The Larion Senators

by Rob Scott; Jay Gordon

  Is that what this is? Screwing? I’ve got to ride that old wagon? Demonpiss. He tried to step back, but found he couldn’t move of his own volition. Panic threatened to overtake him.

  ‘In here, sailor,’ the major called, and closed the door behind him.

  Redrick’s body ignored the cold and began to sweat. ‘Ma’am, I—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, shithead!’

  He didn’t understand her words, but her tone was clear enough. Redrick bit back a plea and stood quietly.

  Smiling, the woman peeled off a glove, revealing a horribly infected injury on the back of her hand. ‘Do you see this?’ she asked rhetorically.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Redrick said. ‘I think that Mr Spellver would be a better person to help you with an injur—’

  ‘Do you not understand shut the fuck up?’ the woman screamed at him, spittle flying from her mouth.

  Redrick cowered, and tried to explain, ‘I don’t speak that—’

  She punched him, and the words disappeared. This was truly unfathomable: Redrick had been at sea most of his life, and he had been punched more often than he cared to admit – but no one had ever hit him as hard as this little Malakasian woman. He gasped for breath as he staggered up from the corner and checked to be sure nothing was broken. He fought the rage warming in his chest.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Major Tavon said, again showing him her bloody wrist. ‘It stinks like a corpse.’

  This time the South Coaster didn’t say anything.

  ‘So I am going to make you a gift, a token of my goodwill.’ Her eyes flashed.

  Redrick felt something inside himself slacken. He was giving up hope. ‘Ma’am, I don’t need a gift, I—’

  Major Tavon laughed in his face and repeated, ‘And stupid, too. I knew it.’ She came a step closer and took him by the throat. ‘I’m not giving you a gift, you simpleton, I am making a gift of you. I need you dead.’

  An alarm blared inside Redrick’s mind, but he could do nothing to defend himself. The woman was a monster, most likely one of those summoned from other worlds by Prince Malagon himself. She was stronger than anyone he had ever known, and she stared not at him, but into him, until the shadows in Captain Harwick’s cabin swallowed them both.

  It took only a moment and it was over.

  Captain Blackford jumped when Redrick Shen kicked open the hatch to the aft cabins. The big Ronan was carrying something and Blackford shrieked like a frightened schoolgirl when he realised it was Major Tavon. The South Coaster crossed to the port gunwale and, with one muscular arm, tossed the body over the side. It bobbed about for a bit, the filthy remains of the black and gold uniform tunic puffing up with trapped air like a great demon jellyfish, then a wave broke over her and Major Tavon slid beneath the surface and was soon lost in the frigate’s wake.

  The soldiers and sailors on deck stood silent, expecting to be struck dead, simply for witnessing such an act. A few backed away, and one frightened corporal slipped through a forward hatch and shouted an unintelligible warning to the soldiers massed below. Then no one moved or spoke. The Bellan creaked and snapped in the wind as Redrick stalked back into Captain Harwick’s cabin.

  The hapless Captain Blackford nearly lost his breakfast when he heard the sailor’s voice echo from the companionway, calling, ‘Blackford!’

  ‘Oh goddamnit!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Gilmour pushed through the brush.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Steven said. ‘I had forgotten about these two.’ He was standing beside the partially decomposed, partially frozen remains of the two Seron warriors Mark had killed near the fjord early the previous Twinmoon. ‘Christ, they look like roadkill someone’s been keeping in the freezer.’

  Gilmour wrinkled his nose. ‘We should have burned the bodies.’

  ‘Come on; you’re not religious.’ Steven stepped around the corpses, careful not to come in contact with them.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose I am, but we should have burned them, anyway. This way, who knows what diseases they might be spreading?’

  ‘Don’t touch them,’ Steven warned, ‘they may still be moist inside and then we’ll have every hungry grettan in Falkan coming over for a midnight snack.’

  ‘I wonder why they haven’t been dragged off yet.’ Gilmour bent over the bodies, looking for evidence that they had already been nibbled by scavengers.

