The Titan's Tome (The Mortal Balance Book 1)

by M. B. Schroeder

  “When you say, ‘not native to this plane’ and hiding with the Red Skulls?” Madger left the question open, hoping Seal would offer an explanation.

  “You’re right,” Seal said, still stretching her wings, first one, then the other. The bronze feathers caught the sunlight and shimmered with natural oils. “But first, I’ll get us some supplies, then I’ll tell you what you need to know. Better to have drinks and a meal for it.”

  Kharick nodded. “All right, lass. We’ll wait here.” As odd as this creature was, the woman was offering to help them.

  Madger glanced between Seal and Kharick. “Until morning. If you aren’t back by then, we’ll have to go find water for ourselves.”

  “Agreed.” Seal took two quick steps and launched herself into the air, her wings catching and beating heavily to lift her away.

  Madger blinked in the sunlight as she watched Seal gain altitude and lost sight of the woman. “Earth’s bones,” she cursed.

  The rest of the day, Madger and Kharick dozed periodically. At one point, Madger questioned Kharick about where they should go next.

  “I do no know, lass. Seal be our best chance out of the desert seems.”

  “After that?”

  “After that,” Kharick mulled the question, his mouth working as though rolling it around on his tongue. “After that, we need to be finding a way to survive in the world.”

  “Not as slaves,” Madger said firmly.

  Kharick chuckled. “Aye, not as slaves.”

  It was dark when the sands were disturbed by an approaching horse. Madger nudged at Kharick to wake him and then peaked around the corner of the blanket. Seal’s white hair marked her as she rode toward their camp. Several large skins of water bounced against the sides of the horse as she trotted down to the shelter.

  “Red Skulls are good for something,” Seal chortled as she slid down from her mount.

  “You stole all this from them?” Kharick asked as he examined the multiple water pouches and sacks of food.

  “Aye, I did,” Seal answered in an imitation of his dwarvish accent. She smiled and tossed a fruit to Madger. “Watermelon. I figured they wouldn’t eat some of this before it spoiled.”

  Madger tried to bite at the fruit, but the skin was tough and bitter. “Ugh.”

  “Break it open,” Seal instructed in an amused tone.

  Madger easily cracked the melon open with her thumbs, the sweet smell of its flesh burst into the air and she eagerly tasted it. She groaned in delight, as her eyes rolled skywards.

  Seal handed Kharick a peach with a mischievous grin. “I hear dwarves like fuzzy things.”

  Kharick chuckled, “Oh, aye.” He waggled his thick eyebrows at her.

  “Now we can sit and talk.”

  The three settled under the shelter, the moon and stars reflected off the ocean, providing enough light for them to easily see each other.

  Madger licked at her fingers and tried to clean the juice from her chin. “Where’s the closest drinkable water?”

  “If we continue north, there’s an oasis a few days travel inland. It's small, so large caravans and armies like the Red Skulls don’t usually use it. The tribe that claims it sells their water to passing merchants, travelers, and nomads. Their prices are steep, but I can get us enough to refill our skins,” Seal said.

  “And after that? You know watering holes to stop at as we go north?” Kharick asked. He went back to gnawing the flesh off of the peach pit as he waited for Seal’s answer. The juices made his beard sticky.

  “I know all the watering holes we’ll need.”

  “Because you were with the Red Skulls for five years?” Madger asked.

  Seal nodded, but tilted her hand back and forth. “Give or take. But to be safe, I’ll pilfer a few maps.”

  “Hiding with them?”

  “Hiding… more like I needed a way to survive here. Mercenaries don’t ask a lot of questions so long as you do your job.” Seal paused and shook out her wings. “Well, you know what it’s like to be an odd race in the world of humans, elves, and dwarves. No offense,” she said to Kharick.

  He shrugged, it was true.

  “It’s easier if they think I’m a human.” She raised her eyebrows at them and gave them a pointed look. “Understand?”

  “Aye, lass,” Kharick agreed. “We’ll keep your secret.”

