As they sailed the wind picked up, pushing in from the west in bursts. It whispered among the ropes, and blended with the creaking of wood, so that it sounded almost like raspy song.
“Yo ho ho and a bottle of ...” Shiv stopped singing and paused in thought. He’d never understood the whole rum thing. There were better things to drink. Much better things. But as he gazed through the window of the wheelhouse, a new thought popped into his head.
Amanda glanced up at him from where she stood holding the ship’s wheel, and raised her eyebrows in question at his sudden silence.
Still staring out the window, eye line tracing the rigging of the foremast, he remarked, “I wonder how many will end up in the drink tonight. Alcohol and rough seas don’t mix.”
“I thought you said they were all sober enough to sail?”
“I said I’d seen them sail in worse states. Still, it might be good to have some eyes on the deck. The wind’s picked up a bit sooner than I thought.” He turned to look at her. “I’m going to go find Crawly. Get him to do a patrol around deck for the next few hours, just to make sure every one stays on the ship.” Shiv made for the door and as he reached for the handle he added with a smirk, “He wasn’t drinking as much on account of he drank too much last night.”
Shiv wound his way down into the belly of the ship and found Crawly in his cabin. On the way back, he came across Neko playing the flute in the middle of the hallway not far from the galley.
“What are you doing man?”
Neko pointed further along the corridor where a small furry creature tentatively sniffed the wood.
“Why are you serenading a rat? And aren’t those the broken infusements.”
“Yeah, I was just checking if any of them worked. So far, I’ve tried them all at least twice and no luck.”
Shiv grunted, then he glanced back to the galley, where he noticed some of the Captain’s kids had been hanging out. “Maybe it’s a tough minded rat. Hey, I’ve got an idea, you up for playing a trick?”
Katrina was bored. She’d been watching Bobby and Gemma play cards for about an hour now. She’d joined in at first, but quickly tired of Gemma always winning, so she’d switched to watching and wishing she had the spell book to peruse. She would get it back eventually. She had decided that much. She just needed to figure out where they’d hidden it. Probably in their cabin, which meant she had to wait until the were both awake. Sneaking in while her father slept was no good. He was a light sleeper.
Neko appeared in the doorway. He immediately got her attention for he was playing the lyre, but not in the normal way. The instrument hovered in midair. A swirling mass of floating water, that dripped occasionally to the floor was plucking at the strings, while Neko conducted the motion with a flute. On top of all that he was reciting an energetic verse.
“I once met a sailor out at sea,
Got lost on his way to Misery.
Found in a storm,
Drowned in whirl,
And that was the end of poor old Paul.
I once met a sailor out at sea,
He gladly told me his name was Smee.
A thief in the night,
Stole off with his heart,
And that was the end of the poor old fart.
I once met a sailor out at sea,
Strong of limb, but a yellow belly.
He fled on a whim
Got hung in May,
And that was the end of poor old Dave.
I once met a sailor out at sea,
One legged monster, cruel as can be.
He slept on the deck,
Fell for a Siren,
And that was the end of poor old Byron.”
“How are you making everything stay up?” Katrina asked.
Beside her, Bobby looked equally confused. “Some elementals can do it,” he whispered.
“But not Neko,” Katrina whispered. “And I’ve never seen one play an instrument with water. That’s like mum level magic.”
While both of her siblings stared in wonder, Gemma got up from the table, walked past Neko, and peered out the galley door. She folded her arms and in an unimpressed voice said, “Hello Shiv.”
The telekinetic quartermaster poked his head around the corner and grinned at them.
Katrina rolled her eyes.
“Ah, we have been played,” Bobby remarked with good humour and a smile.
Using his magic, Shiv knocked the floating lyre in the direction of Neko, who grabbed it out of the air as he stopped moving the water in waves.
Shiv, who had been the one keeping the water largely in the air, let it splash to the floor.
Katrina yelped and yanked her little black laced up ankle books onto the seat.
Neko frowned at Shiv who simply chuckled in reply.
“I knew it was you the whole time,” Gemma remarked proudly.
“Yes, well, good work. Jigs up I suppose.” Shiv chuckled some more. Then his face turned serious and he turned to Neko, “Now that I’m down here, I do have a job for you. I’ve sent Crawly up on overboard watch, perhaps it might be worth a second set of eyes up there. You seem composed enough.”
“Aye, I’m well composed. Wasn’t much time for resting in that tavern, and I ain’t Rufus.” Neko nodded in confirmation. He placed both the flute and the lyre on the table.
