Tales of the Void

Trine

Three Short Stories

And

Three Addendums By

Black Waltz 0

†††

Chapter III

180◦

There were a hundred bolts of lightning upon a boiling sea.

Cold water and white spray smashed into the rowboat and filled it halfway with water, which would have sunk it within seconds has the rolling waves not hurled and shook the contents out with just as much vigour; the little dingy acting like a cup trying to empty out the ocean.

It had not been there moments before, but at the same time nothing had changed to allow this strange, ordinary thing into the world. It had been delivered right into the heart of a raging storm, unkindly and cruelly, many leagues away from dry land. This time of the year the sea harboured an intense hatred of embarking vessels, fighting back with storms, thunder, typhoons, and monsters.

A howling scream pierced the air. It seemed like it came from the lightning but the ocean foamed and blackened, dark tendrils moving beneath the surface like oil. A larger freighter was also tossed upon the waves, but this one had life; this one had a chance. The rain beat down so hard that it stung and numbed the skin, yet two dozen men bore it with both bravery and fear, for they knew the storm belt’s malice and its hatred for mankind. All they could do was hold the ship down and pray.

Above the rattle of the lighting and the rain a single voice stood firm and true. It rang out with the giddy delirium of a man possessed, not of terror or madness, but of exultation. “Furl the sail! Fore, main and mizzen! Let out all the wind! I’ll not have my love decapitated by this little squall! We stay on course and ride ‘er out! It won’t be much longer, mates! Hold tight!”

“Captain!” A man cried out from behind him at the helm, a huge bald man dedicating each one of his bulging muscles to controlling the wheel which guided the ship firm. The captain half turned towards him.

Outwardly he appeared a wholly unremarkable man, medium sized with his hair and beard matter with the rain. His uniform was faded and unkempt, yet there was a fire burning in his eyes. “What is it?” He barked angrily.

“With this wind we can’t possibly maintain the current bearing!” The helmsman protested, knowing very well that their navigator was hiding deep down in the bowels of the ship and wasn’t coming back up until the storm cleared. The waves were tossing them every which way and although they continued to plunge ahead under the captain’s orders there was no telling of the direction they now took.

For a moment a bolt of lighting lit up the sky, making it clear as day. The captain listened, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about that. When he opened his mouth that loud commanding voice boomed out again; “Bugger it, all we have to do is get out of the storm! All hands on the deck! That includes the weaselly little bookman down below, you hear? Someone bring him up here!”

A cry came from above; a man on the rigging tying down the sail. He was upright now and pointing out over the starboard into the sea. “Man overboard!” He shouted, using the ropes to brace himself against the wind. “We’ve lost a lifeboat!”

This caught the captain by surprise. He had been fairly certain that he’d already flogged all the cowardice out of his crew. “What?” He yelled and with two other men he bolted to the aft starboard side of the ship to check on the lifeboats personally, yet all four were accounted for, tied up tightly and ready for use. If anything happened to the ship, gods forbid, this was their last chance at survival. The captain spun around and glared up at the mistaken crewman on the riggings. “Has the rain blinded you, boy? All jollyboats accounted for!”

The man started to scramble down from the rigging, but he kept to what his eyes knew to be true. “No sir! There’s a boat lost from the ship! Look into the ocean starboard side!” He pointed again.

They didn’t have time for that. There were too many things to be done. The captain and his men were soaked through to the bone, shivering and thoroughly doused with adrenaline, but still they paused.

And, once their eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the motion of the water, they saw the boat upon the waves. They reacted as thought the dinghy belonged to them, despite physical evidence to the contrary. The captain wouldn’t stand for cowardly crewmen escaping the ship under the threat of the storm, nor would he let the microscopic chance that a lifeboat from a sister ship carrying a person get away. Anybody in a tiny boat like that wouldn’t last the hour, so it was fortunate that the waves seemed to be drawing the Tesseract and the dinghy closely together.

The ship was holding its own quite well in the storm, but the captain couldn’t dwell on drawing things up from the water for very long. He snagged the arm of one of the crewmen that had come to check on the lifeboats and grunted an order at him. “You watch until the boat draws close enough to get a hook into it, and you check to make sure that it’s empty! Get someone to help you- yes! You!”

