The Forgetting Moon

by Brian Lee Durfee

  Lightning struck the surface of the sea above again. Soul-shattering sound flashed down through the blood and water, engulfing Nail and the mermaid in a flame of crimson light. Pockets of redness pulsed in waves around them whilst runnels of red seeped and flashed. It felt as if the ocean was slowly twisting over on itself. The bands of sparkling ruby light that streaked the water throbbed like veins along a monstrous scaly arm, in, out, in, out. Then the deepening red light was gone. Dark. The mermaid shrieked, her eerie voice muffled and ghostlike underwater.

  Another lightning blast. Light and sound blossomed brilliantly, illuminating everything under the sea in crystal-clear, bloody redness: the underside of the ship, sharks, mermaids, the grayken and its dangling tentacles, and most startling of all, symbols. Emblazoned like pockets of flame in every direction: squares, circles within circles, crosses, all twinkling like shooting stars. The glittering veins of light intensified into a flaming red, blooming and running like spiraling streams of flowing fire.

  Even the cross-shaped wound on the back of his hand was pulsing light and pain.

  The mermaid jerked violently in front of him, and the ocean seemed to spin inward on itself again. The gleaming ribbons of fire wrapped around them both, then faded to a dull red—then dwindled and washed away to nothing. The water was pitched in black.

  Nail could feel himself drowning. Eyes open, or closed, he knew not. But deep down somewhere below in the darkness, he saw something, hazy, fluttering in the water. It slowly solidified. He saw himself—standing under a large burning tree. There was a knight with glowing white shield and horned helm astride a brilliant white warhorse, a blond girl on the saddle before him, her hand a metal claw. And green glowing eyes!

  Something slammed into him then, hurtling him from the mermaid’s grasp and up through the water and to the surface. “There they are!” Nail heard Stefan yell.

  Nail took one blessed breath before a bloody swirl of churning water enveloped him again. When he floundered to the surface a second time, he realized Zane was there with him, eyes wide and rivulets of crimson water streaming from his sopping red hair down over his terrified features. They were face-to-face, Zane coughing, choking, spewing forth gouts of chunky water.

  The pale head of a shark broke the surface and eyed Nail from just beyond Zane. Nail found himself in the grip of utter terror. It screamed through his mind, drowning out any thought. Time seemed to freeze in that moment. His heart thundered. The sounds of Stefan’s yells were silenced. The clap of the water beating against the hull of the Lady Kindly ceased. Even the shrieks of the seabirds were gone. Nail couldn’t break his gaze from the milky dark eye of the great white killer before him. At that very moment, he would’ve given anything to be back home, safe in the mountains with Master Shawcroft, calmly panning for gold by a cool gurgling brook under the green pines and warm sun.

  A spear was thrust into the shark’s head, and it calmly dipped below the red skin of the sea. And like a burst of thunder, Nail was aware of someone shouting, yet it seemed so far away, and he felt firm hands grasping at his shirt. He was roughly hauled from the ocean and dashed into the bottom of Baron Bruk’s skiff with brutal force, instantly coughing out what scant air remained in his lungs.

  Soon, and with great effort by all the men in the skiff, Zane was pulled up and plopped on the deck next to Nail. Crystal-clear tears streaked Zane’s cheeks as he raked madly at the bloody seawater coating his face. One of the merfolk was attached to his leg. It was a small one—a baby, its arms around Zane’s calf, teeth buried in his leg just below the knee. Zane frantically batted it away. It flipped and flopped at the bottom of the skiff on its back, the gills on its neck splayed and heaving, mouth wide and round, spitting and screeching an ungodly racket. Its lips pulled back in a grimace and its gruesome teeth were exposed, gnashing. Little arms thrashed and tail slashed as Zane kicked wildly at it.

  “Get that gill-fucking creature outa here!” Baron Bruk roared. One of the rowers deftly scooped the wiggling little demon onto the flat of his oar and tossed it out to sea.

  “Bloody beasts of the underworld.” The baron knelt above Nail and Zane, eyes dispassionate and cold, the sky gray and rainy behind him. He seemed almost distracted, bored, as if his mind were on other things. “Back to it!” he yelled. “There’s work to be done!” Just like that, every man aboard the Lady Kindly sprang into action.

