Lirran awoke in exhausted pain. He was covered up completely by the blanket and his entire body tingled like a limb that had fallen asleep. Something wet smacked his face. He lifted the blanket and looked to his side, where he saw Kaza’s eyes peeking over the railing. He sat up, a crust of salt flaked off his skin and he felt like dying again. Headaches hammered, his body didn’t want to obey him, instead his arms gave out when he tried to stem himself up, dropping his head on the wood unhindered. Luckily, he felt little pain yet.
Kaza crawled on board and took the blanket off him, wrapping herself up into a ball in the process.
The sky was brightening and when Lirran followed Kaza’s pointing arm, he saw the Farzum mountains in the east, jutting up from beyond the horizon, their edges toned purple by the sunrise beyond.
Lirran finally managed to prop himself up in a wobbly sitting pose. Kaza handed him the canteen and he emptied it in one go. His throat was more parched than ever before and his stomach growled.
“How long have I been asleep for? It feels like two days!”
Kaza nodded.
“TWO DAYS?”
Kaza nodded again, the pointed to his still naked chest. The wounds were healing, but the skin seemed pale, almost dead, safe for an ochre-red dried paste covering it, smelling of vinegar. He felt his forehead and found no hole where he was absolutely sure that Kaza had pushed the tool of stone into his skull.
“I guess my body really was dead, in a way, huh?”
He kept looking at his chest and it dawned only now on him that was still naked, he didn’t even feel the cold of the air. His smell of vinegar disgusted him. “Was that some kind of ointment you rubbed on me?”
Kaza nodded.
He looked to the water. “Since I'm already naked, I'm going to wash this off.” He tried to hop over the railing but flopped over it instead, his body not yet obeying him much. He sank more than he wanted, his limbs flailed with no plan how to keep him afloat. He panicked and still, his body did not obey. He swallowed salt water and coughed. He was sinking.
A wet tentacle grabbed him and pulled him on board. Scolding clicks and hisses dove down on him from Kaza standing above him.
She continued to call him possibly rude names for his mindless behaviour before she finally handed him his clothes back, which had apparently been drying on the rowing benches.
“I really wish you would have taken the care to dress me back up.”
But Kaza seemed offended by that, making wild gesticulations. When Lirran took the clothes, they were as stiff as a piece of paper, crusted over hard with salt, blood and some sort of slime. He still could not let go of the thought of that mass of wet flesh sitting on him, naked, wriggling and writhing across his skin. He whipped his thoughts around to food again, his stomach cramped in hollowness.
He had regained his skill at sitting up straight and looked around him. “What now? We need to get to that town, yes? Do I just row?” he raised an arm under great effort and managed to lift it up to his eyes before it fell back down in defeat.
Kaza shook her head. She gave him another fish and her knife, then crawled back into the water, shortly after, the boat started moving. Lirran looked overboard and saw her translucent mantle peek out from under the boat as she clung to the bottom of it, undulating and flapping up and down like a ribbon or a bedsheets in the wind. But there was a strength in these strokes, not merely being moved by the flow of air or water, instead like a hundred wings of birds staggered behind another into a continuous wave. He estimated that while the span of her arms was around 5 feet and then some, but the length of her mantle hanging over extended that to well around 9 feet. She could wrap him in and have some to spare, as she had indeed done.
The boat moved slowly but with a good direction. Soon, the town at the foot of the Farzum mountains came into view. There a few taller buildings, most likely towers of a wall, and some larger halls, but most of it seemed wooden and small. The river coming down from the mountains was barred by a simple wooden bridge, not that there was much worth going inland for either way, the usable land before the sheer rock face of the mountain range that stretched an entire continent from south to north was less than 15 miles, as far as Lirran could tell.
The slopes before the rocks were covered in orchards of small trees that managed to cling to life and dusty ground in these dry lands, likely oranges and olives. Some ships lay in port but most seemed to have left with the tide in the morning or are yet to arrive, but as Lirran drifted closer, he saw many fishing vessels, laying out their nets and lines further off shore. One of them he passed by so close he could see the confused look of the fisher as the jollyboat with no sail just glided past him, carrying an emaciated boy eating strips of raw fish.
