The Scholar's Tale (Original Fantasy)

Book III, Chapter 4

AN: Longer break than I'd intended, but, between writer's block, my other projects and stuff irl, I just haven't been able to pick up ST again. I can't promise this won't happen again, but I hope it won't.

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I'd gotten so used to the hustle and bustle of the ship-as Mharra, Three and Ib bickered with and called after each other-that now, the sound of the waves crashing against the steamer seemed almost...lonely. Such a small, sad thing; like my captain, in a way.

I'd always been a withdrawn sort, even before leaving Copper's Cradle behind without a backwards glance. It hadn't spared me for beatings as a child, but it had brought some peace of mind. When I'd first met them, Mharra's unrelenting cheer and Ib and Three's boisterous attempts at camaraderie had-I won't mince words-annoyed me. I'd never really been comfortable around cheerful people, on the brief occasions I'd met any. There had always been expectations, if not actual requests, of leaving my quiet corner and metaphorical shell, and joining in. Nagging that had only fed into my resentfulness.

Not just at anyone being so carefree in Midworld. But at being happy when I wasn't. At being able to let their guard now, without the memory or threat of danger looming over them, at laughing about life's worries, rather than brooding over or taking dry, bitter jabs at them.

Just another thing I'd taken for granted, and not even appreciated properly. Just like my first and last love...

We might've lost a crewmate, and our engineer at that, but, if anything, Three's absence didn't feel as...crushing, as I'd expected.

'It's because he had three selves,' Ib had started to joke one night. 'So it's really like one void, spread thin.'

'Oh?' I'd arched an eyebrow, just to be contrary. 'Isn't it closer to three voids?'

'Three's selves were rarely apart, friend.''

Mharra had joined in, a rather unexpected situation, these days.

We had been leaning on the railing, me with my elbows on it, Ib with its back to it, lower arms slung over the edge, the middle and upper pairs crossed. Talking, just so we wouldn't be quiet.

The captain had started alternating between sitting in his cabin, brooding and occasionally shouting or coming out to tell us about possible things of interest ahead as he checked his instruments, and sitting or standing quietly in a corner when Ib and I got together.

There were, however, more unsettling episodes. Having started to remember being fully-rested, I'd mostly stopped sleeping, so I could always be available and, more importantly, alert. Between my perpetual wakefulness and magically-enhanced senses, I had started...seeing things.

No, I wasn't going mad (der). I meant actual things, events happening in the real world. Mostly, at night, when I sat in bed, watching the exterior and surrounding of the Burst through my cabin's sightscreen, I saw thick, heavy mists surround the ship, leaving only enough visibility at the port, starboard and prow to taunt the watcher. Despite the weather being far too dry for fog this dense. The mists, which varied from white-grey and black to eerie green and other, unnatural colours I could not describe, much less name, were filled with lights. They moved through them, flickering, winking on and off, as if taunting.

A handful of years ago, while trekking through a marshy island during a monsoon, a group of local guides I'd half-bribed, half-threatened to guide me to the safest place available (so I could wait out the weather, then look for a way to get off the waterlogged mess) had warned me about will-o'-wisps, unnatural lights that lured foolish or just weary travellers to their miserable deaths in the depths of swamps.

My instincts, both magical and mundane, told me the lights in the mists were less intended to be lures, althought they could undoubtedly accomplish that function as well, and more meant as psychological warfare. Wearing the mind down, making it think of questions and see patterns were there were none.

To what purpose? I knew not. There were many unexplained, unexplainable dangers, in Midworld.

But the lights were not the worst things in the mists. Not by far. On some nights, I saw and heard things that made them seem quaint.

Formless silhouettes, darting in and out of the fog, dark and featureless even under the moonlight. Illusionary ships, like mirages in a desert, that sailed straight at the steamer, but passed through it without even denting the hull.

Mostly, they were sailships. Made of wood, yellowed by age or blackened by rot. They looked as if they'd spent years underwater, if not longer. They came at us, using torn sails that needed no wind, dark sludge dripping from them like sludge from an old corpse. The ships' timbers creaked, sounding like the wails of the dead that crewed them.

Not all of the ghoulish vessels were wooden. Some were steamers like ours, contraptions of once-gleaming metals or magical constructs of crystal and dreams.

Nightmares, now.

The crews consisted of revenants, though not all were flaking flesh and cracked bone. The ones on the sailships looked like a child's idea of pirates, all piercings and knives between teeth and death's head grins. Some were freshly deaded, bloated with saltwater. Others could've been dead for longer than I'd lived, except, instead of falling apart into dust, they'd become fouler and fouler, skin sticking tightly to skulls whose eye sockets blazed with green fire.

