The Dark Water
S. J. Fraser
They were too busy to notice the storm, but even in the blistering midday sun there was no escaping its grip. The ocean rolled fiercely, crashing into the Maria with thunderous cracks, rocking the three-mast barque until waves climbed over the rails. The very air was charged with static, the horizon swallowed by black clouds, and a sticky, wet heat bore down against the rigging. But they didn’t notice. Not until it surrounded them, until the first crack of thunder directly overhead, the blinding flash of God’s watchful wrath splitting the sky. Then the clouds opened, rain falling as soft and light as holy water, soothing Orin’s welted arms and rope burnt skin and chaffing beneath the metal cuffs fixed around his wrists. But Orin didn’t notice them; his eyes were rapt with wild terror on the thrashing, hungry waves.
He had a breath to see them – blue, green, black; roiling with endless violence – one breath to gather himself, to prepare for the unpreparable. One breath to take it in – the laughter of the crew, like the distant, monstrous hyena, and their hungry grins and heedless hands. To see Captain Treat watching the clouds thicken, as if Orin hadn’t served him two and ten years through. One breath for final thoughts, words, curses, to think himself a martyr and feel the raindrops like God’s tears against his skin.
He wasted it on a scream, ripped from him without consent as he was hauled over the side and dropped into the sea. The ocean rose, wrapping around him as he fell then plunging him down – deep.
The world was suspended in dappled sunlight, fighting through the clouds above to sink around him like God’s outstretched hand. Fear fled from shock, giving Orin a heartbeat’s pause – just a moment of blurry, calm waters, of broken grey above him and endless blackness below. A heartbeat, loud against his ears, solitary in the muted world, but not a breath. Then the light faded, as if the storm had finally overthrown the sun, and gravity sunk in.
Orin knew the pull of a devil on his chains, dragging him down along greedy currents. Fear hit like a thunderclap, his final breath clogging his lungs like he’d swallowed an anchor. It demanded release, demanded respite, and Orin clawed desperately at the water.
The water didn’t seem to care.
His head spun, pain splintering through his ears and lungs, bile bubbling like a breath in his throat. His limbs grew numb, their strained movements thick – it hurt, it hurt – water sinking through his throat as his stomach fought to claw out, only knowing up because he was sinking down. The light of the sun, of air and sea and ship, burned as bright as the darkness at his feet. His whole body ached.
Then stillness. Peace. This was the end, Orin knew, this was the last – not breath, or heartbeat, or thought. Just the last. This was all he knew – all he’d ever known. The sea that had carried him from a cabin boy to first mate, to fortune and family, the sea that had swallowed him whole.
He hit the ground hard. Shadows of light danced across the metal cuffs, as indistinct as a ripple in a wave. Orin pushed himself up, breathing unsteadily, but breathing. The air was musty, damp against his wet skin, and cold. He stood in a tunnel, the very world washed blue like a ghost and the sky an open sea. Pillars came from the depth, broken patterns carved down their bodies and curling across the old sandstone floor. Orin’s hands were still bound, the chains heavier than he remembered, heavier without the panic.
A shadow passed underfoot, encasing him entirely, and he jerked his head up. A shark, or something in its shape, drifted far above. It was larger than anything Orin had ever seen; its body as long as the Maria, its soft-swaying tail a hurricane. Water dripped in its wake, singing on the sandstone.
A wind rose behind Orin, roaring through the tunnel and knocking him to his knees. He covered his ears against it, cursing the very god he’d prayed to only moments before.
Whatever hell he’d fallen to, it was coming for him. It was calling him, his name on the lips of that roar, at the heart of the echo. Orin staggered to his feet, peering back as if he could peel away the darkness and see the source of the wind.
Wind. Air. A tunnel full of breath. Orin stepped slowly, his bones heavy in the nothing, then the wind roared again, fiercer now, angrier. How dare he turn; how dare he go back! It buffeted him, clawed hands in his clothes, in the chains, dragging him along its wake.
Orin.
His name was softly called, inviting, familiar. It curled from deep within him, curled from the darkness the wind dragged towards. Then the wind eased; a gentle breeze through his damp hair, like his mother’s hand when he was a child. Orin turned, squinting along its path.
Orin.
He knew it, somehow, the voice and the wind. And it knew him as well.
He stepped into the darkness, down and down the black tunnel for what felt like forever. It never curved or sunk or dipped but stood as an endless straight the likes of which he’d never seen. The wind remained, a balm when his feet grew sore and his head spun. The call remained, not in his ears but in his heart, and he followed the blackness into what he knew would lead to sunlight.
Somewhere in the middle, he met the shadow calling him.
‘Orin.’ It said his name like a sigh, with a voice that was fond and full and deep. Indescribable, neither man nor woman and not mortal either. The wind blew again, a rustle in his hair, a clink among his chains, as the being above regarded him. ‘Your sins weigh heavy on your soul.’
Orin squinted through the darkness; the tunnel turned as black as the midnight sky and the figure within it was all but hidden. There was, perhaps, the hint of shoulders, as sharp and high as a cathedral, of great protrusions a ways above, two sweeping curvatures that slimmed into twin peaks. Then the darkness broke into a thousand pinpricks of light, all peering down at him. Orin dropped to his knees and raised his hands, his chains cold against his skin.
‘I have lived a holy life.’ The words choked him, a noose around his throat, but the air was fresh and it filled his lungs with Hell’s breath. ‘As much as any sailor. I have drunk, but I did not gamble – ‘
‘You killed,’ the voice replied.
‘When I had to. Never for pleasure.’
‘You have killed fathers,’ it said, a thousand lights blinking in and out of existence. ‘Sons. Pirates. Prisoners.’
