The Shattered Islands: Part One: The Rakam
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Authors: Karpov Kinrade
PART ONE – THE RAKAM
Copyright © 2015 Karpov Kinrade
Cover Art Copyright © 2015 Karpov Kinrade
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Published by Daring Books
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Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.
I have seen a fallen ship once, heard the bone chill screams and swam in the blood red water. I have fought the rakam and lived. I have loved a woman and lost her to the waves. I have seen the black kiasheen. Now, I am on a ship I do not recognize with people I do not call friend. They ask me who I am. I tell them little…
For I am here for them.
I must find their secrets. I must speak to the woman with the blue eyes. When I am finished, perhaps I will tell them who I am, for they have heard my story, and they think they know the end.
They are wrong.
This is only the start.
And tonight, I begin.
AT SEA
The evening sun sets low in the sky as the maiden moon begins her slow crawl into the impending twilight. Her sisters, the matron moon and crone moon, won't join her for some hours yet, the matron peaking at full dusk and the crone not showing her face until the night is at its blackest. It is my favorite time of the day, when light and dark dance in the starlit sky, wooing and flirting, the sun giving way to the sister moons each night, waiting for his time to shine again come morning.
I breathe in deeply the scent of the sea, of the salt and wind, of the brackish waves that crash against the underbelly of the great kiasheen who glides effortlessly through it all, as if the giant shells packed with humans on its back matter little. I stand at the rostrum, peering over the great whale's head as it moves us toward our next port two days north, where jewels will trade hands for spices and cloths and the rich will get richer.
But I am not here for riches. For wealth. For the temporary haze of half-felt happiness those earthly pleasures offer.
My gloved hand clutches the ridge of the shell as the sea sends a splash of itself against the heat of my face. Dark locks of hair fall over my eyes and I close them, listening. Praying. Wondering. Searching for all that is lost.
"Sev!" A stern voice calls to me with a name that is not my given, and I turn to see Captain Kanen eyeing me with distrust. "Do ye not sleep, lad?"
"The moons keep me awake," I tell him truthfully. It might be the only true thing I've said in my entire time with his crew.
"The moons, the sun, the waves. Ye be drowning in ye own haze if ye don't lay yer head soon," he says, crossing heavily muscled arms over his broad chest. He is a man of the sea, hailing from one of the lesser families of the Shattered Islands. Hints of blue and turquoise in his hair, eyes and nails show his meager abilities to wield the island water stones, but he doesn't need them to captain. He was a man born to make love to the sea; you can see it in the way they peer at each other at night, when he thinks no one is looking. His face is weathered, lined with the sun and salt of a life on water, his body hardened from years of labor on the kiasheen whale-ships. His crew trusts him, that I've seen clearly. It is not just the scars that occupy half his face and neck… the scars he earned at the sharp end of a rakam. His survival is a thing of legends in itself, and makes a man such as him a god in the eyes of his crew. And they do not follow him out of greed or fear, though that would certainly be enough motivation for some. They follow him because they see in him the sea-song that anyone drawn to this life craves.
It is why I chose him, chose his whale-ship, for this journey. "Whether I drown in my haze or not, you've gotten your pay."
He nods gruffly. "Aye, that I have. Not many men willingly part with that many stones for a trip like this. Makes my men nervous, it does. Yer secrets. Yer skulking."
He peers at me with dark eyes streaked with light blue.
My own eyes have none of their original darkness left. It is the one trait I cannot change, the startling blue of my eyes. I am a dark-haired man with too-blue eyes and too many secrets for his liking, but wealth often trumps suspicion, I've found, at least for a time.
"We will part ways at the next dock," I assure him. Barring any delays, I think, but I don't put that thought to words. No need to make him more restless.
His head jerks forward once, like a spasm at his neck. "See that we do, and all is well."
Sea folk are a superstitious lot, more so than most of the Shattered Islands. They spend their lives out here on the waters and they forget how to live within normal society. They are too much surrounded by monsters and waves and a world beyond their control.
The captain whistles and shouts commands at someone above me. I look up to the shell that rides atop ropes of kelp, its small passenger staring intently at the waters. She looks down from her perch as a young man climbs up the kelp to relieve her of her duty for the night. She shimmies down, giving the shelled seat to the boy, landing on bare feet slapping against the great shell, loose fitting bamboo knit pants flapping against her skinny legs. Her hair is black, her eyes slashed with sapphire, so she must have touched the stone once, and I wonder how she came upon such a rare gem. Her arms are thick and muscled, the arms of one who leads a kiasheen, pulling upon the heavy reigns that guide the beast by its nostrils.
"I'm free till sunrise if ye be looking for something… or someone, to do." She winks at me and saunters off, not waiting for my response, making her way within the great shell to her quarters.
The first night I arrived on board, Calla cozied up to me during dinner and didn't take it personally when I wasn't interested. Since then she flirts lightly, as a young woman who has had many lovers and isn't concerned with where the next one comes from.
I don't mind, but I don't reciprocate. I'm not here to find a new lover.
Captain Kanen glares at me when he sees Calla's wink. I maintain eye contact with him, not aggressively, but not passively either. He averts his eyes first, and I turn and make my way inside the shell to my own cabin.
I've seen enough of this night, and the captain was right about one thing. I will fall into the haze if I don't try to sleep.
I climb down the alabaster stairs to the small shell, that odd space between the great shell and the kiasheen, where the whoosh of the ocean and the simmering sounds of the great beast's belly collide into a strange kind of music that is both beautiful and terrifying. My generous offerings bought me a private cabin toward the fluke, so I walk through the narrow shell halls until I reach the end of the tunnel. I'm about to open the door to my cabin when I pause and still my breath.
My gloved hand is soundless as it turns the shell knob and pushes the door in.
The man standing over my trunk does not see or hear me as I approach him from behind.
I can smell his stink as I reach for his arm and twist it behind his back, pulling his bulk against my chest as I hiss into his ear. "You'll kindly keep your grimy fingers off my belongings, or you won't be leaving with your hands."