Chapter 18
Shen was sitting at the end of the stone peers when Loxy joined him. He acknowledged her presence with a dopey smile, like someone who had been smoking a week’s worth of cannabis- minus the paranoia. When it came to cannabis, Jon would claim to be unaffected, except for the munchies. The truth of it for him was more complex. This wasn’t cannabis- but it felt similar in some ways.
“You doing okay?” TL asked.
“Yeah, I am great,” Shen asked. “How are you?”
“Fuck, you’re still high as a kite,” TL said.
“No, no,” Shen said. “I am just sitting here resting my bones, this loneliness won’t leave me alone…”
“Well, come on, Otis,” TL said. “We’re ready to head out.”
“Oh,” Shen said. He stood. “I should go say goodbye.”
“What?”
“I am going to stay here,” Shen said.
“The hell you are,” TL said.
“I have gone two thousand miles just to make this dock my home,” Shen said.
TL snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Wake the fuck up, Jon. You’re not a Jedi. You’re not going to tame that beast.”
“She’s lonely,” Shen said.
“Loneliness is an illusion,” TL said.
“A deadly one. I can help her,” Shen said.
“Help yourself first,” TL said.
“She loves me,” Shen said.
“She wants to eat you!” TL said.
“Oh, it’s mutual then,” Shen said.
TL slapped him. “Snap out of it.”
“You seem angry,” Shen said.
“Getting there,” TL said.
“There is a gate in Sinter that can take me home,” Shen said.
“We could go home. I need her to get there. I need her to operate the gate.”
“She lied,” TL said.
Shen seem confused. “Why would she lie to me?”
“Because she wants you dead,” TL said.
“I can’t die,” Shen said. “I am immortal.”
“What?”
“Think about all the worlds we’ve been in together,” Shen said. “All the past lives. Me, but not me. Here, but not here. She can’t hurt me. No one can hurt me.”
Loxy grabbed him by the shirt, and before he knew it, he was laying on his back and she was on top of him, knee pushing into his chest. She held his uniform tightly, commanding it to constrict. Landing on his back had taken out his air. He couldn’t expand his lungs. He couldn’t move his limbs.
“Do I have your attention now? You can die. You are not immortal,” TL said. She looked deeper into his eyes. “Back off, Jazmyne. You have no authority here.” The both hear a whispery voice respond: ‘if I can’t have him, no one cane. Jon, Shen I love you to death…’ “Jon!” TL shouted over the whisper. “Step up. 3, 2, 1… Now!” She snapped her fingers.
Shen’s eyes focused. There was fear. He couldn’t gasp. TL eased up her grip, allowing him to breathe, but kept him from struggling. When he had his full wits and air, she let go. He got up, took in the environment, avoiding TL’s eyes. The ocean heaved around him and the dock and he was nearly sick. He closed his eyes and hugged TL. “I have finally lost it,” Shen said.
“For believing someone might help you? For wanting love?” TL asked. “That’s not a fault. That’s hope. Come on, let’s go.”
Shen silently agreed, accepting her hand. They walked together. He paused to look back at the city.
“Jon,” TL said.
“It has occurred to me, she has a light saber now,” Shen said.
“Yeah,” TL said. “But that’s all she has. I was able to disable everything else.”
“The psychic amplifier?” Shen asked.
“Time to go,” TL said.
“Okay,” Shen said.
It took effort to walk away. His legs felt weak as if he had been sick with fever for a week. They were still close enough to the ocean that its movement bizarrely affected him- his awareness of its swells seemed surreal, as if it was the parachute game and he was an island that others were trying to dislodge. TL hugged his arm and leaned into him. “I love you.”
“Why?” Shen asked. He stopped. He couldn’t get the ocean out of his peripheral without traveling in the wrong direction. TL wouldn’t let him change course. He resisted the urge to be sick. “No. It’s not the right question. Better: why do I question you but I don’t question Jazmyne?”
“Because what I give you is love and freedom,” TL said. “She give you love and death. Being loved to death is in no one’s best interest, neither the one coveted, or the one coveting. Both remain equally lost.”
