Phoenix Song

I

For days we have floated adrift with what little food we could smuggle on board after Captain Argyris's fall into madness. I watched personally when he stabbed the bo'sun through his chest, through his left eye, and slit his throat. He stared out at the rest of us covered in the blood that sprayed from the deceased as though to issue challenge-and all because the other man couldn't hear the song.

Or perhaps he could and refused to regard it.

I knew Captain Argyris well at one time, as I ought to. He is the son of my sister, to whom I ensured the safety of the fellow. It is unfortunate that I could not keep that promise, as I always loved my nephew dearly; it was I who taught him of the many wicked ways of the sea, but could not steer him from its charms. Were he to find myself and my measly crew of four upon this small dinghy we would be slaughtered for mutiny, and this is fine with me. I deserve no more or less, and my men stole their own rations and joined me in agreement of that very fact. They joined me also in the knowledge that we would never again see our young captain unless we ourselves followed that wretched, enchanting music.

Argyris knew the dangers of this sea and swore upon his gods the will to avoid them prior to his leaving. Were he to return to shore and have his crew call him out on his weakness, his public execution would be the next great social gathering at the scorching port of Tetra. My own death would be imminent upon my return as well. I would rather meet the singer who haunts our dreams than come to face the wrath of the councilmen. No treason ranks higher than a broken swear in the name of the gods, the oaths we are all forced to take before departure. With any luck we may find shelter among freelance merchants, but the sea is vast and our rations run low.

The men a few nights ago began to wonder among themselves what heavenly visage may match this entrancing melody. I know well she lives upon the rocky shores toward which we float, for her voice has become much clearer in the days since the isle was but a single black dot upon the endless horizon. I hear wrapped within the notes the crystal wind chimes of my childhood home in Wisterra; old Gavril hears the lullaby his grandmother used to sing to him as an infant. All of us hear something far away, something for which we have longed for our many long and difficult years at sea. The men grow weary of my warnings and weaker by the minute, and I have decided to let us drift whatever way the currents take us.

Through the spyglass I can see her, perched atop the highest rock in a bed of straw, her pale skin shrouded in naught but the first light of morning, hair like fire spilling over her shoulders and down to her navel. From the way she gazes back without shame, smiles as she sings our funeral dirges, I am certain she knows I watch her, but this does nothing to dissuade me. Perhaps I am growing weak myself.

The other men have given no protest as we draw closer, even after watching their old Captain Argyris's larger vessel crash into the rocks an hour earlier. I watched her from my spyglass the in the moment it occurred, watched her hair turn to fire and engulf her slender form. She dove from the rocks, her arms widening into flowing wings, reducing herself to a flaming bird no larger than an eagle. She circled lower and lower over the wreckage and finally grasped in her golden talons to sword of the captain, the sword with which he murdered his loyal bo'sun and best friend of more than a decade, the trophy of her idle hunt. Up to her nest she flew, dropped the gleaming weapon in her bed of straw before spreading her flaming wings and being reborn once more as the impossible woman I have watched for two days and two nights.

Her unforgiving isle grows ever nearer. I would gladly let the sea bury me if all I hear in my dying moments would be that crystal voice, those crystal chimes on my mother's porch-if all I see is the lovely songbird by whom I have been captivated for two days, the phoenix of the crag.