Wicked at Sea

[Liam]

(Solo.)

PROLOGUE

FOR THE PAST YEAR, Liam and his family have dwelled among the natives in Parangal, a dark continent that lies at the western fringes of the known world. Reputed for its lush, captivating beauty along its rolling hills, steep valleys and rampant jungles, Parangal remains wild and obscured despite attempts by the civilized world to explore and tame it. Rumors afloat many a seaport about Parangal's black natives who dwell along the serpentine coast and on top of hills that drink from the sky. The many tribes are said to be savages who practice black sorcery and cannibalism, worshipping God-kings at the behest of their shaman. Things that are not natural linger in the dark that even the natives must fear, some say. Death looms behind every corner, nook and crevice, says others. Parangal is not safe, common wisdom will often resolve. And so, to most outsiders, the dark, savage country remains untrekked and unconquered by the whims of kingdoms and the free cities of Althanas.

To the Duigenan Coven, however, Parangal has remained a haven for their kind. As witches and warlocks, they remain outcasts in the civilized world for their strange ways and rumors of evil intent. But, in Parangal, Liam and his family have managed to find some modicum of peace among the coastal tribes of Kald, Sdazra, and the Naruul. A friendship built upon many years of stewardship and shared wisdom, the Coven and the tribes interact peacefully. The natives show the Coven how to live in such a wild, dangerous place through ancient means of survival through the mastery of fire, hunting and sacrifices to their old gods. Such rites have only ever been observed by a handful of outsiders in all of Parangal's history, and even fewer have lived to tell or write about it, but it is something the Coven has found most interesting. In exchange, the Coven would provide knowledge from the civilized world such as farming and writing. The family would even act as a neutral party to aid the tribes by mediating their disputes in order to keep the tribes from savaging one another.

However, after a year of living among the tribes, Liam and his family have found a longing to return back to the known world. Liam's paramour, Olivia, had given birth to the family's newest member, Teague, earlier that year and they both needed the comfort and ease of civilized life. Liam's wife, Ada, was growing more despondent with both him and Olivia, seeking more space in a place where there was no privacy, an indication to all three that she was tiring of their hosts and their minimal existence. It was also time for Liam's children to return and find their way in the known world. To make friends, to play and live like children. Parangal was no place for them. But, at the time of their journey, all three parents had been desperate to escape the perils of those who practice witchcraft and the misery known only to society's pariahs.

For these reasons, Liam and his family left the safety of the tribes and paid for passage on the first ship to arrive at the coast. For Parangal, only two types of ships ever darkened its shores, and they were roughly one and the same; slavers or merchants. To the Coven's fortune, the owners of the ship pertained to the latter, and were more than happy to fare the family back from the fringes of the world and back to the free cities of Corone, but at a price of course.

Aboard the massive vessel for two months, having long departed Parangal, the Duigenan family shared daily life among the strange sailors the queer-looking merchants had employed while at sea. The ship was called A Fair Day, and even in the hold where Liam Duigenan and his family spent the majority of their time among the few other passengers attempting to steer clear of the eerie crew, they knew something about their journey was going awry.

[Liam]

The cramped hold that had acted as the family's living quarters for over two months while at sea could barely fit the ship's cargo, let alone them and the other passengers. It stank of moldy food, stale urine from the chamber pots and foul sickness whenever anyone was driven dizzy by the maddening sea. Separated by a thick, oak door that could lock and a wall that partitioned their living quarters from the cargo and the rest of the ship, the family ate at the same table, slept on the same swaying hammocks, and gazed out of the same two portholes on either end of the room at the vast, dark sea. Their living space was feeling more and more like a prison the longer they were at sea, and it was not a place that the family lived alone.

