Chapter 7

I

Cat was the first of the two to get past her shock. She flowed to my side in a flutter of rags, pointedly ignoring the other woman’ shivering form. She still flinched at the occasional scream, but it was obvious she was trying to prove something, perhaps that the murders didn’t bother her.

Both women were afraid of whatever was happening outside. I, having the advantage of knowledge, felt no fear. Although I did feel an intense curiosity. I’d only killed three of the people outside, and my murders were the silent kind. At least that’s the way things had turned out last night. Three people, all of them alive on minute, dead the next, with none the wiser. The gratuitous screams were not my doing, at least not directly.

This was the work of the ship that was not a ship.

My curiosity would have to wait though, because I was weak in the knees, and horny, again. I’d have to pay the pleasurable price of using magic.

I sneaked a hand around Cathy, drawing her close. She came easily, despite the obvious cause for discomfort around me. She spoke, one hand entangled in my hair, the other on my shoulder. “You need to do it again?”

“Yes. I can hardly move.”

She nodded. “We can sleep afterwards. We walked a lot today.” Her hand on my shoulder came up to cup my cheek. “Atsa, what’s going on outside?”

I did my best to grin. It must have worked, she gave me a weak smile in return. “The ship ... is doing my bidding. It feels alive. You don’t need to worry though, it won’t hurt us. I told it to take care of everyone else.”

Her smile grew wider, marginally. “When you kill the Prince, you’re going to let me whip his Steward, aren’t you? Oh, I pray to the Lady the bastard’s still alive. How I’ve wanted to give him his due since the moment he bought me.” My expression must’ve changed, her smile disappeared and she peered at my suspiciously. “What is it? You are going to let me wh–”

“Cat, just for a little while, please don’t invoke the Lady’s name in any way, shape, or form. Don’t even think of her If you can. I’ll explain later.” I most certainly would not. Who would want to explain about their meeting with a goddess after she heard a muttered prayer and decided to notice?

“When did you become religious?”

I shrugged, and to distract her, asked a question I’d wanted to ask since the first time she’d touched my cock. “Can I look at your breasts?”

She stared at me and raised her eyebrows. “Something happened in that shrine didn’t it?” Her hands left me and she started pulling rags she was wearing over her head. There were quite a few of them, none smelling nice. The fellows we’d murdered and robbed hadn’t been too clean, not that I was any better; my prison hadn’t come with a bathtub. I ignored the question and instead directed all my remaining energy at pulling my trousers down. I wanted to feel again what I’d felt last night.

Cat seemed eager enough to grant my wish. Once the rags were off and her shift was pulled over her head – do women actually need to wear so many layers? – she took her position on my lap. Except that this time she was naked rather than fully clothed, her heavy breasts sitting high, the nipples prominent in the fleeting lantern light. When she was positioned, both her hands found my hair – again! What was is with the woman and my hair? Then she kissed me. A searing kiss lasting long enough to make me gasp for breath when it was finished.

I was eager to be inside her again, but that was when the other woman, Hanna, decided to interfere. Her voice rose from the other side of the room, weak, high-pitched, and hesitant. “What ... what are you two doing? Do you get off on ... on that?”

I realized there were one or two voices still in the air. They weren’t screams of pain any more, but the cries of people who has given up, men begging for mercy, crying out for mothers long dead.

She continued. “What did you do to them?”

Cathy and I had been talking in low voices; Hanna hadn’t heard most of our words. Even if she had, I doubted she’d understand any of it. Therefore, her question was a valid one. I personally wouldn’t want to associate with someone who got an erection off death cries. She was just looking out for herself. However, regardless of how valid her questions and concerns were, I had a naked woman in my lap. A naked woman with pretty breasts and smooth skin, whose shoulder – specifically, the trapezoid muscle – was just begging to to be bit. So I bit it; the pretty woman could talk while I did my thing.

Cathy shuddered at my bite. She spoke when it became obvious my mouth was otherwise busy and wasn’t going to be finished soon; I think the realization came when the licking started, but that’s just a guess.

My addled brain was shrewd enough to notice the unnatural venom in her voice and wonder at the cause, though it didn’t care much. “He killed them, is killing them, and now I’m paying the price for that power.”

“By fucking him?”

Cat didn’t answer. Instead, she held my cock steady, rose, and then sank unto it slowly, a soft groan leaving her lips.

I let go of her shoulder and bit her neck instead. It tasted and felt the same, except for the slight beating I could faintly detect. Her heart’s blood running through the carotid, going to feed the brain. Just like her life’s force would feed me once we were finished, so I would be able to move while she’d sleep it off. I wondered whether feeding on her would hurt her in anyway, and decided to not worry about it. Nothing I could do anyways.

I remembered there were bare breasts pressing into me and decided focus on them. They were every bit as magnificent as one would hope. Soft, pliable, and tasty. I hefted one, and looked up at Cat’s snort. “What?”

“You wanna check my teeth too?”

“What?” I was hoping she wouldn’t stop her movement on my cock. She was grinding from side to side, with the occasional vertical motion thrown in. Very pleasurable. There was already a tingle in my cock.

She shook her head. “Never mind.”