  Madger nodded and asked, “The prophecy? Your grandson told you? Not native…”

  Seal laughed, “Infinite, this will take a while.” She took a long drink from the wineskin. “Ever heard of other planes? Limbo, the Hells, the Heavens?”

  “Aye,” Kharick answered. “My father told me stories of them. Some I believe, I’ve been to Log Port.”

  Madger leaned closer to Seal. “I read about them.” Her ancestral book, the Titan’s Tome, had the other planes in it. Was it all true? Life and Death’s swords, the Alisande and the NecroKwar? The challenges to find them? The undead realm for Death’s and the Maze for Life’s.

  Seal nodded. “Kadmoni are native to Limbo. My grandson, Sul, gave me a prophecy, ‘Follow a giant of a mage to find my broken half.’ I don’t know what my broken half is, but the Seers are never wrong. Just damned confusing. There’ve been prophecies ranging from a tear in the backside of the Matriarch’s robes, to ones about wars nearly wiping out whole peoples.” She swallowed, not willing to tell them that both species of people native to Limbo had practically become extinct. “So I don’t know if this is terribly important.”

  Kharick glanced at Madger with a teasing glint in his eye. “Ever think there’d be a prophecy about you, lass?”

  Madger dumbly shook her head. She hoped Seal was wrong, that there was someone else she was supposed to follow. Maybe the other mage she mentioned. “You said you knew another mage?”

  Seal scowled. “No one you want to know.”

  “Maybe you should be following him.”

  “I’ll take my chances with you.”

  Madger sighed. “I’m not much of a mage. Could he teach me? I don’t know a lot of spells.”

  Seal gained a surprisingly dark look of hatred. “Could he? Probably.” She took a deep breath, and the hatred passed. “You’d do better with books until you find someone who is willing to teach you. You can learn a lot of things from books. Some of the best libraries are in the free-state Fenex.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Northern continent, lass.”

  Chapter 15

  310 Br.

  “A sight of blue and black

  A sign of demon snack

  If you see the two

  They’ll away with you

  Never to come back.”

  “To doors at evening, to doors at dawn

  When claws are cleaving, there be no balm

  Shut ye windows, bar ye gates

  From dusk to dawn, the demons wait.”

  -Children’s Rhymes from trade city of Log Port

  T he ship rocked and creaked softly as it sailed over the gentle waves of the ocean. Morkleb naturally swayed with it, in tune with the vessel and the ocean. He’d been born on the ship, Nightbane, and its captain was his mother, Noorusa. The icren were a seafaring species, with bat-like features, who often lived their entire lives on family-run ships. A fitted sharkskin vest covered his slick black fur and his dark, leathery wings folded over his shoulders like a cloak. A slim silver chain looped on his large, dished right ear, his family’s ship chain. When he gained rank, he could put a stud in it, and if he eventually became captain, a hoop. Some family’s had so many ships, their ear would hang down with the weight of the little chains. One day, he’d loop a chain on his left ear, for his wife, and add a chain to that for each child. But he was young for marriage, barely considered an adult, just fifteen years old.

  Morkleb inspected the small hole in the hull of the Nightbane, it was as large as his fist. The puncture was well above the waterline, but he still had to go down into the hold to repair it. They’d attacked and captu
red a slave ship a day ago, and his father, Relen, the first mate of Nightbane was now captaining the sour-smelling ship with the freed slaves. Relen and a small crew were sailing behind them, heading to port.

  When they’d pulled the grapple and harpoon lines in, the hulls had clashed. The Nightbane, an icren built ship, had only suffered some weakened joints and a few broken boards, but the mainland built slave ship suffered multiple breaks. It was the only way to board the slave ship, and Captain Noorusa wouldn’t hear of sinking it with the slaves still on it. They’d release the poor wretches with some coin from the sale of the slave vessel before continuing to the northern continent.

  His mother hadn’t let him board the slave ship to help with the fighting. He wasn’t particularly good at fighting; his interests had always involved books. So he’d been ordered to stay back and tend the wounded, be prepared with water if a fire started, and have more arrows and harpoons ready.

