Ellis
slept through most of the journey back to Tentacle Lane, only dragging himself
up to wakefulness to climb out of the Skyboat and make the journey back to the
‘Grand Chateau’, and even then he fell asleep again as soon as he was able to
snuggle down under the covers of his borrowed bed in the East Wing. He slept soundly and did not dream.
It
was late morning when he finally rose from his bed and stumbled down the stairs
to have breakfast. A table had been
laid out in the dining room, covered in all kinds of edible delights, and, as
Ellis was staring at this fine spread, there came the whistling of a teapot
from the kitchen.
Poking
his head around the corner, he saw Siren lifting the teapot off the stove
before turning back to a frying pan where some bacon was just beginning to
sizzle away. She looked as comfortable
with this domesticity as she did with a blade in her hands. She had also clearly recovered well from her
crossbow injury, thanks to a little extra hypostatick help from Sydney and the
Former Baron.
“Good
morning,” he said, “smells good!”
“Thank
you,” the pirate replied with a smile, “I thought we could all use a decent
meal to start off this particular day.”
“Tell
me about it. I could eat a horse!”
“I
think I beat you then, I could eat a whale!”
“Well
I could eat a… what do you have on this world that’s bigger than a whale?”
“Not
a lot.”
“Actually,
I don’t think my world has anything bigger at all.”
“Not
even Brontopods?”
“Are
they like Dinosaurs?”
“Dino…
Saurs… that’s… terrible lizards?”
Ellis
shrugged.
“Well,
Brontopods aren’t lizards,” Siren concluded.
“What
are they, then?”
“Brontopods
are… Brontopods!” She laughed and Ellis
blushed a shade of red bright enough to make Siren look slightly
shame-faced. “I’m sorry,” she said,
“it’s just so hard for me to imagine someone not knowing what a Brontopod
is. They’re so huge; you can’t miss
them!”
“Well
then, you’ll have to show me one sometime.”
“You
only get them in the equatorial belt of the city, where the houses are built
into the canyons and the Brontopods have free reign on the surface, but, yeah,
why not? If we get a chance, that’d be
kinda fun.” She turned her attention
back to the strips of bacon in front of her and examined them with a critical
eye, prodding them with a wooden spoon.
“These are done. Do you want
some?”
“Yes,
please!”
“Then
go sit down and I’ll bring it through for you.
Tea?”
Ellis
nodded enthusiastically before disappearing back into the dining room and
taking a seat at the table. A moment
later Siren came through carrying a tray, upon which were two plates of bacon,
toast and a steaming teapot. She placed
it on the table, took a seat beside Ellis and then grinned devilishly as she
said, “tuck in!” He needed no further
instruction.
The
bacon was delicious, as was the oddly coloured fried egg which lay beside
it. Ellis considered asking Siren which
type of bird might be responsible, but decided not to risk it. It tasted good and that was enough. Once he had cleaned his plate (and that only
took a matter of minutes) he began to pick his way through the other items on
the table, happily helping himself to slices of toast and pots of brightly
coloured jams, jugs of juice and strange, twisted pastries covered in
sugar. He didn’t stop until he was
quite full.
“I’m
impressed,” Siren said into the sudden rush of dusty silence, “I didn’t think
you could have that much of an appetite, but I was clearly wrong.”
“Well,
I don’t usually. I try to watch my
weight in fact, but, well, I couldn’t resist.”
“The
last few days have been tough for you, haven’t they?”
“Well,
I’m not the only one, right?”
“I
suppose… I don’t really want to think about my experiences.”
“Well,
it’s the same for me, but I can’t really help it. Everything’s still so new for me here and as long as I’m not
safely back home there’s no way for me to not think about it. I’m still living it.”
She
shuffled her chair a little closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m
sorry. If I could find another way for
you to go back, I would. As it is, I’ll
do everything I can to help.”
“Thanks,
but I’m not sure it’s really that simple.
I mean, my feelings for this world are so messed up. So much of it has been an utter nightmare,
but it’s been exciting in its own way – different, you know? – and I’ve met you
and the Former Baron and I’d like to think that we’re maybe friends now and…
well, things at home weren’t all that great…”
“It’s
never simple, is it?”
“Huh?”
“Life,
I mean.”
“Oh. Well.
No, I guess it isn’t.”
“But
we keep on, don’t we?”
“I
suppose we do. And that’s what I’m
going to do. I’ll just keep on living
here until things change and I’m not going to worry too much about how, or when
that’ll happen.”
Siren
took a moment to get out of her chair, before bowing in front of Ellis, “Well
then, let me be the first to welcome you properly as a citizen of Shadow, Mr.
Graves.” She held out her hand and
smiled.
“Should
I be so quick to take the hand of a pirate?” he asked with a cheeky grin.
“Why
not,” Siren said, trying not to laugh, “she’d take yours in a pinch – and your
wallet whilst she was at it!”
“Well,
since I don’t have any money,” he reached out his hand to take hers and was
surprised by how soft and warm it was.
Almost instinctively he found his thumb moving to caress it and then he
blushed. Siren did the same and then
they loosed hands and looked away from one another.
