Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

  The sun-haired woman lashed the reigns securely to a boulder, then sat down in the rubble. She was trembling, and it was clear she’d not had time to dress with an eye towards the cold breath of the mountains. There was a heavy belt cinched about her waist and from it hung a sheathed dagger. The sea troll’s daughter noted the blade, then turned her attention to the mule and its burden. She could see now that the person slung over the animal’s back was also a woman, unconscious and partially covered with a moth-eaten bearskin. Her long black hair hung down almost to the muddy ground.

  Invisible from her hiding place in the scree, Sæhildr asked, “Is the bitch dead, your companion?”

  Without raising her head, the sun-haired woman replied. “Now, why would I have bothered to drag a dead woman all the way up here?”

  “Perhaps she is dear to you,” the daughter of the sea troll replied. “It may be you did not wish to see her corpse go to ash with the others.”

  “She’s not a corpse,” the woman said. “Not yet, anyway.” And as if to corroborate the claim, the body draped across the mule farted loudly and then muttered a few unintelligible words.

  “Your sister?” the daughter of the sea troll asked, and when the sun-haired woman told her no, Sæhildr said, “She seems far too young to be your mother.”

  “She’s not my mother. She’s…a friend. More than that, she’s a hero.”

  The sea troll’s daughter licked at her lips, then glanced back to the inferno by the bay. “A hero,” she said, almost too softly to be heard.

  “Well, that’s the way it started,” the sun-haired woman said, her teeth chattering so badly she was having trouble speaking. “She came here from a kingdom beyond the mountains, and, single-handedly, she slew the fiend that haunted the bay. But – ”

  “ – then the fire came,” Sæhildr said, and, with that, she stood, revealing herself to the woman. “My father’s fire, the wrath of the Old Ones, unleashed by the blade there on your hip.”

  The woman stared at the sea troll’s daughter, her eyes filling with wonder and fear and confusion, with panic and awe. Her mouth opened, as though she meant to say something or to scream, but she uttered not a sound. Her hand drifted towards the dagger’s hilt.

  “That, my lady, would be a very poor idea,” Sæhildr said calmly. Taller by a head than even the tallest of tall men, she stood looking down at the shivering woman, and her skin glinted oddly in the half light. “Why do you think I mean you harm?”

  “You,” the woman stammered. “You’re the troll’s whelp. I have heard the tales. The old witch is your mother.”

  Sæhildr made an ugly, derisive noise that was partly a laugh. “Is that how they tell it these days, that Gunna is my mother?”

  The sun-haired woman only nodded once and stared at the rocks.

  “My mother is dead,” the troll’s daughter said, moving nearer, causing the mule to bray and tug at its reigns. “And now, it seems, my father has joined her.”

  “I cannot let you harm her,” the woman said, risking a quick sidewise glance at Sæhildr. The daughter of the sea troll laughed again and dipped her head, almost seeming to bow. The distant firelight reflected off the small curved horns on either side of her head, hardly more than nubs and mostly hidden by her thick hair, and it shone off the scales dappling her cheekbones and brow, as well.

  “What you mean to say is that you would have to try to prevent me from harming her.”

  “Yes,” the sun-haired woman replied, and now she glanced nervously towards the mule and her unconscious companion.

  “If, of course, I intended her harm.”

  “Are you saying that you don’t?” the woman asked. “That you do not desire vengeance for your father’s death?”

  Sæhildr licked her lips again, then stepped past the seated woman to stand above the mule. The animal rolled its eyes, neighed horribly, and kicked at the air, almost dislodging its load. But then the sea troll’s daughter gently laid a hand on its rump, and immediately the beast grew calm and silent once more. Sæhildr leaned forward and grasped the unconscious woman’s chin, lifting it, wishing to know the face of the one who’d defeated the brute who’d raped her mother and made of his daughter so shunned and misshapen a thing.

  “This one is drunk,” Sæhildr said, sniffing the air.

  “Very much so,” the sun-haired woman replied.

  “A drunkard slew the troll?”

  “She was sober that day,” said Dóta. “I think.”

