Poseidon's Scar

by Matthew Phillion

  Muireann stared into the darkness. Echo watched her as she scanned back and forth like a searchlight, like a lighthouse. She pointed, then, once again making arcane gestures with her hands, touched the tip of one finger to her lips, then to her ears. She repeated the same gestures and touched Echo’s mouth and ears as well.

  “Can you hear me?” Muireann said.

  “Loud and clear,” Echo said. “That’s a handy spell.”

  “Easier than trying to communicate through sign languages or gurgling through the water,” Muireann said. “I can’t see the Needle, but I can sense it. It’s below us, of course. Distant, but not unreachable, I think. Should we keep going?”

  “After you,” Echo said, hefting her trident. “You watch for our prize, and I’ll keep an eye out for trouble.”

  Their descent slowed as they traversed deeper into the Scar. Something about the trench itself seemed to want to push them away, to force them back up and out. It almost felt aware, or intelligent, she thought. Malevolent. Something doesn’t want us here.

  But that would be mad, she thought. It’s just nature. The rising water pressure. The fact that our biology does not belong here. We’re meant to float. We’re going against nature.

  As they descended, the darkness began to grow deeper, heavier, until with alarming suddenness the world around them became all but lightless. A sliver of vague blue light could still be seen above, but for Echo, the only light she could see nearby came from Muireann’s glowing eyes. The ondine reached out and took her hand, leading the way ever further into the depths.

  It didn’t take long, though, before a very different kind of light began to filter up from below. Reddish and angry, this new light came with a heat Echo knew had to be from the lava flows that existed here. The pressure of the dive didn’t bother her, but she worried if getting too close to the superheated rock would boil her alive. Impenetrable skin is one thing, but she didn’t know for sure whether that also meant she wouldn’t cook from the inside.

  It was at this depth, though, that Muireann stopped their rapid descent and began to move lengthwise, scanning every which way in the ravine with her glowing eyes. Her head darted around, left to right, up and down, almost like an avian hunter sensing its prey. Tugging Echo along, Muireann led them to a darker patch of the ravine, a deeply shadowed section hidden from the light of the lava below.

  As they swam closer, Echo could make out shapes in the shadow—not just a shadow, in fact, but a cave, a break in the side of the trench. The ground of this cave was littered with something that made Echo want to scream.

  Eggs. Hundreds upon hundreds of eggs.

  Tall, nearly waist-high, the eggs were plastered to the floor of the cave, thicker end downward, held in place with some sort of mucus. Most had hatched, leaving fleshy, leathery shells behind, membranous remains drifting like curtains in the current. Others remained unhatched, maybe one in ten, but something told Echo they were stillborn. Something about the surface of those eggs, some undefinable characteristic, hinted at lifelessness and emptiness.

  Is this where the fish-men came from? She wondered. Did they just hatch here, like any other creature of the sea? How long were they here gestating before awakening? Or have they always been here, generation after generation, waiting for a reason to return to the light?

  Echo locked eyes with Muireann, but both women remained silent. Something about this hatchery felt as much like a graveyard as a nursery, and to speak felt dangerous, disrespectful, profane.

  Still, Muireann led them ever deeper. Now a new light source appeared, replacing the red glow of the lava. The walls were covered with a glowing slime that gave off a pale green tint. The glow felt alien and uncomfortable. It instantly caused the pressure in Echo’s head to throb.

  The ocean had always felt like another world to Echo, an alien environment where she did not fully belong. But this place felt even more so. She felt like an intruder. Unwelcome. Unwanted. There was a hum in the air that gave her a headache so bad that her eyeballs throbbed.

  “It’s nearby,” Muireann said.

  Echo nodded, squinting at the pounding in her head. She felt a growing sense of unease here, as if they were being watched. She gripped her trident tightly, releasing Muireann’s hand now that the walls themselves gave off enough light to see by. At one point she swung around, believing she’d spotted one of the fish-men—and she had, dead, decaying against a sloping rock, its eyes hollowed out by time and rot.

