The Wandering Isle

[Warpath]

They gathered their afflicted crewmates as far back from the front of the ship as they could, all but Flint who struggled on the rope and swung at them when they tried to pull him back on board, and when there was no time left they abandoned him and dragged Luned up onto the sterncastle. The ghost ship bared down on them, perched on a wave, wreathed in fog and rain, and lightning flashed in the black mist above them. They were breathing hard because the air seemed more water than oxygen, and thunder roared so monstrously that the boards vibrated beneath their feet.

Aeril let the wheel spin, caught it, and smiled. Her eyes were steel-hard behind a half-veil of short wet hair. She howled into the face of the squall, and Luned pressed her back against the walls rising above the sterncastle, bracing herself. Muir and Gaspar shared a long look, and Blue was tying her wrists to the rigging, and slipping her ankle through a square of empty space in the ropes. It seemed wise to pray.

The nose of the ship dipped hard as the sea dropped away, and the ghost ship hauled itself upward, dominating the sky as if to swallow them whole. Aeril lunged, sending the wheel spinning at a hundred rotations a second, and the front of the ship leaned away at the last possible second. An eternity passed, moments stretching into centuries where the only sounds were the rain and one’s heart beating, and the rain became illimitable shimmering droplets in Luned’s perception, all suspended in the night sky.

And then wood struck wood, and the ship jerked hard. A chorus of shouts went up, and chaos ruled for the briefest moment: Luned went sliding across the sterncastle, rolling and tumbling, and Gaspar joined her, kicking up a small wave as he slid across the flooded boards of the deck. Muir was tossed into the air entirely, tumbling head over feet, and he landed with a sharp wheeze. Aeril went headfirst over the wheel, which went spinning without her. Overhead, Blue was shaken like a spider in her web, but the rigging held strong.

The ships grinded along, side by side, the waves throwing them together, but each held strong. The ghost ship was too big to fail completely, but her boards were rotted, and so they crumpled where their ship only scratched. Splinters and shards sprayed everywhere, raining down like a hundred thousand daggers dancing. The noise was incredible; harsh enough to cause pain, and it was like two giants screaming from deep within the earth.

And then the sea carried the ghost ship up and slowly, so slowly away from them. They’d clashed, and the goliath was the one sent reeling and bloodied. Aeril was on her feet again, limping but whole, and she stopped the wheel from spinning and set the course straight again. Luned couldn’t tear her eyes from the ghost ship – they’d come so close – and now she realized there were people moving on the deck.

Moving the way her own crew had been moving, moments before – a crew of dreamers. As the goliath lurched in slow motion she saw them, dozens of them, all turning to look at a single pale figure. A piercing shriek rose up over every other sound, and someone leapt from the ghost ship to theirs, impossibly fast and lithe.

And then Luned lost sight of it, and her blood ran cold.

There was a siren on board their ship.

[Warpath]

“Shit! Shit!”

Luned ran, and Muir groaned as he crawled to his feet. “What?” he said.

She was desperately peering over the side of the ship – the side that collided with the ghost ship.

The side Flint was suspended on.

“Oh shit,” Muir said, running after her before he was fully on his feet again. Gaspar was right behind him, but a little less panicked. Rather than peer over the edge, he followed the rope from the mast, took hold of it, and began to pull. He shouted in Fallieni, and Muir darted over to help.

“He’s still there!” Luned said. “Oh gods, he’s not moving.”

“Muir!” Gaspar shouted suddenly, and the pirate glanced back just in time to dodge the knife being swung at him.

“You can’t hurt her,” Roberson said, seething. “I won’t let anybody hurt her.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Muir said, holding his hands out.

“You shut up,” Roberson hissed, brandishing the knife. “I’ll cut your pretty face right off.”

“You think I’m pretty?” Muir said.

“Muir,” Gaspar said tersely.

“It’s fine, relax,” Muir said dismissively. “He’s just…hey, have you been in my stash?”

Roberson slashed wildly and Muir danced away from him again with a shout.

“He’s not on drugs,” Luned said tensely. “The siren’s got him. She must have cut him loose. Don’t hurt him.”

“The what?” Muir said.