  ‘Nothing big enough down here to do it,’ Steven said. ‘When Mark killed them, it was still autumn; the grettans were in the mountains, except for the ones Prince Malagon sent south to find us. By the time the grettan packs came down to the Falkan plains, probably following the big herds, deer and elk, or whatever else you might have roaming around north of the border, these fellows were already frozen stiff.’

  No aroma.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Steven said, ‘and that’s also why we don’t want to disturb them. Anything fluid left inside those skin cases will stink to high heaven, and we’ll have all kinds of company in our little camp this evening.’

  ‘I get your point,’ Gilmour said, and crossed to the sailboat, which was also right where they had left it. He brushed a covering of fallen leaves off the bow and started to scoop more out from beneath the gunwales. There were a handful of empty beer cans inside as well; he tossed these into the brush beside the Seron corpses.

  ‘And now you’re a litterbug,’ Steven joked wryly. ‘Still, it looks seaworthy enough, doesn’t it?’ he added, peering at the hull. ‘It’s the sail I’m worried about. If we stowed it wet, it might have rotted a bit in the past Twinmoon.’

  ‘Let’s hope not.’ Gilmour grabbed hold of the transom and began pulling. The wooden hull had frozen to the ground in several places, but a mumbled incantation melted the ice and soon Mark’s little catboat was crunching and sliding over the smooth rocks and into the fjord, making Steven wince every time the hull grated over a stone.

  ‘We never thought about tar or patch lumber,’ he muttered. ‘What if the damned thing leaks?’

  ‘Then we will have a significantly more damp and chilly journey than we expected, I imagine.’

  They reached the water’s edge and Steven untied the bits of twine keeping the sail reefed and the dropped mast secure.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Gilmour asked. ‘We still have two days.’

  ‘We’re going to take her out, just to see if she’ll stay afloat.’

  ‘Ah, excellent idea,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait here. Enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Funny, but no.’

  Later, with the sailboat running west along the fjord, Steven fixed the main sheet, checked and re-checked the tiller, then moved forward on his hands and knees, inspecting every inch of the hull for cracks, leaks or patches of rot. Gilmour huddled in the stern, swaddled in his cloak, smoking, content to watch as the grey and black granite walls rolled by.

  ‘Tell me about the archipelago,’ Steven said at last. ‘Do we stand any chance at all of reaching Pellia intact?’

  ‘Of course we do,’ Gilmour said, ‘With a northern Twinmoon, the high tides will give us ample depth. The main route through the islands will be busy; a few days either side of this Twinmoon is the only time a heavy ship with a deep draft can reach Pellia, so there’ll be plenty of traffic, merchant and navy. The rest of the time merchants make the long and more dangerous journey from Westport or Port Denis – when there was a Port Denis – and Northport, the closest major shipping centre to the Malakasian capital. Lots of small vessels move in and out of the archipelago any time they choose, but I do mean small – a tall person who knows the channels could just about walk from Pellia to Gorsk when the tides are low. Getting a big ship through there is dangerous, but luckily we’re going at just the right time.’

  ‘Assuming Garec and Kellin manage to hire us a boat,’ Steven said, still on his knees.

  ‘If they didn’t, then as this little boat has almost no draft at all we’d sail through without a scrape.’

  ‘Sure, if we don’t freeze to de
ath or capsize on the way. Mark and I were in Estrad for the southern Twinmoon. It was our first day in Eldarn and I remember the winds vividly. If the northern Twinmoon is anything like that, I really don’t want to be out on the water in this bit of kindling.’

  ‘I do understand,’ Gilmour said, ‘but given the circumstances, we might not have a choice.’

  Steven sighed. ‘So what’s the main passage like?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that tricky,’ Gilmour said nonchalantly. ‘The only captains who lose their ships in the archipelago are those in a great hurry to reach Pellia. They spot what they believe to be a deep passage west and run aground a few avens later. It’s a maze of twists and turns in there, and many wrecks litter the shallows. There’s no place for them to sink, so they break apart, leaving bits jutting up above the water. It’s quite unnerving to see if you haven’t been through before. They look like skeletons, some wearing sheets, all crippled by the wind and the rocks.’

  A waft of pipe smoke drifted past Steven; it smelled sweet, familiar. Gilmour said, ‘A safe, deep-water channel runs northeast during this Twinmoon, and if you know it, or you have a good chart, you can make it through, but it feels wrong because you have to run far east before you turn southwest and run downwind into Pellia.’

