Songs of Reamere entries: Chapter 2

‘Sol! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Perardua tower. Look at it– a ring of marble, all built up, a shining beacon on the water.’

“Sounds like the novel’s coming along nicely,” Angelica said, as she clicked the stop button on the recorder in her hand. “Say, if you ever need a stryx-friendly publisher, come talk to me. I think I know a folk or two.”

She held it up to Prendergast, who plucked it gingerly in his beak and stowed it in his chest fluff. Just in time, too, because they’d just arrived at the right berth.

And so had half the harbour patrol, apparently.

‘Arrgh, lets me through, there be me charterer!’ cried a bright orange casua in a purple longcoat, pushing past an officer who was scribbling on a citation book. ‘Ms Valerian, ‘fraid there’s been a titch of trouble.’

“Oh?” Decima said, watching a few officers argue with a line of microstryx perched on the ship’s taffrail.

‘Aye, seems the constables o’ the sea finally gots the best of ol’ Cap’n Fresco.’

“For the piracy?”

‘Eh? No, no’ quite. Bad parallel berthing, y’see.’

Prendergast craned his neck forward. The Fruiterer’s Fancy did look a little lopsided in its moorings, and the back was jutting out a smidge, but he never would’ve noticed if Fresco hadn’t pointed it out.

‘Alas, it seems me ol’ sins ‘ave all come back to haunt me. I paids th’ instructor to pass me fer parallel berthing, sees. ‘Twas the one skill I could never master.’

Behind him, Prendergast saw the officer quickly scribble ‘cheating on boating test’ into her notebook.

‘Point bein’, I can’t takes ye to sea no more. I’ll writes ye a refund check by sun-down.’

‘Wait,’ Prendergast cut in. ‘So that’s it? No more adventure at sea? No more gallant hunt for the sea monster of Reamere? Just like that?’

‘Well,’ Fresco said, tapping his toe claw on the dock as one of the harbour patrol tried and failed to handcuff his wing stubs, ‘I supposes I could puts ye in touch with an ol’ associate o’ mine. But I should warns ye, he be a titch… odd.’

*

“The Tipsy Dragon?” Angelica said, pulling up short at the entrance to the quayside taberna. “Sorry, F.V., this is where I leave you. An aedile can’t be seen in a place like this, you know.”

And on that optimistic note, there was nothing left for the pair to do but step inside.

Like the popinae of Theia district, the tabernae of Oneiros quay were favoured hangouts for the shadier folk of Sol. There were scallywags, scoundrels, and blackguards of all stripes drinking at the tables and the single beer-stained bar, and many suspicious side-eyes thrown their way as they scanned the place for their man of the hour. ‘He’ll be the one who looks as like washed up to shore two days dead,’ Fresco had said, before he had to rush off and stop one of his crew from pecking a harbour patrolfolk’s eye out. The description had seemed a little cryptic at the time, but as soon as he laid eyes on the human in the farthest corner booth, Prendergast knew at once what the cap’n had meant.

“Penrose Wayre, I assume?” Decima said.

The man took a swig out of his tankard. He was the very picture of a rugged sea captain: dark skin chiseled by sun and wind, grey beard braided with exotic beads, leather coat and boots studded with years of salt crystals.

“Leave me,” he grumbled, not even bothering to look up.

“We’re looking for the Reamere monster.”

“Sit,” he said into his beer.

Decima sat. Prendergast had a harder time. These human establishments just weren’t built for a casua like him, so he sort of just crouched down in front of the table, his fluffy derriere blocking the adjacent booth, who grumbled in protest.

“They told me Reamera was a myth,” he began, still looking everywhere except into Decima’s eyes. “A fishwife’s tale, some empty comfort to assure them their hus had died in glorious battle, not by the sea’s unknowable whims. But I know better. I was a young lad when she came to me– overconfident, heedless of my captain’s cautions. A stormy night, tying down the rigging against the wind, and my foot found a patch of ice.

“Falling, falling, into the churning waters. I thought myself dead. Then I saw the flash of her rainbow fins through the rain, felt her roar shake the waves themselves. Warm scales around me, warm as a whale’s own heartblood, and I felt myself lifted up, up, over the side of my vessel. She was gone when the bosun came to rescue me at last.