  A sound carried to his wide ears that didn’t belong in the hold of the ship, a gasping whimper. Morkleb’s ears swiveled to it even before he turned to look. He lifted a lantern from the nearby gimbal and slid his wide bladed knife from the sheath on his thigh. His naked feet were silent as he edged his way between crates and sacks they were carrying to the north. He came around a stack of crates tied against the hull, and the light from the lantern fell on Jarah. An icren woman with coppery fur they had taken on while in their home port at one of the smaller Icren Isles a few months ago.

  Jarah had been a whore until one of the men had burned and slashed her face. He’d even cut off her left ear, leaving her with little more than a ridge of flesh to cover the ear cavity. She said it was because he was too drunk to perform. She’d healed, but on the left side of her muzzle her upper lip was permanently split open, and fire-scarred skin pulled down the corner of her left eye. No man would hire her anymore and the brothel she had worked at kicked her out. Captain Noorusa had a soft heart for sad stories.

  Morkleb sheathed his knife. “Jarah, what are you doing down here?”

  She gave him an embarrassed grin, it made the gap in her lip widen and pulled the skin below her eye lower. “Having a cry.”

  “Oh.” He pulled the flask of watered wine from his belt and handed it to her as he sat next to her.

  “Thanks.” She took a long draw from the flagon and handed it back to him. “I didn’t mean to bother you.” She uncorked a jug of stronger alcohol, the scent made Morkleb’s nose twitch. She took a drink from it and offered it to him.

  “You’re not.” He gagged on the alcohol and passed it back. He realized she was well past drunk.

  “I just… I used to be pretty, you know?”

  Morkleb nodded. The right side of her face was still pretty, but he was seated on her left. He did his best not to look at the ruinous skin. Sometimes she couldn’t help the spittle that flecked from the cleft in the side of her mouth.

  “And I was good at what I did.” She sighed. “At least it was easier than this.”

  “Whoring was easier than cooking and washing laundry?”

  Jarah giggled, a surprisingly girlish sound for her experience; she was only a few years older than him. “Much easier,” she said in a sultry tone as she reached between his legs.

  Morkleb jumped to his feet with a yelp.

  “I didn’t even grab hold!” Jarah protested.

  He didn’t answer her and ran from the hold.

  That evening, Morkleb sat in the captain’s cabin with his mother. The small windows were shuttered for the night, and a lamp swung peacefully from the ceiling casting shadows back and forth. The bed and chest were bolted to the floor and to the starboard side a desk was nailed to the hull. Another lighted lamp was in a gimbal above it, and his mother was looking over maps and invoices.

  He tried to find a delicate way of telling her why he hadn’t repaired the hole below. His mother didn’t seem impressed with his tale.

  “She wanted to fuck?” Captain Noorusa asked without looking up from her papers.

  “Seemed like it.”

  “Did you want to fuck?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “If your dick stands up like a mast, you want to fuck. Your father should have told you this.”

  Morkleb scowled, he didn’t need that bit of advice.

  “And if you both want to fuck, then fuck.” She shrugged and shook her head, the chains for her family, ship, husband, and child all jingled together. A ragged tear in her left ear from where she had torn out Morkleb’s sister’s chain had never sealed. His sister had died guarding the portal to the Hells on the island of the dormant volcano.

  He didn’t recall much of his sister, just her dark eyes, and the way she’d walked, always tall with a stiff spine. He’d just learned how to say her name when she was killed. The memory of the night they’d burned his sister’s body was little more than a short image of her funeral pyre and the sound of his mother’s keening. When his parents had ripped her chain from their ears, they’d thrown them onto the pyre. Their grief and the stories about the portal and the Hells, left him with a deep fear of the Hells and everything associated with it. Even now, just looking at the rip in his mother’s ear made him queasy.

  “And take care of the damn hole.” She scowled and looked over her shoulder at him. “The hole in the hull.”

