Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Chapter 15
When he came to, he was draped over Roger’s naked back, staring upside-down at her muscular buttocks as she walked. Her shoulder was digging into his gut, and he could feel a breast pressing up against his wet shorts. Overall his first reaction was visceral. He tried to distract himself by casting his mind back: how had he gotten here? He must have drunk more than he should have. The damned wine was so sweet; it didn’t taste alcoholic at all. Less potent than the artan it may have been, but in the quantities he was putting it away, that hardly mattered. He could remember an indulgent half-smile on Aidan’s face. He could remember Roger telling him he was “squiffy,” and him cackling at that madly. He could remember Bones squawking along with his laughter like a lower primates’ version of call-and-response. He couldn’t remember Larissa participating, but that wasn’t surprising. Roger was going up the ladder now, which meant that her grip on his upper thigh became even tighter, the view of her lower back became even more fascinating, and her chest thrust into his crotch rhythmically. He gave up trying to remember how he’d gotten here and concentrated on thanking whatever divine force had engineered it.
The ride ended abruptly in a sucker punch of vertigo as Roger flipped him over into the hammock. How she could manhandle him so easily, he couldn’t imagine; she was certainly fit, but he outweighed her by a good bit. Yet she stood over him, hands on her hips, not even breathing hard. “I see ye’re awake now,” she commented.
Johnny opened his mouth, then realized the folly of that maneuver and just nodded.
“You want me to get them pants off’n ye?”
Johnny stopped staring at her breasts and said “hunh,” primarily to buy a little more time while he considered this proposal. Obviously the right thing to do would be to refuse politely. But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to let her ... I mean, she did offer, right?
He noticed that Roger’s eyes were sparkling, and he had a sudden surety that she knew what he thinking, somehow. He flushed bright red. She voiced that throaty chuckle that made Johnny’s hair squirm, and suddenly his wet shorts were way too tight. “Oh, my bonny cabin boy,” Roger said, winking at him. “Ye’re a gorgeous laddie, ye really are, and ye’re plenty man enough at this age. I’ll not refuse ye if ye ask me again when yer head’s a mite clearer. But right now it’d be like taking advantage of the town simpleton, and I’m just not that sort of woman.” She lifted the arm closest to her and raised his hand to her mouth. She kissed the tip of his index finger, then ran her tongue along the underside of it. Lowering his hand, she placed it on her right breast, then squeezed his hand with hers.
She replaced the hand gently on his bare chest and touched his cheek briefly. “Sleep now, boyo. Mornin’ll make a fine mush of yer brain, I’m sure. So catch yer winks while ye can.”
For all the dirty thoughts that were whizzing around his head, the body part that Johnny fixated on as he drifted off to sleep was her smile.
Underway
Johnny didn’t feel like he had a hangover. His tongue felt too thick, granted, and maybe a bit fuzzy as well, but he didn’t really have a headache. Nor did he feel sick to his stomach. The fact that it was exactly as light as it had been “last night” was old hat by now, and he didn’t even feel particularly disoriented. “Morning” hadn’t made a fine mush of his brain after all, it seemed.
He walked out onto the flying bridge. Aidan waved at him and smiled. Johnny waved back with half-lidded eyes and then descended to the deck. Roger gave him her standard grin from her position at the wheel, but Johnny didn’t really want to make eye contact. He walked around the deckhouse and discovered Larissa leaning on the railing, watching the swampy landscape float slowly by.
“Um, hey,” Johnny said.
Larissa arched an eyebrow, and he thought he could detect the barest hint of a smile, but she said nothing.
“So, um ... was I ... I mean, did I ... ?” Johnny floundered. Larissa’s eyebrow climbed even higher, which Johnny wouldn’t have thought possible.
Johnny thought he might be blushing. “Yeah, never mind, I guess.” They stood in silence for a while. The gentle breeze of the ship’s passage actually felt very good on Johnny’s face. He hadn’t realized how stuffy he’d felt, and it was only now that the danger was past that he realized he had been feeling a bit nauseous after all.
One of the little light blue snakes twirled up the vertical post of the railing, practically a blur. It shot up onto the crossbar, slithered along it for a bit, then wrapped itself tightly around Larissa’s wrist. Johnny watched the whole thing with interest. After a moment in which Larissa made no move to dislodge the little reptile, Johnny asked, “Are you going to throw it back?”
Larissa pointed down at the plant-covered surface of the water. Cutting through the duckweed and bladderwort and water lettuce, easily keeping pace with the ship, was a large fin. Although it moved like a shark fin, it was obviously a large fish: the thin membrane of the fin stretched across four or five stiff spines. The color was a mottled brown, very similar to the color of the water. As Johnny watched, the fin folded neatly down and disappeared, although he couldn’t shake the feeling that the fish itself was still there.
“The anterior dorsal fin is much too large, of course,” Larissa commented. “And they don’t generally swim just under the surface like that. Nor are they colored like that, and of course they aren’t freshwater fish, as I mentioned before. But it certainly does appear to be some variant of barracuda.” She glanced at the snake wrapped around her wrist. “Obviously it’s impossible to say what a ‘swamp barracuda’ might eat, but one could surmise.”
Johnny nodded.
They stood in comfortable silence for a while, then Johnny happened to glance up at the front of the boat. There was a flag that had never been there before—hell, the flagpole had never been there before. Despite the fact that Roger appeared to be a pirate, and her ship appeared to be a pirate ship, there had never been a pirate flag flying over it. But now ...
It wasn’t a traditional Jolly Roger. Oh, there was a white skull all right, but the background was a dark green instead of black. And instead of the crossed bones underneath the skull, there was a red fleur-de-lis with golden edges. The center point of the fleur-de-lis protuded through the top of the skull like a spear and its roots were clenched between the bony teeth; the petals stuck out of the sides of the skull like bizarre ears. Johnny stared at it, his mouth open. “Where did that thing come from?” he finally managed.
Larissa did not look at the flag. She inclined her head aft; Johnny couldn’t see Roger from where they stood, but he knew what Larissa meant.
He looked back at the banner flying above. It flapped in the wind rather smartly; Johnny looked back at the river underneath, layered in its vegetal blanket, then at the trees he could see on the shores. They were zipping by with a speed that was nearly alarming; Johnny felt a twinge of nausea after all. He looked back at the planks of the ship. Obviously Roger had decided they were going to really start moving now.
He cast his feeling out, upstream. The door was still behind them; it wasn’t fading, exactly, but it seemed more like a twinkling star than a steady light. And ahead ... he could almost feel it, then his sense just slipped off it. One thing he could tell: if the door behind him was a heat, the thing ahead of them was a cold, like someone had left the door to the North Pole ajar, and arctic winds were blowing through with wild abandon.
Reluctantly he turned his back on Larissa and walked back to the wheelhouse. He could almost feel eyes on his back. Were he to turn around, he knew that gaze would be merely curious, nothing more.
He sat beside Roger, who wore her habitual grin. “Better this fine mornin’?” she boomed over the roar of the fan.
He started to point out that this wasn’t “morning” any more than it had been “night” when he’d passed out in the hammock, but knew that wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He stared mostly at his boots, still not ready to look her in the eyes.
He closed his mouth and just nodded.
“You heave up at all?” Roger sounded genuinely interested.
“Nah,” he said.
“Impressive!” She slapped him across his shoulder blades, startling him, and almost making a liar out of him right in front of her. “Ye really know how to hold yer liquor for such a young pup!”
“Yeah, I ...” Johnny swallowed to try to settle his stomach a bit. “I’ve heard that before, actually.” He took a quick peek at her face. She seemed fascinated to see what he would say next. “Listen, about last night ...”
This was not a conversation that Johnny had ever had to have before, but he felt that it was the other person’s job to break in at this point, telling him it was nothing and not to worry about it. Perhaps he’d seen too many romantic comedies. Roger stayed stubbornly silent.
“I just feel like I should apologize ...” he tried again.
Now she did butt in. “Now, now, boyo, ye were stirred up lookin’ at me body. Don’t apologize for that! Ye risk causing insult if ye steer that course too long.” He looked at her now; her smile was still there, perhaps a bit more gentle than usual. “Ye’re a man in his prime”—she paused and eyed him appraisingly up and down—“or at least near enough to droppin’ anchor in them waters, and I’ve been told I got a pretty fine fettle.” She winked. “The wonder would’ve been if ye hadn’t stood up to attention.” It took a moment for this crude expression to sink in, and then Johnny blushed.
Roger punched him lightly in the shoulder. “So clear yer pretty little head. But I meant what I said last night, Johnny boy. If ye come around askin’ sometime when ye ain’t four or five sheets to the wind, ye may find a little more luck. And if ye don’t come askin’, I won’t take no offense.”
Johnny swallowed hard. “Um, thanks,” he said.
“I feel like I gotta lay it out plain for ye,” Roger continued. ”‘Cause ye come from away. But that’s pretty common amongst us folks ‘round here. Ye press the flesh where ye can find it, ’cause tomorrow ye pay the piper, and ye never know when ye might come up short. Hell, we were almost sunk on the way to Aidan’s, nought? I reckon his gimcracked Goddess was good for somethin’ after all.” There was a tremendous splash behind the boat, and the ship rocked to and fro just the tiniest bit. Roger laughed loudly and raised her voice even more. “Aye, missy! I hear ye! Shallédanu lei shonta and all that.” She made a complicated hand gesture with her free hand.
