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“As soon as we can” turned out to mean mid-afternoon the next day. That’s the thing about rich folks; they’re never particularly hurried about nothing, because they’ve never had to be. The sorts of stresses and pressures common to a working man’s life just ain’t a part of their lived experience.
Stuart made arrangements to take his business out of town, and the siblings packed some light luggage for themselves and for their mistress. Hector was even nice enough to donate some of his own clothing to my humble self, seeing as I hadn’t exactly bothered to pack my belongings. My plan up until that point had been to go wandering off into nature to die alone, after all.
Lady Lugh set her house in order. She informed her household guard that she’d be leaving for some time, and set the seniormost guard as the one in charge of keeping her things safe til she could send for them. Then we all had a nice and languid lunch before heading out.
By the time we set out for the harbor, the humidity and the heat of a New Alms afternoon was already smothering my skin something fierce. I was antsy and eager to be gone, and it was taking damn near all my self-control not to complain about the leisurely pace of my allies. Far as I was concerned, the sooner we were out of the city, the better.
Y’all’ve seen the New Alms harbor, right? It’s practically half the city. Every inch of New Alms that touches the water is a part of it. Go out to the edge of the city and you’ll find yourself surrounded by warehouses and half-built boats. Go a little further and there’s nothing but docks and ships and the smell of brine mixed with the stench of dead fish.
There ain’t a single time, day or night, when the harbor’s quiet. I should know; I’ve snuck my way onto more than enough docked ships in my time. There’s always sailors and dockmasters and guards all about, to say nothing of the fishermen and the merchants. New Alms is a true center of commerce—trains coming in from the north and ships coming in from the sea.
For all our reputation for villainy, we at least got that going for us. And at that time everyone was sure that the Manufactory the Cerenites was building out on the bayou was gonna be just the push we needed for New Alms to clean up its act and become a true economic powerhouse.
Everyone here’s always chasing some dream, it seems, or holding out hope for an even bigger one.
Anyway, Lady Lugh’s vessel was a lovely little ship called the Salamastis, and it was docked with the other rich folk’s pleasure boats in the upper west harbor. By the time we got to the docks, Stuart was already waiting there for us, and a small crew was already getting to work to get the ship underway.
The easiest way to head up north would’ve been to sail round to the east side and go up the Uller, but that route’s typically reserved for commercial shipping. So our plan was to head out west through the bayou til we reached the mouth of the Parapon, then sail our way up the river to Lorendan. All told, we was expecting the full journey to take about three days.
While Lady Lugh coordinated with her workers, I followed Hector onto the ship itself. I assume y’all’ve seen the steam yachts the rich folks like to keep in the west harbor? This boat weren’t too different from others of its kind. Maybe eighty feet long or so, with three decks, some pretty white sails, and a steam engine attached to them big water wheels on the side to help it along on its way. When I stepped off the gangway onto the yacht, I braced myself for that moment of queasy disorientation that comes when you leave stable ground for a floating hunk of wood, but strangely that feeling didn’t come.
I glanced across the harbor and saw Ferengris standing atop the water, watching the Salamastis. He seemed worried about something, and that detail made me start worrying too.
“You see any signs of the Cerenites?” I asked, once we were below decks.
“Not a thing,” said Hector. He flashed me a smile. “Far as everyone else is concerned, we’re just heading out for a lovely cruise out on the water. Don’t you fret.”
I settled down into the cabin they gave me—rich folks always make sure to have lots of cabins in their boats—and tried my best to follow Hector’s advice. He returned topside to help get things underway, and I laid down on the cot and wondered what I was gonna do about the uneasy feeling in my gut.
We’d figured it’d be best for me to stay out of sight until the yacht was well underway. Lady Lugh being present on her own ship wasn’t a suspicious thing, and neither was her attendants being there, or even a business associate. But some random fella, who maybe happened to match the description of a dangerous criminal the Cerenites were looking for? Now that might raise a few eyebrows.
So there I was, hiding away down below where I couldn’t be seen, waiting for the Salamastis to leave port and head into the bayou. The cabin swayed around me, and a part of me kept expecting I should get sick from all that motion, but the sickness never came.
Instead, the rocking felt... right, somehow. I had this awareness about me; an understanding of the water and the motion of its surface. When I closed my eyes, I could see all the little waves, like tiny mountains constantly forming and sinking in an endless dance. Y’all know what I mean, don’t you? You’ve the surface of the sea, of rivers, even the canal. Get a big enough body of water, and even at its calmest, the surface still moves. The energy of it never stops, only continues on and on, dispersing out into eternity.
I could feel every crest of every miniature wave on my skin. I felt the pull of the moon’s gravity, unseen in the sunny sky outside and above. The water lapped at the yacht’s wooden hull, and the vessel bobbed and floated on the ever-moving surface of that grand liquid plane.
All of this was at the edge of my understanding, and I had but to only focus just a little for all the knowledge of it to come to me just as natural as breathing. My body understood. It understood the water and the bobbing and the way of the world itself, and so of course it weren’t no surprise that I didn’t feel the least bit seasick.
But if I was to sit here and claim that knowledge was at all comforting, then I’d be a damn liar. The fact I could perceive all this with such ease, the fact that I could so effortlessly experience such an intricate understanding, filled me with cold dread.
“How long?” I asked the empty room. “How long til I’m just you?”
And then Ferengris was there. He was in the walls, formed from the grains of the wooden planks. His eyes were the knots left over from when they was trees, and his fur mingled with the briny-smelling air and tickled at my nose. He was everything—male and female and all that lies between. In that instant, I could perceive of not a single difference between the Wild God and the world itself. It was all one, and it was one with such a frightening clarity that I blinked and shuddered and forced that oneness away.
