Heart of the Kraken (Tales from Darjee) (8 page)

"Where do you think you're going with my fish, Mr Fenton?" Reis spoke from behind him, drawing out each syllable.

He halted his progress across the deck. "She's suffering and needs to swim, Captain."

A soft chuckle. "And did you think to just toss it over the side? Take it back below."

Ailin stirred and her arm snuck around his neck. "Please," was all she said.

He swallowed. "I'll not put her back in that box."

Silence fell over the crew. No one disobeyed the captain unless they wanted an up close and personal inspection of the ship's hull.

"I believe I misheard that, Mr Fenton," the words were spoken with a gentle cadence, but some creatures were never more dangerous than when quiet. Reis approached with slow steps, his fingers caressed the edge of the mechanised gauntlet on his left arm.

Fenton's dry throat worked but he didn't have sufficient moisture to swallow again. "She's dying, Captain. Look at her skin and her breathing is laboured. She has spent too long confined. She needs to swim in the ocean or she will die. A dead mermaid is of no value to the Lady Alise."

Reis stroked his gauntlet, a fingertip dancing over switches. "So what do you propose? Ask it politely to return to its box once the fish has had a swim?"

Laughter washed through the assembled men as they drew nearer, surrounding him and soon they stood two deep between him and the railing.

Fenton's gaze darted around the deck and lighted on a coil of rope. "We could tie rope around her waist and haul her back in when she has recovered."

The captain ran a hand over the stubble on his chin as he considered the option. "And how do you propose we stop it from simply untying the rope? Do we ask it nicely not to, or do we tie it hands behind its back?"

Sweat trickled down the back of Fenton's neck. This wasn't going as he planned.

"We could harpoon her," one of the crew suggested. His mates cheered the idea.

He snarled and gripped her tighter in his arms. "Don't be an idiot. That would just chum the water and make her dinner for the sharks and you will still lose your gold."

The captain's gaze hardened. Fenton stood three strides from the rail. If he could push through the assembled crew, he could drop her below. Except the men fingered their swords and pistols and stood braced, expecting him to lunge.

"Regulators!" the cry came from Timmy up in the nest.

The captain swore and Fenton breathed a sigh of relief for the distraction. This could work to his advantage.

"How far?" the captain asked.

"Bearing down hard, Cap'n, half an hour at most," the lad called down.

Regulators were as unpredictable as pirates. Some crews were captained by a man of honour; others were just privateers with smart uniforms and a complete lack of morals. "If they find her, they will take her and either way she is lost to us," Fenton said.

The captain's lips pulled back and for one moment Fenton thought he pushed too far. Then, Reis dropped a hand to the pouch hanging from his belt and pulled out a pool of silver chain. Thin and delicate, it looked the sort of thing to drape around a lady's neck.

"Put her down." Reis pointed to the boards.

Fenton laid Ailin on the deck, her head on his knees. The captain looped the chain around her waist. With finger and thumb, he pinched the metal together and pressed a button on his gauntlet. Blue light burst between his fingers and when he removed his hand the chain was sealed tight around the mermaid.

"That cannot be removed. I bought the chain from the ore-mancers. As delicate as it looks, it cannot be broken." He weighed the handful of chain in his hand. "There's over a hundred foot here, the kraken can hold the other end and walk our pet until the Regulators have gone."

Fenton's gaze shot upward. "The kraken? You don't mean to just play her out like a fishing line?"

"Can't have the Regulators finding the end of chain dangling over board, now can we?" A slow smile spread over the captain's face. "If they have seen the Endeavour, they know what we took and they'll turn this ship upside-down to find it. If you wish the siren to swim, then our pet must be on a leash. I believe the kraken can handle the little one."

"No." He tightened his grip on the slight burden in his arms. Even now her breath seemed shallower and irregular. The kraken was barely contained violence, what would it do to the fragile mermaid?