The piers came into closer view and Lirran splashed the water to signal Kaza to came back on board.
“If you want me to buy supplies, you will have to give me some coin.”
Kaza rummaged through a small bag full of jingly things she had in her satchel and handed him two coins of a mint he had never seen before and whose dirt and corrosion implied they had been lying on the floor of the ocean for centuries.
“I don’t think anyone will recognize these anymore. Do you have something valuable?”
She gave him a single white pearl, impressive in its size and roundness, but it was still jut one.
“Just let me check.” he held out his hand and was given the entire bag. He looked inside and found entire fistfuls of pearls. White ones, blue ones, rosy ones and even black ones, pieces of polished coral in red and yellow, nuggets of gold, small items of jewellery including the captain's ring but also mostly worthless sparkling stones, smooth pebbles and glass beads. It seemed she just gathered anything that seems shiny and valuable on her journeys through the wide oceans.
“Yeah, I am sure we can exchange this for some coin.”
The last few hundred yards they rowed the boat and punted it into place in front of a low pier, where they lashed it. Lirran took the tiny bag and tried to get Kaza to leave the boat with him, but she curled in tight underneath the blanket.
“I will come back with a cloak for you. At least on land you can wear something.”
He got off and felt the stable ground for the first time in an eternity. His body was just beginning to return to him, but when the harbour clerk saw him, he looked like he had seen a ghost.
“My dear boy, what happened to you?”
Lirran dug the captain’s signet ring from the small bag and handed it to the clerk. “I am the last survivor of the Gusthopper.”
“Good gracious!” the well-fed man with tan skin and greying hair and beard slapped his forehead and handed him back the ring. “Go to the trade depot with this, the large hall to the right of the main road. They’ll give you some warm soup and set you up with a new change of clothes. I’m sure they’ll let you stay there until the next ship from your trading company arrives, they’ll take you home!”
Lirran did not think he’d be going home anytime soon, but all the other things sounded great. He followed the clerk’s instructions and at the depot was met with a similar reaction. With a bowl of soup in his belly and a fresh change of clothes on his body, he inquired to buy two cloaks as well. With his large cloak, a fresh white shirt, a sturdy pair of pants and leather boots, he stepped back onto the streets.
When Lirran returned to the boat presenting the cloak to Kaza, she was visibly hesitant, not liking the idea of even setting foot on the warm, dry land.
“It will make the entire journey much easier if you can get out of the water once in a while and walk with me. Look:” He drew the hood of his own cloak all the way over his face, down to his chin. “You will be completely protected from the sun.”
She was still looking at him with aversion.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Lirran had an idea. “What if we soak it in water? Would that be fine?” He threw her cloak into the water and pulled it back out, dripping water all over the floorboards.
She finally allowed him to drape the thing around her and she followed him with shy, wobbly steps. While they walked over a road of more than a few missing and mismatched paving stones, he told her about all the things they would need.
“A cask of water, or better yet, two. A sail. We can turn the spare oars into a mast and beam with ease. Some rope, yarn and nails, some pitch in case we need to make repairs on the boat, a tarp to use as tent and cover, better blankets, a bucket or two, some bundles of hardtack, that stuff never goes bad, fishing hooks, lines and a net, even you can catch fish better with that, and of course a small stove, eating and cooking utensils, because quite frankly, I am tired of raw fish.”
Kaza listened intently. She made a few klicks and pointed to the pouch on his belt.
“There is still some left. A few of these pearls seemed awfully valuable and I did not haggle that hard. I guess you had a lot of time to collect things.”
She only made a shrugging motion and gave a falling squeak.
“I really have to learn your language.”
Kaza seemed to agree. With her waiting outside stores because of her dripping cloak, he managed to get the first few purchases, namely the most important ones: barrels of water, a tarp for tent and a triangular sail, all at the trade depot, offering wares for the needs of ships of any kind. The town overall seemed to live off fishing and orchards, with some services rendered to the many trade ships that ventured up and down the narrow coast all the way to Ulsol and even further south, where ice covered the ocean all year round.
