Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35

by Galvin, Aaron

  Tom pointed at the bit of bone. “I think that’s the key the Merrow king and his Orcs wanted . . . the same thing that caused all this mess in Røyrkval and led our kind to being sent down to work the mines to begin with.”

  Lenny trembled. Pop was right – Tommy had it all along. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Lenny looked Tom Weaver square in the eye. “I don’t understand,” he said. “If you found this way back when and thought it was what the Orcs wanted, then why didn’t ya give it up? Maybe could’ve got yourself a ticket outta there and on your way back home.”

  “Maybe so,” said Tom. “Or maybe the Orcs would’ve just killed me and then everyone else they had sent down to find it. Keep anyone from talking, or spreading the story of what we found, so to speak.” He shrugged. “I dunno. After what we seen in Bouvetøya, I’m betting the ones who are calling the shots would’ve went with the latter decision for all of us in the ice mines. All that to say, your father earned my respect for not leaving everyone else behind. Murderers, thieves, whatever they may be, they’re still people. Declan refusing to leave them helped to remind me of the man I was. Would like to think I would’ve done the same. Once, anyway.” His voice softened. “All that to say, he reminded me of the reason I stayed down there so long and wouldn’t give the Orcs what I found tucked away in the ice.”

  “If you found this key, then why did Vasili have it?” Lenny asked.

  “You were in Røyrkval,” said Tom. “You know the sort we’re traveling with, especially those that fell in with Henry.” The elder Weaver shook his head. “Everyone wants to be the top dog in our world, Dolan. If you’re gonna wear that crown and stand on the mountaintop, others are gonna take shots at you.” He shrugged. “Guess I figured it was only a matter of time before one of them other monsters took me down and found that pendant on my body after. Can’t say as most of those I met down in the City of Song would’ve held to the convictions me and Vasili shared with you Dolans either. Vasili though . . . I always knew that pendant there would be safe with my little friend. I reckon that I can say the same of you now too.”

  Lenny nodded. “He was a good man, Tommy. Didn’t know Vasili well, but . . . he was good.”

  “He was.” Tom Weaver agreed, then cleared his throat before nodding at the necklace Lenny held. “When we were back in the City of Song, I told Vasili to make sure your father got that pendant if anything ever happened to me. Now, that they’re both gone . . . after you saved my life with Henry today, why, guess I figure it oughta be you to wear the necklace now. Maybe you can find out what all those markings mean someday.” He scoffed. “That or toss the cursed thing away. Right on down these tracks, for all I care. That tooth has never done anything but bring me bad luck.”

  Should I, Pop? Lenny wondered, rolling the bit of bone between his fingers, even as he looked at the tunnel darkness they left behind. Throw this stupid key over the railing right now to where no one will ever find it in all this darkness?

  Much as he tried to convince himself, Lenny could not act out such thoughts. He kept the tooth, if only as a reminder for all the conviction his father had once held about who kept the Ancient item. Instead, Lenny took the leather stripping and placed the noose over his head, then tugged at the neckline of his Selkie suit to allow the bit of whale bone to rest against his chest. Shifting, he felt the bone knock against the other pendant he wore; that which Brother Zuriel had given him to wear before Lenny was taken from New Pearlaya and sent south.

  With the twin pendants cold against his breast, Lenny thought of the old and kindly, Selkie monk’s last words to him. Senchis is with you, Lenny Dolan, he remembered Brother Zuriel having said inside the hallowed walls of his sanctuary.

  Shivering at the memory, Lenny rubbed at his chest to warm himself again.

  Tom sat back and clucked his tongue. “Now, that’s settled, I suppose you ought to know I’m leaving as soon as we land in New Pearlaya, Dolan. Already told Brutus and Jemmy T.”

  “You’re leaving?” Lenny asked.

  “That’s right,” said Tom. “Assuming we survive whatever’s waiting on us there, that is. If we do make it through the Orc lines, I mean to slip off and look for my boy. You said he was in the city, right?”

  “I know he was headed there with the rest of us,” said Lenny. “Can’t say as I ever saw Garrett again after the Orcs separated our kind from him and the princess.”

