by C. Vandyke
Against the rocks of Elysium’s cruel churning tides
And in Elysium’s limbo, their corpses reside.
* * *
O now, woe to the pirate queen,
Her ships and her crews again never to be seen.
O now, riches to rags for her,
Her mantle is torn into scraps.
* * *
After the song ended, she didn’t hear much of anything else. It had been months since she had fled the Cove, but it shocked her how fast word had spread all the way out here on the other side of the world. Years of seafaring, a fleet of ships, and a reputation of ruthlessness had earned her the title Tamsin the Terrible. And it only took one failed attempt to storm the Holy City and commandeer the Well of Eternal Life for her to become Tamsin the Tattered.
Tattered. She didn’t like that word. It hit the ear wrong. Too many harsh sounds.
The whole world knew of her shame. They knew how she had taken a fleet of eight ships and plunged headfirst into the hurricane wall that surrounded Elysium Cove. They knew that only two made it past the storms. They knew that the remaining crews of those two ships attempted to take the Holy City, coming up through the beaches to the south, and they somehow knew that none of them made it past the jungle surrounding the city.
What they did not know was exactly what the cries of her crew members being tossed violently overboard in the middle of the sheets of rain and gale winds sounded like. How mangled and disjointed their limbs looked as their bodies washed up on shore, their skulls split open as they were battered against the rocks surrounding the beach. Or the precise sound of talons ripping into flesh as sirens swooped from above and tore the throats out of the crew who had survived. Or exactly what it was like to watch someone drown on dry land as a skeleton with water for flesh choked the life out of Tamsin’s first mate as it brought her in for a seemingly tender embrace.
It didn’t matter much, at the end of the day. They would still sing the songs of Tamsin the Tattered as they clinked their glasses and clapped along, deriving a sick glee from her biggest failure.
For weeks afterward, Tamsin resigned herself to a fate of being nothing more than a shameful, cautionary tale. The rest of her life would be spent slumped in the back of a pub, marinating in liquor and retellings of her failed attempt on the Cove until she no longer had the strength to endure it. It was a miserable prospect. She remembered how, as the child of a tavern owner, she would glance out to the sea, longing for glory found on the waves, desiring nothing more than a fleet of ships and the fear and reverence of everyone she came across. For a while, she thought she was achieving that. It disgusted her to think of that dream dying in disgrace, but with enough ale, Tamsin thought perhaps it was the ending she deserved.
A month after she had accepted her new tattered title, Tamsin had a dream.
She dreamt of that night, before the storm wall was spotted on the horizon, alone in her cabin with her first mate. There was business talk first, of course, but soon it became something else. As they lay tangled together afterward, Tamsin running her calloused fingers through the woman’s hair, the human girl sat up and looked at Tamsin. Her eyes were what fascinated Tamsin in the first place—one green and one blue, every color of the sea in her gaze.
“Tomorrow, you live forever,” she laughed. “Are you ready?”
And Tamsin woke up.
Within ten minutes, her ragged coat was around her shoulders, her room at The Mend vacant for the first time in months. As soon as she stepped foot out the door, she was on the hunt for a ship: anything she could sniff out that was headed toward Elysium Cove.
There was only one way she could think to remove the shame, the black mark on her name. To repair the tatters. Perhaps dying in humiliation was the ending she deserved, but she intended to earn a better one.
In fact, if everything worked according to plan, she wouldn’t have an ending at all.
It was an arduous journey back to the Cove. Hopping from ship to ship, Tamsin took any odd job she could on any sorry excuse for an operation that would have her—swabbing decks, gutting fish, tying lines. Whatever got her to the next island in one piece. It got her all the way to the Saltskiff Bazaar, the last bit of refuge before Elysium Cove. The stop at Magdalene the Merciful was a show of force, her last declaration to herself that she could no longer afford fear where she was going. The very next day, she was down at the docks, asking for a seat on the ship of anyone bold enough to attempt to breach the storms surrounding the Cove.
It was a struggle, but eventually, she came across a batch of fools stupid enough for the job. A craggy one-eyed human man, hiding behind a shroud of grey-green hair like tendrils of seaweed, waved her down, asking around an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth if she was headed to the Cove. He had an open spot for her since a handful of his crew were refusing to board again, knowing where their next stop was. Trying not to sound desperate, Tamsin agreed to take up duties. They set sail before the sun was even at the highest point in the sky.
During the few days it took to hit the storms, Tamsin kept to herself, knowing better than to make friends of future corpses. A few of the crewmates attempted to create idle chatter as they pulled sails or peeled potatoes. But she wasn’t shy about giving anyone the cold shoulder. She thought back to just a few months ago when she had run her own ship, how she prided herself on knowing and caring for her crew as ardently as family. She would make the rounds each morning and ask each one of them how they were faring—some had kids back on land, some wives or husbands or partners. Some had nothing but the sea, but she asked them about their troubles anyway, knowing that the sea could be as fickle as any lover, and that love could ebb and flow just as quickly. They were her people. She would not be the frightening queen she was without them, and she wouldn’t make it to the Well without them either.
She didn’t, as it turned out.
