Elise and The Astonishing Aquanauts

by Steven Welch

  There were a dozen Orcanum warriors at the bow of the ship. Dead crew littered the deck. The warriors were about to leap into the water when a small portal opened by the ship’s wheel.

  I’Masma rose from the portal. Her shotgun wounded arm was repairing itself, the cables and wires twisting along the deep cut and stitching it together, becoming vein and glistening flesh. The final shot of the great and legendary Private Splatter had done its damage for a moment, but now there wasn’t even a scar.

  She held a glass globe in each hand, globes that blazed with white hot energy.

  I’Masma smiled and lifted the energy globes high above her head.

  One of the Orcanum noticed her. He made a frenzied clicking sound, and the others turned to I’Masma.

  “Sizzle, roast, and die,” she smiled.

  Jules and Elise were knocked backwards by a concussion of light and sound. Roaring lightning bolts of energy erupted from the globes and struck the Orcanum warriors who were vaporized where they stood.

  Elise had spots in her eyes from the brightness and her ears rang and bled from the loud thunder crack. She looked around, feeling sick from pain and shock, and saw that Jules was already up and approaching the woman with his sword held in both hands.

  She wanted to scream for him to stop but Elise couldn’t find her voice.

  “Consider this your warning, madam. I am Jules Valiance, Commander of Les Scaphandriers, leader of the League of Astonishing Aquanauts, and preferred dance partner of Madonna,” he said as he approached.

  I’Masma looked at him with a half smile on her beautiful face, one eyebrow cocked up from curiosity.

  “Oh,” she laughed, “you’re the one who couldn’t resist pushing the little button. Thank you so much. You gave me your world. What a lovely gift.”

  I’Masma didn’t speak English or French. Elise saw that her lips were moving, she heard a pleasant sound, and the voice was suddenly in her head.

  Jules continued his approach. Elise felt cold dread in her belly. This wasn’t going to end well.

  “Why do you do this? Such terrible things. To what purpose? Is it sport?”

  “It can be fun, yes,” smiled I’Masma, “but that’s not entirely why we’re here. We harvest the technological detritus of worlds. We are built of such things. We make them come alive and they join with us.”

  “Wait. You’re etoiles de la éboueurs? Intergalactic rubbish collectors?”

  The smile on I’Masma’s face disappeared.

  “Who am I to judge? So, now to your trap. The cherub at the bottom of the sea. In a similar manner, the anglerfish of Earth’s ocean dangles a little glowing niblet to attract its prey. Curious things go to marvel at the glowing niblet and they are devoured,” Jules said.

  “Why, yes, that’s wonderful,” came the voice of I’Masma, “the predator uses curiosity as a weapon. A trap. Curiosity kills the weak. There’s a pretty thing, says the curious. Let me touch it. Oh no, it’s killed me. So brilliant.”

  Jules stopped and threw his head back as if looking straight into the twin suns.

  Was he looking up at the top of the main mast? Elise couldn’t see anything there, but the fabric was billowing and could conceal much.

  The old aquanaut spun around and began twirling the blade like some sort of aging, bandy-legged Shogun warrior listening to a silent war chant.

  What’s he doing? This was no time to be so strange.

  He stopped and looked straight into the eyes of I’Masma.

  “You run a beautiful game, my dear,” he said, “you plant your trap in a place so deep in the ocean that a society needs to be advanced enough to find it. Your trap can only be found by someone with the electronic and metal creations you need. We descend in our Aquaboggin to explore a curiosity. I ring the dinner bell in a cathedral at the bottom of the Atlantic and you come to eat.”

  I’Masma smiled and her eyes softened. She looked almost pleased.

  “Yes. Don’t you think that’s clever?”

  “Clever, but you took cruel advantage of my curiosity. Shameful. Presumptuous.”

  There was a shuffling sound near Elise.

  What?

  She looked at the smoking piles of debris.

  Was something sneaking up on her?

  The sound became brittle, like something breaking, and it was coming from Charlie.

  His shell was cracking.

  He’s falling apart, she thought.

  A piece of the gray shell fell away and Elise saw vibrant purple beneath. Another piece was shed and there was blue, then orange, pink, yellow.

  Charlie the crab was molting and beneath the gray shell he was the color of a rainbow.

  The legs kicked. The pincers opened and closed. Elise felt her heart thundering in her chest and she cried with joy.

  The little eyes on stalks spun round and looked right at her.

  The crab clambered up, shaking away the rest of its dead gray shell.

  He was every color at once, a rainbow crab, and he was beautiful.

  Elise hugged him, unsure if it was ok to hug a crab but doing it just the same.

  She looked up to Jules and saw something so unusual she sputtered something that would have gotten her mouth washed out with soap if her Dad had been around.

  Jules continued moving forward, toward I’Masma, but this time he lifted his legs unusually high and kicked them out at odd angles.

  He was walking in a silly way, a halting, staccato, exaggerated way, a ridiculous stride that made no sense whatsoever, a walk that would have been funny if Elise wasn’t so scared.

  The expression on I’Masma’s face went from pleasant to confused in an instant.

  “Oh, he’s gone crazy,” thought Elise.

