Chương 37: Chapter 36 – Into the Black

While Bracken wiped his face and checked over the body, Passage fought to calm himself. The battle was done, but his blood still sang with violence. His hand ached with the memory of crunching bone, the hammer heavy and right in his grip. He wanted to throw it into the Stillwake. Instead, he gripped it tighter. There was a part of him, a not so insignificant part, that was disappointed to find the battle over. It was not rage alone that had guided his hand. There'd been a strange joy in the chaos.

A sense of freedom that he was not ready to confront or consider. Passage clung to his anger, familiar and easier to understand, and his eyes found a new target worthy of his temper. The golden son of the Mercer clan, Lio tended to his crew. He clapped their backs, shook their hands, and made sure they saw to each other's wounds. Passage had seen him in the fray, fighting no less savagely than the rest. He'd acquitted himself well, an adept swordsman and a capable shot.

That didn't excuse the fact that he hadn't warned them of the dangers. Not all of them, at least. Passage had seen it in Lio's face when the fighting began. Not shock, nor horror. Regret. Now he understood why. Every corpse on the deck, both the fresh and the rotten, bore the Silver Chalice on their clothes. The same mark that was emblazoned on the sail and painted on the side of their ship. A hand, soft and small, grasped him by the wrist. He looked down to see Ressa sitting by his side.

Her jaw was clenched, her face sickly pale, and her hands were stained with blood, but her eyes were wide with pleading. She spoke quietly, just for him, "Passage, you need to calm down."

"I am calm," he lied.

"Let go of the hammer," she coaxed, reaching for his other hand. He glanced at it. Knuckles bone white, veins standing out from fist to elbow, hammer vibrating in his grip.

"I'll put it down after I talk with Lio," Passage replied.

"Passage," Ressa stood and moved in front of him. She was too small to block his sightline, her head well below his chin. She reached up and placed a hand at the back of his neck, forced him to tilt his head down and look at her.

"Passage, please. Let it go." She did not try to pry the hammer from his grip. She simply placed her hand around his, looked him in the eye, and waited. The creature within, all teeth and fury, retreated into the shadows of his heart, his rage shamed by her presence. He let her take the hammer, some of his strength leaving him as the weapon left his hand. Ressa sagged to the side, almost dropping the hunk of steel as she took its full weight. She let it thud to the deck beside them.

"Thank you," she said quietly. He nodded back, an apology and thanks of his own.

"All okay?" Lio asked, making his way towards them.

"A few wounds, but we're all alive," said Ressa, standing between Passage and Bracken's eldest brother.

"Good, good. We've got medical supplies. Kestrel will treat you all, patch you right up. Soon as she's done with the ones worse off than you," Lio looked them over. Of their number, Bracken was the worst off – half drowned and with vicious bites on his hip and shoulder. The bite on Passage's own left arm was starting to ache, a burning cold that stabbed through to the bone. He ripped a strip off his shirt and bound it tight to staunch the bleeding.

Ressa helped him with the knot while Sable did the same for Bracken's shoulder.

"What's going on?" Bracken asked, wincing under Sable's ministrations and turning to his brother.

"Hermits, we call them," said Lio. At least he had the decency not to play dumb. Passage glanced at the closest Hollow corpse, the name making little sense until he looked it in the eye. Then he understood. A meaty claw flopped out through the empty eye socket, shaped like a crab's, but with exposed muscle where there should be shell. Glancing around he saw more evidence in the broken and split skulls of the dead creatures – it was not brains that spilled from their heads but monstrous fleshy crabs.

"Why?" Bracken asked.

"For some reason, they're a common form that some men take when Seldun turns them Hollow. The body stays the same but the brain turns into a crab-like thing and pilots the corpse it left behind. Like a hermit crab in a shell. It's morbid, I know, but sailors have a funny sense of humour."

"No. Not that. I mean, why are they all dressed in the company uniform?" Lio looked them over, taking his time answering. Around them, the crew continued to work, dragging the bodies into tidy rows. The sky continued to darken, dusk giving way to night as lanterns were lit. The storm's fury fully expended, the world had fallen still. The lake's surface was once again mirror-calm, and the wind stirred not a breath.

"I'm sorry you all were put in danger. There are costs to trafficking in Stained magics, and I regret that these men paid it on behalf of the company. We've learned a lot in the last few months. Lost some good men in the beginning. We've got a handle on it now."

"That's not an explanation," challenged Passage. Ressa still stood between them, but she needn't have bothered. His fury was as spent as the lake's, the familiar taste of shame the only thing it left behind.

