Beneath Ceaseless Skies #124

by Gemma Files

  When they were done, she sent Parry off with a serving-wench to pick and choose amongst her wide collection of fetish-objects for seeds to grow his own personal hex-bag from, then poured Rusk a shot of rum, lit it, and watched him sip it down, tenting her clawed fingers. “What-all you know of that man in there, Solomon Rusk, save for he make your trousers tight? That’s some trouble you done brung on, little half-me-blood; may have saved him the rope, sure, but I bet he ain’t thank you for it.”

  Rusk shrugged. “There you’d be wrong, big sis—for ‘tis my experience thus far Jerusalem Parry always recalls his courtesies, whether he means ‘em or no.”

  “Oh, eh? Well, he a pure devil in the makin’, set t’grow up tree-high once he come into his full power, no mistake—but better yet, he hate you bad, now an’ forever. You show him what him nah want t’know, an’ he don’t find you charmin’ for it.”

  “Ah, he’ll forgive me soon enough, once he finds there’s no other way; poor creature was raised Christian, after all.”

  “You think?”

  “‘Tis a certainty.”

  “Nah, I don’t believe ‘tis. ‘Cause that a man of pride you got yourself there, chuck—the sort holds grudges and plots on ‘em too, remorseless, no matter what the way him feel in your bed make you want t’believe.”

  “Let him plot! ‘Tis my ship we sail on, no way ‘round that.”

  “And what you think he care?” She gave a snap, contemptuous. “This much, like any other cunning-folk. ‘Sides which, ‘twasn’t always so. Was it?”

  True enough. So instead of bothering trying to deny it, Rusk merely demanded—”Tell me how best t’protect myself, then, witch. Or leave me t’my fate.”

  “Chain him up an’ sink him deep, that the best way. But you won’t do that.” Sighing, as he shook his head: “Well, then... give me that eye o’yours and I work me will on’t, rub it wi’ the blood we share on me mirror, an’ see what rise up in the reflection. For we do be the same line, after all, wi’ that one ancestress of yours puissant as any ten o’mine; should help, to a point.”

  Given how little its loss troubled him, these days, Rusk felt an almost foolish stab of surprise to hear her even mention the gewgaw’s mere existence. But he popped it free nonetheless, and handed it over—ivory inlaid with jet, the skull and crossed bones winking back up at him from his own salt-rough palm. “I’ll wait on the beach, shall I?”

  “As ya please,” Tante Ankolee replied, all blissful-unaware how she parroted the same man whose ill-wishes she sought to keep her roguish “little” half-brother safe from.

  Rusk lay on the sand, stretched out and warming himself, ‘til the sun dipped low enough to turn everything behind his lids deep red. At which point he heard crunching to his right hand and knew without even looking how Parry drew near, his booted steps sure and light as any other stalking thing.

  “She has your looks, on close examination,” Parry said, settling himself beside with arms wrapped ‘round his knees, “for which, one can only assume, she is hardly to be blamed.”

  “A misfortune most Rusks share,” the Captain agreed, still not opening his eyes. “Her dam and mine were bed-mates, of a sort, though seldom sharing the same one at the same time.”

  “Ah, so your father kept slaves; well, then. Perhaps that explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “How you have no qualm treating others thus, free or slave. But then again—if that was truly what you wanted, in my case, you would have done better to leave the collar on.”

  At this, Rusk did rise up, casting both his remaining eye and the empty socket a Frenchman’s sword had made of the other down Parry’s way. He saw the man’s fine, lean face even more set than usual, his shoulders stiff, ever-so-slightly a-tremble in the dimming light, and felt something soften in himself, if only for a moment.

  “Nay, Jerusha—much as I may covet t’see you on your knees, it’s little use you’d be t’me that way. And while I run no charity, to work a ship, any ship—pirate, Navy, the most mundane-lawful tub ever sailed—is indenture, as all aboard her know, with me no exception, my Captain’s colors aside. For so long as she’s mine to command I’m owned just as sure, by the Bitch of Hell herself.”

  For a moment, Parry had nothing to offer by way of reply—and indeed, that moment stretched on so long, Rusk almost thought he had made him understand.