  Once rescued, Nail now felt the sodden blood-covered weariness of his own body. He also felt he had just been awakened from some long, bizarre dream. His eyes stung from the salty water still dripping from his matted hair. Pain clawed at his lungs. The taste of death clung to his tongue. And the eye of the shark, staring right through me mere moments ago. By the Blessed Mother Mia, the thing was a terror! And the merfolk! Demons all! His mind couldn’t shake the red-hazed horror of what he’d seen under the water. Visions! Symbols! He would not think of it. He would lock it away.

  The claw marks on his bicep were not deep at all, barely having broken the skin, but they were ragged and bleeding and stung something fierce. The leather-thong necklace Ava Shay had given him was still around his neck. He was dimly aware of the curious faces peering at him as the baron’s skiff cast free of the grayken.

  Zane remained curled at the bottom of the skiff, coughing, eyes on Nail. “I thought I’d never see my poor dog, Beer Mug, again.” He managed to do the three-fingered sign of the Laijon Cross over his breast. “Blessed Mother, have mercy upon my soul. Buried under all that red water like that, the only thing that crossed my mind was that if I died, my dog would surely miss me. As Laijon is my witness, I swear it, Nail.”

  Still trembling, Nail watched in a daze as Stefan, still on the grayken’s back, finished refastening the large hook that had struck Zane under the grayken’s fin. Soon all the men on the grayken began climbing up ropes to the deck of the Lady Kindly.

  The men handling the lines leading to the heavy hooks began to haul, the ship gradually began to right itself, and the grayken slowly spun in the water. There were now men standing on the wooden planks above the grayken. They carved at it with long scythes. As the grayken’s barrel-like body spun over in the water, they began peeling a layer of blubber away from the beast in a giant spiral. It reminded Nail of how Master Shawcroft would peel the skin from his apples with a hunting knife. The first strip of blubber fell to the deck and was chopped into strips and pieces by stout ax and sword and shoved down through the ship’s main hatchway. This process of heeling the ship and spinning the grayken and slicing rinds off its flesh was repeated for about an hour. Soon the deck of the Lady Kindly was awash with slaughter and huge chunks of flesh.

  The rain stopped. Nail and Zane were eventually put back aboard the Lady Kindly. Zane immediately sought the bishop and knelt before him. Tolbret laid his hands on the boy’s head and offered a brief blessing. Seeing what comfort the blessing had given Zane, Nail knelt too, but the bishop grunted, “No,” and ordered him to stand. Nail, hurt, wondered why the bishop had so coldly refused him. Tolbret bandaged the wound on his bicep, if a trifle reluctantly, then set him to work hauling strips of blubber to the hatchway. Zane helped too, but soon collapsed from exhaustion and was carried away to Jubal Bruk’s quarters. For the next few hours, caught in a dull haze, Nail hauled blubber. It was not soft and flabby as he had imagined, but rather tough as leather. The work wore his hands raw and left them stinging in pain.

  Once the grayken was stripped of its blubber, a giant saw was brought out and two men began sawing at the monster’s mammoth head. The beast’s head, a third the size of its entire body, was hoisted aboard the ship. It thudded to the deck amidst a great cheer. It was then harvested of its oil with shovels. Men began to shear strips of baleen from the roof of its mouth. Soon the deck ran slick with a mixture of ghastly white brain fluid and blood. The savagery in the looks of the blood-soaked sailors who hacked at the leviathan’s head gave Nail a fright.

  What remained of the corpse was turned loose from the s
hip. Despite having just been beheaded and stripped of its most valuable flesh, the grayken was still a colossal mound of ivory meat as it floated away. The frigid water soon became a boiling mass of swarming, feasting sharks. Even the seabirds swooped down and began pecking at it. Cries of the merfolk could be heard in the far distance, their shrieks harsh and shrill.

