Chương 27: Sirens and Other Bad Ideas

The sea had settled into a rhythm. Ivan stood near the bow and watched the ship cut through the water while the sun slid down toward the horizon. Waves rolled under the hull with a slow, steady lift while the air carried salt and something colder underneath, like metal or stone. They'd been out a day now. The line of land behind them had turned into a faint smudge even when Ivan squinted. Ahead, he saw nothing but water. He let [Mana Sense] drift a little.

The ship began to glow in his newly activated sense as some tight web of lines under his feet. Elizabeth's stabilizing spells sat on top of that like neat patches. The rest of the world was a dim field of background mana from the wind, the water, and the crew. He was actually just checking because he was curious, but he found something strange. There was something sharp moving just at the edge of his perception. A small shape, deep off the starboard side.

The sensation was dense and bright, riding a current near the surface before dipping down. But… it didn't feel like a random fish. The pattern was a bit too organized for it to be some mindless creature. He walked to the rail and leaned out. It took a moment for his eyes to pick it up. A pale flicker slid through the blue below. Then another. Ivan frowned in confusion and a little worry. Was that an arm…? And he was fairly confident he saw a fin too. His frown deepened and he called his trusty partner.

"Rys," he called without taking his eyes off the water.

"Come over for a bit, check this out." Her footsteps came a few seconds later.

"What is it?" She stopped beside him. He pointed down.

"There. Just under the surface, a little out." She narrowed her eyes and stared where he pointed. Her [Mana Sense] wasn't like his, but she'd been at sea before. Ivan kept his attention on the bright signature below while watching her from the corner of his eye. The longer Rys stayed quiet, the less he liked whatever she was seeing. Then she swore under her breath in a language he didn't know.

"Oh, sorry. That thing is troublesome. You picking up more than one?"

"One clearly. Maybe two. The current keeps folding over them."

"Right… Of course there are two. They're smart enough to know the benefit of group hunts, despite their greed." He glanced at her.

"You know what these creatures are?" Rys rested her forearms on the rail and watched the water.

"Looks like a mermaid until you watch how it hides. But they're really called [Sirens]. Yes, I think they're Sirens."

"Mermaids and Sirens… What's the difference? Aside from the name."

"Mermaids are nosy little things. They stare at ships, play with children who fall in, steal anything shiny. Treat them well and they usually leave you alone." Rys leaned farther over the rail.

"Sirens hide because they're choosing where to bite." The pale shape drifted closer to the ship for a second, then dropped out of sight.

"How can you tell from up here?"

"If you're close enough to see the eyes, it's already too late," she said.

"So you learn the signs. Mermaids stay high and watch. Sirens hang back and circle. They like to test how many people are on board. How loud the souls are."

"Souls are loud?"

"Everything sings to something, Ivan. Sirens simply know how to listen." Ivan couldn't tell whether that was priestess knowledge or simply how people in Vas talked about magic. He looked back into the water. The shape had gone deeper and too far for normal sight, but mana still traced a bright thread where it moved.

"So. How bad is the situation? If at all?"

"In Vas, we had a saying." She kept her eyes on the water.

"If you hear a song on an empty sea, jump overboard and pray that you drown before they reach you." There was none of her usual teasing in it. Rys didn't even look at him after finishing the saying. Ivan stopped watching the water.

"You've seen them before?"

"Once," she said.

"A long time ago." She didn't offer more, and Ivan decided not to turn the question into an interrogation. He waited.

"It was before the Integration," she went on finally.

"We used to make small pilgrim runs along the coast. One shrine to another. Priests, offerings, hopeful idiots. It was supposed to be safe." She rubbed her palm against the rail.

"Spirit-blessed boat, moon warding, all that. For centuries, we remained safe." She scrubbed a hand over her face.

"However, before the Integration, the world had already started to go mad. Things that were the norm were changing. The first sign was the birds going quiet," she said.

"The second sign was the drummer forgetting the beat. The third sign was when everyone stopped talking at the same time and none of them noticed."

