“If I had my sword, the bitch would be cut in two! Blade shoved right up her ass!” Sawyer slammed her fist through one of the tall red trees. Her face soured when she looked at Gele. If she was not screaming, he would not be able to hear her.
Gele could not feel his fingers. Tight bindings strangled his hands and feet. A vicious wound stretched from Gele’s shoulder down to his stomach. It was shallow, thankfully, but each time the warlord stepped, a shockwave went rattling up his nerves. He had vomited twice from the pain. Coan had lathered his cut with sap, sealing the blood in a sticky mess. Then, she flung him over her shoulder and took him far from the strange temple. That’s what it had to be, some kind of otherworldly shrine. Thinking about the dead tree kept him sane. Do not fall asleep. That was his only other lingering thought. The temptation to rest overwhelmed him, but he had to remember how far the temple was from wherever he was going now. Sawyer could do it. She could. She tracked treasures and magic. But, if he slept now, he would be dead. So he kept track of the fallen logs and Coan’s footprints, making note of the landmarks.
Even if he was being carried like some sack of yams, it was far more humiliating for Sawyer. She plodded along—several feet behind—mumbling curses and trying to kick stones. When her foot flew through the rocks, she groaned and grumbled even more. Her face twisted into a look of disgust as she was forced to chase after Gele, helpless, more like a grounded kite than a pirate. Gele could feel her wings quiver, and his back began to itch as if he had them too.
“The tree,” Gele thought. He did not want to speak or breathe, his throat was so dry now, and he was sleepy. Was he still bleeding? Why was he being carried?
“What about the fucking tree?” Sawyer snarled until she felt Gele’s delirium. “Shit, sorry,” she smacked her forehead and finally hit something. “Don’t die, friend.”
Friend? She’s a chimera. She killed people and ate them, in a way. Cannibal. I am still bleeding. . . Cannibal. Gele looked down to see a waterfall of blood roll down Coan’s back as she carried him, leaving red droplets in her footprints. “Dying the first day on my journey, pathetic.” He said it aloud, spitting the words.
“Quiet,” Coan commanded.
“Water, please,” Gele hacked up the words with a dry cough.
“You’ll have water soon,” Coan said, “I will not let you die.”
Somehow, the warlord kept her promise. She set Gele down against a tree and pushed some big brown leaves aside. A wall waited on the other side. Black basalt ran up a cliffside, a normal hill among a forest of giants. The summit did not even grace half the trees’ height. Blue-green vines streamed down the cliff like tears. Cracks in the stone gave it a thousand eyes. And, at the bottom, a wide crevice opened a route into a cave, the crying hill’s mouth. Moths swarmed around the entrance until Coan swatted them away. She disappeared inside the dark tunnel. But, before Gele could think of escape, she reemerged with her weapons gone. She sees me as a fish, only able to flop around. Gele glared, teeth grinding together.
Coan stood over him as he let her see his spite. “When she picks you up again, reach your hand round her throat and squeeze until she’s dead!” Sawyer shouted. The spirit kept her distance, watching for more masks and bone swords. It was all she could do, aside from throwing her fits through tree trunks. Useless, the word plagued her thoughts. Gele could hear the clamor, though it was as faint as rustling leaves. Everything was dim now, as he felt close to falling asleep.
“Where?” He finally asked as the warlord loomed over him.
“Coan’s cave,” she replied, “but not named after me.” The mask’s eyes spun as he looked into them. The blood loss blurred his vision, Gele was sure. But that only made him more afraid of her.
“Hurt me?” It was all he was able to say. His chest burned, far worst than Nab’s stupid oar. The agony crept to his throat, his head, and everywhere else.
“No,” Coan said as she lifted him again, hurting him more. Silent now, she carried her captive through the crying hill’s mouth and into its gullet.
Inside the cave, the ground was so uneven and rough. And every high step Coan made meant another shock of pain for Gele. Like chewing on thorns, he feared being ripped apart from the inside and out. I’ll kill her, his thoughts jumped to after every jolt. Then, he looked at Sawyer, who had followed them into the cave. She’s worse, a mass murderer, Gele forced himself to remember. I need to be wary of them both.
The corridor led to an open cavity, where the ceiling went high above Gele’s head. One massive mural coated the cavern. Sparse torches splashed light onto only a few corners, but that was all Gele needed to see. Purple ran along the floor, jumping up onto the walls, turning into trees and people. Vall’s warriors wore masks instead of faces and ran to combat the sea monsters plummeting down from the ceiling. Identical to the dead tree, animals and humans waged war on the stone. Gele craned his neck to stare right above him. Swirling paint and shadows hid the largest creature—a void slathered across the entire ceiling. At the edge of the firelight, Gele could see a legion of slender mermaids with their tails sewn together. What would happen if they fell down like rain? Would it be crushed upon impact or sink the island?
