Hours bled into miserable daylight. The raft was at the mercy of the sea, still and placid, save for a lukewarm current carrying them to waters unknown. An unforgiving sun shimmered against the waves, blinding and baking them in an unrelenting calm. Rene kept a weather eye on the horizon, squinting against the brightness, occasionally raising her binoculars in moments of fleeting hope. Ludwig kept to himself as Edgar snored with a top hat over his face. The dinghy was a livid orange prison of sweat and stench. The only escape was swigging salt water and an early grave. Stranded in the middle of the ocean, all the company could do was wait.
Charles cracked a bitter smile. “I spy with my little eye, something blue—”
“Shut up,” Ludwig muttered.
“Okay, but real talk,” the stoner said, “this isn’t exactly how I imagined we’d wind up.” He turned to the sniper. “Any sign of land?”
No one responded. Slowly, the minutes blurred together, and Charles couldn’t help but stare at the shimmering water. He was lost in its trance, imagining skinny dipping babes fresh out of Woodstock, waiting for a mud bath and a good time.
“There’s one thing I don’t get,” Ludwig spoke up. “Why did the Morgenshtern track us?”
Edgar stirred from his stupor, only to keep the top hat over his face as if eavesdropping on the conversation. Charles played the fool and feigned ignorance.
“You would think his priority would be Lumiere,” the Leper King continued. “Why would he abandon the siege to go after a freighter?”
“Better question,” Charles said. “What would Victor do?”
“What’re you getting at?” Rene asked.
“Think about it.” Charles sighed. “Given that Amadeus is Victor, I think something in the fiend snapped, and now he’s after us. If we are being pursued, there’s no telling what lengths Amadeus will go to. I mean, he was willing to nuke a city on a whim.”
“Why, though? Why would he go after us? We’re microscopic compared to the Entente.”
Charles rolled his eyes. “You’re assuming he cares about the Entente, to begin with. Lemme put it this way, Amadeus is Victor unhinged. Without a conscience or moral compass, just raw ambition and emotion. Nothing to hold him back.” He sat up. “I don’t know what he’s planning because I’m not sure he even has a plan.”
Rene tossed him a trail ration. Charles took a bite and stifled a gag. Its texture was somewhere between granola and wet cardboard. Meanwhile, Edgar pretended to yawn and stir from his slumber, keeping his hat over his face. Though Charles hadn’t the will to pry, he couldn’t help but wonder if the chocolatier was hiding something.
“I’ll take the watch,” Ludwig offered.
Charles lay down and propped his hands behind his head, fingers tangling in his matted silver hair. “Sounds good. Lemme know if the sharks start circling.”
Slowly, the sound of lapping waves carried Charles beyond the Wall of Sleep as his thoughts drifted down the starlit currents, every light reflecting as embers of memory. Before he knew it, he had washed ashore upon velvet carpet and marble tiles. Forlorn lights twinkled from a high chandelier as wax dripped into the flooded aisles. Staggering to his feet, Charles was greeted by the phantom image of the Impresario. The stoner shut his eyes and sighed.
“So,” he said, “what’s up?”
“You have a gift for staying afloat,” the Impresario said, “that much is undeniable. Alas, I fear it will not be enough to best the enemy. To bring Victor back.”
“Aren’t you just a beacon of optimism….”
“Realism,” the Impresario snapped his gloved fingers, “and I do my part.” At his command, the theater screen descended from the billowing curtains as the old projector flickered to life. “I must ask you, Charles. Why are you doing this?”
“To save him,” he scoffed.
“No,” the Impresario said. “That’s but the tip of the truth. I’ll ask again, why?”
“I,” Charles stuttered, “do you really think I’m cut out to save the world? Fuck that. If it wasn’t for Victor, I’d be dead months ago. We all have our moments of weakness. Victor was alone. He didn’t have us to help. I know it sounds like I’m making excuses, but it’s true, man.”
“Are you sure you’re not fleeing from responsibility?”
“Of course I am,” Charles laughed. “But that’s not all of it. I’m the Saint Peter to his Jesus. Someone has to play the supporting role. And, you know, it’s not a bad gig.”
The Impresario’s eyes shimmered with pride. “Victor is lucky to have you.”
“Oh, I know.”
“There will come a time when your friendship will truly be tested.” The odd mentor wheeled his chair to the side as the screen purred to life with the silhouette of Cesare, strong and stark against the light. “However, I have faith in your honesty. If more people valued such bonds as you do, the world would be a happier place.” With that, the sound of the ocean encroached upon the Opera House, underpinned by fading light. “Till we meet again.”
Charles’s thoughts drifted to awakening—only to feel something under his fingers.
Is that…?
He awoke to coarse sand against his cheeks. Waves lapped against his body. Among the ravaged rocks, he was alone on the shore, bloody and battered yet able to stand despite the crack of his knees. The liferaft was in tatters, though he had no memory of how it had happened. Wiping his hair out of his face, Charles staggered towards the fetid jungle and far mountains when he noticed the surrounding wreckage. Capsized ships littered the beach like corpses on a battlefield, left to rot and rust as phantom hulks. Not a gull was to be seen. The heavens were a reddish miasma, as smoke reduced the sun to a soft orb.
Feels like the ends of the earth, alright….
Charles didn’t dare investigate the wreckage, not wanting to risk tetanus or worse from seaside spelunking. Instead, he kept his course inland, listening to the roar of the rising tide. Oversized crabs snipped the air and eyed him with suspicion, scurrying into their ironclad holes, and the air reeked of napalm. Wherever he washed up, it was somewhere along the coast of the New World. Charles could only imagine what awaited him in the wilderness.
