Forbidding war between gods didn't seem 'a bit extreme' to Malock, though he said aloud, “Is that all the Treaty said?”
“Oh, the Treaty says a lot more than that,” said the Loner God. “It divides us gods into northern and southern. My northern siblings—who you know as Kano, Tinkar, Grinf, and all the others—got the northern half of Martir, while we got the southern half. You mortals are not restricted to any one area of the planet; however, there is a reason why you mortals mostly live up north and why the southern seas have so many dangerous myths surrounding them.”
“So how many of those myths are true and how many are false?” Malock asked.
The Loner God either didn't hear him or, more likely, simply ignored him because he continued speaking. “We southern gods are not allowed to hunt mortals in the north. Any mortals that come south are fair game, but we are not allowed to hunt you mortals beyond the Dividing Line, the area that denotes where the north ends and where the south begins. I wish it were different, as this clause has severely limited mortal-hunting, but alas, it was written in stone by the Powers and therefore cannot be disobeyed.”
That must be why the southern gods haven't killed us all, Malock thought, more than a little bit relieved.
“There is a lot more to the Treaty, but I believe that that is all that is relevant to you and all that your puny mortal mind can understand anyway,” said the Loner God. “That is how things have stood for thousands of years. Very boring, wouldn't you say?”
Malock could sense the Loner God was almost finished telling his tale, so the prince said, “If you say so. But may I ask why you southern gods like to hunt mortals? That doesn't seem right to me.”
“Why do you mortals hunt animals less intelligent than you?” said the Loner God. “It's fun. And it is the way of nature. The powerful have the right to slaughter the weak. We are the powerful and you are the weak. Even an idiotic mortal like yourself should be able to grasp that simple concept. Plus, you mortals are just so tasty.”
Malock gulped. “But the northern gods don't hunt us. Clearly, it is not necessarily the way of nature.”
The Loner God laughed. “They still dominate you, don't they? My northern siblings love to pontificate about their greatness, but I know that they get as much of a thrill punishing you fools for disobeying or disrespecting them as we southern gods get whenever we're hunting you. You are nothing more than animals in our eyes.”
“I ...” Malock struggled to think of a response but could think of nothing. “Well, are you going to let me down now?”
“Why would I ever do that?” said the Loner God. “Weren't you listening? I know your language is awkward and clumsy, but I thought I made it clear that I am going to eat you. Telling you that story made me hungry again, so—”
“Wait!” said Malock, holding up a hand. “If you kill me, my men will come into the jungle after me and take you down. They're a group of professional god-killers who will do anything to save me, up to and including killing a god like yourself.”
The Loner God shook his head. “That's a nice lie, but very unconvincing. No such thing as a god-killer and your crew especially is so pathetic that I doubt they could even so much as scratch me. Besides, some of your men are already in the jungle searching for you even as we speak.”
Malock perked up at that. “They are?”
“Yes,” said the Loner God. “I've left them alone because they're not much of a threat, but I think, once I'm done with you, I'll eat them, too. It's been a long time since I last feasted on so many mortals. By the time I am done, I'll be the fullest I've been in five centuries. Who knows? Maybe I'll even feast on the rest of your crew, if I'm feeling up to it.”
The Loner God was licking his lips and the more he licked his lips the faster Malock's mind raced for a solution—any solution—to this predicament.
Then an idea came to mind and Malock said, “Oh, I wouldn't touch me if I were you, God of Solitude.”
“Oh, and why wouldn't I do that?” said the Loner God.
Malock cross his arms, trying to look as authoritative as possible, and said, “Because I am Prince Tojas Malock, son of King Halock and Queen Markinia, Crown Prince to the Throne of Carnag, Captain of the Iron Wind, and Chosen One of Kano.”
The Loner God's expression went from amused, if a bit hungry, to pale in less than a second. “What was that last one?”
“Chosen One of Kano,” said Malock. “Kano summoned me to World's End. I am under her complete and total protection, you know.”
