Chapter 1 - The Stink of Dead Fish

     “Selfishness and species success stroll arm in arm through life.”

                                                                       By, LeeRan Sing, S&S

Cort’s vivid memories made one last effort to overrun his mind. Assaulted like the Horde on that beach so many years before, in a chaotic blur of horror and death, LeeRan’s elixirs burned inside of him. The next few days were lost in sheer agony, burning inner pain and the gentle swaying of the Prince’s ship on the ocean waves. But the memories they wanted squeezed from him wouldn’t come. So they fed him more. No. Not Bloodgeon.

Poisons.

Poisons, potions, elixirs, medicines, that once buried Cort’s horrific memories deep in the pit of his stomach now tried to undo what they accomplished so well. He was cured of the agony that was his life in the Horde. Now they began to return to him and torture him once again. The morning of his Bloodgeon free life began in that Fisher Reeg’s hovel and that one memory alone pounded against his skull and twisted his stomach. And now more memories were surfacing.

The child… The child… The Black teeth of a second memory…

… Black teeth grinned at him through a wiry thin beard. A human. Who was he?

“Second,” it barked like a command.

“Yes?” Cort heard himself answer.

“Second, you want your rightful seconds? She’s only slightly soiled.”

Underneath him, a raven-haired Human woman was being raped.

“Reeg!” she screamed…

Cort’s view flicked to the cold dead anger of the impaled Fisher tripod’s vacant eyes that stared at nothing and everything…

Then the memory broke up, like a dream disjointed

… A kiss on lifeless lips

… A hissing sound followed by a small scaly skinned soldier with snake-like eyes. A Whipt

… Again the eyes of the dead Fisher Reeg. Always watching…

…“Artist.” A word not to be spoken…

… A pasty goop that sizzled as it touched green skin…

… Again the eyes of the dead Fisher Reeg…

… An ax shifting up and down in Cort’s bloodied hands… The view shifted up to the ocean shell tiled ceiling as its white dust rained down…

… An eye? Yes, an eye, blue and watery looked down at him… Piercing the powdery cloud, a single teardrop falls and touches his cheek…

… A small Fisher child, a baby boy with green gills, fell from the rafters.

The memory flashes ended.

Sweating with fever, Cort swallowed hard and forced back down the memory flashes for another day. His body convulsed. Even in this semi-conscious state his gut was always there. It twisted and Cort convulsed again. Cort was suspended on a hammock suspended from wall to wall inside the leathery walled bowels off a sailing vessel. His eyes rolled and he was lost into unconsciousness.

“Just a few more drops,” LeeRan said as her wavy jet black hair fell from her shoulders cradling a perfectly delicate face. She was thin and quite frail in appearance, especially as she leaned over the hulking frame of Cort.

“Do not kill him,” Prince Gormand ordered.

Her glare caught him unawares.

“Too much and you’ll kill him,” the Prince responded with a nervous twitter. “I, we need him alive,” he quickly continued.

“Cort has both girth and a hearty constitution,” she enlightened him. “I’ve done this before. My medicine brought both he and Blour into our service. Quelled their desire for everything except service to us. Suppressed their horrid memories.”

“Now I, we need those memories back.”

“I know what I’m doing,” she cut him off.

Just outside the small cabin, doddering and hunched like an old woman, a robed and hooded, eavesdropper edged closer to fleshy flaps that served as a door. Completely covered by woven cloth, it leaned in. Insectile feelers crept from the darkness under its hood and flicked at the air to perceive the tang of odors. They, Gormand and LeeRan, were just a few kings feet away as it sensed the splash of drops into liquid. Felt the vibrations in the air.

Drop. Drop. Even outside the cabin, it could taste the sweet wine splash and the poison that invaded it. A pungent solution of blue leaf ivy sap, rotten egg and Stingerfish liver bile, more… Ahhh. It was a mind duller elixir and truth serum masked by a poor quality red grape alcoholic spirit.

“It stinks. Have the Carver mask it,” Gormand added nasally, obviously tweaking his nose. “If he knows you’re trying to bring those memories back--”

“Quiet fool,” LeeRan cut him off again. “He believes I’m, we are helping him.”