There were dead men with two peg legs or hooks for hands, steering wells stuck in cracked heads and cutlasses piercing unbeating hearts and useless lungs. Grotesque mockeries of parrots and monkeys scampered across, in and out of the captains' hole-riddled bodies.

The dead on the other ships were stranger still. Revenants that stalked or crawled on endless mechanical legs, like spiders or caterpillars; or flew using boxy, metallic contraptions fused with their torsos, which pulsed sickly. There were cadavers made almost entirely of rocks or gemstones, with so little flesh left, they looked more like golems that had dismembered and flayed people to wear their remains.

The thought seemed to please them. Their endless, droning chuckle grew louder at every such comparison that entered my mind.

The hardest part was always when the false ghost ships passed through the steamer. My arcane sense told me there was nothing there, as did my instincts, but it was hard to listen to the small, rational part of my mind while the rest of it was torn between fight or flight.

I struggled not to stand up and strike or run when decks full of corpses filled my sight, and though they passed through me without leaving any sensation-even the mists were more substantial, for, at least, they existed-, my soul still reeled in disgust at their approach. Monstrous limbs and bloodless, gaping mouths stretched forward and spread wider, as if their owners sough to embrace or kiss me.

'It's good you can keep your nerve, Ryzhan,' Ib grimly told me one night. 'I've seen the like before. The more you believe in them, the more real they are.' It had smiled almost shily. 'So they should have no power over you, but still...want me to sleep with you?'

Years ago, anyone would've received a deadpan look or slap for asking me that, depending on my mood. As it were...

'I wouldn't mind sharing my room with you,' I had replied. 'We are all in a dark mood now. It would not help anyone to remain alone, with the monsters.'

And that was how I'd ended up leaning against Ib's torso or sitting in its lap, its strong arms wrapped around me in a reassuring embrace that was only slightly crushing.

I'd have objected to Ib leaving Mharra on his own, but my friend's fragments were all over the ship, and any could become it-like a fist opening into a hand, it had told me; a blunt tool becoming more versatile-in a moment, if it was necessary.

Of course, while I was grateful for its presence, I was also a grown man, and a mage to boot. It felt...just slightly degrading, having someone hold mr as I tried to sleep.

'Do not think it's childish, Ryz,' Ib said. 'I'd be more worried if you weren't scared of such things. We are talking about real dangers here...well, unreal dangers. But they could become painful fact in a moment.' It patted my head, only rattling my brain slightly. 'Besides, it's not like only children comfort each other like this. Soldiers do it too, as do lovers...and we are comrades, at least, aren't we?'

Such things didn't need to be confirmed anymore. As such, I didn't answer.

I would hold on to my remaining crewmates for as long as possible, in any way I could...

No.

Forever.

And why not? Why not, when there seemed to be no end to how much I could enhance myself with my magic? The additions stacked, with no limit in sight. I felt like I could do anything. Like I could...

Well. Not bring Three back, at least. So, not anything.

And I'd tried, so, so many times. Hoped to make a surprise of it, for the captain. Show him the runaway he'd picked up for his magic was good for more than parlour tricks during the shows that now seemed vague, distant memories.

But I'd failed. It had felt like pressing my hand (or ramming my head, with how frustrating it got) against an unyielding wall, or tugging on a rope someone was pulling in the other direction.

That damned analogy was so bloody fitting, I actually got rope burns during one of the attempts. Found myself staring down at my bloody hands in irritated bemusement, ears filled by distant, empty laughter.

It seemed that whatever force the Free Fleet had unleashed or tapped into during their experiment was intelligent, though I used that term loosely, given its apparent sense of humour.

It was strange, though. I was trying to reach out to Three, wherever he might've been, not it. The larger, more cynical part of me though that another menace had been allowed to prowl the seas because of human ambition, a menace that was now hindering me because it found my efforts amusing.

The smaller, newer, more optimistic part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, Three was still out there, somewhere, maybe trapped or imprisoned by the Fleet's experiment-or the Fleet itself. Or maybe he was gone, but the thing striking back against my magic knew of a way to bring him back.

Thoughts for another day. I hadn't told Mharra, or Ib, but I wouldn't have been surprised to learn they both knew. I'd have been more surprised if they didn't, really. Ib had eyes and ears everywhere, almost literally, and Mharra...knew people.