  But then:

  “This is easily said,” Parry told him, coldly, making his own feet and meeting Rusk’s half-gaze straight-on. And turned a black-clad back on him, spine no longer anything but ramrod-straight.

  That night, when Tante Ankolee gave him back his eye, Rusk felt it sting slightly as it went in: her “protection”, no doubt, and just as well. For from what he could see, he would probably need it.

  * * *

  The bag Rusk’s cousin had helped him start grew apace, along with Parry’s powers, and he and the Captain settled into an uncomfortable sort of working partnership, accordingly. Since the wizard was learning on his feet, however, this arrangement did not come without dangers: when they ran into doldrums, Parry raised a wind to nudge them free that quick-swelled into a full-blown storm and almost swamped them, whilst a glamour meant to slip them close enough to a prize to board her unawares lit them up with ghostly flame, which had the exact opposite effect, drawing cannonballs like hail.

  Still, even Rusk had to own himself impressed when Parry split the ship they’d just been almost sunk by down its midsection like a hot knife with one wave and used the two halves to cobble a new hull from, shelling the Bitch in strange wood; the result dressed them permanently in false colors, making them seem no threat at all from a distance so they might make striking range at double-time, then run up the black flag.

  At the revels, after, Parry sat alone and un-drinking, on the very edge of the crowd. When Rusk passed him the rum he refused it: No surprise, there. “I seldom imbibe,” Parry told him, shortly.

  “‘Seldom’ still leaves me aught t’work with, ye realize.”

  Caught unawares, Parry had already half-started to laugh before he could quite stop himself but choked it off a second on, quick enough to rasp in the throat. “To proclaim oneself abstemious entire aboard a Navy vessel would have been foolish in the extreme,” he said, at last. “Assuming you care to know my logic, on the matter.”

  “Ah, it always does me good t’hear ye use such large words in casual conversation, my Jerusha; broadens the mind, it does, and lifts me own vocabulary likewise.” Thus rebuffed, Rusk drank the dram down himself, and sighed. “Still, I cannot but think from your manner that ye have not yet forgiven me my trespasses, as that Book you once studied says ye should. What say you?”

  “That you may count yourself entirely correct, in such a conclusion.”

  “A pity. I’ll leave you to your brooding, then, shall I?”

  “Please.”

  Rusk sketched him a bow, received a haughty nod in return, and withdrew some few paces, taking up a watchful position. When the fires burnt low enough, his crew began to pair off—some with native girls, some with each other—and he returned, softly, to where Parry now dozed on one hand, his grim head nodding. Then waited ‘til even a sharp clap next to one ear was no longer sufficient to rouse him and gathered him up, retiring to what he’d begun to think of as their cabin.

  Morning found them both stripped down and well-ensnared, with one of Parry’s fearsome cheekbones dug deep above where Rusk’s black heart beat strongest through the fur of his chest. As far as Rusk could tell, the delights of the night had been entirely mutual, in their moment—but by the time Parry’s eyes opened fully he was angry again, small hairs all over his body fair lifting with painful little blue-green sparks yet generally schooled to a cold stillness almost more frightening to witness than any full loss of control: as though he knew himself far too badly-enraged to give way to his passions, lest they stream from him so strongly they ripped the very ship ‘round he and Rusk to shreds.

/>   “I see you have broke your word to me, sir,” he managed, at last, teeth so hard-set Rusk could hear their grind in every syllable. Determined to stay unaffected, however, he merely yawned and stretched himself before inquiring, all lazy charm—

  “What word would that be, exactly?”

  “That you would trust I keep my oaths and let me do as I list, so long as I bend my skills to support your ventures. That you would not require—this of me, as a simple measure of respect.”

  “I required nothing: Showed my gratitude, only, for yesterday’s assistance. And from what-all I saw, ‘twas entirely your own idea t’accept the proof of it so... embracingly.”