A woman who feigned to be a mute for more than a month into their journey accompanied them. She dressed in fair dresses and wore too much rouge and perfumes to cover up her decaying, putrid stench. She said her name was Caroline and she came from an island such as Corone after Liam had described it to her when she could no longer bear the silence within the hold. However, neither the Coven nor the other passengers believed her. Caroline had a melodic laugh for somebody whose mood would change as quickly as a calm sea. She would often stay among the passengers during the day and leave the hold during the dark hours of night. She would return drenched in sweat and fend off questions as to where she had been for hours at a time with a polite laugh and empty pleasantries, but she was fooling nobody. The other passengers could hear the jingle of coins every time she returned each night. They could hear her distant moans and those of others on the dying wind whenever the porthole was opened. Ada and Olivia could especially see what Liam could not; the animal hunger and venom in Caroline's eyes. Both mothers kept the children clear of the ill-tempered woman and kept the truth of her carnal trade a secret.

The other passengers were just as indifferent to the Coven as they were to the whore. There was a young Falliari, barely older than either of the Duigenan's teenage daughters, Fiona and Maeve. He called himself Peri, and as the only passenger near their age, fascinated the Duigenan teenagers with his tales as a wandering minstrel. However, even as he played music, his spell was broken when Liam chose to have a quiet word with the bard after a near encounter Peri had had with the redheaded Fiona. Afterwards, Peri stopped playing as much music and kept his conversations with the two daughters brief, often citing the reason his finger nails had begun to fall out was the onset of scurvy. Under Liam's watchful eye and behest, the young bard began to eat fat, plump oranges and did so quietly.

Another man stuck out. He was in his forties, known only as Yavi from what the other passengers could gather from his broken common tongue. He was sunburnt and covered in tattoos. He claimed to be from Corone, but nobody believed him. He was kind and gentle, but Liam kept a careful eye on the man who bore a scimitar and spoke little about himself.

Others who dwelled on the ship were in similar circumstances such as the Duigenan family; A desperation to return to society. There were five in all, and though those who knew enough common tongue spoke pleasantly about their journey and themselves, neither of the three Duigenan parents would be taken by their lies. What might have been believeable by a common wayfarer or vagrant who found themselves too far at sea was plainly false to the nomadic Coven who had learned to pick up on such things from hard lessons from their travels. The parents never let their children stray without one of them present at any time while they were aboard, and the Duigenans kept their polygamy and witchcraft quiet. But they weren't stupid. They knew the other passengers were sizing them up just as much as they themselves were. It was only about survival when you were this far out, and no passenger aboard this ship trusted the crew, let alone each other.

Liam had confessed in quiet conversation with Ada and Olivia that he suspected the crew of A Fair Day to be mercenaries, slavers or worse. They didn't look right, he simply said. Something strange other than the tattoos, scars and gangly look of sailors long at sea had made itself known to them. It was a feeling, and something he had chosen to ignore in desperation to get his family off Parangal because of their circumstances. Ada had agreed that there was something off about the sailors. They behaved as if nothing was amiss, at all. They were fair, jolly and spoke spiritedly to all of their passengers. It sounded daft to say that the crew was being too nice to them, but the Coven quietly agreed that the crew was putting on act. No sailor they had ever met had acted that way, and for a family that was perpetually hounded and persecuted because of their very existence, they were already dubious. It was far too easy to get aboard this ship, Olivia had said. The price for passage offered by the Captain had certainly been steep enough, all three parents had agreed, but everything about this voyage had felt off. Liam knew he would need to haggle more to get his family aboard the ship and no merchant this far out at sea was ever happy to take on passengers. Ever.

The captain called himself Silas Marcs and spoke with a calm, genial tongue that sounded like he had been to Corone more than once. It was rare to find someone at sea who spoke or even looked like they did this far out, and Liam could not find anything in the eyes of the rotund captain who smelled of lavender and wore a powdered wig to stave off lice that betrayed his kind words. He spoke at length with Liam about the ship's course and how the free cities of Corone was a fair place for them to sell their cargo. It had been two months with diminishing conversations with the captain who found himself more and more busy, and Liam was beginning to worry they were lost. He kept that secret from everybody, but later one night, he and Ada left their sleeping children under Olivia's careful watch and both he and his wife escaped the tight, claustrophobic hold for the sweet, salty air of the open sea when they reached the deck.