As Shiv and Neko made for the door, Katrina reached for the flute. She slowly turned it over in her hands, pondering possibilities.
Shiv turned one last time and gave the kids a salute from the chest. “You kids have a good evening now.” But before he could turn back to the door he noticed something sitting the the corner of the room. “Hey Neko, what’s in those barrels?”
Shiv returned to the wheelhouse not long after that with one small barrel under his arm.
“What’s that?” Amanda asked as she watched him set it on the map table.
"Fortified wine stolen from a fancy aristocrat. Apparently bought at a hidden little store just around the corner from the Locke & Quay. You rap 3 times, they'll open a wall in the alley."
"You mean port?"
"No, this is witch made. Port's the human stuff."
Amanda rolled her eyes as she turned more toward him, one hand still on the ship’s wheel. "I don't care what it's called. If it tastes like port it's port."
"Well, I doubt you've had real port, that stuff's gotta be world jumped in."
"Well you did say this stuff was stolen from an aristocrat.” She raised her eyebrows at him and gave a wry smile. “I doubt that though. There's no aristocrats in Rambandit. They don't mix well with sorcerers."
"I didn't say it was stolen in Rambandit." Shiv set down two glasses on the table next to the barrel then gave her mischievous grin.
Seeing the glasses, she remarked with a serious expression, “No. I’m supposed to be driving the boat.”
“Well a glass won’t hurt. It’s aristocratic port remember? You sure you want to pass on that?”
She snorted. “I thought you said it wasn’t port?”
He grinned and shrugged, then wiggled a glass.
Amanda hesitated, and that was her downfall.
Taking her hesitation as consent, Shiv cranked the small tap he’d fixed to the bottom of the barrel and poured two glasses. One for her and one for himself.
Amanda took it. How much could one drink hurt? Besides, the sea wasn’t that rough. All she had to do was keep the heading. Sure, the sky was more grey than it had been, and the waves were a little bigger, and Shiv was obviously still tipsy, but she was doing fine. If it got worse, she could always wake Sirius.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The wind picked up. Then, somewhere between the whispers and wails came a new sound.
Bobby glanced up from his hand of cards. "Is that singing?"
"Don't think you can distract me from winning," came Gemma's reply. She narrowed her eyes at him over the top of her cards.
"No, really. Listen."
Gemma listened but all she could make out was howling. She shook her head and was about to tell Bobby to hurry up and take his turn, when Katrina suddenly piped up.
"I can hear it too."
Gemma watched with incredulation as both her siblings got up from the table and started to walk toward the door.
"Where's it coming from?" Katrina wondered in a soft voice, as she disappeared into the hallway.
A dumbfounded Gemma stared after her siblings with a puzzled look on her face. Suddenly, her brows shot up and her eyes widened, and she leapt to her feet. As she chased after her siblings, fear licking at her footsteps, she mumbled one cursed word under her breath, "Sirens!"
Up in the wheelhouse, Shiv had been chatting animatedly, with Amanda who provided good humored banter in reply. He’d tried to get her to join him in song, but alas he had failed miserably and so had settled for jovial talk. They had been been mostly keeping the boat straight, although the waves had grown even bigger. They were so focused on their conversation that they didn't even notice the music until Salem walked past outside on the empty deck toward the railing.
Then they heard it. A sound so soft and sweet. Amanda had but a second to wonder what Salem was doing out on the deck before her mind was caught by the song. It pulled at her very core. Vibrated throughout her soul and resonated with her thoughts. It called to her. Asked her to come. To meet it in the ocean. And she felt the longing. The overwhelming need to go to it. Her hand left the wheel, letting it spin gently toward the right as the ship slowly started to turn.
Shiv, reactions also slowed from the liquor, was equally enarmoured by the song. They left the wheelhouse and were soon joined by several others on the deck. All stumbled, as if in a dream, toward the sea.
Something big and black pushed past Amanda but she paid it no mind. She could only focus on the sound. The singing that came from out in those rhythmic waves. It’s tones shifted in time with the sea foam and hypnotised the listener.
Then the big black thing was back, in front of her. She frowned in frustration. It was in the way. She needed to see the source of the voices. To reach them. Nothing else mattered.
Someone thrust something in her ears. The music stopped. All sound disappeared. She looked up to see Sirius standing in front of her in nothing but faded black boxer briefs and his leather coat, a fierce look on his face. She had only long enough to realise that he was also in bare feet and that the deck was wet from rain, before he took two quick strides to Shiv, pulled earplugs from a pocket in his coat, and forced them into the quartermaster’s ears.