The Loner God looked down at his feet, muttering quickly, “Can't believe I almost broke the Treaty ... came this close ... must be lying ... no, he's telling the truth all right ...”
“Excuse me,” said Malock, “but what are you muttering about?”
The Loner God looked up. For the first time, Malock saw fear in the god's eyes. “I can't kill you. Part of the Treaty, you understand.”
“No, I don't,” said Malock. “I mean, I don't want you to kill me, of course, but I don't understand what you mean about the Treaty.”
“It's my least favorite clause,” said the Loner God with a grunt. “See, we gods can place individual mortals under our protection. So long as you are under Kano's protection, then I can't kill you and neither can any other god, whether northern or southern. Even if you stumble into the domain of a southern god, we still can't touch you.”
“Oh,” said Malock. “Well, that sounds pretty good to me.”
“It does work out rather well for you mortals, doesn't it?” said the Loner God. “You smell like Kano. Thought at first it was just the sea, but I can smell her all over you like a blanket. You got lucky, mortal.”
Malock smirked. “So the high and mighty Loner God is stopped by a mere Treaty. Being a southern god must not be all its cracked up to be, eh?”
“Shut up,” the Loner God snapped. Then he paused, as if thinking, and said, “Interesting,” in a tone that Malock didn't like.
“What's interesting?” said Malock. “Me?”
“Not you,” the Loner God said. “I just did a quick sweep of the island and the seas around it and discovered that you aren't the only one under the protection of another god. Some members of your crew have that same protection.”
“What?” said Malock in surprise. “Who? Which gods? Why?”
“That's what I'm trying to figure out,” said the Loner God. “Why would my brothers and sisters place their agents on your ship without you knowing unless ... oh, I see. Politics as usual.”
“What does that mean?” said Malock.
The Loner God chuckled, like he was sharing a private in-joke. “Unlike we southern gods, the northern gods are prone to infighting and politics. I imagine they must have learned it from you mortals. Personally I tend to stay out of these conflicts, which is why I am going to spare you and the members of the rescue party that are currently in the jungle.”
“Wow,” said Malock. “But will you please tell me who is chosen and what gods chose them?”
“No,” said the Loner God. “That would help you and frankly I don't like helping mortals. I may not be able to kill you myself, but I can make your voyage that much more difficult for you. Besides, if I outed your fellow chosen ones, then my siblings would get angry at me and I'd get drawn into it. Already cutting it close by killing your men and attacking you, so I'm gonna give up while I'm ahead and let you go.”
The Loner God snapped his fingers and the vine began lowering itself. When Malock was a few feet above the ground, the vine let go of him and he landed on his feet, jolting his spine and making him curse the Powers again.
When Malock looked up, he saw that he stood in front of a pathway that he was sure hadn't been there before. And when he looked up at the trees, he could no longer see the Loner God.
“Take this path, Chosen One of Kano,” said the Loner God's voice, which seemed to come from everywhere at once. “If you follow it, you will eventually reunite with your party and find the beac
h. Then you may continue your quest, but if I were you, mortal, I would get onto your ship, head back north, and never look back. Mortals rarely prosper from the politics of the gods.”
Malock didn't respond. He simply began walking down the path, feeling more lost and confused than he had wandering around in the dark.
-
“Mal!” Vashnas called out, slashing through the thick underbrush of the jungle. “Tojas! Where are you?”
As Kinker ducked underneath the remains of a vine that Vashnas had chopped down, he wondered why she had allowed him, Bifor, and three other sailors (among them Magnisa, Gino, and Forl) to tag along at all. She could probably have stormed the island all by herself, found Malock, and returned to the ship just in time for dinner. Did she honestly think she needed backup or did she just let them tag along because she didn't want to waste time forcing them to stay on the ship?
Whatever the reason, Kinker was beginning to regret agreeing to go along. The underbrush was thick and his pants constantly snagged on bushes. His beard had little twigs and leaves stuck in it, which he did not even try to remove, knowing as he did the fruitlessness of that task. The air was hot and muggy, too, and more than once he had to slap an insect off his exposed neck.