They weren’t thirty minutes out from land, first by rows, then orientated to catch a wind, and driving up and down waves, when Shen was taken by his sickness. He hurled over the side of the boat. He held his position. He heard laughter, but was too sick to care. TL tried to comfort him, patting his back, and offering him water to rinse.
“How about a Dramamine?” Shen asked.
“You just experienced a psionic attack, and slept twelve hours,” TL said. “Not giving you that. This will pass.”
Torny came round and gave him a stick to chew on. She was very forceful in communicating: ‘this will help.’ TL shrugged, told him to listen to her. He chewed on it. It had a feel and taste of cinnamon. He recovered shortly after.
“What’s in this?” Shen asked TL.
“Nothing harmful,” TL said.
“But what’s in it?” Shen insisted.
“It’s working,” TL said. “Let it be.”
He stood, took inventory of himself and his surroundings. Erico was sleeping. Jerica was attending to a crow with blue eyes, which she made airborne. She closed her green eyes and oriented forwards, arms out, catching the wind as if she were the crow- as if she were Kate Winslet’s Rose. “Bird’s Eye View leaves my head…” a snippet of a song told him what she was doing and how. He felt the stirring of lust and realized he had recovered and turned to find something else to occupy him. TL smiled at him and his urgency transferred from Jerica that quickly. He felt embarrassed and wanting simultaneously.
“There is a place in the hold if you want to play,” TL offered.
“No,” TL said.
“Virtual play?” TL asked.
“No,” TL said.
“Might help shake her off,” TL offered.
Arne and Torny came to engaged him. Some of the crew gathered in ear shot.
“Welcome back, stranger,” Arne said, hitting his arm.
“I feel like I have been sick in a fever dream for weeks. I am forgetting something important,” Shen said.
“That’s normal,” Torny said. “Your ordeal was much more severe than you imagine. I know of no one who has ever gone up against a fully grown daughter of Hel and remained themselves.”
“Hel?” Shen asked
“The psychic plant succubus chic,” TL said. “Lanore called them Fermon, they call them Hel. Hel, Viking goddess of the underworld. Persephone Plant. I have also seen reference to her as Hecate, Ninkigal, and Irkalla, though technically Irkalla is the place Ninkigal resides, and where you go when she takes you. The statues on the island where we encountered her were Shala and Nakasi. All of them hold connections with the Earth, water, and the underworld.”
Shen shrugged. “I have encountered worse.”
“No,” TL said. “You have not. You’re human, Jon. You’re not going to go up against a telepath and coming out unscathed. Especially not that one.”
“I have come up against lesser plants,” Arne said. “That one must have been a thousand years old. I think the only thing that saved us was your magic sword.”
“And its obsession to hold you,” Torny said.
“It wants tech,” TL agreed.
“I have heard that they can get fixated on a person, objectify them to the point they will enslave them instead of eat them,” Torny said.
“To what ends?” Shen asked.
“To maintain a constant source of meat,” Arne said. “To make you the progenitor and the bearer of her seed. Hel must have human seed to procreate daughters.”
“They can create psychic avatars but can’t deliver their own seed?” Shen asked.
“If by avatars you mean spirits, yes. The plants have a limited range of projecting. A human can extend their range. They take form from the mind of human and they push that,” Torny said. “That avatar tends to be infertile. Sometimes, if they are particularly obsessed with union, as she seemed to be with you, they can produce hybrids- that is another way to extend their range.”
“They don’t like hybrids. They have their own minds and can be as equally manipulative as any human or plant for their own agendas,” Torny said.
“In many ways, they are like the Sleeper Tree. They are the gatekeepers to the underworld. They can offer insight,” Arne said. “They can lie,” TL said.
“Oh, they can lie,” Arne said. “Many men have gone to lie with her kind, and not gotten up.”
“Men are stupid,” Torny said.
“They’d tear up a melon if you shape it right.”
“A cored fruit can be fun play,” TL said.
“You’re trying to change the subject?” Arne said. Shen seemed distant.
“She’s still calling you,” Torny said.
“They’re sentient,” Shen said.