In the middle of the order the navigator came up from below. He was a tall, thin, reedy man in a waistcoat, and the very second the torrential rain hit him his appearance changed to that of a bedraggled rat. The captain didn’t point at him but his voice was enough to capture the man’s attention like a spotlight. “What?” He bleated like a startled animal. “What’s going on? Gods, this rain…”

The captain left the two to their own devices. His top priority was the ship, so he continued his rounds making sure all were doing their job well and pitching in a bit when a particular task ended up shorthanded. As the Tesseract hunkered down like a turtle pulling its head into its shell the captain’s orders, shouts and reassurances kept it tight and paddling. The storm hit them with as much as it could, but they persevered.

And then the iron hook thumped into the rocking dinghy and was pulled back slightly, snagging itself upon the rim of the boat. The crewman and the navigator wrapped their hands into the rope and continued to pull harder. “This isn’t going to work! The current from the ship is just going to capsize the boat!” The navigator cried, thoroughly unused to physical labour but trying anyway.

“Not if we pull harder! Come on!” The other man cried back and gave a great heave on the rope, causing it to bump the boat against the hull of the ship. They could not hear the thumping sound, but they did feel the additional resistance of the rope.

Suddenly, without warning, the rope tugged back.

This startled the two men for a moment. Somebody was down there! The first crewmen leaned over the rail and stared down into the depths below. This had the dangerous side effect of distributing way too much slack to the navigator who struggled with gasps and grunts not to let go. “Ahoy!” The crewman called amidst the rumbling of the thunder. “You down there! Grab hold of the rope and kick out the hook! We’ll pull you up here!”

But for nearly a minute nothing happened, as if the potential person in the boat was deaf or couldn’t hear the instructions over the tempest. Eventually, after about a minute and a half tension left the rope as the hook’s hold on the dinghy was removed and nearly both men were yanked towards the edge of the ship, a great weight replacing the boat.

This was too much for both men to handle. Frantically they flagged down another crewman busy tying all loose items like barrels and boxes securely to the deck, and once he had a grip of the rope the task because much easier to bear. The captain approached them again after finishing a round of the ship, tilting his hat into a more comfortable position on his head. “So what’s to report, Reg?” He demanded.

Reg, the navigator, shrugged his shoulders as he did not have full use of his arms. It appeared more as a twitch, however. “It’s Reginald, captain. I refuse to have it shortened into something so chummy.”

“Whatever, Reg. What’s going on?”

“We think there’s someone in the lifeboat. We’re pulling them up now.” Reginald grumbled.

A hand grasped the rail of the ship and, using that strength alone, it let go of the rope and pulled itself up into the Tesseract. The captain, the navigator and the two crewmen backed away to allow the shipwrecked person room to stand. It didn’t stand; rather it wobbled on unexperienced sea legs and fell to one knee on the floor.

The captain wasn’t surprised, considering the rock of the ship and the way the waves had tried to pulverise that little lifeboat. He stepped forward, in front of the others, bracing his legs firmly on the deck to maintain his balance despite said ship’s rocking. “Ahoy there, mate. You’re on the Tesseract now; you’re safe.” He announced proudly. Visibility was poor in the rain, so he couldn’t really see the man, but he welcomed him all the same.

But when the man stood to his full height in front of the Tesseract’s crew everybody save for the captain backed away a little further. It wasn’t a human, but it had a convincingly humanoid shape. It was easily over six feet tall and its skin was the colour of greenish khaki, marked with various scars and tattoos, and its face was a mix between a human’s and a boar’s with jutting lower tusks, making it look every inch like a monster. It looked at the crew incomprehensively, and then backed away to the edge itself.

The navigator made a sort of strangled noise in his throat. Once that was done his lungs were free to scream; “Sea monster! Alastor!” He shrieked, pointing.

That seemed to snap everybody out of staring, even the monster. One crewman yelled and ran for cover, the other unsheathed a sword he had hanging at his belt. The navigator’s legs failed him and he fell to the deck, but the captain just stood there stoically. “Hey! Mate!” He barked calmly yet firmly. “What the bleeding hell are you?”

