Siren wasn’t sure she could take anymore. Her legs were aching and she was beginning to have trouble focussing on what she was doing. Her arm, where it had been plunged deep into the burning blood of the Grinder, was red and blistered, but, more worrying than that, she could see enlarged blood vessels beneath the skin, darker than the rest, carrying some poison into her system. It was the only explanation. She would never have got this tired from exertion under normal circumstances.
The corridor blurred ahead of her, but what did it matter, they all looked the same; same walls, same doors, same water-logged floor. She was getting nowhere and her mind was steadily starting to mirror her environment. She stumbled against a wall, tried to grasp at the damp stones and then slid pathetically to the floor, letting her knees sink beneath the water. She closed her eyes, trying to let a wave of dizziness and nausea pass and, as she did so, images of Ellis and Franck drifted by.
I have to find them, she thought desperately, I have to help!
Bit it was no use, she was losing grip on her mind, her consciousness was slipping away to be replaced by-
-dark waves rolling in from the ocean with a fresh breeze and the frantic cries of gulls. The sun was bright at its zenith, lending everything a warm, amber glow and the green of the sky reflected off the water at all angles, like emeralds lying half-buried on a plain of jet. Ships drifted to and fro, some visible only as the vague shadows of rigging on the horizon, others grand and proud as they sailed in to the harbour.
“Look at the ships, Mummy!” a small girl of maybe five or six called out as she tried to climb up a set of railing separating street from precipice. Her eyes were wide with excitement and her hair whipped around her head, long, fine and fair. Caught in the currents of air from below, it was turning into a chaotic sort of halo.
The girl’s mother responded by rushing over to her in a panic. Arms outstretched, voice quavering with maternal terror, she cried, “Klarise, get down from there, it’s dangerous!” and swept her up into a clumsy embrace. “You can’t do things like that, Klarise, darling,” she said as she hurried over to the other side of the street, pulling the girl away from the sea and the ships and the wonder, “what if you’d fallen over? What would I do then, huh?”
The mother smiled, but it was weak and did little to prevent the tears now forming in her daughter’s eyes.
“Now, now, don’t cry,” the mother began, patting Klarise on the back uncertainly, “you don’t want to see those ugly old ships. How about I take you past Lightbody’s and you can choose a new dolly? That would make you feel better, wouldn’t it?” She looked back up the hill, in the direction they had just come from and sighed, then she nodded to herself, ignoring her daughter’s wails and chatter about the grand vessels on display just past the harbour, and said, “Yes, that’s what you need: another dolly.” And then she started up the hill carrying young Klarise with her.
The little girl stared over her mother’s shoulder, keeping her gaze fixed on the sea and each rippling wave lapping against the hulls of the ships; splash, splash-
-splash. Siren jolted out of the memory as the shock of ice cold water hit her full in the face. She blinked, feeling the muddy liquid sting her eyes, and looked up drowsily at the tall, skinny figure leaning over her, little more than a stick-like shadow; out of focus, unrecognisable until it leaned forwards and a pale, lined face, topped with an appropriately tall and skinny top hat, peered intently at her own.
“Oh no,” the face said as it began to swim out of focus once more, “this won’t do-
-at all! What were you thinking? You can’t just leave me, not like this!”
Klarise’s mother was in tears, standing in the kitchen of their small house on one of Shadow’s myriad back streets, but to her teenage daughter, just recently turned fourteen, that was no more calming than was a red rag to a bull.
“You don’t understand, do you, Mother?” the young blonde sparked back, “This is what I want to do! I’m sick of pretending to be your little princess. I’m sick of dressing up in frills and selling flowers on street corners just so that you think I’m doing something appropriate with my life! On the Dawn Trader I have a chance to earn some serious money. Enough to buy us the things we’ve always wanted. Enough to move somewhere better! Why can’t you see that? I’m not just going to pick up a wealthy husband by looking pretty!”
“But it’s just not – you’ll be leaving me alone! How can you talk of looking after me if you’re not going to be here?”
“If I stay here much longer we’re going to tear each other apart, and I don’t want to do that, mother. I just can’t live in this dreamworld you’ve created for yourself.”
“How dare you say that! I brought you up the way my mother raised me! I’ve only been trying to do what’s right by you. I’m just trying to raise you as a lady!”
“As a lady? If Grandmother’s ideas were so right, how come Father is nowhere to be seen? Why do we have no money? Did he just pick you up on a street corner when you were selling flowers? Doesn’t seem so respectable to-”
The slap echoed around the small kitchen like a gunshot.
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, Klarise. Don’t you dare! Things haven’t always worked out for me, but I’ve been doing my best to make sure you have the best life you can, to see that you don’t end up the same way I did, but if you want to throw yourself to the wolves, then so be it. Get out of my house!”
Klarise rubbed her hand against her cheek, feeling the sting of the slap linger on like the burn of a branding iron. She blinked away the tears that threatened to pour down over it, perhaps to steam off as they went, and then she nodded, once, firmly.
“Sure,” she said, her voice stone, ice, steel, “Goodbye, Mother.”
