by Steven Welch
She was at anchor in a deep lagoon created when the Earth flood came to this ancient world and the waters rose hundreds of meters. The cliffs and pillars of the volcano thrust up from the sea like the dark teeth of a god and framed the ship in ebony stone. This was the tallest volcanic mountain on Orcanum, the largest active volcano in the known universe, The Peak of Ebon in their language but a gibberish of clicks and sonar song in ours, a place of worship and sacrifice, a summit never breached because she was still alive with the roaring fires of creation and liquid rock still bubbled and burped along her rim.
An armada of air jellies floated in formation above and around the ship, each as big as a house and writhing with stinging tentacles that could grip and lift and destroy.
I’Masma stood at the bow of the ship and smelled the mist of the waves crashing on the rocks and on the hull, the sulphur of the mountain, the hint of death. The deck at her feet was an amalgam of wood, star glass, and the gathered detritus of worlds far away, electronics made alive by the power of the Gods.
The sails made soft whipping sounds above and around her. She considered for a moment her fortune in having them, these tapestries woven from the strings of reality by The Ones Before. These were the most precious cloths in all the universe and they were hers to use for new and wonderful purpose, like every other bit of detritus that she gathered and absorbed and renewed.
The two suns shone soft light on her skin where it pulsed naked and exposed from her own shroud of the fabric. Her shroud had taken the work of a thousand weavers working a thousand days and at the presentation ceremony they had all been rewarded with sweet and liberating death. She had chosen a portion of the tapestry that told the tale of a star’s love for a moon, a sweet and simple fable about rebirth through song. The One’s Before had considered it their most elegant story, so it gave her such satisfaction to make it the last, horrifying thing that so many dying eyes would see.
Her skin was metal, wire, circuit-board and flesh, because like everything in her world, she was the sum of countless things, odds and ends gathered and absorbed and born anew as Her.
But what does it mean to be the most awful thing in all creation?
Born and killed. Born and killed again. Born and killed and ripped apart in agony again and again. In a thousand years, born stronger. Escaping death for a day, then captured crawling and mewling up a wall. Ripped apart and killed again. And so on, birth and murder and rebirth and adaptation and evolution through surviving then dying then being born again stronger, more full of hate each time. Imagine that over time you have adapted to this pattern of infanticide, you have grown a day for every century, you have evolved, and the trigger for your evolution is pure hate.
She was the Herald for the Turning of the Sheets of Reality and she had been created in a crucible of horror by beings known as The Torture Kings.
She sailed this ship under sails weaved from the stolen fabric of time, space, and reality.
She now went from world to world, razing and devouring technology that became new life and new power, tilling the soil, preparing everything as need be because the time was soon at hand. You see, everything built, no matter how mundane, was built of an imaginative spark, a desire to create, and all of those things would be harvested.
She was I’Masma, the Commander of The Ship of Dreams, and when she was done with Earth and done with Orcanum she would sail on to the next, and then to the next, until all imagination’s detritus was gathered and the last portal had been prepared for their return.
“Goddess, it is here with news of the little flying ship. It mewls and whines, but it knows.”
The Crew Master was a fat blot of a human held up by two spindly legs. His one good eye stared at I’Masma, waiting for response.
“Bring it, then, or wait for me to grow bored and put a pin through your brain, either way, it’s your choice,” she said. Her voice was so soft and elegant, so musical.
The Crew Master clapped his fingers and whistled. Two more of the crew appeared, dragging a tortured Orcanum child between them. They tossed the creature to the deck at I’Masma’s jeweled boots.
The Orcanum child’s skin was battered and cut. A long slice had been drawn in the black and white blubber at its side. Water had washed the blood away but the pink flesh was exposed beneath the skin. It was a deep and vicious wound. The Orcanum looked up at I’Masma with eyes hazy from pain.
“Well?”
The child clicked and sang, the voice cracking and bubbling.
“Where did we get this child?”
The Crew Master smiled.
“A cull of the tribes nearby. I promised to spare the beast’s parents if it scouted for us.”
“Oooh. Look at you, clever thing. Did you think of that scheme on your own?”
The Crew Master nodded.
“I should watch myself, with such a strategic mind onboard. Well played, Crew Master.”
“Yes, your glorious elegance.”
The Orcanum child continued to make soft singing sounds.
“Oh, you’ve told me what I need to know. Crew Master, there is an island near this planet’s equatorial line, due south of us. Humans swept through the portals survive there, along with some of these beasts. They have fashioned a crude little island of wood. Send a squadron and deal with them.”
“Yes, I’Masma. Immediately.”
I’Masma leaned down and took the Orcanum child’s long chin in her hand. She looked into its tortured eyes.
“For your parents, child?”
It nodded.
“For them?” I’Masma pointed back to the deck, to a bloody pile of fin and bone, Orcanum so slaughtered, so chopped, that there was no longer a form or a shape. They had been parents to the child, but they were now just a mess to be cleaned.
The child made a screaming whistling sound.