"I know. But for now, it will have to do. I need to see to my crew. We've dead to farewell and wounds to patch. We'll drop anchor for the night and reach Flotsam late tomorrow if the winds are with us. We'll be making one more stop the day after. Please, give me until then, and I'll explain everything." Passage helped Bracken to his feet, his friend looking uncertainly at his brother all the while. Passage nodded once at Lio, accepting his terms and the others followed his lead.

He saw the others to their cabin, set up Bracken in a hammock and then returned to the deck. He had made a number of those corpses, or at least been the one to stop them moving. It seemed disrespectful not to help clean them up. None of the other crewmembers commented as he set about carrying broken bodies up from the hold to set them down among the rest. He received a few nods of quiet acknowledgement, but that was all. There was no wailing or weeping from these men and women, hardened creatures one and all.

They would shed their tears eventually, but not until the work was done. There seemed a sort of wisdom in that, and Passage was not yet ready to confront all that he was feeling; he worked with them late into the night. Eighteen dead, all told. Three of them from among the crew that had set out from Greymere yesterday morning, including one who had gone overboard and was lost to the black. The deck was crowded with their numbers, laid out in rows.

The creatures had been clumsy, slow, and easy enough to kill, but it was the chaos of their Stain-conjured storm that made them dangerous. With waves crashing down from all angles and the deck tilting madly, mistakes had been inevitable. They hadn't enough spare cloth to cover them all in shrouds, so instead strips of fabric covered only their faces.

Passage stood to the side and tried to make himself small as Lio led the crew in a prayer to Fisher, asking that the Lord of Waters carry their spirits somewhere peaceful. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Even with a quarter of the crew lost, the ship was scarcely large enough for the living. With grim expressions, one by one the crew committed the bodies to the deep. Keepsakes were taken from the ones that bore them, tokens to return to families.

Some of them were unrecognizable, but Lio wrote a list of the ones the crew had known. At least their families would be informed. When all was said and done, Passage returned to the cramped cabin where the others waited. Kestrel, a woman in her forties with scars running down her cheeks, came by and stitched shut their wounds. She spread a salve over them that warmed and numbed in equal measure.

"Made with fruits from Caleth," she explained, "speeds the healing and stops infection. You should be right in a couple days. Might not even scar." Sable let out a low whistle at that, and Passage couldn't help but agree. That was an expensive sort of medicine. He'd expected strong spirits and a bit of thread, not Light-Stained magic. He'd give Lio some credit, the man wasn't completely without care for his crew. The five of them spoke little that night.

They each lay in their bunks with the light dimmed low, none of them quite willing to go without. Their crew was a tattered sail, barely hanging on while strange winds blew them in a direction they had set, but no longer controlled. He grazed a thumb over the tattoo on his arm, thankful that the creature's bite had missed it. They had little else besides each other, but for tonight that was enough.

Sleep did not find Passage that night, but eventually, morning did. He rose with the dawn, and the others followed him out onto the deck. They joined the crew, helping some but mostly just staying out of the way as sails were raised and the anchor hoisted. Throughout the day, Passage lingered by the side of the ship, watching the waters mistrustfully. Every unexpected ripple or splashing of a creature had him gripping the rail, reaching for the hammer at his belt.

But no horrors emerged from the deep, and no sudden storms descended from the sky. They sailed onwards. When he wasn't watching the water, Passage was glancing about, taking stock of where each of his friends stood around the deck. They all lingered close, but it fast became a habit all the same, Passage's eyes touching on each of them every few minutes, like fingers to a wallet in a bad part of town. While the day passed more quietly than the one before, there was nothing cheerful about it.

The crew drifted about the ship, mourners at a funeral they could not leave. He felt an intruder and a voyeur upon their grief. Desperate for something to do with hands that still twitched with unshed tension, Passage eventually spent a few hours scrubbing the deck, working bloodstains from the boards. The others joined him, the five of them working in quiet meditation. It was early afternoon when they reached the channel cut through the western cliffs.

Black stone rose in a wall three hundred feet or taller, extending in a great ring to the north and south. Gulls swooped and squawked, nesting in the cliffside. High above, verdant green spilled down, the land overgrown and wild. Lio gave his orders quietly, rarely raising his voice, and the sailors moved with long-practiced familiarity. The sails were trimmed and oars deployed as the ship was brought into the channel.

A hundred feet across, Passage felt himself in a parody of the Gutters, walls rising high on either side and casting the ship in shadow as they sailed down the canal. Slowly the waters turned from black to blue and they emerged onto the coast. The spray from the ocean became salty, the waters choppy. The wind was with them and when it caught their sails, the ship sped across the ocean.