  “Humans are born to create. We build things because we must,” Jules said, “and we are inspired by our imaginations to dream, to explore, to scratch the itch of curiosity. That is what makes us noble and good. Curiosity kills? Yes. But it also saves.”

  I’Masma lifted her arms and held the twin globes of energy high above her head. They turned white and made a sound like skin burning.

  “You are amusing, but it’s time to end this,” she said.

  “But aren’t you curious?” asked Jules Valiance.

  Her eyes went wide. What did that mean? She hesitated because, of course she was curious.

  And that’s when Try-Ton leapt from the top mast directly above with a blade in either hand and lopped off I’Masma’s arms at the shoulders.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  BLOODY DEATH AND RAINBOWS

  FOR THE BRIEFEST of moments I’Masma saw her home and the cradle nest where she was born, the many kin of her brood basking in the warmth of their mother sun.

  It was a flash of a vision and she did not know why it came to her at that moment, but it did. That was a pleasant time but short-lived time before The Torture Kings had taken her and remade her and she had become one with the technology of The Shock Tide.

  The thought was nice, and it lasted for a split second but felt like a wonderful eternity in her mind.

  Then there was pain beyond imagination and the air around her was an explosion of her dark purple blood erupting out of the stumps where her arms had just been.

  She fell to her knees. Bright, blinding pain. There’s my arm, she thought, still holding the weapon. There’s the other one.

  Oh yes, they’ve really done it now.

  Try-Ton rolled onto his back, showered by the blood of the female creature. He was in agony. His legs were broken and useless. He shoved himself back and along the slippery glass deck with his elbows, the twin blades still held tightly in his hands. The ornate and brilliant tapestry of the ship sail billowed above and around them. He could hear the voices of his warriors and they were singing the songs of triumph. He might die this day but this strange ship of glass would be theirs.

  The night was clouded with steam from the roiling sea, so Try-Ton could not read their victory in the light of the
stars, but he knew how this night would end.

  The monstrous female creature, her slaves, and her Ship of Dreams were no match for the warriors of Orcanum.

  Elise ran to Jules and wrapped her arms around him, not minding the stink and the blood and the sweat. She sobbed hard and held him tightly.

  The old Scaphandrier smiled and hugged her back.

  “Oh, look at you,” he said when he saw the rainbow crab scuttle close, “you were molting. Tricky old crab.”

  “Can we go now?” asked Elise.

  Copper wires and metal tubing snaked from the star glass hull of the ship and reached out, searching. I’Masma’s arms continued to twist and her hands held the energy weapons tightly. The detritus of worlds was food for The Shock Tide. That was the reason they went from world to world, gathering up old technology and waste, that was the stuff that made them strong.

  Like rubber and metal worms, the wires and loose bits of metal leeched onto I’Masma, onto her arms, reforming them, reforming her, and she smiled because she could feel the pain drift away and the hatred return.

  Her arms were dragged quickly, almost instantly to her shoulders. The wires writhed as if they were thread being stitched by a hundred invisible hands.

  The stitching felt so good.

  Her un-makers, the Torture Kings who had spent countless years raising then destroying I’Masma, had mocked her as weak because she had moments of humor and passion. I’Masma laughed then because this would be a brilliant joke.

  The humans were busy celebrating with each other.

  The Orcanum warrior that had wounded her was injured and lying nearly unconscious on the deck.

  And she absorbed the detritus from all around, as was her nature, and in the blink of an eye she was reborn.

  Elise saw the evil woman stand whole, not dead at all, not sliced into pieces.

  Jules was facing away, holding her tightly, but Elise was facing the bloody deck where the monster had been killed, or so it had seemed, because now her arms were a part of her once more and she was looking right at them.

  Elise screamed then, louder than she had ever screamed before.

  Jules felt his heart kick in his chest. He didn’t look back. Holding Elise tightly, he dove forward and away, into a chaos of shattered deck glass and torn sails.

  The air burned as energy bolts struck only inches from his head. The sound deafened him. He couldn’t hear a thing and he was dizzy.

  He looked back. The female creature was slowly walking towards them and there was nowhere to go. Jules tried to stand but couldn’t find his feet and fell backwards.

  Another blast of energy and this one hit Jules Valiance on his leg.

  He groaned.

  Elise saw it happen, the light, the burning, the smell of the wetsuit and his skin.

  She did what any child would do when the monster came. Elise grabbed the sheets of the sail and pulled those soft covers over her, and over her friend Jules, hiding beneath and hoping that the thin fabric could stop the world.

  A blast of energy. Heat, but not a burn. Jules was shaking with pain.

  Elise pulled the Tapestry of Forever around them and held it as tightly as she could.

  I’Masma fired again, but, of course, she cursed, the sails showed no sign of heat.

  The fabrics of the sails had been created by The Ones Before and stolen by I’Masma from a world long ago and far away after many horrific battles. Many slaves had died to secure them, a treasure worth more than the gold of a thousand planets. They were resistant to the energy of The Old One, they showed little wear and tear, and they were glorious to see when billowing from the masts of their ship. Some even said that the material could resist time itself. The fabric could be torn and cut, it could be punctured, but the strange seamstresses of The One’s Before had woven them so that no energy could make the fabric burn.

