Calliope's Wings

by Guin Archer

  The wind whistled between breaks in the water and, in the distance, I could see scattered, bobbing lights. The lightning illuminated only vague images of poles and broad wood panels before my sight would diminish by a great degree and roiling waves would hide the horizon greedily.

  The next wave pounded my face hard enough to roll me back under. My back burned and felt like it was attached to anchors that were constantly pulling me down. I kept rolling chaotically for a short time before bobbing back up. Again and again I found myself bandied about like a mouse caught between two particularly evil house-cats. Every time I would gain my breath, it would be wrenched back away from me as the brutally cold sea attempted to make itself my grave.

  If it won, it’d be the quickest damned death I’d had between lives thus far.

  It was stubbornness that kept me returning for air. I screamed into the night when I could, though no one would hear me, I was sure. I inwardly cursed the God that had shunned me by not allowing the small miracle of letting me at least wake up as I always did, safely on the ground. I had become some great, cosmic joke.

  Another tumble underwater.

  The more of those I experienced, the more tired I grew. I knew it was only a matter of time before I couldn’t pull myself back up. Mother Nature against an insignificant human was beyond laughable. It would only take the one time for my body to break before my will did. And it would break.

  My next foray up, I imagined I saw a clipper ship. The sails were all drawn tightly shut in deference to the storm, but the windows pressed between ornately carved columns were lit brightly from within. It looked like a pirate-style ocean liner to my dazed mind.

  The deck, too, was packed with shouting orc-people I could ever so slightly hear over the relentless waves and screaming winds.

  I tried to maneuver and swim towards my pretty mirage-slash-delusion, but whatever was hooked to my back got pulled again. I scrabbled for my neck, desperate to release whatever cape or fabric had been attached to my bakal.

  My heart felt cleaved in two when I didn’t feel the telltale strands of my mating collar.

  It didn’t carry over with me in death.

  Another wave battered me, but it didn’t draw me down this time. It did, however, help me to roll and bring the rainbow mass of something closer. The gloom was horrible and the stinging rain hurt my eyes, but I could see that the glowing sheets were gargantuan. They powered out of the water time and again, returning with a loud ‘smack’. They almost seemed to move with every roll of my shoulders and turn of my back, but it was just too hard to see and concentrate.

  A voice – I think – roared above me. I had only a couple seconds to turn my head up and see bodies diving off over the railing for the watery grave I was currently struggling in before another wave hit me. Hard. What was even harder was rolling into the hull of a great ship and scraping my naked side along the barnacle-riddled bottom.

  Fucking ouch.

  I think I might have passed out a little bit. When my eyes blinked back open, I was underwater again, but there was an even darker mass wrapping around me. Cross-hatched fibers and string screamed net. Delirious humor bit at the lingering traces of my consciousness, thinking in my own private world that the fishermen were going to be mighty upset when they realized they caught little ole me and not a pretty mermaid or whole school of bluefin tuna.

  Did Intau even have tuna?

  My underwater world heaved dizzily around me as the net contracted and then wrenched in a direction I thought might’ve been up. That enormous weight on my back pinched inward and blessed heat came with it. The sea around me all but lit up revealing a goddamn croc-shark-squid only a couple feet beneath my compressed legs. My arms beat back the rainbow sheets in fright, disturbed when the masses dissolved where my hands touched them as though they were nothing more than smoke. They felt like silk.

  As the net drew me up to the surface, bodies latched onto the ropes like leeches. Bare, claw-tipped toes and long fingers gripped everywhere around me. I felt twinges of claustrophobia from the crush of their bodies while my body was trapped.

  Blessed air finally kissed me as my head broke free of the sea. I gasped so hard I saw stars.

  I also blacked out.

  I was rousing-to when the net was swung over the railing of the ship. It was lowered down much slower than I felt it had risen. The men – and there were a lot of them – were barking at each other in a vaguely familiar language. It sounded like the Tongue, but accented by one of Northlands’ dominant languages. It was some sort of jacked-up Spanglish of Intau. Tongish?

