by R A Browell
‘You’ve got to relax,’ frequenced Hari. ‘And as soon as you’re free, swim like crazy for the surface and get out of the water. Like you said, there could be others around, so you’ll need to move fast…’
Ziggy was now inches away from the creature’s eviscerating claws. Hari released his friend and caught hold of the zoytail’s two back legs and in one seamless movement forced them in on themselves; pushing up with his shoulder to jab the claws into the creature’s soft silver underbelly; driving them in deep, before dragging both along the zoytail’s length, like a fisherman filleting mackerel with a knife. He felt the crack of bone and the tearing of muscle as the legs broke and the flesh parted, and then he felt the vibrations as the zoytail let out a high-pitched scream into the dark, bloody waters. The creature stared at him murderously with its piercing ruby-red eyes and tried to swipe him with its two front legs, but Hari was fast and the zoytail was losing strength; finally, it had no option but to release its suckered hold on Ziggy.
‘Move!’ Hari frequenced as Ziggy swam frantically up through the bloody waters towards the glimmering shadow of the boat.
‘You’ve got to come. Now,’ Ziggy frequenced as he headed for the surface.
‘What, and miss a good meal. Just smell that,’ replied Hari. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be up as soon as I’ve finished.’
‘There’ll be others. They’ll have heard the attack.’
But Hari didn’t reply. He held the zoytail firmly by its back legs, the claws still lodged deep in the creature’s belly, as he listened for the internal pulse and then, without hesitating, sank his feeding teeth into the bloody flesh, driving down with both points until he sliced through a thin artery wall and released the zoytail’s rich, concentrated, black blood straight into his mouth and fed; vaguely aware that in the ocean around him, there was movement…
‘Man Ahoy!’ the mariner called out as the surface of the water broke.
Silky rushed across the deck to see Ziggy’s head in bobbing in the sea as he started to swim like a person possessed by demons through the strong current towards the boat. Silky helped pull him quickly onto the deck and stood watching as he sat there gasping.
‘Where’s Hari?’ she asked anxiously. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Ziggy spluttered, breathing hard to catch his breath after the rush of adrenalin. He was nursing his broken wrist. ‘He’s fine. He’ll be up in a minute…’
‘What do you mean, ‘He’ll be up in a minute?’ said Silky, urgently scanning the water for any sign of life. ‘I want him up here now!’ she demanded.
‘Now, that was what I call impressive!’ grinned Ziggy, standing and staring back out to sea as he stripped off his long robe and tried to lay it across the deck, protect his wrist and keep his balance at the same time. The boat suddenly lurched against the current, as the mariner brought it back on course.
Silky stared at Ziggy in disbelief.
‘What do you mean impressive? I don’t want impressive!’ exclaimed Silky, ‘I want you unimpressive, both of you. Unimpressive, safe, here and alive!’ She looked out over the waters, scanning the ocean, looking for movement, compulsively smoothing her skirts; stroking and smoothing the fabric harder than usual as she attempted to regain her composure. ‘So, where is he?’ she demanded. Where’s Hari?’
‘Someone looking for me?’
Silky swung around and found herself staring into the dripping face of a grinning, satisfied sanguin. His bloodied teeth were receding but his eyes were alive and vibrant as he ran his fingers through his soaking hair, carelessly pushing the dark wet strands out of his face. She watched, speechless as he copied Ziggy and started pulling off his drenched t-shirt and then his jeans, wringing the water out of his clothes as he laid each garment carefully on the sun-bleached deck to dry. He stood there, resplendent in his shorts, with a grin on his face; victorious in battle.
‘Now that was fun,’ he exclaimed, ‘and I never, in a million years, expected sushi for lunch! You don’t fancy sticking your arm over the side again do you Ziggs?’ he teased.
Ziggy glanced down at his swollen wrist. ‘Just say when!’ he replied. He was smiling in spite of the obvious pain, ‘except, maybe next time you can get fed before I get all my bones broken?’
‘This isn’t funny…Both of you, this isn’t funny at all!’ scolded Silky as she finally found her voice, jabbing a finger in the air with each spoken syllable. ‘Don’t you ever, ever, ever do that to me again,’ she exploded, before turning on her heels, her nose in the air as she headed off down the deck towards the not-so-ancient mariner.