She’d learned that whether she knew the name of these people or not, she would be immortal either way. She might as well skip the formalities.
The night before they reached the storms, as she put away a net that had gathered them a considerable hall of fresh fish earlier that day, Tamsin saw the one-eyed captain. He was hunched over as he leaned on the starboard side, gazing off into the already clouded horizon. It was only the two of them—the bawdy shanties and raucous laughter of the rest of the crew below floated up through the decks—so she kept as quiet as possible so as not to invite conversation.
“What business do ye have with the Cove, young’un?” he croaked over his shoulder as she tried to creep away.
So much for that, she thought. Tamsin paused for a moment, following his gaze out to the clouds. “The same business as everyone else, captain.”
The captain chortled, a laugh ravaged by pipe tobacco. “Yer conviction tells me otherwise,” he said. “Not many who would seek out death so fervent as ye.”
Tamsin stayed silent.
“They say there was an orc such as ye who escaped Elysium’s wake with her life,” the captain continued. “A right coward, they’re callin’ her. A shell of her former glory.” He stopped, turning his sunken socket of an eye toward her, grinning at her with the four remaining teeth he had. “As tattered as the coat yer wearin’ now, I’d say.”
Tamsin tensed, her hand drifting over to her cutlass sheathed at her side.
If the captain saw, though, he didn’t seem to find it intimidating, chuckling at her and turning back to the water. “Relax, young’un. It makes no difference to me what ye be seekin’ or why. There’s room in eternity for more than one, I wager.”
Her grip on the handle of the sword eased, and her gaze narrowed. “I suppose,” she said, tone laced in caution.
The two stared out over the horizon, the swirling mass of clouds flashing with heat lightning, a last warning to fools to turn back. The tense edge to Tamsin’s shoulders softened as she stood beside the captain—for the first time in many years in the presence of another ship captain, she
did not feel as though she were in the company of the enemy. Not necessarily a friend, either, but she supposed there had to be a neutral area somewhere.
“Tell me,” she said, surprising herself by breaking the silence. “Why do you seek out the Well?”
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” he asked.
“W-well, I mean…” How was she supposed to gently break the news to this bastard that he was old as rocks? “Someone as—experienced as you should know better, right?”
Chuckling, the captain said, “I know I’m well past my prime, young’un. My time draws to an end soon. Ye can be sure of that. Suppose that’s why I’m makin’ my run fer it. Don’t have much left to lose.”
“Would you really want to live forever in a body like yours?” Tamsin asked him.
Shrugging, the captain said, “At least I be knowin’ what I have in store fer me. Death could be paradise or it could be torture. Even though my joints be achin’ and my eye be missin’, I know how to live with that much.”
Tamsin nodded.
“And ye?” the old man asked her, his eye still on the clouds. “What will that Well give to ye, Tamsin the Tattered? A new coat thrown across those shoulders?”
She fixed her jaw, one of her tusks digging into her upper lip.
“I’m supposin’ that’s the difference between us,” he mused, pushing away from the side of the ship and limping off down toward the galley. “If I live through this and fail, I know when to leave well enough alone. Can’t see no good comin’ from flyin’ at the sun a second time.”
He left her alone on the deck to watch the tower of storm clouds draw closer. For a moment, she felt bad, realizing she never got his name.
It didn’t matter much, in the end. The next day, as they rounded the southern edge of the Cove, the storm thrashed, toppling one of the ship’s masts over and crushing the old man under its weight. If he were alive after that, the massive wave that swallowed up the back half of the ship and swept his body into the waves would have finished the job anyhow.
The first indication that she wasn’t dead was the lapping of the waves. Blinking the white light out of her eyes, Tamsin sat up, wiping off the sand that had caked onto her face and blearily taking stock of her surroundings. As everything came into focus, her stomach sank.
It was the same beach she had washed up on all those months ago. White sand sprawled along the edge of the cresting waves as far down as she could see. Littering the beach was a cemetery of destroyed ships—some were in mostly one piece, while others were reduced to nothing more than driftwood. Tamsin was sure if she looked hard enough, she would find pieces of her old fleet mingled in with the other failures. There may have even been bits of her old crew, though she sincerely doubted it. Many of the stories talked of dead bodies moving after the life had left them, relegating them to guard the beach, even the Well itself...
Tamsin didn’t much feel like throwing up her dinner thinking about it all, so she unfocused her eyes as she stood up, gathering up what little belongings she had managed to keep with her.
Not too far off was the largest ship, the shape of a small skeleton strapped across the bow—the indicator of the Hesperus. Tamsin’s hand floated back to her cutlass, which had stayed strapped to her side through the torrent. Squinting, she wondered if that thing—the creature made of water and bone, the one who had taken her first mate—was still lurking within.
Tamsin’s grip on the pommel of the sword tightened. Was that thing capable of death? The stories hadn’t said. Was she willing to risk it?
Shaking her head, she looked away, scanning the debris that was just washing in from the ship she had come in on. If she reached the Well and drank from it, there would be plenty of time to find out how exactly to kill that thing later.
