by Exley, A. W.
Fenton picked up Ailin and her arms looped around his neck. "Will he be back?"
"Undoubtedly, he had talked to Captain Wyman and knows we hold the fish, he just doesn't know where. We have created quite the puzzle for him and he is intent on solving it." Reis tucked the blue disc into his jacket. "We make for Lusions."
A cheer went up from the assembled crew, they would finally have time in a port to spend their gold, to have land under their feet, and a woman under their bodies.
Fenton held Ailin closer. Docking at the Isle of Illusions bought him time. Time to figure out how to free Ailin, even as the other part of his mind made a mental note of the supplies the ship would need to acquire. "I'll double check the hold and give you a list of what we need to restock."
Reis smiled. "Good. We need an intermediary to contact Darjee for us. We can't exactly sail up the Darjee channel, especially not with Shame snapping at our heels. Plus there is another matter I want to discuss with Nancy." Reis stared at Ailin for a moment longer, then he strode toward the helm, shouting orders. Men leapt to action, others watched Fenton, ensuring he didn't slip the mermaid back over the side.
Below deck, he placed Ailin on the floor with her back against the crate. He sat next to her, his long legs stretched out next to her luminescent tail. Their shoulders touched and the cool metal of the container behind him soothed the sweat itch on his back.
"Did he hurt you, the kraken?" He had to ask even though she appeared unharmed and much restored for her dip in the ocean.
The ends of her tail flicked back and forth and he had the impression it was the mermaid equivalent of wiggling your toes.
"No. He terrified me but he held the chain and did not approach."
"Good." He swallowed his relief.
"Timmy says you summon him." She peered sideways at him, her eyes wide as questions swirled in their azure depths.
"Yes. I control the beast and Reis controls me." A simplistic explanation, which should have an equally simple answer.
Her gaze never left his face. "His control is your prison."
He nodded and rested his head against the crate. His eyes dropped shut as he sorted through the furore in his mind. The burden he carried grew in weight as though it were no mere tattoo on his back, but the physical embodiment of the kraken pressing him down. One day it would smash him into the deck harder than a fall from the crow's nest.
"How?" she asked.
"The ore-mancers wanted to make sailors who couldn't drown. They tried mechanical gills but the switch could not mimic what your body does naturally. Some men drowned on dry land when it activated on its own, others fell overboard but couldn't get the gills to work." The older sailors told the stories of those poor unfortunates who ended their lives as failed experiments.
She picked up his hand and traced the suckers on a tentacle that wrapped around his wrist. "Perhaps man and ocean are not meant to merge?"
"Perhaps." He stared at their hands and the path of her finger. The light touch set his arm aflame and he breathed a sigh as she reached his bicep and stopped her exploration. "They thought to try a more natural solution, men bonded with shark or other fish species. I was not yet born when they joined me with the kraken."
She reached out and touched his neck. "But you do not have gills or tentacles?"
He took her hand in his and laced their fingers together. "No. They spliced our minds together but considered me a failure. I am no sea creature, but I have the ability to summon and control one. When Reis was in their hospital being fitted with his gauntlet, he saw me stumbling along a hallway. What pirate could resist the lure of having the kraken under his control?"
"The thing on his arm controls you? How?" She snuggled in closer against him.
"It is my invisible prison, binding me to this ship." And there was his simple solution, destroy the gauntlet and tear down his walls. But in doing that, he would destroy himself and there would be no separation between man and kraken. What would he become if the barrier came down and its dark shadow swallowed his soul? Would they be one hideous amalgam or would the massive kraken drown out anything that remained of Fenton?
He sighed. "Let's talk of something else."
She fell silent for a moment and then tugged on his hand. "The captain said the plate I found was a scale from the Curiosity. What is that?"
A smile pulled at his lips. "A story to tell children, although some swear it is true."
"Tell me." She leaned over and smiled up at him. "Words spoken have more heart than scratchings on a page." A gentle tease at his fascination with books.
