by Logan Jacobs
“There is one thing the orcs have proven to be good at, and that is minimizing their personal labor.” Jonas shrugged. “The orc king must have something going on in his nasty brain.”
“Speaking of him, do you happen to know which island is the orcs’?” I asked. “I want to go there when I’m ready to fuck his shit up, but I can’t figure out which one it is.”
“I don’t,” Jonas said as he pursed his lips. “But, when the time comes, you ask me for whatever help you feel you need, and I will do my best.”
“Of course.” I smiled at the old man, who had become like a father to me while I was on this island. It was kind of nice to have another guy to talk to, who wasn’t my son, since there were plenty of conversations that were still much too old for Arrick.
“What will you be doing today?” Jonas asked and changed the subject. “Building more huts? I saw the ones you and the ladies did yesterday. They looked wonderful.”
“No, today, Jemma and I are going into the jungle to find a better place to plant our gardens,” I replied. “You should have seen what they grew back on their island, Jonas. The moment they settled in one spot and could actually tend to the gardens, the food was so abundant.”
“That sounds lovely.” The old man smiled. “Those women seem like they would have a green thumb. Do you two mind if I join you? I could use an outing to my old home.”
“Of course.” I grinned. “You’d be a really helpful guide. I know in your culture, the elders leave so they are not a burden, but where I come from our elders are respected for their knowledge. You have a place by my side until your last days, Jonas.”
Jonas had spent years alone in the jungle as he lived off the land. He’d followed tradition and walked into the mess of trees and deadly creatures when he’d gotten too old to do the same things young men could do, but unlike the others before him, no creatures had eaten Jonas, and no plants had poisoned him. When my daughter Marella found him, Jonas had built a pretty sustainable life for himself.
“Then I will join you.” The man’s watery blue eyes sparkled with delight. “Thank you, Ben--or I will say Draco Rex, since you have earned that title hundreds of times since you came here to protect my kind.”
“Are you coming to the jungle, too?” Jemma chirped as she bounced into the kitchen. The auburn-haired woman was a ray of sunshine, as usual.
“Yes.” Jonas nodded. “I lived in the jungle for many years, until my granddaughter, Marella, came and found me.”
“You lived there?” Jemma gasped, and her chartreuse eyes popped wide open. “Ben has told us it is full of many terrifying creatures. How did you survive?”
“Magic,” Jonas replied with a tilt of his head. “And luck. But it is true, the jungle is filled with many monstrous creatures. They will leave you alone, though, if you leave them alone. And the ones that do not can be fought off, thanks to young Ben.”
“I am very impressed.” Jemma nodded seriously.
A few moments later, Jonas finished his tea, and Jemma and I packed a sackful of snacks and rations for the day, since we weren’t sure how long it would take.
“The best places for gardens are near water,” Jemma said as we walked out of the palace. “Do you know of any places like that, Jonas?”
“I do.” The old man nodded. “I think I may have just the spot you would like. I will take you there.”
We had barely gotten to the edge of the jungle, though, when Jemma stopped and looked up at the canopy with wide eyes.
“Jemma, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “I just want to take it all in. It looks very different from my old island but … still beautiful.”
That brought a smile to my face, and Jonas and I paused to let the auburn-haired deer woman stare at the jungle in wonder.
It really was a vast contrast to the forest she knew at home. The colors there were glorious, with the red barked trees and deep green leaves, but it looked like a redwood forest back on earth. Beautiful, but there was nothing very magical about it.
This jungle, though, was a completely different story. With its vibrant colors and singing birds, the place looked like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory but in plant form. I thought back to the first time I’d seen the jungle. Not the first time I’d been in it, because I’d been so worried about my daughter I’d hardly had a moment to take it in.
But the first time I’d really seen the bright yellow flowers, the blue vines, and the wide, green leaves that sparkled just slightly in the warm golden sun, I’d felt like I was at home. It looked like something straight out of a dream, and the explorer in me had done the happy dance. I knew Jemma had the same little explorer soul in her, and right about then, that part of her was jumping for joy as she craned her neck to stare up at the tops of the trees.
She slowly stepped forward, just to the edge of the jungle, and dipped her head to take a big whiff of a bright orange flower shaped like a rose, but was about ten inches in diameter.
I knew from experience those flower smelled like freshly baked blueberry muffins.
“Mmmm,” Jemma sighed as she sucked in the scent. Her bright eyes closed in appreciation, and she stood there in silence for a moment before they popped back open. “Okay, we may move forward now. I simply wanted to take it all in. I do not know when I will get to see a new place again.”
“You will get to see one whenever I do,” I told her with a grin.
“Thank you, Ben.” Jemma smiled.
We walked hand in hand into the jungle, and Jonas led the way. During the whole hike, Jemma’s eyes stayed as wide open as they possibly could. I wasn’t even sure the deer woman blinked once on the entire walk. She simply took in every single thing she could, from the pigeon like birds I loved to hunt, to the brightly colored blue jay like ones, to the many different types of jungle flowers that grew in the shade of the massive trees.