"And nobody noticed the silence?"

"Well, by then the singing had already started," Rys said.

"It was pretty. That's the worst part. Pretty and warm… Not like a harp or a flute. More like… someone humming right next to your bones, you know? You felt that in your soul." He tried to imagine that. Sound that skipped ears and went straight into marrow.

"Did it affect you too?"

"For a second. Then my spirits started screaming." Her mouth twisted.

"They weren't in the mood for drowning that night, so I was fine. But I saw two of my junior priestesses stand up and walk toward the rail with smiles on their faces," she said.

"They weren't thinking. Just moving like puppets. I had woken up but my body still refused to move, until I somehow grabbed the nearest drum and broke it over my own head to clear my sense." Ivan winced.

"Breaking a drum over your own head sounds painful."

"Hey, pain cuts through a lot," she said.

"I broke the others' trances the same way. Hit them. Poured cold water. One I had to slap until my hand bled. But... the ones I couldn't reach went over." Her gaze stayed fixed beyond the wake.

"The sirens don't just sing," Rys went on.

"They show you things. Home. Lovers. Even faces of Gods. Whatever you want most, you know?" Her fingers pressed into the wood.

"They wrap it in sound and drag you toward it. If you're lucky, you drown before they get greedy."

"And if you're not lucky?" Ivan asked quietly.

"Then they take their time." Ivan looked down at the bright thread under the water because, for a few seconds, looking at the actual siren was easier than looking at Rys. The shape moved farther away from the hull. The wake might have made things too noisy for it to get a good read. Or maybe it had decided they weren't worth the trouble yet.

"But as you can see," she added, "we've got nothing to worry about. This ship is carrying too many strong presences, just two sirens wouldn't dare attempt anything."

"How many did you lose?" Ivan went back to her past. She paused.

"... Half the boat," she said. Slowly, she turned to look at my eyes.

"Including the little boy who beat the drum. He was eight. Thought the world ended at the edge of our bay because he never saw a shrine outside ours. He walked over the side, smiling because he saw the moon in the water." Ivan just stayed quiet. Eight was too young for him to have anything useful to say.

"What did you do?" She laughed.

"Oh Ivan, what could I do?" Rys looked down at her hands.

"I just played counter-song until my voice broke. Moon hymns, old chants, anything that wasn't theirs. The spirits helped. That's why the boat survived." She swallowed.

"A few of us made it back. The sea took the rest. Really, Vas was so scary before the end…" She rubbed her thumb across one knuckle.

"Anyways, we stopped making pilgrim runs after that," she said.

"People still prayed. They just stayed on land when they did it." Ivan watched the dark line where the sky met the water. I'm sorry reached his tongue, then stopped. Sorry for the dead people? Sorry she had survived them? Honestly, he never understood why people said sorry when hearing about the death of another. It seemed strange to say "sorry for your loss" as if trying to make the situation about themselves, like "see, I am so nice to you, I am sorry for your loss!" When a simple "stay strong" would do wonders.

But he didn't say that either. He knew she wasn't the type to appreciate that. So he asked the question that might help everyone still aboard this boat instead. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"How common are sirens here?"

"Hey, how would I know? I am not Australian." Rys straightened from the rail.

"But if there were two, there's probably a small colony. They like deep water and lonely ships. At night, keep the noise down and put wax in the guards' ears. If anything starts feeling… wrong, stay away from the rail." Ivan followed the fading mana trail.

"Between Elizabeth and me, could we stop the song?"

"Or make them come closer. A spell they haven't heard before might interest them." He considered that.

"Should we tell Yara?"

"Sure we can do that. But honestly Ivan, no need to worry. The Order of Dawn is the worst possible enemy for Sirens. Aurora's holy light can destroy mental spells as easily as breathing." Ivan nodded. Rys had already seen the danger, warned Yara, and accepted the limits of what they could do. Meanwhile, he was still staring at an empty patch of water. The bright spot of mana under the water slid farther away and finally faded. Whatever had been down there had lost interest. Or decided to come back later.