  The whole cavern felt older than it should, Echo thought. She didn’t know why she knew that. She was no spelunker or expert diver. But something in this place felt ancient, out of time, dizzyingly so.

  “Echo,” Muireann said. Echo snapped out of her reverie and followed the ondine’s gaze where she pointed to the stone below.

  There, just a few dozen meters away, a single, perfect white line broke the darkness.

  Echo swam closer, and soon that white line took shape. A long haft, white, like bone, flawless and smooth, ending in a gleaming blade the color of moonlight, a single, flat edge ending in a razor-perfect, diamond-shaped point at the end. The haft, she could see now as she drew closer, had swirls of silver and gray in it like marble. A metal cap protected the butt of the spear, and more metallic piping decorated the grip and the blade itself. It was a beautiful weapon, if a weapon of war could ever be beautiful, and looked as though it might never have been held by mortal hands.

  Echo darted forward to retrieve it. Muireann drifted behind, scanning the room for anything out of place. But this cavern had become a boneyard, Echo thought. Nothing lived here now. It seemed strange that anything ever had.

  She slung her own trident into a slim holster on her back, careful to not become entangled in the chain Grimmin had given her, and picked up the Needle of the Moon. It felt cool to the touch, but not uncomfortably so, and hummed with an energy that felt almost alive in her hands.

  She smiled and looked back to Muireann to congratulate her. But instead, she found Muireann staring directly ahead, just past Echo’s shoulder.

  Echo spun around, holding the Needle at the ready, but found nothing to fight. Instead, she saw a pulsating slash of darkness at the back of the cave. It hummed with a loud, throbbing white noise, overpowering but empty at the same time. In the center of the break in the cavern, a deep purple, nearly black, shadowy slash of energy, almost like an absence of light, emanated in a slowly moving whirlpool. It did not feel as though it were physically pulling them in, like a vortex; rather, it seemed to call to Echo, asking her to join in becoming nothing.

  “This is a hole in the world,” Muireann said.

  “What do we do?” Echo said. The gash in the cave, she could see clearly now, did not lead deeper into the stone. It seemed instead to open into a visible emptiness, like the night sky, endless, bottomless. I swear I can see stars through there, she thought.

  “We need to go,” Muireann said.

  Echo tried to swim away, but she felt an urge, almost a command, to throw the spear into the pulsating slash in reality. It wants this weapon, Echo knew instantly. It knows this is dangerous. She could feel a malevolent wanting; centuries, millennia with the object of its desire sitting on the ocean floor, just out of reach. Whatever that is, it knows what this weapon is worth.

  “Muireann, we’re leaving,” Echo said.

  “Yes. Yes, we are,” the ondine said.

  And she began to sing.

  Echo thought at first this was some sort of trick, that Muireann had betrayed her, or that the dark intelligence they stood face to face with had taken over Muireann’s mind. But then Echo felt the weight of that intelligence, the commanding wordless voice, become drowned out by Muireann’s song. She’s using her song magic as a shield, Echo realized. Muireann was creating a barrier between them and the voice beyond the veil. Echo grabbed Muireann’s hand once again. They held tight, so tight it hurt the bones in Echo’s hand, and turned from that endless darkness. They swam for their lives.

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nbsp; The world went blurry as they rushed for the surface. The light of Muireann’s spell, the glow of her eyes, went dim and disappeared. Echo kept her own gaze on that break in the surface, the pale blue sliver of hope above them. The ondine was nearly weightless in her grasp, but kept pace with her, meter after deadly meter.

  Echo didn’t remember breathing the entire way. Only the pounding of her heart in her ears, the death grip she held on the Needle, the reassuring presence of Muireann’s hand in hers.

  Finally they crested the ridge of the ravine, into the deep blue of the sea above. Echo could see the silhouette of their ship above them and swam for her life. In the back of her mind she could hear a deep roar, almost a scream, of rage, of frustration, of loss. It called to her. I need daylight, she thought, I need air, I need to get away from this terrible place.

