‘Will ‘e wake up cap’n?’
‘Ho. Ho. Ho,’ responded a merry voice followed by the toc, toc, toc of wood against wood, and the heavy crunching noise of its shatter. ‘Of course he will.’
Then the tide rose and the world was mute again. Bewitched by an obsidian darkness, Lancelot descended to its depths, to find the luminescence below—and, by its wild embrace, the world ponderously regained shape.
The muffled sound of unfolding sails. The tightening of ropes, scorched by the sun. The creaking of wood. The deadened sound of laughter and merriment. And a comely Stygian moon, so profound a moon, proceeded by a nose, and another curious orb, just as dark—sheltered by lashes fine and arched ebon-brows.
And tresses so dark he had never beheld. No, he reflected, so he had. The Lady of Yi Tai’s were beyond compare: and yet so fragile, so fairy-delicate as the maid herself, Nature ebbed her touch away, in case she sullied them and, in so, dispersed the spell.
But these ones were unkept, oiled and untied, and kissed by the golden disc and played with by the wind, billowing and borne by so fair a maid.
‘My lady,’ Lancelot futilely attempted to say, bereft of voice and strength, semi-blinded by the aureus rays, and with both arms restrained so he would not collapse—barely able to conceive a thread of speech. ‘I must return to my world. I must seek for the Lady of Yi Tai.’
‘To the plank with him!’ answered a commanding voice, but it didn’t mean it, so they put him in a cell.
When Lancelot regained consciousness he found himself imprisoned in a chamber of insignificance, his wounds treated and bandaged as best they could, but still he was hindered by fatigue and weary. He was in the companionship of a peculiar sort, as the raven-tressed maid had said.
‘Those’re Fash Fash Fast, Hear Hear Hark, and Brawn Brawn Brown, th’ knaves! Klepp’d from the cap’n’s pantry his favourite sugar cubes. Fash Fash Fast with his speed, Hear Hear Hark with his hearin’, an’ Brawn Brawn Brown with his liftin.’ Cap’n punish ‘em ‘ere. Took a nail o’ each, aye.’
So she had explained. They were, indeed, a peculiar sort as Lancelot promptly observed—with bright coloured clothes and merry despite the poor conditions, smiling and dancing in the chamber’s lodgings.
And the maid. O, the maid! Such dulcet speech had bespelled him, and what a guise.
On her head she had a tricone hat, from where her sea-scented tresses, garnished with strange devices and trinkets, issued mildly on her snow-white shirt. A swashbuckler belt went around her winsome waist, in so fastening the rest of her attire: breeches and cavalier boots, and the baldric where her storm was kept—in her Queen Anne’s flint. A man she seemed, yet a woman she was, fully feminine.
Rough and gentle and changing and capricious in mood and temper, ebbing and rising as the tide. An olive-skinned she-panther, not devoid of her claws, resting unsheathed at both her sides. And her eyes, overcast, alive with two amusing lights, fierce and wild.
That was Chaya Nuss. But there was yet another maiden on board. A Daughter of The Storm. Varaya Venima. Pleasant and agreeable to the eye she seemed, and yet, in spite of her lesser duties within the vessel, she possessed a fairer symmetry than Chaya Nuss.
If Chaya Nuss was the wild changing sea, Varaya Venima was its calmness and stillness. Verdant-eyed, as the refulgent ores resting beneath the shores, and yet, as a tropical forest, profound and misty. Her earthly tresses were as fresh as bark after a rainy wash, or as scented and dark as thester, laced by the subtle mists into a serpentine braid, a vespertine kiss to her dusky skin.
It descended down her subtle limbs, teasing her veilless navel, adorned with treasure, rings, and bracelets. An ianthine saree urned her favours from soiled gazes, an enticing serpent not without her graces, concealed in the fangs dormant at her waists, and in the adamant atters hidden beneath her silks.
If Chaya Nuss’ attire reproved her femininity, Varaya Venima’s further emphasized her loveliness.