Ivan kept [Mana Sense] on the empty water for several more breaths before letting it wind down and stepping back from the rail.

"Thanks. For warning me… and telling me." Rys shrugged, eyes still on the sea.

"Someone once told me stories were meant to be shared. Bad ones too." She pushed away from the rail.

"Maybe one of you idiots will listen."

"I'll stay away from the rail."

"See that you do. I'd rather not explain how I misplaced the ship's Scribe."

The day passed without other incidents, although Ivan kept checking. Every so often, he let [Mana Sense] brush across the water beside the ship. It found currents and scattered fish, but never the bright thread he had followed that morning. Monsters kept their distance, either fooled by the Void Ship's coatings or smart enough not to tangle with a hull wrapped in this much metal and magic. The crew fell into patterns. Watches rotated and meals happened.

Kids discovered that they could slide a long way on the polished deck if no one stopped them. Ivan watched whenever their games carried them too close to the rail. By evening, the wind had picked up a little and the air had cooled. Most of the freed folk were below, packed into the main sleeping hold with thin blankets, many of them still too tense to sleep.

The deck belonged mostly to Dawn colors, a few gawkers who still weren't tired of watching the water, and people like Ivan who could have gone to sleep but didn't. He went looking for Rys after the watch changed. He found her near the stairs, sitting on a coil of rope with her back against the rail. A small bottle rested beside her boot.

"You're brooding again," she said as he walked up.

"It's becoming a habit."

"I came to ask what you're drinking, priestess." He nodded at the bottle. Rys picked it up and squinted at the label.

"How disappointing. It's just a local brew. The mayor gave Yara a crate as thanks, and she handed it to me before it could go to waste."

"Yara put you in charge of it?"

"Naturally. Someone responsible had to check it for poison." Rys lifted the bottle toward the fading light as though this were serious work. Ivan sat beside her.

"Need help?" She considered the bottle for a heartbeat, then held it out.

"Do you even drink, little boy?"

"Sometimes. Not enough to know what I'm doing."

"Ah, that's fun. Then you can tell me if this tastes poisoned." He took the bottle and sniffed. The liquid smelled like something halfway between wine and fruit rot. Berries, maybe? Or whatever passed for berries here. He took a cautious sip. It burned a little going down, but not painfully. Warmth spread through his chest.

"Sweet." He handed it back.

"That seems dangerous." Rys took a swallow, made a face, then laughed.

"Still better than Chain water." Ivan sat on the rope coil next to her. They passed the bottle back and forth in a slow rhythm. The ship rocked under them. The stars began to show overhead one by one. After the story that morning, Ivan couldn't stop picturing Rys's shrine alongside the sirens and the people she had lost. Asking about the bottle felt easier than asking about any of that.

"Did you drink at the shrine?" Ivan asked.

"Or were priestesses forbidden from complaining about the world?" She laughed.

"Well, back in Vas I didn't drink at all, but a little after coming to Earth, in Veyshore… Still, not like this though. We drank on festival nights. Rice wine and moon cakes mostly. We loved dancing until our legs couldn't hold us." She rolled the bottle between her palms.

"But it was always for other people. To make sure they forgot their troubles for a night."

"Did you ever get to enjoy it?" She blew air out through her nose.

"I was the Guuji. Uh, Leader. Host. Judge." She counted the titles against her fingers.

"This is what my predecessor said the day I took over. You smile, you listen, you settle arguments over land and goats. You don't get drunk where anyone can see you."

"So you spent every festival working? Boring."

"Sometimes," she admitted.

"But it was mine. My river and my shrine… filled with my idiots. Then one day the river ran black and the Chain's ships came, and that was that." She took another drink.

"I miss it," she said.

"Both the work and the noise. Pretending to be annoyed when kids left offerings of badly drawn foxes… I miss more than just the power. I miss… the shape of days." Ivan understood that more than he wanted to. Ten years in a scribe room had been a prison, but it had given every day the same dependable shape. He knew where he fit inside it, even if the answer was somewhere quiet where nobody had to notice him. That was not the same as missing it. At least, he didn't think it was.