‘The seas are rife with crime,’ Orin protested, hardly knowing how he dared. ‘And every man out there is a son.’
‘Doctors,’ the being continued as if Orin had never spoken.
Orin’s heart sank. He lowered his shaking hands, felt the noose tighten around his neck.
‘All to save yourself.’
‘I had no choice,’ Orin argued, his voice clogged and thick.
‘Rise.’ The darkness shifted, the wind lifting Orin’s chin, until he was faced with the stars and the nothing, with the pinprick of eyes high, high above him. ‘Do you know where you are?’
Orin’s throat worked but no words came. Those thousand lights blinked again, rippling like water. A shadow passed overhead, but this time Orin couldn’t look up, couldn’t crane his head to see the beast that cast it.
'I don’t.’
The nothing rumbled, the sound grating through Orin’s very being, rubbing raw against the edges of his soul and knocking him to his knees. He covered his ears, but the chains echoed, refusing to be silenced. Only when it stopped did Orin recognise it for what it was. Laughter.
‘You have entered the Dark Water,’ the figure said. A thousand lights, a thousand winds, the cry of Man in every word, and Orin shook with fear. ‘You sink no lower than here, and rise only by my will. Now, what choice did you have?’
‘He would have ruined us.’ Orin’s voice was a croak, water broken over the rocks. ‘He would’ve told the company… ’
‘His blood secured your secret,’ the figure laughed. ‘But you were sentenced all the same.’
‘I was helping them! The things they’ve done on that ship, out of British waters – the cargo – if anyone found out… ’
‘The things you’ve done,’ it sighed and its breath surrounded Orin. The chains grew heavier against his skin; he shook his head, his mouth shut, his soul bared. ‘I see them, Orin, I see it all. I see your cargo weeping, begging. I see your eyes turned wilfully blind to the suffering in your hold. The blood you spilled to hide it, the money traded at every port. I see all your dreams – the darkest, the coldest. You would not be here otherwise.’
‘I did what I had to.’ Orin pushed through his noose. ‘There was no changing Treat’s mind. There are dozens of first mates out there, to captains just as black, and any that don’t do as I did die.’
‘Yes,’ the nothing laughed, the lights blinking out entirely. There was a rush of air and Orin saw the blackness fold, curling down towards him, felt the putrid breath fill his lungs like fire. ‘But there are few who would sink so low just so they may dare to rise so high.’
Orin raised his chin, his jaw set. If this was his end, he would not go out bowed and snivelling.
‘I did what I had to,’ he said again, quiet and firm. He peered through the darkness, saw the edges of reaching hands scattered across the stone, and the fear that shot through him was as familiar as his wife’s flinch. His words wavered. ‘Say what he may, Treat knew to trust me; he couldn’t have earnt half his bloodied coins without my silence and my knife. The doctor – I regret what happened to him, but I have no regrets for doing it. We were almost home; we had no time for weak wills or nervy stomachs. There was no other option. I thought Treat knew that.’
‘I see you clearly,’ the being said, quiet as an ocean gale. ‘I do not mistake a black heart for madness, nor ambition for cruelty. Your fellows may do awful, inhuman things, but that is what humans do. You, Orin, have done worse. You have failed. What choice – yes, there was a choice, there is always a choice, and you knew that when you sharpened your blade. It was not their ruin you feared, and it was not their pockets you protected.
‘That is why you have sunk here. Rise, Orin. Greed may be a sin, but should ambition not be rewarded? They have condemned you for failing, perhaps rightfully so, but you will not fail me.’
‘I am dead,’ Orin said, the words planting themselves deep like an echo; the captain calling his sentence, the chains about his wrists. ‘How can I… ’
‘Embrace your greed and ambition. Rise. The sea will aid you and repay them for their crimes. I can offer a ship, a crew – I can offer all you wish.’
A thousand lights blinked above him, and Orin felt one spark in his chest, felt hope and fear and hunger – starving, clawing. His veins burned like a thousand jagged cuts and the chains fell from his wrists to the sandstone floor, dissolving into dust.
‘Take,’ the everything commanded, settling back into the darkness, no more than an echo, a glint of light. ‘And send your dues to me. So long as I am fed, you will be fed. Take, and sink a fifth of your cargo and my riches will enrichen you. Take, and if they kill you for it, know you will go to worse depths than this.’
And Orin knew then that the Devil stood before him, that the thousand lights weren’t eyes but teeth, and that his own had grown as well, like a tumour under his skin. The wind pulled sharply against him, sending him spinning freely through the dark tunnel, up through the water overhead, past hungry monsters that bit and snapped and clawed in his wake. Orin bared his teeth in turn, and laughed as he broke the water’s surface. His hands clawed up the prow of his ship, and his crew looked back at him; motley, rotten, their very bones exposed. The dregs of humanity, the dead and the hell-promised cowards, the failures and the sinners cast aside by mortal morals.
They were the most human of them all.
Orin turned towards the moonlight, pulled free his scope and scanned the horizon. The Maria was just in sight, her sails limp in the windless night. The clouds came over all the same, moving fast and bold across the horizon, until the darkness ate the water whole and left only the ship lights afloat.
‘Ready the ropes,’ Orin commanded, trusting the night to carry his orders. His stomach clenched, hunger gnawing at his bones, and when he grinned it was all teeth – the sharp teeth of sharks and lions, of hungry men hidden in distant woods – and his crew grinned around him. ‘We will feast tonight.’
Author Bio
S. J. Fraser is an Australia author who writes conflicted characters in fantastical settings. She’s an avid reader of literary fiction and fantasy. Her published works can be found in Macquarie University’s Grapeshot magazine. She also has three completed manuscripts she intends to publish.