“I don’t know this word, but if it means they’re awake, yes. They are aware and they know. They like to sleep, but once awake, they’re on. If they eat a goat, they have the awareness of a goat. Ghostly goats will come forth, calling for more goats. If it eats an Irk, it will call Irks. If eats a human, it wakes up super bright. The more humans it consumes, the smarter it gets. Stop feeding it, its intelligence wanes in time. It goes back to sleep.”
“That’s scary,” Shen said.
“Not as scary as the rumor that a person devoured will tarry there, captive in a shared dream with the plant for a thousand years,” Arne said.
“That’s nonsense,” Shen said.
“That’s Star Wars,” TL said. “Where do you think Lucas stole it from?”
“What’s a star?” Torny and Arne asked.
Shen and TL continued on, without addressing stars. “There is no way a person could live a thousand years. You’d die as soon as you’re swallowed.”
“Not according to Preston G Waycaster,” TL said.
“That’s fiction,” Shen said.
“Our present reality juxtaposed to his explains my understanding of it.” TL said. Shen heard ‘scans’ instead of ‘understanding.’ “It eats flesh, usually whole. Once swallowed, the creature arrives in an oxygenated, digestive liquid. That means, they won’t drown while they’re being digested. Filaments along the inner wall, not only carry and position food, but connect to the food, like tiny umbilical cord to ensure continued blood flow if the heart stops. The plant shares and maintains the blood flow, replacing it with hers. They remain alive while being digested. Nerve cells are not digested. They’re preserved and moved. The whole nervous system is moved as one thing, kept intact- stimulated by plant and one with plant, for shared processing. If I assume the combination of all the nerve cells are from things it has eaten, intermixed with its own, then it will hold all the memories of everyone it has ever eaten. Over time, personality boundaries would fade and the super personality become a gestalt of all consumed. A super computer comprised of multiple functioning, bio-organic brains.”
“They are one with the plant, forever,” Torny said.
“Did I say that’s fucking scary,” Shen said.
“And you want to go back to that,” TL said.
“I do?” Shen asked.
“You’re still in danger of being summoned,” Torny said. “Only distance and time will relieve you of this burden.”
“That, and Loxy’s love and magic,” Arne said. “I have never met anyone who recovered from the call of a Siren so quickly. Bedding Loxy would help shift your focus away from the other.”
“Yes, bedding her would hasten your relief, if she can tolerate you. People under the spell of Hel can find an unquenchable appetite and increased endurance,” Torny said.
“Why, yes, Jon. You should bed me now, or lose me forever,” TL said.
Shen frowned at her.
“Oh, I like that,” Torny said. “Would you care if I use it, too?”
“Sure, why not,” TL said. “It is copy righted, but in this context, it’s just fun movie quotes.”
“Movies?” Arne asked.
“Copy righted?” Torny asked
“Information considered privileged by someone who thought they were so clever they needed to profit from sharing because they may not originate anything else,” Shen said.
“Nothing new under the sun,” Arne said.
“If the plant thing is so crazy dangerous, why didn’t we kill it?” Shen asked. “You want the list?” TL asked. “You never kill a telepath when it’s holding its prey. You kill a vampire while it’s attached to a neck of a victim, you kill the victim. They’re also very difficult to kill. Killing the surface of it won’t kill it. Scorched earth policy will cause it to retreat deeper into the earth. These creature enmesh itself into the surrounding ecosystem. A nuclear bomb might kill it, but you’d be taking out everything on the surface and in the earth with it. If one cell of it survives, it will eventually return. Even if you kill all animals and insects, it will return. As long as there is a sun, it will live. Also, you kill everyone it has ever consumed- they’re in there, still. They are not recoverable with our present tech. I suppose if she were agreeable, she could ‘tulpa’ them out and they maintain a semblance of autonomy…”
“Then we have to go back and reason with it,” Shen said.
“Yeah, because you were clearly rational enough to negotiate,” TL said.
“Brother, once she illuminated, you dimmed,” Arne said.
“It can draw on your intelligence,” Torny said. “When fully entrained, it sees what you see. It knows what you know.”
“It didn’t try to kill Arne,” Shen said.
