary blood from the abdomen. He decided he would make his foe’s death fast.
So he stabbed it the face with a single, powerful grunt. The crate cracked and splintered and fell apart as he cradled its back with his hand.
“So,” Kane began, yanking his dagger out of the wrecked wood, “You were looking at me funny earlier, after you woke me up from my sleepwalking.”
Saul holstered his sword on his back and pulled a coin out of his pocket — this one silver and lacking the elaborate designs of that one gold coin from earlier — drawing a thin line through his dummy’s arm. He grimaced as he did so, seemingly not wanting to discuss this subject with Kane. He continued to shave off sheet after sheet of wood with this peculiar expression on his face. This must be what he meant when he said he was good with coins yesterday. Regardless, he didn’t answer Kane.
“It was as if you suspected there was foul play taking place or something,” Kane said. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about sleepwalking down here, or hell, anything about the weird dreams that cause it.”
Saul’s jaw clenched as he continued to make the same motion, like a chef chopping onions.
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This motherfucker knows something.
“This is serious, Saul,” Kane said, pulling over one of their makeshift ladderback chairs and sitting in it backwards, leaning forwards over the backrest. He was growing frustrated with the crew’s tendency to keep things from him; all he could do was keep asking to be let in. “I need to know what you know.”
The older man clenched his teeth harder, speeding up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I know is that you need more sleep.”
Kane pointed an incriminating index towards Saul. “Do you have a good reason to hide what you know?”
“There’s no reason to hide nothing, stupid.” He ceased his swings, standing straight up and blowing sawdust off of the coin and into the lantern-lit air. He’d shaved off the entirety of the dummy’s arm; Kane hadn’t even noticed it happen. With a hiss and a roll of the shoulder, he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “But you seem so eager to discuss it. So humor me: just what in the fuck are you talking about?”
Kane had a feeling he was being played, that he would leave this conversation just as clueless as he entered it, but he also knew that this was the only possible way Saul would be willing to share what he knew.
So he dove into it.
Kane told Saul nearly everything about his encounter with Freddy, save for the information on Isabella. He simply told Saul that Freddy had known someone close to him on Earth.
Saul’s expression throughout indicated that he either believed that these were truly just the ravings of a lunatic, or perhaps he simply had the best poker face in the world.
Kane concluded his story with the moment he woke up on deck, inches from certain death before being saved by Saul.
Contrary to Kane’s expectation, Saul seemed to actually be thinking about this. “So this demon-guy claims to have gotten you stuck down here, and in order to escape, he wants you to follow Lucian? Which you were going to do anyway?”
Kane raised a hand and shook it left and right. “Ehhh. Was considering it.”
Saul chuckled. “So you also have qualms about our good-old cap’n?”
So Saul felt similarly? “You won’t make me walk the plank if I speak my mind?”
Now Saul laughed twice as hard. “The guy’s a hypocrite, a show-off, and a know-it-all. I don’t feel any loyalty to him. I’m just stuck here; we all are. That’s why the best option is to play along.”
At Kane’s wary, surprised expression, Saul decided to clarify. “I don’t plan to hurt anyone. As Lucian has likely told you no small number of times, we have no choice but to work together. But the second I’m able to achieve my goals on my own, I’m out of here.”
His goals? “Your goals?”
Saul bit his lip, as if realizing his misstep. “Escape, of course. Back to Earth. If Lucian happens to get in my way when it comes to leaving this hellscape, you can bet I’m cutting him down. And he knows this, too.” He flexed and unflexed his fingers. “It’s nothing personal. In any case, if the demon-man wants you to head towards the center, well, you were doing it anyway. I’m not the most trusting person, so I’d say keep doing what you’re doing, but the moment something seems fishy, back the hell out.”
That hadn’t quite been the response Kane was expecting. For one, Saul hoped to escape back to Earth. How might that work? Were they even actually dead? It really seemed that way, especially with the story Esau had told him earlier that day, but he could never be sure. If Saul returned to Earth, would it be as a zombie? A ghost?
