The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper

by A. J. Fitzwater

  Cinrak straightened her bow tie. “Aye, Riddle me friend. Maybe we’ll be the first.”

  Riddle groaned. “If there could be anythin’ worse than a whirly-pool to quiver yer liver an’ drown ye in sorrow, it be the Partin’ o’ the Waves an’ masses o’ whale bones!”

  Cinrak signalled to the crew. “Go west, me friends! We have dead whales to find!”

  “Skittering Baby Seahorses!”

  Columbia, perched on the mid rail, paused mid brush of a red tress, staring at Cinrak with mouth open and eyes wide. His moustache quivered and iridescent tail fins flicked.

  “Ye could’ve dumped all the squiddy poo in the ocean on me head an’ I wouldn’t’ve been more surprised.” Cinrak paced the deck, forepaws behind her back, wind ruffling her fur. The Impolite Fortune loved having the wind at at its back and maintained a fair clip to keep up with the converging whale pods.

  “The mer have never been invited to Whale Fall! I am most excited for you. Do you think they’ll let me tag along?” Columbia’s winter-grey eyes surrounded by orange scales went very wide.

  “I’ll get Benj to ask Agnes. But it be hard to get anythin’ outta her. She dancin’ like a wee babby squid.” She twisted her forepaws in loose approximation of the kraken’s excitement.

  Columbia’s face relaxed into round-cheeked sweetness. “All that beautiful death.”

  “Columbia!” Cinrak snapped her claws, and the mer shook himself, sharing a sharp-tooth grin. “Help me out here. Ye’ve ridden the Partin’ before. Tell me what I’m suppose to do!”

  “Ridden it, yes. But only the very edges, and not all the way to the end. The walls get too turgid and steep.” Columbia drew an air-picture with his hairbrush. “And there’s no telling whether a fin, a two- or four-leg could take to the seabed before the walls come crashing in. It might be like the Void at the Edge of the World, or completely different.”

  “So how’m I s’posed to enter Whale Fall without bein’ crushed to death or drownin’? What Xolotli be thinkin’?”

  “Who knows what any glass whale thinks?” Columbia’s shrug looked like a dance move. “They’re not fond of interacting with rodent or merkind.”

  Riddle joined the conversation with a salute, paw to breastbone. “Thirteen knots, ser, an’ barely keepin’ up with the whales. Good thing the nor’easter came to play.”

  “Hang in there, me lovely.” Cinrak patted the railing. The riggings creaked their promise and the sails snapped at each other to pay attention.

  “How long we gotta keep this up?” Riddle glanced nervously at the huge shadows barging along all around. “The crew be full o’ spark, an’ the weather be good, but when we get near that Partin’—”

  “—It’ll be like ridin’ a wave ye can’t even dream of,” Cinrak finished. “I ken. Xolotli promises we’ll be safe. Break out the good fruit, and make sure there be an extra helpin’ for lunch.” She raised her voice. “Hey ho! Ye all be doin’ the star’s work!”

  The crew hey ho’d back and cheered. Riddle strode away, twirling her tail in anticipation of a good meal.

  Columbia resumed brushing, allowing Cinrak to gather up stray hairs. “Where is the young merfur?”

  Cinrak quick-checked deck stations. “Ain’t seen Benj in a while. He keepin’ watch on Agnes, I s’pect.”

  “And just how does he do that? Travel with Agnes, I mean. Keep dry. Keep from getting all fungused up in that chinchilla way.”

  Cinrak blinked. “Ya know, I don’t be knowin’. They get where they need to be. Not for me to interfere. He be havin’ regular dust bath, an’ he carry puff powder at all times. Just so long as he stays dry, it’s all good.”

  All at once, the undercurrent of whale song that had followed them all sun rose to quite the ache of a cetaceous choir. Cinrak checked the cloudless sky: yes, all the moons had fled, chasing each other in some ancient grudge they wouldn’t let mammals solve for them.

  The high watch called an “Ahoy!” and a fearful sound rose from the ocean like many tentacle suckers letting go of solid air.

  Woven with orange flashes, a huge wave humped far off to starboard. The wall of water kept going up and up, and the crew hauled the ropes to turn the ship to safety. Agnes burst through the surface, tentacles flailing like she was about to take flight. Whale tails flicked and the huge shadows surged ahead.