“Not while it was focused on slaving you,” Arne said. “Killing me might have broken your trance.”
“Jon, stop trying to figure this out. Let it go. The encounter is over. We are safe,” TL said.
“And I am grateful to you,” Arne said. “Erico, Jerica, and I owe you and Loxy our lives.”
“There is no debt here,” Shen said. “I am grateful you helped me. This is a wash.”
“A wash?” Torny said.
“Balance,” TL said.
“You spin the strangest phrases,” Torny said.
Shen removed the thing he was chewing on. “What’s in this?” Shen asked.
“I promise, it’s not Lotus stems,” Torny said.
“We should go back there,” Orton mumbled in the background.
“That shit will kill you,” Arne said.
“I bet it’s okay if we smoke it,” Orton protested. “You could have let me keep the leaves.”
“I swear, Orton, the longer we’re away from home, the stupider your men get,” Torny said.
“They’re not drinking from led cups, are they?” TL asked.
“No! What kind of barbarian drinks from led?” Arne said. “Everyone knows that will kill you.”
“There has to be something in this,” Shen said.
“It has no medicinal value,” TL said. “Though, I see variety of ways to use it in food preparation.”
Shen seemed puzzled. “So, it’s a placebo?”
“Placebos work,” TL said.
His color was changing before them.
“Go feed the fish,” Arne said, turning him quick and shoving towards the spot. “I am fine,” Shen said. He changed his mind with a frown and ran back to his position, hanging his head over the ship.
“Fish have eaten well today,” Orton said.
“Yeah,” Torny said. “I remember your first days at seas.”
“Not fair. Those seas were rough,” Orton said. “The fish were sick that day…”
Shen woke to find TL sitting near him. He thought he had felt something, a shudder. He thought the ship was crashing. His head was in her lap, and he was covered with a blanket. He bolted upright. The darkness unsettled him. There were pitch fueled lights about the ship. If he hadn’t felt and heard the water, he might have thought they were on a movie set, in a dark studio, or a cave. TL was stroking his hair.
“Shh, it’s okay,” TL him. “It’s just whale song.”
“Eh?” Shen asked.
The vibration came again. An eerie sound, changing in pitch could be heard and he recognized it for whale song. He laughed. The sound resonated with the ship, as if it were a sound box for a musical instrument.
“I never thought I would experience this,” Shen said.
“The oceans of origin are pretty noisy,” TL agreed. “Whale songs have changed because of noise pollution.”
“We can’t see the stars because of light pollution, we can’t hear our own thoughts because of noise pollution, we can’t see the forest because of billboards,” Shen lamented. “And advertisements on the boards remind us to save the environment,” TL said, amused. She scooted closer and embraced him. Her leg beside him, her arms around him, she rested her head on his shoulder. “Maybe one day humans will live in the clouds and the world will recover its diversity.”
“Or diversity will live off world, and we will go there to remember,” Shen said.
“Or, like your ship, you will carry all of it, a place and world for everything and everyone,” TL said.
Erico saw Shen was up and brought food, cheese, bread, and dried fish. He also brought him a drink which smelled like, and taste confirmed, warm pickle juice.
“Glad to see you recovered,” Erico said. “Drink all of this. It’s good for you.”
“Thank you,” Shen said. “Thank you, brother,” Erico said.
Erico departed to go back to his watch.
“Why do you seem sad,” TL said. “You’ve earned their respect. They love you.”
“I don’t deserve…”
“Because you used tech instead of real strength? Tech, magic, or strength, you risked your life for them. You saved them. That has meaning,” TL said.
Shen nodded. He offered some of his food. She shook her head. “You eat. I can taste it through you.” He continued eating. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“What if Jazmyne was telling the truth? What if she could get me home?” Shen asked.
“I would say it’s a bad trade,” TL said.
“You’re saying that because you want to keep me here, with you,” Shen said. He pulled free from her and stood up. “I want to go home.”
“She is not the path,” TL said.
“You don’t know that,” Shen said. “We just met the surface of her. There is a deeper psyche there to explore. There are answers in her she doesn’t even know she holds.”
