016. Prayer

I sailed out on the ship with Stetson. We went up the swollen river, to the peoples of the interior, to trade for some goods that we could not get on the coast.

For the most part it was an uneventful trip. But on the way back, on a day when the river was very tumid and threatened to rush over its banks, we came to a strange place.

It was in the middle of a valley, rimmed by hills that looked like the teeth of a broken jawbone. On the land broken columns and stone images stood scattered about, like child’s toys. And amongst them, shuffling and leaning like zombis in a fearful tale, were men with straw clothing.

I was disturbed to look upon these men. They did not act as men should. They looked about with no purpose, lost souls. Some would grope together at times, around some cactus plant that had chosen to flower in this frightful place.

“What is this place?” I asked Stetson, making no attempt to hide my dread.

“Some call it the Twilight Kingdom,” he replied. “But if you look upon all the maps it is called the Valley of Dying Stars.”

“How did it get that name?”

“Those men out there? They have not always been men. Once, they were indeed stars. Don’t look at me like that; for you know you’ll come back as a seal if you drown. And if you can do that, then these men were once stars.”

“If that’s so, then why do they act like this?” I asked.

“Well, they are dying stars,” Stetson said, lighting a cigarette. “When stars die, they become men. They are only men for a little while, for they age and die. But they remember what they were once a part of; the royal court of the celestial heights. And it makes them sad to remember all the glory and honor that they had. So they come here.”

“Why here?”

“Once a great city of stars upon Urth was here. These ones come to offer up prayers to those that built it. They hope that the spirits of the builders will relieve them of their suffering. In their desperation, they’ll pray to just about anything.”

Stetson stopped speaking, and I thought I heard something else. Voices sang in the wind. I could hear the prayers of the stars, though I did not understand a word of it. Lips that might have once kissed others of their kind in the heavenly ether now prayed to broken stones, remnants of odd ancestors that had not ears to hear nor eyes to see. I did not hear this for long though. The wind changed direction and we passed out of the valley quick. Their prayer died off until it was nothing more than a whimper.

“I need to find a new way to the interior,” Stetson said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. “I hate that place.”

022. Kiss

“I saw Eternity the other night. Like a great ring of pure and endless light.” So spoke the poet Vaughn. I don’t know where he got his image of eternity. I’ve seen it, eternity I mean. I’ve seen it in every back alley, every empty apartment, every whorehouse; every lost place in this city. Eternity is darkness, a black hole that seeks to swallow up existence. You can try to run from it, spend your whole life doing that very thing, and yet at the end of it all you find that you were speeding towards it the whole time. You become a cosmic wreck, floundering in oceans of madness.

I was on the deck of an old barge, moored out in the river that cleaves this city down the middle. It was a summer night, heavy and hot. Some proper tightsuit had asked me to make sure nobody messed with his property. It wasn’t the best of jobs, I’m kind of on the low end of what you’d call hired muscle, but he was paying decent and that was enough. All I had to do was yell at anybody who came poking around, and shoot them if they decided to argue.

I had me a folding chair set up at the stern. It gave me a good vantage point of everything nearby. For several hours, nothing happened. A car would drive through the nearby warehouses, its engine rumbling like a far off thunderstorm. But for the most part, all the activity was happening elsewhere, in one of two places. The city of light, where the rich held court and did as they saw fit, and the city of darkness, where the degenerate fiddled and faddled and plotted to revolt. This place was neither. It was neutral, sterile in a strange sense. Like me. I can move between the dual cities and nobody minds. There are many doorways between them, and I know most of ‘em.

But anyway, I had been sitting at my post for quite a while. I was just about to nod off when I saw the girl. She made me perk up real quick. You don’t usually see a girl, even one of the lower orphans, running around by the docks. And this girl wasn’t any lower orphan either. Even though she was at least a hundred yards away, I could tell she had some breeding to her.

I didn’t call out like I was supposed to. For one thing, she wasn’t even heading towards the barge, but towards the river itself. And, I was curious. As I said, this was not a common situation. I wanted to know just what an upper crust honey was doing down by the docks at night.

She walked on down to the water’s edge, down to that dark vein that runs through the heart of the city. For a moment, she looked back, as if regretting leaving something behind, or perhaps was she was doing. It didn’t seem like she felt guilt though. I’ve learned to tell when someone is guilty based on how they act. A guilty person will slink, glance around often, and have trouble keeping still. But she was smooth in her movements, only looked back once, and walked with her head held high. She descended the slime covered steps to one of the smaller docks. Then she knelt down by the water’s edge, as if to pray to some forgotten god. That may have not been too far off of a guess.

Something rose up from the river. To this day, I don’t know what it was. Some say that the souls of the dead are an army that resides within that river, ready to rise up on the day that the city of light shall be overthrown. Others say that there was a time when the city did not exist, and elder beings ruled a bleak and empty land. Those are myths, legends to tell the gullible when the beer is passed around. I don’t put any stock in them. But what I do know is that what came up from the river that night was not human. It may have had a human head and arms, but that didn’t make it human.

It came up to the girl, like a deity coming to bless a faithful follower. Her arms were open to receive it. My throat had turned dry by this time and the blood had left my extremities. I was wrapped up in the macabre scene unfolding before me. Tentacles came up from the river and took hold of the girl, pulling her toward the being in the dark current. Their arms locked, and they kissed. The being’s tentacles writhed and I heard the girl moan in pleasure. Then they plunged beneath the water, and I didn’t see anything else.