Roberson suddenly turned his attention to Luned, gasping. “You wouldn’t dare. How could…I thought you were my friend. Oh gods, you…I won’t let you.”

The afflicted sailor lunged for the rope holding Flint and began to saw at it, and Luned shouted. Gaspar tackled him to the deck and they struggled for the knife, and as the Fallienman began overpowering him Roberson began to scream, desperate tears running down his cheeks.

And then an earsplitting shriek was raised, and everybody turned their attention to the opposite side of the ship. Muir had found where the siren was hiding, clutching the side of the ship, and he was now hauling her lithe form up onto the deck. They struggled briefly, the sea monster and the pirate, before he got hold of a loose plank of debris from the ghost ship and broke it over her head. She flopped to the deck, out cold, and Roberson went quiet.

Everything went quiet - all the cacophonous noise they hadn't realized had been there all along until it was gone - all but the rain and the waves and the normal creak of the ship.

It was over.

[Warpath]

Roberson lay still on the deck, looking dazed. “Are you okay?” Luned said.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry, it was just…it was so beautiful. I had to listen to her. I had to.”

“It’s okay,” Luned said, speaking to him but watching as Muir and Gaspar finished hoisting Flint up.

His hand reached up suddenly and gripped the edge of the railing and she let out a massive sigh of relief, sitting herself down on the deck heavily, ignoring the ubiquitous puddles beneath her. She leaned back against the mast and watched, exhausted, as Flint crawled back onto the ship with Muir and Gaspar’s help.

His gaze was clear and hard again, and it flicked from Luned to Roberson, and then over to the still form of the siren. Despite having a relatively short stride he crossed the deck fast, and had his boot raised, ready to bring it down on the siren’s head over and over until she was well and truly dead.

“Stop!” Aeril shouted. “No.”

Flint growled, but set his boot back down obediently.

“She’s our prisoner now,” Aeril said, “and I have some questions for her. Get her down to the brig and secure her, then get my crew untied. It’s a good thing there are two of you immune to her, because you’ll be joining her there.”

The captain was looking pointedly and directly at Luned.

[Luned]

"If you sing, I'll gut you like a fish," Muir warned the siren as she huddled in the back corner of the swampy brig. She belonged there, slimy as the waterlogged floorboards, her presence dark as the dank belly of the ship. Even after escaping the clutches of the ghastly graveyard, the weather failed to improve, and the small collective rattled about in the hold as the vessel lurched through wave after wave. Muir equipped himself with his glaive, the lethal blade poised between the bars of the cell with a menacing glint of steel. For once, he was not kidding.

The creature was beautiful and gruesome at the same time. From the corner of one's eye she might have been an angel, but straight on and without song to fool the senses, her affinity with the sea became clear. Nothing but the ocean's imitation of a woman, her curves glistened with opalescent scales, a hanging weaving of algae and seaweed donned over her shoulders in cruel mockery of hair. Her eyes were large, round, and utterly black, the lack of pupils disconcerting. She hunched in the water on the floor, watching her captors with fear as they stared back. Even her limbs mocked them, curled about herself with a hint of elbow or knee, but their natural curve and fluidity of movement reminded Luned of tentacles.

Her skin crawled just thinking about it, but she swallowed her horror and cleared her throat. Flint's mantra of fear had been a foreign concept but she saw it now, truly, for the first time. Today, Luned was fear. The siren trembled with terror, utterly at their mercy, but even that wasn't human; she shivered and lurched like an eel caught in a net. "We won't hurt you if you cooperate," the scribe said.

"Fucking hell we won't," Muir spat, his blade lurching into the cage as a wave caused him to stumble. The siren made a strange, panicked gargling noise, perhaps the closest she could muster to a scream.

With a calming hand, Aeril waved off Muir, then stepped up to the brig. She nearly had to bend under the short ceiling of the hold, her strong figure imposing over their hostage. "We are looking for something," she said, no hint of compassion in her voice, eyes unblinking under her dripping hair. "If you help us find it, we will free you. If you do not, you are dead. If you mislead us, you are also dead."