"As my lady wishes." He knew the old story and how could he resist her request. At least he could give his words freely since he had nothing else to offer her. "Let us title our tale the Mystery of the Curiosity. It begins many years ago, fifty I believe, in Duo Uisage, the coastal province of Darjee….
A young ore-mancer fell in love with the daughter of a wealthy merchant. The affair continued for many months as their love grew, until one day, the mage worked up the courage to ask her parents for their permission to marry. Now people revere ore-mancers but they also fear them. No one understands the source of their power or the things they do to meld metal and flesh. The merchant did not want an ore-mancer as part of his respectable family. They rejected the young man and forbid their daughter from ever seeing him again. Then they sold their daughter in a commercial contract to the son of another merchant family.
The lovers were devastated, but undeterred. They vowed to be together and decided to flee to another province. One night, under the cover of dark, the young woman climbed from her window to join her love. But the fates intervened and she fell. She plunged to the cobbles below and broke her neck. By some small miracle, she continued to breath but could not move, paralysed from her neck down.
The merchant family cancelled the marriage contract, a paralysed woman was of no value to them. Her family turned their backs, they didn't want the expense of her care and so they sold her to the ore-mancers. Her flesh was to be enhanced by metal, for her to be transformed from a human to a product.
That day, the distraught lover started work at the wharf, constructing a vessel. Locals gathered to watch, never before had an ore-mancer worked outside of their high glass towers yet this one laboured at the dry-dock in full view. With no need for rivets or welding equipment, he bent sheets of metal and rods of steel as though they were silk in his hands. With the caress of his finger, he sealed seams perfectly.
Over the weeks, the vessel became known to all as The Curiosity. Never before had they seen anything like it. The interior layout baffled comprehension. Ducting, pipes and wire with no discernible purpose embraced the entire structure like veins and tendons through a body. Then the ore-mancer enclosed the entire sleek shape in a metal skin. Day after day, he laboured to graft metal scales to the exterior. The size of dinner plates, they glimmered the darkest shades of blue and green.
"Just like the one I found!" Ailin said.
Fenton raised her hand and kissed the back of her knuckles. "Yes, just like the one you found that has sparked Reis' interest."
"The ship had no mast or any visible form of propulsion and no open deck. Long and slender, it resembled a mermaid tail. Each day, the crowd grew, speculating about what lay within. Then one night at high tide, the Curiosity drifted down the slipway and vanished. She sank below the waves and has never been seen since.
The Lady Alise and the ore-mancer guild set a large reward on both the young man's head and on the capture of the Curiosity. Rumours flew that he stole secret equipment from the ore-mancer towers. That he constructed the vessel as an underwater laboratory. There is also another rumour - that he spirited on board the broken and discarded body of his lover so that they might be together, always."
They sat in silence for several minutes, their hands threaded until Ailin spoke.
"I like that. He built something special to honour her and so they could be together. I think it shows if
you love someone, there is always a way to be together."
He wanted to scoff but her words made something deep inside flare into life. Did love find a way? A curious notion, not that he had any experience of love. What woman could embrace the kraken that shadowed him? He turned to find her steady gaze on him and the small spark flared a little brighter. No woman, it whispered.
***
"Do you have a woman, Fenton? A mate waiting for you on land?" She had to ask, the question burned through her brain. Thoughts of him dominated her waking hours and crept into her dreams, lulled by the sound of his voice as he read poetry. When he picked her up and cradled her to his chest, she felt like the rarest treasure. The gentlest caress of his hand was like the brush of an anemone and raised a tingle along her skin. She could well imagine the care he would lavish on the female he selected.
"No." The sadness took up residence in his eyes. "I would not ask any woman to share my burden." He looked away and gazed out the port hole at the small sliver of ocean and sky that bobbed up and down in their view with the roll of the ship. "Do you have a mate, Ailin, is there someone scouring the ocean searching for you?"