Bifor was in the back, waving his wand and muttering incantations under his breath all the while. Exactly what he was doing, Kinker didn't know. Bifor had been acting that way as soon as they landed on the island's shore and when Kinker asked him what he was doing, the mage made an incoherent comment about the 'magic levels' of the jungle being 'off the charts.' It made no sense to Kinker, though he supposed that was because he was not trained in the magic arts.
So far, the trio had not found any sign of Malock or any of the sailors that had gone with him into the jungle. Of course, the jungle was very dark, even though it was the afternoon and the sun was out, but Kinker thought that at some point they would have to find pieces of clothing or discarded weapons or even bodies. He didn't see any wild animals; in fact, there were so few animals that he wondered if there was any life on this island at all, aside from the insects that kept trying to bite his neck.
That was when a drop of some kind of liquid fell on Kinker's nose. He blinked and wiped the liquid off his nose with his finger and looked at it closely. In the dark, it was impossible to tell what it was, so he licked it. It tasted like blood.
“Guys,” said Kinker, not daring to look up, knowing what he would see. “I think I've found a clue.”
Vashnas immediately stopped calling out Malock's name and turned to face Kinker, her face alight with eagerness. “What did you find?”
“Blood,” said Kinker. “A drop of it fell on my nose.”
“Blood?” Bifor said. “Fell from where?”
Kinker pointed up. “From the trees, presumably. That's all that's above us.”
Bifor spun his wand around twice and it suddenly flared, illuminating the area they were in quite well. He then raised his wand above their heads, allowing them to see what was in the trees. When they did, Kinker wished he had kept his mouth shut.
Wrapped tightly among the vines and branches of the trees were the sailors who had gone with Malock to search for Sumsa. They were nothing but bones now; in fact, the only reason Kinker recognized them was due to the bits of cloth hanging off their bodies, which looked like the sailor uniforms that the crew of the Iron Wind commonly wore. Little droplets of blood dripped from the ribcage of one unfortunate sailor, an aquarian by the look of it.
“Oh my god,” said Vashnas. “Do you think any of those are—”
“Vash?” said a familiar voice nearby. “Is that you?”
Bifor turned his wand in the direction of the voice, revealing Malock, who stood on a path several dozen yards away from them, a path that Kinker hadn't even noticed until Bifor's light showed it. For some reason, Malock didn't look surprised to see them.
Vashnas shoved her sword into Kinker's hands and ran at Malock. She scooped him up in a big hug, causing Malock to gasp for air, saying as she did so, “Oh, Mal, I thought ... for a moment I thought you were ... oh, I'm just so glad you're alive and well.”
“I won't be if you keep hugging me like this,” Malock said, his voice strained. “I'm happy to see you and all, Vash, but if you could let up just a little, then I could breathe again.”
Vashnas let go, looking sheepish, as Kinker, Bifor, and the others approached.
“We are pleased to see you are alive, Captain,” said Bifor, inclining his head in Malock's direction. “Please don't be angry with us. We know you told us to go home if you didn't return in six hours, but Vashnas here simply couldn't stand the idea of abandoning you, at least not without knowing if you were alive or not.”
Malock rubbed his back as he said, “Oh, it's not a problem. Really, I'm actually glad you disobeyed my orders for once. This was the one time where I really needed you guys to do that.”
“What happened?” said Kinker, glancing back at the skeletons of the sailors in the trees. “We found the rest of your team in the trees and we thought you were dead. Were you attacked by some animal?”
Malock looked at Kinker with an odd look in his eyes for a moment, almost as if he didn't trust Kinker, and said, “It's a long story. Did you say you found the rest of my team's bodies?”
“Yes,” said Vashnas. “They're little more than skeletons, their skin stripped off by ... well, we don't know what. We thought you'd know.”