  “I’ve seen a man bitten in half by a shark.” As he spoke, Baron Bruk gazed out at the tranquil, dark sea moving calmly by, his fur-rimmed cloak thrown carelessly over his broad shoulders, snowflakes gathering upon it. Nail, Baron Bruk, and Jenko stood together under the mizzenmast whilst the rest of the crew partied on deck between the main mast and fore. The baron continued, “I witnessed the horror in that man’s eyes as the shark rose from the water to engulf him, teeth grinding up his body as the shark swallowed his legs down whole, teeth engulfing his chest, then, snap! Half of him was gone. And when I was a boy, I watched an enraged Dyrwood Rutherford wade out, waist deep, into Bainbridge Bay dressed in full armor, complete with helmet, greaves, chest plate, and sword, to do battle with a great white that had been wreaking havoc with his crab traps. He lasted, oh say, two minutes before the shark shot forth and swallowed him whole. Odd thing was, in the end, Dyrwood did kill that shark. Armor, as it turns out, is none too digestible. Six days later, we heard tell of a great white washed up in the shoals near Tomkin Sty. When the fishermen cut the beast open, imagine their surprise as a dead Dyrwood Rutherford spilled out in full armor, sword still in hand.”

  Baron Bruk turned his gaze from the frosty sea and looked at Nail. “What I’m getting at, boy, is that it was a damn fool thing diving in after Zane like that. Not only for the sharks, mind you. But especially for those merfolk in the water. Once they catch a grayken slayer, they’ll give him one grim, slow death.”

  Jenko added, “Lucky my father’s men disobeyed his orders and rescued you.”

  Nail shuddered at the thought of a suffocating death at the hands of the merfolk. He’d figured a tongue-lashing was coming when the baron pulled him aside after the deck was swept and swabbed. He didn’t want the baron’s son to hear the scolding, though. Nail stared out at the placid sea and drifting snowflakes, figuring if the baron was going to tell him he was not wanted on any other voyages, he would just remain quiet.

  The air was crisp. Luckily, he was wearing an extra pair of sailor breeches and shirt and jacket, clean and warm. His own clothes stank of blood and salt water. The pain from where the mermaid had clawed him was mostly gone. But as he stared at the ocean, the moon a shimmering gleam on the black of the Mourning Sea, he thought of the mermaid and the visions he’d seen. As the sullen waves splashed away from the hull of the ship in lines of glistening white foam, he imagined the ghostly horror of a mermaid was following him still, clinging, trying to pull him under, forcing his eyes open wide so that he had to see the glowing red symbols again.

  “I could legally have you flogged for disobeying my orders,” Baron Bruk said. “But if I have you flogged, I’d also have to flog the seven good men on my skiff who insisted on rescuing you.”

  Nail still stared out at the sea and growing snowstorm. As he listened to the baron, he could feel the anger building inside, throbbing like muffled drums in his head. He’d seen terrible things in the water.

  “The truth is, Zane Neville was standing in the wrong spot,” Baron Bruk said. “It was no accident that sent him spinning into the sea. If anyone is to be flogged, it is he.”

  The baron paused. “Look at me, boy,” he said curtly. Nail looked up, defiant. But he could feel himself growing more and more cautious, withdrawn.

  Baron Bruk continued, “Shawcroft doesn’t know you stowed aboard the Lady Kindly, does he?” A sudden pang of guilt touched Nail. He didn’t answer, just turned his gaze from the baron to the sea. It was true. He had not told Shawcroft his plans. It was an act of defiance. On the one hand, Nail feared how his master would react upon the Lady Kindly’s return. On the other, he didn’t really care. He had found a kind of peace with his decision. If Shawcroft wanted to spend an entire week in the gold mines alone, then Nail figured he himself could do as he pleased. He would get scolded either way.

  “Had you died today, boy, I would’ve had to answer to that man. Informing Shawcroft that his ward had perished under my command is not a thing I would take lightly. May the wraiths take me, but I know who Shawcroft is.”

  Who Shawcroft is? Shawcroft was, well, just Shawcroft. A mean, gold-digging fool. What could Baron Bruk know of Shawcroft? Nail took a deep breath and looked out to sea, composing himself. When he decided to turn and question the baron about Shawcroft, it was Jenko who caught his attention. Nail found, to his immense irritation, that the baron’s son was leering at him with an expression of complete insolence.

  “I know what Shawcroft is capable of.” The baron’s hard eyes softened, but only a little. “Truth be told, I approve your desire to find your own way in the world. Rooting around those dead gold mines is a waste of time. You already know that, don’t you?”