  When the wall hit an unsustainable angle, Agnes wheeled through the air and crashed to the surface below.

  Everyone on board got thoroughly soaked, except Columbia who always maintained a sensible damp sheen and glamorous glimmer.

  Then Benj was there, clambering over the starboard rail, panting, grinning, and very dry.

  “The Parting has started, ser!” He smacked off a salute. “Xolotli needs you to come now!”

  Cinrak slicked her claws across her ears, flicking off excess water. “We gotta get away from that there wave. It be huge!”

  “Don’t worry, ser!” Benj danced around, winding his beard tip in imitation of Columbia. “Xolotli promises some whales will keep the Parting in check so the ship won’t be swamped.”

  “Ya mean it could be bigger?” Riddle shrieked, claws turning grey from the grip she had on the wheel. “Fartin’ Puffer Fish an’ all the Tail’s Glory, this gonna be one for the ages!” She settled her eye patch in place and lashed her tail to the wheel. “Ye get goin’, Cap’n. This one’s a’tween me, the ocean, an’ big whale butts! Ha!”

  Cinrak chewed her whiskers as she stripped off her boots. There was no way her little sculler could survive that monster wave, let alone her swimming in it. If she was to walk along the seabed, how was she to get over the wall?

  Rising from the deep, the glass whale came.

  Heart pumping, lungs pushing, stomach churning, silver-blue blood moving. Their jewel-like organs could all be seen through translucent flesh as Xolotli gently breached. They blew a mist of water in greeting, soaking Cinrak all over again.

  Benj waved to the whale, grin plastered on his face. “All aboard!”

  “Aye?” Cinrak couldn’t help but smile. A notoriously shy glass whale letting itself be seen above water was a sight to behold. Agnes swam delicately around her love, tentacles framing their magnificence.

  “Xolotli is inviting you to climb aboard.”

  “Where? How?”

  Creeeeaaaak.

  Xolotli’s mouth hinged wide. A long pink tongue extended.

  Cinrak stared. “In...there?”

  “In there.”

  Down the maw of the beast.

  Fur quivering, Cinrak said, “Aye, I came to sea to see some wild things. Add one more to me Epic. Just so long as they ain’t gonna digest me in long slow agony an’ poop me out the other end.”

  “You won’t be eaten,” Benj laughed. “Agnes promises.”

  “An’ Xolotli?”

  “That’s their promise.”

  “Translated.”

  “Aye.”

  Nothing for it, if she was to prove her gumption to the crew and add her name to an Epic.

  She stepped over the large, sharp teeth onto Xolotli’s tongue, which squished spongier than mouldy bread. The tongue stayed extended and the teeth did not chomp her in half.

  Xolotli’s maw smelled like fish and seaweed and some other unnameable void, made up of the darkest night and frozen starlight. Within two more steps, the thrashing of the worried creaking of her ship faded away.

  Feeling very alone, she turned and called. “Benj?”

  Nothing.

  “Columbia?”

  A gush of water. She peered into the dying light. A flash of red and orange, scales shimmering, hair swirling.

  “Columbia!”

  The mer pushed his hair out of his face as he flopped upright. “How undignified. But still, I’ve been invited!”

  “Marvellous!”

  “Darling, you have no idea. Xolotli apparently wants to honour my contribution at the Edge of the World. I tried to tell them via Benj it’s just what
mer do. But, well. Who could resist the likes of divine me?”

  A shaky chuckle escaped Cinrak. It felt good not to be alone. “Shall we?”

  “Is there any other way in?”

  Columbia swam along the stream provided while Cinrak lurched along the soft tongue. All light faded, her back paws slipped, and the only way was down.

  The complete dark ate her shriek.

  With a damp squish, she landed somewhere soft and warm.

  “Columbia?”

  No reply.

  “Xolotli?” She hated how her voice quivered.

  A pulse of light, above and to her right.

  “Can you understand me?”

  The light pulsed twice.

  “Where’s Columbia? Where am I? Am I going to drown? Or dissolve in your juices?”