  Parry bared his teeth, silver-penny gaze now gone truly dangerous. “I’m sure! Yet enlighten me, nevertheless: What was it failed to convince you I am no one to be thus trifled with, Solomon Rusk? Surely even a barbarian idiot like you must grasp that small fact about me, if nothing else—”

  “Aye, I grasp it, well enough!” Rusk snapped back, rolling them both in one quick twist, so he wound up once more most securely on top. Then added, right into Parry’s face, as the man all but bit at him like a trapped weasel: “Yet I can’t help but note, powerful as y’are, at no point in the preceding did I ever once see you try to stop me doin’ as I wished, not s’long as it was makin’ ye jump an’ sing! So don’t play the re-stitched virgin wi’ me, ‘sir’—’tis hardly my fault I choose not t’believe these lies ye tell yourself, ‘specially when I have such hard evidence t’the contrary—”

  —and here he reached down between them, taking hold of the “evidence” he referenced with force enough to make Parry start back, as if scalded. Which Rusk was later forced to admit might not, in fact, have been the best possible way to calm the man’s ruffled dignity, rather than rouse his ire to its furthest possible pitch—

  Still: “You will let me GO!” Jerusalem Parry roared at him, springing only momentarily naked from the bed, before a single gesture restored at least the illusion of clothing. “You will leave me be from now on, you bloody-handed bastard, or I will stave this Bitch of yours in and go down along with her, gladly—this I so swear, by every star above and demon below! Do you hear me, Captain?”

  His pale face bright-flushed as it’d been during his first fever, lips near shaking, clerk’s hands clawed like some fee-cheated Tortuga whore’s. And how Rusk found himself driven to outright laughter at the sight, guffaws ringing both long and loud, hilariously unimpressed—which again, in retrospect, might well have been a certain grade of error, on his part.

  “As ye say,” he replied, finally. “Or perhaps I’ll just wait ‘til you’re next in need of a good, long swive and see what happens then, shall I? When ye shut your eyes and lay back, waitin’ for me t’overbear ye—play devil t’your saint and give ye what ye really want, in a way that deeds me the lion’s share of guilt whilst you stay safely clean, my sweet Jerusha, at any cost: all high and mighty, with your vicar’s ways and your Hell-born powers. What a life it is ye’ve made for yourself, man... so sadly complicated, wi’ mine th’exact opposite! Yet if that’s what ye require, I s’pose, ‘tis the very least I can do...”

  Too much, too far; no time left for any sort of apology to mend the rift he’d just ripped wide with words between ‘em, even had Rusk thought to make one. In the sudden silence, Parry simply widened those eyes at him and vanished, winked out, so fast Rusk thought it unlikely he’d meant to, beforehand.

  Snorting at these dramatics, therefore, Rusk turned over into their shared warmth and drifted back asleep again, all blissfully unknowing of events to come, which he himself had already set in motion.

  * * *

  Things did not play themselves out immediately, in terms of Parry’s retribution for what he considered Rusk’s many insults—but then again, they almost never do. In Rusk’s sleep, the Bitch whispered warnings to its master that he did not care to hear and thus did not remember, upon waking; told him how he was trapped and where best to twist if he truly wished his freedom, only to find itself ignored. After which, having done all it could, it creaked a sad song to itself as it cut the water, knowing him fore-doomed.

  Far behind, Tante Ankolee felt the Bitch’s mournings nudge at the corner of her own dreams and stole a quick look through Rusk’s witched eye, shaking her head at what she glimpsed there: Jerusalem Parry, back always kept carefully turned to the man who still thought them lovers, his neat mind deep-engaged in plotting out the arcane mechanics of his revenge.

  Hearing Rusk’s voice in her own mind, bluff and hearty, so completely self-deluded: He’ll forgive me soon enough, once he finds there’s no other way. ‘Tis a certainty.

  And thinking, sadly, in her turn: But here’s ya worst mistake, little half-me-blood, for that man wasn’t never no true Christian, ta begin wi’. What he knows best he learnt nah from the books he study, Good or no, but at his own witch-dam’s knee, her he saw swung in the wind for wantin’ freedom ‘bove all from the same fat squire got ‘im on her, in the first place. Him in he fancy coat, who sign her death-warrant whilst drunk then don’t even stay ta see her neck snap.

