Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

But those days, as even Cuzco now acknowledged, were gone.

“Sit,” I said to Sharrock, gently.

That night, Fray told us a tale we had not heard from her before.

“This is the story,” she told us, in her booming low voice that always for me evoked the thudding of hooves on a lonely savannah, “of how my world was born. It is a story told to me by my mother, and her mother before her. It is our origin story.”

I curled myself up comfortably, and breathed air scorched by Cuzco’s breath, and kept an eye on Sharrock, who, I noted, was rapt and exhilarated as Fray eloquently spoke.

“We were born of the wind, so my mother said,” Fray told us. “The wind that blew from the north and crashed in great tumult against the mountains of the south. And then the wind’s angry tongue licked the rock, and the rock roared with pleasure, and split, and a grey wet mess of flesh was birthed. And that was us. The Frayskind.

“We were born of the union of the wind and the mountains; and our father the wind is still our friend. That is how we learned to hunt. We were slow and heavy and all the other creatures could hear us thundering after them, for we were never the fastest of beasts. But we begged the wind to howl and roar, and the grasses were whipped wildly by its gusts. And the animals we stalked could not smell us, for the wind conveyed our stench swiftly away, and they could not hear us, because the sounds caused by the wind were so deafening. So we thundered towards them and caught them unawares and ate them in our great jaws, and when we had digested them we farted loudly and long, to return the favour to the wind.

“And the mountains are our mother, and when the great Majai hunted us and killed us by the thousands, we took refuge in the womb of the mountains. Rents appeared in sheer cliff faces and we clambered inside the caves and we made our homes there for many hundreds of years. And while we were gone our father the wind roared and ripped the planet apart and all the land animals died, including the Majai, and when we returned we were the only large land animals left alive and we were able to eat the thick grasses and the rich vines without any competition or threat from other predators. Thus were we saved by our mother the mountain.

“And to this day, I worship the wind, and revere the mountains. And I fart loudly, and long, when I eat. This is our origin myth. And,” Fray continued, crisply, “it is based to some degree on historical truth. For the archaeological records show that in the ancient eras our planet was racked with terrible storms that destroyed all the major life forms apart from us, the largest land animal, and the clumsiest. But we survived because we cowered in caves and scrambled among rocks and when we emerged the wind was stilled and the land was fertile again.

“I am an atheist; I do not believe in the god of wind, and the goddess of mountain. But I love this story. It has poetry and beauty.”

“It’s a fine story,” agreed Cuzco.

“Aside,” said Quipu One, “from the farting.”

The sun rose; I watched with delight. And I felt a surge of anticipation. For today was Day the First; the day on which I explore the rich and varied habitats of our world.

Ours is, it cannot be denied, a small planet, easily traversed in a matter of hours if you can swim the seas, which I can. Or if you can plunge through the murky suppurating swamplands, which I can. Or if you are nimble enough to traverse the thick forestlands, which I am. The mountains are steep, and few land creatures can clamber up their sheer cliffs, but I am one such. And the valleys are dark and gloomy and raging torrents fill them, but I am easily able to ride the stormy waters and descend the waterfalls.

Day the First has always been my favourite day; I simply travel, from one end of my world to the other. And I am always tired by the time I retire to my cabin, where every night I desperately strive, but fail, to sleep.

That night, I brought Sharrock once more with me to my cabin. And he listened, with intense attentiveness, as Doro told his tale.

Doro talked, with quicksilver speed, of the joys of metamorphosis.

“I am this, or Icanbethat,” Doro said.

“Stone rock sand sea plant animal twig bug bird metal or anything at all ifithasthesamebodymassasIdo. You all know this,” Doro added, still speaking so fast that I was never truly sure if I had heard him speak at all.

“Look, look at me, look at me as I change,” he said, and Doro became a shimmering ball of light; it took a real effort to realise he still existed in solid form beneath the glittering rays.

“And look, looklooklook again.” And Doro became a crack in the floor, a complex pattern that was like bared raw mortar and that would be overlooked by any except the most attentive or paranoid seeker-of-life.

“And again.” And Doro became a shadow; the shadow of one of Quipu’s heads.

“And again.” And Doro became a sound in the night, and for some reason we could not see him, we could just hear his Click Click Click as he echoed past us.

“I have no stories to tell,” Doro said. Rock, shadow, noise in the night.

“For I am the stories that I tell.” Crack in the floor, flash of faint colour.

“I am any thing and I am allthings.” A twig; a cloud in the sky.

“Am I real?” Doro was no longer there.

“Or am I not?” And Doro was there again, a small shiny rock once more.

“Is this in your mind?” A miniature lake, set amidst mountains.

“Or do I, yes do I, no askyourselfthis, can I, really transform myself so?” A diamond, glittering.

“Or perhaps it is both: I am inyourmind, and reallytrue, both at the same time?”

Doro shapeshifted; and spoke, and teased; and delighted; he was a magician. In truth, we knew nothing of him: he seemed to have no inner life, no philosophy, no ideas, no curiosity. But he was articulate, and certainly intelligent in his own peculiar way, and in the service of his own peculiar purposes; and the marvel is that no creature could ever hunt or kill a creature like Doro. He was unfindable, elusive, unkillable.

Only the Ka’un could ever hurt one such as Doro.

“Is this Doro?” A rock. “Or this?” A plant. “Or this?” And Doro became a small, angry lizard-like creature with a forked tongue and staring eyes.

“Or this? Is this Doro?”

As I led Sharrock back to his cell that night, he quizzed me on my friends, and their worlds, and their powers. He was animated; full of joy.

But it was, I feared, the wrong kind of joy.

“With the strength of Cuzco, the power and speed of Fray, the shapeshifting magic of Doro, there is nothing we could not achieve!” he ranted.

“You want to declare war on the Ka’un?”

“Of course. Would you expect anything else-of Sharrock?”

“It cannot be done,” I explained.

“Of course not,” he said soothingly, his eyes ablaze. “I would not dream of challenging the authority of our gaolers. I am happy indeed to be a slave.” I recognise the deceit in his words; he was humouring me.

“I had hoped,” I said sadly, “that meeting my cabin-friends would have taught you to be like us.”

He smiled. “I yearn to be like you Sai-ias. Your humility inspires me.”

His tone was warm, his words were gracious; yet I knew contempt for me was in his soul. I found myself resenting this puny creature’s arrogant sense of moral superiority. I was old, and wise; Sharrock was by comparison just a child.

“I have much more to teach you,” I told him.

“I look forward to it with ‘joy’ in my heart,” said Sharrock, smiling even more broadly, whilst tauntingly throwing my own word back at me.

I ushered him to his confining cell. Sharrock lay down upon his bunk and I stared at him a moment: his disproportionately large arms; his torso deeply striated with muscle patterns; his long black hair; his piercingly blue eyes. Sharrock had a way of being still in a fashion that conveyed boundless inner energy; he reminded me of the many four-legged predators that stalked through the forests, who lived only to hunt.