He pursed his lips. “He better or Cort will cleave us both in two.”

Drop. Drop.

“Don’t kill him…” He trailed off.

She laughed. “Or what? You fair Prince will find it without him… Or you could always return to your father on your knees like a common whore.”

“We need him,” he snapped. A cloak flapped. The air shifted. The robed spy quickly ducked into the shadows as the princely man strode past in a blur of pomp and a stink of fear filled sweat. Its antennae followed his steps as they sank into the spongy decking and padded off. It sensed the sphincter-hatch open and suck in a swell of ocean sounds, smells and tastes that overpowered its sensitive wiry feeler. It quickly retracted them into the shadow of the hood.

“Servant,” LeeRan beckoned from the cabin.

“Yes, my lady LeeRan,” the spying thing responded feebly from the shadows.

“I need you to bring this wine to the Carver. Tell him it’s medicine in need of a more palatable flavor for Cort. When he wakes. Then you return to me. I have a need.”

Its sex organs stirred and it shifted away from androgyny towards male as her fish-like human fragrance was absorbed into his invertebrate worm-like body.

Days passed and many waves broke against the taught tanned hide covered ribs of the huge sea-creature as it cut a watery path through an emerald sea. The behemoth’s eyes, two above water and two below, followed its large whale-like proboscis. The Plathora was one of the largest and most feared of all ocean predators. Powerful webbed forelimbs tipped with claws could tear flesh, smash wood and carve coral alike. Plathora lived hundreds of sun cycles and ruled the water when Humans still hid in caves. When swimming, its front extremities folded tight against its body, streamlining its physique. Eight sets of small clawed appendages once gathered the ripped pieces of food for its multi-rowed tooth filled mouth. Hind tri-flippers propelled it through the water with unmatched speed and maneuverability.

Its leathery hide, thick and pliable, made the perfect skin to cover the bony hulls of the fastest ocean going vessels in the civilized world. Pithed through the brain in just the right way and the Plathora’s brain dead living carcass would continue, as long as it was specially feed and cared for. Its innards were large and spacious and once evacuated, cleaned and shored up with wood supports, she could hold many sailors and much cargo. The inability to recognize this innate shipbuilding threat from landgoing Humans was the reason that no living Plathora had been seen in almost ten sun cycles. Yet they still ruled the seas.

Gormand Dance, Prince of all Humans, exited the converted sphincter hatch, straightened his surcoat and strode with gallantry to the rear of his Plathora cadaver ship as it jumped wave after wave and misted his crew. The aft section of raised decking was for nobility and their guards and servants only. Though that briny sea smell could not be prevented from reaching his pointy nose. Thin, tan, blond and with that sharp nose in the air, he looked around his great ship manned by Humans, Stroogians and a single Preen lookout.

His ship, the Ballet Feast, was magnificent and gave him a feeling of superiority. He was strikingly groomed, educated, skilled at arms and best of all, first heir to the Human Kingdoms. The others on board conducted all the ship’s mundane tasks including cleaning, feeding, and massaging the skin of this long dead(ish) creature. Gormand Dance was more comfortable having some Humans onboard the Ballet Feast. They were the trustworthiness of all the races, he thought as his ass greedily took its proper place on his aft mounted throne, but not the best sailors.

Two emotionless giants of men in leathery masks flanked the Prince. Both wore armor made from thick leathers and hardened with insect carapaces, carried a wooden harpoon type spear, wore two Human style bone blades on their hips, and carried a large multi edged ax on their backs. No one would pass their ranks and live.

That dead fish smell suddenly entered Gormand’s nostrils. That only meant one thing. A seaborne Strooga approached him. The smaller of the two Human guards stepped forward.

The approaching Strooga looked up. “I must speak to the Prince,” he gurgled.

Gormand Dance covered his nose and looked into the Strooga’s dead white eyes. It blinked, he thought? But Stroogians had clear eyelids so he wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that Stroogians looked like drowned and bloated corpses. A clear fluid seemed to ooze from their slimy bluish-white skin. The Strooga, natural seamen, wiggled a sea-anemone tentacle smile.

The Strooga lifted its webbed hand to cover its soft squirmy mouth. “I thought the Strooga and Humans were allies? Did you not hire me as Captain, my Prince?”