He weren’t part of the wood no more after that. He weren’t part of nothing. Ferengris stood beside the cot, and his body was that strange mishmash of plant and animal that I’d come to recognize.
“Not long,” he told me. “As the process becomes more complete, it also becomes easier and faster. More and more you accepts what’s happening, and accepts your place in the Wild, so you fight it less and less. Four or five days, I reckon. Maybe two or three if you pull another stunt like you did at the tower. I’d be shocked if we were still separate even just six mornings from now.”
“Shit,” I muttered. I closed my eyes and put my hands on my head, pressed my palms against my eyelids and groaned. “I hope everyone gets out of New Alms. I hope they all escape the Cerenites alright.”
“You’ve done all that can be expected to protect them,” Ferengris said. “But I reckon your worry’s a natural thing. The human animal is a social creature after all. That you care so deeply for one another is one of your species’ greatest strengths.”
“Is that so?” I asked. “Seems like these days, the only people who care like that are fools.”
Ferengris laughed. “Wolves travel and hunt in packs, you know. The elders hunt food to feed the young, teach them survival, and when they become too old to hunt themselves, the young use those skills to repay them with food of their own. Ants work together tirelessly to build their colonies, to construct vast networks of tunnels to house their masses. A lone ant is nothing, and a lone wolf starves. The ability to care, to form empathic bonds, to unite, is a powerful survival instinct.”
Well, I heard what he said, and I laughed too. It was a funny joke. I sat up and looked at the god. “You really expect me to believe we make friends and fall in love cuz it’s good for our survival? We get too attached to other folks, and we start acting like fucking idiots. Men who couldn’t give a shit about anyone else climb to the top, and it’s the fools who care that get stepped on. Look at me: I trusted Eric without question, and we can all see what a mistake that was. If bonds’re supposed to help us survive, then they’re doing a piss poor job.”
“You’re right,” said Ferengris. “A piss poor job indeed. When my brother sought to strike me down, I allowed it. I was curious to see what sort of world he’d create, what his vision for Civilization was. But now that I can see it in all it’s glory? I ain’t impressed. Humanity’s built itself a society that spits in the face of its own survival. It’s engaged in a species-wide suicide, and it’s gonna take countless other species down with it. Everything, from how y’all siphon life from the Soulwell, to your insistence on tying everything of importance to your possession of coins, is an act of self-destruction that I can only describe as madness.
“If a wolf tried hoarding food the way your rich folks hoard wealth and resources, the rest of the pack would tear him to pieces. If ants in a colony started killing each other over shiny rocks, why, their whole society would collapse and they’d all be dead in a day! Your society trains you out of your most vital of instincts. That humans have survived so long with this malady is a testament to y’all’s resilience. But it won’t last. In the grand evolution of the Wild, your species is a dead end, and there will be none left to mourn your passing when the final human dies alone.”
His words were harsh ones, but I didn’t hear a note of bitterness in them. He spoke like he was observing some mild weather, and I found myself nodding along, understanding his blunt appraisal as just plain telling it like it is, like any fool can see. And that too scared the shit out of me.
The yacht shifted. I felt vibrations running through the cabin as the steam engine started up and those big water wheels started turning. Soon enough, the vessel was leaving port. I sat there for a bit, staring at Ferengris, and the Wild God stood there and stared back at me. I think I was beginning to accept my fate at last.
Eventually, Hector returned to the cabin. “We’ve left the harbor,” he said. “It should be safe for you to come up now. The captain says he expects we’ll be going up the river by sundown.”
An awful realization struck me then. “The crew... they know where we’re headed?”
Hector frowned. He gave me a look that implied I was some sort of simpleton. “Of course,” he said. “They have to. They’re taking us there, after all.”
I slapped my forehead. It was so stupidly obvious! Or at least it should’ve been, if I’d been in my right mind. Rich folks always got the same blind spot, and I’d been so preoccupied with my godly difficulties that like a fool I’d allowed myself to share in it.
“We’re in danger,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Where’s Lady Lugh?”
“She’s on the top deck,” Hector said, clearly baffled at my behavior. “What do you mean, we’re in danger?”
But I was already pushing past him, heading down the cramped halls of the yacht and up the stairs. I burst out into open sunlight, bright and hot, and I saw Lady Lugh standing over at the bow, watching the trees get closer as we left the city behind and entered the wilderness. Penelope and Stuart stood by her side.
“Do y’all have any weapons?” I demanded as I rushed over to her. “Arcblasters? Crossbows? Anything?”
“What?” asked the noblewoman, turning to look at me. She was holding one of them little hand fans and wore a wide-brimmed hat to keep her dark skin shaded and cool. “What are you talking about?”
“I know how the Cerenites’ve been spying on y’all,” I said. “And I’d wager anything they know what we’re doing. We’re in danger.”
But even as I spoke, I could sense that it was already too late. Another vessel, a smaller one, was cutting across the water and moving fast toward us.
“What do you mean?” asked Lady Lugh, while at the same time Stuart demanded: “How were they spying on us?”
There was gathering of life energy somewhere nearby—viarc. I felt it focusing into a single, destructive point. I spun around just in time to see Hector approaching us across the deck, just in time to see the Cerenites’ boat coming up fast behind our ship.
A beam of green light shot across the water from that boat. It struck Hector right in the back of his head, burned straight through his skull. He fell forward without a word, smoke and the stench of burned flesh rising up from the mess of hair and charred flesh.
He was dead.
Penelope screamed. From across the water, I heard a voice boom out. It was an awfully familiar voice. It sounded like a man speaking in some echoey chamber, mixed up with pops and hisses. It was detached in the way people sound when they’re reciting something, or reading it out loud.
“Halt, criminals,” the automaton ordered from its position on the deck of the other boat. “Surrender or be executed.”