I’ve never told anyone what I saw that night on the barge. There are some things in this city that you just have to keep to yourself. If others knew them it would never do any good. And I never heard anything about any missing aristocrat girl the next day. Whoever she was, she wasn’t missed. But I have a funny idea that wherever she is, she isn’t dead. I’ve thought about what I saw that night, when a day has been long and the shadows of the night play tricks on the mind. And I’ve discovered that there’s a lesson to all this. People will go as far as they can to escape the darkness that is eternity, and they’ll jump right into it to do so. It’s the unique human flaw, the one that gets us every time.

011. Wreck

The stench of death was heavy upon the HMS Windsor as it sailed along the coast of Baja California. It had already brought in a full load of whale, and was now proceeding home with all speed.

It was a warm August night. Above the ship the stars twinkled on and off in the vast empyrean darkness of the sky, shedding their soft light on the desert landscape to the Windsor’s port side. It was an odd sight, the rocks and pinnacles of the wastes illuminated by the glow of the heavens, the only sound around that of the waves lapping against the side of the ship as it cut through a darkened sea.

The man that the crew called Pilot Dolph stood at the helm, steering the Windsor on through this unnatural night. This was his first voyage with Captain Mark, but he had come with high recommendations from a fellow captain, one Paul Orcan. And, all through this voyage, Dolph had met all expectations. He had steered the Windsor through a few gales, sailed her around the Horn, and brought the ship to the hunting grounds, where the crew had done their part. The valuable parts of two cachalots were now in the hold, earned by the crew with the sweat of their browns and their own two hands. Now it lay to Dolph to take them all home to England, where they could receive their pay and meet their loved ones again.

Only, Dolph had no intention of doing that. No, a different plan was in his head. Tonight, a little farther on, he would drive the Windsor upon some rocks that he had seen. They were dangerous rocks; a ship that struck them would be torn to pieces in an instant. And that was what Dolph was counting on. He had been given this task by someone more powerful than any human agency.

But, as the night wind rushed past, doubts entered into the mind of he who pretended to be human. For he had not spent all these days removed from those around him. If he had, then his ruse would not have been very effective. No, he had toiled with them all, sharing in their aches and pains when Captain Mark ordered him to. He had eaten with them, heard all their stories in full, though they might not have told them. And he had grown quite attached to a few of them, for this work lead to that sooner or later.

Dolph knew what would happen when the Windsor struck those rocks. It would wreck in a spectacular fashion. The rocks would gut its wooden bulk like a knife gutting a fish. The crew, every last mother’s son of them, would be thrown into the water, some still asleep probably. If they did not drown, and they did not get bashed to death against the rocks, then the sharks would get them. This wreck would offer up no survivors for the desert to claim.

A tear formed in Dolph’s eye, the first he had ever shed. But he did not pay it any mind. He thought of the crew members he had grown attached to. Peter Galadin, a good cabin boy, only just beginning to lose his innocence. Despite his youth, he had never shied away from any task that the captain had given him. Old Brad Randolph, a veteran of whaling voyages, who had kept a steady head even in the worst circumstances, and who had enthralled everyone with his tales of far off ports and strange sights. And, finally, Captain Marks himself. The captain did not like the bloody work that he oversaw, Dolph had gleaned that from his thoughts. Yet he did it anyway, because at home he had a wife and child to feed. Never mind that the wife was unfaithful while he was at sea, and that his son was prone to cutting up policemen on dark nights. Marriage had come with responsibilities, and he was fulfilling his.

The predetermined spot was coming up quickly. Dolph knew that he could not shy away from this. He had been given this task by Cetus, his Guardian. One did not disappoint a Guardian like that. But it still hurt him to know that he had to cause the deaths of so many. It shouldn’t be this way, these men had been murdering his kind. And yet, the feeling remained.

“Mr. Dolph, the captain asked me to inquire of you.”

Dolph turned to the voice. It was Peter, his blue eyes shaded in the darkness. Dolph had to choke back even more tears.

“I’ll take this ship where it should go, Peter, make no mistake of that.”

“Aye. I’ll tell the captain.”

“Mr. Galadin, wait please,” Dolph said. Peter looked at the pilot, waiting for his next instructions. Dolph reached into his pocket and pulled out two rings. They were identical, silver circles with a dolphin engraved upon the top. Dolph held them out to Peter. The captain boy reached out slowly.

“What are these for?” he asked.

“I give them out to friends,” Dolph said. “Give one to the captain, and keep the other for yourself.” His voice became full of emotion at the last, and he had to choke it back again. Peter raised his eyebrows.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Dolph?”

Dolph shook his head. He could not tell Peter the truth now, even though the boy would know it soon. He would need time to understand it. The captain would too. Maybe even Dolph himself would need that time.

“Shall I pray for you, sir? I make it a habit to pray for friends.”

Dolph turned to the cabin boy, his face not yet marred by the touch of age or vice. A smile crossed his face.

“I would like that, Peter. Say a prayer for me soon, I think I’ll need it.”

The cabin boy gave a slight nod, almost unseen in the settled gloom.

“I’ll tell the captain we’re on course. And I’ll give him your gift, Mr. Dolph. Good night.”

Peter turned and walked back towards the captain’s quarters, leaving Dolph alone with the task that he loathed. He only had those two rings, no more. No one else could be spared. And it was doubtful that they would want to be preserved in the manner that Peter and Captain Mark would be. Dolph wept upon the steering wheel, even as he turned it and the Windsor shifted towards its wreck.