Why not? I could make myself breathe water, I’m certain. I can do . . . most anything.
The storm again, but only in his head. And weak as they were, he hated Rusk’s efforts to detain him worse than he ever had the cold iron tether, the spectral keloid burn ‘round his neck which tightened halter-tight as he heard the bastard yell:
Jerusha, behind ye—’ware, damn you, contrary man! The shark!
For here was Clione, damp hand slipping from his with a pitiful look, stepping backward towards the gap’s scooped-out rim, gravity already taking hold—in another second she would arc backwards and down, hit water, be gone in a trice. And here was Mister Dolomance, thick legs already bent, poised to follow—
‘Til Parry reached out one more time, with a single massive frozen shout of no!, and stopped him.
***
He came to expecting to find himself dead, torn to pieces by the monster he’d made—he knew it would happen, eventually. The spell itself required such a sacrifice. Instead, Parry found Dolomance fast-tethered once more, staring his usual sullen hatred at him; the deck was cleared, stuck back together at all angles, blood from Dolomance’s kills dried under the same sun that had tanned Parry’s hide almost to burning. And Rusk’s ghost leant nearby, inevitably, his arms once again crossed, with an odd look on his one-eyed face—was that satisfaction, or sympathy? Did it matter?
Not to me.
No. For Clione was long gone, down deep, into that impossible darkness. And he had only the man he’d murdered left for company, along with the foolish-loyal bo’sun, unless one also took Dolomance into account.
“I would not let this creature of mine go,” he said, out loud, meeting the shark-were’s black doll-eyes head on. “That’s why. If I had, I’d be with her still.”
And drowned as well, belike, Rusk pointed out. For I’ve never known ye t’go without air overlong, wi’ all your craft.
Parry did not seem to hear. “To keep him with me . . . make sure our bond stayed unbroken. Because, in the end—I wanted power, more than love.”
False love, man. She was not for you, or any upright creature. A thing apart, only.
At these words, a great wrench pulled hard at Parry’s heart, shivering it so sharp he almost thought he felt the organ itself (which he’d otherwise supposed merely vestigial, given how little it normally troubled him) shake apart entirely.
“Then what am I?” he cried out, in a tone that made Rusk’s ghost wince before replying, gently as that gentleman knew how—
That too, I s’pose, in the end. But better here than down there, surely.
A frost fell on Parry then, hardening him within and without, thinning his voice to bitterest poison as he replied: “Yes, that would suit you best to have me think, I warrant.”
Oh, Jerusalem. Yes, tell it yourself thus, if ye will—for I am culpable in much that brought ye to this pass, and can easily bear th’extra burden. But think on this, and know it true, Hell-priest: we cannot help our natures. Not she, nor you, nor I . . .
Do not speak to me, sir! Parry broke out at last, internally, all his other words leaving him in a rush, blood-hot and galling. Never speak to me,
ever again, ‘til we both be fleshless and Hell-bound alike. For I have more than done with you, along with all the rest.
Though Parry expected protest, perhaps Clione had passed so far below already that Rusk truly could not, for the bastard only shook his head at him, an egregious look of sympathy on his face. And faded from his sight, leaving Parry blessedly alone at last, at least to all appearances.
Mister Dolomance turned, mulish and still with his cold blood up, only to cringe away from the heat of Parry’s glare. “Get from me, you lump,” Parry told him, hoarse, every breath agony. “Do as you please with those in the water, but do not let me see you ‘til I call.”
He stared the creature down until it turned those lidless eyes away, stumping to the side, where it disappeared without a splash. Then let himself sit down, panting, too exhausted even to weep.
He glimpsed the bo’sun peeping down at him through the rigging, half-hid behind a foremast, where he’d held on for dear life against his fellows’ punishment. The man would come in handy later, of that Parry had no doubt, but for now he did not acknowledge him. Only looked at his own hands, flexing and unflexing of what seemed like their own accord, studying his fingernails for any trace of hidden claws.
Ensign Parry’s a Jonah, he thought, without rancour. A monster amongst monsters, loved by them alone . . . this is what I’ll always be. My very blood foretold it.
Yet: If you’d gone in you’d have lost hold of the spell for sure, another voice told him, insinuatingly, coldly logical—and was that voice his own, finally? The only one left in all his hollow aching head? Beneath-waves, Dolomance becomes truly shark once more; neither you nor she could have hoped to stand before him, then. You saved her, thusly, and yourself as well. She will live on because of you . . . if that anything matters.
Was that enough?
Well, it would have to be.
Later, he would bring those of the crew left yet intact by Dolomance’s hunger back up, salt-cured and only slightly rotten, to pilot the Salina towards its next prize. Those who survived the attack he would offer the Articles, after dealing with whatever witch-finders might prove to be hidden amongst them in such a fashion as to honour his poor dead mother. Of Clione Attesee, or the thing that had once called herself by that name, he was careful not to think; his mind he sent skipping from her, forming a habit that would eventually wipe her from him entirely. Until, one day, he closed his eyes to find he could barely recall the lines of the woman who he would have killed himself protecting’s face, let alone her touch, or the sweetness of their time together. Not even the scent her dark, thick masses of hair had seemed to give off, when dragged across tender human skin.
And in the background, Rusk’s dark form, always watching. He have his hand ever on ya heart, Tante Ankolee had told him, once . . . a thing Parry knew for nothing but uncomfortable truth, much though he might pretend otherwise.