“I harpooned them myself, but I have had our chef clean them so that I might make musical instruments from their bones. You see, your parents’ bones will join my symphony and they will live on forever, bringing smiles to my crew through music. Isn’t that nice?”
The young Orcanum looked up into the eyes of I’Masma.
“Yes,” I’Masma said, “horror makes us and unmakes us and we survive it or we go mad. You trusted in the kindness of strangers and that’s the worst mistake that a young child can make. So, strength or madness, which will it be, child? Make your choice.”
The child’s cry became an awful, high whistle through the blowhole, a scream so tortured that it ruptured the soft tissues and a steam of scarlet began to mist out into the air.
“Will you survive this?”
The child tried to strike, but its swings were weak. I’Masma easily pushed the clawing fists aside.
“Will you stitch together your sanity and become strong? Will you grow up to be an assassin? Will you be the one that finally puts an end to me, years from now, in some epic battle yet to be told?”
The young Orcanum began vomiting.
“No. I don’t think so. You were raised to play and to cuddle and this is what you get. Take it away. And clean that pile of gore from my deck.”
The Crew Master and the others pulled the screaming whale child to the rail and threw it over the side. They didn’t bother to stop and see if it swam away or simply sank. If they had taken a moment, they would have seen it begin to drift, screaming and singing a song of madness, with the currents of its world.
I’Masma walked back to the wheel. The glowing tapestry cloak flowed behind her like a cloud, her legs were long and muscular, the calves wrapped in jeweled boots of leathery skin. Orcanum skin.
She watched as orders were shouted. A squadron of nearly fifty air jellies split off and up, catching the air currents that would float them south.
They were not fast, but they were strong and deadly and there was no defense against them on this soft planet.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
SO YOU WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD?
“
WAKE UP, LITTLE idiot. Do you want to save the world?”
Elise opened her eyes to the fuzzy face of Jules Valiance and the bright morning light of two suns. She stretched and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“After I poop.”
“Well then, do as you must and make ready for the final absurd, and glorious mission of Les Scaphandriers. I am off for supplies. Food, Orcanum seaweed reefers, wine, and wine. Do you want anything?”
“A pizza.”
He smiled and punched her lightly on the shoulder. She smiled back, suddenly feeling a lightness in her heart that hadn’t been there when she drifted off into dreams. Jules was already off the deck and into the morning market crowd of Wandering Haven.
Elise went below and began her day.
*
The discussion to save our world took place the night before.
It was a good talk, and like all proper “let’s save the world” discussions, it took place under atmospheric darkness lit by unusual means. The human survivors of The Turn had found that phosphorescent worms created wonderful little globes of illumination that looked like living lava lamps. So, as Elise slept, Les Scaphandriers met under the light of the moons, living lava lamps, and golden tallow candle glow. Their discussion to save the world was long and heated, fueled by wine, passion, courage, and loss.
Notable moments are worth repeating, and can be found here, transcribed for your benefit from the French, Guyanese Creole, Mandarin, and German.
“What do we know?”
“The Earth was drained of its ocean, but not all of its waters. How?”
“A particularly large suction hose?”
“An army with buckets?”
“A great sponge.”
“The ocean is still there. This is all a dream.”
“Nonsense. We saw what happened. We made it happen.”
“A glowing hole opened in the floor of the Atlantic Ocean and the waters were sucked in.”
“It would take centuries or more for all of that water to drain through that one little hole.”
“Pass the wine.”
“Piss off. Get your own.”
“How do they make wine here?”
“Sea grapes.”
“You’re joking.”
“Sea grapes.”
“Hmm.”
“Madame De Laclos and others have told me that there were other portals. There might have been hundreds of holes then. Millions. All opening at the same time.”
“Still, what force can create such a suction?”
“Black holes?”
“No, but something with tremendous gravity.”
“Blue holes.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“Could it be that the slight difference in gravity and atmospheric pressure between our worlds could be enough to act as a siphon?”
“Spanking good theory. However it was accomplished the result was catastrophic for Earth and Orcanum. These creatures had nothing to gain and everything to lose.”
“Yes, the holes opened up into Orcanum and our ocean was brought here in a flash flood the likes of which the universe has never seen.”
“So, we are linked. Does Orcanum have the technology to steal our ocean? If so, we are at war!”
“Put a sock in it, Jules. No, these are a primitive people. They haven’t even discovered how to harness electricity yet.”
“And the temple on the ocean’s floor, the cherub with the violin, that was the trigger.”
“Somebody wanted us to press the button, and they knew that we would.”
“Some entity creates this enigma, this anomaly at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, knowing that it would invite exploration. It was a trap.”
“A villain!”
“Perhaps. Perhaps we are the villains for pushing the damned button despite the warnings.”
“But it’s what we do. Are we curious? Of course we are. When does humanity pay attention to warnings?”
“Did someone break wind?”
“Private Splatter, please put your shoes back on. I am offended.”
“Go to hell. I have an infection of the toes.”