By noon, Kaza’s cloak had stopped to drip, so Lirran felt it was time for a proper lunch. “Let us eat something, or do you just want to catch more fish?”
Kaza shook her head.
They found an inn that did not scare off even the rats and got seated. When they sat at a table, Kaza detached a stack of limpet shells with a string running through the hole in their centr from the strap of her satchel. Lirran had seen that they had many tiny holes drilled in them before, but now he also saw that the holes were connected by finely carved lines, some only visible when held against the light. She started inspecting and counting each of them, laid them on the table in a specific manner, rotated each individually and adjusted the others accordingly. She began clicking and rasping words before she finally was happy with the layout.
“What are these?” Lirran held one of the shells she had not placed and looked at the lines more concretely. The dots and lines were obviously writing of some sort and single written words or sentences all ran away from the centre along a specifically placed line.
“They’re maps.” A voice behind them said. It belonged to a man obviously of the seafaring trade and many years of it at that. He wore a shirt and vest, leather trousers to the knees, all with many patches and stains. “The fishmen use shells to write because, well paper and parchment won’t keep long in the water.” The man flashed a smile with more than one or two golden teeth. “My name is Danny.”
Lirran stood up and offered the man his hand. “I’m Lirran, this is Kaza.”
Danny made a motion like taking his hat off as a greeting. “Where are you fine folk going? A boy like you and a lady like her don’t usually travel together.”
Lirran looked to Kaza, who gave him a look he had no hope of interpreting correctly. He decided on the fly.
“I was shipwrecked and she helped me here. I guess back to my home.” He knew it was most likely a lie, she had very little intention of bringing him home. “Down south in Ulsol.”
Danny nodded. “Aye, you found a good helper there, the fishmen are excellent navigators and know all the currents well.” He leaned forward over the table and pointed to the limpet shells. “See, they each represent a place and have the names of other places or currents on them based on where they are seen from that place.” He traced lines from several shells to their common neighbour. “So they can easily recreate any map they want just by aligning them properly. It’s simple, really, you just gotta have the patience to make and arrange them. So if you ever get to eat some good limpets, keep the shells, boy, you can sell a handful for a penny to them.”
Lirran tried to appear surprised. “Well, I will remember that.” He was sure he would be working with a lot of shells in the near future.
Danny chuckled and said his goodbyes to the two of them.
“I guess you’ll also teach me to make these, huh?”
Each of the two had a bowl of the house stew, Kaza was well surprised by the taste of cooked and spiced food. How she could survive on nothing but raw flesh, he did not know, but maybe he would find out soon enough.
It was some time later that Lirran decided to visit the outhouse but when he came back, he saw Danny standing next to the entrance, with an expecting look. Only when Lirran had come closer to him did he speak in a hushed voice..
“You better escape that fishthing.”
“What, why?”
“She’s a ghost, boy. She’s the spawn of the great kraken. Sure, the frozen fish are friendly and funny and the kelp drifters love nothing more than trade and talk, but these pale ones” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “Those are a kind no sailor ever wishes to see alive, don’t let her big cute eyes fool you.”
Without thinking, Lirran took a step back. “You mean because she’s one of the darkwater children?”
“So you know? And you still stay? Despite knowing what they do?” There was a memory behind Danny’s eyes that sparked the fear of death.
Lirran knew not how to respond to the man, the last thing he wanted was call him something that would enrage him.
“The children of the slimy god are ruthless murderers and evil witches. I’ve been there, when one of my fellow crewmembers went mad, talking about angels of the sea, singing beautiful songs in his dreams.”
Lirran’s mind flinched. He knew she was well able to do such a thing, but he remained calm and kept his mien of disbelief up. “A lot of people go mad on the sea.”
“We had to restrain him. He had killed the helmsman and tried to steer the ship against the cliffs so that the spawn of the deep could eat our corpses and plunder our ship for coin. I tell you, she will lead you to your doom.”