“I..
uh…,” Ellis began, desperately searching for another topic of conversation, “I
haven’t seen any sign of the Former Baron this morning. Is he up?”
“Um,
no, not yet. He was really drained
yesterday after healing me. I think he
really overdid it this time.”
“Oh,
maybe we should bring some food up to him or… or something.”
“I
checked on him before I started on the bacon and he seemed very peaceful. I don’t think we should disturb him. He really deserves his rest.”
“Well,
then, what should we do? We can’t just
sit around here, can we?”
“You’re
itching to get out and explore, aren’t you?”
Ellis
shrugged, “well, after a couple of days in forests and dungeons, I’d like to
see a little life.”
Siren
smiled, perhaps a little mischievously, “I know just the place,” she said.
They
managed to hail a cab from the end of Tentacle Lane with surprising ease, given
how busy it was. Ellis had barely been
out in the city when it was awake and not hiding from Grinders and he still
couldn’t quite get used to how much was going on at any given time. The cobbled streets were full of stalls and
pedestrians and yet, somehow carriages and cabs managed to weave their way
through the crowds and disappear off down less crowded lanes at surprising
speeds.
Siren
asked the cab driver to take them down to the harbour and Ellis watched with
barely contained excitement as the cab veered into the street and pointed
downhill towards the forest of masts rising up over the jet black ocean.
“Are
we going to some sort of pirate place, then?” he asked, before noticing the
driver flinch in the front seat.
“You
could say that,” Siren replied with complete disregard for the driver’s nerves,
“it used to be my favourite hangout, but I haven’t been there for a while.”
“Is
it fairly wild?”
“Well,
by pirate standards,” the driver’s eyebrows raised, “it’s quite tame, but I’m
not sure what you’ll make of it.”
Ellis
laughed, “I’ve survived ‘The Dungeon’ in Larksborough, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Larksborough
has a dungeon? I was beginning to get
the impression that our worlds had nothing in common!”
“Er,
well, it’s not really that kind of dungeon.
I mean, okay, so it’s full of sweaty tired drunkards trying not to throw
up and the music does occasionally border on a kind of torture, but-“
“Sounds
like a dungeon to me.”
“Yeah,
but this place is kind of… voluntary.”
“People
incarcerate themselves?”
“No,
they can come and go as they please.
They choose to go there. It’s
like a bar or a tavern, only there’s dancing and… not a lot of light and maybe
more alcohol.”
“I’m
sorry, I’m confused, is it like a dungeon or like a tavern?”
“I
guess it’s like both.”
“Your
world is weird, clown boy.”
“Don’t
I know it…”
The
cab journey was fairly brief as the driver seemed to take all kinds of risks to
get his passengers to the harbourside as quickly as possible. He looked quite panicky as Siren handed over
the correct amount of money and then seemed all too eager to ignore him,
choosing instead to stare at the hundreds of ships which lined the many quays
of the harbour, seemingly fighting for space in their berths.
Ellis
hadn’t got a very clear impression of the harbour that morning as it had still
been dark when Sydney’s Skyboat had landed.
Now he could only marvel at the sight.
He had never seen so many masts and sails before, nor had he seen so
many different kinds of ships. There
were shapes and sizes that he was sure had never appeared in any fleet on
Earth. There were ships which seemed to be made entirely out of jet, blending
seamlessly with the black liquid of the ocean, and others which seemed almost
blade-thin and streamlined to move like lightning across the waves. One or two vessels were as large as any he
had ever seen, but rather than being made out of steel, they were made out of
wood and iron like all the other ships in the harbour. How such vast ships could sail, Ellis did
not know, but given the fact that their hulls and decks were encrusted in
pipework, he suspected that hypostatick energy might be involved.
“Come
along then,” Siren called from the other side of the wharf, “you can stare at
ships later. The Maelstrom’s Heart
is this way!”
Ellis
turned on the spot, finding himself a little dazed, and watched as Siren
laughed and began walking along the wharf, past a colourful and decrepit array
of shops and bars towards a dark, almost gothic building at the end of the
block. He ran after her, matching her
steady stride once he had caught up until they were outside that gloomy pile of
stone. Above them a creaky sign
displayed a decaying galleon being sucked into the greenish depths of a
swirling whirlpool in a storm. Gruff
voices echoed out in laughter and shouting from the other side of a wood-wormed
door and the dust-caked glass of an ancient window.
“Is
this the place?” Ellis asked, uncertainly.
“Nowhere
better,” Siren replied and then she pushed open the door and slipped inside,
leaving Ellis outside, suddenly feeling very cold and unsure.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY: This little slice of domestic life was a delight to write. It's true that it doesn't progress us very far, but I think plot-lite character moments like this, where it's all banter and relationship building are necessary to help us get to grips with the characters and the world before we're whisked off onto the next adventure. As you can see, the Siren and Ellis relationship is still slowly building, but if you think it's two slow, do remember - they've only known each other for a couple of days and Ellis has, relatively speaking, only just split up with his girlfriend. Give them time...
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