[Liam]

Liam's rough, calloused hands grasped that of his wife as she moved up the steps and onto the deck with trepidation. Not pausing to bask in the glowering torchlight, they both retreated into the cover of darkness and away from the wandering gaze of the watchman at the wheel. The couple guided each other to the rail on the starboard side and gazed at the rolling waves of the deep, dark waters. The ocean roiled and twisted like dark, molten glass only to disappear into a vast nothingness in every direction. The view on the horizon on every side of the ship was the same every night that the couple came topside.. no land to be found anywhere. While Liam and Ada guised themselves as a married couple taking the air in order to the escape the dank, sweltering hold below, their intentions betrayed it. Holding Ada's hand, Liam grasped the rail and peered below where the vast ship cut against the ocean, creating waves of its own. The bubble and brimming waters fell off to the side and it too disappeared into darkness.

"Is he still watching?" Liam muttered to his wife, moving his gaze to the heavens above and the clear, dark skies that coalesced around the waning moon.

Ada reached over and grasped his arm, her face hidden behind a dark, sable cowl, "Give it a few minutes, sweetheart. He'll lose interest eventually."

Liam nodded and the two waited, occasionally looking back across the deck to see if there were any new visitors topside. Nobody else seemed to join them on the rolling deck. Both the witch and warlock talked quietly among themselves about trivial topics. How big their daughters were getting, what awaited them in Corone and how they were looking forward to some food that did not find itself pickled in a barrel. There was one moment where Liam looked upon his wife, gazing at her supple frame and pale, wet face whose honey blonde hair was pasted along its edges giving her the illusion that she was wreathed in gold in the moonlight. By the contours of her face and her aquiline nose, part of her remained shadowed, giving her a gorgeous, if sinister appearance. They kissed and looked back to the rolling waves.

Ada Duigenan is thirty-three and had been married to Liam for almost sixteen years. Their connection was deep and said by friends of the family to be unbreakable. With the perils of parenthood, romance had taken a backseat to many days of their lives, but one could eventually tell that whatever fire that brought them together was far from dying. Many who met the couple could not imagine why they would ever turn to polygamy as a salve to their nomadic existence, but few people ever truly knew what it was like to be on the run for most of their lives. Even fewer knew what it would be like to do that with children. The burden was enormous and their ability to move and migrate away from those who sought them grew slower every year as their children got older. The situation became desperate and on more than one occasion as they went from city to city, to country to country, their stays grew shorter and shorter as they prepared to be driven out and forced to live somewhere else.

The notion that wizardry and witchcraft were accepted as norms on this world was a lie both Ada and Liam believed when they began to practice. Maybe it was their intentions with how they sought to use sorcery, or maybe it was the way they had begun to behave once they could perform it. Regardless, both Ada and Liam Duigenan discovered that the only people that could be relied on or even trusted were those who practiced. Anyone else could be the person to drive the icy knife of betrayal into their backs.

So, eventually, when it became too much, both the husband and wife sought help to ease the burden of playing the victim in their lives. Eventually they found another witch when they met Olivia on the run. Whether or not they fell in love with the young teacher who fled her village after they discovered what she was capable of is anyone's guess. Others might argue that the couple created a relationship of convenience with the other woman and they provided each other with everything they needed to sustain their Coven while it remained on the move. That was five years ago. Now that they have been at sea for so long and away from those who wished to cause them harm, all three parents began to discuss in earnest the idea of finding somewhere civilized to stay.

Permanently.

"Sweetheart.." Ada whispered coolly into her husband's ear, interrupting his train of thought. "He's not watching any more."