Furthermore, Saul wanted Kane to trust the Shade, while Freddy literally seemed like the least trustworthy creature of all time. However, since Freddy was the only one who knew anything about Isabella, and Kane knew in his gut that she truly mattered to him, Kane had no choice but to at least hear him out.
“Who knows, Kane? Maybe this communication channel you have is your power.”
Kane slumped forward in his chair. Maybe it was.
Shit was becoming confusing fast.
—
Kane peeked out the stern door to see Lucian, who was still by the wheel. The captain was sitting in front of it, leaning against its support. In the graying of the early evening, every part of him and everything around him was less vibrant, save for the yellow-orange lanterns he had around his setup.
It wasn’t Esau’s fire, but rather, fire Lucian had enchanted himself. It looked exactly like normal fire, lacking the deep vivid hues of Esau’s.
Lucian was poring over yet another thick tome, still making notes in the margins with a quill. He looked like the quintessential scholar, hunched over, hair looking messy for seemingly the first time.
Kane’s steps were near-silent on the deck as he slowly walked up to the man. He’d spent a good hour with Saul, counting the minutes in secret (despite the lack of any timepiece on board beside, of course, Lucian’s pocket watch) and now figured the time was finally right.
“Magic time?” he asked quietly yet excitedly.
“Not magic time,” Lucian replied, rubbing a hand over his face. “In fact, fuck it. Come take a look at the map.”
He pulled the folded sheet out of his cloak and handed it to Kane, who sat down across from him. Kane unfolded it, revealing… absolutely nothing.
“Magic doesn’t really need to be taught,” Lucian began, scribbling something into the tome. “It’s a sixth sense.”
He then glanced down to his pocket watch, which he had out on the deck as well. It was as if he couldn’t live without it. “Listen to me carefully, Kane: A person can see, and a person can look closely. A person can hear, and a person can listen and comprehend. A person can feel, and a person can also touch. Likewise, a person can sense magic, and a person can also use magic. Does that make sense?”
There it was again — this mention of a sixth sense.
Strangely enough, Kane felt like he knew what the man was talking about. As soon as he’d arrived in Limbo, he’d had this sixth sense appear out of nowhere, tacked onto the rest of them. And he’d feel it at the most random of moments.
He felt it whenever anyone used their power near him. He felt it from the grave chests. He felt it when he’d boiled the torrafin alive.
And most importantly, he felt it around Lucian at all times.
Kane swallowed, attempting to hide his realization from the thoroughly checked-out Lucian. “Makes sense.”
Lucian smirked. “Yes, I’m always using magic, Kane. It’s like, you know how sight is the most important human sense? I use magic more than I use sight. That’s how important it’s become to me.”
“And just what are you using it for?” If this sixth sense were really allowing Kane to sense magic, and he felt it several orders more from Lucian than he did from the others on the ship, then the man must be using an utterly ludicrous amount constantly. Even now, he felt it.
Lucian managed a tired wink, finger gun, and tongue click all in conjunction with one another. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”
He looked down at his pocket watch again, staring at it intently. “Anyways, what I need you to do is focus on the map until you can see it.”
Kane blinked twice. “You make it sound easy.”
“Because it is,” Lucian said. “Remember, it’s the difference between seeing and looking. Taking it in vs. doing it with intention. I need to figure something out of here. Desperately. I need time and space.”
When Kane simply sat there, expecting further guidance, Lucian frowned, shooing him away. “Consider this magic lesson #1. Come back once you’ve figured it out.”
Kane held up the map with one hand, peering at it in the fading light. It looked like a completely normal sheet of parchment, if not a bit beaten up. “That’s all you’re giving me to work with?”
“I managed with less. Come back once you’ve figured it out. Should take you no longer than three hours.”
With that, Kane got to his feet and trudged back into the ship.