"Blue's a fantastic chef, she can make anything edible," Muir added, "Even refuse. Don't they say the flesh of a siren grants immortality?"

"You're thinking of mermaids," Luned corrected him, glancing sidelong.

He sighed, exasperated. "Well, shit."

Aeril allowed their digression, surprisingly, before continuing her threat. "Do we have a deal?"

The siren stared, mouth agape to reveal her bottom row of impossibly small, razor-sharp teeth. They glittered like pearls behind blue-tinged lips. And then, finally, she spoke. "Perhaps," she gargled in a surreal imitation of human speech, a mockery of human communication. She formed decipherable words in Tradespeak, but through muscles obviously unintended for human language. "What is it you seek?"

"It can take many forms, not necessarily the expected. It should be quite close. You may have noticed something… different, perhaps, in the vicinity." Aeril's gaze remained stern as she watched the creature for a reaction.

"No… no. I cannot," the siren gasped. "We cannot go."

Aeril's face pinched. "Why not?"

The abomination merely shook her head, stubbornness briefly overcoming her terror –– at least until Aeril ordered Muir to take care of her. He jabbed at her through the bars, nicking her arm, and that time, she truly did scream. It was a horrific, blood-curdling sound, raw and utterly inhuman. She didn't even try to maintain the charade as she squeezed webbed fingers over the gash in her arm, clear blood running in shining streams over her flesh. After the scream she wailed, rocking and slithering and twisting in on herself, the sudden burst of emotion the only thing to humanize her monstrous visage.

Luned felt sick to her stomach and looked to Muir, her arms crossed tightly over her chest as if they might keep the sharp pang of empathy at bay. It didn't help.

Her brother shook his head with a knowing glance as Aeril interrupted. "You may have a moment to make your decision. Luned, Muir, watch her." And, with that, she stomped up the stairs to tend to the crew who still battled the storm on deck.

The siblings watched on in silence for what felt like a very long time, Luned's wide eyes transfixed on the siren as she coddled her wounded limb. It laid loose against her, hand splayed on the floor, the arm bending in a fluid twist where the bones of the forearm should have been. Morbid fascination and disgust consumed her attention, every jostled movement of the creature inciting a cringe as the swaying ship rocked them in the tight arms of the hold.

In time, however, the creature relaxed somewhat. Her posture slackened against the corner bars and she all but forgot about the wound, her form sinking deeper into the sloshing, ankle-deep water. More continued to spill down the steps from above.

"Muir…" Luned spoke up, barely in a whisper. "You didn't… is that sugar glass?"

A cheeky grin stole across his face.

"You drugged her," Luned deduced, suppressing an astonished laugh. "Will it work?"

Muir shrugged, then approached the brig. "Wakey wakey, toots," he said, kicking at the water to splash the siren's prone form. "You giving us directions or not?"

She looked up slowly, the change in her face evidence of resignation to her fate. "And I will be free?"

Still, her strange voice made Luned shudder, but Muir took it in stride. "Yes," he confirmed.

That was enough for the abomination. "I cannot see," she gargled. "I need the air."

In silent commiseration, the siblings nodded to one another, and Luned left to fetch the captain.

[Luned]

Soon the siren, bound and compliant thanks to a modest dose of nephina, rose into the fresh air once again. Something reminiscent of a smile teased her sharky little mouth, and as Gasper propped her upright against the foremast, Luned grimaced.

Flint had worked with the crew to maintain the safety of the ship during the strange intermission, but when the hostage resurfaced, he paused. While Aeril interrogated the siren he stepped aside with Luned, who clung to the rigging so the rushing waves wouldn't sweep her off her feet.

"Are you alright?" she asked him, wiping some hair from her face.

He nodded, bracing himself on the rope as well. Dangling over the side of the ship surely earned him some bruises, but it was nothing compared to the state he would have been in if they hadn't put a leash on him. "Thank you for making sure I didn't do anything stupid."

"Don't thank me," Luned said into the wind, shielding her face against the salty spray ineffectually with an arm. "Gasper, Muir, Blue –– Aeril, too –– they saved everyone."