And yet those tropical woods had only ever greeted him with repugnance, abhorrence, and salty water—the only nourishment Varaya Venima had deigned herself to offer him and his companions in their long imprisonment, as madness slowly crept. The uncessant tide could be heard crashing against the hull, followed by the vessel’s repicking thunder, as by it it was swayed.
Humidity crept deep within—warm, suffocating, and uncomfortable with the water tears constant dips, the shivers and foul smell of fish. An unwelcome shower in their small cell. Mermaid’s wineglass and green algae hung and grew on the walls, while coral reefs were their sleeping silks, no different than stones, and, towering above them, kelps, anemones, and purple coral—a wide forest thriving with life, where they were sheltered within its shade.
Emerging from the shades of one of these kelps appeared Chaya Nuss once Varaya Venima had vanished from sight. In her hands she bore proper nourishment: stale hard bread, raw beef, and proper water to quench the flames of their burning throats, which she shared evenly among them. It was not nearly enough to satiate their hunger, but well enough to appease it.
‘Why are you aiding us, my lady?’ said Lancelot, drinking measuredly the chalice offered by Chaya Nuss.
‘Aiding you, gentle sir?’ said Chaya Nuss as she rose—hands on her hips, and, as she took off her hat in mock curtsey—she added: ‘Why, I am stealing from you. A prisoner’s always worth some coin; a ransom, a rescue. Tis well to keep ’em at hand. There is value in ’em. In the seabed there is no shine. Tis no shine in a sack o’ bones, aye. Sides, ye wouldn’t be the first to flounder under Varaya’s care.
‘We had a tar before. Bonny Bonn Bonne, cap’n Butterbeer Beerback called him. So did the crew. His name’s unknown e’en now. He was a healthy man o’ measure. Ate an’ drank an’ laugh’d. Spent more time in th’ kitchens, than on board. The rascal. He was insatiable. “Foods gonna be yer undoing,” captain Butterbeer Beerback said. “Tis gonna be yer doom, lad!”’
‘One day, after a fail’d cut out and an arduous scape cross th’ brine, we were left with meagre provisions. We were famish’d an’ the provisions divid’d. Twas hot an’ suffocatin’ an’ the wind a searin’ knife. We were malnourish’d, drench’d with sweat, an’ angry an’ dirty an’ tired. Leaning on th’ deck ready to embrace th’ tide, it was colder than th’ inside. Th’ brine a smooth mirror below the ship, appealing to our dry hearts, with th’ mermaids callin’ with their harps. Breathin’ hurt, our lungs was burnin’ an’ our breath a sickly breeze.
‘Our only counsel were th’ rations and what scarce water was left. Barely a galleon.
‘But when we went to check on ’em they had already vanished. Bonny Bonn Bonne, unable to resist no more, had eaten ’em all. Th’ cap’n was furious, an’ as punishment put him in a cell. Varaya’s was to take care o’ him.
‘Th’ first few days an’ months went well enough, better after we reached port. He was talked about on deck. The past a jest. E’en cap’n Butterbeer Beerback was merrier than usual. But as time went on, remembrance bout him began to slide. E’en Varaya forgot her cares.
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‘Last time we check’d he was thinner, and his hide perched on a bar, still eatin’ too. Twas his doom, that is true enough.’
So Chaya Nuss, her tale concluded, ceased, pointing at a skeleton enthroned in coral reefs. An ancient skeleton from days bygone: Bonny Bonn Bonne. Old, ancient, ragged, and worn by the currents within the vessel. Natural life grew before, within, and outside of him. Clown fish and moray eels, fanged with baneful poisons.
His translucent arms were placed on the coral reefs’ armrest, fashioned in the likeness of animals and plants and uncanny shapes. Alive, yet long gone, perished. While the rest of his frame was anchored to the vessel’s wall, akin another plant, surrounded by bubbles and currents which passed him by attempting to imbue, to return, his bygone breath.