Even by the dim light of Bifor's wand, Kinker could tell, based solely on Malock's expression, that the Captain knew exactly what had happened to his crew and he didn't want to talk about it.
“I've had a long day,” said Malock, running a hand through his hair. “A long, long day. We're going back to the Iron Wind and when we do, we're continuing our quest south.”
“But sir,” said Bifor. “We haven't picked any ikadori peaches yet. Shouldn't we fill at least a few crates full before we leave?”
Malock shook his head so rapidly that Kinker thought it might go flying off his shoulders. “No. We will make do with fish. So long as we still have the trawl, we'll be fine.”
His voice trembled as he said that and he looked around, as if afraid someone might be eavesdropping, listening to make sure that Malock was doing exactly what he should be doing and nothing more. It was a silly thought, so Kinker dismissed it.
“This path will take us directly back to the beach,” said Malock. “I'll lead the way. As soon we are safely back on the ship, we're heading south again. Got it?”
The trio nodded, but that did little to stifle Kinker's curiosity. What did Malock run into that made him seem so frightened? Why did he insist on them leaving before they picked even one ikadori fruit?
All of these questions and more filled Kinker's mind as he followed Malock, Vashnas, Bifor, and the others down the surprisingly flat path that led to the beach. He doubted Malock would answer them, however, because the prince's jaw was closed so tightly that it seemed unlikely to open ever again.
***
Chapter Six
When they returned to the Iron Wind, Malock wasn't even angry that they'd knocked out Banika in their attempt to rescue him. He just woke her up, gave her orders to get the ship ready to depart, and went to his stateroom with Vashnas by his side, without speaking a word to anyone else except Bifor. He asked the mage to heal a small wound on the back of his head, which Bifor succeeded in doing despite his lack of training in healing magic.
When the crew heard the order to weigh anchor already, there was quite a commotion. Many of the sailors wanted to go on land and pick ikadori peaches. A few of them even began muttering about mutiny, but when the members of the rescue party told everyone about the skeletons they saw, the sailors immediately began to weigh anchor, prepare the sails, and check the compass to make sure they were headed in the right direction.
Because of their speed and work ethic, the entire ship was ready to set sail within an hour and soon they were heading south once mor
e. Kinker watched the island slowly grow smaller the further they sailed away from it, he still wondering what had happened there and why Malock refused to talk about it.
Because Malock spent all of his time in his stateroom, the rest of the crew came to Kinker, Bifor, and the others for answers. Unfortunately, Kinker and the others were not able to provide much information, as Malock had said nothing to them about whatever had killed the others back on Ikadori Island. Kinker had no doubt that stories would soon begin circulating among the crew, though, because in his experience that was what sailors generally did when confronted with a lack of facts.
Though all of the sailors mourned the lack of ikadori peaches to some extent, the fishing crew seemed to complain about it more than anyone else. Perhaps that was because Kinker spent most of his time with the other fishermen, but he figured it was also because the fishing crew was in charge of providing food for the rest of the crew. Deddio expressed their collective disappointment by saying that they would have had to catch much less fish if they had gotten the peaches, like they had originally planned.
Nonetheless, things eventually returned to normal after a while. According to Vashnas, it would be quite sometime before they reached the next island, which made her unpopular with the rest of the crew for the next few days.
A day after they left Ikadori Island, the crew held a collective funeral for the sailors who died on the island. This surprised Kinker, as he had not thought the crew was close enough to do that. It was a highly informal funeral, however, in part because none of them were priests and in part because they did not have the bodies of the fallen sailors. That all of the dead sailors had all worshiped different deities made preparing funeral rites exceptionally difficult, so the funeral was kept short and generic. They tossed a few of the prized possessions of their fallen brethren, said a few prayers to help their spirits find solace in whatever afterlife they found themselves in, and then returned to work. Danaf almost broke down when he gave a eulogy for his brother, but aside from that, the rest of the crew seemed more concerned with their own wellbeing than in the deaths of five of their fellow sailors.
The Mad Voyage of Prince Malock Page 9