  Sæhildr snorted and said, “Know that there was no bond but blood between my father and I. Hence, what need have I to seek vengeance upon his executioner? Though, I will confess, I’d hoped she might bring me some measure of sport. But even that seems unlikely in her current state.” The troll’s daughter released the sleeping woman’s jaw, letting it bump roughly against the mule’s ribs, and stood upright again. “No, I think you need not fear for your lover’s life. Not this day. Besides, hasn’t the utter destruction of your village counted as a more appropriate reprisal?”

  The sun-haired woman blinked and said, “Why do you say that, that she’s my lover?”

  “Liquor is not the only stink on her,” answered the sea troll’s daughter. “Now, deny the truth of this, my lady, and I may yet grow angry.”

  The woman from doomed Invergó didn’t reply, but only sighed and continued staring into the gravel at her feet.

  “This one is practically naked,” Sæhildr said. “And you’re not much better. You’ll freeze, the both of you, before morning.”

  “There was no time to find proper clothes,” the woman protested, and the wind shifted then, bringing with it the cloying reek of the burning village.

  “Not very much farther along this path, you’ll come to a small cave,” the sea troll’s daughter said. “I will find you there, tonight, and bring what furs and provisions I can spare. Enough, perhaps, that you may yet have some slim chance of making your way through the mountains.”

  “I don’t understand,” Dóta said, exhausted and near to tears, and when the troll’s daughter made no response, the barmaid discovered that she and the mule and Malmury were alone on the mountain ledge. She’d not heard the demon take its leave, so maybe the stories were true, and it could become a fog and float away whenever it so pleased. Dóta sat a moment longer, watching the raging fire spread out far below them. And then she got to her feet, took up the mule’s reins, and began searching for the shelter that the troll’s daughter had promised her she would discover. She did not spare a thought for the people of Invergó, not for her lost family, and not even for the kindly old man who’d owned the Cod’s Demise and had taken her in off the streets when she was hardly more than a babe. They were the past, and the past would keep neither her nor Malmury alive.

  Twice, she lost her way among the boulders, and by the time Dóta stumbled upon the cave, a heavy snow had begun to fall, large wet flakes spiraling down from the darkness. But it was warm inside, out of the howling wind. And, what’s more, she found bundles of wolf and bear pelts, seal skins and mammoth hide, some sewn together into sturdy garments. And there was salted meat, a few potatoes, and a freshly killed rabbit spitted and roasting above a small fire. She would never again set eyes on the sea troll’s daughter, but in the long days ahead, as Dóta and the stranger named Malmury made their way through blizzards and across fields of ice, she would often sense someone nearby, watching over them. Or only watching.

  THE SEA TROLL’S DAUGHTER

  In 2007, I was hired by HarperCollins to write a novelization for Robert Zemeckis’ animated film adaptation of Beowulf. I was broke and badly needed the money. The film was utter shit, and my only consolation is that my novelization is just ever so slightly less shitty than the movie. Afterwards, I vowed never again to commit a novelization, a promise I have managed to keep despite the allure of decent paydays. “The Sea Troll’s Daughter” is, in part, an apology to the unknown author of Beowulf and to Beowulf scholars everywhere for my part in promoting Zem
eckis’ abomination. That said, many of those same scholars would likely be appalled at my feminist-queer satirical approach to this retelling. So it goes. Only rarely do I make myself laugh, but I still laugh aloud whenever I have cause to revisit this story.

  Hydrarguros

  01.

  The very first time I see silver, it’s five minutes past noon on a Monday and I’m crammed into a seat on the Bridge Line, racing over the slate-grey Delaware River. Philly is crouched at my back, and a one o’clock with the Czech and a couple of his meatheads is waiting for me on the Jersey side of the Ben Franklin. I’ve been popping since I woke up half an hour late, the lucky greens Eli scores from his chemist somewhere in Devil’s Pocket, so my head’s buzzing almost bright and cold as the sun pouring down through the late January clouds. My gums are tingling, and my fucking fingertips, too, and I’m sitting there, wishing I was just about anywhere else but on my way to Camden, payday at journey’s end or no payday at journey’s end. I’m trying to look at nothing that isn’t out there, on the opposite side of the window, because faces always make me jumpy when I’m using the stuff Eli assures me is mostly only methylphenidate with a little Phenotropil by way of his chemists’ Russian connections. I’m in my seat, trying to concentrate on the shadow of the span and the Speedline on the water below, on the silhouettes of buildings to the south, on a goddamn flock of birds, anything out there to keep me focused, keep me awake. But then my ears pop, and there’s a second or two of dizziness before I smell ozone and ammonia and something with the carbon stink of burning sugar.

