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pt. IX
“Close your fist,” Stupid Lady demands.
And Rick assumes she means the mess on the end of his new arm and somehow it works just like his other one and the five segmented digits flex together into one perfect knot.
“Catch this.”
And he does catch what turns out to be a little spanner.
“Crumple it like paper.”
“And he does. The metal screams in response as he crumples it into a new shape.
He is truly blown away by the capabilities.
“See this?” she holds up an amulet with a red stone in the center glowing just slightly. “This is what is powering your arm. Get too far away and It goes dead. Ever try and lug around 240 pounds of steel? It ain’t going to be fun.” She finishes and stares at it as if expecting something more.
“Now what? He asks as if bored, and every day he becomes a slave.
“Go work.”
Wait a second. So… Rick is now just a resident of this NYC Underworld thing? No fight for freedom? No complaints? No witty banter with Stupid Lady? Oh, by the way, she does not like being referred to as ‘Stupid Lady’ and has asked Rick to stop.
“My name, oaf, is Doctor Sally.”
“What kind of doctor are you.”
“It’s a family name.”
She also tells him the clipper is called the Merry Merrey Alle.
And Rick tells her he misses Rat.
Maybe it was the shared experience. Or the connection to a world that seems so far away, but a little camraderie would help all this go down a bit easier.
He asked Doctor Sally, “How did he die?”
“The idiot jumped off. Never saw anything stupider. Screamed all the way through the cloud bank.”
He can picture it and feels bad for the man. He was a good guy to work a job with. They took turns with breaks when on a job. The one ‘working’ got to drink. The one on break looked out for the foreman.
And with that same work mentality, he becomes an active member of the crew. At first, it was a lark. “Maybe the old fat man climbs the rigging?” Followed by laughter until he did, snapping only a few fittings along the way. Afterward, the captain started taking him seriously. Put him with an old sea dog, “Teach him how to fire the canons and what to do in the event of a boarding. Just be his daddy, Dog.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Sea Dog looks the part. His clothes have been picked off the body of the dead over the years, he brags about it, especially his yellow scarf, which was far from those brighter days. One of his eyes was cloudy white and didn’t move, the other was wide, crazy, and yellow.
Sea Dog was in fact a person that looked very similar to a dog, right down to having ears and a tail. Not wanting to be rude, Rick doesn’t ask. But he stares a lot at the bent and bow-legged thing, hobbling along with a cane banging against the deck but never not working as hard as anyone else. Rick has trouble keeping up at first. A life since Nam of bad food and lots of drink, but eventually it was like he was meant to be here. It was like nothing else to ride the winds.
The grog was plentiful also and one break where much of the libation was had, he wondered aloud what it was they were even doing.
“We are air pirates, we soar the dark recesses of the Underworld and take what we want from that hellhole up there,” Dog answered.
“Why did you think the captain took me and Rat?”
“We steal everything. Then we determine value. Don’t take it personally, but Doc fought against nabbing you. Captain insisted. Sees potential. Not many surface people make it down here. Two? You are worth something. If they find a price for you, believe you me, they will sell your ass.”
“Were you bought?”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Nah, was always a part of this ship, I was. I come from beneath the abyss, that's below the dwarves.”
“How far down are we now?”
Your city is up seven miles, not an easy journey either. Airship is really the safest but the closer to The Up you get, the shittier the air is for flying. And you saw what happens to the tracks.”
“Lizards?”
“Nah, they rot. Only certain metals can survive in this humid nightmare. Metal only the dwarves can find.”
Rick is completely surprised to find out they are seven miles beneath The City. Somehow the air seems even heavier by knowing it.
They drink and time flies by. Someone nearby says they are beneath the Finger Lakes region. To Rick, it all looked the same. An endless black called the Abyss below and bedrock that glows.
Rick can’t help but ask how there is any light at all.
“Tis pressure on the stone, it's glowing. Pressure from above and below. A war of physics mixed in with that crap the gnomes do. Them assholes are going to kill us all someday if they keep building their little projects.”
“What do you mean?”
