Table of Contents:
Upon the Ending Sea - Prologue
Singsong Galleons - Chapter 1
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3*
Part 4**
Part 5 **
Part 6**

Part 7**

Part 8*

Part 9**

Singsong Galleons - Chapter 1
(part 9)

Her head lifted slightly, she had been resting her chin against folded arms, curled and coiled upon the furs staring into space.Ilmaru’il had been listening to the waves speaking, as much as she could through the hull of the ship.When Seralin entered her eyes turned to him, Ilmaru’il nodded slightly and stretched, extending her long legs as she flexed her claws and muscles.Her back arched upward, and the midnight blue hair now dried, fanned across the shimmering skin as the Arsehvrem rose.She could have been human once, for in most ways Ilmaru’il resembled one.It was her mannerisms, which set her apart the most, not the claws or teeth, or even the strange colouring of her skin and hair.She gave a slight nod, and then left her regent to his meal and reading.Ilmaru’il found the consumption of uplander food as disgusting as the crew of the Ebon Shade must have thought her diet was.

Outside in the hall the Arsehvrem moved surely toward the door where her portion of the bounty lay.Leave the rocks and shells to these strange races; they knew not what they passed up.Opening the door to the storeroom Ilmaru’il smiled widely and began counting, leaving the entryway unblocked as she clicked slowly into the room head bobbing and ducking.Sixteen, all for her, somehow her smile managed to grow larger as the creature set the claws on her left foot into the face of a young human man.Using her feet just as one would hands Ilmaru’il dragged it from a pile and into the free space at the centre of the room a few feet back from the open door.

It would be a good body to start with.The art of crafting from bones was one sacred to followers of Kalu’vrem, or it had been, in the time where the ocean god had ruled with greater power.The clothes that they formed were works of art, each bone carefully selected and lovingly sculpted.Ilmaru’il slid the body across the floor and crouched down, looking at the arrows that protruded from the human’s chest.Firstly she removed them, yanking each out with a quick jerk that made the body nearly rise up from the floor.Then she set to removing the clothes, piling them with the arrows in a heap by the front left corner.Claws ran across the cold flesh lightly, not breaking the skin.

He had died early; the skin was pale already with definite signs of livor mortis in the throat and lower belly.The angry red and black splotches accentuated the pallor of the rest of the skin, and the body was somewhat unwieldy as the muscles were already setting into rigor.Ilmaru’il ran her long tongue along her teeth, first the back, and then the front, her head moving slowly as she surveyed the length of the cadaver.Then, settling on a place to start the creature raised the young boy’s right hand and set her claws into the skin.

Blood, already coagulating in the veins and pooling into the muscles oozed in a thick mass out of the wounds as the creature began using her claws to sever the fingers.She did it in an almost caring fashion, digging the sharp curves into the cartilage at the knuckle, snapping off the smallest digit first after ripping through the tendon.Ilmaru’il lifted it to her eyes, surveying it for some unknowable quality before setting it down gently next to her, preparing to remove the next.

…He watched Ilmaru’il walk down the hallway and then slipped into his quarters, shutting the door but a hair to allow him an ear to the goings on about him.He set Borlis’s journal on his desk and started making himself comfortable.

He stripped his sword and hung it on the brackets hooked into the wall beside his desk.There were several other weapons hanging there, including a three-ring rapier with matching main gauche, bone handles and mythril guards; silver filigree hung from the pommel of the sword.A sabre hung beside these, and a light hand-axe to finish the coupling; the sabres handle wrapped in leather with silver filigree spiralling down the length, ending at the square pommel.The hatchet was done in a similar fashion, and weighted so it could be thrown; the handle made of mythril, the entire weapon made of one piece.

He hung his belt and frog on the same wall, his heavy leather coat as well.He was dressed in a cream-white jerkin beneath it all; the dense wool garment kept him warm during the cold nights and cold storms.He sat down at his desk; the pleasing softness of the chair always brought a smile to his face.He looked about at all the riches he had acquired and dreamed of all the wealth this new opportunity would bring.A fleet of ships would never suffice to carry it.This also made him grin.

He flipped open the journal to the last entry as he started in on the mead; it was a delightful honey mix that he had brewed himself.It was another of his passions, one that few ever had the chance to sample or discover.He took a draught, and then tore a chunk of bread from the loaf near the size of his fist.He held the pumpernickel to his nose and inhaled the delightful scent, and then stuffed the entire piece into his mouth.He had skipped breakfast to oversee the preparations for the day’s raid.