Around her, there was chaos. Several men stood looking confused, while others darted around, slapping earplugs into their crew mate's ears. A few still ambled, dazy-eyed toward the railing. It was a quickly reducing number however, for a sailor often carries on themselves a pair of earplugs just in case of emergencies like this. Siren songs take a few moments to kick in, so for one who is experienced, aware and alert, and has ear plugs at hand, they pose very little threat. But for a crew, slowed in alcohol induced stupor, the difference in reaction can mean life or death.
Typically children can not hear the song but Salem was old enough now that, for the first time in his life, he had heard the music. Despite, knowing what a siren was, and what he was supposed to do with the earplugs in his pocket, he had been caught quite unprepared. He’d had one leg already over the railing when his father had snatched him back.
The chaos on the deck quickly subdued as each sailor that was saved, gathered his wits, and used his own unused earplugs on another. The first few that Sirius and some of the more alert crew had saved had been with some spare earplugs stashed in emergency locations around the ship. The chain reaction was so fast that none were lost to the sea. At least not on this deck.
As the last of the wandering crew were brought back to their senses, Sirius returned to where Amanda stood and said something to her that she could not hear.
He repeated it though, and eventually she managed to read the words on his lips. ‘Where are the kids?’
She looked around wildly, and seeing only Salem standing nearby, shook her head violently.
A moment of intense panic flew by and then she noticed Sirius was looking at someone or something over her shoulder. She spun to find Gemma, standing there with no ear plugs in her ears.
Noticing the girl didn’t seem to be making her way toward the sea, but was instead looking bright-eyed and attentive, Amanda gestured to her own ears and spoke the word, “Earplugs?”
Gemma shook her head and spoke back with slowed obvious speech so her parents could lip read, “I can’t hear them.”
It had been Sirius’s theory once that no woman could hear a siren song, but Amanda had quickly proven him wrong, in almost disaster like fashion. Still, it was the case that some could not hear the song, and Amanda wondered if that were so for her younger girls. But Salem had definitely heard, and so she feared most for Bobby then. Plus he was the next oldest after Gemma, and the one who was next most likely to hear the sirens. So she asked her daughter, “Where’s Bobby?”
Gemma held up her hands in a calming manner, nodded, and replied, “Safe.”
“The others?” Amanda asked.
Gemma hesitated, causing both her parent’s hearts to skip several beats. But as she caught a glance behind them of Salem making his way toward them, her shoulders loosened and she visibly relaxed.
Indeed, Gemma had reached her other brother and sister in the hallway. Those under a siren’s spell did not move quickly. She’d put her own earplugs in Bobby’s ears and he in turn had had put his in Katrina’s. Gemma had then made for their cabins where she found Sasha, reading a book, and completely oblivious to the sound of the sirens. Unable to find Salem, she had made a beeline for the deck.
She held up a hand with five fingers pointing up and then rotated it into a thumb’s up to show all of them were accounted for. She could see the relief on both parent’s faces. It was made even more obvious when Bobby appeared on the deck behind Gemma, having failed to find Salem on other parts of the ship.
But before anyone could relax too much, Crawly rounded the corner in a frenzy. “Man overboard!” he yelled.
Only Gemma heard him, but her reaction drew the attention of others, and soon a whole lot of them were following Crawly around the ship to where Neko stood looking out, hands raised as if trying to calm the sea.
Gemma followed Neko’s eye line. There, not far from the boat, she could make out the shape of a man swimming in the water, Billie. The water around him was calmer and she could see that Neko was trying to tame the ocean and bring the man closer to the boat. The ocean was a large body of water however, and Neko only a minor water elemental. Plus Billie, drawn by the siren’s song was intent on going the other direction.
They watched in horror, as tired of failing at this simple task, Neko attempted a new approach. From here he could only control a little of the ocean, but if he got closer, then maybe he could bring the man back in range of the telekinetics on board, enough that they could lift them up.
Many shouted for Neko to stop but with the earplugs in his ears, he heard not a word as he clambered up on to the railing and leapt into the ocean.
Neko was a good swimmer, and he reached Billie just as Billie slipped under. But as he used his magic to keep the now unconscious man afloat and they crested the top of a wave, he saw in a trough, several waves away, a woman’s head floating in the blue-green water.
She was beautiful, with a well-defined bone structure and long slicked hair. The water droplets on her skin shined in what little sunlight made it through the clouds, and she was singing.