Old Dog’s mood sours. “I don’t know, you ask too many damn questions! The only reason it hasn’t happened yet is those sour assholes down in the Abyss. Every single thing they do is an attempt to keep the Up where it belongs. Not that foolish notion of engineering the gnomes came up with, I’ll tell you that.” He almost barks his words with a discernable growl. He gets up from where they sitting and heads off towards his bunk clunking his cane along the way.
For Rick, there was no difference between night and day, the only difference he did notice was in temperature. During the day it goes up like laying under a blanket on a sunny day and at night it gets a smidge cooler.
He enjoys the night, and often volunteers for late watches. Bladder keeps him up anyway so he might as well be helpful.
He is up walking the deck when from out of the fog ahead looms a sheer cliff of granite dotted with a small cave. Over the course of the next hour, the cave grows from small to quite large, covered and uncovered by a thick wall of yellow fog.
Just as Rick thinks they are going to enter the cave, the sails die and lie flat against their masts.
Then the captain calls the crew to their posts with three rings of the captain’s bell.
The captain is rumored to be a dwarf. Rick won’t argue that he doesn’t look like what he would imagine one to look like. The short man stands near the wheel with his grey eyes on the black cave beyond the wispy fog. His thick reddish-brown beard sits limp on his chest like the sails. His tricorner hat covers a grey plait.
"All hands ready to stations," bellows the sergeant at arms ringing the shift bell three more times.
Rick works his way to the canon he’s been assigned to and notices the crew has become suspiciously quiet and there is a definite sense of anticipation in the air.
Rick has been impressed with the crew. Hard-working and nary a problem or a Captain’s mast his entire time on board, which he has been counting in wake-ups. Tonight was wake up 29.
The captain sets the company of marines onboard to be ready with another bell ringing. Twenty run up from the hold and gather in a circle formation on deck. The Captain's mood turns dark.
"Trouble, ser?" the first-mate asks.
"This I ain't be knowing. Doth ye spy that quivering speck behind us?"
The first-mate takes his brass scope out of his inside coat pocket and fixes it to his face. "On the white-tipped wake of fog?"
"Aye."
He nods that he does spot a vessel, "An old black two balloon cutter. Better them than a Kraken, I'll hazard."
The first-mate looks human but standing maybe five and a half feet tall, shiny shorne scalp with a rim of graying hair just starting to sprout. His guess is not as valuable to the captain as his own intuition.
"Nah, I think me'd prefer a cloud beast to what approaches our aft."
The pilot puts the glass to his eye again and notices the vessel does not fly any colors, "pirates?"
"Aye, and not just any ole pirates, I be guessing."
The captain glares behind as if he could light a fire with his eyes and melt the fast-running cutter into the abyss.
"Quick time, ready the canons,” the first-mate calls. “Be ready from all sides.”
“There are many pirate clans rumored to be operating along the rocky East Wall, but lately all whispers seem to point to one having claimed dominance over all others.” Dog says in a calm voice that gives Rick a little confidence. “The rumor is this particular pirate king has a Minotaur on retainer.”
“Minotaur!” the exclamation is as much shock as doubt.
“He is not very good in the air, but he is a bit crazy so it all works out. They call him the Minotarius because he likes the net and trident. The pirate king keeps him below deck, well fed and uses him only in combat. His hooves make him almost worthless with deck work, but his strength is legendary in skirmishes. His reputation is told by a few survivors. They speak of how he can take an ax to the chest or neck and the only punishment felt is to the wielder of the attacking weapon.”
Rick could question how a Minotaur becomes a pirate but doesn’t. Instead, for some reason, a bit of lore from ancient Greece pops into his brain. The story starts with a bull owned by a King and an unsatisfied Queen. She would visit the pasture of a prized bull and one thing led to her giving birth to a horned devil.
The result was the Minotaur. The king banished the demon kin to an island.
The Minotaur's only desire was to escape his labyrinthine island, but the only way off was by boat and only a fool brings a boat to Minotaur Island. Rick finishes telling Dog the story and they stare out into the clouds together, quiet. Rick half expects any moment to find a screaming minotaur there ready to take his head.
“Could it be that one they found?” Dog asks.
“How in the hell would I know,” Rick replies.
Then hell appears as the fog parts revealing five airships surrounding the Merry Merrey Alle. Then the fog closes up again and from somewhere out there, a war drum begins to pound.