Now she looked away. There was no one to truly mourn her loss. The children would have told the elders the ship took her, and they would know any search would be pointless. Captured mermaids never returned to the sea. She lived her life below the waves alone. "I have not been chosen."
A frown wrinkled his brow. "What do you mean, chosen?"
She stared at their hands. Such a simple act and yet she found such comfort in touching him. What would it be like if he removed his shirt and she pressed her breasts to the hard muscle of his torso? Her heart pounded at the thought. "Merfolk mate for life, our bodies and souls will only ever know one other. I never met a male who wanted to bind his life to mine."
"Then they are fools," he whispered, his head close to hers.
She stroked a hand down the side of his face and searched his grey eyes. She would know this man and the pain that lurked behind his gaze. He was unlike any other landwalker she had met. She pulled his head to hers and tasted his lips that spoke to her of the ocean. She sighed against him as she licked at the seam with her tongue, teasing, prying.
His arm snaked around her and he yielded to her play and pulled her into a deeper kiss. His firm lips took control as he plunged into her mouth and their tongues touched and explored each other. Fire awakened in Ailin for the first time and raced through her limbs. She gasped as desire stirred and stretched within. Just as she pressed against him for more, Fenton pulled back and his arms dropped to his side.
She released him and frowned. Such warmth beneath his skin but now he projected the cold of the Bantea Artic Ocean. "You do not like my kiss? Did I do it wrong?"
He held himself rigid at her side, his spine stiff but so close to her his breath danced over her face. His eyes became storm clouds hiding turbulent thoughts. "We cannot do this, we are not the same, you and I."
"Are we not both prisoners of the captain? Do we not both suffer aboard this ship?"
"You are a temptress who would wield her seductive powers over me." He looked away but his words were thick as though he held himself in check as he spoke.
She shook her head. "No. If I sought temporary amusement there are many feeble minds on this ship. But you are like a rock that cannot be influenced by the ebb and tide of shallow glamours. I have no desire or interest in those with weak minds. You, Fenton, pull at me like the deepest ocean. Like a calm harbour, you shelter me. Near you, I am safe." More words bubbled in her chest but she held them down. His touch awakened things she never thought to feel.
He huffed but still wouldn't meet her gaze. "You are right in that I am not like the others, but do not think to dally with me."
"I would know you," she whispered. "I would know what makes you furrow your brow in such a fashion. I would know what you seek to hide from me." She reached out for his hand but he snatched it away.
"You waste your time, there is nothing worth knowing here." He rose and stalked away.
Ailin slapped her tail to the floor. He was wrong. Mermaids were sirens but that didn't mean they were promiscuous. Seduction was a look, a tone of voice, or a gentle touch. Mermaids seduced to escape, not as a sport to amuse themselves. When she leaned over to kiss Fenton, she had no ideas of escape or seduction. An undercurrent pulled her to him and if either of them played the siren to spellbind the other, it was him. He dominated her thoughts and wove a net around her. Locked in her prison, she saw only his face in the dark, smelled only his scent around her and heard only his voice. She touched her lips, they still tingled from his kiss and part of her cried for more. A need emerged to feel his lips on other parts of her form while his hands unlocked the secrets of her kind.
He did not return that day and strange crew came and placed her back in the crate. Their hands strayed over her body as they exchanged lewd comments as though she were deaf and dumb to them. She tried to curl up into a ball, but she didn't have sufficient space.
That night, Ailin dreamed. For the first time, her mind soared free and cast off its imprisonment. She swum in the ocean, playing with another. Laughter bubbled in her chest as she darted among fish and flashed between outcrops. At first, the one who chased her was only a shadow, but the shadow formed into the creature who made her heart race and her flesh burn. Fenton.
Except he was different, not the landwalker. He came to her dream as a marine creature. He navigated her world, gave chase and caught her in a strong embrace. Their forms entwined as they danced to the tune of currents unseen by man.