I kept my eyes out for any boars, or any of the jungle cats that like to sit up in the trees and leap down on unsuspecting visitors, only to try and rip their throats out. Of all the deer women, Jemma was the most fearless, next to Ainsley, but I knew even she would be freaked out by a surprise attack.
Finally, Jonas took a turn through a curtain of hanging blue vines, and then he stopped in front of a bright blue, flowing stream. The water was clear, and I could see a few areas close by that we could clear out to start a larger garden patch, but I let Jemma do her thing and decide if this was really the right place to grow anything.
“This stream is lovely.” The auburn haired woman grinned. “It reminds me of the one the tarrels frequent back home.”
“It does.” I grinned back at her.
Jemma walked around to the other side of the stream near the patches I’d already started to eye and bent down to feel the dirt. She closed her eyes and let some of the soft, brown earth run through her fingers for a moment.
Then she turned back to us.
“This is not the right place,” she sighed. “The earth is moist, but the nutrients have been taken from it. I believe these flowers must have extremely deep roots, and they have ruined the earth around them.”
Jemma pointed to a thorny bush full of purple flowers that dripped with moisture. I looked down to the earth around it, and I saw a few bumps in the dirt a little ways away from the bushes that looked like roots.
I knew the auburn haired deer woman was right, and I nodded.
“So, where do you think we should go?” I asked Jonas.
“I know of another stream,” he replied. “Those flowers do not grow near it, and it is nearer to the village. Will that work?”
“Perhaps.” Jemma nodded
“Then follow me,” the old man said before he led us down the mountain a little ways to flatter ground a bit closer to the village. The location was better considering the beasts that lurked in the jungle, although there was a little less space for the garden. If we wanted to expand, we’d have to cut down some of the flora that in
habited the area.
When Jonas stopped at the second stream, Jemma grinned the moment her fingers touched the soil.
“This will be the perfect place, Jonas,” she said. “The soil here is moist and rich with nutrients. We can grow a massive, healthy garden.”
“I am glad.” The old man smiled.
“Hey, Jemma, I want to show you something,” I said now that the garden plot location was taken care of. “Jonas, you can go back to the village if you’d like, unless you want to take a hike up to the very peak of the mountain? I don’t want to make you take the trek again, though, if you don’t want to.”
“I have not been up to the very top in years,” he replied with a wistful look. “I would love to see my world again.”
“Come on, then.” I grinned.
I mentally marked the place where we now planned to grow the garden, and then I made a quick plan of attack in my head as I led Jemma and Jonas back up the mountain and to the peak. We’d have to take a few days to clear out a large enough space and build some defenses around it to stave off any unwanted scavengers, but I knew we could have nice, healthy crops in just a few months.
“Thanks for coming,” I told the auburn-haired deer woman. “I probably would have just chosen the first place if you hadn’t been with us.”
“Then you would have had a sad crop this year,” the deer woman giggled. “I am glad I could be of such help to you.”
Jemma tucked her hand around my arm and gazed about as we climbed up the rockiest part of the mountain to the very peak.
For the second time, I saw a view that took my breath away. My reaction, though, was nothing compared to the audible, excited shriek that escaped Jemma’s lips when she saw the view.
We looked down upon sweeping green trees, with bright flowers that grew out of the tops. The blue jays and vibrant orange birds that called the jungle home swooped and soared over the emerald green leaves, and their chirps and songs filled the air. Beyond the jungle, we could see the village, and I could just make out the dark shapes of our town as the women dashed about and did their work for the day.
“There’s your home island,” I told Jemma as I pointed to the island in the distance, half hidden by some low hanging fog. “I saw it for the first time while I was up here, and I just knew I wanted to visit you next.”
“You could have gone to so many islands, but you found ours instead.” Jemma smiled. “And I am very glad for it.”
“Me, too,” I murmured and squeezed her hand.
We spent a quiet moment as we looked over the ocean to where we could see a few other islands in the distance. From up here, it was still a little hard to figure out just how big those islands were, but none of them seemed sizable enough to be home to the orcs. I was sure the island that housed the nasty creatures must be massive in size, since there were so many of them. If it wasn’t, then I was sure whatever city they lived in would have to be visible from a thousand miles away.
“Ben,” Jemma gasped suddenly. “What is that?”
She pointed a shaky finger off into the distance, where the ocean was completely clear and open.
Or at least, it should have been open, but just in front of the horizon, before the clear blue water melted away and became one with the sky, were three ships. They were clearly massive in size, and they would have been imposing based simply on that alone.
But their size wasn’t even the scariest thing about them.
As we watched, the ships seemed to shimmer and blink, like they were on the absolute edge of existence. Instead of the solid, dark color I would have expected from any ship made out of natural materials, they were a strange, dancing white color.
Like a ghost.
“Jonas,” I muttered as I pointed in the same direction as Jemma. “What the hell is that?”
“What is wrong, Ben?” Jonas asked. The old man was lower on the hillside, but he quickly started to climb up to where I stood.