"Good." Liam said flatly as he reached into his dark pockets and retrieved his sextant as Ada grabbed her notebook. Bracing themselves against the rail as the ship rolled upon the waves, Liam took the device and began to calibrate it as his wife stood watch. "I'm getting better at this.."

"I'm still surprised the navigator hasn't noticed." Ada calmly replied, her stormy green eyes watching the lazy watchman with earnest.

"Or maybe they're waiting to figure out what we are doing with it," Liam offered.

"With the way they've been acting lately, I doubt it."

After a few minutes, Liam took the contraption and gazed at the waning moon before he turned towards the bow. Holding the lens of the sextant to his eye, he continued to adjust the mechanisms as he peered into the darkness. His wife moved her frame behind him and blocked him from the watchman's view. Holding a grease pencil against the notepad she nodded, "Go ahead, Liam."

At the moment Liam began to rattle of numbers, in degrees and minutes while Ada recorded them. Like they did every other night, they didn't stop until they had their longitude in relation to several stars and the moon above them. Neither of them were adept navigators, but after stealing some of the ship navigators books and his excess supplies, they knew enough to figure out how to plot their course. In all, the covert navigation took a few minutes of their time before both the sextant and Ada's notes disappeared from view. The couple took one last look at the waning moon and moved back to the stairs where they would retreat back into the hold and begin their calculations. If their nightly excursions were somewhat accurate, the Coven would be able to plot their course on their maps. Eventually they would begin to figure out where it was exactly A Fair Day was taking them.

After two months at sea and with a journey that should be nearing its end, the Coven knew it probably was not Corone they were headed for.

[Liam]

More days passed on their listless voyage, but the Duigenans continued their practiced routine and their own act to keep from drawing attention to themselves as they continued to gather information. While early on in their journey, the Duigenans took to eating in the hold with their children in order to avoid brushing elbows with the crew. But, day after day of remaining in the same room that bucked and rolled with the mood of the rolling sea, and eventually they needed to find a way to escape the hold. The parents took their children to the galley for their meals in shifts, and often used their children's need for fresh air as an excuse to go topside and watch the comings and goings of the crew. Much like the family, the crew was predictable in their movements and duties to keep the ship afloat. After several weeks, the Duigenans had watched their habitual nature to create a schedule of the crew's activity. Occasionally it would deviate here and there, but it began to hold true.

The crew was cordial enough to the family, but they grew quiet whenever one of the Duigenans would probe them for information as to what was going on. But, not even the most disciplined sailor could avoid the eventual slip up and naturally it always seemed to occur at the behest of the Duigenan women. Loyal to their husband and lover, both Ada and Olivia attempted several times with different sailors to use their comely appearance to their advantage. Amusingly, a bored, lovely wife fared far better than Olivia's youthful charm.

One afternoon, Ada sat at the rail near the stern gazing out at sea. The afternoon sun dappled her comely, busting frame in light as a calm, cloudy blue sky met a placid sea. The witch had been working on a young sailor by the name of Mattias whose gaze she knew drifted far too much her way. Mattias was a rigging rat, and from the safety of the sail, Ada often noticed his attempts to gaze down her shirt. Provocatively and playfully she began to let him. Slowly but surely, Mattias eventually found himself off the rigging and closer to Ada as he volunteered to work with the crew who scrubbed the deck. At eighteen years old, a young Mattias waved and greeted Ada whenever she came topside alone. Or at least he attempted to as best a teenager could, often dumbly tripping over his words. But, he did so with Ada's encouragement. It was that fateful afternoon that Ada and Mattias had their first conversation.

"How're you faring, Ma'am?" Mattias offered quietly as he moved his pail and brush, scrubbing in her direction.

Balancing herself off the top of a coil of rope, Ada smirked, "Mattias. ."

"I-I-I'm sorry! Ada!"

"That's better," She replied and rewarded him with a toothy grin, "These old bones do not need to feel any older. But I am doing quite well, thank you."