Chapter Ten
That night, Fenton trod a near silent deck to the captain's large cabin at the rear. As usual, a few of the higher ranked crew gathered for dinner. Dining with Reis came with many benefits, including their meal served on metal plates instead of wooden and the bread was weevil free. Tonight, Reis held his own council over the meal while the other men talked. He had a way of looking at a man that said he was assessing your value, either as a worker in his hive or as live bait. Time and again, Fenton caught the captain watching his every move.
Did Reis know he kissed Ailin? That his body ached to satisfy a need he knew was impossible to quench? Would the captain laugh and make a joke about Fenton not being able to find a hole to pick his wick in the barrel?
He finally spoke over the cheese and brandy, his black gaze fixed on Fenton. "I want our fish to search for the Curiosity. It found one scale, who knows what else is down there."
He nearly choked on the mouthful of liquor in his mouth and swallowed it down with a gasp. "An impossible hunt, surely? Assuming the stories are even true, you want to find one small vessel in an enormous ocean? The odds of Ailin finding its hiding place are astronomical. You might as well wager on the Lady Alise sprouting a heart and a conscience." As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to call them back. Here was an opportunity for Ailin to swim free, for them to look for an escape route, and he tried to shut it down before they even heaved her over the side.
"Why settle for one fortune in gold when you can have two? We have nothing to lose by letting it search and everything to gain." Reis' fingertip stroked his goblet. Something still preyed on his mind, it showed in the carefully chosen words and the gaze drilling into his first mate. "But we need to make sure the kraken understands his assignment. I don't want him going rogue and letting go of the chain. I will retain the gold and Sunshine lounging in my cargo hold. I will not lose that fortune while seeking another."
Fenton stared at his drink and watched the heavy amber liquid catch the light. "The kraken follows your command, captain. Has he ever given you reason to doubt him?"
Truth was, it had run through his mind. All the kraken had to do was let go of the dainty chain and Ailin would be free. So easy and yet he didn't have the stomach to give the order. Reis' wrath would be lethal if he lost the mermaid. Did that prove his burgeoning desire for Ailin was the result of the siren's lur
e? Surely if he had genuine affection for her, he would stand against his captain's anger on her behalf? He took a long sip from his brandy and let the warmth spread through his gut and perhaps, in that amber liquid, he might also find a tiny fraction of courage.
***
Ailin's eternal darkness ended as Fenton opened her crate the next morning. His muttered good morning was perfunctory as he moved to flick across the covers on the portholes. A distance sprang between them since she kissed him. His gaze darted around the room and barely rested on her. He fidgeted like a child told to stay in one spot who immediately wants to wander off.
Ailin tracked his tall form as he paced, muscles bunched and released under the linen shirt as he swung his arms. "Will you tell me what troubles you or am I to play a game and guess?"
Fenton stopped and clasped his hands behind his back. "The captain wants you to find the Curiosity. The kraken is to swim with you while you search for it."
She laughed, his idea was fanciful, not to mention impossible. "The vessel from your tale? An entire ocean lays beneath this ship, does Captain Reis know the scope of what he asks?"
Fenton went back to fidgeting. "Yes, but he sees only the pile of gold. The scale you found makes him think the vessel has passed this way sometime recently. "
"Landwalkers are never satisfied with what they have." At least she could stretch and swim. The kinks would work loose from her body and the ocean would embrace her however brief her time below. Thought of the kraken no longer froze her blood with fear, it carried a tiny part of Fenton's mind. Terror was overridden by curiosity about the creature bound to him.
"We are not all obsessed with material things." He stared at her, his gaze so lost.
Her heart ached in her chest, if only he would confide in her, she was sure they could devise a plan to free both of them. Perhaps if she learned more about the kraken, she could help Fenton.
"When am I to begin this pointless search?" At least she wouldn't be alone in the sea. Perhaps while swimming with the kraken, she could imagine it was Fenton and not just controlled by him.