by Steven Welch
*
Try-Ton fought on for hours, as did his warrior armada and the strangely dressed humans from the peculiar flying vessel. They fought for their home, for their world, and for their friends who died.
And so, by the rise of the morning sun, the tide was turned. The creatures from the sky were dead.
Try-Ton knew that the battle of Wandering Haven would be told again in song, down through the years.
He and his elite warriors watched respectfully as the humans bid farewell to their friend after the setting of the suns. The one known as Valiance led them as they set the warrior Three John adrift on a small pyre of wood, and that was then set ablaze in a glorious and fiery funeral. They said words that he did not understand and watched the fire drift into the darkness until it sank and disappeared.
This warrior funeral at sea by fire was new to Try-Ton, but he found it good and fitting.
There was a human child with them, a female with hair the color of sunlight and big, bright eyes. Try-Ton made a point to greet the child, as it had shown signs of courage during the aftermath of the battle, when fires and screaming still reigned and the bodies of the dead were being sorted. She was an unusual child, this human, and Try-Ton stood before her with his arms crossed over his chest and head slightly bowed. He dropped to a knee and hoped that the child understood this gesture as respect.
She bowed her head as well, and with a smile, touched him on the shoulder with tiny pink fingers.
“I’m Elise St. Jacque. Thank you,” she said.
He rose and smiled.
This was a strong human child, and he wished her a future full of whatever good things humans might desire.
Later that evening, over the warmth of a victory fire and drinks that inspired Orcanum and humans alike, the one known as Valiance told Try-Ton of an evil ship at the top of the world.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
TO THE NORTH
ELISE SLEPT.
The soft ticking of the submarine’s instruments were her lullaby, and the gentle rocking of the ship as she carved the water just below the waves comforted her as she dreamed. In slumber she couldn’t smell the sour stink of the unbathed Scaphandrier, she wasn’t annoyed by Private Splatter’s bad jokes or by the constant arguments between Jules and North McAllister about strategy. Eyes closed and mind detached, she didn’t sense the sadness from the others at the loss of their friend, the Guyanese mystery they called Three John. When in dreams, Elise could just drift, without care of fear, and sometimes the dreams even welcomed visions of her Dad. He would be there, a voice mostly, a deep and warm voice, and she didn’t even know what he was saying, but it was comforting and good.
Elise slept long and hard for great chunks of the first three days of their voyage, even though the seat didn’t recline and the pillow was a rough bundle of her dirty clothes, because sleep repairs damage and the things that she had seen were jagged cuts and deep wounds. She was a kid and if she lived in a perfect house on a perfect street back home with her Dad she would still sleep more than you or I because all children do. Every experience is new to a child, every emotion closer to the surface, every injury deeper and more raw. Kids sleep long hours because they must and so Elise slept to close her wounds.
“Little idiot,” came a voice, waking her, “you should not miss this.”
She stretched, grumbled, and opened her eyes.
Jules was at the helm in the seat in front of her and he was pointing to the forward viewing glass.
“Look.”
The sea was dark. She didn’t know if it was night or early morning. Through the deep blue of the ocean before them she saw dozens of little lights glowing like fireflies. Elise unsnapped her safety belt and moved next to Jules so that she was closer to the glass.
“Oh wow,” she said.
The little lights were in a swarm that parted and danced away as the sub moved through them. As they passed the glowing creatures were so close to the glass that Elise could clearly see them.
“Sea monkey larvae,” said Jules.
North McAllister was in the co-pilot chair and he stared at the glowing swarm with wide eyes. Zuzu and the others were glued to their observation windows port and starboard.
“They’re beautiful,” said Elise.
The tiny sea monkeys were no bigger than your thumb, with frilly backs and curly tails and big round eyes. They were little living light bulbs that frolicked and played as they passed. One of them was clinging to the glass directly in front of Elise, its tiny arms and legs spread wide to hold on, and it stared in at her as if it was curious or amused.
Elise laughed. If this was still her dream, it was a good one.
The baby sea monkey released the glass and drifted off with its kin, spinning as it went.
Jules was lit by the golden light of the instrument panel. Elise looked at him closely. His smile was wide, his mouth half open, and there was a single tear running down his cheek from eyes that brimmed with joy. She saw him as if it was the first time, a child just like her.
“Such absurdity,” he said under his breath, so quietly that only Elise could hear.
And then the swarm of glowing sea monkey larvae were gone, and the sea became blue black once again.
“Are we there yet?” Elise asked with just a trace of comedic awareness.
Jules shook his head negative.
“Who’s to say?”
Elise looked at the instrument panel. She knew it fairly well now, which button did what and which switch did which. The round sonar screen showed a blue dot at their location, center, and off to either side were bright yellow masses.
The armada of the Orcanum swam hundreds of meters away, to their port and starboard, keeping pace with the slow voyage of the Aquaboggin.
