Chapter 38
What Saer sought was unheard of by any locals he questioned.
The humans had familiarity with lightning and harsh weather in general.
Many interviews led to long, drawn-out tales of their own personal ‘worst storm.’ At first, he indulged their fancies.
After he’d listened to the same yarn for the dozenth time, Pride’s impatience broke through and he fell back on old habit, cutting off even the gentlest of reminiscing with a grating snarl.
The more time passed, the more irritable he became. Resentment crawled under his skin like poorly pressed velvet.
He gathered specific but few clues. Knowing the Twins spoke of this lightning phenomenon raised the likelihood of a coastal locale.
He’d explored many islands and shores on his original search for them, though certainly not all.
No matter where Saer searched, he failed to uncover a lake known for lightning.
He even revisited the coastal town where he’d last seen Alus and Arek.
They’d moved on.
Flying would have quickened the journey, though Saer had been truthful when telling the Twins he wished to remember Neyu, and he did best when wearing his human guise. It was not a choice which would have pleased Lucifer, and that almost made him cling to it more.
Months passed before he heard even a whisper of the lake of a thousand lightning strikes.
A whisper was all it took.
When Saer migrated from a more dignified society and meandered into seedier dwellings, lips ran looser, tales raised taller, and sparks of madness abounded.
In hindsight, it made perfect sense that the Twins would have learned about the lake in such a place.
Inside a public house on the docks, he overheard a crew mate of The Salty Maid regaling an equally disreputable and buxom lady about a bay southwest, across the great sea, said to be touched by the heavens hundreds, nay thousands of times from sunset to sunrise.
Anyone who drank this water would cure every ailment, years returned to their lives.
“Gi’me tonight, Sweetheart, and I’ll bring you back some once me and me Cap’n return from the voyage.
I’ll be bottlin’ up as much as I c’n carry! ”
The lady turned the sailor away once she’d realized he had nothing of true value to offer.
Saer had pinned him down and demanded an audience with Captain Wretch.
The Salty Maid was an impressive rig with three masts, a thick hull, and plenty of space for storage of both legitimate as well as more ‘adventurous’ cargo.
The ship boasted a topless temptress as the figurehead, carved lovingly from smooth lumber.
Pelham ‘Wretch’ Fletcher, captain of The Salty Maid, was arguably more cantankerous than Saer and certainly had the fouler mouth.
With tattoos of sea monsters, mermaids, thorny branches, and constellations covering both his burly arms, chest—and one apparent kraken tentacle sliding up the side of his neck to his jawline—the good captain invoked trepidation.
His thick and disparaging voice had roughened with whatever he happened to smoke on any given day through his scraggly, black beard.
Captain Wretch commanded respect, but if he couldn’t have that, fear would do nicely.
Perhaps it was why he and Saer got along so well.
Saer kept his head down, performing to the best of his station, and sniped at anyone who got in his way or did something to slow their progress. Captain Wretch appreciated when he saved him the trouble of pointing out idiotic mistakes made by the greener members of the crew.
Thus, he and the company of The Salty Maid embarked on the sixty-day voyage, bound for a shoreline Saer hadn’t set foot upon.
As each day passed, rather than waning, revenge sang in Pride’s core, thrumming so loudly he had trouble paying attention to anything else.
The more he heard the sea dogs trading accounts of their fabled destination, he knew, in his sinew and bones, it was where Errshek hid.
The fire in Saer’s blood had never burned more hotly than when he heard the barrelman holler from the crow’s nest, “Land ho!”
Together, the sailors on the upper deck turned to look in the direction the man pointed.
Cries of delight and back slaps exchanged amongst the lot.
A few dared to clap Saer on the shoulder and for once, he allowed it without an irritated glare or barking growl.
Staring into the western horizon, the setting sun glaring off the water, he could see the thinnest strip of green land.
Beyond that, darker periwinkle clouds hovered.
And lightning.
The Salty Maid coasted past a handful of smaller islands lush with greenery.
The ship drifted into a crescent-shaped bay as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky with vibrant washes of coral and fuchsia.
Along the coastline, patches of trees with golden trumpet-shaped flowers stole the attention of many of the crew mates.
Fewer, arenaceous plants sprouted from the sandy shoreline.
Saer’s eyes focused on the dark clouds flickering with blazes of ivory in the closing distance. Extending his heat sense as far as it would go, Pride caught no familiar signatures other than his immediate shipmates.
Captain Wretch stepped next to him on the portside deck and lit his pipe, then shook the remainder of the match out.
He spoke sideways between teeth clenched around the mouthpiece.
“Ye’ll return a rich man based off how much fuckin’ water I’m sure ye can carry.
” Inhaling enough to bring smoke in his mouth, Wretch held it, then blew out through lips and nostrils.
When Saer didn’t reply, he lifted a bushy sable eyebrow and turned halfway to observe his intent expression.
“It’s thanks to ye we got here quick we did. Ye know yer way about a fuckin’ boat.”
Staring into the glimmering and thunderous distance, Saer answered absently, “I know.”
Compliments were not often doled out by Wretch, so while he may have expected some modicum of respectful acceptance, Pride’s response threw him into a subdued guffaw.
