Elsewhere and otherwhiles…

Lord Emberbole’s undergalley continued its lazy progress through the farther islets of the Archipelago of Koom.

Its wide, arabesque belly dragging pearly-crested wavelets across the oily, cimmerian surf.

They had, following near ten bells of arduously wary navigation. At last outstripped the many leagues long vile wrack, and brinish flotsam that was the floating necropolis of the once odious god-thing, Sufa.

Here at last the string of chalky islets had begun to thin and sink into the obfuscous wash, leaving only a number of bleak and infertile shoals that soon receded into the ship’s wake. 

Upon the passing of the last, chalky salt-bitten crag, further orders were given over to the engine-masters. Who thereupon goaded their keening charge, the Shir, into doubling the pace of the great gamboling craft.

Before long the undergalley was once more speeding across the sunless expanse - at times capering and baltering across the black, recondite surf like that of a great-bellied drunkard - towards some as yet obscure terminus.  

Another six bells had rung out the next watch, before Umin emerged from his berth. 

He had wearied of watching the appalling parade of islets lazily pass, and the perdurable stink had saturated his salt-veil, sickening him.

Exhausted, he had stumbled below and tumbled into clement dreamlessness.

Umin now stood at the quarterdeck rail with a shallow wooden bowl of currants and sweet-gruel. 

Broodingly watching the leaden foam churn along the bow as he indifferently chewed.

Here, approaching the Northern Rankles, where the Great Lower Sea stretches unbroken from false horizon to false horizon, its treacly aroma is that of oil poured over warm stone.

A not unpleasant, native perfume, thought Umin.

His gaze drifts upwards into the bending and winding tack and tangle of rigging.

High above, within the watch-nest, perched with terrifying ease against the canting and rolling decks, is Pyna. 

Her cerulean blue and black onyx gown, and wheaty-mane dancing with the raucous top-sail winds like that of a mad, flailing rook.

Even from his vantage below, Umin is able to mark the glistering intensity of her spectral gaze, as she peers out across the vast, ebony tides.

Abreast of her, a bundled watchman clings adroitly to a bunching of knotty ropes and rigging. 

He is pointing and uttering something that Umin cannot hear above the solivagant winds, as Pyna simply nods in answer.

Her face, a thoughtful mask fixed upon the false horizon. 

Umin returns his attention to the now cold bowl between his gloved fingers.

His ruminations much like the currants therein: Sticky, and well nigh shapeless.

Had she beguiled him?

By means of some secret philtre. Some alchemical charm. Some able legerdemain…

No. 

He could think of nothing peculiar that he might have partaken of in her company.

He shook his head. It was meandering nonsense.

Umin peers upwards once more to find that Pyna no longer occupies her perch within the watch-nest.

The now lonesome watchman returns his gaze and offers a nod, before reclaiming his vigil.

Before long, a sudden and gentle gelidity, in the shape of a gaunt, feminine finger briefly explores the unshaven and prickly line of his jaw.

He turns, not unexpectedly, to find Pyna disquietingly near at hand.

Her ever apparitional presence, as bestirring as it is viscerally repulsive. 

Umin understood, or he thought that he should. 

That it was of their nature, their very fabric, this faculty to evoke ustulation, from out even the most kindless of mortal hearts.

Perhaps though, even the gods would know yearning…

In the manner of all her kind.

An unspeakable implication, made flesh and finery.

Sweet breath

There is no, flesh

In your porridge.

Her still rubious lips bend in soft-smiling mockery, as she breathes in the sweet-savory from his cold bowl.

Eyes radiant with the tepid amber-fire of a jigging sea-lantern, nearby. 

As though they were composed of inverse looking-glass. 

Stealing and fatting upon all light and colour, instead of reflecting.

I remember a

Rabbit

Stew…

“I remember the same.” 

His answer is coloured by a playful rue.

My lovely

Leaf-eater.

He simply watches her uncertainly, for a breath, or two. 

A stirring, but awful question soon rises to the fore of his conscience.

“And you?

Do you not… Thirst? Here, so far from…”

He abbreviates this thought. 

Its luscious aperture, and the world beyond are too terrible to lay eyes upon.

Pyna cocks her head and blinks very slowly. 

A smiling, porcelain doll.

No, I am well

Yet

For many, a bell.

Yet…

Something passing carnivorous, within the confines of her saucer-wide, luminous eyes frightens him.

He licks his lips and frowns, gazing out again upon the black, soupy wash and its insouciant wavelets.    

“Where is the ship, Pyna? Where is Ure?

What is our destination? You must know…”

She follows his gaze out across the womby, nighted sea.

Her words seem weary with the weight of bitter things.

We go to the watch-ward 

Of Ikiish…

He, the one who sawed, opened

And spread the World 

To the Paper God…