“Gele,” Sawyer pointed to the far corner, “look!”
His heart sank when he saw it. A yellow circle marked the setting sun, Gele assumed. And inside, an iron broadsword basked in its imaginary warmth. All around it, out of place in the middle of a mural, empty hooks nestled into cracks in the wall. Rather, the picture was built around the hooks. Every person who stood against the sea monsters had a place for their sword. But, somehow, the weapons had vanished.
“This place?” Gele asked, so thirsty and so tired. “Sword?”
“Quiet,” Coan said, setting him down next to a barracuda that had wings for fins. “Water,” she grunted as she handed him a bowl.
Nothing in his life tasted as cold or as fresh as the first sip. Gele poured it down his throat, letting it dribble down his chin. “Thank you,” he gasped after drinking it all.
“Said I wouldn’t let you die,” Coan replied, her voice less stern now. She grabbed a length of cloth and wrapped it around Gele’s chest. “It’ll have to do for now until Mysk comes,” she said to herself as she tied the makeshift bandage tight. “But now I have none left.”
Gele tried to follow her words as the urge to close his eyes tugged at his other senses. He scanned the room as the warlord did. The floor was practically bare. All there was were a leather bedroll, a few dim torches, and a cache of supplies that was merely three half-emptied sacks. The dismal little camp was a tomb, but even some graves have Sirens or winged skeletons.
“When will you let me go?” Gele spat the words out, staring at his bindings.
“Maybe when the mermaids crawl out onto the beaches.” Coan sat against the wall, under the sword. “You will only bring harm to Vall if I let you leave.”
“Then I’ll run,” Gele gnashed his teeth together. “Not back to Galu, but to the next island, and whatever comes after that. I would never spill secrets, but I will never stay here.”
“Whatever you choose, it will lead to death on Vall as my captive,” Coan grumbled. “You’re not stupid enough to die a young man, are you?”
“Might be,” Gele glanced at the sword and the mural. I need to learn before I can leave. “Why go through the trouble of keeping me alive if you plan to keep me locked in this cave?”
“This is my home,” she said curtly, “I live here.”
“Then, if you wanted a pet, the crocodiles would be more to your liking,” Gele said. Every word trickled out of his throat coated in venom and wrath.
“I don’t need a pet. I need a smith.” Coan pointed at the empty hooks. “The warriors of Galu are known for their metals. My brother has been there himself.”
“I am no warrior,” Gele confessed. He imagined taking the warlord home and how the people of Gulw would gawk and snicker at the runaway with a rope tied around his wrists. Even if they had forgotten his slight against the king, when he returned, they would remember. “I cannot go back,” he begged, “please.” His eyes darted to Sawyer, who watched from afar. Like on the altar before he fought Nab, she could not help him now. “I left my home behind, so I cannot help you now.”
Coan clenched her hands. “You will come with me. You are my captive.”
“No,” Gele stated.
“Why?”
Sawyer was standing over him, “don’t trust her.” Her hand rested on her stomach, where under her coat, scales replaced skin. “One secret leads to another, and we don’t know how she’ll take to our special circumstances.”
Gele agreed, “I cannot tell you,” he told the warlord.
“I will drag you by the throat, Gele of Melaopel.” Coan’s voice quivered. Before her expressionless mask, Gele could almost hear her teeth grinding together.
“Then you won’t be able to row the boat,” Gele smirked until she slapped him.
“I spared your life because you came to Vall unarmed and with no will to fight,” Coan growled. “How many invaders do you think came before you? And where do you think they ended up? I’d rather not kill you, but do not make me change my mind.” Coan checked his bandages as they became stained with red. Once she was sure he would not bleed out, she left him there. With her, she took her weapons, even the iron sword that hung over the sun.
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“That went well,” Sawyer tsked. She only spoke when the warlord's footsteps faded into silence. “If I could hold a sword, I mean it, I’d kill her.”
“You’ve killed lots of people for less,” Gele let the thought trail out before he realized what he said.
Sawyer glared at him, “yes, I have, prick.”
There was a thick tension that came in after. Sawyer ignored it and continued to examine the mural. Gele sat still tied up, wishing the pain would just be flushed from his body, one way or another. “Should I? Should I kill her?” He looked into the pirate’s past, knowing it would help him more than his own. “She will have to sleep eventually. She said she lives here. It will be easy then. I would be free but a murderer.”
“You are not me, Gele.” Sawyer sighed. Her fingers traced pictures of sea monsters squirming across the stone. She stopped at a thing that looked like a mermaid, with crooked arms and a long twisting tail. “I was a murderer, made of all my mistakes, sins, and glories. You saw it, the Hell I earned. One step into that pool, and you may drown in it.”
“I wouldn’t sacrifice people or rob them. I just want to go out on the sea. I don’t want to die here.”