Ziggy and Hari lowered their heads to hide their smiles, but what neither of the teenagers saw, was that with each step Silky took, she too was smiling; her pride in the two teenagers growing to almost bursting point as she took her place beside the mariner, looked out across the lagoon and prayed to the gods for no more zoytail encounters before they reached their final destination.
The Bonesetter
They sailed towards the city, leaving behind the snow-clad mountains of Farisia together with the dangers of the zoytail infested waters. Ahead of them Serenisa beckoned; welcoming them with open arms; her wide lagoon littered with bustling islands and heavy nautical traffic.
Various boats were bobbing up and down in the shallow waterways between the various islands and the main city. Some were tethered, others were busy transporting goods and people to and fro, but the air was clear, the industry clean and there was a general feeling of opulence about the place. Hari watched as they were gently steered into one of the narrow holding ponds. Neatly organised moorings lay alongside long wooden jetties, where robed men with scrolls of parchment walked up and down, scribbling and pointing as they directed vessels in and out of berths. It looked chaotic but had its own order and it reminded Hari of the busy port at Mumbai, but without the noise and pollution that seemed inevitable in the human world.
Silky nudged him. ‘We’re here and if you don’t want to cause too much of a stir you’d better get dressed!’ she said as she handed him his clothes. ‘And we need to get Zigadenus sorted before we attend the Palace of the Magisterie,’ she added in a low voice, glancing across at Ziggy who was sitting quietly nursing his arm. ‘His wrist needs some attention; I’ve tried my best but I’m no bonesetter. They have the proper treatment here; the Kelphs are renowned for their powers of healing and medicines. If we give him a couple of hours with the right person he’ll be well on the mend and I know just the place…’
‘Are you sure I’m okay with just these?’ said Hari looking down at his jeans. ‘You don’t think I need the cloak?’
‘Bring it with you, but I think you’ll find Serenisa a cosmopolitan place. It’s different to Pergamont, just about anything goes. It’s very multi-cultural, the Kelphs prefer to pursue aesthetic concerns, rather than getting dragged down over difference. If there’s any place where there can be a meeting of all four worlds on equal terms, then this is it,’ she said looking across the terracotta roofs. ‘It’s a place where East meets West; where the morning sun greets the evening moon. Your jeans will be just fine,’ she explained with another smile.
The mariner followed directions from the mooring clerks, safely manoeuvring the boat towards the main mooring area as both Ziggy and Hari stared in awe at the approaching metropolis. Rising up before them were narrow houses, decorated with exquisite plastered mouldings and the most delicate of friezes imaginable. A multitude of arched windows, in reality far too numerous for each building, were stacked up, one on top of the other, their columns balancing precariously on the fragile fretworked balconies. Hari looked around, his eyes drawn up towards the rickety red-tiled roofs which competed for skyline with the gilded towers, whilst Ziggy stared admiringly at the gold-topped steeples that shimmered in the sunlight. Each one seemed to be fighting to outshine the impressive, ornamented domes of imposing palatial buildings and nothing in Ziggy’s text books had prepared him for Serenisa’s brilli
ance. Back at street level, the sparkling waters lapped gently against the quaysides of the wide waterways.
‘Come with me, we must find the bonesetter,’ Silky called as they disembarked and left the mariner chatting animatedly to a particularly pretty, parchment-wielding mooring clerk.
Silky led them away from the marina and towards a narrow street of tall ornamented buildings. Bustling inns, coffee houses and shops, all shaded with brightly coloured awnings, added to the sense of the exotic and led them further into a city where open courtyards became warrens of tiny side streets, which, in turn, were transformed into a maze of alleyways and tortuous passageways; each alive with music, movement and colour. They passed an open, sunny courtyard where brightly dressed musicians played pipes and strange looking wind instruments and artists sat back contemplating their work before they once again lifted the brush or chisel.
Hari gazed at the Serenisians.
‘Are they all like this?’ he whispered.
‘What do you mean?’ replied Silky, hurrying them down a cramped dark alleyway.