  The light flourished, dimmed, flourished again, held. She was encased in a sac just big enough to stand and hold her arms out in all directions. The enormous valves of Xolotli’s heart fluttered nearby. Receding into the dark were other structures of blue, pink, and red. On the other side of the heart, another sac, holding a fascinated Columbia like a goldfish in a bowl. Cinrak waved and called, but the mer didn’t acknowledge her presence. But he was alive, and that’s what mattered.

  “How can I breathe in here?” A ponderance with no explanation, though the implications were enormous. Glass whales had evolved to carry air-breathing life inside!

  Little feeling of Xolotli’s movements translated through the whale’s translucence, just wispy water and shadowed shapes. Cinrak peered between the whale’s iridescent ribs. What a show! Her heartbeat calmed, and a sense of quiet joy smoothed over her fur.

  The uncontained beauty of the deepest depths opened up for her.

  Tiny stars flickered around Xolotli’s body, reminding Cinrak of the lights that had made up the whale’s home, the upside down ocean-sky at the Edge of the World. Were these lights creatures living in parasitic comfort, or shreds of magic?

  Xolotli burst through a wall of water.

  Cinrak fell back. Such might and speed!

  And now they...floated. In the air. Just above the drying sea-bed.

  This. This was the Parting.

  Xolotli’s stars glittered in the muted sunlight. Two great, smooth walls of water encased a path of the exposed sea-bed leading back for at least two clicks, crashing in behind the last of the whale pilgrims. Even encased in whale flesh, Cinrak could smell the distance and ferocity with her salty weather sense.

  And in front...

  Xolotli undulated near the head of the pod, allowing Cinrak to see whales of all types churning, turning, and surging in delight at the moonless air on their flesh. More sparkles rose from them, stars heading for the stars, brushing the walls of water, stitching them tightly in place.

  In the opposite sac, a beatific expression smoothed Columbia’s bearded face younger than his many star-turns, and his tail scales shone brighter than Cinrak had ever seen them.

  Cinrak ran her forepaws down her broad cheeks and barrel chest. Maybe the depths compressed her, or that magic light played tricks, but her fur felt younger too, lighter.

  After forever and no time at all, the whales circled up, dashing back and forth to help the lights keep the water walls stable.

  Whale Fall had been reached.

  Cinrak leaned forward, heart so full she thought she was going to spill its contents through Xolotli and they’d become a marvellous merger of capybara and whale. The sea-bed field widened as the whales floated in increasing circles. A group were doing a fine job of shunting fish away before the water completely disappeared.

  A world of hidden treasures spread out beneath her paws in the whale graveyard.

  Xolotli took their time, showing Cinrak everything: bright white and iridescent whale skeletons in repose, as if they would swim up to join their siblings once rested; an antique, broken, and barnacled ship, enjoying its rest as crabs kept it company; rocks shining obsidian, the sand like fool’s gold.

  And jewels. So many of them. Dotting the sea-bed, the compressed organs of whales passed. Xolotli dipped closer for Cinrak to truly appreciate the superb sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds.

  Reminded of the Heart of the Ocean Xolotli had gifted her, Cinrak’s paws twitched. It still lay in secret, locked away in the kraken-sprite protected chest, waiting for the right home. Which, as it turned out, was not the queen’s crown.

  Xolotli dipped lower, belly almost brushing the sand.

  Cinrak gasped.

  A memory from her life played out in each of the jewels littering the graveyard. The glittering, the cracked, the dust. The treasure trove of her life.

  Her ears twitched. It must be monumental imagination brought on by Depth’s Sickness.

  But no. There her memories and worries were. Orvillia and Loquolchi. Mereg, Benj, the Mothers’ collective. Her ship, crew, and the union. Holding rodentkind and the Felidae together. The orphanage and her past. All lifted gently from her and allowed to rest on the sea floor, held safe within the embrace of the ocean.

  The salt and stars polished the jewels, and the ocean-sky medium tumbled them to show all their facets. The completedness of her. And all that she could be.

  Her thoughts stopped churning like tide foam. Once more that lightness of her fur, as if turned inside out, refreshed and reworn like her favourite tailored suit. Her body felt as light as the air passing through the whale’s lungs.

  She was the Capybara.

  She could stay like this forever.

