Stemming the Tide Read online

  So why did I go through all this trouble to retrieve this reminder of our past? I barely needed to ask myself before a flash of Koby's grateful expression passed through my mind. He was a persistent bastard and his optimism sometimes rubbed my cynicism the wrong way, but he was my best friend. I would put myself through every pain imaginable to make him happy.

  Damn him, I thought lightheartedly. If the reptilian scales armoring my face could show expression, I would have smirked.

  Muted reverberations of fleeting movement kissed my ears just before two bright yellow fish darted out of the ship's gaping wound, anticipating my arrival. I dipped lower in the water and slowed, pulling my arms from undulating at my sides so I could grab the edges of shredded wood to direct me inside.

  The Wobblin' Woody's lower deck laid out before me in shadows, murky waters, and gut punches of recent nostalgia. Memories of conversations had here and the hours I worked logging or hauling cargo clashed so fervently with the eerily abandoned state of it now, swallowed by water with no hopes of redemption. Crates of ruined cargo scattered around the deck, many of them opened from when I'd checked earlier for the salvageability of their contents. Even a fortnight after the shipwreck, the water still carried a slight flavor of scorched flesh. The bodies of the sailors and refugees who died from Cale's chain-lightning had since been picked over and dragged into the abyss by opportunistic sea creatures, but their morbid extract remained.

  I swam through the center deck, dodging cross pillars with my eyes set on the ward. Considering Koby spent most of his time there due to his broken leg before the wreck, I figured it was the best place to look for his sword. The cot he'd rested in was still secured in the tiny room because it was the same size and fit snugly. The pathetically thin mattress floated slightly above the bed frame, frayed at the edges from nibbling fish. I pulled it up further to run a hand beneath it, looking for the blade. After finding nothing, I checked beneath the bed and in the back corners of the room.

  Coming up empty, I turned from the ward and stared blankly at the deck again, searching my mind for ideas. That last battle was chaotic and happened so quickly it was a blur, but I tried to remember anything that could help me locate the sword. Even when incapacitated by his leg, Koby hadn't wanted to be without the blade and kept it under his cot at all times. The fear I'd felt during the battle when I couldn't find him in the ward reminded me he'd stubbornly tried to save himself. He had hobbled out of the room before the pirates barraged the ship with more cannonballs, which threw him across the deck and under debris. Knowing Koby, he probably grabbed the sword before trying to escape. Perhaps it flew out of his grasp from the violent protests of the ship, but it was likely still on the deck.

  One inch at a time, I painstakingly searched through the forgotten wreckage in the corners of the stores. Raggedy canvas bags, soot from the deck fire, and shredded wood cuddled with ocean sand in crevasses and against crates and barrels. Finally, a metallic glimmer winked at me from a pile of blackened glass shards and ash where an oil lamp busted and set bags aflame after the ship shook with a hit. It was probably just more broken glass, but I swam over and fingered through the soaked ash to be sure.

  The muted scraping of my talons over a hard glossy surface sounded out as I brushed soot aside to reveal black metal. I dug my fingers around the object and tugged. Relief and discovery waved through me as Koby's sword revealed itself from a cloud of ash, no worse for wear.

  With perfect timing, the slight twinge of the onset of panic rose in my chest, a sign that my long-held breath was depleting of oxygen. I reached up to my face, cast water-breathing, and let out my stale breath. Bubbles rose to the deck's ceiling before getting caught as a tiny pocket of air in the upper corner. I inhaled deeply through my nostrils, replenishing my lungs for another ten minutes with aid from my magic. With one final parting glance at the ship on which I'd become a captain, I took the sword and swam out of its broken hull.

  Though the ocean proved to be dangerous and full of horrors like anywhere else on Arrayis, I felt nothing but peace as I ascended through its embrace toward Killick. The seas harbored as many secrets as they did fish, and becoming blood-kin with the horned lizard allowed me a rare insight to the underwater world. Few experienced the ocean in the same way I could. There was freedom in that I hadn't anticipated when considering the merits of shapeshifting just two years ago. I couldn't breathe naturally in water like fish-kin, but simply being able to stay underwater for a prolonged amount of time allowed me to explore places that would forever remain secret to everyone else. Transforming into a beast brought immense pain, but it was times like these that the trade-off felt more than worth it.