  Tom frowned, but nodded. “Well, it’s something to go on, at least.”

  Lenny’s brow furrowed at the notion of Tom leaving them behind. “What about all these others we brought along with us? The ones we rescued in Bouvetøya? All that talk about holding onto this key, or whatever it is, to keep the Orcs from killing these others?”

  “Don’t know what you plan to do,” said Tom. “But I’ll have no more part in it. Much as I admire your father and all he claimed about never leaving anyone behind, if Røyrkval taught me anything after all these years, it’s that you can’t save everyone, Dolan. Don’t matter how much you try. You wanna the argue the truth of that, why, I’d say you don’t have to look any further than what happened today with Vasili, or losing your father too.”

  No, Lenny thought, understanding the heart of such truth, the faces of all those he had lost swirling in his mind. No, you can’t save everyone.

  “As for the others from Røyrkval and those we picked up in Bouvetøya,” Tom continued. “Brutus will take most of the rowdier sort with him, no doubt. Try to stir up some trouble along the way. Jemmy T said he might be able to find some placement for the younger sort and orphans. As for the rest, well, I reckon they’re gonna have to find their own way through this hard ol’ world, just like all of us.”

  Except not all of us know our way, Lenny thought, all of his former hopes and dreams of freedom near meaningless now without his father to share it with. Just like I didn’t know to do, or where to go, when the queen turned me loose after we got to the capital.

  Tom fixed Lenny in his stare. “What about you, Dolan? You got a plan of where you’re headed next?”

  “I’ll figure one out . . .” said Lenny.

  “I have no doubt about that,” said Tom, turning silent for awhile before he spoke again. “I suppose you could come with me, if you want. Help me look for Garrett.”

  Warmth spread through Lenny at the notion. It flamed further when he looked up at the crimson-haired giant and saw it for an offer in earnest. “You would want that?”

  “Why not?” Tom shrugged. “Unless all you told me about helping him was a lie . . .”

  “No,” said Lenny. “I told ya true, Tommy.”

  “For what it’s worth, I believe you,” said Tom. “And because I believe it, I don’t see any reason you couldn’t come along and help me find my boy. Since you were with him from the beginning, might be you know some people that I don’t who might remember Garrett from along the way too. Maybe they could help us find him. Know where Garrett is, or where he might have gone since you last saw him.”

  His girlfriend will know. Lenny thought back on his interactions with Garrett Weaver and those they traveled with. If I can find a way to get word to Ellie, then I can get to the princess too. And if we can get to Sydney, then she can talk to the queen about helping out the rest of those we’re bringing in.

  The idea of seeing some friendly and familiar faces from his past cheered Lenny for a moment. He reflected on the time he and Edmund had went to rescue Garrett in Crayfish Cavern, all to right a wrong that he had done. How he might be able to atone again for his past mistakes, if helping to reunite the Weaver father and son. He also thought on what such a deed would mean to him, especially if Declan were alive and someone could do that for he and his father now.

  For all such elated notions that toyed with him to explore them further, it was the twin pendants around his neck that gave Lenny Dolan pause. Though light in weight, the cold from the twin pendants reminded him of one who would never feel warmth again; of the sacrifice his father made, al
l so that Lenny and the other Selkies might have a chance at finding true life and warmth again.

  “Thanks for the offer, Tommy,” said Lenny. “I can’t go with ya though.” He motioned toward the train car door. “I can’t leave all these others behind to look for their own way and get enslaved all over again because they don’t know what to do, or where to go.”

  “I understand,” said Tom. “I’ve felt such things before too. A friendly word of advice I already gave you though?”

  “You can’t save them all,” said Lenny, inferring the message.

  Tom nodded. “And for every one you lose, it just gets harder, son. You think it would be the other way. That it gets easier because you already know that numb feeling. But, the more you lose, the more time goes by and you’re still here? Remembering all those times you shared before? All their faces and names . . .” he shook his head. “That’s when you finally understand the truth.”

  “What’s that?” Lenny asked.