  He gave her a suffering look from where he sat on the bed. He knew what she’d meant. “I just never—”

  Captain Noorusa scoffed, “Then she’s a good one to teach you how. Shit, learn how to properly make love for when you’re married.” She noticed Morkleb give a frown of thought. “And tell her she’s pretty; then she’ll really teach you something.”

  Morkleb’s ears sagged out to either side in embarrassment. “Yes, Captain.”

  The next day, Morkleb went back down to the hold to repair the hole. He stared at the wood and tools he had left from the day before. Had he actually ran from a woman offering sex? He huffed a sigh and set to the task at hand. He didn’t hear Jarah come up behind him as he hammered the wood over the hole.

  “Hey.”

  Morkleb yelped, for the second time in as many days, and dropped the hammer on his foot. “Shit!” He turned to her. “What?”

  Jarah tried to smother a snicker, but failed. “The captain said I should come down and help you.”

  Morkleb’s eyes went wide. “She did what?”

  Jarah advanced on him in the dark hold and leaned in close. She kept the pretty right side of her face turned to him, looking at him out the corner of her eye. “Do you?” She traced a finger down his chest. “Need help?” She hooked her finger in the waist of his breeches.

  “No.” The word was a squeak.

  Jarah leaned back with a frown, removing her finger from his pants. “So much for that coin.”

  “Coin?”

  “A little extra I could make on the side if I could give you some instruction.”

  Morkleb groaned, his ears drooped. “From my mother?”

  Jarah laughed. “Who else would pay for your education?”

  “Huh. I… Well, I… Just let me finish.” He picked up the hammer and pointed to a crate. “Have a seat.” Morkleb finished nailing the wood to the hull and began slathering it with tar. “Did you used to do this, before...?”

  “A few came to me for instruction.”

  Morkleb swallowed, and his large ears swiveled back and forth nervously. As his mother said, it’s just fucking. It didn’t matter so long as the woman took borren root to prevent pregnancy. It only became making love when the people were actually in love. Then it was something special, something to make babies.

  “Don’t be nervous. To lay with a woman is natural. Your body knows what to do. Don’t overthink it and get in the way.”

  “Right.” Morkleb finished with the repair and turned to Jarah. She was a well-shaped woman, nice curves, a smile that offered teasing if he focused on her right side. “You’re pretty.”

  She gave him a pit
ying smile and turned her head a little more to the left to hide her disfigurement. “Ready then?” When he nodded, she leaned in close again and started to open his vest. “I’ll go real slow.”

  ***

  For five months Jarah continued Morkleb’s education. His mother had stopped paying after the first two lessons. Morkleb paid from his own wages for the following three months. The past two months, Jarah hadn’t taken his money.

  It was the summer, the only season Captain Noorusa would sail to the northern reaches of the continent. She hated cold weather, and at the first hint of frost, she would turn Nightbane south. They were docked at Log Port, one of the most northern cities on the east coast, but also one of the richest. The nearby mines gave gems, gold, and silver, along with redwood trees that could be crafted into beautiful furnishings. The trees only grew in the vast forest west of the city, and were carefully conserved until mature. They would be cut down and floated down the river to the city, giving it its name.

  But it was also a cursed city. Before the sun set all the gates and the iron portcullis on the river would close. All doors would shut and windows were shuttered. Although they were tied at the docks, outside the city walls, Nightbane would close all her hatches and the crew would sleep below deck. The demons could only come out at night. It was said the stones of the portal still dripped mortal blood. The ward that saved the city wouldn’t allow a demon to escape its walls or breach a blocked opening. No demon claw could leave a scratch on a pane of glass or even brush aside a curtained doorway; nothing in the city could be damaged. But the rest of the night belonged to them, as did anyone caught outside. So long as the city lived in the daylight, the wards would hold.

  It was both a blessing and a curse that the portal had been made in the church dedicated to Thesda. No one knew how the demons had opened a portal on the sacred ground, but everyone knew and retold the story of how a young priest’s voice rang out with Thesda’s strength and warded the city.