The battle of Wandering Haven had saved hundreds of lives, Orcanum and human alike, but it had come at the cost of their ammunition and fuel. The flight to the Northern Pole was now a slow sail just below the surface of the sea. They had some fuel for flight, but that was being saved should it be needed.
And so Elise and Les Scaphandriers voyaged on for day after day, escorted by an ever growing armada of Orcanum warriors that would soon be the largest that this world had ever seen.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
THE OLD ONE IN A JAR
I’MASMA’S TALL BOOTS echoed and clicked as she walked the translucent glowing halls of the ship.
The walls were the green of distant seas and glass smooth and she traced a slender hand along its surface as she moved. Buried within the glass were seemingly infinite bundles of wire and cable, tiny devices and metallic vials, and each of these pulsed and quivered as if they were alive, which in a way, they were, because that was the point of it all.
Her skin was alive with wire and organic metal as well, the electronic detritus of lost worlds replaced flesh she had lost through the eons, so that I’Masma was made beautiful and whole from the stolen waste of a dozen civilizations.
And make no mistake, she was beautiful beyond imagination. You would think, wouldn’t you, that a creature born from an eternity of torture and re-birth would be a twisted thing, a disgusting troll or foul lurching mound of ugliness. But that would equate beauty with goodness of character, and as I’m sure you know, that isn’t always the case.
A trio of crew dressed in leather rags bowed and whispered as I’Masma passed, then scuttled off to continue whatever duties they were to attend. One of the three was human, thin and filthy while the other two were yellowed humanoids from some other place and time, creatures that had been caught up in the mix, as it were.
The crew of the Ship of Dreams came from worlds below and between, worlds that had been razed and harvested by I’Masma and The Rolling Deep over many years. To the point, they were survivor slaves that had lost all hope and now lived only to serve. Several species, now all surviving together, Humans and Orcanum and Sea Monkeys and more. They had survived the loss of their world’s waters and had been wise or dim or cowa
rdly or frightened enough to join rather than resist.
When portals opened up on a new, fresh world, when the Shock Tide drained the ocean, there were always survivors. They had never been a problem. Earth had been the most advanced civilization that I’Masma and the Ship of Dreams had harvested, and there had been almost no resistance worth mentioning. The humans had caved quickly.
Apparently, the sudden loss of your world’s sea was always enough to demoralize you.
Once the portals opened, and the ocean drained, the Razor Ships could enter and reap the electronic constructs and mechanical contraptions. The strongest of the survivor slaves captained the Razor Ships and were paid in power, food, pleasures, or in the survival of their loved ones. The detritus was then delivered to the Ship through the portals to be used as food, to be transformed into new life, to power The Shock Tide.
Quite a simple thing, really, but the power that was required, oh that was a different matter entirely.
I’Masma’s pace quickened as she went deeper and deeper into the belly of the ship. The glow of the green glass halls grew more vibrant as she descended. A deep, throbbing hum could be felt vibrating from the deck.
She came to an emerald portal. I’Masma spun the large metal lock. It opened, and she stepped inside the heart of her vessel.
A chamber, a cavern of emerald glass ten meters tall and a full twenty wide. A hum like a scream. Living, writhing cables of what had once been rubber and copper, hundreds of them, spilling up from the deck at the center of the chamber and running into a glass tank coruscating with electrical energy.
There was a creature inside of the tank, tentacled and horrible in its formless mass, five meters high with its single reptilian eye open in terror and a beaked mouth held wide in an eternal scream.
I’Masma stood before this strange and ancient creature, her lithe form in silhouette against the light from its holding tank.
The Ship of Dreams needed lots of power, so the cables at her heart ran deep into the molten depths of the Volcano of Ebon, sucked up the limitless energy of Orcanum and fed that power back into the ship.
The portals of space that drained oceans, the engines that could sail The Ship of Dreams across the galaxy through these holes in reality, the colossal storage batteries that drove the Razors to harvest entire planets, all of these things were fueled by the energy at the heart of conquered worlds like Orcanum.
And even more than that, I’Masma and The Shock Tide needed lots of power because this creature of eternal scream was an Old One from the universe past, the last of The Ones Before, and only energy beyond imagination could hold this ancient thing as a slave.
I’Masma smiled and tapped on the glass cage.
The Old One didn’t respond. It wouldn’t. It never did. This thing that was there at the birth of this universe fourteen billion years ago was frozen in pain, and now it served one single purpose. The Ones Before had the power to open holes between worlds and this was the last of its kind. These ancient gods could unmake the fabric of the universe, warp it, transform it at their pleasure.
That’s why The Old One had been captured and that’s why it was housed in its glass prison, connected to tubes that kept it harnessed, asleep and dreaming.
“The world called Earth is almost harvested, my old friend. Soon, we’re on to the next,” whispered I’Masma.
The room was lit by the green internal light of the star glass, but now darkness crept in from the edges, just out of sight, a skittering of shadow in the corners.
The shadows had many eyes and teeth like knitting needles. The Men of Many Eyes crouched and skulked in the corners of the room.
I’Masma lightly kissed the glass as close to the open maw of the Old One as possible.