I stared out across the water at the ships as they slowly came closer. They seemed to travel even more slowly than a normal ship of their size, which at once calmed me and infuriated me at the same time. Before I’d come to these islands, I would have been absolutely sure my eyes were playing tricks on me. Ghost ships didn’t exist. That was something straight out of a goddamn Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
But I didn’t disregard any theory before I knew the entire truth anymore. I’d seen and gone through far too many things that should have been absolutely impossible to write anything off.
So, I squinted and tried to make out more details of the three ships as they sailed forward, but even with my dragon vision, it was like the vessels flickered in and out of existence, like they were just on the edge between there, and not there.
Which lent even more to the idea they were fucking ghost ships. Half of me almost thought that was cool, but the other half of me knew anything like this was bad news. These islands had taught me if something looked off, it definitely was.
“Jonas,” I repeated more urgently without tearing my eyes away from the freaky ships. I wanted to watch them until I knew they either weren’t an issue, or until they went away.
“What are you looking--oh, my gods,” Jonas breathed as he reached my side.
Chapter Nine
The tone of his voice sent a chill down my spine. The old man sounded scared. Out of all the insane things we’d dealt with since Marella had found Jonas in the jungle, he’d never once sounded scared of anything. Nervous? Yes. Worried? Hell freaking yes. But scared?
Never. The dude fucking walked into the jungle to commit suicide because he thought he was a burden to his family.
“Jonas, tell me you know what that is,” I urged.
The ships sailed onwards even more, and if they stayed on their current course, I knew exactly where they would be headed.
My island.
I made sure to keep my features as still as stone so Jemma wouldn’t get a clue these ghost ships made me nervous. The deer woman had all but shrunk into my side after Jonas had noticed the ships, and for the first time since the day I’d met her, I could feel Jemma shake in fear.
“Jonas, please, what are those?” she whispered in a hoarse voice.
“They are maldungs,” Jonas replied. His throat was so dry the words came out crackled, like the way it sounds when someone had been on a ventilator for days on end and was finally able to speak again.
Just as I was about to ask Jonas what the hell a maldung actually was, the ships disappeared.
As in, they were there one second, and then just gone the next. The ocean was once again completely clear, without a single sign of intelligent life. There wasn’t even a ripple on the water where the three massive ships had been seconds before.
“What the hell?” I swore again.
“Yes, they will do that,” Jonas sighed and rubbed at his wrinkled brow.
“What do you know about them?” I demanded.
I turned to look at the old man to find he wore a nearly vacant expression on his face. Then, all of a sudden, he started to sway, and I threw my arms out to catch him before he fainted and tumbled off the sharp grey rocks and into the jungle below.
This was obviously bad news.
“I need to sit down,” he murmured.
“Let me help,” I instructed.
Jemma helped me gently lower Jonas to a flat part of the rocks where we could sit and still see the eastern part of the ocean, and I kept one eye trained on the vibrant blue water where the ships had disappeared.
If they decided to come back into view, I wanted to be ready.
“I never thought they were real.” Jonas shook his head in disbelief, and his watery blue eyes had a faraway, vacant look to them as he thought about the ships.
“Are they another legend?” I asked as I chewed my lip nervously. I thought about the fact Mira had believed the sea monsters to be legends, until we’d been attacked by two of them.
“They are.” He nodded. “Altho
ugh, I have to admit, since your arrival, Ben, I am starting to think of these stories less as legends and more as history.”
“Glad I could be the catalyst for change,” I laughed, but it came out a little hysterical, so I took a deep breath before continuing. “What’s the legend about the maldungs say?”
“Nothing good.” Jonas shook his head. “Long ago, before my people or Jemma’s people even existed, a different kind of creature populated these islands. They had vast technologies and massive cities, and they lived to conquer the seas. According to the legend, the islands were once all connected, one massive piece of land, that was eventually swallowed by water.”
“Really?” Jemma’s eyes went wide.
“Plate tectonics,” I mused and rubbed my chin. “That happens a lot.”
“Well, whatever the reason, the cities were rumored to have been swallowed up by the water, which is why we have no record of them,” Jonas went on. “But the people who lived in these cities were ruthless, sea faring folks who had no sense of empathy or love. They lived only to conquer. Which, as you can guess, will lead to great discord within any society. And that is what happened to their people.”
Oh, boy. I could tell wherever this story was going, it wasn’t good.
“Their leaders were hated, and three captains arranged a coup with their ship crews,” Jonas continued. “They decided they would overthrow the leader and gain power for themselves. Only, none of the captains were completely honest with each other. Each man had a secret plan to kill the others after the coup was complete and take power for himself. They did complete the coup, but when it came time to find one leader, the men all took to the sea, fighting amongst the three boats. They ran the entire ocean as they fought and destroyed many of Oshun’s great creatures in the process.”
“I bet Oshun was not happy about that,” I muttered.
“No,” Jonas said in a grave tone. “The legend says the gods were so angry with the three captains and their complete lack of regard for anyone else that they flooded the entire world with the great blue ocean, taking all three ships down with it.”