  And would I help ya, I only could? For you yourself, brother mine—aye, mayhap. But then I think of my Maman, an’ yours. Of the man made us both, but let you run free soon’s ya told him that was ya will, an’ kept me chain at the neck to raise him other bastards, ‘til at last I make enough ta pay him for me freedom....

  Between Rusk’s narrowed lids, Tante Ankolee caught sight of Parry looking back over his shoulder, studying the small reflection that moved there with care. Felt Rusk notice and smile, all teeth, as though he truly believed such attentions meant for him—and he did, of course. Of course. Since Solomon Rusk, like every other man of his line, had lived his life thus far in a world where all things bent to his desires, eventually.

  Parry too, though—yes, even now, when he thought he’d been taught better. Which was, she supposed, just the sad damn pity of it.

  Whites like hissin’ roaches, spreadin’ out all ‘cross this world wi’ no regard for any dream but they own, an’ always thinkin’ they know best. Yet there be surprises ahead for both ya stubborn fools, in this bed ya make together.

  No help for it, on her end; those watery miles between would prevent any useful intervention even if she didn’t have other business, which she very much did. So she sighed and withdrew, leaving them to it.

  * * *

  Some days on—a period which had seen Jerusalem Parry shun Rusk’s company almost entirely, except where simple lack of space made that option an impossibility—Rusk noticed a new recruit, close-wrapped in layers of rags, whose looks disturbed him on some level far beyond mere instinct: Squat but hunched, his eight grey-skinned fingers webbed and nailless, pallid skin visibly touched with chill. He did his work clumsily, forever turning a too-thick neck to train first one wide-spaced, lidless-seeming flat black eye on the task to hand, then the other; even what little of the currently sinking sun was left appeared to pain him, making him bare a double-jawful of serrated teeth in an aggressive sort of wince, as though he wanted to take a bite out of it and bring on a far more comfortable flood of dark.

  “That man suits me ill,” Rusk told the bo’sun. “Who is he?”

  With a grimace of his own, equal-uncomfortable: “Mister... Dolomance, Master Parry says ‘is name is, Cap’n.”

  “And is Master Parry engaging hands, now? We will have words, he and I, once he sees fit t’re-evince himself. Where’s this troll of his hail from, exactly?”

  “Over the side, Cap’n.”

  Now it was Rusk’s turn to frown. “Off another ship, ye mean? That last prize? What was the name—”

  “Jocasta’s Sin, and nay, sir. ‘Twas up, he came, that one—from the water.”

  Spurred by angry surprise, Rusk turned back to the rough semblance of a man in question, barking: “Aye? And what gave ye the notion you were wanted, fish-belly, t’scale my ship’s sides without due invitation?” No reply; the man barely
seemed aware he was being spoke to, prompting Rusk to peer closer, checking whether his ears were over-muffled, slit—or even there, to begin with. “Are ye deaf?” he demanded, raising his voice, with no visible effect. “I am Captain, here: Answer, damn you!”

  But: “He cannot,” that same cold voice he’d so often hoped to hear told Rusk, from his elbow. “Nor would he if he could, seeing he works for me, not you—I, who made him thus.”

  Rusk looked down on Parry, eyebrows quirking. “Mute, you mean?”

  A small, grim smile. “Not as such. But then, his sort has very little use for speech, in the normal way; not here above the water, any road.”

  The “recruit” made a creaky, squeaky noise deep in his throat, straightening to the extent his bent spine would let him—half a squeal, half a snarl, and nothing near to human. And suddenly, Rusk knew this thing’s profile, its silhouette, glimpsed often enough before, under very different circumstances; bent ever-so-slightly out of skew through the ocean’s lens, and deformed by threat and motion. How that groove between its shoulders marked where its fin should arch, whilst those awful teeth would fit key-into-lock neat with almost any shipwreck survivor’s wound Rusk had ever seen treated, those men crazed from time adrift and torn everywhere that flesh had touched water, worn down to raw flesh and exposed bone by what less predatory sailors were wont to name the Wolves of the Sea.

  Parry crossed his arms and nodded, a satisfied schoolmaster. “Ah, I see you finally take my meaning, sir. Indeed, to quote you yourself, on another occasion—you may call him shark, Captain. With all creatures being his meat, that take his fancy.”