“So, basically what I’m tellin’ ye is: sail for today in case today is all ye get. Ye ketch?”
Johnny looked up at her and smiled. “Yer a cheery lass, ain’t ye?”
Roger guffawed and slapped him on the back again. “Aye, that I am, Johnny boy.”
The slipstream around the deckhouse formed its vortex right where they were sitting. The wind ruffled through Johnny’s hair and made Roger’s ponytail fly straight out behind her, almost reaching the fanblades. No one spoke for a moment.
“Man,” Johnny said finally, “we’re really hauling ass, eh?”
Roger nodded. “No need for dawdlin’.”
Another pause. “It’s dangerous up there, isn’t it?”
“Johnny me boyo, it’s dangerous right here. You know what they say about life? She’s a brilliant helsman, but she still kills all her passengers.” Roger nudged him in the side.
Johnny couldn’t help but return her grin. “Well, sail on then, cap’n. I’m ready.”
Roger squeezed his knee and twisted the “wheel” a little harder. The Slyph shot through the plant-covered water even faster.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Chapter 14
Making Wine
Aidan had brought all he needed for the journey with him, so from the clearing they returned directly to The Sylph, where he began stowing away gear while Roger guided them expertly out of their mooring.
“So ...” Johnny hardly knew where to begin asking questions. “What exactly do you do, Mr. de Tourneville?”
Aidan grinned at him. He had a very easy grin that lit up his whole face, although he seemed to use it much more sparingly than Roger. “Save you from muck monsters, apparently. And call me Aidan, son.”
This mode of address struck Johnny as odd, somehow ... perhaps it was just that Aidan seemed not so much older than he was. He was no more than twenty-five, surely: fresh-faced and clean-shaven, barely taller than Johnny and not much heavier either. Perhaps it was a religious thing. “So, are you, like, a priest?”
“I’m a Guide,” Aidan replied. “I believe I mentioned that already, didn’t I?” He winked at Johnny, then glanced over at Larissa. He said in a stage whisper: “She doesn’t talk much, eh?” He stuck out his hand at her. “Aidan de Tourneville, milady. And you are ...?”
Larissa took his hand and shook it. “There doesn’t appear to be enough indigenous wildlife in this area to support a predator of that size. What does it eat?”
Aidan looked taken aback. “Pretty much anything it likes, unfortunately. But not us. Not today, at any rate. Tomorrow, who can say? But hopefully the Goddess will watch over us.”
Larissa stared up at him with her wide eyes. “And what goddess would that be?” she asked.
“Shallédanu, Goddess of the Waters. She is omnipresent, in this place.” The Water Guide looked back at Johnny. “She’s a curious one, eh?”
Johnny nodded. “She is that.”
Aidan didn’t seem perturbed that he had not learned Larissa’s name. “Well, at least our journey is off to an auspicious beginning.”
Johnny frowned. “Being attacked by a giant homicidal creature is an auspicious beginning?”
“Surviving being attacked by a giant homicidal creature is, surely. Much better than the alternative, no?” He looked around. “I assume this craft has a tub on board?”
It seemed like skinnydipping in the boat’s hold was some sort of tradition when bringing on new crew members. Johnny was more prepared this time, however, and had found a pair of shorts among Roger’s extra clothes which could double as swimming trunks. Larissa just took off her shoes and rolled the loose pants up above her knees; she sat on the side of the square opening of the tub and trailed her bare legs in the brownish water. Roger and Aidan both seemed perfectly comfortable being naked. Aidan’s body was lean and pale, and he sported several serious scars: on his right shoulder, the left side of his ribcage, and his right hip, among others. Johnny continued to try to avoid looking at Roger’s body, but her lack of modesty was starting to put him more at ease.
There was less washing this time and more friendly chatting and socializing. Roger and Aidan exchanged ideas about the upcoming weather and their general course. None of their navigation talk included any directions such as “west” or “north”; it was all “upstream” and “leeward” and “deasil.” Johnny was only half paying attention. Mainly he was looking more closely at the fiery columns of the tub and trying to figure out how it worked. The fire was only in the corners; between the columns there appeared to be some sort of invisible barrier which kept out wildlife but not the current. The water was quite warm, although he suspected that was some function of the tub more than the natural temperature of the river. He could see shadowy forms swimming on the far side of the barrier, but nothing clearly—the barrier might seem invisible, but it did make things on its far side appear dimmer.
At some point, Roger called for Bones to fetch “some grub” and suddenly they were having a dinner party in the pool-sized tub. There was the usual greenish cheese, dried fig-like fruits, and jerky-esque pemmican, but Roger evidently felt this was a special occasion, because she had Bones bring out several things Johnny hadn’t seen before: a type of small citrus fruit that Larissa hesitantly identified as a kumquat, some sort of crusty bread that was hard as a rock on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside, small green pea-like beans (uncooked but still quite good), and some form of pickle that looked like mushrooms and smelled like the clove cigarettes that some of the night people in DC smoked. Bones provided cups, and they just scooped water out of the tub. It occurred to Johnny that he ought to be discomfited that they were drinking water they’d just been bathing in, but of course the water in the tub was still flowing past with the slow current, so it was theoretically just as fresh as the water that they’d been drawing from the river for the entire journey.
Johnny tried a little bit of everything, and it was all good. Larissa seemed more hesitant, sniffing the offerings and eyeing them critically. Aidan and Roger were positively festive, the former complimenting his host repeatedly, the latter calling out colorful pirate phrases such as “heave to with the hard tack, swabbies” and “belay forestalling them fungus afore I have ye keelhauled!” Gradually the proceedings wound down and everyone became a bit more pensive.
Aidan was now leaning back with his elbows on the side of the tub, his lean body extended nearly horizontally, just under the surface of the water. He paddled aimlessly with his feet, his toes occasionally breaking the surface. “I think,” he announced, “it is time for some wine.”
Johnny looked around with interest. “We have wine?”
“Not yet,” Aidan said, winking. “Bones, my good man. Fetch me a pitcher.” Bones squawked and streaked over to Aidan, sitting up on his back legs in a manner more reminiscent of a dog than either avian or primate. It cocked its head and stared at the young man, who was now giving detailed instructions. “Your best pitcther, mind. It must be solid silver—you have such a thing?” This was directed at Roger, who nodded. “Good. The silver, then. And fresh cups. And then look in the left-hand pocket of my robe and bring me the gray pouch you find there.”
Bones streaked off with another squawk. Johnny swam over to Aidan and perched on the side of the tub as he had done once upon a time in his family swimming pool. “You’re going to make wine? Doesn’t that take ... well, a long time?”
“And distillation equipment,” Larissa added softly, as if she were just saying it to make herself feel better and didn’t expect anyone to pay any attention to her. She was right about that, of course.
Aidan grinned. “The important thing to know about wine, my dear boy, is that it’s mostly water. And I, of course, am a Water Guide.”
Johnny was starting to think that the inhabitants of this world used the word “guide” in a way that was quite different than he was used to.
Bones streaked back with a hefty pitcher nearly as big as he was and a soft gray bag with a rawhide drawstring. Aidan took the pitcher (“thankee kindly, sir” he said to Bones) and scooped it through the water. From the pouch, Aidan removed a handful of small round objects, like colored ball bearings. Most were a dark blue, but several were red, and a few were white.
“What’re those?” Johnny asked, still fascinated.
“Berries,” Aidan announced.
Johnny wrinkled his brow. “So the blue ones are blueberries, I suppose ... the red ones are cherries?”
Larissa spoke up. “Not blueberries: juniper berries. Although where one finds a conifer in a swamp I can’t imagine. And definitely not cherries ... something else. But they’re too small.”
Aidan nodded. “I take the water out of them. Easier to carry, and they don’t spoil this way.”
“But they don’t look like dried fruit ...” Johnny started, before realizing that this was almost certainly a futile line of inquiry.
“Dried?” Aidan seemed genuinely puzzled. “What, you mean like the derries?” He gestured at the fruit Johnny had been calling figs. “No, I just ... take the water out of them. And the red ones are hawberries.” Larissa looked slightly dubious, although she nodded.
“And the white ones?” Johnny asked.
“Snowberries,” Aidan said, tossing the pile of miniature berries into the pitcher.
Even Johnny couldn’t let that go. “Snowberries? As in, snow? You have snow here?”
“Strictly speaking, snow isn’t required for snowberries.” Aidan’s tone was mild.
Larissa opened her mouth, but Johnny already knew what she was going to say, and he knew they weren’t going to get anywhere complaining that people oughtn’t have words for things they’d never experienced, so he cut her off. “Snow is made of water, you know.”
Aidan arched an eyebrow. “Well of course I know that. Shall I make you some?” He scooped up a handful of water and blew on it, hard. The water shot out of his hand and swirled around, each drop maintaining its individuality so that it was more like dust than splash. The cloud of droplets floated upward, defying gravity, then began to sparkle. Finally there was a puff, and then several snowflakes fell down onto Johnny’s unbelieving face. They melted instantly of course, but there was a split-second when he could actually feel tiny pinpricks of cold against his skin. He stared at Aidan. Larissa’s face was neutral. Roger chuckled in the background.
Aidan ignored all this. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes.” He reached into his pouch again, and took out a smaller handful of yellow powder. He sprinkled this into the pitcher slowly, mumbling in that same liquid language he had used against the muck monster. A luminescence began to appear above the pitcher, ephemeral, like the yellowish-green lights Johnny sometimes saw shooting off to the edges of his vision if he rubbed his eyes too hard. And, like those phosphenes, the lights seemed to slide away if stared at directly, and yet irresistably drew the eye toward them. Straining his ears, Johnny thought—or imagined—a fizzing sound, a muted version of bubbles escaping from soda, or champagne.