“Aye, that sounds ‘bout right.” Slapping Saer on the arm, he moved off, muttering, “Staring at it won’t make the Maid get there faster. We’ll pull ashore soon enough, mate. Meantime, go rest.”
Saer didn’t respond as the captain lumbered away, nor did he move off the deck.
The bay narrowed to a thinner conduit of water, wide enough for their vessel to slip through, but not much else. Beyond that channel rested the lake they came for. The roll of thunder sang non-stop.
The boat would pull to land in that slimmer connection, and they would travel on foot to collect the lake’s water. Or rather, the rest of the sailors could collect the mythical liquid at their own peril. Saer had no interest in any quest other than his own.
The Salty Maid drew close enough that every few seconds, he sensed flares of something amongst the lightning, yet the bolts obscured any effort he made to try and home in on that otherness. It might have been Errshek. He couldn’t be sure.
Gritting his teeth, Saer dug his fingers into the deck railing and did everything he could to focus with more intensity.
Lightning bolt.
Bolt.
Bolt-bolt.
Something–lightning bolt.
“Damn it.” He bit out the words from behind a clenched jaw.
Again, the fleeting thought that he could fly, though he pushed it aside. He’d come this far in the form he wore, and he’d finish it as such.
If Errshek hid there, the hiding place was a clever one.
As twilight faded to true night, the thunder intensified, overpowering the sound of gentle waves lapping at the side of Captain Wretch’s vessel. The rest of the crew would either go ashore to find evening delights or turn into their own cabins after dinner.
Saer wouldn’t be among them.
Saer parted ways with the crew of The Salty Maid without announcement, clad only in his woolen hood and trousers.
Even Saer’s feet were bare—customary on any ship to avoid slipping on ropes and decks at sea.
Pride stalked the shoreline as flashes of lightning guided his way.
Along the southwest end of the lake the lightning seemed to be most consistent, right where a winding river drained into it.
While he couldn’t delineate Errshek from the cacophony of thunderbolts, it occurred to Saer, with a bitter curl to his lip, that Envy would be just as blind to his approach.
He hunted with a grace that would have made Wrath herself proud.
The first drizzles of rain speckled his skin, steam rising where it touched.
His heat sense remained activated despite the interference from frequent thunderbolts.
Saer’s quick pace slowed when the sprinkle expanded to heavier drops, edges of storm clouds directly overhead.
The initial tinge of ozone hovered in the atmosphere, like burnt chemicals in an alchemist’s lab.
He stepped into a thicket of ficus trees spotted with smaller orchid tendrils.
Undulating peals of thunder covered any cracking or crunching of his bare feet on the forest floor.
Above it all, the increasing rain, the rumbling sky, Saer’s thudding heartbeat pounded between his ears, the throb of it against his temples, in his hands, along each fingertip.
Slinking lower, he moved one tree branch, one fern aside at a time as he scanned left and right. Despite the lightning, his senses persisted in being pulled to one place. One spot.
One.
Consistent.
Essence.
Biting back the growl yearning to announce his murderous intent, Saer moved forward. His pupils dilated.
Everything he’d worked for, the time before his journey began, the trial with Runeak, the games with the Twins, the brutality he’d experienced in Kalia’s chambers—it all weighed on his shoulders.
A crescendo built, the height of his retribution symphony striking dissonant chords in the thunderous surroundings.
At last, Saer’s hands—shaking with adrenaline—pushed aside a final bushel of shrubbery.
Amidst bright flashes, a clearing splayed.
A modest canopy strung with sinew hung at an angle between the trunks of several trees.
There lay a circular series of large rocks just under the edge of the canopy, a fire pit with a moderate blaze at its center.
Next to the fire pit, a single stump had been placed.
Upon that stump, illuminated during the intermittent glares of lightning, sat the Sixth. The youngest brother of the Daemoenica, Envy himself.
Errshek.
Saer’s breath stuck in his throat, occluded by rage.
Errshek broke dried sticks and tossed them into the fire. He’d dressed his thin frame in a simple linen top and pants. The Daemoenic who tried to turn all his kin against him.
He inhaled, expanding the moment.
This time, when he let it out with measured slowness, he allowed a growl to boil over the ocean of control he’d kept leashed, timed between the rich echoes of thunder.
Errshek froze.
His olive eyes lifted, showing too much white. Saer stood, unhurried and seething.
Errshek opened his mouth to speak or scream, but Saer didn’t allow time for either. The boiling rage spilled over, the muscles in his face and neck aching with the strain. Pride thrust an arm forward and metaphysically gripped the core of Errshek’s heat with choking intensity.
He called upon the Lucifer-given hierarchical power of unmaking.
The spark tore a gasp from Errshek’s lips, and he doubled over.
The power and pain rooted him in place as Saer strode over with rancorous leisure, arm still outstretched.
Lips peeling back over his clenched teeth, he hissed, “Errshekenyarris, you will go nowhere beyond this clearing until I will it. By your true name, I command you.”
Through the anguish, somehow, Errshek sobbed while the charge sank into his bones.
Saer released his metaphysical hold.