The Ancient

TWENTY-TWO

Fed to the Fishes

The arm crackled in protest as Cormack bent it over the torso of another dead troll. He tried to find some levity in this gruesome task. In truth, the monk couldn’t believe what he was doing here: tying together the bodies of several trolls he had slain into a makeshift raft. So he laughed because he wanted to scream, because the whole world had suddenly become surreal and ridiculous.

“What have you reduced me to, Brother Giavno?” he asked aloud. He paused, surprised by the name he had put to his lament. Giavno hadn’t passed judgment upon him, after all. That had fallen to Father De Guilbe, so why had he just used Giavno’s name?

Because Brother Giavno represented to him all the promise and all the failure of the Abellican Church. So much potential and such shortsightedness all wrapped into one complex package. Just thinking of the man made Cormack’s back ache, and yet, strangely, he found that he bore the man no ill will. He couldn’t agree with the premise of his missionary brothers, and certainly not with their coercive and borderline evil methods, but he understood their perspective. He understood it all.

So he would stand against it. Out here, on a barren lump of rock in the middle of a steamy lake, tying trolls together into a macabre raft. Cormack laughed for real this time. It was that or cry, and he preferred to laugh.

Using strands of dead plants washed up against the rocks and contorting the stiffening troll bodies to complement each other, he soon enough had his bobbing craft constructed. He waded out with it to where the water was waist-deep, then pressed down on it to test its ballast. Dead trolls proved surprisingly buoyant-much more than a human, he thought, though of course he had no idea of how long his craft might last. Wouldn’t it be fitting for him to float out into the middle of Mithranidoon only to discover that troll buoyancy lasted only a short while? He chuckled again.

To stay here was to die. That much he knew. Either trolls would come out of the water to attack him, or he’d waste away with little to nothing to eat, or he’d parch under the sun. Or a great storm would come up and wash him into the water-winter was closing in on Alpinador, after all, and even the warm waters of Mithranidoon were not immune to terrible storms.

So he had his raft. He had no other chances to take. Cormack gathered up the plank of his destroyed boat to use as a paddle and pushed off, drifting into the mist on a squishy pillow of flesh. He had no true idea of where he was on the lake, no idea of which way lay Chapel Isle, or Yossunfier, so he played his hunch and paddled out generally in the direction he considered south.

The plank wasn’t much of an oar. Mithranidoon’s strong crossing currents, brought on by the many hot springs that fed the lake and the constant battles between the colder surface water sinking into the heated depths, had Cormack swirling all over the place. The mist proved especially heavy this day, and the man couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. Eventually, he just surrendered to the whims of the lake and reclined on the troll raft.

Sometime later, a slight twitch beneath him surprised him. He moved up to his elbows. The raft twitched again, then again more insistently. Cormack moved to the edge and peered into the dark waters, expecting to see a troll tugging at the raft. He fell back, swallowed hard, and knew he was horribly doomed, for a great fish had glided by just beneath him, a fish longer than he was tall.

Breathing hard, the man knelt on the center of the macabre raft and took up his paddle. He had to get out of here, had to get anywhere that was not open water. The raft jerked one way then shuddered as something large bumped it from below. Suddenly it began moving sidelong against all of Cormack’s efforts, caught not by a current but by the gigantic fish!

He scrambled to the edge; his face blanched as he saw the beast just below him, its large mouth clamped about a dangling troll leg. Cormack took up the plank in both hands and stabbed hard at the fish. The whole raft bobbed under the water suddenly then popped back up, its integrity beginning to fail. Cormack saw the fish swim off with the troll leg in its mouth.

He rubbed his face. The raft continued to spasm as more and more of the huge fish nibbled, bit, and bumped it. He grabbed the plank and repeatedly smashed it down hard upon the water, trying to frighten the beasts away. For a few moments things did calm. Cormack held his breath, hoping he had escaped. But the raft was falling apart around him, and when he moved to hold it together he saw them, the great fish, circling and waiting.

“Oh, Giavno, what have you reduced me to?” the distraught monk asked into the stifling Mithranidoon fog.

Yach, pull “er left, ye fool!” Kriminig chastised the four dwarves rowing the boat. Cranky old Kriminig, all gray beard and wrinkled face, stood at the prow, clutching his bloodstained beret, which was the shiniest among the powries of Mithranidoon. For none had seen more battles and none had scored more kills than Kriminig.