They hugged the coast, heading north until late that afternoon, then cut across the strait that separated Maerholt from Glasskar, their nearest neighbouring isle in the Teeth. Flotsam suited its name. Crouched within a manmade harbour, it was a series of piers and warehouses with more inns and taverns than homes in the port beyond. A sailor's town, through and through.

There were a hundred just like it throughout the Teeth, places for merchants to meet and barter their wares before sailing on in search of profit in places where people actually lived. It was the perfect sort of place to make a deal for goods from dubious origins or at least make a show of looking like you had. Passage helped the others unload cargo into a warehouse, moving boxes to and fro. The whole while, he kept an eye on Lio.

The blonde man strutted about in his tricorn and most expensive coat, fingers and neck bedecked in a pirate's treasure worth of gold. It was late in the night when they finished swapping out the cargo, torches burning with naked flames along the piers. Lio whistled loudly, summoning the crew down to the dock. The Wyrms followed. Passage looked questioningly at Bracken but received only a shrug and a shake of the head in return.

"Shore leave, you all know the drill, same as last time," Lio ordered once they'd gathered. From a sack he produced a small bag, a leather purse fat with coin, and tossed it to the closest of his men. The sailor caught it with a smile that contained almost as much silver as the purse. Lio produced another and tossed it to the next man along. One after another, he armed his men with coin, and sent them into the town, leaving only two to guard the ship. Kestrel and a man whose name Passage did not catch.

Then Lio turned to the Wyrms and gestured for them all to come closer.

"Take these," Lio handed a purse to Torvin, Sable, and Ressa each.

"Stick together and keep one another safe. Don't get into any drinking games or brawls, you'll lose at both, and don't risk any of the drugs. Have a good time and be back by morning."

"If it's all the same to you, I think we'd rather have a quiet night aboard and save our coin," said Ressa. Torvin looked ready to disagree but held his tongue.

"That isn't your payment, don't worry. Spending it in town is part of the job. Just splash it about, have a good time, and if you find a way to casually mention or be overheard saying that we're in town collecting Stained goods, I won't be upset. Understand?" Ressa chewed her lip, eyeing the coin mistrustfully. Sable and Torvin looked like stray dogs thrown the butcher's scraps.

"What about us?" Bracken asked, gesturing from Passage to himself.

"You'll get your chance too, but I want a word first," said Lio. He stood straight, shoulders back, jaw high with the look of a man who believed the costume he wore transformed him. Passage forced his face to hide his thoughts, his anger and mistrust for the eldest Mercer not quite as lessened as he'd thought. He nodded at their captain, though it was Bracken's approval the man sought.

While the others left with a backwards glance, a wave, and a promise to meet them later, Bracken and Passage followed Lio into his quarters. Lio closed and locked the door. Lio sat down behind his desk and let fall his captain's mask. He looked unsteady, uncertain, and as much a boy as either of them. Bracken took a seat opposite him. Passage stayed standing.

"I need to know if you vouch for your crew," Lio finally said, wincing at his own choice of phrasing.

"What in Varr's name does that mean?" Bracken asked, ready to take offence. Passage crossed his arms.

"I already told you, the real pick up is tomorrow night. I promised to explain the Hollows, and I will, but these are company secrets. Not the sort of thing to trust just anybody with. I'm of a mind to bring the pair of you and your other friends with me when I go to collect what we came for, but I need to know if you vouch for them." Lio clasped his hands on the desk in front of him, eyes flicking between the two of them.

"What are you so scared of them finding out? Of course, I trust them, they're my best friends," said Bracken. Not a word of a lie, not yet.

"You'll understand tomorrow. Can you both swear they won't tell anyone what they see if we bring them? That they won't try to steal from us or do anything stupid with what they learn?" Bracken hesitated, eyes narrowing.

"I'm not sure why you're asking me," said Passage.

"I'm not your brother."

"No, but you are his best friend, and the son of a preacher. Glass knows, temple boys don't lie." Lio flashed him a feeble grin.

"So, the two of you know them best and I'm asking you straight. Do you vouch for them?"

"Of course," said Bracken, leaning back with a smile. Passage heard his heart breaking from across the room, but Bracken was an excellent liar, and his face betrayed him none. Temple boy. He'd been called such a thousand times. Funny that it had never set his teeth on edge before now.

"Always," Passage didn't flinch. It was true after all, the Wyrms would never betray one another. But Lio was no Wyrm.