  My quick swimming pace and lack of heavy cargo ensured the incline of the whitish-cream sands of Killick's southern island twinkled in the distance sooner than they had during my repeated trips thus far. I broke through the surface water on the beach north of Killick's eastward facing harbor and tossed Koby's sword to the sands.

  “Oh, for fuck's sake!” The exclamation pulled my attention to the side, where two humans had a picnic on the sands. When I'd transformed this morning, the beach was without occupants. These men hadn't expected to come face to face with a muscular biped lizard wielding a sword. The one who yelped in fear held a hand to his chest, urging his heart to stay put.

  “It's a beastman, not a beast, Nico,” his friend said calmly. Though he eyed me with some curiosity, he'd clearly come into contact with shapeshifters before.

  “How can you tell the difference?” Nico asked, watching me with leeriness.

  The fearless man held up two fingers to count off of. “One, have you ever seen a lizard wield a sword?”

  “I have now,” Nico blurted, his eyes switching from Koby's sword to me as I tried and failed to find the pile of clothes I left on the beach this morning.

  “Two, most beasts don't have intelligence. This one is holding a sword and is paying no attention to your gibberish. It means he's used to this. Animals would meet your fear with hesitation and distrust. This lizard is a man and won't attack.”

  “If he attacked, you'd eat your words,” Nico retorted, though he started calming.

  “No, if he attacked I wouldn't eat anything because I'd be dead,” his friend replied matter-of-factly. “More than likely, he'd be the one eating me.”

  Nico's face contorted with disgust. Though I still couldn't find my change of clothes, I recited the spell of transformation in my head. As my body crackled and broke down to change from lizard to man, the two onlookers watched with morbid curiosity. Nico winced as blood splattered over the sands and torn skin slopped to the ground. Scales softened into flesh, my spine absorbed my tail, and talons and teeth sprinkled over cream granules as my elven body rejected the foreign bodies. After three minutes of agonizing transformation, I heaved on my hands and knees for a few moments. I felt a hard bloodied clump under my tongue and spit. A razor-sharp reptilian fang clattered over other teeth in a pile of blood and saliva.

  The other men said nothing. Finally, I turned my head toward them with fatigue and said, “There was a pile of clothes I left here this morning. Did you see it?”

  The fearless man nodded. “Yeah. Some guy came out around mid-day and took them back to Killick. Were they yours?”

  I huffed with frustration. “Yeah. What did this guy look like?”

  “He kind of looked Alderi like you, but his skin was...purple. No—more like a light purple.”

  Hassan. I chuckled roughly and stood shakily from the sands. “Little shit.”

  “You know him?”

  “He's one of my sailors.” I wandered over to the waterside and dipped low, haphazardly using seawater to wash away the blood and skin flecks from my transformation. I already had to walk into Killick nude; the only thing that could make that worse was being covered in blood.

  Nico still regarded me with fear when I turned back toward the settlement. He stuttered, “D-do you eat people?”

  “If they
piss me off,” I replied nonchalantly, grabbing Koby's sword and stalking toward Killick without another word.

  The settlement of Killick revolved around its harbor, for that was its main draw. Considering the infestation of pirates in the northern seas, the docks were uncharacteristically bare. Only a couple mercenary ships rocked at them now, and most I recognized from seeing them daily. Few new vessels came to harbor because few risked the trip through troubled waters. Those that came to Killick tended to stay for a while as their crew worked up the nerve to face the inevitable threats which awaited. This turned out to be quite the inconvenience to our crew. With the Wobblin' Woody underwater, we desperately needed a ship, but few were for sale because Killick currently wasn't the most popular place to be and the demand didn't exist.

