Paradise Cracked

by Jeff Hook

  “Yes.”

  19

  Reluctance

  Ishū wasn’t used to so many people so close all the time. It made thinking difficult. Even when they weren’t talking they were always posturing and making movements.

  The animals, noisy though they could be, at least didn’t expect him to respond.

  He was wary of his newfound power after that incident with the moltfryn. It was as if he’d gotten stuck in the thing’s head, trapped. If it hadn’t died, would he have been able to escape? Or would he have been stuck there forever, swimming the depths as a moltfryn until his own body shriveled away into nothing?

  Yesterday had been spent stewing on this horror, alone, paying no attention to either the humans or the animals around him… but that wasn’t a good long-term strategy. His power was talking to animals, but what good was that if he refused out of fear? Besides, the moltfryn might be able to eat his mind anyway, even if he tried to ignore the animals. His only chance would be learning more about his power, learning to talk to even the most intelligent of creatures without getting lost.

  Maybe he could make friends with some of them, and then they’d protect him against the moltfryn.

  Depths no, said a voice in his head. We’re not risking our fins for a land-shark.

  Dolphins? Ishū cast about for the location and found a pod of eleven creatures where the voice was coming from. And could they hear the thoughts in his head?

  Yes, your shielding is poor. It is amusing.

  I disagree, said another dolphin. It’s loud and annoying.

  Sorry?

  Is dolphins your word for us?

  What do you call yourselves?

  Other creatures with intelligence call us the laughing folk.

  Ishū liked how that sounded. It also made him feel better about talking to them. How many more intelligent creatures are there in the world?

  You have many years and much intelligence, yet you are quite ignorant. Why is that?

  I came from a land where no one could talk. It wasn’t literally true, but it felt like it.

  His lack of control is useful in one way, said a dolphin. We know he’s not trying to take our minds like the other one.

  Yet when he gains control… such thoughts might change. Land-sharks never thought of hurting us until one day they had fast metal spiny sharp-fish and then, suddenly, they did.

  I just want to not be destroyed by the moltfryn, said Ishū. Losing myself was horrible.

  The others never thought like this, said a dolphin. If we teach him, he could be an ally.

  We’re still not defending you against a moltfryn. We only die for fin-brothers.

  That was good enough. Let’s do it.

  ——

  Jack leaned against the mast.

  Having the kid was amazing. Everything from the fight was cleaned up, all the daily chores were done, and it was only noon. The best part was that Karugo would do anything he could without complaint, even though it obviously pained him. Do it enthusiastically, even, despite the grimace plastered across his face.

  He could get used to this. Someone to serve him unquestioningly, doing anything that Jack asked, even if it hurt — especially if it hurt — made him feel a thrill of power. Every time Karugo rushed off to do a chore he thanked Jack, in mannerisms if not always in words, and all it took was a smile and a bit of approval. He could probably whip the boy and if he wrapped it in some shoddy reasoning about training it would just draw them closer.

  Jack smiled to himself. It was easy street from here on out: gold enough to buy his own ship; his own fiery chore boy.

  “Good training today,” he said. “Go get some rest.”

  Karugo was crestfallen. “We’re done training?” Every movement the boy made caused obvious discomfort — his muscles were soft from a life of being hidden away in that little undiscovered island — but he still showed determination to continue. “Freddy’s still training.”

  Jack looked back at where Freddy was stabbing a barrel repeatedly. It had little circles drawn on it to represent ‘neck’, ’stomach’, ‘femoral artery’, and other useful spots.

  He hated being told what to do, so he convinced himself it was his own idea to keep going.

  “Not quite. That was, uh… part one of today’s training.” It would be useful to have his pet be dangerous, and he would be able to test his theory about causing pain. Was this what it felt like to be Syldris?

  The difference was that, despite her protestations to the contrary, she caused pain without purpose. His had a use. The pain he caused today would make both him and his pet feared across the sea.

  “You learned about cutting flesh yesterday. What it feels like when your blade hits someone else. Today we’re going to practice swinging that blade.”

  Karugo was almost comically excited, practically slobbering with anticipation. The boy bounced up and down before muscle spasms made him cringe.

  Jack grabbed a wooden rod, about a foot long, and threw it to Karugo. No clue why a fishing boat would have these, but he wasn’t complaining. Karugo caught it, fumbled a little, then inspected it. He tapped it against the ground a couple times, using a horrible grip. Jack took a similar rod and swung it at Karugo, catching him in the head with a satisfying crack.

  Karugo looked hurt at first, a flash of betrayal, and it seemed as if he was about to cry. But then it started happening, just as Jack expected. The rationalizations going through Karugo’s head were ridiculously obvious to read. The boy was like a puppy he could kick over and over, and it would just get more loyal each time.

  “If we were fighting for real you would be dead,” said Jack. He put his free hand on Karugo’s shoulder and watched the boy melt. This would be the final rationalization, the one that would stick. “It might not be obvious like this every time, and sometimes you might not understand for years or even decades later… but everything I do is for your own good.”