It was a week of clearing jungle and hiking through the Hollow Mountains before Tamsin reached the Holy City. The nights of being eaten alive by insects, keeping hidden from sirens and other sky predators, and sheltering from the cold winds of the mountains’ peaks were inconsequential to her. All Tamsin focused on was the end destination. In between dreams of that last night with her first mate, visions of the Well visited her; so clear in her mind’s eye, yet blurred at the same time. When she woke, she could never remember exactly what it looked like. It only made her desire to see it for herself stronger.
When she finally reached the Holy City, it was like a dream itself. The pointed spires of the cathedrals shot up through the mists of the low valley, like one last beautiful warning. But if Tamsin hadn’t listened to any of the warnings so far, she wasn’t about to start.
The outskirts of the city weren’t protected by a wall. It was easy enough to slip in undetected, mingling with a few of the local parishioners as they left the towering cathedrals and made the journey back to their homes for the evening. As far as she could tell, there were no taverns or pubs. The city slowly went silent as she made a beeline for the walled-in circle in the center of town, darting down side streets to throw off anyone who may have noticed an outsider in their midst.
As she reached the wall, Tamsin swore every colorful word she knew under her breath. The front entrance wasn’t just guarded—it was a few soldiers short of an army. Almost a dozen armored guards stood at the metal gate into the inner circle, relaxed yet attentive. Just to be sure, she did another check around the perimeter of the wall, hoping that there might be one other weak point she could get through without a fight. There was a reason, though, that this city had never been breached by anyone in known records. The walls were far too tall to scale, and any possible way in was posted. Winding her way back to the gated entrance, there wasn’t any other option she could see.
Unsheathing her cutlass, Tamsin whispered her first mate’s name against the dull edge of the blade. Then, an apology.
And she charged.
Tamsin the Terrible had been known as a terrifying combatant before her fall. Swordplay was an art form, and her trusted cutlass she had since she was a girl was still the one she used to paint bloody portraits across the canvas of her opponents. Which is exactly what she did as she approached the guards at the gate, slashing against the surprised guards with near reckless abandon, carving her way to the gate as if she were cutting down vines through a jungle. It would be foolish to think she could take each of them out, but she managed to fell a handful of them as she latched onto the gate, climbing up the metal bars with every ounce of strength she could muster after a week of hiking in the wilderness. The shouts of the guards below were muffled noise to her as she scaled it, hopping over the fence and sprinting into the sanctum as if the hounds were right at her heels.
Stone and metal passed by her in a blur as she ran further into the structure. There were more shouts of surprise and anger that she encountered, but her gaze was only focused ahead, only on the prize. Occasionally, something would whizz past her ear or graze her shoulder. It would only make sense that they’d have every guard on watch shooting at her with their crossbows, but she couldn’t think about that. Not now.
She turned into an open area and found herself facing a stone dome, aged and covered with moss and vines, in the center of the complex. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she cut her way through soldiers, the sound of their bodies clattering to the ground nothing more than the sound of a passing breeze to her. In her ear, she could almost hear her first mate tell her to stop, but Tamsin pushed it away, focusing instead on the blood rushing through her ears as she pushed through the heavy oaken doors to the dome, frantically shoving them shut, throwing down a heavy deadbolt to lock it behind her.
Tamsin panted as she leaned against the door, the cacophony from outside the doors muted but far enough away where she knew she was safe for a moment. Swallowing, she turned to the chamber, grabbing a torch hanging off the wall beside her. It had seemed cramped from the outside, but inside, the Well’s home was cavernous. The ceiling towered above her, so much so that the torches on the walls surrounding her would not have provi
ded enough light for her to see the apex. It was only the hole at the highest point of the structure, showering down pointed moonlight, that made it so she could see the full expanse.
Underneath the column of light, Tamsin saw her eternal life illuminated before her.
It was nothing more than a vacuous hole rising from an island of loose stone and shale, a small void that so many had lost their lives for. Surrounding the island was a mote of black water, the firelight dancing off the rippling surface. There was a reason this area was called the Tunnel, this pool serving as a way for mermaids and other creatures from the sea outside the Cove to come in and gaze at the Well in reverence. A singular pathway led out to the island, the water delicately splashing on either side of it.
Behind her, a pounding shook the dead bolted door.
Best be quick about this, then, Tamsin thought.
She paced forward, the stone path narrow enough where her boots were getting wet. Adrenaline rushed through her body as she stared at the beacon ahead, the thing that had haunted her dreams for months, the one thing that would make all her drunken nights of self-loathing and regret worth something. Her first mate’s mismatching eyes flashed through her mind. Perhaps once she took her first sip of the Well’s waters, the thought of them wouldn’t hurt so damn much. Maybe—
Her feet flew out from underneath her, a vise grip of something wrapped around her ankle as she slid across the stones toward the water. Without thinking, she swiped her cutlass down with a grunt, cutting away whatever had hold of her. Shuffling back up to her feet, she glimpsed something slithering down into the water, leaving behind a scaled hand, cut off at the wrist, still clinging to Tamsin’s boot. Shaking it off, Tamsin gazed back at the water, ripples curling up from underneath the once placid surface.
She barely had time to utter out a “fuck” before the creatures started rising out of the water.