When faced with that baffling question the creature ran. It let out a roar as it did so and it sounded so much like the roar of a bear that it was almost frightening. Instead of charging at the crew it moved to the left and bolted for the aft of the ship, foolishly selecting an area where there wasn’t much decking left. The captain and the sword-wielding crewman gave chase, not wanting to let a monster loose on the ship while in the middle of a storm.

Though disoriented the creature was surprisingly agile. It darted around a bundle of crates tied down by netting and paused, taking the time to rip them out by the pegs in the floor. The ship only had to rock once to send the crates sliding, slipping down towards the captain and his crew.

He saw it coming just in time. “Watch out!” The captain cried and shoved the other man out of the path of the boxes, barging up against the edge of the ship. The captain sidestepped in the opposite direction and the crates tumbled away harmlessly, but it was a shame as that was part of their freight. Meanwhile the creature had backed itself into a corner on the quarterdeck, close to some barrels and the entrance to the captain’s cabin. It hadn’t seemed to have thought to hide itself inside the nearby cabin. Maybe it was too afraid. The most important thing was that it had trapped itself.

This display had not gone unnoticed. Hands that were not preoccupied with holding the ship down in the storm gathered to protect it against this new threat. One held a barbed harpoon; two others shared the loose ripped piece of netting. The captain wiped the rain from his face as he approached, automatically leading the capture operation. At first glance the creature appeared to have the strength of many man, but it was only one and they were five. The captain smiled.

“You stay there, mate. I’m captain Cassius of this ship the Tesseract and we’re going to-”

The creature yelled at them with seemingly all the air in its lungs. Not even the thunder could drown it out. It didn’t sound much like the common speech, it was a sharper tongue full of consonants and few vowels; the tongue of a monster. It sounded like a warning, for the creature’s face was contorted in rage and anxiety. It picked up a barrel for emphasis and held it over its head threateningly, ready to smash it down over anybody who got too near.

Cassius hesitated. They didn’t have time for this, but brute force didn’t seem to be working. He moved an arm out before the crewman at his side could raise the harpoon any further. “Lower your weapons, cur! You too, you dishevelled monster! I’ll not have this bloodshed upon my ship!”

“But sir, the net-”

“Give me a minute, lad. Give me a minute.” The captain muttered peacefully, his palm lowering the shaft of the harpoon to the floor. He focussed on the creature again. “So you…”

“Zagtakh!” The creature bellowed, trying to shout the threat away while at the same time trying to edge away from them. That slight motion of the monster attempting to back up made the captain think the creature was acting big and threatening out of self-defence.

He picked up on that word because it was one of the more legible words it had said. “Zagtakh?” The captain repeated back to the monster and got a startling result. It, or more accurately he paused for several surprised, confused seconds and then put the barrel down, lowering it carefully back to the deck. The ship’s rocking almost caused it to fall over and roll away, but thankfully the contents were heavy.

“Ur?” He said, confused.

The captain made another waving hand motion to signal that his crew stand back. One of them regretfully sheathed their sword. “I don’t think the brute will be violent unless we threaten it first. How d’ya think we can net it and lock it up below until we reach land?” Besides killing it that seemed like the only other reasonable thing to do.

They would have thought about it more carefully were time not a luxury. Somebody on the deck screamed over the creaking of the mast and rigging overhead. It sounded like their navigator. “Alastors! Alastors over the side! Oh gods, their arms! Their arms!”

It wasn’t the result of Reg’s panic brought about by the storm and the shadows of ropes on the deck, there were honest-to-goodness tentacles unfolding out of the water and reaching over the side. They were dark and oily, like an octopus that had soiled itself several times. It was the final obstacle in the storm; the monsters emerging from the deep.

Captain Cassius wasn’t old in any sense, but he was an experienced seafarer who knew the ocean half as deep as he knew it wide. He and his men were trained on what to do, but still he shouted out the orders regardless. “Alastors on the deck! Able hands man the harpoons! To battle stations, sea dogs!” He howled. The crowd surrounding the creature dispersed. One small alastor did not outrank one large enough to snap the ship in two. The Tesseract had both side-mounted guns capable of firing tethered harpoons and other crewmen heft them like spears at the flailing appendages in the storm.