  Karugo nodded, and this time he actually started to cry. He threw his arms around Jack, and for a moment the pirate felt unsure. The boy was his, mast to anchor, and now suddenly he had second thoughts?

  “Pirates don’t hug,” Jack said uneasily.

  Karugo released him, and Jack felt things right themselves in his mind. Mostly.

  “Here’s how you hold your sword.” He could get in another whack and call it training, but somehow that now felt wrong. Instead, he modeled the proper grip, taking the time to correct all the little mistakes that Karugo was making. If his new pet dropped a sword in the middle of battle then it would be a waste of all this time that Jack was investing.

  Yes, he had to protect his investment.

  That was it.

  20

  Hard Lessons

  Hishano yawned. He wanted to keep up with his studies, because that was what a good Tandoku student was supposed to do, but studying on the ship was difficult.

  He’d been able to borrow some of the books, but if he had a question then there was no one to ask. Freddy and Jack wouldn’t know anything. Ishū, though he seemed a responsible enough citizen, could hardly remember any of the lessons. “It’s been so long,” he’d said.

  Hishano didn’t even consider Karugo as a possible source of help. Perhaps he should pressure his classmate to join in on the studies, but Karugo seemed happier than he’d been in years, and Hishano didn’t want to interrupt that. It wasn’t as if one or two study sessions would be enough to catch Karugo up to where he should be, and it was nice to see him feel some sort of joy.

  The challenges didn’t stop there. The rocking of the boat wasn’t bad when Jack used his power, but it was almost too dark to read in the cabin, and it was almost too bright to read out on deck.

  Then the content itself… it made far less sense than it had before. The histories made no mention of pirates, powers, or other islands. In fact, they explicitly said that the Tandoku were the only people who had existed for a thousand years, that there were no other islands that hadn’t b
een sunk, and that sailing too far from the island would not only be pointless, but would lead to certain death.

  What else was a lie?

  When he returned, would he still be expected to learn and repeat this fake history?

  Yes, he decided quickly. He would get the crystal and he would bring it back. After that he would say whatever the Elders wanted him to say about history. The people he cared about came first, and the truth a distant second.

  Still, he would need to learn the truth if he wanted to operate in the world outside, and if he didn’t get the crystal then no amount of repeating their fake history would make the Tandoku people safe. He closed the book and decided there were, at the moment, better uses for his time.

  Hishano exited the cabin and blinked in the sunlight. He followed a clacking sound and saw Karugo and Jack banging wooden sticks together. The violence of the action made him blink, doubly so when Jack got past Karugo’s defenses and slammed his stick sidelong into Karugo’s stomach. Karugo doubled over and Jack stepped back, twirling his stick.

  “What are you doing?” yelled Hishano at Jack. Then at Karugo: “Are you okay?”

  Karugo looked up and smiled stupidly. “Jack’s training me!”

  The boy was covered with bruises, and each movement brought obvious pain. It was horrifying. “He’s…” Hishano didn’t know the words to say. He’d never seen bruises caused on purpose, and he’d never seen someone physically pushed to their limits. “He’s being mean and he should stop.”

  “The next time a sea creature attacks, do you want to survive?” asked Jack. “Karugo does.”

  “You should train with us,” said Karugo. “You need to get stronger.”

  Hishano looked at the bruises again. He wasn’t afraid of getting hurt during training — his power took care of that — but he didn’t want to cause anyone else pain. Still, there were things he could do. “I’ll train on my own,” he told them.

  “Is everyone on your island this repressed?” Jack asked Karugo.

  “You have no idea…”

  Hishano moved across the ship and started doing calisthenics. All Tandoku did light calisthenics for health, but if he increased the length of the routine, and added some other useful stuff to it, he figured he could get stronger. If he was stronger he could block even more enemies and take even more damage before his friends got hurt.

  Pushups, pullups, crunches, crawls, carrying boxes back and forth… he worked himself to exhaustion on each exercise then lay on the deck, recovering, trying to ignore the tremor of worry that washed over him every time Karugo yelped.

  ——

  Hishano wasn’t tired.

  He’d slept two nights and an entire day, then taken a nap earlier that evening, and all of that had thrown off his sleeping rhythm. He’d kept himself busy enough all day to not think about the moltfryn attack too much, but there was so much that didn’t make sense.

  He’d healed his wounds, and that made sense; his wounds were greater this time, and even though most of them had healed immediately it made sense he’d have to rest afterward. What didn’t make sense was that Karugo’s wounds had healed as well, and Karugo had woken up a whole day earlier… Did Karugo have two powers? Or did everyone just heal faster out here?

  Of course, Hishano wasn’t complaining. He’d been able to survive a moltfryn attack that would have ripped a normal person in half several times, and in two days he’d been completely healed. Karugo had survived having several major bones broken (he’d been told). On Tandoku Island the occasional minor injuries could take up to a week to heal, and what the tentacled creature had done to them had been much worse than those.

  If Karugo had a minor healing power in addition to his fire power, then Hishano was happy for him. And if everyone healed faster out here, then that was even better, because there sure did seem to be a lot of danger.