  Shut up, Io. You’re thinkin’ stupid now.

  I felt like I’d been in a one-two-punch knockout against Poseidon and came out the loser. My body was heavy and sore. My back felt like it was being pressed in, curving my ribcage and spine inward to mash against my sternum. I also felt weak as fuck, which was commonplace for me whenever I came back from the dead. The only thing I was fortunate to be free of was that awful gurgle of blood filling my windpipe.

  The rain was letting up, but the lightning was still striking fiercely. When it lit up the deck, I could see daggers being unsheathed from the looming Tauren that stepped off the net as I was laid out. Acid curdled in my stomach at the thought of being saved from a death in the sea to a death on the sea. Two totally different ends, but I think I liked the idea of drowning again over some Silence of the Lambs shit.

  Still, I was too weak to do anything to save my sorry ass.

  They didn’t attack me, though. Instead, they began hacking expertly through the ropes weaving tight around me. As soon as enough threads were broken, my body unfurled from its fetal-curl. The rainbow sheets snapped open audibly and then fluttered to the wood under my back. The air was so cold against my nude front, but I was a marionette with her strings cut. Just the thought of moving exhausted me.

  “Here, precious one,” a voice even deeper than Kor’s caressed me before a blanket or shroud was drawn over me. At the same time, weather-treated tarps or hides were held taut by dozens of hands over my body to keep off the rain.

  I blinked druggedly and rolled my head – it took everything I had to do it – to peer up at the male kneeling over me.

  Ah-ha. Hooo. Look! He’s albino!

  The big motherfucker leaning over my sprawled form was as white as snow. Everything about him was white except for his crimson-hued eyes. He mesmerized me with a single look and it took me a disparagingly long time to realize that his lack of pigment wasn’t the only thing that separated him from the rest of his race.

  The male had honest-to-god horns on his head. They jutted out from his temples to curl back like a ram’s against his pierced, pointed ears. They were as white as the rest of him, but studded with rubies or red glass wherever they presented with variating bumps. His double set of tusks, too, were decorated with the same red gem. They were also oversized, making me wonder how he could speak even the most basic of words without a lisp.

  He smiled at me, showing off said tusks. One of his hands came to rest gently on my scalp with his thumb bridging over my brow. I couldn’t believe it, but he was even bigger than Kor. Like, he had to have been a half-breed of some sort. I didn’t know of any other humanoid species on Intau other than the Tauren, but his daddy had to have been a giant. Literally and figuratively.

  “Yer last name Bunyan?” My query was slurred and in English, but he smiled anyway and petted my brow with the pad of his thumb.

  “You called quite the storm, sweet one. You must calm now so my ships might survive this lune.” His other hand came around and picked my nearest one up carefully. He stroked the back of that one, too, with his thumb. No man so big should have such a soft touch. It was weird and unsettling. “Breathe calmly. Yes, Innintani. Just so.”

  “Vorch, Her power…”

  “I am aware, Gul. Quiet your voice. It is distracting Her.” Even as he admonished the other orc-man, he maintained his careful petting of me and his charming smile. Did I
say charming? That was ridiculous! He had a jaw wide enough to land a plane on to support those ugly tusks of his…he had no right to have a charming smile. “Hush, my sweet. Breathe.”

  “I am your nothing,” I snapped back, irritated with his calm and prettiness and soothing, volcanic voice.

  He chuckled kindly at my waspish attitude.

  “Your Tongue is very good. You speak Burdah, too?” His thumb tapped lightly against my forehead. “You are very clever. Yes, You are. I can see the comprehension in Your enchanting eyes even as I speak to You now.”

  Oh yeah, he was definitely speaking a mix of the two languages. The Tongue wasn’t nearly so pretty and it took me more than a few seconds to sift through the sounds to get his meaning, but I understood him. Still, I was either going to respond fully in the Tongue or in Burdah. His way was just too janky. Burdah was easier on my throat, so I chose it.

  “Do not speak down to me, oaf. And do not touch me.”