  We’re almost across the bridge by then, and I tell myself not to look, not to dare fucking look, just mind my own business and watch the window, my sickly, pale reflection in the window, and the dingy winter scene the window’s holding at bay. But I look anyhow.

  There’s a very pretty woman sitting across the aisle from me, her skin as dark as freshly ground coffee, her hair dreadlocked and pulled back away from her face. Her eyes are a brilliant, bottomless green. For a seemingly elastic moment, I am unable to look away from those eyes. They manage to be both merciful and fierce, like the painted eyes of Catholic saints rendered in plaster of Paris. And I’m thinking it’s no big, and I’ll be able to look back out the window; who gives a shit what that smell might have been. It’s already starting to fade. But then the pretty woman turns her head to the left, towards the front of the car, and quicksilver trickles from her left nostril and spatters her jeans. If she felt it – if she’s in any way aware of this strange excrescence – she shows no sign that she felt it. She doesn’t wipe her nose or look down at her pants. If anyone else saw what I saw, they’re busy pretending like they didn’t. I call it quicksilver, though I know that’s not what I’m seeing. Even this first time, I know it’s only something that looks like mercury, because I have no frame of reference to think of it any other way.

  The woman turns back towards me, and she smiles. It’s a nervous, slightly embarrassed sort of smile, and I suppose I must have been sitting there gawking at her. I want to apologize. Instead, I force myself to go back to the window, and I curse that Irish cunt who’s been selling Eli fuck knows what. I curse myself for being such a lazy asshole and popping whatever’s at hand when I have access to good clean junk. And then the train is across that filthy, poisoned river and rolling past Campbell Field and Pearl Street. My heart’s going a mile a minute, and I’m sweating like it’s August. I grip the handle of the shiny aluminum briefcase I’m supposed to hand over to the Czech, assuming he has the cash, and do my best to push back everything but my trepidation of things I know I’m not imagining. You don’t go into a face-to-face with one of El Diamante’s bastards with a shake on, not if you want to keep the red stuff on the inside where it fucking belongs.

  I don’t look at the pretty black woman again.

  02.

  The very first thing you learn about the Czech is that he’s not from the Czech Republic or the dear departed Czech Socialist Republic or, for that matter, Slovakia. He’s not even European. He’s just some Canuck motherfucker who used to haunt Montreal, selling cloned phones and heroin and whores. A genuine Renaissance crook, the Czech. I have no idea where or when or why he picked up the nickname, but it stuck like shit on the wall of a gorilla’s cage. The second thing you learn about the Czech is not to ask about the scars. If you’re lucky, you’ve learned both these things before you have the misfortune of making his acquaintance up close and personal.

  Anyway, he has a car waiting for me when the train dumps me out at Broadway Station, but I make the driver wait while I pay too much for bottled water at Starbucks. The lucky greens have me in such a fizz I’m almost seeing double, and there are rare occasions when a little H20 seems to help bring me down again. I don’t actually expect this will be one of those times, but I’m still a bit weirded out by what I think I saw on the Speedline, and I’m a lot pissed that the Czech’s dragged me all the way over to Jersey at this indecent hour on a Monday. So, I let the driver idle for five while I buy a lukewarm bottle of Dasani that I know is just twelve ounces of Philly tap water with a fancy blue label slapped on it.

  “Czech, he don’t like to be kept waiting,” says the skinny Mexican kid behind the wheel when I climb into the backseat. I show him my middle finger, and he shrugs and pulls away from the curb. I set the briefcase on the seat beside me, just wanting to be free of the package and on my way back to Eli and our cozy dump of an apartment in Chinatown. As the jet-black Lincoln MKS turns off Broadway onto Mickle Boulevard, heading west, carrying me back towards the river, I think how I’m going to have a chat with Eli about finding a better pusher. My gums feel like I’ve been chewing foil, and there are wasps darting about behind my eyes. At least the wasps are keeping their stingers to themselves.