He tore free another piece, and started leafing backwards trough the log, looking for where mention of the woman began.He was discouraged to find no mention of her, but of a statue there was plenty.Eleven days of misfortune had struck the crew before the last entry, which had been written the day before the assault.He wandered back through the pages and found mention of the island where the crew of the Warsalis had found the treasure they found in the hold.He quirked his eyebrow at the coordinates, and drew out a drawer from the side of the desk.He produced a map and a seeing-glass fixed in a metal circle on three bearings that allowed him to slide it along much easier.

He set the book on his lap and spread the map out, looking for the location according to its longitude and latitude.Pirates, while not always well connected within the world of civilized men, were more often than not better versed on the sea and those things in it than any merchant, navy or other lubbers.“Thandis,” he whispered to himself, holding the glass over the island indicated.“That island’s uninhabitable,” he muttered as he leaned back against the chair.He stuffed another piece of bread into his mouth and thought.

“Great gallopin’ sea horses!” came a shout from the hall.“What the devil?”It was Boris’s voice.

Singsong Galleons - Chapter 1
(part 8)

Seralin smiled and bid Ilmaru’il a pleasant rest, and assured her that he would give her notice once the bodies were gathered.He closed the door as she crawled onto the bed, and gave the latch on the outside a quick fixing, setting the brass bolt into the doorjamb.He stood there and stared at the door for a moment, and wondered to himself if he were making a great mistake with this farce.He had faith in Syretii’s knowledge of old world religions, but this felt more and more dangerous the more he watched the woman.

He dismissed the thought with a brush of fingers through his hair, turned on his heels, and started back up the corridor to the main deck.Now he had to contend with the crew, and the age-old superstitions they carried.The stigma associated with having a woman aboard was bad enough, but if the men found out what Ilmaru’il really was…the upheaval would be devastating.He decided to keep the woman’s true nature in his own inscrutable secrecy for the time being.He was sure that once they reached Black Torch – so long as they could find the proper rituals – the crew would understand.

Overcoming the woman problem would need to be done immediately.There was no escaping that.Women were inherently bad luck aboard ships, and pirates were extraordinarily fond of luck.Perhaps the bounty from the day’s raid would be enough to make them forget, but he knew this was unlikely; especially after he gave the order to gather the bodies into the hold.Yes, this he knew wasn’t going to go over well.

Luckily none of the bodies had been thrown over the side, as the crew most certainly intended to burn the ship once they’d stripped it to the bone.Everything was being taken, not just the jewels and other treasures but sails, ropes, tools, foodstuffs – everything.They gathered it all on the quarterdeck and prepared for dividing the spoils.They waited for their captain, who had called Syretii and Boris to a sidebar at the bow of the Warsalis.Edgkin watched the three, propped up against a miniaturized cutlass he used as a boarding weapon.“Whaddya think?” he asked one of his kin, Flixdig, a gremlin that worked under the master carpenter aboard the Crosswind.

Flixdig was just as spindly as the rest of his brethren; his beady red eyes peeked out from under bushy white eyebrows.“Fahk if I know,” he said, standing slouched with his arms folded over his chest.His voice was still grating, but not as loud as Edgkin’s.His accent was even thicker, though.“Syretii don’t look all ‘at pleased, whatevah da cap’n’s sayin’…”

“You’re off your block, Seralin,” Syretii whispered, thick arms crossed over his chest.The monk’s tanned form was drawn tight; his stance exuded the feeling of uncertainty and doubt that flooded his mind and his words.“Taking a woman aboard is bad enough, but an Arsehvrem?This is dangerous!And downright stupid, if you ask me,”

“Well I’m not asking you I’m telling you, Syretii.”Seralin sighed and raked a hand through his hair.“This is an opportunity that we should not pass up, all I want to know is if you can perform the proper rituals or find out how.If not, then we are going to have a serious problem on our hands.”

“Which is why you should never have taken her aboard in the first place!”

“Your insubordination is becoming quite taxing, Pontifex,” Seralin said with a tone that showed his displeasure.There was steel in his stare.He did not like to be questioned, especially by one that he had brought to such fortune.As much as he liked Syretii, they both knew that that friendship was conditional, and Syretii knew that the captain was more than capable of cutting down those close to him.“We will take her to the archipelago.There’s an old temple to Kalu’vrem on one of the smaller islands, isn’t there?”