When he noticed Chaya Nuss and Lancelot belooking him, he greeted them with proper gesture, soon returned.
‘Is it true what you said?’ asked Chaya Nuss bluntly, crouching before the endless cell, a hand in the bars.
‘Yes, my lady,’ said Lancelot as he beheld the maid, her thestri orbs yissing, for weal tinding—a natural cast thieves and knaves and rascals tended to bear. ‘And so are the events which now I will proceed to relate, and which may strike your fancy, or your concession as naught but the delusions of a madman long imprisoned within this chamber. But, by my oath as a knight, true they are.
‘Not long ago, or perhaps, indeed, too long ago. It is difficult to recall the count of days when there is no light, and night, and obscurity, and dampness are the only refuge. We were refuged in an old crone’s hut, away and in safety from our pursuers, in Sweet Woods. Or so we thought.
‘Our refuge was promptly discovered by our pursuers, the knights of House Banana, by whatever means they elude my grasping. Battle and bloodshed were wont to ensue, and so it proceeded for an instant, a brief welcome, before the hut returned to its previous state: silence.
‘Whatever may have happened to the ancient crone is beyond my knowing, but in all likeness she is well preserved and alive. So are my hopes for the rest of my men. I, on the other hand, possessed not such luck as to be able to stray or evade mine foes—relentlessly pursued by an host of knights and untiring archers—their arrows hissing past, or, with deathly accuracy, piercing limbs and armour as up I fled with a single purpose: ensuring the Lady of Yi Tai’s safety and the completion of our quest.
‘But no matter how many stairs I climbed, signals of Her Ladyship were unfound, and so the count of how many floors might I have already crossed, dizzy, worn and wounded as I was. It was then, in my crossing of an upside-down staircase, when I descended abruptly to the floor below—double-crossed by the stairs or by mine own weariness—with a heavy crack.
‘I suspected the shatter of bones, and, in not so long, the joy of my foes to find their prey in such a hopeless condition and at their mercy, for they were not far behind and my poor state was but a fountain of encouragement to their spirits, aware that their prey would soon be fell at the mercy of arrow and sword.
‘Fortune, however, had smiled at me. My abrupt descent had been lessened by a frog, one of the strange creatures inhabiting the hut, as big as a house—and there had been no shatter of bones, but a displeased croak.
‘Grateful to my good fortune and the peaceful creature, I resumed my escape, the arrows hissing past, and the shouts—though far, for my foes had been obliged to encircle and find an alternative path to reach me—providing me with some time to even my respiration. Scarce, but enough. For they were nearing, ceaselessly cutting my advantage over them.
‘It was then when I heard and amicable voice calling, “Ho. Ho. Ho. Yer lady’s here, lad!” I followed it without any sort of rational debate, hesitation, or consideration, which a more cautious man may have had explored beforehand before submerging himself in the depths of the unknown.
‘The strange voice led me to a room of humble craft, scarce in adornments, and with a portal whose frame evaded any rational understanding about the knowledge of its cast or the materials utilised. I had but an instant to contemplate it before the hisses and shouts resumed.
‘I need not open the portal, nor touch it, as if out of free will it did so by itself, and before I knew it, I was drowning. The sudden pressure shattered my leg. Futilely I tried to swim upwards, but so tired and worn were my arms it was no use. My chainmail was a cold hand pulling me deeper down below, as a sudden slumber slowly darkened my eyes. Then I felt something heavy collapse on my helm. A sudden crimson blurred my orbs. And when I regained consciousness I was on your ship, my lady, held by two sea-thieves.’
‘The Lady of Yi Tai,’ said Chaya Nuss, curious about the unfamiliar name ‘Who’s she; yer sister, a paramour mayhap?’
‘Nothing such, my lady,’ responded Lancelot. ‘A lady whose safekeeping I oathed for, alongside the stripling. I must seek them and see what has become of them.’
Chaya Nuss rose indifferently. If she had been left untouched by the tale he could not conjecture, her countenance did not manifest any emotion, and she left without any farther word, question, or acknowledgment.