Slowly the light subsided, and Aidan poured from the silver pitcher into the simple wooden cups Bones had brought. The liquid had changed from the brown tealike color of the river to a rich indigo, with a hint of effervescent yellow somehow buried in its core. Aidan poured four times, and then Bones poked him with a much smaller tin cup. Aidan chuckled and poured a dollop for Bones as well.
Larissa stared at her cup but didn’t drink. Roger and Aidan each took a long draught and made nearly identical lip-smacking “ahh” sounds. Johnny sipped his cautiously.
To describe it would have been impossible. It was slightly sweet, but it definitely had the bite he recalled from stealing sips from his mother’s wine glass when she wasn’t looking. It was fruity in a way that he had never tasted before, sort of a raspberry-blackberry-boysenberry, but wrapped up in the odor he associated with his father’s gin and tonics (he’d never dared sneak a taste of those, but the smell had always stayed with him), and yet none of that, and all of that, and more. It was dry, and cold, and it seemed to dance on his tongue. He stared at Aidan, amazed.
Aidan smiled back at him. “Not too shoddy, if I do say so myself. Roger?”
Roger had adopted Aidan’s pose on the side of the tub to their left. She arched her back, thrusting her small breasts up into the air. “Vurra nice, me bucko. Not artan, of course, but a pleasant enough change. Ye make a fine cuppa, Aidan.”
Johnny started to drink again, more eagerly this time, but he stopped himself. “Is this going to get me drunk?” he asked. “Like the artan if I drink it too fast?”
Aidan pursed his lips. “Well, it is wine, and it will surely make you tipsy if you drink enough of it. But it doesn’t have nearly the alcohol content of that curious concoction that our fine captain favors.” He looked archly at Roger, as if he’d just delivered a real zinger of an insult to her. Roger merely pshawed him with a lazy wave of her arm.
This was good enough for Johnny. He drank the rest of his cup in big gulps, and then he started in on Larissa’s.
>>next>>
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Chapter 13 (concluded)
There was a sort of trail, and it was mostly solid, although there were patches of muckier bits along it. The trees were closer together here, and they crowded out the constant light. In amongst the trees, there still seemed to be watery areas, although the wading birds were nowhere to be seen. The atmosphere was darker and more oppressive here, and they walked close together. Even Roger was more quiet than Johnny had come to expect from her.
The hill and the dock were far behind them now, screened from sight by the swampy forest. The leaves of the trees would rustle alarmingly from time to time, but there was still no sign of the creatures that caused it. Roger kept a sharp eye on the upper branches.
Suddenly, there was a low burbling sound that Johnny knew by now was a hunting burrikit. Roger stopped and flung out a hand. She needn’t have bothered; both Johnny and Larissa had frozen immediately. Even Bones, normally hyperkinetic no matter what the circumstances, had become a quivering feathered statue. There was a flash of orange twenty feet over their heads, in the trees to the left of the path, and then a bundle of fur and teeth shot out of the leaves and sailed over them, landing on a low branch that stuck out over the trail.
This was Johnny’s first close-up view of a burrikit. It had the tufted ears and bushy “sideburns” that he associated with a lynx, but its fur was a bright orange, the color of a creamsicle. The whiter fur (really an extremely pale shade of orange) under its chin reinforced that color scheme. The same whitish color was found in rings on its long, arched tail, which looked like it belonged on a completely different animal: a ringtail cat, or a coatimundi. Its claws were extended: vermilion daggers digging into the branch to maintain its balance. Sabretooth fangs with an apricot tint stuck over its lower jaw to just below its chin. Its eyes were the only thing that weren’t some shade of orange: they were a dangerously glowing greenish-yellow. The low growling purr that filled the air was chilling; Johnny wondered how had it had ever reminded him of a Disney character.
Roger reacted immediately. She raised her arms above her head and actually took a step forward. “G’wan! Git!” she shouted.
To Johnny’s surprise, Larissa grabbed the sides of her jacket and also threw her arms out, flapping the insides of her coat at the beast. “Makes you seem bigger than you are,” she said softly. Johnny shrugged and started waving his arms around as well. The burrikit leaned back, but didn’t retreat. Roger kept waving with one hand, but put her other on the hilt of her sword.
Just as it seemed violence was imminent, the cat’s tail flashed once and it disappeared, leaping up into the treetops and shaking the branches wildly with its passage. Johnny let out a long breath. “That was lucky ...” he started, but Roger was looking around with concern.
“No,” she said, “something’s not ...”
The air was split by a hideous noise. It was somewhere between a foghorn and a moose call, with a dash of shrieking baby thrown in for good measure. The bass vibrated in Johnny’s breastbone, but it cranked rapidly into a register that was so high it was almost painful, then dropped immediately back down. It made Johnny shiver, and that was just the noise. When the creature appeared, the unearthly sound paled in comparison.
It was at least seven feet tall, possibly eight. Its skin was a shiny black, wet with swampwater and draped with bits of greenery, as if it had just sprung up out of the water where it had been lying in wait. The hide was leathery and pebbled, and Johnny knew Roger’s thin rapier had no chance at all of peircing it. It was generally humanoid, although it seemed to have no neck—its head was just a mound on top of its shoulders. Its eyes were balls of green flame, with no whites or pupils, and its open mouth sported metallic fangs that were six inches long. Its claws were the same, except much longer: probably two feet of flashing bladelike talons.
It strode through the tree trunks onto the path, still emitting that bizarre howl, and chaos erupted. Bones gave a terrified shriek and shot into the trees. Roger’s sword was in her hand, and she expertly parried the first swipe of a claw, but still the force of it threw her backwards into the trees on the other side. Larissa disappeared behind him and off the path to the same side that had spawned the creature. Suddenly Johnny was alone with it. He noted clinically that it had no snout; no nose at all, really. No facial features whatsoever except those eerie green balls of fire for eyes, and a great open maw full of deadly teeth. Then he turned and ran.
The three of them had now taken off in three different directions, three of the four lines that would form a giant X, with the fourth being the path along which the creature had made its entrance. It was theoretically random chance that would determine which of them it would chase after. Johnny knew from the crashing and snapping of tree trunks behind him who had “won.”
He hit a small clearing and stumbled in a shallow pond. He went down hard, although the ground he hit was soft enough that he didn’t break anything. There was a tree root under his face and he tasted a bit of blood in his mouth, but he knew it wasn’t serious. Not nearly as serious as it was about to be, anyway. He rolled over frantically. There were tree branches and vines and Spanish moss above him, and the same fading-twilight sky as always, but only for a moment, because suddenly everything turned black as the beast filled his vision.
There was a clang of steel that Johnny thought must be a rapier hitting the thing’s hide; it swatted vaguely behind it, and Johnny heard an “oof” and more crashing into bushes. A flurry of branches and nuts came flying down at the creature’s head, and there was a parroty squawk of “leave off there!” but it paid no mind to that either. It lifted one arm up high, and the glossy silvery-black claws flashed in the light.
And then Larissa screamed.
Thinking back on it, Johnny would decide that this was the single strangest sound he had ever heard in his life. First there was the fact that it was Larissa. He had never heard Larissa scream, not even that one time when he was sure they were going to get sliced up by a jittering addict too far gone to realize they couldn’t possibly have any money to give him. Johnny himself had given a little scream when the knife had come lunging at them, before a timely police siren had sent the junkie running, but Larissa had never made a sound. And secondly, it was a bizarre sort of scream, almost unnatural. Generally when you heard someone scream, you knew they were scared. But this, this was ... different. He couldn’t tell if she was frightened, or angry, or frustrated, or if she was perhaps a superhero employing some sort of sonic power; he had a sudden vision of a young Donald Sutherland raising his arm and emitting an eerie shriek, but he couldn’t place it, because he had never known that in his late night cable surfing he had stumbled across the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The piercing screech echoed across the swamp; the fluttering of panicked birds filled the air. The beast standing over him roared its strange roar again, as if answering a challenge, then the talons flashed toward Johnny’s face and he instinctively closed his eyes.
The howl of the monster rose in pitch, as if in frustration, and Johnny decided to open his eyes to see why he wasn’t dead yet. The thing’s arm had become entangled in the vines above them, and Johnny instinctively rolled to his right just as they finally snapped. The metallic-colored talons embedded themselves into the marshy ground where his head had been.
He was half covered in water and mud now, and the thing was turning towards him again, but suddenly he was very calm. If he could walk through a solid steel grate, why should he let this beast skewer him where he lay? He reached for the alien sense inside him and let his body go completely slack. The claws came down again, and passed directly through his body, but it offered no resistance. The thing’s arm was now completely through his chest, but he knew it had not pierced him. He reached up with one arm and put his hand inside the creature’s arm; the monster shuddered and howled, and actually retreated a few steps, taking its arm with it and holding it close to its body as if Johnny had hurt it somehow. The eyes flashed around the clearing, looking for something, and they lit on a robed figure which had stepped into the open area while Johnny had been distracted. The monster hesitated, and the figure raised a wooden staff and began to chant.