Boris nodded.He had been silent for a long time, which was highly unusual for the barbarous human.But the dialogue between the captain and his monk had been utterly stupefying.He stood there, trying his hardest not to go slack-jawed as they went on about sea witches and gods that were supposed to have been dead for centuries.He’d had nothing to add to the conversation until now.“Aye,” he continued after his nod, “on th’ Topaz south o’ the main island.Nobody’s been ‘ere for ov’r an ‘undred years, though.They say th’ island’s cursed or somethin’; crawlin’ with baddies ‘n’ all sort o’ monsters.”

“Ridiculous folklore,” Seralin huffed.“Don’t tell me you believe that hokum.”

“Well we’ve one of Kalu’vrem’s own creatures here,” said Syretii.“I suppose anything could be possible, then.”

Seralin sighed and conceded this fact.“Alright, we’ll be careful then.”The captain stood straight and tapped his heel once against the deck, symbolically and literally putting his foot down on the subject.“Split the treasure in half as well as the food rations.We’ll restock our other supplies as needed; ropes, tools, that sort of thing.Just make sure the gremlins don’t fight over who gets the prettier looking mallets.”Boris laughed softly even Syretii cracked a smile.There was no resistance left.“And have the men stack the bodies in stowage beside my quarters.”

“What do we tell the men about that if they ask?” questioned Syretii.

Seralin gave pause and hummed as he thought of the proper excuse.It seemed that the only real way to explain it would be to tell the whole truth, which left only one choice.“Tell them to stop asking so many damned questions and do as the captain says, and if they persist then they’ve volunteered themselves to be the main course for our new companion.”He smiled and then shooed them away with a wave of his hand.“Oh!” he called out, “one last thing, Boris.”

“Yes captain?” the man said as he turned back to Seralin.

“On the matter of your quarters…”

Splitting the bounty took almost two hours.As Seralin predicted the gremlins fought over who would get which tools; verbal arguments turned into fisticuffs which led to Syretii’s intervention and two badly bruised deckhands.In the end everything went a little smoother than expected.Seralin’s orders were carried out, as they usually were, without question or the need for provocation.Boris was a little put-off for being ejected from his own quarters, but he would survive, the captain assured him.

Seralin and Syretii met one last time to plot a course.They would travel separately, as usual, and the Crosswind would take the shorter quicker route back to the Blackwater Archipelago so that the monk could read up on the old rituals before the arrival of Seralin with Ilmaru’il at Topaz, the name given to the yellow-sands island of Fellindisal e to Vrem.He had ominous feelings about the whole situation, but that was nothing new around Seralin.

The men stacked the bodies in an empty storeroom beside Seralin’s quarters, now occupied by Ilmaru’il.There were sixteen in all, which he hoped would tithe her over for the month long journey.He made arrangements to have some slaves prepared on Topaz just in case they would be necessary.When preparations were finalized and the hooks let go, he ordered the Warsalis burned and the course to be set.He went down into the aft-castle, carrying with him Borlis’s logbook, a flask of mead and a loaf of bread.He checked the latch on his – Ilmaru’il’s quarters, slid the bolt back and opened the door to find her still resting atop the furs.

“Ilmaru’il,” he said, comfortable enough with his low ancient now that he didn’t need pause to grasp at phrases.“The bodies have been stacked in a storeroom just down the corridor.First room on your left as you head towards the bow.”

Singsong Galleons - Chapter 1
(part 7)
 

“My thanks to you.” Ilmaru’il moved surely across the gangplank setting down on the Ebon Shade gracefully, “Once the priest performs the quickening I shall be better able to serve you. Until then the songs present as great a danger to us, as to any enemy…” Her tone became warning, cautionary, but the “us” was merely a formality. There was little to no danger of the waves harming her; the boats and uplanders however stood less chance of survival if the ocean chose not to follow the direction of a song. Though Seralin had woken her, and so must be aware of such things she still reminded him of the risks.With an apologetic, and almost sad voice she continued, “If you should require me to summon the Ursuvitak serpents my Lord, that must wait as well.”

They had been greater in number once, migrating along the deep currents as formidable predators.Now few lived in the seas of Creation, as the species they fed upon dwindled in number. The gargantuan spine covered serpents now occasionally rose up to depths where they could hunt whales and other large sea animals. They were the veritable hounds of Kalu’vrem.

If an Arsehvrem sang the proper songs the tones mesmerised these ferocious creatures, bending them to the will and desires of the weaver who beckoned them to the surface of the waves. Should she miss a note or so much as break the flow of the calling however, they would in fury destroy everything they could before they died. The Ursuvitak would include, and most especially seek the one that bewitched them in the first place. Making chances of bringing them back under control slim.