“An outside party created a massive web of heavy gravity portals designed to drain our oceans into Orcanum and even now I believe it is this same fiend that pilots massive bulldozers that are razing Paris. I saw one with my own eyes and we barely made escape in the Aquaboggin. It is a wall of black metal, plowing the city with enormous rotating blades, and on the deck I saw slave humans and Orcanum alike.”
“Conquer the Earth by draining her dry, then excavate what remains?”
“Strange times, I grant you.”
“Aren’t there easier ways to mine for resources?”
“Perhaps not. There wasn’t even a war between worlds, so it seems to me that this is the equivalent of conquering a nuclear armed planet with the push of a button. Or a flush.”
“And what do these mysterious invaders excavate that’s so precious?”
“I hope to ask them in person at some point. And then kill them with shocking sadism.”
“Les Scaphandriers do not kill, and we particularly do not kill with shocking sadism, Zuzu. However, in this case, perhaps we make an exception.”
“The portals are still active, then?”
“Yes, at least the one that we triggered. It is through that hole in space that the idiot child and I came to this place.”
“Jules, stop calling her an idiot. She is twelve years old and will grow up with a complex.”
“I have complexes and I have achieved more than many noted celebrities and intellectuals.”
“Could there be a central control point for these portals?”
“There must be. They are arcane, but they are a mechanism and there must be a control point.”
“So, we need only scour the entire known and maybe even the unknown universe for a reverse switch.”
“Are you being sarcastic? I can never tell, Three John. You are indeed inscrutable.”
“Yes, I am being sarcastic. How the hell do we find the reverse switch?”
“Perhaps we need not scour the universe. The Orcanum swim the length, breadth, and depths of their world and they come to us with shuddered tales of a death ship made of glass that’s as tall as a mountain and sails on winds of fear at the top of their northern pole.”
“The Orcanum speak in clicks, whale song, and sonar pings. How do you know what they say, shuddered or not?”
“North McAllister is a cunning linguist as you know and has fashioned crude methods of communication through trial and error.”
“I’ve been bitten, piddled on, and thrown into the sea. But now I think I’m onto something.”
“Thank you, Ensign McAllister. You are to be commended.”
“Is the Aquaboggin fully functional, Jules?”
“Yes.”
“And the Orcanum are our allies?”
“To a degree. Some still blame humans for this mess. But if we can show them that we have a common enemy…”
“And they swim this world’s ocean by the millions?”
“Yes. With their lands flooded they have returned to the sea.”
“Then if this death ship exists, they should be able to track it, wherever in this ocean it sails.”
There was silence for a long moment. The carnival had died down. It was nearly suns up, and the only sound other than the chatter of Les Scaphandriers was the soft lapping of water against the island’s wooden floors.
Jules broke the silence.
“I propose an armada of Orcanum scouts search this planet’s northern pole. When they find this ship, which I believe to have some link to the end of our world and the deaths of billions, we will launch the Aquaboggin on a kamikaze mission to destroy this goddamned devil and reverse the flow of the portals. We cannot bring the dead back to life, but we can avenge their loss, and bring the ocean back to Earth.”
Les Scaphandriers put their hands in the cente
r of the wooden table and their vow, though silent, could be felt like a brand in all of their hearts.
CHAPTER FORTY
MAKE READY
OLD WICKET AND his partner were the first romantic coupling of Orcanum and human as far as they knew.
There might have been others, but here on the island, they were the first to find common ground in business sensibilities and ultimately, lonely personal passions. Their romance had been awkward and stumbling, with more than a few moments of “don’t touch that,” “oops, I’ll get a mop,” and flustered sonar clicks.
Wicket was a thin fellow with as much meat on his bones as a chicken wing and a tendency to drink, while his Orcanum love, who Wicket had named Flipper as their names were incomprehensible and could not be pronounced by human tongues, was apparently something of a disgraced high priest in whatever odd religion the oceanic beasts observed.
So they had their differences, but they had in common a love of money. It was in the business of business they had found a niche.
The Octo-Thing had been a plaything of some Orcanum children, but a flash of Earth silver had pried him away, and now it was the featured attraction on the northwest side of the Carnival Midway, a musical peculiarity that brought in an astonishing load of trinkets and baubles every single night.
Old Wicket made sure that the Octo-Thing was properly fed and was given a blanket for warmth in its rusted brass bird cage. The Orcanum found animal tendons that could be used to repair and renew the musical creature’s violin and bow. Wicket never concerned himself with where the tendons came from, or whether they came from a willing and able volunteer or they were pulled with great violence from some innocent. That didn’t matter, really.
The Octo-Thing played its fiddle, people paid for the thrill and the laughs, and Old Wicket and his beloved Flipper made plans for a lovely retirement home on the sunny shores of a distant beach, perhaps next to a charming cafe with an ice cream shop.
Well, Wicket made plans, he wasn’t entirely sure that Flipper understood him as they cuddled and dreamed. And all of that was on the assumption, of course, that there was a beach somewhere beyond the island. Or ice cream. Details, after all.