The words were slippery in Johnny’s ears, no language that he had ever heard before, yet he knew it was ancient; older than Latin, older than Greek. It was a language that was old when Phoenician and Sanskrit and Sumerian were being spoken. The words were soft and lyrical, falling over themselves in a waterfall of susurration that Johnny found comforting, but the creature backed away from them, its howl subdued now, its fiery green eyes tracking back and forth in confusion. Suddenly it turned and crashed away through the trees; Johnny could hear its progress in snapping tree trunks for a few moments, and then there was a loud splash and silence.
Roger appeared in the clearing, nursing a bruised arm and limping slightly. Larissa was on the opposite side, also stepping forward cautiously. Bones floated down from the branches to land lightly nearby. The chanting faded away, and the figure in its pale blue robes strode forward and offered Johnny a hand. “Thanks,” Johnny said, his voice shaking a bit as the man drew him to his feet. “I think you may have saved my life there.”
The man smiled. He was clean-shaven, with sandy brown hair and deep, blue eyes. “My pleasure. I could hardly allow you to be eaten by a muck monster on your way to see me, now, could I?” He must have read confusion in Johnny’s face, for he added: “I am Aidan de Tourneville. I’ll be your Water Guide.”
>>next>>
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Chapter 13 (begun)
Landward
The dock was possibly the most normal thing Johnny had seen since they’d arrived in the swampworld. It was an old but perfectly normal-looking short wooden structure, L-shaped, extending perhaps twenty feet from a small hummock and then striking out parallel to the channel for another ten feet or so. Johnny wasn’t sure, but it seemed like at least part of the area enclosed by the small dock wasn’t actually water. This didn’t seem to bother Roger, however, who guided the boat slowly but surely around the dock’s spur.
“Um, Roger?” Johnny didn’t have to yell, because there was a brass speaker on the flying bridge that connected to an identical one in the wheelhouse, with the curious result that he could speak to Roger in a lower voice from here than he could if he’d been standing right next to her. “I think we’re going to bottom out ...”
“Aye, that we are!” Roger’s voice was tinny but bright over the speaker. It didn’t really sound like any speaker Johnny had ever heard before; he hadn’t figured out what powered it, and Larissa had offered no insight.
Roger did something with the wheel which caused the boat to fishtail alarmingly, and Johnny and Larissa had to grab on to the rails around the flying bridge to keep from being knocked over. The ship completed the U-turn and nosed into the dock’s enclosed area. Johnny was positive that at least some of what was under the hull was solid ground—well, as solid as the ground in this place ever got—but that didn’t seem to stop it. Roger nosed the ship neatly into the inside corner of the dock until it gently bumped the wooden planks, and the only abnormal thing was the squishy noise that accompanied it. Johnny assumed that was the noise of a large wooden airboat being drug across marshy ground.
Roger cut the fan, and Johnny and Larissa rejoined her on the deck. “Will we be able to get out again?” Johnny asked.
Roger looked at him as if this were a lunatic question. “Now, why, me fine feckled friend, would I drive us into a place that I could not get us back out of?” She grinned and tossed her ponytail as she turned to head for the dock.
“Airboats can’t travel in reverse,” Larissa ventured.
“This one can!” came from Roger’s retreating back.
The dock was still sturdy, but showing its age. There were splits in the boards and pilings, and places where chips had fallen out or rotted away. The wood was slightly soft from the pervasive damp. Roger was tying off the ship with algae-covered ropes that seemed like they should be falling apart any second, but they held the ship firm. Johnny walked to the corner of the dock, where the ship’s figurehead protruded over the planks so that he would have to duck to go past it. He stopped and stared at it for a moment; he hadn’t gotten a clear look at it before. It was a full-length wooden sculpture of a naked woman who seemed to be floating, or perhaps riding, on clouds. It was unpainted, but very detailed. The woman looked lithe and quite young, with a mischievous expression.
Johnny was startled by a hand on his shoulder. “That’s The Sylph, me bucko. Ship named after the girl or girl named after the ship, I never knew which. But she’s older than I am, she is. Although she don’t look it, eh?” Roger winked at Johnny and elbowed him in the side, which Johnny found vaguely disconcerting.
They ducked under the figurehead and strode down to the end of the dock, where there was ... nothing. The dock just ended. The two pilings at the very end extended high up into the air, forming a sort of gateway to walk through. But Roger put a hand on one of these poles, leaned out over the marsh, and then swung herself around and onto the relatively dry ground of the hummock.
Johnny and Larissa stopped and stared at her. “Well, you don’t want to be walking through the posts. That’s for berks who don’t know no better.”
Johnny said, “But we know better?”
Roger looked exasperated. “Well I just told ya better, ain’t I?”
Johnny found he couldn’t argue with this logic. He tried to duplicate Roger’s acrobatic move, but he ended up with one foot on the slope and another in the watery muck. Although this put a healthy amount of liquid in his right boot, it also put him in a good position to help Larissa transition around the pole, so he planted himself firmly and half-lifted her off the dock and onto the little hill. Larissa, like Johnny, was wearing new clothes from Roger’s cinema-pirate wardrobe along with her regular shoes, but Larissa had kept her light-green jacket, while Johnny had been forced to ditch his heavier coat in the oppressive heat. The humidity played hell with your hair here, so Larissa had adopted a ponytail like Roger’s, and Johnny had taken up a bandana. The end result was that they now resembled movie pirates just like Roger, from the ankles up. Looking at Larissa now, and knowing he looked the same, Johnny was reminded of going to a Renaissance Faire and seeing some folks who had made a brave attempt to dress the part, but failed when it came to finding period-appropriate footwear.
Bones came scurrying down the dock in his usual frenetic manner. When he reached the end, he lept straight up, bounced off the outside post, pushed off Johnny’s chest, bounded off Larissa’s head, and glided smoothly to Roger’s shoulder before Johnny could finish his “oof.” The red and blue creature gave a characteristic squawk and said “Thank’ee so, lubbers!” Roger threw her head back and laughed.
Larissa brushed the hair out of her eyes and glared at Bones.
Johnny extracted his foot from the muck and joined the others on the hillside. Together they walked the eight or ten steps to its crest and stopped to look out over the marshy land.
It was strange that the view from this point, which was only a few feet above the level of the water—lower even than the vantage from the flying bridge—should look so different, but somehow it did. What lay ahead was more scrubby trees than they’d yet seen in one place, and fewer puddles and more ground mist. It still wouldn’t be accurate to refer to this as “woods,” but it was possibly the closest they were going to see in this vast swamp. The trees weren’t tall, but they were close set, and covered with vines and Spanish moss. It seemed darker out there, though of course the light was exactly the same as it had always been.
Johnny turned to Roger. “We’re walking through that?”
Roger maintained her sunny smile. “Well a’course we are. That’s the way to get to the Guide, and we gotta get to the Guide, so we gotta go that way. Seems straight enough, don’t it?”
Johnny looked doubtful. “Is it safe?”
Roger grinned widely and slapped him on the back. “Johnny, me boyo, livin’ ain’t safe. Now let’s get to gettin’!”
She and Bones swaggered down the hill at a brisk pace. Johnny and Larissa followed more cautiously.
>>next>>
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Chapter 12 (concluded)
It was like time was suspended. The ship pushed its way through the floating plants, and the “mizzle” eventually stopped. The dragonflies came back, but the allsalve was apparently doing its job, because the mosquitoes kept their distance. The bright blue water snakes, which Roger just referred to as “snakes,” swam around the ship, and occasionally did try to climb on board, but they just tossed them back. This was sometimes difficult, as they had a tendency to wind around your arm and not let go. They didn’t appear to be attacking, though, just getting comfortable. More of the bat-like birds, always solitary, flew overhead now and again, and they had feathery batwings with a span longer than Johnny’s arm. Their plumage was a soft gray, like mourning doves; Johnny wanted to ask Larissa if she still thought they were frigate birds, but suspected the question might upset her. Larissa watched everything, but spoke little.
Since there was no day or night, they just slept whenever they were tired, at different times, so there was always someone guiding the ship and always someone watching out for hazards. Often they slept in the cabin up on top of the deckhouse, which contained a sort of hammock, but sometimes they just laid down on the deck. Roger taught them to recognize the land (mainly by the reeds and woodier plants), and she taught them how to operate the “wheel”, which worked more like a tiller, and also a bit like a motorcycle handlebar in that you twisted it to give it more gas (or whatever fuel the ship actually ran on). The waterway they were travelling was wide, but it was definitely more river than lake, although there didn’t appear to be much in the way of visible current. The curious Tiggery sound of the burrikits would ring out suddenly, and there were monkey noises when they were close to the land and frog calls when they weren’t. Johnny wondered if the “monkeys” were actually creatures like Bones, but he never actually saw any. The only fish they saw were the red and yellow striped ones—so large that they easily outweighed Larissa—which often leapt out of the water and flashed black tailfins at them. Roger called them “tillocks” and said they were good to eat.
What they mostly ate, though, was a sort of jerky studded with bits of fruit, which Roger called pemmican. Larissa looked dubious at this, but didn’t comment. The taste of it was gamey, but not unpleasant. This was supplemented with hunks of a sharp, greenish-yellow cheese, and dried fruits that mostly tasted like figs. To drink they had water, which was brown but still tasted fresh and clean, and a type of very smooth, almost fruity liquor that Roger called “artan” (this was pronounced with a vaguely French accent). Larissa sniffed it and pronounced that it was made from rose water and fermented plums, but she didn’t drink it. Johnny found it pleasant to have a small glass after meals, but found that more than that made him a bit tipsy. Roger kept a constant supply in a leather skin tied to her waist; she seemed immune to its intoxicating properties.