Her hand, which had sneaked into my hair again, forced my lips against her. Some indeterminate time later I came inside her, still locked in the kiss.

I could move again, but it didn’t mean my muscles were eager to do so after an entire day of walking. I slept.

II

I was inside a living ship; I’d fed it human souls with a thought.

I’d gone to sleep after the whole murder spree incident. Now that I was awake, it was very hard to believe a ship had fed on souls. Rather, I’d fed a ship souls, or whatever the hell the lights were.

Thankfully, there was a fast and easy way to find out whether it’d all been a dream or not. I called for Hanna, who presumably knew the layout of the ship. She responded with panic, jumping up from where she was asleep on her bedroll. Her reaction gave me reason to believe I’d not dreamed. She didn’t seem like the sort of person who’d get so easily flustered in normal circumstances.

She calmed down once her surroundings became clear. I spoke then, “Check around the ship. Tell me what’s happened.”

She eyed me with apprehension, nodded, and left without a word.

Cat, snuggled in my embrace with her eyes closed, stirred. “I need to use the bathroom. Where is it?”

I blinked. Her words reminded me of my own bladder. It was close to bursting. “I don’t know. She can tell us when she returns.”

Within a few minutes, Hanna was back. Hands shaking and lips pursed.

She answered my unspoken question, “Everyone is dead.”

Not my imagination after all. Next, confirmation was needed about this ship’s feelings, its hunger, which I’d so conveniently sated. I needed to piss before doing anything else though. “I need to use the bathroom.” I said.

She gestured towards the door. A smirk tugging at her lips. “There is a bucket just outside.”

How undignified. It was still better than the hole though, at least it didn’t stink up the room.

I searched the ship after using the bucket. There were three corpses other than those of the thugs on the ship, all young women in various stages of undress. The three men I’d killed with my mind looked alive. Alive, but still as statues. The same was not true regarding anybody else. They’d been torn apart by something, or some things. Most didn’t have all their limbs still attached, and there seemed to be more limbs around than bodies. Something which puzzled me until I counted and realized there were only ten bodies around that could be recognized as such. Two were ... missing. The only reason I didn’t throw up at the implication was the lack of food in my stomach. Which reminded me, I was hungry.

I’d killed them, and I felt nothing. The Nature of Men, my favourite philosophical treatise, claimed morality was something inherent to the human soul. Shared between men and women of all places. If that was the truth, then I was not human. There was a distinct possibly that morality was not shared among all humans, or maybe killing was not an immoral act. Gods, great kings, and heroes were murderers, admired by peasants and scholars alike for their deeds. Could immorality be a source of admiration?

Did it matter at all?

At the end of the day, I had a powerful sorceress after me on no grounds other than being born. What logical reason did I have to care about being moral? The men all around me had died because their deaths were convenient. A lot more would die convenience required it. I saw no reason to act differently.

Though Cat did seem to dislike it when I...

Hanna was asking Cat questions when I returned to the room. From Cat’s tight-lipped expression, it was obvious she didn’t want to answer. They both turned to me as I entered. Hanna redirected her attack. “What are you?”

I shrugged and asked a question in response, “You wanted me to get you out of here in exchange for your help. Where do you want to go?”

Her face made it clear she didn’t like the change of subject, but she answered. “Anywhere I could have a roof over my head and food to eat without being fucked by scum with money and no brains.”

Fairly specific.

“Would this ship suffice?” I asked.

She looked at me like I was crazy. “One of Yayim’s thugs will kill me and take it within the week.”

“I ‘d not be so sure of that.” I tried to end the conversation with my tone. When I was sure Hanna didn’t have anything more to say, I addressed Cat, “Can you find me something to eat? I’m starving.”

She left with a nod. I drifted to one of the cabin walls to inspect the wood, which had caught my eye during my tour of the ship. It was different from what the ship’s decks and hull were made of. Instead of the old, red-colored wood making up the main parts of the ship, the walls were made of dark brown planks. The original material looked sturdy, despite the vessel’s obvious age; the dark brown wood was rotting, mold running alone the planks’ edges. I knelt to examine the deck, running my hands along it.

The glowing runes I’d seen in my dreamworld were there, although too faded to see in the little sunlight spilling between the gaps in the hull. I walked out, to the cramped hallways, to find a place on the ship where the runes were visible. Perhaps I’d recognize the language, or find out something about the ship’s origins. Hanna followed me. Leaving and coming back with a lit lantern once she realized I was looking for something.

I only recognized one symbol. I found it over and over again, on almost every single plank which had something carved on it. The teardrop of the Ashk imperial family. Some called it a drop of blood, but they didn’t know history. They didn’t know the first Ashk emperor didn’t like to kill his enemies. He’d liked to capture them, and once captured, he did his best to keep every single one away from harm. Ashk the First never tortured an enemy, but it was said he drank a cup of king’s tears, gathered fresh, every night before sleep and every morning after waking. Kings had hanged themselves on doorknobs to be free of the emperor’s hospitality. Ashk the Second, the great emperor’s son, changed the imperial family’s crest to the teardrop to honor his father. Nowadays, few people knew or cared about the sign’s origins.