Ilmaru’il followed Seralin farther onto the ship as she watched the crew of the Ebon Shade, listening to their strange tongue with an expressionless face. They were all uplanders, some races that looked familiar, others that were puzzling to the Arsehvrem for she had never seen such things before. She stayed several paces from the pirate king. All the while looking about, absorbing the sounds and smells of his ship, examining the design, pivoting to watch as her regent’s men boarded the Warsalis. It was the second ship she had ever been on, and Ilmaru’il found them very perplexing.Destroying them was a far cry different from actually being aboard.

A thought occurred to her, and Ilmaru’il turned back to the tall human.“Will you claim all the corpses for yourself?”  It was customary for the bodies of the fallen to be gathered after conflict, foe and friend alike.The leader of the conquerors would then take their pick of carcasses, leaving whatever was left to their men.After those that had survived consumed the flesh of the dead, bones would be examined and divided.The strongest and most beautiful were kept for the creation of garments, and then the remainder of the body destroyed.Ilmaru’il could see clearly that Seralin and his crew preferred to clothe their forms in garb made of plant fibre, animal hide, and fashioned metal, as all uplanders she could dimly remember encountering had.

Some part of her understood that most races that lived above the waves ate the meat of lesser animals and some plants that grew in their realm.The Arsehvrem, however bound to her regnant would not lower herself to adopting such practices.“If not” she continued in low ancient, “and it pleases, I would have them.”

The woman had already filled herself, but she would require more food later, and the meat of the men from the Warsalis would make several good meals.  Ilmaru’il though partial to tissue and muscle that still or had recently coursed with life, was more than accustomed to the consumption of carrion.

This was like a dream. All the legends of his boyhood and youth were flooding back to him, as real and plain as the aquiline nose on his face.First the Arsehvrem, the songstress of Kalu'vrem, and now the Ursuvitak serpents.Not in his wildest fantasies had he ever dreamed of such a rare occurrence.And the power rested practically in the palm of his hand.The world already knew and feared the name of Seralin Blackwater, but with Ilmaru'il at his side they would tremble at its whisper.A pirate king he was, but now grander schemes floated through his head.Oh the possibilities!And all he had to do was keep a fresh stock of human flesh.With the slave trade in full boom that was no problem at all.

Seralin nodded softly to Ilmaru'il as he walked past her and led the way towards his quarters."I'll have the men gather the bodies for your consumption.They and I have developed a taste for other flesh."He paused before the door to his cabin and turned to her."And besides, it is a long journey to Black Torch, and I wouldn't want you to go hungry."He smiled softly, and added, "or to have to submit your tastes to unaccustomed foods."The thought of cannibalism made his stomach turn, but he had no care for the people he would feed to her, and so it balanced out fairly well.The crew would be a little harder to convince, but the task wasn't impossible.He'd done worse.

Besides which, the benefits far out-weighed the risks.He just needed to find someone well versed in the old religions.And he had just such a person under his command.

He opened the door to his chamber and motioned her in.The room was stocked from floor to ceiling with valuables and treasures from all ends of Creation.The giant bed, which dominated the room, was covered in lustrous furs and quilts, red velvet curtains. Silk sheets and down pillows.A small desk was set into an alcove near the bed, a tall, elaborately carved chair, with serpents' feet clutching the ends of the legs.Gold filigree trailed off the stitched edges of the imperial purple seat cushion, little tassels hanging like bells off the corners.Somewhere in the room, buried beneath the mass of urns and drapes of pearls, strings of diamonds and rubies, was a matching footstool, though where he could not place.Solid gold candlestick holders sat atop the high ridge of the slanted desk, as well as one fashioned from a human skull.He had stolen all of this (except for the skull candle holder, which he had taken but in a wholly different manner), he and his crew.He was a pirate king, and liked to live like one, and always held true to his motto: "Never buy what you can take just as easily."

"My quarters are yours, Ilmaru'il.Until we can make proper arrangements more to your liking." Which would include moving the first mate in with the master seaman, but he didn't feel the need to divulge such information to her.

Singsong Galleons - Chapter 1
(part 6)

Seralin turned back to Ilmaru'il and motioned towards the ship. "You may use my quarters until we've arrived in our proper port."

The water swirled and rushed as they pulled and pushed the Shade next to the Warsalis.  They lowered a gangplank and Seralin led the woman up onto the ship, noting to Boris to "Tell Syretii to meet me in the hold of the Warsalis.  I need to speak with him on an urgent matter."  The man nodded fervently as he led the crew over the gunwales.