At this point their captain seemed satisfied with the information the siren provided and she gave Muir and Gasper orders to keep her under close watch, her prison in the brig traded for the tight grasp of two strong men. The creature remained quiet, her gaze focused pensively on a singular spot on the shadowy horizon.

Luned couldn't help but watch the abomination in eerie fascination, and her brief lapse in concentration did her in. The ship soared over a particularly large swell and crashed down hard on the port side, a rush of water pouring over the railing and knocking the scribe off her feet. The wave would have swept her down the deck if Flint didn't grab her arm.

Aeril saw everything and lashed out. "Get downstairs," she ordered Luned as she stalked back to the quarterdeck to take the wheel.

"But––"

"Don't be an idiot, Lune," Muir hollered over the crackle of straining sails, some restored to put them back on course. It was his usual insult, but it was multi-purpose and, ultimately, effective.

With a dark frown, the scribe cooperated at a creeping pace, going from obstacle to obstacle to maintain steady footing. Flint followed to make sure she succeeded, and at the door, she turned to look at him. "I just want to help," she said, brow furrowed.

"You can help by not getting hurt," he said, and then Roberson called his name for help with something, the man's voice nearly carried away in the wind. Flint turned to go.

"Be careful," Luned shouted after him before climbing down into purgatory.

[Luned]

Things went from bad to worse on deck, the poor weather only a precursor to the true storm. The sky turned nearly black, the seascape illuminated by shockingly bright crackles of lightning that flashed on the horizon, gusts punctuated by echoing booms that raged in the distance. It was a living nightmare.

Flint had never been a sailor, but between his recent practice and the current predicament, he certainly felt one now. He earned the gratitude of the rest of the crew alongside Gasper as they pitched in, learning as they went, proving themselves capable allies in one of the most menacing faces of nature.

Muir had been left alone to handle the siren when Gasper's help was needed, a situation he handled expertly for a short while, but the tables turned as the creature's high waned. Even a monster borne of the sea felt unsafe.

"It is here," she said, her strange vocal cords struggling to be heard over the blustering storm. "Set me free!"

"Here?" Muir said, bracing himself against the mast where she was bound. "You're staying right the fuck here until we find it and know we have it."

"Free me!" the siren wailed, struggling against the rope that kept her secure against the support. Her voice was shrill and she threw her head back against the wood, her hair-like veil of plant life slipping away. Her naked head glistened in the fierce rain, the strange scales that studded her skin catching the flashing light like jewels.

"Not yet!" Muir argued back, and just as he spoke, the surface of the water behind him shifted and rose in an unnatural shape. Blue shouted something from up high but he missed it, caught in a rush as the siren began to sing. He unleashed a fist across her jaw, quickly shutting her up, and his knuckles bled from where they caught her vicious little teeth.

His success was short-lived. The abomination's body changed, dropping its imitation of human limbs, and like writhing snakes her arms and legs freed themselves from their binding. Even her torso lacked expected human structure, twisting unnaturally to shrug off the rope. Without the attention of the rest of the crew and with a sobering mind, she wriggled from her bonds, impeded only temporarily by Muir's effort to strike her down. It was difficult to fight on deck as it swayed, water constantly threatening stability, and he had never faced a true monster before; she had the upper hand in nearly every way.

Flint was busy with tightening some lines when Blue hollered again from above. "Tie down," she screamed, then again with more urgency, "Wave!"

The brute immediately checked the leash at his waist, a loop of rope secured tightly to the rigging, and braced himself. Just as he did so he glanced down the deck to see Muir in his struggle, losing quickly against the siren; she slithered over him, limbs grasping him in curling tentacles, choking his arms into uselessness as they wrestled across the boards.

And then the wave came, and it was too late.

[Luned]

"Man overboard!"

Not many words reached the cabin in a decipherable manner, but those did. Within seconds Luned ran to the bottom of the stairs, the last of the great wave rushing down the steps and into the hold, and she hung onto the railing at the landing as she looked up at the door. She froze there, uncertain. She could potentially help –– it was a long shot, but if revert saved Resolve before –– or would she only get in the way?