  No worry, thought I’Masma. There were other ways to kill.

  She looked left and right. The Men of Many Eyes were on deck now. Six of the Lurkers had escaped from the Orcanum warriors and now they were on her flank.

  She pointed at the mass of tapestry cloth.

  “Pull those humans out of the sails and bring me their eyes.”

  Jules had never felt more pain.

  He bit his lip until it bled, then leaned in close to Elise.

  “You are a good girl, Elise.”

  He smiled at her and pushed aside the sail cloth. His leg throbbed, but he jumped to his feet and opened his arms wide to I’Masma.

  “Bon jour, mon ami, a good trick, no?”

  Elise scrambled up out of the cloth and reached for him just as an energy bolt hit him in the chest.

  Jules fell next to her with an awful sound and she covered him with her body.

  The Men of Many Eyes moved towards Elise and Jules but they stopped and turned when they heard an odd popping noise from where I’Masma had been standing.

  One instant she was looking at the humans, the next she was upside down and spinning round and round.

  “Did the ship capsize?” she thought.

  Then, she was looking at the deck from a strange perspective.

  Her vision faded.

  “What?”

  Just before a wave of black washed over I’Masma and took her away forever, she saw colors, so many colors, all the colors of a rainbow.

  She smiled, because rainbows were beautiful.

  I’Masma never knew it, but this rainbow had been a large, extremely protective crab that had skittered up her back and lopped off her head with its massive, powerful pincers.

  Try-Ton couldn’t stand, but he could sit up. He threw one blade, then another, and two of the slender dark creatures dropped dead.

  The others moved toward him and there was nothing that he could do to stop them.

  Jules was still breathing. Elise could feel his heart beat and could see the fog from his breath in the cold night air. She turned and saw the Lurkers moving toward the warrior who had tried to save them.

  Elise pulled the pistol from her vest and fired. The pistol kicked hard in her hand and the bullet flew far from its target.

  The noise hurt her ears and the flashes of light blinded her, but there was something else. She was dizzy. No, it was the deck, there was a rumble below them and it was getting louder.

  The star glass deck of the ship exploded upwards and out.

  The Old One roared up from the depths of the ship and now it was free, growing larger by the moment, thick tentacles flailing, body like a misshapen oak, single enormous eye red with rage.

  Elise fell backwards and rolled to Jules. She held him tightly and closed her eyes because if this thing was going to kill them there was absolutely nothing that could stop it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  ANCIENT

  THE MEN OF Many Eyes turned and attacked The Old One.

  Their claws flashed, their teeth gnashed. They were ferocious, and their bladed fingers sliced the thick mottled skin of the old god.

  Elise opened her eyes and watched, holding tightly to Jules. If the dark demons were trying to kill this strange new giant, then it must be good. It looked like a monster but what if it needed her help? She rolled away from her friend. Elise had run in terror from the dark lurkers before, but now she ran toward the Men of Many Eyes and she was not afraid.

  She fired her gun again and this time her aim was true. She wounded one of the slender demons. It turned to attack, to kill.

  The Old One came fully awake then, and He saw.

  He had been there, at the beginning of this universe. There was no understanding something so ancient, so powerful, so alien, but Elise watched and she thought she could sense what The Old One was feeling, what He was thinking.

  That single eye, an eye that had seen the birth and death of galaxies, now stared down at the shattered and sinking remains of a ship that had been its prison, its torture chamber. It gazed at the living things scattered about the deck, it looked out at the other
monstrous black ships in the sea beyond and up at the fiery glow of the volcano above.

  In that moment, The Old One remembered everything.

  It knew all, every horror, every humiliation that these creatures had visited upon Him. They had used Him to kill billions of living things. They had perverted His power. They had butchered and mocked Him.

  He was a god from the universe before and He had been made to dance for monkeys.

  Now, this tiny pink creature was trying to protect Him. A child. She was good. These others, they all had the same smell, and they were not good at all. They were destroyers.

  They would be unmade and He would go home.

  With but a thought The Men of Many Eyes ceased to exist.

  They became clouds of vapor, instantly, drifting up into the night sky.

  The corpse of I’Masma too became a mist that was there and gone like fog.

  The deck of the ship, the bow, the hull all around, everything except the sails dissolved into cold clouds of formless matter.

  Praetor Agrunctus, on the deck of his beloved Razor Ship, didn’t have time to think, or scratch, scream or fart. He was gone, and then so was his ship, and then the others.

  The Old One continued to grow as the ships and murderers of The Shock Tide faded away into the air as if they had never been.

  The Old One was as tall as a ship’s mast and He became taller by the second.

  Elise held tightly to Jules Valiance as the mighty Ship of Dreams disappeared around them and they fell into the sea.

  The impact of the water was hard, and it stole her breath for a moment.

  Elise saw a flash of white. A part of the sail. The tapestry was floating, and she gripped it like a life raft.

  A rainbow appeared next to her.

  Charlie. Its strange eye stalks looked at her, slightly bent, curious.

  She smiled at him.

  The eyes moved in close and they stared at each other for a moment.