To alleviate boredom, Roger attempted to teach Johnny various things. She showed him the basics of fencing, but he had little talent for it. He was better at picking up the fundamentals of operating the ship, but of course there wasn’t that much to know: there were no sails to trim, he quickly learned all the knots, and operating the pole that steered the vessel wasn’t very difficult. He tried to understand how she could navigate when there were no stars (or even any visible sun), but she couldn’t explain that herself—said it was something you felt in your bones. The only thing Johnny felt (although it was more in his skin than his bones) was the strange black door they had come through, which he knew he could locate no matter how far away they travelled from it. He almost thought he could sense something else occasionally, something up ahead in the direction they were pointed, but it was fleeting, and impossible to describe. After a while Roger fell back on telling stories, mostly outlandish, many involving her father, who was apparently a notorious pirate. Her mother she never mentioned.
Larissa never participated in these interludes. She just watched in silence.
Johnny couldn’t sort out how he felt about the older woman. At times he was very attracted to her, but it was also very easy to forget that Roger was female: she was something beyond what Johnny thought of as a tomboy. She didn’t walk like any woman Johnny had ever known, and she certainly didn’t talk like any woman he’d ever known, and she didn’t even look like any woman he’d ever known. He mostly viewed her as the captain, sometimes as a teacher, occasionally as an older brother. But there was something about the way her eyes sparkled, and her easy smile, and most especially her laugh, that touched his core and stirred a manhood he’d barely noticed before.
At some point, which could have been the same day or a week later for all Johnny could tell, Roger stopped in middle of one of her tales and stood up, staring into the distance, the wheel forgotten and the fan idling. She had her hands on her hips, very similar to how she’d stood when he’d first met her, and her head cocked slightly to one side. Her lips were parted slightly, her cheeks flushed, her back barely arched, and her eyes were unfocussed. They were light brown, Johnny noted for the first time, with the barest hint of yellow and green.
“Ah,” she sighed softly, her gaze returning to him and becoming sharper again. “Methinks we’re here, finally.”
Johnny looked up at her curiously from his seat on one of the tied-down crates on the deck. “Here where?” he asked. Nothing looked any different to him than it had for the past ... however long it had been.
“Here where we’re needing to be, a’course.” She pointed over to where a few reedy cattails, spaced some distance apart, indicated a tributary of the main waterway. That much Johnny had learned to recognize. “Down that rill is the way to Aidan’s. We’ll need to let him know we’re a’ coming. Johnny me boyo, can ye drive us into that channel? Gentle and steady on the planks, mind: she’s shallow and ye’ll not see more’n an inch between bilge and bed. Ketch?”
Johnny nodded and translated to show he had “ketched.” “Drive the ship into the offshoot, but go slow because there won’t be much clearance between the bottom of the boat and the riverbed. Got it.” He grabbed the wheel and twisted the pole to goose the engine a little. “But you were exaggerating about it just being an inch, right?”
Roger grinned back. “A wee bit, aye.” She clapped him on the shoulder. “Ye’ll do fine. Ye’re quite the sailor now.” She turned and faced the bow. “Bones!” she yelled. “Git yer feathered ass out here!”
The red and blue blur shot up out of the hold. “Helm’s a-lee!” Bones screeched.
Roger chuckled. “Aye, we be turning. Slowly, though, so naught for ye to worry about. Fetch me a light whilst I bring out the flare. Step to, matey!”
“Aye-aye cap’n!” he replied, then streaked off. Roger strode off behind him.
Johnny concentrated on keeping the nose of the ship, with its protruding figurehead, pointed down the center of the channel. This was harder than it looked, because the deckhouse was in the way, so he couldn’t sight down the front of the ship. Larissa climbed up to the flying bridge where she could get a better view and help watch out for the banks protruding into the waterway or stray hummocks of land poking out of the water. Johnny had just gotten the stern through the narrow gap to where the rill opened up a bit when Roger reappeared, carrying what appeared to be a heavy crossbow. She put it down on the deck and planted a boot on either side of its center beam, standing on the curved part of the bow. She then reached down and grabbed the heavy cable and heaved it taut until it clicked three times. Picking up the crossbow again, she loaded it with what looked like a bottle with a stick poking out of it. Bones appeared on her shoulder as if by magic and crashed his flint and steel together. The giant spark sprang to the end of the stick, which started spitting and crackling like a 4th of July sparkler. “Fire in the hole!” Bones squealed, and Roger shot the great crossbow straight up into the air.
The bottle streaked up about a dozen yards, then it began to trail green fire and emit a piercing shriek. Executing a graceful arc, it abruptly exploded in a shower of green and gold and red that formed a pattern in the sky. Johnny thought it looked like a fleur-de-lis with an X across it.
He had slowed the ship’s speed to nearly nothing to avoid crashing into anything while he was distracted by the flare. Roger watched the fiery pattern overhead gradually fade away, her hand shading her eyes, and then gave a satisfied nod. “That’ll give him fair warning we’re on the way or I don’t know what will. Shall I take the wheel, Master Johnny?” Johnny stood up and left the pole to her more capable hands.
“Mind if I go up on the bridge and see what I can see?” he asked.
“Surely,” Roger replied, settling into the seat and gunning the engine again. “Holler out when you spy the dock, won’t ye?”
“There’s a dock?” Johnny asked, surprised.
“Indeed, me lad. Got to tie her up good and proper while we run down the Guide, ain’t we?”
Johnny decided to take this as a rhetorical question. “Okay, sure, yell when I see the dock, got it.”
Roger scanned the banks on either side as Johnny climbed the ladder to the flying bridge, and the ship moved slowly but surely down the channel.
>>next>>
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Chapter 12 (begun)
The Journey Begins
When Johnny and Larissa emerged onto the deck sometime later, they got wet all over again. This precipitation was something completely new to Johnny; it was as if someone had taken normal raindrops and shrunk them down, and just suspended them in the air. It wasn’t exactly mist, and, if there were clouds, they weren’t obvious: the sky held the same abnormal sourceless light it always had. The air was just full of tiny drops of water now. “Less of a hig and more of a mizzle,” Roger announced brightly. “All cleaned up then, eh?” Johnny and Larissa nodded. “Excellent!” Roger replied. “I’ll stow away the tub and we’ll be on our way.”
While Roger went below to dismantle the fiery columns that had created the bathing area, Johnny and Larissa stood and looked out over the water (or at least over the water plants). All evidence of bird and insect life had disappeared, but the bright blue water snakes were in abundance, and the air was full of noises that sounded like frogs, although Johnny couldn’t actually see any. When Roger reemerged, Johnny inquired about the snakes.
“What about ’em?” she asked.
“Are they dangerous?”
“Nah. Some keep ’em as pets. They can be quite affectionate, so I’ve heard. If any climb aboard, just toss ’em back. They don’t bite.”
“What about moccasins?”
“Henh?”
“I thought swamps typically had water moccasins.” Roger continued to stare at him blankly. “It’s a poisonous snake, lives in the water.” He looked over at Larissa for help.
“Agkistrodon piscivorus,” she supplied.
This was apparently unhelpful as far as Roger was concerned.
“Often called ‘cottonmouth’ due to the white lining of its mouth, which it exposes in its threat display,” the little girl added.
Roger nodded slowly. “I ... see,” she said. It was obvious that she didn’t.
Johnny jumped back in. “Okay, so no moccasins. What should we be worried about?”
Roger shrugged. “Well, there be burrikits on the land, as I mentioned, and barracuda and serathodonts in the water. And of course the muck monsters. But it’s unlikely we’ll see any o’ those bastards.”
“Barracuda are saltwater fish,” Larissa pointed out.
Roger shook her head. “No salt water here, me lassie. In fact, the water’s quite potable, once you fish all the greenery out of it. But if you fall into it, ye’ll find out quick enough about the barracuda. So don’t fall in, eh?” Roger gave another big grin; Larissa just gazed back with wide eyes.
Johnny said, “So, what are these ... serathowhatsits?”
Roger took his shoulder and turned him so that the tall palm tree, only a shadow in the weird rain at this point, was at his back. Any evidence of a far “shore” was now completely obscured, and it was just a vast expanse of the floating plants, blurry in the hanging raindrops. “Look right there,” she said.
Johnny stared. “I don’t see any...” He trailed off as he caught sight of a path being cut cleanly through the vegetation, just at the edge of the visibility the rain allowed. There was obviously something swimming just underneath the surface. From the size of the wake it left, it must be big. The course it followed coiled back and forth sinuously, snakelike, but this was way too big to be a snake. Suddenly a huge yellow fish with red stripes lept out of the water; in the instant it splashed back down, the snout of something like a dark blue crocodile shot up and snapped closed. A stocky, scaly body was visible for a moment, followed by a thrashing tail. In an instant it was all over and only a lazily spinning water lilly marked the passage of the great beast. Johnny noticed that he had stopped breathing for a second. He drew a shaky breath.
“Was that a ... what was that?”
“Serathodont. That’s what ye were asking about, weren’t ye?”
“Yeah.” Johnny reached out and grabbed hold of the ship’s railing. “Yep, that’s what I ... okay, just forget I asked. For future reference, it’s probably better that I don’t know these things.”
Roger shrugged. “Nothing to get fussed about. They’re mean, but they’ll mostly stay out of our way. Stay out of the water, and they’ll stay off the land. Well, for the most part. If the fishing gets too poor they do come out looking for easier meat, but that’s mighty rare. Although I have seen ’em run down muskies afore ...”