‘Everyone’s so graceful,’ he gasped, watching as one particularly pale faced Kelph passed them by. ‘They look like they’re floating – as though they’re somehow buoyant.’ Silky followed his admiring gaze. It was true; the Kelph’s movements were so effortless and captured a gracefulness that was so different to the other worlds.
‘They’re Kelphs, what can I say?’ replied Silky. ‘They’ve evolved for beauty and grace over millennia. Some think your kind have Kelph bloodstock too,’ she added.
‘Kelph bloodstock?’ repeated Hari looking at Ziggy. The alchemist shrugged his shoulders.
‘Hari, every creature on this planet is so closely related that it’s hardly a strange concept. We’ve probably all got a bit of Kelph in us somewhere, as well as human and vampire. It’s just that some of us have more than others.’
Hari’s eyes followed another beautiful Kelph who floated past as Silky led the way up and down over bridges, over narrow canals and across shaded courtyards until they eventually arrived at a particularly narrow street; in reality no more than a cramped alleyway. ‘Healer’s Row’ read the ancient street sign and as Hari looked down the tiny cobbled street he saw, hanging out into the alleyway, various signs with names like ‘Porvard’s – For the Treatment of Open Wounds – weapon injuries a speciality’, ‘Leda’s – Allergies, Bites, Venoms and Poisons’ and ‘Skulder’s Pharmacology – Kelph plant potions’.
Ziggy was still nursing his injured wrist but his eyes were wide as they entered Healer’s Row and he peered through the dirty, narrow windows. In Skulder’s he saw a dark wood panelled room; each wall covered in rows of shelves that held dozens of well-ordered bottles in all the colours and sizes imaginable: Devils-bit Scabious, Valerian, Yarrow, Peony, Daric Acid, Monkshood… All manner of bottles and jars spilled over onto the huge wooden counter, alongside a gigantic pestle and mortar, a selection of quills and a pile of open books, worn and yellowed with time. A tall, thin woman, old but still compellingly beautiful, looked up from a set of fragile scales and beckoned. Hari grabbed Ziggy’s robe and pulled him away from the window.
‘Here we are,’ said Silky stopping outside an ornamented shop front. Around the door were plaster cast mouldings of animals and flowers, exquisitely crafted and intricately intertwined.
Hari stared at the frieze.
‘Are you sure this is the place?’ he asked, as his eye fixed on one particularly delicate plaster flower, whose leaves, on closer inspection, were intertwined around what looked like a ribcage. He looked again. All around him were the plaster casts of bones: femurs, tibias, ribs, skulls, vertebrae and some bones that Hari didn’t even recognise. The whole of the shop front looked like an antiquated elephant graveyard. ‘It reminds me of those gravestones with the memento mori carved into them,’ he shuddered, ‘with skulls and bones picked clean.’
Ziggy groaned, cradling his wrist.
‘Yes, this is the place,’ said Silky cheerily. ‘Twizell Hopringer, the best bonesetter in Serenisa. I know it looks a little unconventional, but he’s been here for centuries doing what he does best – bones. It’s all he does. Some call him a magician. He does a wonderful job. You just need to trust him and he’ll have it sorted and fixed before you can say zoytail!’ she added with a smile.
She pressed down the latch and pushed against the heavy oak door, which unlike some of the other blistered doors on Healer’s Row, was neat and clean. Inside, a tightly coiled spring shook the skull-shaped bell as the three strangers bent their heads low and stepped into a surprisingly bright and airy consulting room, leaving the gloom of the narrow alleyway behind.
‘It’s nothing like I expected,’ whispered Hari as he scrutinised the little shop. ‘It looks very clean. I like it.’
A number of chairs and a long velvet couch, together with a small side table all moulded in the same skeletal style they had seen on the shop front, were placed strategically about the room. Ziggy stood shivering, his forehead covered with tiny beads of sweat as a tall, thin, pale man glided into the room from a concealed doorway at the back of the shop. He was wizened but his face was bright and cheerful.
‘Twizell,’ said Silky, stepping forward with open arms to greet the old man.
‘Silky? No, surely not? Is it really you? It isn’t possible!’ the bonesetter declared, shaking his head from side to side as he peered at her over his half-moon spectacles. He caught hold of Silky’s hands and held them out in front of him, smiling as he gazed fondly down at her.