And so went our days. The stretch of ocean we'd reached was incredibly peaceful, disturbingly so, in fact. I'd seen fiercer inland seas on larger islands. There were no tides on the expanse stretching out before us, no wind and no clouds above it. It was as still as a sapphire mirror.

I didn't spend much time on the deck, not because the weather was bad, but because it was better than I'd ever seen or read about, and that unsettled me. Still, one day, I looked down into the water,on a whim, and realised it was as clear as crystal. The only thing stopping me from seeing the seafloor was the fact there was none, for Midworld's waters stretched infinitely beneath and around us. Looking into the endless, azure depths, my mind rebelled at the sight, and I stepped back, lest I get dizzy.

And so, an year passed. We saw no other ships, no islands-not just already formed ones; Midworlders often saw masses of steaming rock rise from the waters and cool down before their eyes-, not even any animals. It was as if Midworld was trying to tell us our journey was pointless.

That, as long as we travelled in search of Three, rather than just out of necessity, like everyone else, we would never achieve anything, never go anywhere.

"Haven't others lost friends, too?"

I knew it was absurd, of course. The frustration and paranoia, scratching at my patience. I'd heard stories about sailors who'd only seen water their entire lives. But it didn't help with that nagging feeling, nor make it disappear. Nor did the nights, which got worse and worse as time dragged on.

While at first the phantasms had been mere illusions and tricks, the dangers became very much real, over months.

One night, while Ib and I were in my cabin, I was watching it shapeshift, my eyes sometimes drifting to the sifhtscreen for brief moments. The mists were rising, as always. The nights were almost as gloomy as the days were bright, like Midworld was punishing us for not taking the hint and forgetting Three, or not appreciating the beauty of the still waters it paraded before us.

I looked back as Ib began turning into an impressively realistic rendition of the Free Fleet's mangled command in miniature, then saw something jump out of the fog and land on the deck, an instant before I felt it.

The ship shook like a leaf in a hurricane, the deck shattering for several metres around as the steamer's hull almost rippled, before resuming its prior shape. The tortured shriek of metal was replaced by an actual shriek, as the  Burst let its hatred of the intruder be known.

The attacker looked like Mharra, except with sickly-grey skin and stringy black hair, as dark as his sunken eyes. At first, I'd thought the sockets were empty, but then I saw a dark joy gleam in the ebony orbs.

In contrast with my captain's colourful outfits, the creature wore a drab, dark green coat, brown pants and black boats, frayed and falling apart, rotten and dripping saltwater. The dripping never stop, as if the monster had an ocean trapped inside itself.

Its mouth was fanged, its nose hooked, and its limbs broken. They twised at impossible angles, stretched out of true, bones shining in the moonlight as they poked through flesh the colour of ash.

The joints were raw wounds, black ooze gathering on the edges. Elbows, knees, ankles, all were barely held together by threads of meat, as were the neck and crotch. I could see behind the thing by looking through it.

Ib's face rippled into a determined expression as it met my questioning look. 'Captain's in his cabin,' it said. 'I'm going to throw that impostor overboard.'

Not waiting for a reply, it dashed out of my cabin, dozens of times faster than sound, the metal of the corridor glowing white from its passing. I followed, almost as fast, and saw the steamer had already repaired the damage as we ran to the deck. I didn't know if I could do anything to help against whatever this was, but I didn't want Ib to face it alone. I couldn't afford to lose it, too, not after we'd saved it.

But if it lost you, a voice said in my mind, because of your recklessness, do you think it could forgive itself?

I didn't answer it. I had nothing to say.

By the time I arrived on the deck, Ib had already tackled the fake Mharra, forcing it onto its back. It laughed, even as its ribs cracked like seeds thrown into a fire. I stood back, trying to keep my footing, but the ship was swaying, and not from their struggle.

It felt more like it was shivering.

The mists were closing in, and I was staggering across the deck like a child who'd never stepped onto a boat, all because the damn stramer was twitchy.

I didn't realise, at the moment, that it was trying to save me. To keep me away, for my own safety.

With a mouthed curse, I dashed forward, and the fog rushed over the deck from all sides, obscuring Ib and the boarder from more than my sight. I could no longer see or smell them, feel them displacing air or shaking the deck with their movements. I couldn't even feel them with my arcane sense anymore. Ib's power, wild and free as a coursing river, was gone, as was the creature's sinister aura, like the moon hidden by a dark cloud.

As I strode through the mists, ignoring the way my senses insisted they were infinite, but that I was still on our decidedly finite ship, I began remembering traits. Strength, speed, durability, senses, increasing faster the more I enhanced them.