“I told you the first person who I killed, but the second and third, they were just guards who stood in front of a door.” Sawyer gazed at Gele, letting him see. “It gets easier to stomach the idea. All it takes is one.”
“I don’t want to die here,” Gele repeated. The bandages that kept him alive were soaked in a wet brown red. I may already be dead.
“Then what would you do before you met me? Before you left Galu? What would you do if the bindings were chains and you were stuck behind iron bars? Would you kill your King Peal if he put bells around your neck again? Decide who you are, but please. Do not follow the same path as me.” Hell was all she thought of. Gele felt his back twinge.
The Beckoning, that was what Gele’s thoughts went to. How he wished to dance until everything fell away again. Nothing was there, only the rising and setting sun. There were a few drinks of water, but that was it. There he could reach a point where he was part of the gravel and the cool night air. With his ankles tied, he yearned for it more than anything.
“I will run,” he decided. “When I am ready, I will run.”
“Where to?” Sawyer sat beside him, and he let her get close.
“Not Galu,” Gele chuckled. He tried to think of all the places he could go, like Warrl or the Shadow Isles. But really, all he could bring himself to do was finally close his eyes, he was so tired, and finally, he could rest a little while.
“Collecting corpses again?” A voice called out in the dream. “Oh, this man is still alive.”
Gele’s eyes shot open. Standing over him was a lanky man. Blue clay painted his skin, with a splotch of yellow near his shoulder, which resembled the sun. His mask was round but too big for his head. Six sharp eyes, like arrow points, adorned the mask. The colors were a clash of black and white, all atop a plain of light blue. On his back was a tall wooden box, and a cluttering sound echoed each time he shifted.
“Careful, Mysk, he’s awake,” Coan interjected herself, placing her jawbone sword in between the two. The serrated teeth hovered over Gele’s neck.
“Better awake than dead, with all his guts spilled onto the soil.” Mysk, the scrawny man, shuddered.
“Check his wound, I did what you said to do, but there might be an infection.”
“I don’t believe I said to cut him open in the first place,” Mysk sighed as he unwound Gele’s bandages. “Sorry about my sister, friend. What’s your name?”
“Gele of Melaopel,” he replied. He looked out towards the mural, where the spirit was spectating. Sawyer read every move and bit by bit was planning an escape. Do not reveal where you left the boat, they both thought as one.
“Well, Gele, welcome to Vall,” Mysk pointed at his chest, “I’ll need to stitch it closed. Coan, fetch some water. He’ll be fine in my care.”
“I’ll be back soon, just in case. Please, brother, be careful.”
“I will,” Mysk promised as he set down his big wooden box. Opening it, he pulled out a spool of thread and a thin bone needle. “But now it is time for me to work as a healer.”
“Thank you,” Gele murmured.
“I did nothing yet,” Mysk replied as he examined the canyon of cut flesh. Just above it, the scar left by Nab blemished his skin. “You were hurt before this. Coan said you weren’t a warrior, so what happened?”
“The trial, I succeeded but ran from the initiation, right before I was made into one.”
“Then are you a warrior, or are you not? Just one little step at the end is nothing compared to the big one before it.” Mysk tied the string to the needle.
“No, I am not a warrior,” Gele affirmed. Rotten blood, the thick stench of decay, and the crowd who watched him told him that time and time again, every time he returned to the thought.
“It is not my place to decide what another is, sorry. I know little of Galu, I have only been there once, a long time ago.” Mysk pulled a flask—made from a hollowed gourd—from his box. “Drink and it will help with the pain.”
Gele hesitated, only lifting his hand halfway off the ground.
“You can trust me. I am a healer, as were a dozen Mysks that came before me. I would never poison you. My hands only provide cures.”
Gele, still reluctant, took the flask and drank. It was strong and sweet. Like rum was Sawyer’s reaction as they shared the taste. “What do you mean by a dozen Mysks?”
“Save your questions,” Mysk stifled a laugh, “this will hurt so bad you will not be able to listen.”
The healer was right. The needle pierced his loose skin, and a barbed worm wriggled around inside him. Gele downed the drink, desperate to dull his nerves. A thousand sparks tingled like the skin was erupting into crackles of fire. But he gnashed his teeth and endured. Like the Beckoning, he had to endure and keep going, for if it stopped, all would be lost.
Truly, the drink did nothing to lessen the pain. All it did was cloud Gele’s mind, suppressing the innate rage that sprouted alongside the agony. He clenched his jaw so tight that he was sure his teeth would shatter. But eventually, it ended, and a long line of stitches replaced the warlord’s mercy.
“Rest now,” Mysk said as he wrapped a thick cloth around Gele’s chest. “I wouldn’t try to walk, at least for a week.”
“Then what?”