  Farther inland from the harbor, wooden buildings dotted the sands between copses of palm trees. Bright colors sprinkled through the brush where big pink, orange, yellow, turquoise, and even lime green flora boasted their beauty. Though Killick's harbor wasn't busy, the town itself was active if only because the permanent residents and workers continued their daily lives. Fruit pickers wheeled carts of freshly picked tropical fruits to the center of town, leaving long wavering tracks in the sand. Lumberjacks returned from a full day's work on Killick's outskirts, gleaming with sweat and smelling of freshly chopped wood.

  Despite the variety of people here, they all turned to stare as I walked up the beach toward the familiar inn I'd stayed in for the past fortnight, for I was nude, openly carried a unique sword, and had an expression of clear annoyance.

  I shoved through the door of the inn, facing a room full of clientele who drank and played cards in the foyer. My dramatic entrance caused most of them to glance up, but my nudity forced their gazes to stick. I immediately zoned in on Hassan, who sat at a bar beside Kali, took one look at my annoyed face, and burst out laughing.

  One woman sharply inhaled when her gaze fell to my genitals, and she exclaimed with appreciation, “By the gods!”

  I ignored her unintentional compliment for the moment and stalked across the room to Hassan. He lifted his hands in faux surrender and explained as I neared, “It wasn't my idea, I swear. It was Koby's.”

  “Yeah, well, there were witnesses who described a purple man,” I rambled with faux irritation, admittedly amused by the prank, “and the only purple man here is you.”

  Hassan snorted in laughter, tugging at his sleeves like he could cover up evidence of his lavender-hued skin. “I was following the orders of Captain Koby,” he teased me. “He couldn't steal your clothes himself. If you happen to remember, he has a broken leg.”

  “He'll have two in a minute,” I blurted, passing Hassan to pace down the hallway to the room Koby and I shared.

  “That's not a good idea, Calder,” Hassan called out behind me. “He's...indisposed.”

  I ignored his warnings and busted through the door. Koby laid on the bed, completely nude and recovering from coitus despite his bad leg which still rested in a wax plaster. A human woman lying beside him shrieked at the intrusion and pulled a blanket up to cover her breasts, though she frowned when she realized I was also nude. Though Koby tried covering it up with an arm and then a blanket, I glimpsed a foreign black mark on his side that hadn't been there just days ago. He tried to mask his awkwardness by grinning at me and exclaiming, “Welcome to the party, Cal!”

  All the irritation built up from Koby's prank dissipated, both from his ceaseless happiness and the sudden presence of a nude and sexually available woman. My libido took over the direction of my thoughts. I met the woman's gaze and greeted flirtatiously, “Well, hello, love. Got time for one more?”

  Koby chortled at the evidence of my one-track mind as the woman gawked at the two of us, flustered. She jerked a thumb at Koby and protested, “But I just—”

  “I don't care,” I insisted.

  The woman glanced back at Koby, who still found this situation hilarious. “Neither do I,” he managed between chuckles, scooting over to sit at the edge of the bed, taking care not to hurt his bad leg. “I'll even give you the bed.”

  The woman sighed with perplexity, but I sensed the attraction in her eyes even before she said, “Hell, why not?”

  Half an hour later, I laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling as the woman snored softly beside me, fatigued from a day of lovemaking. An ocean breeze blew through the open window, causing its sheer drapes to float into the room and release bouts of coolness that helpfully stole the body heat from my perspiration. Koby sat at a desk against the wall, looking through a stack of parchment that appeared to be pieces of our logbook I'd salvaged from the shipwreck. Though he wore clothes now, I noticed he suspiciously dressed more quickly than usual while I'd been distracted with the woman earlier.

  Tattoos and piercings were common in Killick, for they were popular with sailors. Because of the conductivity of metal and its helpfulness for mages, piercings intrigued me; a few days ago, I had both my ears pierced with multiple golden hoops. I noticed no difference in spell casting from the earrings, but I liked the look and the piercings carried over to my lizard form, so it wasn't inconvenient. Contrarily, tattoos fascinated Koby. It surprised me that he hadn't expressed interest in getting one himself. However, considering the dark pattern on his skin I glimpsed earlier, it seemed he had without telling me. If that were true, the only reason he would hide it was if he didn't think I'd like its design. Perhaps he thought seeing the tattoo would set off my rage. The only way that made sense was if it related to the underground.