  “Just how late are we?” I ask the driver.

  “Ten minutes,” he replies.

  “Blame the train.”

  “You blame the train, Mister. I don’t talk to the Czech unless he talks to me, and he never talks to me.”

  “Fortunate you,” I say and take another swallow of Dasani. It tastes more like the polyethylene terephthalate bottle than water, and I try not to think about toxicity and esters of phthalic acid, endocrine disruption and antimony trioxide, because that just puts me right back on the Bridge Line watching a pretty woman’s silver nosebleed.

  We stop at a red light, then turn left onto South Third Street, paralleling the waterfront, and I realize the drop’s going to be the warehouse on Spruce. I want to close my eyes, but all those lucky green wasps won’t let me. The sun is so bright it seems to be flashing off even the most nonreflective of surfaces. Vast seas of asphalt might as well be goddamn mirrors. I drum my fingers on the lid of the aluminum briefcase, wishing the driver had the radio on or a DVD playing, anything to distract me from the buzz in my skull and the noise the tires make against the pavement. Another three or four long minutes and we’re bumping off the road into a parking lot that might have last been paved when Obama was in the White House. And the Mexican kid pulls up at the loading bay, and I open the door and step out into the cold, sunny day. The Lincoln has stirred up a shroud of red-grey dust, but all that sunlight doesn’t give a shit. It shines straight on through the haze and almost lays me open, head to fucking toe. I cough a few times on my way from the car to the bald-headed gook in Ray-Bans waiting to usher me to my rendezvous with the Czech. However, the wasps do not take my cough as an opportunity to vacate my cranium, so maybe they’re here to stay. The gook pats me down, and then double checks with a security wand. When he’s sure I’m not packing anything more menacing than my phone, he leads me out of the flaying day and into merciful shadows and muted pools of halogen.

  “You’re late,” the Czech says, just in case I haven’t noticed, and he points at a clock on the wall. “You’re almost twelve minutes late.”

  I glance over my shoulder at the clock, because it seems rude not to look after he’s gone to the trouble to point. Actually, I’m
almost eleven minutes late.

  “You got some more important place to be, Czech?” I ask, deciding it’s as good a day as any to push my luck a few extra inches.

  “Maybe I do at that, you sick homo fuck. Maybe your ass is sitting at the very bottom of my to-do list this fine day. So, how about you zip it, and let’s get this over with.”

  I turn away from the clock and back to the fold-out card table where the Czech’s sitting in a fold-out chair. He’s smoking a Parliament, and in front of him there’s a half-eaten corned-beef sandwich cradled in white butcher’s paper. I try not to stare at the scars, but you might as well try to make your heart stop beating for a minute or two. Way I heard it, the stupid son of a bitch got drunk and went bear-hunting in some Alaskan national park or another, only he tried to make do with a bottle of vodka and a .22 caliber pocket pistol, instead of a rifle. No, that’s probably not the truth of it, but his face does look like something a grizzly’s been gnawing at.

  “You got the goods?” he asks, and I have the impression I’m watching Quasimodo quoting old Jimmy Cagney gangster films. I hold up the briefcase, and he nods and puffs his cigarette.

  “But I am curious as hell why you went and switched the drop date,” I say, wondering if it’s really me talking this trash to the Czech or if maybe the lucky greens have hijacked the speech centers of my brain and are determined to get me shot in the face. “I might have had plans, you know. And El Diamante usually sticks to the script.”

  “What El Diamante does, that ain’t none of your business, and that ain’t my business, neither. Now, didn’t I say zip it?” And then he jabs a thumb at a second folding metal chair, a few feet in front of the card table, and he tells me to give him the case and sit the fuck down. Which is what I do. Maybe the greens have decided to give me a break, after all. Or maybe they just want to draw this out as long as possible. The Czech dials the three-digit combination and opens the aluminum briefcase. He has a long look inside. Then he grunts and shuts it again. And that’s when I notice something shimmering on the toe of his left shoe. It looks a lot like a few drops of spilled mercury. This is the second time I see silver.