  “That in the grand scheme of things, the whole of time, their lives, your life – none of it really matters much at all,” said Tom. “Not except to a lucky few that really got to know you, that is. Those precious few who it’d pain the most to lose you, or for you to lose them. That’s when you really understand the point of living though. The reason to keep going through all the mess and darkness thrown your way.” Tom clapped his meaty paw of a hand on Lenny’s shoulder, gently squeezing as he stood to go. “I’m tired of seeing those people taken me from, Dolan. All I want now is to see the few I got left taken care of and looked after.” Tom shook his head. “’Cause I’m awful tired of this watery world. All its death and hurt. I’m just ready to see the light again, Dolan. Feel the sun on my face and watch my boy grow into a man . . . aye, just like your father got to see for you.”

  But he didn’t, Lenny thought, not saying anything as Tom Weaver headed back inside the train car, leaving him alone. If Pop saw me turn into a man, then why do I still feel like a boy?

  He chuckled, then. Despite the grief and pain threatening to overtake him once more, Lenny knew full well what his father would say to such a question. When the emotions passed, leaving him hollow once more, Lenny spoke to the darkness, asking himself the same question that he imagined Declan Dolan would do for him if sharing the same stoop in that moment. “Who are ya, boy?” he asked himself aloud, picturing his father’s voice as the one to ask the question.

  “I’m a Dolan, Pop . . .” he whispered back in answer.

  Lenny Dolan grabbed hold of the railing, then. Pulling himself to stand, he turned back to the train car to follow Tom Weaver inside. Lenny entered in, the haunted faces of those who had suffered in Bouvetøya all around him.

  Their shadow people, he thought of them all, none of the other Selkies daring to hold his gaze for longer than a heartbeat, none sharing the same mirth that his fellows in Røyrkval had done after their first victory over the Orcs. For every step he took, deeper into their midst, Lenny swore the pendants’ cold seeped deeper within him too, penetrating not just his flesh, but his soul. Maybe we’re all just a bunch of shadow people now . . .

  He kept moving on, passing from one train car into the next, not stopping until he found Jemmy T. The former tavern owner was snoring, his head resting back against the wooden wall. Not knowing where else to go, or what to do, Lenny squeezed in beside his father’s friend. Following Jemmy T’s example, exhaustion overtook him the moment that Lenny rested his head against the wall, the shaking train car lulling him to sleep. For a moment, he fought against its call, not wanting to sleep or dream. Not wanting the reminders of all those stolen away from him.

  Sleep took him anyway, and Lenny Dolan rested in dreamless slumber as the Sailfish train sped back toward New Pearlaya and all the other monsters awaiting him there.

  27

  KELLEN

  Kellen’s heart thundered against his chest as Phobetor led him to meet with the gathered masses of Sancul in the Cavern of Somnus. As he passed into their midst, Kellen shuddered at the hollowed and hungered looks in their marbled, black eyes. Though some had adopted youthful and beautiful, if scarred, human faces, still others held to the old and withered looks as Erebus did.

  Kellen took the older ones for the realist sort, the rest for the same bit of glamorous, magical trickery he had witnessed Nyx perform after their sacrificing offering of the Ancient sperm whale in Mnemosyne. Of clothing, most wore tattered rags or else none at all to shield the canvass of scars upon their pale bodies. Kellen squirmed at the sight of purplish veins that ran across their mammoth forms in tandem to the maze of scars each had earned in battles of old.

  Many of them reached for Kellen by their hand or tentacle, as if they needed to touch him in reassurance that he was real. Kellen endured their frigid grazings and grippings of his body, even as he rejected the impulses surging through him to brush them away. He recalled having once felt the same in Crayfish Cavern when the Selkie taskmaster, Tieran, had led him and other slaves through the swarm of Merrow buyers to reach the auction block.

  Here, Kellen recognized those touching him for a different sort. Not those of estimating his value or worth, but satiating their desires for reality over dreams. For every one of those who cried and wept at drawing near to him, Kellen swore that he saw still more lingering upon the outskirts, above and below, all with sneered and judging looks for the others that were desperate to reach him.