  “You seemed really irritable when you busted in here, but after sex you're calm as can be,” Koby teased from the desk, still looking through paperwork.

  “I promised Hassan I'd break your other leg for the prank, but then you had a woman in here and my other head did the decision-making,” I said dryly.

  Koby laughed. “I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. You're nude an absurd amount of the time, anyway. I didn't think you'd mind that much.”

  “I didn't, really,” I replied honestly. “I was playing along. Do you have any ferris? Seeing as I don't have my clothes, I don't have my cigarettes.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Koby opened a desk drawer and pulled out my change of clothes, tossing the folded pile over. They landed on my chest, and I dug through my trouser pocket, pulling out a cigarette and a book of matches.

  I smoked for a few moments, letting the ferris dull the pain of my last transformation as a nude woman slept to my left and Koby looked through paperwork to my right. Finally, I said, “And here I thought I was doing something nice for you today by getting your sword, you pranking bastard.”

  Koby snorted with amusement and glanced back at me. “Cal, you have no idea how happy I am that you got the sword. Honestly, I thought you just kept saying you looked for it and actually weren't. Even if you found it, I didn't think you'd bring it back. But you did. Thank you.” He smiled, looking genuinely grateful.

  I looked away. “Why hide your tattoo from me?”

  Even though I only saw Koby in my peripheral vision, I noticed him stiffen. “I don't want you to get upset,” he said hesitantly.

  “You spent all that time in Silvi complaining about me holding things back from you, and now you're keeping things from me.”

  I heard him inhale stiffly. “Cal, I wanted you to talk to me because holing up was hurting your recovery and I wanted you to heal. I only kept the tattoos from you because I don't know how they'll affect you, and I don't want to sabotage your mood.”

  “If that's such a big concern to you, you shouldn't have gotten them at all.”

  Koby sighed. “All right—so I can't argue with that, but I didn't really think it through at the time. I was just so excited to be getting a tattoo. When everything was said and done, I realized they might bother you.”

  “Only one way to find out,” I said, looking back over at him expectantly.

  Koby was quiet a moment as he thought through my request. Finally, he tur
ned to the side and lifted his shirt. Through the open back of the chair, I finally saw the design that stretched from under his armpit to his hip on his right side. In solid black ink over his ribs was a giant key mimicking the one he wore on a chain around his neck. He waited tentatively for my reaction as I looked at it.

  “That looks like it took a while,” I finally said, trying to stay neutral. Admittedly, the tattoo did bother me, if only a little bit. Now, even if Koby lost the key necklace and his sword, he would forever keep a reminder of the underground on him.

  Koby relaxed a bit when he realized it didn't anger me. “It did. One day while you and the others were recovering wreckage I got the idea to get it done. You were out there from dawn until dusk for over a week, and I was bored.” He chuckled softly.

  “The artist was accurate,” I complimented. “It looks just like your key.”

  Koby nodded as he looked down at it. “He used it as a reference. Ever since Astred stole my necklace I've been paranoid of losing it. Now, even if I do, it won't matter as much.” He smiled.

  “You said tattoos, plural.”

  “Yeah.” Koby twisted in his chair and tugged down the corner of his trousers. Just above the left side of his pubic area was a second tattoo mimicking the sun. Unlike the hopeful carving of the sun Koby drew underground in our slave cells, this one had artistic wavy rays of sunshine extending out from the ball of fire.

  “Now that one I like,” I commented.

  “Yeah?” Koby's smile brightened further. “Hey, look.” He let go of his trouser hem, letting it snap back to its natural position. Without moving his pants, the sun looked like it was rising over a horizon that was the fringe of his slacks. “It's the sunrise.”

  “Should I be impressed or disappointed?” I jested.

  Koby laughed abruptly. “Probably both.” After sobering, he confided, “I'm glad they don't bother you.” Though he waited for my response, I didn't want to admit that one of them did and disappoint him, so I said nothing. He finally cleared his throat and announced perkily, “I have good news.”