I kept my fists clenched at my sides after realising that, no matter how hard or fast I struck the air, the fog didn't move. Of course, it was beyond obvious, by now, that this wasn't natural weather.

My boot finally hit something other than the deck. Usually warm, it was now cold and wet, with patches of heat appearing and dissppearing across it at irregular intervals. Like the ship was sick, or scared.

I knew it was petty, but I still thought it had been far more tolerable when it hadn't been so... expressive.

Quashing the irritation, which had only reminded me of how much Three had done for the crew, I focused once more on my suroundings.

Specifically, the ugly mess I'd stepped on.

Mharra's nightmarish doppelganger grinned up at me, all needle teeth, as it clamped its clammy hands on my knee, trying to rip my leg off. I responded by remembering more strength, forcing my boot through its shattering ribcage and into the deck, keeping it still as surely as if it'd been impaled with a sword.

Its ugly grimave actually widened at this, so, glad I'd stomped a mudhole through it, I brought my other foot down onto its mouth, leaving a gory crater through its skull and into the deck. I then stomped on its neck, flattening it like a piece of parchment.

It was still struggling, through. And talking. Despite its punctured lungs, caved-in mouth and flattened throat.

Its voice only made it more grotesque, if only because it was completely mundane, even pleasant. My captain's voice, flowing from a monster's maw.

So to speak...

'So quick to violence, "Dhalgo",' it leered up at me. 'Unsurprising, but disappointing. I smelled the assassin in you when we first met, but I hoped you'd be kinder, in this world.'

I raised an eyebrow. If not for the recent revelation I'd received from Ib's memories, I might've been skeptical of the implication. As it were, though...'You're from a different universe? Another Midworld?'

It seemed confused at the second question, but answered me nonetheless. 'If that's what you want to call it.' The creature struggled, trying to rip itself free, more frustrated at being pinned than at the damage. Though, given that it had appeared bearing death wounds, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. 'Let me go!'

'Why? So you can try to kill me, like you did Ib?' Where was it, anyway? I doubted this fool had killed or escaped it, if only because I'd crushed it so easily. How much of that had to do with satisfying my inner cynic, better not to dwell on it.

It let out an ugly, cawing chuckle. Unsurprisingly (at this point, I'd have guessed it was some sort of undead even without my arcane sense, or the wet corpse smell), its voice didn't seem to be affected by its body's condition at all. It just sounded like a jackass, and something told me it also laughed like a donkey.

'Like you killed mine? You might as well have!' it said accusingly, eyes narrowing as I fiught to keep my face blank. 'Handed it over to the Free Fleet, in exchange for them hunting down anyone chasing you!'

It tried to crawl up my legs, so I snapped its arms in half at the elbows, pulling each off with one hand, then throwing them overboard.

At least, I thought so. The weather was playing tricks on my sense of scale, and the rotting maggot tryint to thrash itself free wasn't helping with concentration.

'Where's my Three?! I want my Three!' it shrieked, like a spoiled child, and I remembered more and more strength. By now, the ship was shivering like a man dying of frostbite.

' Our Three,' I began in a clipped done. I wasn't sure if it was reality an alternate Mharra from another reality, or simply some monster spat out by Midworld's waters, but I thought the phrasing would help get its attention. 'Is missing-'

'Killed! Dead once more, and by your hand!'

'No!' I snapped, resisting the urge to rip its head off. I didn't know if it could survive that, or still talk, if it did, and I might yet drag something useful out of it, even if literally. 'The Free Fleet saved our Ib, but in exchange for their help, they wanted a subject for an experiment. Three went. And...' I trailed off, but didn't look away from it, much as I wanted to.

In fact...now that I thought about it, I badly, deeply wanted to look away. Why? Disgust, at my captain's image being disfigured like this? Wistfulness? Guilt?

It didn't matter. I had a duty to defend the ship and help my crewmates, by removing this danger, and maybe gaining something useful for our search.

They'd accepted me. How could I do any less?

'We lost him,' I continued, more firmly. 'And if you think I wouldn't have gone in his place, that brain is more mouldy than it looks.' I was glad I'd gotten rid of its mouth. Smirking was more satisfying when the butt off the joke couldn't sneer back. My parents had taught me that. 'That's what we're trying to do. Find him.' I narrowed my eyes. 'What happened to your Three? Did you lose him, too?'

It stared at me in incomprehension, then its chest began rattling as it laughed pityingly. The bones in my legs were shaking, too, but I stood firm.