“Then isn’t that true for everyone? Even you?” TL asked. She also stood up. “I know what I saw. And you’re still not thinking right.”
“Back in,” Shen directed.
“No,” TL said.
“I am giving you a direct order…”
“And I am declining,” TL said. “I will remain manifested. You need eyes on you to keep you acclimated to this reality frame, and not some underworld fantasy.”
“My whole life is a fantasy! What difference does it make if it’s hers or my own?” Shen asked.
“Everyone lives in the real world enmeshed with fantasy,” TL agreed. “The question is, will you be in charge of your reality, or will someone else be? Will you be an NPC character in someone else’s fantasy, or the star in yours?”
Lightening ripped under the boat, illuminating the water to either side of the ship bright enough it drew his and TL’s attention. Jerica called out. Erico answered. Everyone who was asleep was waken and they found a place to look over into the water. The entire sea floor was illuminated. Lights moved and danced and rippled. The entire spectrum was represented. It was a storm of lights that was taken by darkness, not complete darkness, there was still hints of light activity, then another burst of lightening would awaken the sea floor and various creatures responded. The sea floor remind Shen of 70’s disco lighting. The lightening itself was either blue, green, or red, diamonds or starburst patterns. The lightening was crisp, solid, jagged beams of light. Some of the surrounding light-scape was very clear, like looking down on Disney’s Light parade- only this was underwater world of light. Some of it was indistinct- like Monet painting. There could be seen the silhouettes of whales passing through lighted areas- assuming they were blue whales, the size of the silhouettes hinted at a scale and depths involved.
“Wow,” TL said.
“Warring Gods,” Torny said.
“Warring?” TL asked.
“In our legends of before the fall, the forces for good used blue lightening, those on the dark side used red lightening,” Torny said. “The sea remembers everything- the bad tastes linger for a millennia. The trees remember everything- the bad breath lingers a millennia.”
“It’s beautiful,” TL said.
“I’d like a closer look,” Shen said.
“That’s deeper than it seems,” TL said.
“And the Mer-people will take you,” Torny said. “No one goes into that storm and comes out of it.”
“Yeah,” Arne said. “Not even the Sea Gypsies go that deep.”
The lights receded aft as the ship continued on its journey. Shen went aft with Arne, TL and Yaffa to watch it fade away, while the rest went back to bed or their post. It fell away fast, while also descending deeper, revealing a canyon.
“I want more of that,” Shen said. (“Too deep to get a good scan. I can identify some bioluminescent life forms from light signature, but I suspect there was also tech,” TL said. ‘Blue whale?’ Shen queried. “The silhouette suggests so.”)
“Excuse me. I will go relieved Jerica,” Yaffa said.
“I am going to return to my sleep,” Arne said, and excused himself.
Shen and TL remained aft. They were quiet. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve got you.”
“I need to be alone. Please.”
“Are you going to jump into the water?”
“No!” TL hugged him, kissed the side of his face, and receded back to the spot they had claimed. Shen stared at the water longer. He was startled when Jerica came up beside him, and leaned into to share the view into darkness.
“It’s way gone,” Jerica said. “All things fall. Most things fall away fast.”
“Yeah,” TL said, agreeing while also sorting that as rather profound in unexplored ways.
“I didn’t thank you, yet,” Jerica said.
“No worries,” Shen said.
“I would like to do something more for you than just saying thank you,” Jerica said. “If I understand Loxy, she is amenable to me being more direct with you.”
Shen looked at her. Her face was illuminated by the nearest torch. Hair was caught by the wind. There was only decking behind her, no sea, no sky.
“I appreciate your directness. I like clarity. Let me be equally direct. No, thank you,” Shen said. “There will only be friendship. I don’t intend to stay in this world. I am trying to get home.”
“Where is home?” Jerica said.
“Beyond the black, where the sky is more brightly illuminated than that sea we just past,” Shen said. “I only want to go home. Everything else is a distraction.”
“Who wouldn’t want to return to the light,” Jerica said. “Maybe I could go with you.”
“I have someone there waiting for me,” Shen said.
“Like Loxy?” Jerica said.
