Nations on the Brink (storyline)/Bad Fish (vignette)

Old Grigg had been a fisherman for a long time, but he'd never caught a kraken before.

He peered at the water, his heart pounding in his throat even as his mind tried to tell him his eyes had fooled him. They hadn't seen a tentacle, writhing with countless suckers, grasping and twisting and clutching at his line. His hands, too, had been in on the trick: they had let go of his fishing rod, and it had thudded across the deck of his little boat before leaping overboard, yanked by great force.

“You’re wrong,” he told his protesting mind. "I done seen it, clear as day.”

He’d seen things before, out there on the waters. Some, he knew, were just the product of a night’s drinking. Grigg had always liked his brandy, even back when he hadn’t a son and grandson of his own, all sharing his name. There had been times, though, when he and Young Grigg had been out on the Bay, and they’d seen shadows move beneath the water. Little Grigg, who was scarcely old enough to talk, called them “bad fish” on the few times they had taken him out on the water, but Old Grigg knew of no fish that big or that swift.

There weren’t many fishermen who claimed to have seen a kraken. Sirens, sure. Krolvin pirates even. Claiming to have seen a kraken was a good way to be branded a liar, because everyone knew you didn’t walk away from a meeting with one of the masters of the deep.

He looked to the oars and shook his head. There was no out-rowing a kraken. They moved too swift. If one had taken a fancy to his boat, Old Grigg was a dead man already. Knowing that, realizing that there was nothing he could do to alter his fate, lent him a deadly sort of calm. He swallowed and stood up in the belly of the boat, careful not to rock it. He peeked overboard at the water.

What he saw wasn’t a tentacle, but an arm. A woman’s arm. It breached up through the water, pale and freckled and slender, followed by the rest of her. Instinct made Old Grigg avert his eyes. She wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.

He heard the slap of her hands against the hull of his boat, followed by a splash of water as she hoisted herself partially out of the water.

“Are you going to help me aboard?” she asked.

The woman’s voice sent a thrill through Old Grigg’s nerves that he hadn’t felt in some years. It was husky, more of a purr than a demand. He looked at her in spite of himself.

By Kai’s big swinging hammer, she was beautiful. The loveliest woman that he had ever seen, like her form had been plucked from the fantasies of his long-lost youth. Her hair wasn’t just ginger. It caught the rays of the dawn like spun copper, spilling in wet curls around her face. Her eyes were the sharp green of grass after a rainstorm. Old Grigg’s eyes lingered on the droplets of seawater as they traced the delicate curvature of her face, dripping to her chin, and–

He cleared his throat, remembering himself, and extended a hand. The woman took it, her grip surprisingly firm, her flesh warm in his own as she pulled herself overboard, favoring him with a white, straight smile. She was not tall, but she reminded him of a dancer, graceful despite the rocking of the small boat.

“My savior,” she said, laughing softly as if she had told a secret little joke.

“These are dangerous waters, miss,” said Old Grigg, hating that he sounded like an old man chastising a child. “Where’d you come from? Ain’t seen another boat out this way all morning.”

“What if I told you I was just out for a swim?” She smiled. Her cheeks dimpled.

Grigg’s face heated. “You’re having a laugh.”

“You poor man,” she pouted, and raised a hand to touch his cheek. The heat of her fingertips tingled over his blushing flesh. “I do not mean to be unkind. You’ve rescued me from those cold, dark waters, and I owe you my gratitude.”

Mollified, Old Grigg nodded. He slipped out of his heavy fishing jacket, extending it toward her while studiously avoiding looking lower than her chin. “Here. You’ll catch a chill.”

She chuckled again. “Sickness does not come from the cold,” she said, but took the jacket anyway.

Her fingers caressed the old hide, and then she draped it over her shoulders, leaving the buttons undone. To Grigg’s chagrin, the garment only made it more obvious that she was wearing nothing underneath. Her figure was overtly feminine, as if a sculptor’s perfect statue had come to life and stepped down from its marble plinth.