“Charles,” cried a far voice, “Charles!”
Wracked with fatigue, the stoner glanced over his shoulder, squinting past the smoke. A trop of silhouettes crept into vision like roaches from woodwork. Before he knew it, Charles was reunited with his comrades—wretched yet accounted for.
“W-what happened?” he managed.
“We ran against the rocks, and you got knocked out cold,” Ludwig said. “Had to drag your ass to shore. Glad you’re okay, though.”
“Okay’s a strong word,” Charles said, “but, hey, we’re alive.” He soaked in the surrounding bleakness. “Where the hell are we?”
“We’ve made it to Ikana,” Rene said. “Although, we’re more than a tad off course. This is the Salvage Coast, where many a battleship has run afoul.”
Charles scoffed. “Earns its name.”
The sniper stood tall, her cloak fluttering like a tattered banner in the humid wind, while Ludwig removed his boots, dumping out a pound of sand.
“At any rate,” Rene drew a long knife and pointed ahead. “We must make for the Genka River. There should be a village nearby.”
Further inland, the sand turned slick with mud as mangroves rose from the festering quagmire, clawing at the dead sun. It was a tangle of rotting vegetation, droning with a choir of insects and ill life, its greenery twisted into a livid mockery of paradise. Humid and wearisome, a reek of burnt oil pervaded the air as brackish streams spiraled in strange patterns, intersecting at forced angles. Ruin had scarred the forests, reducing the trees to gray ghosts in the gathering mists, leaving only the scarcest signs of civilization—a boardwalk of flayed bamboo flanked by toppled columns and shallow graves. A sharp tingle ran down Charles’s spine as if unseen eyes were upon him. He glanced over his shoulder but saw nothing save the swallowing fog.
“So,” Ludwig said, “what exactly are we looking for?”
“Not sure, and I don’t think we’re there yet,” Charles said.
Rene nodded. “As I said, we’ve ventured off course. It’ll be some time before we see civilization in any capacity. Stay close, and don’t venture off the trail.”
“Charming.” Edgar scowled. “I’ll be shocked if we don’t starve to death in this place.”
Hours dragged on. By midday, the company was miles inland and venturing ever deeper into the foul country. It wasn’t long before Charles’s stomach began to churn and growl, though he didn’t dare try the berries in the underbrush. Eventually, the company came to a crossroads at the Genka River, which ran silently through the rainforest. A corpse floated in the water—an Entente soldier on patrol, judging by camouflage and his morion helmet. Against Rene’s warnings, Edgar fished the helmet with a branch and wiped it clean of algae.
“How quaint,” he said. “Wasn’t like he was using it.”
Charles knelt to examine the lacerated body, eying the wounds on its back as if the explorer had been cut down by long knives. Something rustled in the bushes. He drew his sword and electro-staff as palms and ferns quivered in the stagnant air.
Nothing emerged.
Further downriver, they came across a lopsided dock jutting from the undergrowth and into the brackish water. Then came the village. Clusters of huts squatted on high stilts, rising from the riverbank; walls of woven bamboo and gabled roofs thatched with rice straw, sagging in the dampness and left to gray. Thin stretches of rope drooped low and across the water, weighed down by red paper lanterns, tangled as spiderwebs over the sluggish current. The village exuded an eerie silence as the fisherfolk eyed the company with sharp distrust, cleaning their nets and hooks. Doors shut and locked themselves, seemingly of their own accord. Slowly, a crowd began to grow on either side of the Genka River, hands over their pistols and machine guns. Charles could only speculate that the Imperium was sowing the seeds of dissent among the desperate.
“Ah,” Charles said, “so, there’s locals after all.”
Ludwig nudged him, sharply. He gave a proper silhouette and spoke in a foreign tongue—enough to convince some of the militia to lower their aim.
“Let me do the talking,” he said.
Step by step, the villagers retreated to their homes. The jungle grew quiet until a blade grazed Charles’s neck as a sudden presence emerged from behind, accompanied by the whisk of tattered cloaks. “Don’t move,” said a harsh voice.
Charles glanced over his shoulder, only to spy his companions being held at gunpoint, surrounded by a squad of soldiers with bloodshot eyes and tengai—basketlike hoods of woven reeds. His heart pounded, realizing that they were surrounded. Rene and Ludwig raised their hands, slowly, and the others followed her lead. At the gang’s head was a captain sporting a wide rice hat. He held a crude rifle and smirked at the company. Judging by the crimson armband, he wasn’t a simple brigand but rather an insurgent of middle rank. Piracy and summary executions, it seemed, were a reality of guerrilla warfare.
“Outsiders. Well, this is a rarity,” he spoke in a low accent, eying the stoner up and down, and raised a saber to his captive’s cheek. “What business do you have here? Speak quickly!”
Ludwig spat upon the wet earth. “How about some introductions first. From one rebel to another.” He stared the captain down. “Goro Ludwig, head of the Powder Kegs.”
“And we’re the Corsair Rouge.”
Color drained from Ludwig’s face as if he’d stumbled upon the devil in the flesh. Judging by his confidence, the officer’s reputation preceded him. There was a certain cruelty in his eyes. Charles noticed the grisly trophies adorning his soldiers—necklaces of severed ears, mismatched skin grafts, and yellowed dentures made from the teeth of prisoners.
Brief words were exchanged, and the officer jerked his head aside. Before Charles could interject, a black sack was thrown over his head. Stumbling, the stoner dropped his weapons, only to hear the pirates squabble and collect the company’s arms. With a steel barrel at his back, Charles was ushered off the trail. Interrogation wasn’t far away.