  Steven watched the sail fill as they moved towards the next bend in the fjord’s serpentine passage. ‘If Mark left Orindale for Pellia, and with that wave he sent for us, we have to assume he did, but if he’s travelling in a heavy ship with a deep draft, he’ll have to take the long way through.’

  ‘The only way through.’ Gilmour punctuated this point with his pipe stem.

  ‘The only way for a deep-drafting ship, a frigate or maybe a galleon, certainly. But what if we did make the run up there in this thing, could we take a short-cut?’

  ‘In this? We could, but we’d never catch him. I can see where you’re going, but a frigate or a galleon, they’ve enough sail on them to capture a typhoon. They might be bigger and heavier, but they’re much too fast for us, even with our magic. We’d probably survive the crossing; I’m not worried about that. We have enough power between us to get there in one piece. But even conjuring up a Larion tailwind, we’d never overtake Mark.’

  Steven looked downcast. ‘I guess you’re right. And if we use magic, we’re just inviting him to crush us with another surprise from the bowels of that spell table. It was just a thought. I’d have liked to get there before he does.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Steven crept aft, careful not to rock them; he didn’t feel up to bailing icy seawater. ‘I’ll give Mark credit: he did a good job patching this tub together. There’s not a leak or a bit of rot that I can find, and the sheet seems to be in good shape.’

  ‘It’ll be a shame to abandon it out there.’

  Steven took a bit of the old cloth between his fingers. ‘So you think they’ll be there?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Ever the optimist, Gilmour. That’s a good trait.’

  ‘I try.’ Gilmour shifted the tiller and released the sheet, crying out, ‘Jibing.’

  ‘Ducking,’ Steven replied, suiting actions to words.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ Gilmour set a course for their camp, re-fixed the sail and re-lit his pipe.

  ‘Not a blessed thing,’ Steven replied, ‘unless you’ve got more than an unending supply of tobacco hidden in that cloak. Let’s hope Garec and Kellin hired a ship with a five-star galley. We’re going to need it.’

  The Gloriette pool tilted, righted itself and then tilted the opposite way. Mark hung on to the marble column, expecting the ground beside the rectangular coping to do the same. It didn’t. He listened to the water slam into the far end of the marble tub, then slosh right and bounce back out of the darkness. It went on that way for a while, as if someone had balanced the whole lot on a see-saw.

  The screaming started as a faint wail in the distance and rose in volume and intensity, then broke. Mark knew it was human; the high-pitched cry was interrupted only by frantic gulping for breath, then the scream modulated from a piercing shriek to a staccato of noisy panting shouts.

  Ah, welcome, Redrick. Nice to have you with us.

  The lights came up, dim at first and then bright enough to see the remains of the coral snake coiled in the mud, the rectangular pool, still sloshing back and forth, the marble columns, the coping and the arched bridge leading up the marshy slope to freedom. Distracted by the light and the brief opportunity to take everything in, Mark ignored the familiar voice; he even ignored the screaming.

  ‘Hello, jerkweed,’ he said to the snake, ‘how’s your head, still crushed?’

  The serpent sentry lifted what was left of its head and attempted to hiss at him. It was decomposing in the humidity. Mark kicked the rotting snake into the pool, though he knew the ghoulish creature would be back.

  Mark?

  He moved to the next column. The snake was swimming after him, though it was struggling; he had broken many of its bones. He listened out for anything approaching through the foliage, but all he could hear were the cries of another soul damned to Hell – what did he say, Roderick? Rhetoric? He tiptoed across the coping and dashed for the next column in line. The lights were still on, and the marble bridge was only three columns away. ‘Three left,’ he muttered, ‘and then I’m coming for you.’

  I’ve got you a present.

  He wiped sweat from his face and checked his snakebites. The one he could see, on his wrist, was oozing a thick, pasty substance. He squeezed at the inflamed area around the punctures and frowned when a tablespoon of milky foulness spilled over the back of his hand. It had the consistency of hardening glue and smelled of summer gangrene, but once rid of the tapioca pus, the punctures ran freely with blood, cleansing themselves. Though he couldn’t see as well, Mark endeavoured to repeat the procedure on his leg. He didn’t feel sick or woozy or about to puke, nor did he feel his temperature rising, although any change would have been difficult to sense in this swampy heat.