“The crew called me mad. They laughed me out of the consortium. For a time, I almost thought to believe them. But these recent happenings don’t lie. Fish disappearing. Stories of a beast, serpentine, sinking all ships in her wake. Something has upset Reamera, and I intend to find out what.”

Well, that was a sort of similar angle to what he and his rider had been going for, Prendergast supposed. ‘Then you and I want the same thing,’ he said. ‘My rider and I just want to stop whatever’s causing the fish shortage.’

“We’ve got all the supplies we need, ready to load up.” Decima added. “I’ve got money for the charter fee. Hell, I’ve even got a cool cutlass. Whatever it takes to–”

“I’ll do it.”

Huh. Nice.

“On one condition: I’ll not see Reamera come to harm.”

“Deal,” Decima said. A little too quickly, Prendergast thought.

*

On the outside, the Nullarbor was a typical cargo-carrying barque, with three masts and a prominent beakhead, probably built right here in Sol’s drydocks. Captain Wayre had made his own modifications that demonstrated his decades of experience in sailing. Its traditionally square-rigged sails had been modified to fore-and-aft rigs, allowing greater maneuverability with a smaller crew.

As they watched the chandler load their stuff into the cargo hold, Prendergast saw that most of the belowdecks were filled with navigational equipment, information charts of all kinds, and pinned-up parchment accounts from other sailors who’d claimed to have spotted Reamera. He got the feeling that the cargo hauling was just a side job to fund his never-ending search for the Reamere monster.

“Word from the consortium is she’s been sighted travelling north and west, bedding in the kelp sea by night,” Wayre said, as his crew performed their last inspections and began to pull up anchor. “We’ll sail down the Mirihone and be in open water by next week. From there, there’s naught to do but hope and pray.”

*

A week flew past like an albatross on an ocean tide. A full week of absolute boredom for Prendergast. The Nullarbor wasn’t built to entertain stryx, and it showed: the cargo hold was spacious enough, and the sleeping quarters were as comfortable as they could be on a ship that was constantly swaying and creaking, but the crew liked to entertain themselves with card games and drunken darts, two activities which his clumsy casua feet weren’t conducive to. So most days, while Decima was busy losing her entire family fortune to games of Conquest, he found himself wandering the upper decks, looking out at the passing towns and landmarks far below him. There was Banahee-on-Water, and there was Wavewold, and suddenly they were past the bustling port cities and out on the open ocean.

The Reamere was the great channel that separated Wyvera’s two major continents from each other. Before the invention of electromagic refrigeration, it was once called the Great Barrier of the world, one that could only be crossed by stryx long-haul or by eating nothing but hardtack for two months straight. Today, a naval jaunt across the Reamere took two weeks, tops, and could be downright comfortable. There was nothing comfortable about this voyage, though. Any moment now, the monster could rear its terrible head and sink them like it had so many other ships.

“You feel it too, no?” Wayre called down from the wheel. “The silence. The heaviness. The tension.”

Prendergast hadn’t actually thought about it that way, but yes, that was exactly what he felt. The ocean itself was blue and vast as always, but the air was heavy, almost metallic, though it was clear skies for miles around.

“To starboard! What do your bird eyes see?”

Prendergast ran to the starboard deck and peered out. His bird eyes squinted through the sunlight, through the churning white seafoam, and saw a dark form come into view from over the horizon.

‘Some kind of… blob?’

No, now that they got closer, Prendergast saw that it was actually hundreds of little blobs, but closely packed together so they looked like one blob. A school of fish, perhaps? But why were they travelling so close to the surface?

Wait! Was that a second blob following them? A second bigger, much faster blob?

‘Another blob, sir! A big one!’

“I see it. There she breaches!”

A metallic sheen broke the surface, iridescent in the sun, and then sank again. It was heading right for them!

“Gather the men!” Wayre shouted down to Prendergast, and he scrambled to comply.

His scaled feet thundered off the walls as he sprinted down the steps. “Everyone above deck! We found it!”