' My Three is where he belongs. Next to my heart~' When I scowled at its hooded, lewd look, it giggled. 'Peel back the flesh, and see for yourself. What, don't believe me? I'd ask if those miraculous magical senses can't show you the truth, but...' it slowly shook its head. 'They never have.'

'Do you think condescension will make me throw you overboard in fewer pieces?'

It scoffed. 'Nothing new under the sun. Three was horrified at your treachery, which you compounded by joining the Fleet. Although,' it looked at me slyly. 'Maybe that's the wrong word. You must believe in something at first, in order to betray it. What would you suggest instead? Infiltration?' It wiggled like a worm on a hook. 'You've always had such a way with words...far more so than stupid, naïve captain Mharra.'

I didn't know whether my counterpart had been a traitor, and cared even less. I had no responsibility for his actions, and the way it was calling me arrogant did nothing more than stoke my temper.

But what if that was what it wanted? To make me prove I was no better than the Ryzhan it had known? Or just distract me in order to achieve whatever it wanted?

'You're wasting my time,' I told it. 'Answer my questions.'

'Three never wanted to lose anyone again. He knew we could protect each other.'

'Really? I wonder why he isn't talking to me, too. Is he this quiet in your mind as well?' I whispered the next words. 'Is anyone else there, besides the voices?' I wasn't taken aback by its fat, oily tears. It had proven it was emotional already. 'Ib. What'd you do to my friend?'

'I don't know,' it said tiredly, looking past me, at the misty night sky. 'I lost it during the grapple. Threw it off me, and it never came back.'

Better finish this quickly, then, so I could look for it.

'Interesting. Now, why don't you tell me why you came here cackling like a villain out of a bedtime story? What were you hoping to find? Besides this beating.'

I smiled its withering glare off, quietly praising myself for leaving its eyes intact. It made things better.

'I came here for Three,' it said, suddenly calm, all traces of agitation or mockery gone. 'I told you. I recognised your acent, even if we were never...sailors, in our world. I want him.'

'So do we,' I said, bemused at its almost plaintive tone. 'But you turned your Three into, what, a source of power? Is that what you want to do to ours?'

'I want him,' it said with an ugly scowl. As much of one as it could make without a mouth. 'I need my love. I will take him and kill you, and things will be as they should have been.' It tried to sit up, even after I stomped its legs to pieces. 'You won't be the last.'

As if I'd let it put its inane plan into practice. Travel between worlds, killing my counterparts, because his Ryzhan had hurt him? I had no doubt some of my alternates were utter bastards, most likely were, but this-

Move!

I jumped away on reflex at the aetheric voice, a tenth of a thousand of a second before Ib landed on Mharra's doppelganger, shattering it.

'I'd heard enough,' the grey giant said, not looking at me. 'I got lost, but your voices guided me. The more you talked, the closer I came, until I finally found you.' It stood up, the undead's remains sliding off its body like water off glass. 'Thank you, Ryzhan,' its voice became sheepish. 'I should've finished the job. You shouldn't have to worry about protecting the ship, friend.'

'Of bloody course I shouldn't,' I snapped. 'What do we even keep you around for?'

My ire only rose when it bowed its head wordlessly. Honestly...we'd made it whole again, and it couldn't even do its damn duty, for all its power? What if I'd died?

I turned on my heel, not waiting to see if it was following me, though its heavy tread soon shook the deck beneath me. And so, we headed back not stopping until we reached the captain's cabin.

Mharra was happy to see us, though he didn't show it, lips turned down in his customary frown.

'Don't worry, Ryzhan,' the captain said, not looking at me. The table in fron of him was covered in leatherbound journals and parchments, detailing the travels of long-gone Midworlders. In the hope if finding anything that could help our quest, doubtlessly; strange events, how to find the trail of the Clockwork Court. 'You got everything you could have from that wretch.'

I stood up straighter in the chair Ib had become, and almost harrumphed. And what had he done? Sat there, poring over books like some withered librarian? 'I told Ib the truth,' I kicked the chair, drawing an apologetic murmur. 'But you're even worse. At least it has powers. Why the Pit are you captain?'

Mharra held up his hands. 'Forgive me, Ryz. I know you're angry. We've never understood your struggle.'

'I'm yet to get what I deserve,' I added, glad he finally understood.

Mharra nodded. 'Why don't you tell us more about your pursuers? I can chart a course, and we'll track them down instead.'

My last thought, before we began planning, was that sailing had been far smoother when Three had been with us.

Bloody getting lost, the only time we needed him.