She turned and walked out into the early morning darkness, leaving the door swinging on its hinges, creaking once as the wind caught it and then-
-slam! Again Siren found herself jolted awake, but this time she was lying down and no longer surrounded by the muddy waters of ancient aquaria. Her vision was still out of focus, but she could tell she was in a much larger space than the corridor. The slamming sound had come from somewhere to her left and, wearily, she lifted her head to see what had made it. She could barely make out any details, but again the stick-like shadow could be seen moving about, muttering under his breath as he advanced across the room.
“What-” she began, trying to communicate with the figure and get the answers which seemed to unbearably elusive to her right then, but nothing else would come out. She tried again, “What are you-”
The figure stopped.
“What am I doing?” it asked, then, saving Siren the trouble of speaking again, continued, “I’m trying to find the secret passageway into the basement. There was a legend surrounding the disappearance of the Silverspire, one of many, which suggested that some of its occupants may have survived if they managed to make it into the basement where there was bunker of some sort with something like a Holtzmann cage surrounding it to stabilise the immense amounts of hypostatick energy which must have been involved.
“Most Philosophers thought it was just nonsense – mere wishful thinking – and doubted that any technology like that invented by Holtzmann could possibly have existed ten thousand years ago, but I have sources which suggest otherwise.
“More importantly, I have the key!”
Siren couldn’t really understand what any of this meant, but at this moment she saw the blurry figure turn away again and face the wall, “Now if only I could find the right bloody stone!”
The muttering began again and Siren felt herself drifting off, back to the gentle rise and fall of her breathing like the-
-soft swell of the ocean waves beneath her feet. She ran her hands over the wooden balustrade which lined the deck and stared down at the slick black water as it caressed the hill of the Golden Lady of Surestay, the third merchant vessel she had joined in the last four years. Of all of those ships, this one had been her favourite. She had seen more ports, more ocean and more new horizons on this vessel than on any other and it had become, over the last two years, her home.
She raised her eyes to see the harbour, bristling with masts and webbed with rigging, drawing near beyond the fo’c’sle. It had been over three years since she last saw this particular port, her old home. She had left it behind in the shadow of a storm, though the skies had rarely been more clear. Her fingers tightened around the wood as she remembered that departure.
“Shalereef,” said a voice behind her and she waited for the shadow of the older man to fall beside her, “this is where you’re from, right?”
She watched him out of the corner of her eye. The slightly grizzled captain of the Golden Lady was often stern, but if you worked hard for him he would treat you like family. He was the closest thing to a father that she had ever known.
“Yes,” she replied at last.
“You sound reluctant.”
“I suppose I am.”
“Well, we’ll be here a few days,” he said, turning away, “you might want to take advantage of that.”
Klarise sighed and closed her eyes. In that darkness it was just another harbour, filled with the creak of rigging and the cry of gulls. As long as she stayed were she was and didn’t open her eyes the illusion would be complete.
She opened-
-her eyes. She was moving, staring down at a grimy floor of uneven stone and the lanky legs of a man. She was draped over someone’s shoulder. To left and right the walls were close in and the narrow passageway seemed to be descending into darkness. A green glow appeared to one side and as she looked over to that side she could see a thing hand holding a tube of green light.
She groaned.
“Oh, awake again are we?” came the voice of her escort. “That poison is really keeping you under, isn’t it? Well, don’t worry, I’m sure once we get into the basement there’ll be something I can use to create an antidote and you’ll be right as-
-rain poured out of the sky in torrents. It gathered in gutters and ran in streams down the sides of the street. It turned every cobble slick and dark and matted Klarise’s hair against her face as she stood facing the once-familiar doorway at the end of Harlequin Close. She had been staring at it for at least ten minutes now and it had been raining since she left the Flying Fastjaw Inn by the harbour, a good half an hour away on foot. Water ran down her forehead, pooled in the corners of her eyes, flooded down her cheeks like tears. She reached out a hand, ghost-like in the gloom, and let it rap against the wood. It sounded hollow, damp, cold.
No answer.
The second knock was louder, but still no response came.
She stepped back, staggered a little – maybe she’d been drinking most of the evening and maybe that was the only reason she had built up the courage to come here – righted herself. She didn’t knock a third time, instead she stepped back again and then ran at the door, kicking out at it just as she got in range. She let out a scream that echoed around the small close and almost masked the sound of splintering wood as the lock broke.
Pushing the damaged door aside, she stepped into the dark of the house and knew immediately that something was wrong. It was the smell that gave it away. The smell and the creak of the-
-rope made her stir once more. She was no longer draped over the man’s shoulder, but propped up against the wall in the narrow passageway like a ragdoll. The tall, stick-like man was a few feet away, a blurry shadow amidst green light, tugging at a rope to lift a heavy wooden door which blocked the rest of the passageway. He was muttering as he did so, but all Siren could hear was the creaking rope as it worked its way through the mechanism of the door.
“She’s dead,” she moaned, tears springing into her already unfocused eyes, “I killed her…”
And that was when the whispering started.
FIRST EPISODE
AUTHOR COMMENTARY: This and the episode immediately following it, 'Chained to the Mast' were probably my favourite episodes to write so far. It was a great opportunity to step outside of the immediate threat and explore one character in a bit more depth. The style it's written in is one I've used before, rather inspired by the style of Stephen King's 'IT', if truth be told, but I think it works well here to make the division between flashback/fever dream and reality seem a little more seamless and, I hope, it helps us to get inside Siren's head a bit more.
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