“Run away if you like,” the healer shrugged. It was hard talking to a man with no face to read. You could not tell if he was smiling or stern. All there was were words and little laughs. “Coan will try to catch you, but maybe you can get away. If you don't, you will live here forever.” Mysk paused, passing Gele a bowl of water. “Drink. It has been a long time since a visitor has come to Vall. There have been invaders, yes, but never someone who came unarmed. Do they say Vall is dead across the Sea of Shrouds?”
“A Prince of Galu called it an island of ghosts.”
Mysk laughed again, “why did you come to Vall then?”
“Because I have never been here before,” Gele replied. “And, when I run, I will go to another new place. And I’ll keep going until I reach the far-away continents and then the Second Sea.”
“Truly?”
Gele nodded, “I want to know more about the world, and I am tired of hearing stories. I want to learn about them myself.”
“Stay for a while before you run because I’m curious about Galu as well.” Mysk offered him some fruit, which Gele accepted.
“Then, what did you mean when you said there were a dozen Mysks?”
“Mysk is an old name, there would be far more than a dozen, but only those few have been healers like me.” The tall man walked as he spoke, letting his words bounce off the walls. Slender fingers traced the painting, tapping every person enshrined in the cave. “The mask carries the name Mysk, and passes it from soul to soul. Mysk is just the face I wear now. And when I die, I’ll become Vall.”
“When you’re born, you’re given a mask?”
“No, we chose our names and our faces from the empty ones. Old masks that are waiting for new bodies. I chose mine when I was five. And soon after that, Mysk became a healer, though I was also a soldier, things changed.”
“Do you carry the souls of all the previous Mysks?”
“No, only the name and the mask. The souls become Vall, the island.”
“But what about the Second Sea?” He felt bad for all his questions, but his heart swelled when he realized that this was what he left Galu for. To learn, I need to ask, and I will do so until no more questions remain.
“It is a land of sea monsters and great dragons,” Mysk said. “Sure, Galu and other islands may send their souls up there, but Vall does not.”
“How? Burials and burnings both give souls to the sky.”
“They are put to rest where the empty faces go.”
“Where is that?” Gele asked though he felt he knew the answer.
“Coan would kill us both if I said.”
“Then what were those statues, the bones, and those carvings on the dead tree?” With his bound hands, he pointed at the walls. “What is this picture of?”
“Sea monsters fall down from the sky all the time, especially when the Second Sea lights up. But sometimes, they survive the plummet. One day, a horde will rain down on Vall, a legion of monsters splashing down with waterfalls of black blood and salt. For every thousand who die on impact, the one or two who survive could destroy Vall themselves. Legends say that it will be led by something far from the surface, something made of the water itself.”
Sawyer ran up to the wall upon hearing the words. She placed her hands against the mural. “Like what I saw at the end of the sacrifices!” She nearly screamed the words, so much terror was in her eyes, but never had the pirate worn such a big smile. The amorphous thing, from the far-off waters, the tiny glimpse of it flooded her mind and spilled over to Gele. “But why?” The phantom yelled again. “Why did they draw it like a mermaid?”
“This fight against monsters, has it ever happened before?” Gele probed.
“Maybe, some storytellers say it’s true, but the only things to fall from the Second Sea are bones and rot,” Mysk said with a short laugh. “But, ever since I was a kid, I’d look out in the sky and wonder if they envy us. They. . . Do you ever wonder if they are as smart as us? The whales, the jellyfish, even the fish up there. They must be jealous of us. They have so much water, and so do we. But they have no clay and no wind.”
“Clay and wind?”
“Clay can be molded into anything, and the air is almost as infinite as the water. We paint our skin with clay, with anything we want.” Mysk pointed at his chest. “Today, I chose the sky and the sun. The reason? Because I thought it would look nice. Long ago, maybe the people here did so to keep bug bites away, but it became a part of us over time. We have so many choices, and those creatures only have the Second Sea. Or maybe they don’t, but we are not privy to that. But, anyways, Gele, people are made of clay. We can be anything here. And how good it is to be able to breathe the air?”
“We can be anything?” Gele repeated. “Like growing wings and gills?” Does magic like Allecrea’s dwell here too?
“Maybe not fish or birds, we are made for land, seemingly. Blessed with the intelligence to make things and the freedom to choose what we do with it. You see the alligators in their houses? No? That means they have fewer choices than us. Though, I pity my sister and what she chose for herself.”
“I’m not surprised. She reminds me of a sea monster.” Gele chuckled, relieved at no hints of chimeras.
“Coan is one of Vall’s oldest names. Coan, no matter who takes the title, must become the warlord. Every time Coan is born, they bear the weight of Vall on their shoulders. Especially now, when all the soldiers and their names lay dead. But that’s enough for now. You need your rest. When I show you the House, then you’ll see why Galu calls us a land of ghosts.”