Reis stared down at him. "Make your choice, Mr Fenton. The kraken holds its leash or the fish goes back in the box and we all hope the Regulators don't take our retirement fund."

He looked at the creature in his arms. "Ailin, can you hear me?"

She opened her soulful eyes. "Yes."

"He would never harm you, Ailin. Can you remember that? The kraken will keep you safe. I promise." Inside he prayed to whatever deity there was that the monstrous creature heard his words.

"Safe," she muttered and her eyes dropped closed.

Reis gestured to two of the crew. "Pick it up." He swung to Fenton. "Go release the kraken and tell him walkies, we will drop it over the side into his waiting tentacles."

"No," Ailin stirred at that word. "Not the kraken."

Fenton brushed a strand of hair from her face and leaned in close, his lips brushed her ear. "He will protect you, Ailin, I swear the kraken will keep you safe."

Chapter Eight

The word
kraken
bounced around in Ailin's fuddled head. The one creature everything below the waves feared. Rabid and without mercy, the kraken destroyed without thought or remorse. As a child, she once swam too far from her people while exploring and chasing fleet fish. Elders searched for her, calling her name. One found her, deep in the ocean, playing amongst hidden cliffs and crevices. The lure of her name dangled on the tide roused a kraken, and as she emerged from a coral cave, she saw it grab the elder and tear him apart. Blood in the water drew sharks who feasted on the remains. She was trapped all night until the predators cleared the last globs of flesh and the bone shards drifted to the sand while she sobbed, vowing to never stray again.

Why did Fenton cover his hide with the image of the kraken? Timmy's words drifted through the haze, Fenton controls the kraken. But who controls Fenton? Captain Reis. That's why he can't escape, the captain holds something over him, something tied to his bond with the kraken. Would the creature ever rise up and turn on its master? In her confusion, ideas formed and she began to understand the nature of Fenton's trap.

So dry. The beat of the sun tightened her skin over her form as it contracted in the heat. When the tension became too much to bear would she rip apart like the way the kraken cracked open her kin? Movement hurt as her scales rasped over her tail. Tears formed in the corner of her eyes as hands grabbed at her body. The pain increased as they pushed on bruises formed by lying in one spot for weeks on end, the abuse the crew of the Endeavour inflicted and her attempts to break free.

And then… nothing.

Until she slammed into something solid. The cry burst from her lips as agony ripped through her limbs, her delicate fins almost torn from her tail. Just as fast, a cooling balm wrapped around her and soothed the jagged pain. Cool water embraced her. With eyes closed, she sighed, her form caressed by a gentle familiar hand as she dropped through the ocean. Her body automatically switched from air to water and her gills pulsed in her neck, culling oxygen from the water. She stretched her arms and wiggled her tail.

Home. The water spoke to her in a myriad of silent ways. The taste told her where in the ocean she was, the minute tug of the tide told her the phase of the moon, the pull told her depth. Like coral blooming at night, she revived.

She opened her eyes and swam a short distance before an invisible force pulled her to a stop. It seemed to surround her and no matter how hard she swung her tail, she couldn't advance. She dived down instead, straight to the bottom until the same thing happened. At a certain point, her stomach lurched and she bobbed backward. Looking down, she found a silver chain wrapped around her waist. Her fingers could find no clasp or method to release it. It seemed delicate, only a hair's width wide. She grasped it in her hands and jerked and wrenched but she couldn't break the links. She wound it around her hand and tugged on the end trailing in the water but it did not offer any slack.

Am I anchored to the Razor's Edge?

She glanced around. The sun's rays penetrated the ocean and made drifting patterns that rippled. A large shadow hovered above and yet it didn't look right to be the ship. She frowned and swam toward it before she stopped. This shadow was as large as a ship but it undulated and like an echo, drifted beneath and away from the pirate vessel.

Kraken.

Her throat constricted and her heart pounded. She tore off in the opposite direction, swimming away. Panic lent her extra speed, but again she hit the end of her lead and could go no further. Tears formed and became part of the sea as she sobbed and tore at the circlet of metal around her waist, desperate to free herself before the monster struck.