Soon enough the captain found himself alone with the humanoid creature which gave it an avenue of escape. It didn’t move. It just stood there staring daftly at the crewmen running to and fro and the ones screaming as they were battered by the reaching appendages. Cassius smiled in a strained sort of way. “In this weather when the sea gives you tentacles the whole ship has to band together and destroy it. I can’t be watching you any longer.”

If the creature tried to wreak havoc again that would only by the least of their problems. The captain drew his cutlass from his belt and rushed to the edge with the others, eager for blood. His blade fell down like a rain with his compatriots against flesh that was firm and yet rubbery, like soft cartilage.

It could slice through deep to a certain point but it could not cleave all the way through; cold rain-soaked steel could only wound and enrage. It was their hope and prayer that the harpoons would sting for long enough to discourage the sea-beast so it would let go of their ship. Ichor as black as oil poured from the cuts and spattered all over the rolling deck, but in the darkness of the storm it was barely discernable from the rain.

“Blood and thunder! It’s not letting go, is it?” Cassius gasped, being pushed back as the tentacles violently whipped at him from over the deck.

“If it gets any further it’ll become entangled in the masts!” An anxious crewman cried, the barbed end of his harpoon dripping oil.

The monster didn’t understand the actual words coming from the humans’ mouths, but he comprehended the tone and a myriad of other small inklings made up of mostly body language and their obvious environment. The ship lurched again and a hatchet slid by on the wet deck, broken free of whatever had kept it bound to the wall. It had probably been used for splitting spare wood for the fireplace in the captain’s quarters, but for now it was a free weapon in a place where he was the only one unarmed.

He grabbed for it without hesitation. It seemed small in his hands but it had a real edge to it, as if it had recently been sharpened. The captain turned to him and started. “Ah damn it, man! Don’t you be thinking of using that thing!”

But it was impossible for the creature to understand him. He reacted in a way that the captain hadn’t expected; charging forward with the hatchet in hand and roughly shoving Cassius out of the way. He nearly knocked the man down as he ran to the edge of the deck, then with one swinging leap he was over the side.

As for the men aboard the Tesseract they were unsure whether this was one problem gotten rid of or the start of the next. A tentacle wrapped itself around Cassius’ ankle and nearly lifted him high into the air, had not his cutlass come down in lightning-quick reflex and cut the smaller tendril clean in two. He hit the deck painfully hard on his side. “Well that’s one monster sorted. Helmsman! How far to the edge of the storm belt?”

“I don’t know! I think we’re keeping the bearing, though!” The helmsman shouted as he tried to keep their ship heading straight and true. “If we can just shake this alastor off…”

The captain’s leg tried to buckle as he stood. The fall had given it a rather good jarring. “Reg! How far?” He hollered.

Reg was not fighting with a harpoon or cutlass like all the others. He had a flintlock musket he was using to blast holes in the creeping tentacles, and though it seemed effective at first it wasn’t going to last. After each shot he had to reload and in this rain the paper cartridges and gunpowder weren’t going to stay dry for long. “If our bearing is correct we should be out of the storm belt by sunrise!” He called.

Damn! Sunrise was at least two or three hours away. Cassius was sure the Tesseract could continue to handle the storm, provided they could just shake loose from this clingy alastor once and for all. Perhaps it would lose interest as soon as it realised it could not bring the ship to a halt. Maybe…

Many of the tentacles seemed to flinch, going rigid for a moment. An aqueous shriek echoed from off the side of the ship, vibrating through both the air and the water. Immediately the tentacles began to retract, releasing whatever prey it held and slinking back into the sea. The railing of the ship cracked and splintered as a particularly large tentacle dragged itself overboard, sending up a mighty rush of spray.

Blood poured up in a geyser beside the ship, like struck oil. Cassius limped over to the battered edge of the deck and looked over the side, squinting through the rain. The navigator joined him some moments later, nursing what seemed like a sprained wrist. Once they had focussed what they saw was unlike anything they had expected to see.