Before she decided what to do, the door at the top of the stairs opened to reveal Flint's distinct silhouette. Coughing still seized him as he dispelled the rest of the salt water from his lungs, but that didn't stop him from checking on the scribe. He knew she would be tempted to do something very, very stupid if she'd heard. And, from the look on her face, he knew she had.

In turn, waiting had been torture, and Flint's sullen expression was not what she wanted to see. "Who?" Luned asked, voice trembling.

The brute struggled to put the words together, so he didn't. "Just stay there."

"Who was it? Flint, tell me," she pleaded. His mouth opened but he couldn't bring himself to elaborate, and she immediately knew why. "… Muir?"

His silence was his answer.

The scribe let loose a string of curses and barreled up the stairs. Flint's breadth blocked the door and he attempted to contain her, knowing it wasn't safe. "Let me through," Luned said as she tried to pass, "I can help!" Her struggle proved futile as Flint truly was an immovable force, his bulk holding steady against her pulls and shoves. He certainly wasn't going to let her join her brother. "Move!"

The ship lurched and Luned teetered back dangerously at the edge of the steps, inciting Flint to reach out and grab hold of her arm to steady her. It was her opening, and before he knew it, she dodged by and yanked herself from his grasp. She flew across the deck to the foremast with the same suicidal determination that nearly killed them both in Ettermire's sewers, the gusts and waves nothing as she ran blindly forward.

Aeril didn't miss a thing; she'd seen Muir go and certainly didn't want to see her employer's proxy go with him. She shouted viciously over the wind from the sterncastle. "Someone get her below deck now!"

The scribe soon reached the foremast and clung to it, then sunk to her knees in an effort to keep steady. Pen in hand, she began writing something on her arm. The ink ran rivers in the rain, but it didn't matter; it was the sentiment that cast it, not the marks themselves. She didn't trust herself to cast without the ritual like she had with Aurelius, not when it was so incredibly important––

And suddenly Flint was there. He pulled her to her feet and she tried to wrestle from his grip yet again, refusing his help. "Wait! I can fix it," she said desperately, struggling to finish the last character. She did, and for a moment Flint humored her, trusting her words. Nothing happened.

Another shout from the captain reached them through the noise. "Get her below deck!"

"No," Luned argued, raising her pen to cast again. "No, it worked with Resolve, I just––"

A wave surged over the side of the ship and, yet again, she depended on Flint to keep her miserable self from being tossed across the deck. It was hopeless. She was hopeless. "Luned," Flint urged, "Come on."

The girl didn't seem convinced as she allowed him to herd her back, constantly checking over her shoulder as if Muir might suddenly appear again.

He didn't.

[Luned]

Flint managed to coax her all the way to the cabins, the slightly elevated floor there mercifully dry –– not that it mattered, seeing as they were both soaked to the bone. The girl had been silent as the reality of the situation sunk in, but as her friend ushered her into her room, it finally hit.

"It's my fault," she muttered, eyes wide in the near darkness. Ocean threatened to burst into her room through her tiny window, some remnants of waves trickling in around the steadfast frame and weeping down the wall. The bare bed frame cast skeletal shadows across the floor where she stared blankly, polluted by the growing puddle collecting on the wood. Its black surface rippled and shone in shining streams as the vessel swayed.

Flint frowned, torn. The event distressed him, as well, and as much as he wanted to comfort Luned, the storm still raged outside. The crew needed his help, and somewhere, his subconscious begged for distraction. "No, it isn't," he said, at a loss.

"But he only came here because I asked him," she said, beginning to break down. Blame was a natural stage of grieving, after all, and easier than dealing with the rest of her muddy thoughts. She couldn't even begin to consider how she would tell Resolve, their parents… "If I was up there when it happened, maybe…"

Poorly equipped in the skills required to comfort someone, Flint racked his brain for the right thing to say. It proved quite difficult, his own emotional state more compromised than he would have expected. After all, he was intimately familiar with death, having seen and caused his fair share in his short time; this only laid testament to the fact that allowing himself to enjoy a sense of community only bred weakness. Even for a conclusion so negative, he had mixed feelings; though Luned lost a brother, he'd lost a friend.