“Exactly. Technically. It’s complicated,” Shen said.
“Wouldn’t she want you to be happy in the interim?” Jerica asked.
“I was content. Until yesterday,” Shen said. “Now I am reminded of an urgency. My anger is renewed. I am angry I am here and I am angry at myself for my complacency and inability to stay focus on my goal. Excuse me.”
He retreated to a quiet place, and paced the other side of the deck. Jerica went to TL.
“Master, can you teach me about you and Shen?” Shen came at them, suddenly. “No conspiring! You both just want to keep me here. I am not staying in this world! This is not my world!” Erico came over to see if he can help.
“No!” Shen pointed at him. “I will not be pacified.”
Arne joined. “Brother, this is the darkness speaking. Come, have a drink with me.”
“No!” Shen said. “You’re all trying to trick me…”
Torny touched Shen and he collapsed to the floor.
“Oh, he’s not going to be happy when he wakes,” TL said.
“He was happy now?” Erico asked.
“He will be in a better place when he wakes,” Torny said. “Or, I will sleep him again.”
“I’d sleep him, if he weren’t so repulsed,” Jerica said. “I know I am ugly, but I never been so directly refused.”
“You are not ugly,” TL assured her. “He finds you immensely attractive. His resistance is not about you.”
“It took Arne a month to recover from the Sirens,” Erico said.
“Yeah, well,” Arne said. “I was exposed longer.”
“I am telling you, Lotus flower would cure him,” Orton said.
“Stop talking about the dam flowers!” they all said.
Shen woke, his head in TL’s lap. He sat up, orientating to a moving world, and it came back to him. His first thought was no waterbed, ever. TL was watching him. He stood, found the sun in front of them, just off the horizon. He heard Arne laughing with Erico. Shen wanted to end the laughter. Hadn’t he lost crew? How soon does one laugh after losing crew? He told himself to suspend judgment. This was not his world. He didn’t know enough. Even in his own world he didn’t know enough.
Shen didn’t fully meet TL’s eyes, but he looked towards her, and offered a hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet.
“You okay?”
“I need to pee and poop,” Shen said.
“I will show you where the bucket is,” TL said.
“Their toilet is very unappealing. Can’t you just beam it out?” Shen asked.
“You need to do your business,” TL said. “Unused muscles will atrophy.”
“I’ll wait for land, then,” Shen said.
“I wonder who will win, the sea or Shen,” TL said. “As a nurse, I can tell you, holding it is bad.”
“Routine holding is bad,” Shen said.
He offered his arm. She accepted and he led her back to Arne’s fellowship.
“Good Light, Brother,” Arne said.
“I see,” Shen said. “May we join you?”
“Of course,” Arne said. “Erico, get him food and drink.”
“Wait,” Shen said. “May I speak with you?”
“Come aft,” Arne invited.
“No. I wish to speak to all of you,” Shen said.
Arne let out whistle. People immediately gathered, accept the man in the watching for land. “You will be heard.”
“Jon?” TL asked.
Shen repositioned his arm so that he was now holding her hand. He squeezed, reassuringly. “I am sorry for my mood and behavior…”
“You don’t have to…” Erico said.
“Let him finish,” Arne said. “Go on, Shen. You will be heard.”
Shen looked at the deck. His boots seemed out of place. They were out of place.
The style of these Vikings were a blending of traditional and ultra-modern. Jerica’s legs were revealed, where Yaffa and Torny wore dresses that fell below their boot tops.
“This present darkness is not about you. And it’s not about Jazmyne,” Shen said. He frowned and looked at TL, thinking he heard something. There was nothing there; she was listening. “This darkness was always in me. Jazmyne could not have appealed to me otherwise. Even a revulsion would have been me reacting to myself. She has revealed something I need to contend with.”
“You intend to return to your isolation…” Jerica said.
“Let him finish,” Arne said.
“No,” Jerica said. “He’s not ready to face the darkness, and he shouldn’t be alone. There’s eyes enough here to see the solidity of that.”
“I am not ready for her. For that. Well, fuck, is anyone ever ready? My clarity and resolve is fading and I will be re