  Baron Bruk was looking straight at him now, eyes unwavering. “I may have need of a fourth harpooner, someone with a true set of balls, someone with balls enough to defy his addled, gold-digging master and go a-grayken hunting, someone with balls enough to jump into bloody, shark-infested water.” The baron took a step back and held out his hand toward Nail. “You are welcome on the Lady Kindly anytime she sails. Upon our return, I shall inform your master of my intentions for your employ.”

  Stunned, Nail knew not what to do. Had Baron Jubal Bruk just proffered a formal offer of employment? Am I now freed from Master Shawcroft? He looked from Jenko to Baron Bruk and back. Jenko looked like he’d just eaten something sour. And that sour look on Jenko’s face pleased Nail. So he reached forth and shook Baron Bruk’s hand.

  “It was a foolish thing diving in after Zane.” The baron shook Nail’s hand vigorously. “But a braver thing I have never seen.” As Baron Bruk grasped Nail’s hand, he looked at his son. “Jenko, my boy, you are stout and hardy and hardworking, but you need to show true bravery, bravery like Nail has shown us today.”

  Nail looked at the baron’s son. An angry, jealous glint formed in Jenko Bruk’s moody eyes before he whirled and stalked away.

  Later that night, Stefan Wayland snatched Nail away from his game of cards with Zane in the crew quarters and hauled him onto the snowy deck to the cheers of the rest of the crew. Once on deck, Stefan stripped Nail of his jacket and shirt, removed the bandage from his right arm, and brought forth the ink and tattoo needle. The ink, Stefan explained, was the best of its kind, made from the soot of grayken oil lanterns and mixed with Avlonia molasses. “No weak squid ink is ever used for a true grayken hunter’s tattoo,” he claimed. “Only pirates and outlaws use the cheap stuff.”

  When he was done, Nail couldn’t have been more pleased with the result. Stefan’s artwork, placed just above the mermaid’s claw marks on his bicep, was the perfectly fitting image for Nail’s maiden voyage. He was a full-fledged grayken slayer now.

  He had never felt more contented in his life.

  * * *

  The Five Isles are drenched in secret history, every castle smothered in intrigue and steeped in lore, and every carving on every standing-stone has roots in the past. Hence, that secret past survives, always clawing to the surface, breathing, growing, like a living thing, never resting, always clawing, clawing in the deep.

  —THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON

  * * *

  CHAPTER THREE

  NAIL

  15TH DAY OF THE SHROUDED MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON

  GALLOWS HAVEN, GUL KANA

  A rudimentary latticework of wooden flumes, ditching, damming, and aqueducts had diverted most of the water off to the side, leaving the streambed full of dry boulders for a lengthy stretch. With little enthusiasm, Nail unslung his satchel and tossed it to the ground near a mossy tree trunk. Shawcroft handed Nail the tools, a pickax, copper bowl, and a knife. Nail bemoaned
the fact that he was here again. Like the lines on the palms of his own hand, he knew every pond, creek, canyon, trail, and meadow in these peaks, panned for gold at every watery twist and turn. In all that time, they had found scant color, just a handful of nuggets and a cupful of gold dust—enough to eke out a meager living. But what was most bothersome—it had been days since the grayken hunt, and Baron Jubal Bruk had still not made the formal offer of transference to Shawcroft or officially offered Nail a place on the Lady Kindly.

  “Let’s get to it.” His master released the water through the sluice, shoveling sand and gravel along with it. The water rushed down the streambed, crashing against the dry boulders. Nail stood just as he was trained to, feet set, balanced, left one slightly in front of the right, shoulders straight, front knee bent at just the correct angle, and swung the pickax down with all his might. The pike sank deep into the ground, and then he raked back, loosening the soil and stones in the streambed. He did this three times in succession, the same each time, for he knew Shawcroft would make him do it over if it wasn’t done just right.

  Once the soil was loose, he set down the ax and filled the copper pan with heaps of sand, water, and rock. With little enthusiasm he shook the pan back and forth in his hands, allowing the slurry to spill over the sides, carrying with it silt and dust. Hold the pan and swirl just right or you’ll make him mad! He completed the sifting by halfheartedly blowing on what remained in the pan, causing it to dry some. It wasn’t long before his fingers were numb from working the cold water. Just like swinging a pick at the ground or in the dark mines. All your body weight into the blow. Crush that rock, Nail! Ever since he could remember. It was all so useless. He hated this dreadful work more each day. When will Baron Bruk come and save me from all this?