The head of the monstrous alastor had breached the surface of the waves. It was bulbous, squid-like, coloured a bloody magenta with eyes the size of the wheel that the helmsman was trying so desperately to control. Cassius didn’t want to think about what sort of lost soul the monster had sprung out of, only that with the hatchet embedded deeply in its eye it might not be long for this world.

The smaller creature was trying to stand on the alastor’s face. It was really the only way to keep himself from falling into the ocean. He pulled the hatchet carefully from out of the goo of the monster’s eye, popping it and creating a bloody, disgusting mess. It screamed again and reached out for him with a tentacle, but before it could close around the other monster he lurched out of the way and nearly slipped into the water.

He slammed the hatchet into the side of its head and met practically no resistance, but it held anyway and he only slid waist-deep into the sea. By this point, blinded and bleeding, the alastor had had enough. It sunk down beneath the surface and all the tentacles followed, slithering below the churning waves. The smaller creature sank with it, releasing the hatchet, but this was not by choice. He couldn’t remember how to swim.

A cheer came from the deck of the Tesseract as the crew watched the monster depart. Doubtless they were battered and bruised, and some of the ship was busted, but those who were alive were very much aware of the fact that they were still alive. Cassius subconsciously made a note to perform a headcount later. “A piece of providence if I ever saw it.” He remarked, straightening up from the rail.

“I didn’t think alastors fought one another.” The navigator said, still grasping the flintlock that was now drenched and absolutely useless in the rain.

“It’s of no importance now. Let’s just focus on getting out of the storm belt.” The captain grunted, shrugging it off. “Best to get the medical kits out and check on the injured.”

Before they could turn away from the railing there was an artificial burst of sea spray from the ocean and the smaller monster reappeared, treading water like his life depended on it. The ship was passing him and there was no possible way he’d be able to swim and follow. Each wave threatened to send him under again as it was.

A crewman close to the stern acted on his own without any of his captain’s orders. Judging the distance only by the steadiness of his eye he grabbed a coil of rope and tossed it in the creature’s direction, fastening it with an expert knot to the rail. “Here! Grab onto it!” He shouted, looping a fist into the rope. “Just like last time!”

Zagtakh caught the cue and lunged for the rope. The second it hit the water it was already trailing away from him so he wasted no time. Immediately the Tesseract was pulling him through the water with such a resistance that it was already getting rather difficult to hold on. People were clustering near the stern and constructing another rope pull team and eventually, with some effort and strain, the monster was back on the deck of the ship again.

He was exhausted by the point and didn’t get up from where he had flopped down on the floor, coughing up seawater and panting harshly. Captain Cassius approached with his hands in his pockets and a rivulet of water running down the edge of his hat. “I didn’t give no orders to pull this sea monster back aboard.” He said gruffly.

“Sorry sir, it was a knee-jerk reaction when I noticed someone drowning.” The seaman apologised, a deckhand notably younger and less experienced than the rest of the crew. “It’s just…” He added, knowing that he shouldn’t.

“Just what, lad?” The captain said neutrally.

“Well, instead of an alastor it might be a discard, maybe one from one of those Halo villages to the north. He’s way too small to be a fully grown alastor, and the people in those villages are frequently inhuman.” The crewman admitted, trying to put his idea forward while trying to physically back away at the same time.

“You’re a discard too, aren’t ya, Ryan?” Cassius accused with an amused smile.

“Yes sir. Two years so far, sir.” Ryan confirmed.

The captain nudged the creature on the deck, as he had stopped coughing and had finally gone quiet. “I guess there’s no harm if he stays non-violent. We’ll drop him off on the island and he can be the Void’s problem instead.” He kicked him lightly to get the beasts’ attention, raising his voice and speaking slowly as if to an idiot. “Hey! You! Zagtakh, wasn’t it? That sounds good, yeah?” He asked.

Zagtakh probably wasn’t his real name. It didn’t really matter. Zagtakh stared at him, as if trying to read him by his facial expression alone. Eventually he said, in a stunted parroting manner; “Yeaaaahhhhh…”

Cassius folded his arms. “Alright. Somebody drag him below deck and give him a blanket or something. If he doesn’t want to stay put chain him to the wall. The rest of you dogs get back to your stations!”

He smiled with relish. “We still got a few hours of storm left.”