Johnny’s brain was reeling. “So they can ... run?”
Roger grinned again, and slapped him on the back. “Mighty rare, me bucko! Don’t be fretful. Now, let’s get moving, eh?”
Johnny looked back toward the palm tree, but it was entirely out of sight now. “I think we already are, aren’t we?”
Roger pshawed him. “Jest driftin’ a bit. I’ll go take the wheel and we’ll get to traversing good and proper.”
Johnny nodded. “And, then we’ll go get this Aidan fellow?”
“Yes. The Guide.”
“Right. And then we’ll ... what?”
Roger’s smile was pervasive. “And then we’ll get to finding it.”
“Oh, right. Find ‘it.’ And what exactly was ‘it’ again?”
“Why, the Diamond Flame, a course. Ain’t that why you come here?”
Johnny pondered the name. It had an exotic ring to it, like a novel in an adventure series, or an action movie. It sent shivers up his spine for no discernible reason. Was that why he was here? Was there any rhyme or reason to his being here at all?
“Honestly, Roger, I have no idea. But if you say so, I’ll buy it. I’d buy anything right about now. I’m so far from where I was the last time I truly knew where I was that I’m just running on adrenaline and hope at this point.”
Roger looked at him with curiosity, her smile suspended for a moment. “Not knowing where ye are is no big thing, me da’ always said. Time and tide will carry ye to places ye’d never imagine. Not knowing where ye’re going, on the other hand, now that is a problem.” Her touch on his shoulder was gentler this time. “Ye’ve always got to know where ye’re going, else how’ll ye know when ye get there?”
And with those words, Roger moved aft to start up the great fan again and get them underway
>>next>>
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Chapter 11 (concluded)
Johnny glanced over at the “tub.” “This is ... somewhat unusual for us,” he said, trying not to look over at the increasingly naked Roger. “We typically don’t ... um, bathe in front of other people. Where we, ah, come from, I mean.”
Roger stepped in front of him. She wasn’t any taller than he was, but she was obviously older. Her breasts weren’t large, but they seemed to fill Johnny’s vision. He tried looking down, but that brought him to the dark patch of hair between her legs, so he turned his head and looked at the wall instead. “Suit yerselves,” Roger was saying. “I’ll wash up meself and then go find ye some fresh clothes. I reckon ye can fit into me own garb well enough ...” Johnny felt her grab him by the shoulders. “A bit broader across the blades than I, mayhap, but close enough. Ye, little lassie, on the other hand, ...” Johnny felt her let go of him, then out of the corner of his eye he saw her put her hand on top of Larissa’s head. Larissa continued to gaze up at the older woman. “Ye’ll be a bit of a challenge. But methinks I can scrounge up summat.”
A brief pause and then a splash, and Johnny finally dared look back around. Roger’s head popped up above the surface of the water, and she shook it, flinging her ponytail around and spraying water everywhere. Bones scolded her with a screech, but she paid him no mind. The tea-colored water did a good enough job of hiding her nudity that Johnny felt he could look at her now. She chatted on while she washed, using the hunk of soap to create a surprising amount of lather, which she used on both body and hair, although she didn’t undo her ponytail. By the time she was done washing, there was very little of the soap left, and Roger dropped it in the water. Johnny noticed that it quickly sank down and out of sight. Point one, he thought to himself: don’t drop the soap until you’re finished.
Most of Roger’s chatter was instructions on what to do (and what not to do) while on board the ship. She was quite excellent at this, and Johnny found himself wanting to do as she said, never doubting that she was in charge, but never feeling like her inferior. She had an easy air of command that was in no way diminished by being in the midst of taking a bath; no doubt she was born to be a ship’s captain. Suddenly something she was saying caught his ear. “Wait, what was that last bit?”
Roger had finished her washing by now and she began to lazily backstroke across the short length of the “tub.” (Johnny had to avert his eyes again.) “The Guide,” she repeated. “We’ll be off to pick up the Guide now.”
“Who’s the Guide?”
“Aidan de Tourneville.”
Johnny shook his head as if to clear it. “No, I meant ... what is he, or why do we need him, or ... something.”
Roger chuckled again. She had a very sexy chuckle; it was throaty, like her laugh, but even more seductive, somehow. “For where we’ll be heading, we’ll be needing a Water Guide.” Johnny could see the capital letters in “Water Guide” from the way she said it. “Aidan may not be the best of the best, but he’s the best of the ones we can get to right now, and he’ll see us through. And as to why we be needing him,” and here there was another splash, and her face appeared in his field of vision, staring up at him from the edge of the tub as he was trying to stare at the floor, “that’ll be on account of the monsters.” She heaved her body out of the water in one well-muscled push, and Johnny blushed and looked away yet again.
“Monsters?” he said, his voice cracking a bit.
“Now, now, nothing to worry yer pretty little head over. That’s what we’ll be having the Guide for, s’truth.” There were dripping footsteps, and then a click, and then a loud whoosh. It surprised Johnny so much that he forgot to look at the floor. Through the cloud of steam, he could barely make out Roger’s back; she was standing over where one of the fireglobe stands had been, holding her arms out to either side and using her foot to press a button on the floor. The steam seemed to be coming off her, somehow, and, sure enough, when it cleared, she seemed totally dry. She stepped over to the wooden box with its little round pot on top. Removing the lid, she scooped out a handful of some goopy substance and began to rub it on her body.
Johnny knew he was probably supposed to be looking away again, but this was too fascinating. “What is that stuff?” he asked.
“It’s allsalve. Ye’ll need to be putting it all over. Concentrate on the exposed skin, and don’t get it too near your eyes or your nethers, but get it on most of ye.”
Both Johnny and Larissa had come over to examine the stuff. It was white, and roughly the consistency of cocoa butter. There was a very distinctive, but not unpleasant, smell coming from it. Larissa stuck a finger in it and brought it to her nose. “Aloe vera base,” she pronounced. “Infused with zinc oxide and ... nepetalactone?” She gazed back up at Roger.
“Well, I don’t know what ye’re on about there, missy, but this stuff will keep you from burning in the sun, and it keeps the mosquitoes off ye, which is the main thing. As an added benefit, it keeps yer skin from drying out, and it can occasionally make the burrikits go loopy, rather than eating ye.”
“What’s a burrikit?” Johnny asked.
“Large orange cat,” Roger replied. “They waits up in the trees for ye to come along, and then they drop on ye.”
“Nepetalactone is the active ingredient in catnip,” Larissa told him.
“Ah,” Johnny said. “Wouldn’t that attract the ... um, burrikits?”
“Occasionally, ye’re right as rain, but not as often as it keeps ye from being drained bloodless by the mosquitoes. And the mosquitoes can get to you here on the ship, ye see, whereas the burrikits cannot. For the most part.” Roger applied some of the cream to her cheeks, chin, and forehead, and then wiped her hands on her hips. “There! That should do ‘er. Shall I go fetch ye some clothes then?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned and strode off. Johnny caught himself watching her walk away and immediately turned back to Larissa, who wasn’t bothering to avert her eyes. Her gaze lingered on the door for some time after Roger had disappeared through it. Finally she turned to meet Johnny’s eyes.
“So ...” Johnny said. “You want to go first?” Larissa didn’t answer. “I mean,” he stammered, “I mean, I’ll go wait outside and ...” Larissa’s gaze didn’t falter, and her blank expression didn’t change. Johnny thought he was probably blushing. Again.
“How about I just go first then? Can you guard the door for me and make sure she doesn’t come barging in?” Larissa nodded. Johnny exhaled, relieved. “Okay, cool, then I’ll do the same for you afterwards, right? I’ll just poke my arm out for the new clothes when I’m done, I guess.” Johnny looked around and saw that Bones was still in the room, perched up on a shelf across the room. “And take that thing out with you, if you can,” he said, gesturing.
Bones opened its beak and stuck out a small pink tongue at Johnny. Then it gave a short monkey cry and scampered out of the room.
>>next>>
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Chapter 11 (begun)
Preparations
For what seemed like hours, Roger had them carrying things onto the ship and stowing them away. She was bright and cheery, and had a curious approach of both treating them like they knew what they were doing and teaching them how to do it at the same time. “We’ll make sailors of ye yet!” she’d say. She gave the heavier crates to Johnny to lug onboard, and the smaller boxes and other small tasks went to Larissa. Roger oversaw everything, but she worked hard as well. Johnny didn’t know how she always knew when one of them was doing something incorrectly, or at a loss as to what to do next, but he suspected it had something to do with the weird parrot-monkey, which bounded and swooped around and called out stereotypical pirate phrases such as “Avast there!” and “Walk the plank!” It seemed it couldn’t actually fly, but there was some loose skin under its arms with long, stiff feathers attached, and it would scurry, monkey-like, up to the tops of things and then leap off, gliding amazingly long distances, its legs tucked up under it and its feathered tail streaming out behind like a rudder.
At last, the last crate was stowed and Johnny sat down, exhausted. He now knew how to tie three different types of knots and knew the proper terms for nearly everything on the boat. And it seemed the ship was finally ready to set sail ... or perhaps ready to embark might be more accurate, for of course there were no sails. “Jolly good, me buckos!” Roger called out, standing with her feet apart and her hands on her hips. “Ready to weigh anchor? How’re we lookin’, Bones?”