As she caught sight of Neko, she shut her mouth tight. Then she tilted her head forward and the edges of her lips slowly widened until Neko could see in startling detail every pointed tooth. It wasn’t the teeth of a siren that were the most terrifying though. For beneath the surface, the fins of her tail rotated back and forth in razor sharp motion, able to cut through the thickest of materials. Some rumors said that a siren’s tail was so sharp, it could even dent metal.
She raised her naked body up and out of the water, all the while grinning madly, her shoulders hunched forward, like a cat before it springs. Then, in a quick motion, she dove forward and under the water, toward Neko and Billie.
Neko used his magic to shape and move the water, using it to speed up their swim.
“Just a little closer,” Shiv shouted from on board the boat. Mostly he was having trouble getting the visibility he required to lift them up without accidentally dropping them back down. Shiv was reasonably good in that he could occasionally hold things up without looking at them, but it usually took a few moments of holding the thing before he could manage to tear his gaze away from it.
Finally, Neko and Billie crested a wave close enough that Shiv could take their weight with his magic. He lifted them from the water, right as the siren burst out from the same wave.
She grabbed a hold of them, and bit into flesh hard. Her tail cut chunks and blood from their legs. Neko released Billie and reached for his knife.
Both men stayed in the air, but the siren was so entangled that Shiv could not drop one without dropping them all.
Billie, who had left his weapons on deck, remained unconscious and helpless.
Neko could not control his position in the air, but he had his sword and his knife, and he slashed back violently and relentlessly against the siren, until, covered in her own blood, she hissed at them and dove back into the water, to await easier prey.
Shiv brought them back on deck and there the two collapsed, Neko bleeding profusely.
Bobby, unable to see the ship’s healer on deck anywhere, raced forward to help. As he knelt down, someone yanked his earplugs from his ears. He almost panicked then, except he quickly realised that the siren had stopped singing. He glanced back to see his mum, with her earplugs also out.
She nodded at the unconscious Billie, “You need to do him first, get the water out of his lungs. I’ll cauterize the bleeds then we can heal them once he’s got oxygen to his brain okay. Lungs first.”
She was already moving past him to start the work before she’d finished speaking.
Bobby hesitated. Cuts he knew how to heal. Burns were easy too. He had lots of practice with those. But a drowned man. That he did not know how to heal. His mother’s instruction was not unreasonable. Bobby only had a limited amount of healing that he could do at once. The men’s blood loss needed to be staunched and Amanda could do that. Cauterization was a temporary life-saving measure that delayed healing requirements until later, at least a little while, until the ship’s main healer could be brought to deck. But the water in the lungs, that needed removing now. Only problem was, Bobby didn’t know how.
Without stopping her work at stemming blood flow, and noticing Bobby was hesitating, Amanda spoke calmly to him. “Just keep his lungs working.”
Seeing he still didn’t understand, Amanda finished with the worst of the bleeding then pulled Bobby down near the unconscious Billie, whose lips were slowly turning blue.
“Right, I’m going to heat up the water in his lungs and turn it to gas okay. You just to keep his blood oxygenated and his lungs unburnt.”
"I c-can't make oxygen," Bobby stammered with a wide-eyed look.
She placed his hands onto Billie’s chest. "It's just for energy. Feel for where energy is needed and direct it there. Doesn't need to be oxygen itself."
Bobby took a sharp shaky breath and nodded.
Amanda placed her own hands on the man’s chest and looked at her son. “Ready?”
Bobby nodded, more firmly this time. What his mum was doing was so much more difficult. To heat a flame outside or near a body was one thing, but to do so inside was a rare difficult magic. She would need his help to ensure Billie didn’t not suffer any burns, and the lungs were such a delicate part of the body.
Bobby did his best and he had no way of knowing if it was good enough. But eventually, the ship’s healer, Patchie, showed up and took his place and no one declared Billie dead. Patchie wasn’t the best healer but he knew how to handle saltwater in the lungs as well as all remaining cuts.
Bobby helped with the burns. That was easy work but he found himself exhausted once he was done. He sat on the deck, in a mess of tension, until he heard Patchie say of Billie, “He’s going to be fine. He just needs some rest now.”
Amanda was at Bobby’s side a moment later, helping him to his feet. He heard her say, “You did good.” But he was so drained from all the energy he’d just expended that all he could think of was his comfy bed and sleep.
As Amanda helped Bobby back toward the front of the boat, and as other crew started to scatter, he heard his father’s voice ask, “Who’s driving the ship?”
Suddenly, the whole boat lurched sideways.