It was too late for words as the first of many sobs shook the girl's shoulders, signaling the end of coherent conversation. Flint briefly considered leaving, but before he could act on it, the weeping girl latched onto him and there was no hope of escape. She buried her face in his shirt and, in cautious response, Flint rested a tentative hand to rest on her shoulder.

That was all it took to diminish her last bit of composure and she lost it, her arms wrapping around his neck in a desperate vise. "Why didn't it work?" she asked no one, then lost the ability to speak for a long moment as her sobs muffled against his shoulder. With nothing else to do, Flint maintained a steady hand on her back and held them upright as the ship lurched and rolled. She leaned heavily against him, all her strength in her sorrow, and the salt of her tears mingled with the sea in his shirt as she refused to let go.

Minutes passed, and as they did, the girl began to calm. The change in the air and their stillness invited a chill, and Flint took the opportunity to redirect her attention. "You should get dry," he said, voice low. "I need to go help."

"No," Luned choked stubbornly, renewing her despairing hold on him. "Don't go. I can't…" She failed to finish, words catching in her throat.

The brute frowned anew and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight. He held her for a long time.

[Warpath]

The civilized races have words for the ocean – concepts they can grasp. They call it vast, and bottomless. They throw around words like abyss. They talk about the crushing deep and take its cold emptiness as a matter of course, a fact, an incomprehensible notion reduced down to a graspable, bite-sized conception.

They don’t know how big the ocean is, because only drowned men understand the sea.

Muir was one of them now, suspended in the murky dark, knowing for the first time what it was to actually be alone. In every direction he turned there was nothing but endless salty green. Lightning flashed furiously, illuminating the abyss in strobe-light bursts, but he could not tell which way was up and which down. He felt fear, cold and profound, and his chest felt empty though he held his breath. He wanted to hyperventilate. He wanted to scream. He held it in until he felt like he was going to burst, because if he let it out the sea would rush in to claim him inside and out.

And then he saw something moving and foolishly he felt hope, but his heart soon dropped. It was moving fast, directly at him, and though it was capable of mocking one, this was no person. The siren’s inhuman face was twisted up in rage, or maybe that’s how she actually looked when she wasn’t playing scared and coy, her blue lips pulled back so taut that they ceased to exist, and her sheer white gums bristled with thousands of long needle-teeth. It was a mouth too full of teeth and as she swam, lashing this way and that like a snake, she worked her jaw ominously.

Muir braced himself, but there was no preparing. He tried to grapple her but her skin was oily, so catching the slick fluidity of her limbs was no different from trying to catch a handful of water. She slithered over him, sinking her teeth in his shoulder and his forearms, her limbs everywhere, tangling him up, working in underneath his coat and his shirt, gripping his throat and his underarms and his fingers, pulling his legs to unnatural angles. His blood swirled in the water around them, and the more he struggled to shove her away, the more his lungs burned in his chest.

He wondered, in some lucid corner of his brain, what he would die from first: drowning, or blood loss, or of being eaten alive.

And then she suddenly stopped, and shoved him away from her, and he saw the briefest glimpse of her face and realized the fear hadn’t been an act because there it was again, only rawer, more primal. If she could pale, he imagined she would have. She opened her mouth and screamed, and it was the clearest, purest scream he’d ever heard or would ever hear again. Even through the water, the sound rang high and terrible, and he felt his heart soar with sympathy despite the fact that she’d been murdering him.

She darted away from him, screaming again and again, flicking this way and that, chased by a cloud of bubbles. He wondered, and then he felt something: a pressure, a change, a crushing force. If he’d been in the air his hair would have stood on end, he would have called it electricity. Down here it was just dread.

The siren went on fleeing, and then Muir saw a darkness move through the water below him. It was as if the deepest void had a sentience, and broke off some part of itself and sent it up. It was like seeing a mountain glide with the grace of a sparrow, there it was and there it went, disappearing. The siren stopped, let out a perfect shriek of despair, and then scrambled back through the water toward Muir. The green murk flashed around her, changing her from eely silhouette to alien woman and back again. She had no enchantments to weave on him except for natural compassion shared between two doomed people, and he desperately wanted to save her. He almost held his arms out to her.