The red and blue streak shot up out of the hold and landed nimbly on a webbing of ropes on the side of the deckhouse. “Red sky at dawn!” it screeched.
Johnny looked up, surprised. “You actually have dawn here?” he asked.
Roger chuckled. “It’s just an expression. Means he thinks it may rain.”
Larissa spoke up. “Why would you have a word for a phenomenon you never experience?”
Roger ignored this, looking out over the water behind the ship’s stern. “Might rain, at that. Shouldn’t be much to it though ... bit of a hig, I’d say.”
Johnny had no idea what a “hig” was, but he assumed it implied a light rain shower.
“Anyhow, we’ll need to get cleaned up afore we do too much else, so let’s get ‘er out in the deep.”
They followed Roger back to the wheelhouse (she called it that despite there not actually being a wheel, or a house, for that matter), where she grabbed a rubber handle attached to a cord and yanked it hard, just like starting an old lawnmower. Immediately the fan roared to life and the ship began to sway gently back and forth. Roger grabbed a large pole which stuck out horizontally. “Here y’are Johnny. Hold that there for me.” Johnny obliged. “Don’t let go, now, even if she bucks ye.” Roger grinned at him, then strode off to the front of the boat. Johnny heard a loud clanking, like huge chains being rattled, then there was a brief tug, and the back of the ship dropped precipitously, then the entire ship shot forward. Johnny managed to hold on, but he was glad of the warning Roger had given him.
Roger reappeared and took hold of the pole, which she insisted on calling the “wheel” despite there being nothing wheel-like about it. Johnny got close to her ear to be heard over the roar of the fan, and half-shouted “Why not just pull up the anchor, then start the fan?”
Roger kept her smile, but managed to convey the impression that this was a silly question. “Not worth the risk!” she half-shouted back.
Johnny was fast coming to the conclusion that talking to Roger was somewhat like talking to Larissa. That was okay; he was used to that by now.
“So,” he continued, changing tacks, “this thing run on gasoline?”
Roger gave him a quizzical look.
“Gasoline!” he said, louder.
She laughed. “No petrol!” she called back.
Before Johnny could pursue this further, Roger flipped a switch and the roaring of the fan puttered out. Johnny looked around.
They hadn’t come that far; he could still see the tall palm, perhaps a football field’s length away. Perhaps they were in the middle of the lake, or river, or whatever this waterway was, but that was impossible to tell, because the water’s surface was still covered with floating plants, although there was a cleared out trail that marked their passage. As Johnny looked, the trail started to disappear as the plants drifted back into the open space.
“Why’d we stop?” Johnny asked.
“Time to wash up,” Roger answered. “Come along, me hearties.”
They followed her to the front of the deckhouse, where she pulled open a door and led them through a warren of rooms. Finally they took three steps down into a windowless room which Johnny assumed must be in the very center of the structure. It was lit only by a skylight. The center of the floor consisted of a large square of wood which was somehow not part of the rest of the floor. Roger strode over to a crank on the far wall and began to turn it; the middle of the floor slid smoothly back, like the sunroof of one of Johnny’s father’s cars, revealing the dark water beneath.
“Light ’em up, Bones,” Roger instructed. Johnny noticed that, at each corner of what was now a large square hole in the floor, there was a short stand, with a round thing on top that looked vaguely like the decorative, glass-globed candles his mother used to buy. And, indeed, Roger and Bones were lighting them as if they were just that, creating a spark by striking two objects together (Johnny supposed it must be a flint and steel). The spark created was larger than any spark he’d ever seen before, and it flew unerringly to the blackened wicks, which started burning immediately. Johnny didn’t think that making fire with a flint and steel was that easy in the real world, but it was a minor point considering he was traveling on a wooden airboat the size of a small yacht. And it was about to get even more minor ...
Once all four globes were lit, Roger walked over to the wall where the crank was, and took down a small mallet. She then went to the first stand and smacked the candle thing hard. The fiery globe shot down, collapsing its wooden stand, passed through the floor of the boat and down into the depths of the water, leaving a trail behind it so that it formed a pillar of fire which stretched from the underside of the boat to the waterbed. It didn’t really light up the water much, but there was enough glow that Johnny could see the shadows of fish, and maybe reptiles, scurrying away from the source of the underwater flames. Roger repeated this three more times, until there was a sort of cage underneath the boat. The water below the boat was still brown—the color of strong tea—but it was obviously clear of aquatic life.
“The brown color comes from the dissolved peat tannins,” Larissa said.
Roger was bent over, rooting around in a wooden box. After a moment she gave a satisfied grunt and stood up, closing the box and placing a ceramic pot on top of it. She brought three off-white, shapeless lumps over and handed one each to Johnny and Larissa. “What’s this?” Johnny asked.
“Soap,” Roger replied, her tone stating that this should have been obvious.
Johnny nodded, staring at the hard lump in his hand. “Sure, soap. Of course. Now what are we supposed to be ...”
He looked up and found that Roger was unbuttoning her shirt. Quickly he looked away, back at Larissa. The younger girl was watching Roger with her normal detachment, holding her own lump of soap in both hands. From behind him, Johnny heard a briefly muffled “We are supposed to be sluicing off the sweat and grime we’ve worked up. Now strip off and get in the tub, swabbies!”
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Sunday, January 16, 2011
Chapter 10 (concluded)
The Ship, and her Captain
Since the light never changed, it was impossible to tell how long it took them to reach the place where the trees met the water. The dragonflies continued to divebomb them, and the mosquitoes continued to try to drain them of their blood. More birds flew overhead, and they saw wading birds as well, hunting in the scattered pools that were so covered in floating vegetation that they were practically indistinguishable from the marshy land. Some of the birds were white, a couple were a bright red, and one was an electric shade of violet. None of them seemed inclined to abandon their work for the trivial circumstance of passing primates.
Traveling became easier as Johnny learned how to recognize the transitions from solid ground to mud or outright shallow water. The wading birds were a giveaway, of course, but not every pool had those. There were large, black insects that skated along the surface of the water in nearly every pool, but those were hard to spot until you were practically on top of them. The various rushes and reeds were the best indicators. Gradually Johnny learned to lead them in a twisty, staggering path that kept them mostly dry. As they drew closer to the trees, they also began to hear evidence of life from the close-set woody jumble: cries that might have been monkeys or jungle birds, larger things crashing through the thick bushes, and a strange noise that Johnny could only describe to himself as reminiscent of the noise Tigger made in the Winnie the Pooh movies of his childhood, if Tigger had been less of a cuddly stuffed animal and more of a vicious carnivore.
As they walked, Johnny snacked a bit on Sandra’s food from his vest, but mainly he was too excited to care much about eating. This was utterly insane, sure, but also galvanizing in a weird way. At this point, he was anxious to see what would happen next.
When they finally reached the tip of the treeline, it was obvious this was a much bigger body of water than the small pools they’d encountered thus far. There was still no sign of the water itself, buried under layers of floating plants, but the wading birds were here in flocks, and Johnny could make out bright blue water snakes, no bigger around than his finger but as long as his forearm. The trees at the water’s edge were mangroves with thick, intertwined trunks that transitioned seamlessly to thick, intertwined roots, and shadowy forms lurked in the cages they formed, both above and below the waterline. The bushes and shrubs and Larissa-sized ferns were thicker here too. Across the water they could see more trees and bushes that might indicate islands, or a far shore, or anything in between.
The mangroves effectively blocked any hope of turning left. To the right, it was mostly bushes and ferns, with some smaller, scrubby trees that might have been some form of willow, and one hugely tall specimen some way off that was obviously a palm tree. Johnny stared at the palm for a moment, then looked back at Larissa. He wanted to ask if palm trees grew in swamps, but perhaps he ought not point out any more anomalies today.
“Let’s go this way,” he said, indicating the general direction of the solitary tree. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a machete in your jacket somewhere?” He felt sure he was still smiling, and thought it was probably inappropriate, but there was no use fighting it.
Larissa didn’t answer, but then he didn’t really expect her to.
They pushed through the thick vegetation as best they could, though it got thicker as they went along. By the time they reached the copse of stunted trees that surrounded the signpost palm, they could no longer see their feet, and there was only blind optimism between their lower extremeties and any poisonous reptiles or arachnids that might inhabit the area.
When they emerged from the screen of trees, the first thing they saw was the ship. Technically, he supposed it was an airboat, although it didn’t look like any airboat he’d ever seen. Of course, his experience of airboats was primarily limited to miscellanous movies set in the Louisiana bayou and reruns of “Gentle Ben,” but he was pretty sure airboats weren’t generally that big. Or made of wood. Or had figureheads.
It looked mostly like a smallish 17th century sailing vessel—perhaps 20 to 30 feet long—but, instead of sails, it had the flat bottom and huge rearward-facing fan that would make it swampworthy. The fanblades were made of a metal that looked like brass, but the cage that held it in place was some sort of bamboo, and Johnny couldn’t see any engine at all. The ship had a structure on it that perhaps housed two or three rooms, and there was a cabin on top of that, as well as what Johnny knew from his father’s brief yachting stint was called a flying deck. The whole thing looked impossibly heavy, even for that monster of a fan, but it perched on the surface of the water like a bathtub toy. At first Johnny could see no signs of life, but then he spotted a man with his back towards them, on the shore. He appeared to be rearranging some crates.