The creature formed as it neared, as though the shadow became substance. An elongated head tapered to a point with a small stabilising fin. The feeding suckers drifted on the tide, floating beneath its mammoth body. The head split off into eight arms of mottled grey, each as thick as a keg but twenty feet long, the point of each ended in a hooked claw. Pinkish suckers the size of dinner plate covered the tentacles. One held the end of her chain, the tiny links almost invisible against the nail, like a scattering of neon krill. The black eye rotated and fixed on her. It waved the end of the leash.

Panic rose in her throat. A nail broke as she scrabbled at the chain but could not pull it apart. Fenton's words repeated in her head,
I swear he will not hurt you
.

Could she trust a landwalker? How did Fenton control the fiend? Could he communicate with it somehow and tell the kraken the difference between friend from foe? She bit her lip trying to rein in her natural instinct to flee from the predator. She dared a glance and then looked away, although it seemed the beast held its position and did not advance any closer.

She took one panicked breath and then another as she waited for it to attack. Another stolen glance and still it hovered above her at the end of her chain. Did Fenton speak true? The screaming fear in her brain abated to a murmur as time flowed past and nothing happened. She ran through her options; she could drift all day on the tide, waiting to see if it lunged at her or embrace the limited freedom available to her and swim.

She picked up the chain and gave a tug. The kraken yielded to her and floated a tiny bit closer. She swam away until the line stretched tight between them. Again she tugged and again it drifted a fraction nearer. The whole time its eye remained locked on her, unblinking, but it curled its tentacles away so they didn't brush near her as they drifted. Her terror diminished as she experimented with her new captor.

She gave a slow flick to her tail and propelled herself sideways. The enormous kraken allowed itself to be towed by the fragile connection. Little by little, she grew bolder and swam harder. She headed down, toward a reef that beckoned with its myriad of life and activity. She grabbed up a handful of chain seaweed, broke apart the bobbles and popped them into her mouth like a landwalker would chew grapes. A shoal of rainbow coloured fish darted and spun away from her. Eel slid over rock and turned into circlets as they dived back into their holes.

Tension eased from her body, the kinks worked their way out of her tail as after weeks of confinement, she could finally flick and toss her fins without banging into hard surfaces. There remained an emptiness deep in her heart. She was thousands of miles from her family and a gruesome fate hung over her head as corporeal as the shadow of the kraken.

She tried to relish the unexpected freedom Fenton gifted her and explored the reef. Amongst the rock, clumps of coral flowered in a dizzying array of hues; a pink that glowed, a luminescent blue, yellows in hundreds of shades to rival the sun. She skimmed over the top, her fingers caressing here and there. Bright colours caught her attention and she picked up shells and the occasional coin that had tumbled overboard, or perhaps came loose from a drowning sailor's pocket.

Then the flash of a different colour caught her eye. She spied a deep blue of a subtle hue that shimmered in the diluted shaft of light from above. She swam closer to investigate; blue and green bounced up the rock and lit up the crevice. A shallow gouge contained an embedded object. She reached in and wrapped her fingers around it. No fish or shell but much larger and it felt cool to her touch and unyielding. She tugged but it was stuck, jammed on an outcrop. She pulled harder and it flew free, sending her tumbling backward.

She caught the object and turned it over in her hands. The changing colour fascinated her the way blue ebbed into green. It reminded her of her own scales but magnified. On impulse, she held it up to the kraken. In slow motion, one tentacle flowed toward her. She held her breath and the smile froze on her face, had she done the wrong thing in attracting its attention? She just wanted to share what she had found.

The suckers licked over the surface in a gentle motion. Then it pulled back and tapped on the plate with the claw the size of her arm. Kraken and mermaid gazed at each other as a faint ding reverberated through the water. Whatever she held, it was made of metal.