  Xolotli undulated through the ocean-sky void just as easily as they did the water. The lights, the stars...maybe there were the spirit of countless whale generations—those been, gone, and forever—holding space for hearts and souls to mend.

  All the whales moved in practised fashion, taking turns to maintain the split in the ocean, dancing around each other, reacquainting themselves with old friends, clicking and harping songs of their time apart. The whales’ wails were sharp in the magical medium unlike the way they carried in water. Another honour to be held so close, secrets only shared by the few, the great, the humble, the magnificent. The longer she listened, the more she thought she could almost understand what they were saying, then another wonder would catch her eye and she would lose the thread of the idea.

  A great skeleton loomed close, and she wondered dreamily if they were about to be swallowed again. Capybara within whale within whale.

  Xolotli slid between the ribs with a tenderness Cinrak could only hope to achieve with her loves, settling their head into the great skull, great hump against spine. Did they ask the ghost what it was thinking, transfer its memories into their body? Xolotli’s light pulsed, and they lifted away from the bed, the encasing skeleton snug about their limpid flesh.

  Their flight took them towards the water wall.

  Noooooo...so soon?

  Had she said that aloud? Was that what her voice sounded like? Nowhere deep and long as whale song, but a resonance that carried authority and love.

  The water. Abyssal black. Thick, unctuous. Home encasing home. Encasing her. Liquid arms rocking her gently, until there was nothing left but flesh and fur, heartbeat and breath.

  A name. Someone was calling a name. C-k c-k. A whale click? She was the whale. Ocean smoothing her flesh, flesh swallowing the ocean whole.

  The deck of the Impolite Fortune held its captain with welcome regard. Cinrak lay still, letting the sun warm her. Salt crusted her fur, vest and pants tightening as they dried. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She was here.

  Voices mumbled and sighed in that staccato way of air breathing mammals. The sails above her hung at ease, caressing the breeze clear of rushing and roaring. The ship beneath her moved with elegant persuasion.

  Solicitous paws helped her stand. She pushed them away gently. The old instincts, her sea legs, were still there. Always there. Her salt. Her lifeblood.

  Cinrak’s reality returned in full with the bittersweet tingles of me
mory and careful worries.

  “How is Xolotli?” Cinrak leaned on the rail.

  “They’re fine, ser.” Benj pointed to the playing pod. Agnes swam excited rings about the whale who hovered just below the surface. The Impolite Fortune rocked gently in their wake, safe in their watery arm. “More to the point, how are you?”

  The wash of images tumbling together made her pull back on her words.

  “I don’t know. Xolotli showed me wonders that be not mine to share.”

  Benj’s eyes glazed. “Agnes says it’s alright for you to talk about the what, just not the how.”

  Cinrak chuckled. “I don’t be knowin’ the how. An’ I sure don’t know a heck of a lot of the what, either.”

  Columbia’s laugh tinkled like the first pops of stars at twilight. He perched in his favourite position on the rail, plaiting his beard, tail jiggling. “That’s alright then. I’m not going belly up. I’m not sure what I saw either, but it was lovely. I’m honoured the whales chose to share with me.”

  The crew all crammed along the rail, gushing over the glass whale. So pretty!

  “Lookit what Xolotli be wearin’,” Cinrak said. “Them bones an ancestor mebbe, or a friend. It looks like...”

  “Armour,” Columbia murmured.

  “They be findin’ a way to interact with our world.”

  “Dear Xolotli. So shy. So sweet.”

  Cinrak groomed the salt from her fur to hide her warm cheeks. Something so large feeling vulnerable to the perception of mammals they had to wear a disguise? Cinrak wanted to hold them tight, but her embrace was so small compared to Xolotli and their life in the Infinite Void.

  She put a gentle forepaw on her Benj’s shoulder. “Thankee for yer help there. Yer a good lad, Benj. I proud o’ ye.”

  Benj quick-groomed his beard, a tell against his embarrassment. “You say that all the time, Cap’n.”

  “Nay. Not enough. I be making up for all the times I didn’t hear it as a lass.”

  Benj stared at her, forehead fur scrunched up. No matter he didn’t understand now.

  The glass whale blew a fine mist that fell like diamonds around the crew. They shrieked and laughed in delight, wiping the sheen off their fur and quills.