  “Push me off if You do not welcome me, then, my sweet.” His insistence in calling me that dopey little pet name irked me. Lightning flared brightly, a bolt of it almost striking one of the masts. A couple of the males jolted.

  “Do not anger Her, Vorch!” The male closest to this ‘Vorch’ kicked his boot against the albino’s sodden, trou-covered thigh. “I do not wish to be turned to ash because you cannot mind your manners with the Innintani.”

  “You are not angry with me, are You?” His head tilted in mock curiosity, a crimson eye winking at me. The shit winked at me! Where’d he learn that human gesture? He lifted my limp hand to his forehead to nuzzle it along his hairless browbone. His absent-of-pupil gaze never left me. “You find me witty and handsome, do You not?”

  “You are lorun dung,” I returned flatly, my lips in a mutinous frown. This guy needled at me.

  He bellowed a laugh that shook the masts of the ship. It was a startling sound, but kinda nice despite its volume. Against my better judgement, I think I liked this wiseass.

  Maybe he could help me get back to my Horde?

  “Ah, You see? You are already happier in my presence.” He leaned over to peer up into the sky. The rain had all but stopped and the clouds were disappearing in an unnatural way. I craned my own neck way back to watch them. They swirled and danced before being sucked up into multiple, invisible vortexes. In the span of mere seconds, the storm that nearly killed me in the sea was totally gone.

  The other Tauren hurried to bundle up the tarp, but none walked away. They were all looking down at me.

  I was too fucking tired to care.

  “I am going to sleep now,” I told him simply. More like I was going to pass out whether I wanted to or not. My resurrection and the fight at sea ensured I wasn’t going to stay awake for much longer.

  Vorch’s smarmy grin turned as soft as dandelion fluff in an instant. He moved the hand he cradled to lay it over my stomach, then reached across me to bring my other one to match it. The one on my scalp never faltered and I admitted, if only to myself, that I liked it there.

  He pulled the blanket up to my chin.

  “You rest now, Innintani. I will take care of You.”

  “Hmmm,” I hummed in some form of agreement before allowing my eyes to close and sleep to claim me.

  In hindsight, I could be throwing my blind trust into this albino giant and his band of merry men – tee-hee – only to end up in the chains of slavery once more. What were the chances that I’d go from an Udon that welcomed me into its arms to yet another group with similar intentions? Not great, but my body wasn’t giving me any choice in the matter. It was going down and taking my consciousness with it.

  I’d learn soon enough if I was surrendering myself into the keeping of another Mathai and his ilk.

  If Karma wasn’t feeling like a total cunt, I might even wake up in a bed.

  Oh, what a wonderful dream that was.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The first thing I became aware of as I woke up from a dreamless slumber was the scent of salt and cedar. Also of a sage musk that permeated the velveteen pillows and sheets beneath me. I inhaled deeply, liking the scent even though it was so much different from the incense of my pillau.

  I groaned when I made to stretch and felt the same great weight of whatever was on my back last night lingering there. My ears perked at the snap and swoosh of air to either side of me, though the left was accompanied by a dull thud and an odd sense of pressure to…

  Did I grow another pair of arms?

  Blinking tiredly, I lifted my head from the pillow and supported myself on my elbows. It was a lot harder to manage that position with my back being pushed down. Maybe I broke or fractured something in my fall into the water?

  But no. It wasn’t nearly that simple.

  My mind blanked and I could all but smell the cylinders frying in my head as I watched my wings stiffen in the exact same way the rest of me did.

  The things were beautiful beyond compare. Easily nine feet from shoulder – where they felt like they were coming from – to wingtip. They were shaped like what I imagined an angel’s wings were, only they were diaphanous instead of solid. Where feathers should have been, they were wispy streamers of iridescent mist. Though they sported every shade of the rainbow, the colors didn’t remain in one place. They shifted and moved with every twitch of them. It was like watching a kaleidoscope in action. They were…dazzling.

  “They look radiant spread as You have them, my sweet.”