He closed his eyes as the boat began its turn and let his thoughts flow through his beret. All powrie caps shared the magic of bestowing toughness; wounds healed faster for the wearer, and the brighter a beret, the more cushion it would offer to its wearer. A few of those berets gained added benefits, as the layers of blood on the fabric and wisdom of experience for the wearer brought added insight.

For dwarves like Kriminig, the berets could serve almost as beacons, though weak lights in a thick fog, where he could sense the magic of another powrie cap. An injured dwarf would spark the magic, and that magic resonated.

Out on the lake fishing this day, Kriminig had felt such a pang, and though curious that it was coming from a direction opposite to their home island and far distant, and though he was confident that no dwarves other than the eight on his boat were off the island, he was certain of the feeling.

“A powrie’s in trouble,” he declared, leaving no room for debate.

“But our kin’re all back at the home,” another had argued.

“Then more’ve come to the lake,” said a third, and so the debate went, round and round, and only one on the boat knew that he had an answer to the curious riddle.

But Mcwigik, sitting in the back with the fishing net, thought it best to keep his suspicions to himself. A couple of the others, though, had heard rumors about Pragganag’s cap, and cast curious glances Mcwigik’s way.

“Just ye keep rowing,” he said to them. “There might be something interesting to find.”

“Too much left!” Kriminig grumbled. “Ease her back to starboard!”

Mcwigik rubbed his ruddy face, wondering if they’d come upon a fight between the monks and the barbarians.

He looked around frantically, lifting his head as much as possible, though he didn’t dare stand or even kneel on the rocking troll raft. Even if he spotted another island, Cormack knew that he was doomed: there was no way he could outswim these giant fish even if he managed to surprise them and get a good lead as he had done with the powries.

One came up right before him and bit at a troll hand protruding in the air. Cormack saw those fish teeth all too clearly as they tore the fingers apart. If only he had an enchanted amber! He could use its magic and run across the water, barely disturbing the surface.

If only…!

This surely wasn’t how the young monk had pictured he would die. He had always recognized that he might not live to a ripe old age. When he had signed on to the mission in Alpinador, Cormack had known well that several other brothers had been killed by the barbarians. He wasn’t afraid to die, particularly if it happened in service to Blessed Abelle. Better to live life with a purpose, even with the risks, than to hide in a hole and hope for old age.

But he didn’t want to die like this, anonymously, and for no better reason than to feed some fish.

One came up and bit him on the side of his calf, tearing his skin. He swung about fast and slammed his fist into the side of the fish. While that action did send the thing back under the water, the movement also further diminished the integrity of the raft. Another troll body broke free, leaving Cormack on only three remaining ragged things.

He felt his robes weighing him down as he often bobbed into the water, and he thought to take them off. To what point?

All the fear and the anger went away then, suddenly. Resigned to his fate, Cormack stopped himself from removing the soaked and heavy robes. He would let them drag him down to the depths. Better to surrender to it and get it over with.

He hoped he would lose consciousness quickly, that the pain wouldn’t be so intense.

He took a deep breath, then blew it all out and set himself to plunge into the water, thinking he would just keep swimming down.

Just as he was about to go, though, he heard a splash that he recognized as an oar dipping into the lake.

“Here! Here!” he yelled, and he began smacking at the fish again with renewed urgency. “Here!”

A fish as long as Cormack was tall leaped up before him, coming for his face, but the agile monk reacted with fury and speed, smashing it in the side of the head with a right cross that turned it aside. He hit it again several times as it thumped onto his raft and rolled into the water.

But now he was in the water, the troll bodies all floating apart. His robes pulled him down as he worked his weary arms furiously to try to tread water. He tilted his head back as far as he could, gasping for breath. He got a mouthful of water instead and felt himself submerging.

A strong hand grabbed his shoulder, though, and hauled him back up. A giant fish brushed against his leg, and he slammed his head as he went up over the side of a boat. Then he was lying on the wood, eyes closed, only semiconscious, and curled defensively. He coughed and felt water pouring from his mouth.

“Well, what d’we got here?” he heard in that distinctive powrie dialect and the typical dwarf voice, which sounded somewhat like a receding wave rattling a beach of small stones.

“Name’s Cormack,” said another, a voice the monk recognized. “Won the cap fair and square.”

“So take the cap and throw the fool back to the Mith trout,” said the first, the last thing Cormack heard.