“Best we should make for Solhaven anyway,” Old Grigg said, not wanting to argue with her. With the way she spoke, he thought she might be some noblewoman. Perhaps she had fallen from a barge during a pleasure trip out on the Bay. Under his breath, he added, “The lads back at the Boar won’t believe this story if I tell it for a hundred years.”

The woman’s eyes sharpened, an inscrutable look upon her face. It passed like a dancing shadow, only to be replaced by another smile, white teeth showing from between full, red lips. “What a tale that would be,” she said, and she sounded rueful.

“I never asked your name,” Grigg said, stooping toward the oars.

“Your assistance should not go unrewarded,” the woman said, stepping toward him. Before Grigg could protest, she leaned in and put her lips upon his.

The kiss sent fire running along his veins. His heart thundered erratically in his chest. Old Grigg felt like a young man again, caught in the throes of the sudden passion that throbbed through him. All of his senses were alive as they had not been in decades. He luxuriated in the porcelain smoothness of her freckled skin, felt the caress of her copper hair as the sea breeze blew it around them, and filled his lungs with her scent. Saltwater clung to her skin, but she smelled sweet, like orchids in summertime mingled with the musky spice of amber. The jacket she wore smelled of old leather and a sour, old scent. Bad fish, he thought.

She released him, and he gasped in a breath, as much out of shock as for the need for fresh air in his lungs. The swaying of the boat suddenly made him dizzy.

“We should get back to shore,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. He did not speak of the kiss. Doing so felt like it might profane the strange, ethereal moment. Instead, he sat and took an oar in each shaking hand.

The woman nodded. There was an eager gleam in her eyes. He had mistaken the color. They were not the shade of grass after all, but a deeper green, like hard, cut emeralds.

Old Grigg began to push the oars with a steady rhythm. His old muscles protested at first, but as they warmed up, they began to settle into the work. Despite the chill of the sea breeze, he found himself sweating with the effort. He began to feel almost uncomfortably warm, and ceased in his rowing, his brow damp and dripping.

“Is something the matter?”

“No,” Old Grigg said. “I’m just old.” He scrubbed at his face with a callused hand. The skin there itched. He thought it might be from the sweat, but the itch worsened into a hot, stinging sensation.

“Are you?” asked the woman. She had that teasing look on her face again, as if she had said something very funny.

Grigg rubbed at his face again. The itching sting spread down his neck. He could feel the back of one hand starting to tingle, too, and when he looked at it, there were red welts across the skin. The sun was coming up, and its rays were hot and cruel against his flesh. Even the sea breeze could not cool him down.

“Something’s wrong with me,” he said. His voice came out clotted and thick from a throat suddenly hoarse and raw, as if he’d been screaming for hours.

The woman looked at him coolly. “Niatha.”

“What?” he asked, and it was barely a rasp. Old Grigg could feel the skin of his face and hands puffing up, raw and red. As he touched one cheek, his swollen hand came away red and wet with blood and other fluids.

“You asked my name,” she said. “It’s Niatha.”

He could not manage a response. A wheeze of air was all he could manage through his throat.

Nor could he look at the woman as she shed the jacket he had given her, casting it over the side of the boat with a sneer. Grigg’s eyes were drawn instead to his hands. They were covered now in blisters, yellow and black and spreading rapidly. The itching had turned to pain that swiftly grew unbearable, but his throat was too choked with mucus to cry out.

Heedless of his plight, the woman stooped and leaned over the edge of the boat. Her delicate fingers tangled in the morning mist and it surged toward her, writhing toward her in shreds and tangles. Up her arm the fog crawled like a thing alive. It took on form and substance and color as red deeper than the blood weeping from Grigg’s sores suffused it. Slowly it spread over her nubile form until she stood in a gown of dancing scarlet fog.

Niatha stepped over the dying fisherman, her eyes lighting up at the sight of civilization occupying the coastline to the east. Vornavis sprawled beneath a blanket of mist, morning bells tolling over the unsuspecting city.

“Onward,” she said, but no one was alive to hear.