  I yelped loudly and ricocheted back into the wall. My left wing crumpled under my weight, but then dripped out and down until it could reshape out along my side. It had substance and form, but it wasn’t contained to one shape.

  Good to know.

  Vorch was sitting on a plush, gilded chair behind an equally ornate desk set to the other side of the room. He had a quill in one hand, hovering idly over parchment, while the other was fisted and supporting his big skull. He was smiling at me again in that devil-may-care way of his.

  When I realized my nudity, I snapped my knees up to my chest to hide at least a little of my breasts from sight.

  The asshole only grinned wider.

  “There is no need to be shy on my account, sweet Innintani.”

  “My name, Vorch, is Calliope. Now that you know it, you will call me by it. No more of this ‘sweet’ and ‘my’.”

  He chuckled at me, set his quill down, and stood to his feet. Instinctively, I shrunk further back into the wall. I didn’t know him from Adam and I wasn’t trusting his towering ass.

  His eyes creased sadly at my defensive action before he turned the charm back on. He adjusted his outfit, smoothing out the leather of his embellished vest, before tromping my way.

  Unbidden, my eyes raked over him. He was dressed more like a dandy than a barbarian. He had on well-fitted trou and black boots with golden studs. His vest was a mixture of grey, black, and burgundy and exposed most of his cut abdomen and pectorals between golden chains keeping the two sides from hanging loose. His bullring was golden, decorated with crimson studs. He had numerous gold piercings in his ears, his lips, and up the bridge of his fat nose. His white hair was bound back and shackled by more gold rings.

  He looked like an other-world pirate.

  Maybe he was.

  “Ah, but You are my sweet. I am claiming You for my own, little Innintani.”

  “I will not be your slave!”

  He laughed again. His mirth was beginning to piss me off.

  Vorch moved off to the side to access a chest of drawers seemingly built into the wall. All around it were shelves loaded down by tomes of leather-bound books, the lengths of which were cordoned off by blockading rope.

  When he closed the drawer, he had a bolt of cloth draped over his left arm. He turned back to me with a wide smile on his face.

  “Did I say anything about You being my slave? No, biis’a of mine, You are my mate. My brethren call them Pasha.”

  “I am Pasha to another,” I sneered up at him
as he came closer to the big, curtained bed.

  Vorch nodded his head once.

  “This I know. Even on Drydan’s Sea we hear from port and other ships of the slaying of the Udon’s Taytani. You can be no other than She.”

  Okay, that put my hackles up even more than him getting so close to me.

  “She is dead. Why would you think I am Her?”

  “You have finished Your transition, precious Innintani.” He purposely shifted his head from side to side as he surveyed my wings. His feet turned a little, shifting like he was preparing to run or dodge. His eyes narrowed when the glow from the wings intensified and their wispiness became visibly more solid. “You have matured. You are now as the One meant You to be. This is accomplished through death and awakening until You are in Your true form.”

  “True form?!” My voice was a screech. Heat throbbed under my skin and my wings thrashed. The gilded, ornamental columns of the bed cracked and shattered as the previously insubstantial extremities struck them. The entire boat heaved as a wave struck its side.

  I crashed off the bed in a heap. My face smacked the floor, momentarily dazing me.

  “Be calm, biis’a! Ekt!” Vorch had been knocked backwards over his writing desk, the bric-a-brac on its surface scattering around his heaped body from his stumble over it. He shook his head quickly, pressing a hand against the back of his scalp so he could rub it. His lips were frowning deeply when he looked at me over the desk’s surface. “Your emotions have a direct and often violent impact on the elements. You must not allow yourself to feel too deeply.”

  “Fuck you,” I growled in English, trying to come up to my feet shakily and failing miserably.

  For the first time as I looked down at them, I realized I’d changed in more ways that just one. My wings weren’t my only addition. I had feet like them with upraised heels and long soles. I still had the same number of fingers and toes as I did when I last died, but I now had dainty claws. Licking around my teeth, I could feel the minuscule jut of tusks on my lower jaw.