"That's good, Ada." Mattias replied as he continued to diligently work. The rest of the crew paid them no mind. Working up his courage, "S-So what brought you to that awful continent in the first place?"

Ada pursed her lips in thought and replied coolly, "My husband bade me to go west with my children. We brought our maid, Olivia, along on our ship. We wanted better lives for ourselves than what the free cities offered. We thought there would be some place West we could go that was far more civilized than that.."

"And you decided on Parangal?" Mattias wondered out loud. "Sounds a touch worse then what you planned for."

"Aye." Ada replied, "Our ship was dashed against the rocks near Parangal's shoreline during a storm. We hadn't much of a choice on where we could go then. Oh, those savages had us for many weeks before you lot came along." With a grin she added, "But much to our fortune, you did."

Captivated by her smile, Mattias blushed and returned to work.

And so the dance between the two continued. Mattias grew braver as Ada continued to lead him on, looking for some way for him to prove his loyalty. What the family wanted was too much to ask somebody they could not trust, and the witch had her doubts the young sailor could be trusted anyway. But, she mused to her husband one night, the boy would make an excellent catspaw.

Day after day, night after night. Ada pressed Mattias' youthful fantasies of her against him. While he might prove to be the chink in the armor of the crew, she did not appear more frequently or did things to rush his advance, especially against her husband's request to just get it over with. Ada soothed her husband's paranoia and told her a friendship such as this needed to blossom. It shouldn't be forced. All the while, however, Ada was seeking an opportunity for Mattias to prove his worth. And after awhile, one did not seemingly appear and the need for information proved far greater than prudence.

On a cool night after a particularly long, stormy week, Mattias had stood up and fastened his trousers after relieving himself off the port side of the deck. The young sailor had just finished coiling loose rope and fixing the rigging for the evening. It would be his night for watch in a couple of days, and the sailor became more and more preoccupied with getting enough sleep, deathly afraid of the consequences of falling asleep on his watch. He was returning to the stairs towards the lower deck where the crew's cramped quarters remained. He was on the first two steps when he heard a soft moan and a playful giggle on a faint breeze. Much like the Coven, Mattias and the rest of the crew knew well of Caroline and her affection. But the consort's companionship was not favored by wary sailors aboard the ship after one of their own complained of catching rot along their groin after a nightly excursion with Caroline. But, such sailors grew desperate and daft to risks the longer they were at sea. Mattias, ensnared by Ada's affection, was one such sailor and it had been awhile since he had felt a woman's touch.

Crouching low and out of the light, Mattias sneaked off in the direction of the soft moans and laughter that he could heard towards the bow. From the safety of a few barrels filled with oil, the young sailor retreated behind them as the sounds of affection grew louder. Finding his courage, the sailor risked a look around the barrels and was rewarded with a brief glimpse of a broad, short male with his hands wrapped around a young, comely girl at the midst of their coupling. Much to his alarm, Mattias knew who they were and weirdly felt as betrayed as Ada might very well if she knew her husband was sleeping with their maid! Unable to contain the secret, Mattias cursed as he loudly beat his retreat to the stairs and to the lower deck where he would search for Ada to tell her his discovery.

[Liam]

Mattias lost his balance and risked nearly falling down the stairs from the deck and to the hold, but fortunately a hardwood wall rushed up to spare him the embarrassment. His head smacking against the wall in an effort to thwart gravity, the young sailor decided the best course was to slow down as he descended again into the dizzying dark. The ship bucked against the curling waves that struck the hull making his trepid trip all the more unnerving. As he reached the hold, Mattias felt the shock of what he discovered and the ice in his veins begin to subside. In truth, he fantasized about an opportunity such as this. To console a sobbing Ada Duigenan as she learned of the intentions of her cheating husband aroused him and Mattias could feel the prickling of his skin as if there were electricity in the mouldering air.

Her soft, sweet flesh. Her warm, inviting bosom.