  The women burst from the water together, a cacophony of gasping breath and splashing limbs. Before she could clear her eyes, she felt herself pulled quickly from the water, deposited on deck, Muireann immediately beside her. She thrashed about, tossing the Needle aside purely so she could hear it bang against the wood of the deck, proving it was real, that she had truly found it. She felt Muireann’s hand on her shoulder, and then an arm around her. Her body shook. Something dropped over her shoulders, a blanket. Barnabas draped each of them in a blanket and then stormed to the edge of the boat and shouted the incoherent words to another spell. A purple-blue light flashed, and her breath returned to her. Barnabas fell to one knee, shook his head, and dragged himself back to his feet and to their side. He picked up the Needle of the Moon and held it in his hands curiously.

  “What did you two wake up down there?” he said, finally.

  “Something that never sleeps,” Muireann said.

  “We got it, though,” Echo said, taking the spear back from Barnabas. “Totally worth it.”

  She shot Barnabas a smile, who scratched at his beard and grinned back.

  “Let’s hope so,” he said.

  Chapter 44: The going rate for a soul

  Barnabas watched Echo and Muireann dive beneath the waves and stood vigil over their descent for roughly five minutes. He waited in eerie silence as long as he could, waiting for signs of distress or a struggle, keeping an eye out for whatever oversized predators might have replaced the afanc in the area.

  Nothing happened. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looked around at the ghost crew of the Endless as if they were silently judging him, whistled an old Irish folk song, then a slightly off-color sailing ditty.

  Then he ran down to his cabin and rummaged through one of his drawers until he found a crystal ball the size of a grapefruit, wrapped safely in a velvet bag.

  He smooshed the bag into a pile and set the crystal ball down gently on top of it. With a quick spell, he ran his fingertips across the surface and activated the crystal, which lit up gently with warm golden light within.

  “Lady Grey, are you available?” he said.

  A few seconds passed before a tired, and more than a little annoyed, voice replied from within.

  “I do have a phone, Barnabas Coy,” the woman’s voice said, a posh accent taking the edge off the clear annoyance in her tone. “You don’t have to use magic to contact me every time.”

  “Well,” Barnabas said, sitting down at his desk and hunching conspiratorially over the globe. “I’m in the middle of the bloody ocean so cell phone reception is rubbish. I thought this would offer a clearer signal.”

  The woman’s face came into view, as elegant as the voice it belonged with, her eyes glittering from within with deep golden flames.

  “Well, you have me, in any event,” the Lady Natasha Grey said. “I assume this means you want something.”

  “What, I can’t just make a social call, check in, see how my friend is doing?”

  “We are not friends, I don’t have friends and neither do you, and you never call unless you want something. So are you buying or selling?”

  “I’m actually just, okay, to be honest, I’m just looking for a price check,” Barnabas said.

  “Oh gods above and below. Don’t you have access to eBay out there?”

  “No, and I don’t think this particular item is available on eBay,” Barnabas said.

  “You wouldn’t believe the arcane relics I find online,” Natasha said. “I mean working deals with immortals and demons is very rewarding, but when you can find a well-worn copy of the Necronomicon from a used bookseller in Australia, why deal with a hell lord? Thirty-five dollars Australian. The Necronomicon.”

  “Not the version with real human skin,” Barnabas said.

  “Oh no, not that one. That one is so vulgar. Human flesh leather is for posers and plebeians.”

  “I know, right?” Barnabas said. “Which one did you get?”

  “The illuminated manuscript. You know, the limited edition from those blind monks in the sixteenth century.”

  “I never understood how blind monks made an illuminated manuscript,” Barnabas said.

  “Because hand-copying the Necronomicon is what struck them blind, you idiot,” Natasha said. “I thought everyone knew. How did you not know that? Have I taught you nothing? How did someone with your critical thinking skills ever learn basic spellcraft?”

  “Just lucky, I guess,” Barnabas said.