And then the sea darkened behind her, and the darkness spread in every direction. She spread all her limbs wide, screaming her last and then there was a flash – a glimpse – a mouth as wide as a ship opened and closed and her voice was silenced in an instant. Muir was transfixed, made a speck, a grain of sand: his insignificance was absolute. When ravenous mountains fly faster than finches and a man is alone with it, truly alone, what is hope? The despair was so severe that he looked forward to the pain, no matter how long or intense, just for the end to all experience waiting just beyond.

It had dozens of gleaming green eyes and a mouth that could open wide enough to swallow nations, and where it went the storm followed. He saw it but could not conceive of it, and then it was gone and he was alone again. He waited for it to return, floating limp-limbed, and when it didn’t he was afraid it was behind him. He turned over and over, sure it was coming from below, or above, it was impossible to tell, what if it rained until the sea reached the clouds? What if there wasn’t a surface to swim to?

He couldn’t help it. He screamed, and then the sea rushed into his mouth. There was a fire in his chest and it hurt so bad, and his body would not obey anymore. He breathed in water, and the first drink drove his body insane, so it tried for another breath, and then another, desperately yanking in mouthfuls of water at a time. The cold should have soothed the fire in his chest, but it didn’t. The corners of his vision swam and darkened, and he suffered spasm after spasm as his muscles fought against all hope for air, ignoring his attempts to control it.

He could finally die. He longed for the peace, the release.

And then his vision slowly sharpened again, and the spasms renewed, threatening to crush his ribcage, and the fire flared up, and he tried to vomit up the water but only more rushed in.

Tossed in the storm, alone in an endless green void, Muir went on drowning, but he never died.

He was the first man to become one with the ocean, the first one to come to know it and live, but nobody could hear him screaming, or could ever hope to find him with a hundred thousand years to look.

That’s how big the ocean is.

[Warpath]

The storm relinquished them with a frustrated peal of thunder, and the ship rolled down a swell battered but whole. It was so sudden that even the most seasoned sailors among them were stunned, staring slack-jawed up at the sky while the late morning sun smiled back down on them. The sea before them was calm and blue, reflecting gold shimmers.

There was an island on the horizon.

Nobody said anything, though. The crew gathered on deck, drying in the warm light of the sun, and they stared. Luned stood at the forefront, hugging her arms to herself, and she scowled red-eyed at the distant rocks and the swaying green of the trees – spruces, firs, oaks, and maples, Aeril told them. All unnatural in this part of the world.

Carcosa, the thing Aeril dubbed The Wandering Isle.

Flint kept himself near and behind Luned. He was the only person not looking at the island. Instead he was pulling his shirt off and prodding his new bumps and bruises, taking advantage of what he figured could be a painfully brief respite. He was ringing his shirt out when Luned spoke up for the first time since she’d cried herself out below decks.

“I want to watch the whole thing burn.”

Flint flicked his eyes up to her, then out to the island, and then he went back to firmly wringing the water out of his shirt. It seemed like it had soaked up the whole of the sea. “No you don’t,” he said. “That’s something I would do.”

“Does that make it wrong?”

“Well, maybe,” Flint said. “I am not in a position to say. I think it best if we leave that place the way we’ll find it.”

“Why?”

She turned to look at him, almost hurt that he wouldn’t let her even entertain the notion of taking her grief out on an inanimate object. It didn’t sink in that he hadn’t been wearing a shirt until he was pulling it back on overhead, but she found that she didn’t care. She wasn’t in the mood. Once he was fully dressed again, the brute nodded out at the sea back the way they’d come.

Luned turned around, and her jaw dropped. The storm hadn’t ended; it was still out there, forming a tremendous and perfect circle around the sea surrounding the island. The sea swelled and raged beneath sparking black thunderheads, and then the clouds simply stopped and the sea contained itself. She wanted to call it the eye of the storm, but it was more than that.

“Like it’s defending itself,” Roberson said. “Holding the world’s biggest storm at arm’s length.”

Luned shook her head. “It’s not defending itself from the storm,” she said. “It’s using the storm to keep us away.”

“It failed,” Flint said.

“Not completely,” Luned said dully, turning her tired eyes back to their destination.