The thought of it all was enough to drive the lust-crazed sailor faster across the shadowed hold when his foot left the last step. Soft candlelight from braziers that swung lazily overhead met and left him intermittently as he walked down the cramped chamber toward the passenger's quarters. The thick oak door that partitioned the passengers from the rest of the ship met Mattias too quickly as even he realized that he had not even bothered to think of an excuse to pull open the door before looking for Ada. He didn't even know where in the room she slept. What if he stumbled upon that middle-aged cutthroat who held onto that scimitar of his? Or the strange looking bloke who wore horn-rimmed glasses and looked up from his grimoires only to sneer at him? He did not know these people and he certainly did not want to have his throat cut tonight.

No, it'd be safer to knock on the door instead. Yes, his head nodded dumbly as his mind hurried to catch on to the idea. It'd be the safest thing to do.

***

Sitting at the table in the center of their quarters, Ada sat alone in darkness as she waited patiently like that of a hungry spider awaiting prey that dared to step upon the tendrils of her web. The witch's attention was divided between her children that swung on sleeping hammocks in the dark and the direction of the door where she knew he'd come. Mattias would come. She could see it in his desperate, little eyes. He wanted her almost as much as she wanted what she could give him.

Tracing invisible lines along the wooden knots of a table she could not see, Ada smirked. What could she and the others use her new confidant for? The potential for intrigue excited the young mother of three and she desired all the more to make Mattias work for her affection. At first, the return of her desire to engage in her own machinations shocked her. Ada believed she had left this part of her life behind when she married Liam, but even as she grew older and conceived children, both husband and wife knew there were certain things she was capable of that Liam was not. And returning to the role of a seductress in an effort to save them all? It excited her all the more when she heard his footsteps as he approached the door.

But Ada's thoughts of grandeur and premature congratulating herself on such a job well done dissolved as three long, loud raps against the doors rang in the dark. It was loud enough to rouse some of the other passengers from their slumber as Ada noticed their snores grew eerily quiet as they began to wait the outcome of such an interruption.

You cannot be serious?! Ada thought, pursing her lips in irritation, whispering under her breath, "What a fool."

Without risking rousing more of her cohabitants in their dank chamber, Ada stood up and walked to the door, mussing up her hair and rubbing her eyes to look as if he had disturbed her sleep. Pulling the heavy handle on the door with a practiced Oomph, Ada cracked the door open enough to see Mattias' long, dumb face glisten with sweat as he licked his fat lips and stared at her. A moment of awkward silence passed before Ada impatiently exhaled and said, "Yeah. . . ?"

"Oh.. Err.. Ada, I..I've got something to tell you," Mattias offered, causing the entire room to grow silent as others were roused by their voices save her children.

"That's nice of you, Mattias. But at this unholy hour? Can't it wait?" Ada said petulantly, rubbing her eye with the heel of her right hand for effect.

"No. No it can't." Mattias began, who finally found his courage as he stumbled over his words. "This is important and I think you should hear about it before somebody else who saw it tells you."

Nice, Ada thought. No wonder you sleep alone. With a yawn Ada shrugged her shoulders, "What's so important?"

"Come out, Ada. I'll tell you in private."

"My children are asleep and my husband and our maid are gone. I'm not going anywhere." Ada replied as if stating the obvious. Trying to give him an opportunity to end the conversation she tilted her head and muttered. "You sure this cannot wait?"

More awkward silence followed before Ada's eyes narrowed and she gestured for the sailor to follow the conversation before saying loudly and rudely, "Mattias?"

"But that's what I-.. Err.. Yes, ma'am. It can wait." Mattias offered, the light of hope and dark desire dying in his eyes. He continued to sulk even as someone else sniggered in the darkness.

"Good. I'll talk to you later, Mattias." Ada said with an air of finality, closing the door in the sailor's face as he tried to reply in kind.

What an idiot, Ada thought as she listened to his receding footsteps. Eventually, she too returned to her hammock only pausing to check on her children who continued to feign as if they were asleep.