A few hours later, however, Puff Puff Puff, in charge of the prisoners and their nourishment, arrived to collect Lancelot.
‘The cap’n wishes to see you,’ he had told him, as he had ushered him, limping, to the captain’s chambers.
The captain’s chambers were wonderous to behold, furnished with the ordinary and the extraordinary. Silks and velvets and hides from beasts known and unknown warmed and heated the polished wooden floor. On them were tables of disparate kinds, each possessing a different structure, colour, and cast—from beasts as wild as the ones they towered, to statues of subtle cast—but their purpose lay not forgotten.
Unrolled on them in a capricious manner were quill pens, rolls of paper and parchment in desmeasure, and other articles—marked with notes and coordinates, or simply as they were. Other devices also lay on them: telescopes to gaze upon the stars, compasses and other instruments of nautical measure, and heaps or single shining coins, each from a different country, displaced and rarely ordered.
Cymbal lamps bathed the crimson walls, providing a fearsome but needed source of illumination. Protruding form these walls where perches for the seagulls to rest and ruffle their wings when tired of their flight. The fresh smell of wet wood and sea and salt inebriated the chamber with those of incenses and spices. Above these lamps hung all sorts of nets, brimming with treasure and other lesser objects of interest: such as furniture, chairs, toys, and kitchen supplements.
But most wonderous of all was the captain’s table: no jewels or trinkets or lesser ornaments it bore or had placed in it, but it possessed the shape of a slumbering beast, so uncannily cast, it surpassed the art of mere description—and in so the notion of its sentience and livelihood. Fearful to behold and grand and majestic it was—the highest jewel within the chamber. Lit by Cynthia’s argent rays, fluttering with the purple curtains’ lustrous hue, and in so the pirate it shielded.
A man of a merry, patient, and cheerful disposition he seemed, so were his eyes, ink-black as the sea-depths—a hue shared by his beard, tinkering with devices at each foaming curl—singing bird-boxes, which, at his every laugh, joined in companionship. His stupendous hat was not the less marvellous, teeming with feathers of disparate proportions, from birds—if birds they were—beyond his knowledge.
And so was the rest of his attire, an elegant white shirt, with a frock coat above it, and, on the pirate’s shoulder, a monkey, who in turn had another monkey, concluded by a parrot on this last one’s shoulder.
After him was a high-shelve—for the rest of his attire remained beyond his ken, and thus, undiscernible—with honeys from distant lands labelled and ordered alphabetically and by hue. Chaya Nuss was behind the captain, semi-concealed in shade, arms crossed and prest to observe the exchange that was to unfold between twain parties. Her pert feline eyes kindled with interest.
‘Ho. Ho. Ho. So you are the lad. Welcome!Welcome aboard The Whisper That Travels North But Never Back South.’
‘Sire,’ said Lancelot gravely, after greeting him accordingly how well he could in his wretched state, recalling the voice. ‘It was you I heard, sire, the one who brought me here.’
‘Nonsense. Nonsense,’ responded captain Butterbeer Beerback lightly. ‘Why would I bring you here? You are no seaman, probably not able in a ship, and, certainly, ignorant of the ways of the wind. With you I can’t make gold, son. I can turn you into gold, but there is little profit in that.’
‘What use could you have for me, then, sire?’
‘Feathers in the wind,’ responded a soft voice. It had not been Chaya Nuss, as Lancelot had initially conceived, but Varaya Venima, quartermaster of the vessel, and second in command. She had concealed herself behind the purple curtains, but, her presence exposed and the initial surprise compromised, she joined and kept by the pirate’s side.
Captain Butterbeer Beerback ignored the suggestion, but, his caprice piqued, he cried ‘To the plank with him!’
This time it was Chaya Nuss who interfered and leaned and whispered in her captain’s ear, her hat concealing any intelligence from perusing hearers, as an unpleasant grin gradually lit the pirate’s face.