“New worlds are waiting.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
APPARENTLY THERE’S A PLAN
THE AQUABOGGIN SURFACED from a calm blue sea under the fading light of twin suns.
A swarm of flying shrimp skittered across the surface, startled by the sub.
Elise looked out through the forward view port as the waters receded.
The Volcano of Ebon towered before them. Elise had seen mountains, but none like this, not an ebony monolith that jutted out of the sea like a giant black hand that held the fires of creation in its palm.
“What we’re seeing is just the top ten thousand meters. Sonar indicates that this volcano extends twenty thousand meters below the surface. This thing is ten times more massive than Everest,” said Private Splatter.
“That volcano’s power is beyond imagination,” said Jules.
Dark smoke billowed up from the caldera of the volcanic mountain and disappeared into the sky. Pulsing rivulets of liquid rock spit out and leaked down from above, streaking the obsidian sides of the black tower in fire. At the base of the mountain where stone met the sea, Ebon opened up into a vast lagoon sheltered on either side by walls of black.
The two suns of Orcanum were on the decline, their light a rich amber as they sank toward the horizon.
Elise pointed.
“Is that a pirate ship?”
Jules engaged the active view screen and zoomed in.
“Idiot child, this is not some cheap Hollywood popcorn thriller with zombie pirates and…” Jules stopped himself as the ship came into view on the screen.
“Ooh. I stand corrected.”
They stared in awe at the enormous jade glass hull intricately laced with wire, copper, and steel, at the billowing gold tapestry sails that gleamed as if they were alive, and the hundred meter masts of the Ship of Dreams. The vessel sat in the heart of the volcanic lagoon, protected on either side and above by the mountain and the roaring, molten volcano. Enormous pipes towered at the rear deck of the ship and black cables as thick as rail tunnels snaked out from the pipes and descended into the water below. Steam leaked and billowed from the pipes and cables as if they were carrying cargo of impossible heat from the heart of the volcano into the ship itself. Figures dressed in leather and rags patrolled the deck. Great metal cannons protruded from the port and starboard hull. A host of the deadly air jellies hovered in the sky above the ship as if on guard.
“A warship of luminous emerald, larger than the mightiest destroyer in the French fleet, protected by man-eating flying jellyfish monsters. Strange times.”
“It looks to be connected to the volcano, as if they’re using it as a power source.”
“We’re supposed to destroy that? With what? Insults?”
Elise manipulated the view screen and zoomed in here and there on the deck of the ship. There were humans, Orcanum, and other races that she’d never seen, dozens of them, and they all looked filthy, desperate, and dangerous.
She zoomed in on the tapestry sails. They were ornate, beautiful, intricate, with strange writing and figures in gold on vast canvas of deep blue and purest white. There was something about the sails that seemed familiar to Elise. She couldn’t place it, but there was something about the sails that seemed like something from another time, another life.
“I know that from somewhere, those sails, I know them,” she whispered to herself.
She trained the camera higher. A single, angry sea monkey chattered and crouched on the top of the center mast. It was holding a spyglass and scanning the sea.
“A belligerent sea monkey on the look-out. That won’t do,” said Jules.
He activated the Aquaboggin exterior speakers and hoped that his message to hold position would reach the Orcanum armada that flanked them. He emitted a series of clicks, moans, and burps, a warning broadcast into the sea at high volume that they should submerge and stay out of sight. Or, if his crude Orcanum was off by a bit, he had just invited their mothers for tea and a massage.
“Submerge, Private Splatter. I have a scheme,” said Jules Valiance.
“Lovely.”
The sub descended just below the waves.
Jules motioned for Les Scaphandriers to gather round. Elise joined them, squeeze
d between Zuzu and Splatter.
“Let us count our blessings,” Jules said, “there are four sets of mining charges onboard, each with shocking destructive power. We also have four of the personal, high-speed aqua sleds and corresponding dive gear. There is enough fuel in the Aquaboggin to sustain one high-speed flight, while there is ammunition enough for one, perhaps two, strafing runs. We have knives, two loaded pistols, a musical Octo-Thing, three rubber ducks filled with anesthetic powder, an armada of enraged and heavily armed Orcanum warriors, a delta wing kite with five hundred feet of nylon line and aluminum wench system, a carton of ten year old cigarettes, water-skis, and the least profound of our remaining wines. Have I forgotten anything?”
“Can I have a gun too?” asked Elise.
Jules looked at her with a mixture of amusement and sadness.
“Oh, little one, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Give her a gun you fool. We’re all going to die anyway,” Zuzu said. North McAllister laughed.
“Your logic is strong.” Jules handed one of the pistols to Elise. He fixed her with a stern look that made her want to laugh but she resisted the temptation and remained quite serious.
“The safety is there. Click it and you can fire the gun. There are six bullets in the chamber and the trigger is more sensitive than Private Splatter’s toes, so take great care.”
“Got it.”
“I said take great care. Do you promise?”
“I promise, ok?”