  Hishano stepped carefully up the stairs, trying not to make any noise that would wake the others. Just because he couldn’t sleep didn’t mean others shouldn’t. The ambient sound of the sea made it easier for him to sneak around without bothering anyone else.

  Up top he could feel the gentle brush of a sea breeze and hear the splash of waves against the boat’s side; when they weren’t sailing Jack didn’t apply his water-repelling power to the ship and so they felt every little fluctuation of the sea.

  Voices. He could hear voices talking, almost lost against the background of natural sound.

  He walked toward them, no longer taking special precautions, but not announcing himself either.

  The voices belonged to Jack and Freddy. Why weren’t they in bed?

  “We did almost thirty miles south today, if the stars are accurate,” said Freddy. “And they always are. I don’t have the precise locations of all the island memorized, but we should be hitting Tarabrant pretty soon.”

  “Will they have somewhere we can sell the Timonite?”

  The Timonite? That was what the pirates had called the sacred crystals. Had they taken some? The Elders would be so disappointed when they got back…

  “The city’s two hundred thousand,” said Freddy.

  “Pretty good for an island out here. It might not fetch quite the price it would in a real city, but we should be able to get things started with this much money. Either hire people ourselves through my pirate contacts or get a contract with CliffHaulers.”

  “I still think we should’ve gone north to sell it directly to the Knyn,” said Freddy.

  “You’d trust a Knyn? Didn’t one put you in debtor’s prison?”

  “They know everything has a price. If we can get a precise enough contract, we should be able to keep them honest. Collect a percentage while they do all the work. Didn’t you say pirates and corporations would cheat the powerless any chance they got? If they find out about our status before we have cold hard cash and a personal bodyguard, then it’s back to chasing Evyleen for us.”

  Hishano didn’t understand everything they were saying, but it sounded as if they thought pirates were bad. Did that mean Jack and Freddy were bad, since they were pirates? He’d never met a bad person before and didn’t know what they looked like.

  Jack and Freddy had to be good, Hishano decided. They were helping to find the Adiamite crystal and save Tandoku Island. They’d even memorized the location to help with the return trip, even though they’d only promised to help them sail on the trip out.

  “What if we got stuck up there?” asked Jack. “You know it’s hard for me to stay so far north. Besides, we’ve chosen our route. Our guests might put up a fuss if we make a sudden reversal… especially if we have to cross more patches without winds.”

  “Those doormats?” said Freddy derisively. “They’re worse than I was — it’s not that they’re scared, but I don’t think it’ll even occur to them to stand up for themselves. And if they do, which is unlikely, why not toss them overboard and be done with it?”

  Hishano was confused. A doormat was something you stepped on before entering a house. Why would they be called doormats? Were the pirates going to wipe dirt on them? Or was it because the pirates found them helpful? Doormats were very helpful. Or… no, the pirates were going to throw them overboard! Surely he’d misheard. Not even Karugo, wild as he was, would purposefully cause someone else harm.

  Then again, Karugo had looked pretty harmed earlier that day after training. Maybe throwing overboard was part of the weird school program Jack had created.

  “And lose the fire boy?” asked Jack.

  “Not him, of course,” said Freddy. “The Mezazi will pay us well for such a discovery, especially if we can get him in fighting shape by the time we arrive. That money will tide us over until we can harvest the rest of the Timonite crystals.”

  They still wanted to harvest the sacred crystals?

  “I may keep him,” mused Jack. “We’ll have plenty of gold, and he’s practically my pet by now.”

  “You like the kid.”

  “What of it?”r />
  “If you get soft, who’s going to teach me?”

  “Relax. We’re still going to sell that island, and I’ll still kill anyone who gets in the way.”

  Killing? Jack would kill a person? And whatever selling was, it didn’t sound good.

  Maybe what the Elders said was true. These outsiders were devils. If the wall fell, if the island was discovered, then others like them would come and do a bunch of mean things to people he cared about.

  Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Hishano hoped it was. He stepped boldly onto the main section of the deck. “What do you mean ‘sell the island’?” he asked the pirates. “Is that something that will hurt my people?”

  Freddy jumped up from where he was sitting, then looked behind him and saw Hishano. “Turn my back for a second…” he complained.

  Jack got up and cracked his knuckles. “Should’ve stayed in bed, kid. You’re about to have a horrible accident.”

  21

  Pirates Gonna Pirate

  Hishano backed away from Jack and Freddy, nervously stepping farther away until he ran into a cabin wall. The two pirates posted on either side of him so he couldn’t run off.

  “Now, hold on a second,” said Freddy. “What if the crystals we sell aren’t enough to get set up? If you’re not going to sell the fire boy, then we should sell this one. His power is pretty rare. No telling what price a self-healer this good could fetch on the markets.”

  “What would they do with him?” asked Jack. “He’s dumb as a rock and about as useful as a punching bag. Too scared to even train with swords.”

  “Mining. Search and rescue. There’s all sorts of jobs that use his power but don’t require him to be violent.”

  “You’re probably right,” admitted Jack.

  “There’s other benefits too. His skin color would make it hard for him to run away, and then his super… if it is what I think it is, then he’s even more rare than we thought. He could fetch quite a fortune.”