‘Why, you haven’t changed a bit, my dear,’ he said, still shaking his head in disbelief, ‘and how is that fine husband of yours?’
‘Dear Twizell, it’s been too long, too long indeed,’ replied Silky. ‘Lord Etal passed away, many years ago now,’ she added sadly.
‘Lord Etal… gone?’
‘He was a Protector, Twizell. It was not totally unexpected,’ she sighed.
The old man shook his head sadly.
‘And your son?’ he asked, glancing at Ziggy
‘No,’ said Silky shaking her head, ‘this isn’t Valens, although he’s quite grown up now and serving as a Protector, like his father.’
‘Another Protector in the family, you must be very proud my dear and a little fearful?’
The old Kelph sighed and squeezed her hands again. ‘Sometimes daughters are easier.’
‘And sometimes they’re not,’ smiled Silky, glancing at Hari.
‘Come, you must sit down. So who have we here then?’ he asked looking at Ziggy and his contorted wrist.
‘This is Zigadenus Frementi, you may have heard of him...’
‘But of course, the gifted young alchemist!’ replied Twizell, smiling approvingly. ‘So what brings you so far from home with young Zigadenus and…?’ He looked over his spectacles at Hari, paying particular attention to his shrunken, tight fitting jeans.
‘This is our travelling companion and friend, Hari Pradesh. We’re here on Laudis business, but as you can see, we had a small accident on our trip across the lagoon.’
Twizell looked again at the broken wrist.
‘Don’t tell me…Zoytail?’ he chuckled. ‘Happens all the time. Why they don’t just get rid of them from the bay is beyond me!’ he muttered as he led Ziggy to the couch and started to examine the injuries. ‘So what’s this business with the Laudis?’ he asked, turning to open a drawer in the side table, removing several jars, bottles and bandages as he started to massage Ziggy’s fingers with a particularly foul-smelling ointment, gradually working his magic into the damaged limb. Ziggy groaned loudly then sighed, as a penetrating warmth entered his bones and the pain started to subside.
‘That’s amazing…The pain, it’s almost gone,’ gasped Ziggy.
‘Now hold still whilst I wrap the setting,’ warned Twizell.
Hari watched over the healer’s shoulder as he worked on Ziggy, but his attention was caught by the strange shape of the healer’s back as he bent
over and started wrapping a swathe of bandages around Ziggy’s arm. The loose fabric of the bonesetter’s robe was falling into a hollow. Hari considered reaching down to touch the hole in Twizell’s back, but Silky caught his eye and shook her head quickly.
‘So, this Laudis business?’ Twizell asked again.
‘A diplomatic request, just some paperwork, quite routine really. We must visit the Seleni and need safe passage from the Magisterie,’ Silky replied, trying to sound unconcerned.
‘The Seleni?’ Twizell repeated, looking up over his half-moon spectacles. ‘You don’t want to get caught up in that kind of work my dear!’ he said, glancing at Hari suspiciously. He turned back to Silky and stared long and hard at the nymph. ‘I’ve known you a long time; I knew your mother and her mother and father. You don’t want to get involved with the Seleni, not if you can help it,’ he warned, shaking his head, ‘I mean, don’t misunderstand me, they do a job and I suppose Kelpasia is glad of it, but they’re not really from here you know. They’re not old worlders like you and me. They don’t belong here, not in any real sense. They’re sanguins you know…vampires,’ he said lowering his voice, ‘and even though we’re a tolerant people, most Serenisians who know of them, don’t like them here nor what they do. Many of us wish we had a different deterrent,’ he added disapprovingly. Hari caught Ziggy’s eye and smiled.
‘We know what they’re about,’ replied Silky quietly, ‘but it’s not a commission for their services the Laudis are after. We have a friend, a friend from the human world who might be with them. We believe they may have been misinformed. We need to set them straight and keep her safe.’
‘Oh, I see, Humans,’ said Twizell raising his eyes to look at Hari as his fingers nimbly continued to bandage Ziggy’s arm. He sighed deeply. ‘You know my dear, humans and vampires, they’ve always been trouble. More bother than they’re worth in my opinion,’ he said, pausing. ‘So, what you’re actually talking about is a rescue mission rather than a request for services?’ he added with a knowing smile.