  Throughout his parading of Kellen through the Sancul masses, Phobetor called out a host of names that Kellen forgot nearly as soon as his supposed nephew spoke them. Each new name sounded to him as strange and foreign as any other Sancul he had met, yet here he was afforded no time to truly meet or speak with any of them.

  Ever he was led onward, his head acting as a swivel in acknowledgment, or else to seek out which of them had taken hold of him. In his youth and life ashore, Kellen had dreamt of being famous and becoming an athlete of the highest order, his face and name on display for all to see and marvel at. His prowess in the fighting pits of Orphan Knoll had taught him otherwise. The Sancul pawing at him now only furthered his want to escape such madness.

  For all the hands and tentacles clawing after him to gain his attention, Kellen found himself constantly sighting one who trailed he and Phobetor upon the outskirts. Like the others who adopted beautiful faces, this newest of the Sancul strangers stood out among the rest as the fairest of them all. To Kellen’s mind, her snow-white skin seemed to glow, her demure violet eyes calling for his attention, even as the fiery red tint of her hair projected that she should be treated with caution. Where Kellen had always considered himself at the upper limits of all things defining a handsome physicality, now he understood the true definition of beauty.

  The she-squid flitted in and out among the rest, ever evading Kellen’s searching for her among the rest. Yet just as soon he lost her in the crowd, he found her ahead of him again.

  Who is she? He wondered, thinking to ask Phobetor amidst his constant introductions.

  Kellen’s question was not to come, however, the gathered Sancul falling back as they neared the end of their lines. It was then Kellen understood whilst he had been acknowledging the other Sancul and searching for the crimson-haired she-squid among the crowd, Phobetor had led them down one of the tunnel entrances.

  The end of it had opened into what resembled an overturned, bowl-like arena. At its center, a new host of Sancul had encircled a black, stone table in awaiting his arrival and the feast to follow.

  Kellen stiffened at the sight of a Blue Whale carcass. Though the Ancient beast were only a calf, its corpse seemed to stretch to the furthest reaches of the confined cavern space. Kellen wondered how the Sancul had managed to bring down the gargantuan beast, let alone carry it inside the cavern without carving the body into sectioned pieces first.

  The Sancul around the whale were already laboring at the feast to come too. Devoid of expression or voice, those attending to the main course used the claws of their
tentacles to slice and dice at the whale flesh, each of them serving up bits of fatty, white meat.

  Kellen’s stomach turned at the sight, even as his Sancul form craved the sustenance and taste.

  Phobetor grinned as he swept his left hand in acknowledgement of the awaiting display before them. Behold, Uncle! All is prepared . . . a feast in honor of your glorious return.

  Kellen nodded. Thank you . . . he whispered, even as he glanced at those swimming past him to descend upon the meal. But shouldn’t we check on Hypnos? See how he’s doing, I mean?

  Rest easy, Uncle, said Phobetor, guiding him further in. My mother and Kanaloa will care for my father. Besides, this feast is for you.

  Kellen sickened at the sight of the Sancul beneath him hurrying toward the feast, each of them being offered a bit of the blubbery, raw whale meat. Though their bodies were withered and each seemed to Kellen as eager as the next to consume their portions, not a single one of the Sancul fed themselves. Instead, Kellen watched with curious intrigue as the Sancul chose partners from among the masses, then fed their counterparts instead.

  Why are they doing that? Kellen wondered. Again, he kept his questions to himself, not daring to ask Phobetor for fear of making his true self known. Instead, he followed the one who claimed him as uncle.

  Phobetor led Kellen to the carcass. A true feast, isn’t it, Uncle? The Blues have always been my meal of choice, though it saddens me to say our capture of their kind has been far fewer of late.

  Kellen recoiled as Phobetor plunged one of his tentacles into the whale flesh. His appendage and its attached claws twisted and circled like an auger, then. For a moment, Kellen wondered if Phobetor meant to delve a hole clean through to the opposite side of the Ancient beast. Instead, his claws and tentacle coiled and formed a self-made spoon to catch the hunk of newly carved flesh when it plopped away from the source. Kellen winced at the hole left behind, even as memories of his younger days ashore thought of the fatty, white flesh left behind like a drum of ice cream that Phobetor had scooped a bit from.