Johnny and Larissa stepped cautiously toward this surreal scene. Johnny wondered if it would be safe to approach this stranger, but he couldn’t see they had much choice in the matter. Perhaps this fellow would know where they were, what the purpose of this swamp was, what had drawn him here. An answer to any one of these questions would be worth the risk. They drew closer, the sound of their approach masked by the shuffling of the boxes, and finally Johnny, not wishing to startle the man, said “Excuse me?”
The young man turned towards them then, flinging his dark blonde ponytail over his frilly white blouse, and suddenly Johnny wasn’t so sure it was a “he” at all. It may have been a young man, but then again it might have been a young woman. Johnny was reminded of those anime-style video game characters where you were never sure what gender it was supposed to be. Plus they always had non-gender-specific names that were no help at all.
“Hi,” he or she said brightly. “I’m Roger.”
And yet, thought Johnny, that makes me feel more than ever that she’s a woman.
Larissa stepped up and eyed Roger critically. “Historical pirates didn’t wear shirts with ruffs on them, being for the most part too poor to afford such things, in addition to them being completely impractical at sea. As would be those boots; seawater would collect in the tops, and the soles would slip on the decks of the ships.” She gazed up with wide eyes. “And Roger is an unusual name for a woman.”
Roger threw her head back and laughed, and it was that more than anything that told Johnny that Larissa was right about her gender. It was a rich, throaty laugh: definitely the laugh of a woman. “Well, my little lassie, whoever said I was an ’istorical pirate? I’ve never seen the sea in me life. And as for me name, how do ye know all the women of me clan aren’t named such?” She winked, theoretically at Larissa, to whom she was talking, but Johnny couldn’t help but feel the wink was only for him. “But I won’t pull your leg. Me da’ always wanted a boy, he did, so Roger I am.” Of course, that didn’t explain why she looked as if she’d stepped out of a pirate movie, but by this point Johnny had seen so much weird shit that this was nothing. In fact, compared to stumbling upon a swamp in the sewers underneath DC, finding a woman who looked as if she’d stepped out of Cutthroat Island was practically normal.
Suddenly there was a red and blue flash streaking through the ferny undergrowth, and something shot up Roger’s leg, ran up her back, and perched on her shoulder. It was feathered and beaked, with the colors that Johnny associated with a macaw, but with the arms, long-fingered hands, and prehensile tail of a small monkey. The eyes were not bird eyes, definitely, but the way it cocked its head and clicked its beak was certainly ... well, parroty.
Johnny looked over at Larissa, fascinated to get her reaction on this new development. She had her head cocked to one side as well ... the opposite way as the creature on Roger’s shoulder, Johnny noticed. They stared at each other, patrons at a zoo sizing up unfamiliar creatures.
Suddenly the creature screeched: it was mostly a monkey noise, with just a hint of squawk. To Johnny’s surprise, Larissa hissed like a scalded cat. Roger still wore an inscrutable smile. “Now, Bones,” she said, apparently speaking to the creature on her shoulder, “these are friends.”
Johnny looked at her in surprise. “Are we?”
Roger flashed pearly white teeth at him. “Well of course ye are! Ye’re here to help.”
Johnny’s eyebrows drew together. “Uhh ... okay. If you say so.” He shrugged and turned to Larissa, but she was now studiously ignoring the impossible feathered primate and seemed to be waiting for further developments.
Johnny looked back at “Bones.” “So ... what is that thing?” He supposed this sounded vaguely impolite, but at this point, he felt beyond caring about social niceties.
Roger raised a leather-gloved hand. “This? This is Bones.”
“Yeah, I ... I got that. What is it?”
“It’s me companion. Say hello to the nice people, Bones.”
The parrot-monkey turned its attention to Johnny now, and squawked “Mangy cur!”
Roger laughed her throaty laugh again. “Never mind him,” she said to Johnny. “That’s just his way of saying ‘ahoy!’.”
“Ummm ... right. Well, good to know. Say, do you have any clue what the hell we’re doing here?”
Roger studied him closely for a moment. “Ye’re here to help me find it, unless I miss me guess.”
Johnny blinked. “Sure,” he said, throwing up his hands and giving up on having things make sense, not for the first time this week. “Sure, why not?” He felt the unwarranted grin return to his face.
>>next>>
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Chapter 10 (begun)
In the Swamp
When he woke up, Johnny felt he ought to feel disoriented, but he didn’t. In fact, it was practically disorienting how utterly oriented he felt, despite the fact that he was waking up in what might be the strangest place he’d ever woken.
Forget the fact that he’d arrived by means of an impossible black door in the side of a sewer pipe he’d phased into while fleeing from a mythological creature and a lycanthrope. He was, at present, in the middle of a swamp. There was just no other way to describe it. The ground just here wasn’t too mushy, but his boots bore the muddy battle scars of what they’d had to trudge through to get here. Larissa, in her much thinner black and white sneakers, had been reduced to riding on his back a couple of times. Now they were surrounded by grass, and bushes, and reeds and bulrushes and cattails and what Larissa identified as papyrus. The surface of all the water they’d seen so far was green with duckweed and water lillies. There were lots of ferns. And moss ... everywhere moss. There were no trees nearby, but he could see some in the distance, and he knew they were willows and cypresses and mangroves. The only animals they’d seen so far were dragonflies—huge blue and green dragonflies that were beautiful but also frightening in the way they divebombed you—and mosquitoes. The mosquitoes were ferocious. Johnny had thought he was used to mosquitoes by this point—after all, much of the greater metropolitan area where he’d spent his entire life had originally been wetlands of some sort or other—but these were a whole different sort. In fact, the bugs were the only reason they’d built the fire, whose guttering remains were still glowing closeby; it certainly hadn’t been for the heat. Heat they had plenty of, and humidity as well.
So he was waking up in a swamp that somehow existed underneath the nation’s capital, attached to its sewer system, and it was hot as July there despite it being September, and it was populated with plants that did not, as far as he knew, geographically co-exist in what he still persisted in thinking of as the real world. But none of this was the strangest part. The strangest part was the light. It was exactly the quality of fading daylight, when the sun is perhaps halfway down below the horizon. Perhaps there was a mildly greenish cast to it, but that could have just been from the overwhelming quantity of green vegetation. No, the problem with the light wasn’t its quantity or its character. The problem was that it had been this light when they had arrived, it had been this light when they had tired of walking and built their fire, it had been this light when they had drifted off to sleep, and it was still this light now that Johnny was awake again. And he could tell himself all he liked that the sun must just be out of sight behind those trees off in the distance, but somehow he knew the truth: there was no sun. Not here. Light, yes, but no sun.
So all in all Johnny should have been more than disoriented. He should have been downright freaked out. But he wasn’t. He was, in fact, smiling. His pants were dry, for the most part, although at this point all his clothes were sticky with sweat. He knew there was food to be had—quite good food at that—and fire to be made if it was necessary. And he knew beyond doubt, although he couldn’t say how, that if anyone else were to lay their hand on that door, it wouldn’t open. And that’s assuming that anyone else could even see the door, which Johnny wasn’t sure they could. So, lost in an impossible swamp they might be, but at least they were safe from whatever had been chasing them.
And, wasn’t this some sort of adventure? Wasn’t this, if nothing else, something ... different?
There was a weird bird-like cry, and a large bat shape soared overhead.
Johnny was still staring at the fading shadowy form when he heard Larissa speak. “Bats can’t soar.” He looked back down at her; she was now sitting up, looking in the same direction as he.
“Looked like a bat,” he said, still smiling for no discernable reason.
“Probably a frigatebird. Their silhouettes can look very batlike.”
It occurred to Johnny that he couldn’t remember Larissa ever using the word “probably.”
“So!” he said cheerfully. “What do you think we should do now?”
Larissa stared at him.
“Yeah, good point: this was my idea, wasn’t it?” He turned around and looked. The insects were getting braver as the fire sputtered out. The mosquitoes, of course, had never entirely given up, but they were starting to come back in force, and a yellow and red dragonfly longer than his hand buzzed his head. “Interesting colors on the dragonflies here, eh?” He waited for her to comment that the common Indonesian dragonfly or somesuch had coloring like that, but she said nothing. “And these damned mosquitoes ...” He punctuated this by slapping one on his forearm. To his surprise (and mild disquiet), the mosquito picked itself up and shook out its crushed wings. It was colored almost exactly like a tiger, with the orange and black motif extending down its arched legs. As Johnny stared, it took off and made a beeline for the trees.
He half-chuckled, half-gulped. “Well, that one won’t be bothering us again, eh?”
Larissa said nothing.
“Um ... yeah. So, hey, let’s just walk and see where we get to, eh?”
Larissa looked around for a moment. “Which way?” she asked.
Johnny considered. The door was long out of sight, of course, but he knew he could find it again if they needed to. With no sun and no stars, there was no hope of figuring out which direction was north. If “north” was even a concept that applied here. There were the distant trees on one side, and in the other directions just bushes and more plants, and some intermittent mist. He tried feeling with his strange new sense, but, other than the rough direction where the door lay, it told him nothing. He listened: there were chirpings and chitterings, but almost all were far away, perhaps past the treeline. Most sounded like birds, or maybe rodents. He sniffed: generally it was loamy and damp and reminiscent of a compost, but in a pleasant way. There was something else though ... was it water? He thought it might be. Toward the place where the treeline curved around to get in front of them and then just stopped.
“That way,” he said, pointing. He turned back around. “You want to eat first?”
She shook her head.
“Nah, me neither. Let’s just snack on the way.” He was still grinning slightly.
>>next>>
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