  Are you ignoring me?

  Yup.’

  But I’ve brought you something.

  ‘You mentioned that. It’s not a cheeseburger and a couple of cold beers, is it? Because that’s tops on my Christmas list these days. Otherwise, blow me.’

  I’ll show you.

  A black man, stripped to the waist and screaming in unholy terror, floated by in the pool. It sounded like all his nightmares were being realised, everything that had ever frightened him: the dark, the creature that haunted the woods outside town, the rainbow-coloured snake in the grass, it was all here. Mark had no idea if their new resident was seeing and feeling the same things, but he didn’t doubt that whatever held the sorry sod in its grip was unpleasant. He held fast to the third column from the bridge and watched the newcomer slip into the darkness of the other place. It was worse in there, like being trapped inside a stone.

  So what do you think?

  ‘I think you’re a sick bastard,’ he said, checking the brush in hopes of catching sight of whatever might be waiting for him. ‘What did that guy ever do to you? Did he bang your wife? Steal your lunch money? What?’

  I told you, Mark. He’s a present.

  ‘What do I want with him?’

  Come on. I’ll show you.

  A feeling of mild vertigo set him spinning as Mark felt the cool marble become insubstantial and waxy. Worried he might get trapped by the wrists, he backed away, checking for the snake and feeling the world upend. He tumbled backwards into the damp mire, watching as the giant tumorous tadpoles swam hurriedly after the newcomer.

  ‘Christ Almighty, they’re going to eat him,’ he shouted, and tried to roll into the pool, hoping to grab a few of the tadpoles and toss them into the swamp, where maybe they’d be eaten. But before he could move, the lights came up, brilliant yellow, and the air cooled.

  He was lying on his bed. Steven was in the kitchen and the aroma of fresh coffee was snaking its way up the stairs. It was morning in th
e Rockies; the winter sun, unbearably bright at this time of day, had broken through the window to blind him. He revelled in the familiarity of things he knew by touch: the cool side of the pillow, the flannel blanket, the clean woollen socks, dry on his feet. Mark rolled over and pulled a bit of blanket between his knees; he didn’t know how anyone slept with their knees knocking together. Outside the wind brushed the ponderosas, singing a song unmistakable to anyone who had ever been in the mountains. There was no more perfect place on Earth than the Colorado hills.

  He tried to go back to sleep; his department chair could find someone to cover first period. What was it? The Stamp Act? Anyone could fake that – hell, the kids could read the chapter and talk about it on their own. No one would begrudge him a few extra minutes of sleep. Didn’t they know what he’d been through, following Steven Taylor on a doomed quest to save a foreign world? Didn’t that merit an extra two or three minutes of snooze?

  But there were things out of place, even in the shambled disarray of his bedroom. He knew when something wasn’t right. On the far wall, between the closet and his old poster of Roger Clemens, was a shelf. The clock, the paperbacks, the old baseball and the pocketknife all belonged up there, but that snake did not. It was slithering through the one-size-fits-all strap on the back of a Denver Broncos hat, its tiny orange rings matching the Bronco hue exactly. Its head had been crushed and its slippery skin was rotting away: it looked as though it had been run over by a car.

  And the green sweatshirt on the wall, that might have been there before; Mark had gone to college in Fort Collins, but this looked too large for him – and it had been shot full of arrows. He tried to think of anyone from Fort Collins who might have been shot to death by an archer. A voice, thick with beer and stupidity, clamoured in his head and then was gone. She’s the one with the nigger coach from Idaho Springs. Oh, yeah, I hear great things about him too. He was tough in his day.

  ‘Who said that?’ Mark sat up, wanting to be angry but still too groggy, a little behind the beat.

  I told you I had a present for you.

  ‘What? Do I get to stay here at home? Great, thank you. I’ll remember you on your next birthday – do you wear sweaters, or should I get you a DVD?’ He kicked back the covers, put his feet on the floor.