  “Enough shop talk,” Natasha said. “I have people to corrupt and demons to swindle. Or the other way around. What are you trying to sell, darling? I’ll quote you a fair price.”

  “Actually, I’m wondering how much a soul goes for on the open market,” Barnabas said. “To buy.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the crystal ball.

  “I didn’t think you trucked with the darkest arts,” the Lady said. “I don’t know if I should be impressed or concerned.”

  “This is purely hypothetical. I’m wondering how hard it would be to buy one. Or a piece of one.”

  “Well, the price varies. Souls are like diamonds. They have different qualities we look for. Flaws can detract from their overall value. Size, cut, and clarity, so to speak,” Natasha said. “I assume you’re looking for a human soul? Other beings cost more, of course. Rarity. Humans are always giving their souls away. Idiots.”

  “Human, I guess,” Barnabas said. “It’s not for me. It’s for a friend.”

  “Liar,” Natasha said. “Well, I’ll be honest, Barnabas Coy. The going rate for a soul is absolutely out of your price range.”

  “You don’t know my price range.”

  “I know how much souls cost. Unless you’ve come into the sort of horrific materials that souls are usually traded for, you can’t afford it. You’re a scoundrel, Barnabas, but there is no scenario I can envision you getting yourself into that would lead you to have the trade you’d need to acquire a soul.”

  Barnabas wrinkled his nose, exhaled deeply, and rubbed his forehead.

  “Should I be relieved about this?”

  “If you don’t need a soul, you should be very relieved about this,” Natasha said. “I’ve been bargaining with the incomprehensible for longer than you can imagine, and all I know is, once you start trading in souls, you never go back. That’s the end of the path, darling. A shadow will follow you until the end of your days.”

  “So you’re saying I shouldn’t buy a soul,” Barnabas said.

  “Coy, what in the seven heavens and nine hells could you possibly need a soul for?”

  “I told you. For a friend.”

  “I have known some insufferable fools in my life, Barnabas, but you are a top-shelf nitwit.”

  “I always wanted to be the best at something,” Barnabas said.

  Again, the Lady let the air grow silent for a moment before speaking.

  “Are you in trouble, Barnabas? I can get you out of it. It will cost you, but I am sure it will cost less than a soul.

  “I’m not in trouble,” Barnabas said. “Well, not this kind of trouble. I’m always in some trouble or another. But I’m okay.�
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  “Good,” Natasha said.

  “Hey, Natasha?” Barnabas said

  “Oh gods, what?” she said.

  “How do souls work with creatures like me?” he said

  “You mean part mortal, part something else?” Natasha said.

  “Yeah,” Barnabas said.

  “Well, souls aren’t an exact science. They aren’t even real, in a way,” she said. “They’re a belief system, you could say. Some think of them as a fuel source. Others, a currency. But what they are is an anchor.”

  “To this world,” Barnabas said.

  “Exactly,” Natasha said. “And I’ll be honest. I don’t know anyone else like you. I don’t know how yours works. I could ask around, if you’d like.”

  “Sure,” Barnabas said. “Sure, that’d be great. I can pay you for your time.”

  “No, you can’t,” Natasha said. “But I’ll trade it for a favor down the line.”

  “Sounds fair,” Barnabas said.

  “Next time, use the phone, Barnabas. Looking at you through the fish-eye lens of a crystal ball is terrifying.”

  Barnabas nodded. The crystal went dark. He tucked it back into the velvet bag, then dropped it back into the drawer where he’d found it. Trotting back upstairs to the deck, he leaned against the main mast and waited. One of the ship’s ghosts, an old peg-legged man in ragged pirate’s gear, looked at him judgmentally.

  “Don’t you have a deck to swab or something?” Barnabas asked. The ghost shook his head and walked away, leaving Barnabas to wait with his thoughts.

  He didn’t wait long. Soon, he heard the sputtering splash of Echo and Muireann’s return, and sprang to action, putting his conversation with the Lady Grey to the back of his mind.