“I am sure if she wanted to eat me, she would have long done so.” He scoffed, she had been absolutely able to do such a thing.
But the spark behind Danny’s eyes only grew brighter now. “No, don’t you get it? She must sacrifice you to her wicked god, it must be a grand ritual so her cult can feast. It needs to be in a secluded sea-cave where she can lay her eggs into your corpse so that they can-“
An answer boiled up in Lirran and pressure built until the thought of releasing it into a single punch to Danny’s face grew ever stronger, he wished to stop that stream of babble pouring from that stinking hole of a mouth, but Lirran swallowed. The he just past him back into the inn. “Thanks for the warning, Danny!”
Danny did not enter the inn behind him. Lirran returned to Kaza, who seemed to be taking mental notes on the exact route she wanted to take. He did not mention what Danny had said to her, he was sure she was already worried enough about the strange people around her without having to know what insane tales they spin around her appearance. But within him, it sat. He hated the thought of that the only decision he had done in years that felt right was already being called into question by people around him. He knew it had been the right decision, why should they be allowed to question him like this? They had no idea of the truth, of what lies beyond! They are uneducated idiots with no insights into the great truth of the soul! What rights do they have?
He noticed his nails pressing into his palms. He exhaled and unclenched his fist. He had thought that Kaza had burned away the darkness within him, had turned him into a good person, but he felt the same urges inside him. HE closed his eyes until Kaza signalled him that she was ready to leave.
The sun was well past its zenith when they left the inn and they finished their purchases, including miscellaneous containers to stow their supplies and tools safely and a satchel for Lirran himself, of the same oiled cloth as Kaza’s, it would last a long time in damp conditions, even if he did not plan on diving after Kaza. With all the purchases made and stowed away on their boat, Lirran sighed with relief.
Their boat... He toyed with this thought a bit. It was only a jollyboat, normally used for getting people to and from land, but it had already travelled quite a distance and he was sure thanks to Kara, they could make repairs to it without landing.
“Do you want to leave town right away?”
Kaza nodded and made some gestures pointing towards a certain direction. He assumed she wanted to go somewhere secluded so he could dream with her. So far, they could only talk during his sleep.
“How long do you think it would take for me to learn drifting in and out of the mental realm like you?”
Kaza made again that shrugging motion and moved on.
There was little point in trying to rig the sail to the oars while the boat was still in the water, so, each of them took and oar. Despite the thin limbs, her entire body taken together had significant strength, something he had noticed when she had effectively held him down and poisoned him. His wound was still burning to a degree and the nausea was not yet entirely gone, but being on sea had already taught him well to control his stomach. They made their way northwards along the shore, until Kaza excitedly waved towards a spot. There was a small cove in front of a steep slope just wide enough to pitch the tarp.
They pushed and pulled the boat on land, then Lirran carried the bucket-shaped stone on the level ground and collected driftwood while Kaza collected various creatures to boil for supper.
She watched Lirran with wonderment in her eyes as he made a fire. She was entirely fixed to the thing. He had also gotten a simple lamp with some oil and he hoped that Kaza could catch them some fish with fat livers to keep the light going, anything more expensive would have most likely drained their funds, and the last thing he wanted was to end up broke. Kaza could at any point merely jump into the sea and live her hermit life, but he was much less capable of that. If they could not pay for bigger repairs on the boat or passage on a ship, he would be stranded, exactly as the word meant.
Their supper was a thin soup of shellfish that Lirran thickened with some of the hardtack. It was still better than any of the raw fish he had subsisted on. Maybe he could find some herbs and in the future, Kaza would have more time to fish with a net while the sail would free them from rowing.
Kaza kept staring into the fire while Lirran set up the tarp to sleep. Kaza seemed little interested in taking shelter. If anything, rain would have suited her. She drenched her coat one last time and curled up with a view of the embers dying down. The orange flickered across her black eyes like butterflies.
Lirran's last thoughts before he fell asleep were how much he looked forward to seeing her in his dreams.