“My guard has his duties.”

“Strooga were conquered by Humans,” the smaller Human guard spat.

“Let him speak,” the Prince interrupted.

The Strooga removed its webbed hand from its mouth. His tentacles jiggled chaotically spraying a salty spittle. “We approach the reefs surrounding the dead Fisher Village,” the Stroogian informed him. “The reefs that were conquered by the Horde, several sun cycles ago, they now appear dead.”

“I don’t care about reefs, Captain?” the Prince snapped.

“We need to slow and send divers,” the Strooga continued.

“You’re the Captain! Just get us there. Safely”

“Yes, my prince.” The Strooga bowed quite sarcastically as it backed away.

The smaller guard turned to face Gormand Dance. He lifted his leather facemask respectfully and bowed slightly. “If it sprays me again I’ll fillet it,” growled the large thick necked Human. Bald though boyishly handsome his face was lined with the scars of anger, war and servitude.

“Blour, they are fish. Lower forms of evolved life. What can one expect other than a spray and that smell? Like a whore after a busy day and night” quipped Prince Gormand. “But they are excellent, loyal sailors. You need to relax like, like Cort here.” Gormand lazily pointed to the larger of the two guards who mentally seemed elsewhere though he lifted his own mask.

That dead fish smell stirred up around them though this time no Strooga stood near. Cort shifted and held his stomach. It gurgled.

“He’s a fine example to follow, Blour.”

Blour’s eyes narrowed then quickly opened in an attempt to hide his jealously. Cort shook his head with the knowledge that he could swab the deck with Blour. Blour knew this too.

Cort spoke. “Blour, go wake the Prince’s betrothed. Dead Fisher land is near.”

Blour heard the quiver in Cort’s voice on the word Fisher. Satisfied, Blour regarded his liege. “My Prince.”

He bowed his head and left. The two Humans watched Blour stomp past three grinning Strooga, each near a giant flipper of the Plathora ship. He stopped in the center of them. It was hard to determine when a Stroogian actually smiled; they had no teeth, just tentacles, and no laugh, just bubbly gurgles. The Stroogians glared back at Blour while simultaneously displaying their abilities to not only control the ship but to defend themselves. Each bloated-corpse of a seaman sent a controlled, yet high voltage electric charge from his or her body into a long dead Plathora flipper. The Plathora’s nerves carried this charge causing the flipper’s muscles to contract thus propelling the mighty ship. The Strooga could perform this controlled charge virtually at will and with deadly consequences.

As a taunt, one Strooga gurgled Blour’s way.

Blour, ever the loser, grunted and entered a hole in the deck that was once part of the Plathora’s digestive tract. And though long deceased it still reeked of death and decay.

Cort’s stomach settled and he looked at his current master, the Prince. An aura of success surrounded the noble even though they had just lost the coup attempt. Lost badly. Most of their forces were destroyed. But Gormand Dance was a proud man sailing ever closer to his goal. The Prince believed a journey to this dead land would insure his ascension to the throne. Gormand wanted to be King and he was determined to take it from his father, not inherit it. But why here? Why this place? Cort knew there was nothing here but memories, sadness and death. In fact he could smell it. There was one other thing here but Cort dismissed any thought of Bloodgeon and its long lost secrets.

Hiding, Cort lowered his leather mask over his face and the stink frothed up again from deep within his stomach. That stink of dead fish. His stomach twisted.

Out of sight, yet dead ahead of them, on that Fisher beach, a small golden swimfish glistened in the sun but gulped no water. Stranded on the sand the few drops that kept its scales moist, evaporated. One last desperate flop found only more drying sand. Its gill opened at the air uselessly a few last times.

The “fisherman” of the tiny gilled water breather watched as it suffocated.

“Die,” the fisherman, a blackened gnarled beast, spat with disdain. Its dinner was always served fresh or rotten and always raw. Yet its hunger would not be sated. Not by this meager morsel.

After a few moments the tiny goldfish was still and lifeless. The beast twisted off its head and sucked its juicy innards from its neck. Then it ate its flesh, scales and spiny fins but made certain to save even the teeniest of bones to add to its collection.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2 - A Maggot’s Prize