"Do you ever wish the Integration hadn't happened?" Rys thought about it.

"Hah, if my people heard me answer this they'd stone me but… No, I think it's a good thing that it happened. Vas was strange. It was destined for ruin. If the Integration didn't happen, I'd be holding back storms on the same patch of land until I went mad." She drank again.

"The shrine dying hurt, but at least now I get to see what else is out here."

"Monsters and slavers, you mean."

"And strange humans who turn slave collars inside out," she smiled, winking at me.

"Can't forget that part." He snorted. She nudged his knee with hers.

"What about you, handsome? Where would you be without the System?"

"Dead." She looked at him.

"Seriously?"

"Probably. My parents were gone. The old world didn't have much use for a guy whose only skills were exams and filling forms. Those skills were good back in my parents' time, but the world changed fast." He took the bottle when she offered it.

"The world was entering a stage where machines were taking jobs, and people were starving. At least here I got to be a human printer for a decade." Rys stopped with her hand still around the bottle.

"I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. And… what do you mean, human printer for a decade?"

"Yeah. It was terrible." He laughed out loud. He could still clearly imagine his office space when he closed his eyes, and yet it felt so long ago.

"But hey, it forced me to learn things I wouldn't have learned otherwise. Runes. Patterns. And… how much people will ignore you if you're useful and quiet." She hummed.

"You hate the System, but you understand it better than anyone I've met."

"What gave you the idea that I hate the System?" Ivan asked, making her laugh. She wasn't going to answer that. Ivan clicked his tongue.

"I don't hate it. Not really. It's a tool and a cage. Ignoring either part would be stupid."

"Do you want to break it?" she asked, watching his face. The question should have sounded ridiculous. Instead, Ivan thought about golden code and screaming scrolls, and wondered whether he had already started trying without admitting it.

"I don't know if I can. For now, bending it around the people I care about will have to be enough." Rys watched him for a few heartbeats, then smiled a little.

"Fair point. You don't have to break the whole thing tonight." The bottle was almost empty. His cheeks felt a little warm. The deck sway came through his body as a slow, pleasant roll. He looked at her profile. The sunglasses resting on her head caught starlight. Why was she wearing them at night? Her ears shifted to follow some sound he couldn't hear. The drink made him less careful about what he said next.

Hearing Rys speak about people he had never met as if the sea had taken them yesterday brought Ivan back to the road where they had first met.

"You know," he said slowly, "when I saw that convoy back on the road, I almost kept walking." Rys tipped the bottle toward him and waited.

"I still think about how close it was. A few more steps and you'd still be in that cage. Ren too. I'd be somewhere else. Maybe dead."

"Look at the bright side, you stopped walking," she said. Ivan took the bottle from her and drank.

"Wow, look at that expression. Almost as if you regret it, Ivan?" she asked.

"Regret saving us, I mean." She was joking, playing around, but he didn't even need to think.

"No."

"Then why do you keep saying it like you regret stopping?" Ivan looked down at the bottle. He had never thought of it that way. A few more steps would have erased all of them from his life before he even knew what he had missed. Rather than regretting his decision, it was more like… the possibility. If he hadn't just stayed locked in his little office for a decade and instead had the opportunity to hunt like the others, where could he have been by now? Not that any of that mattered.

It was never too late to start a journey. As long as he was alive, he knew he'd have endless paths ahead. His mouth pulled into a small smile. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the creak of the ship and the soft slap of waves. Rys shifted closer without making a show of it. Their shoulders brushed now. Her tail lay curled by her leg, tip twitching now and then.

"You know what bothers me?" she asked.

"The sirens? Or my drunken breath?" She nudged him with an elbow.

"No. You, actually." She was smirking, but it faded as she turned the bottle in her hand.

"You keep saying for now. You said it about the ship, and you do it whenever you talk about us too. Even after everything, you still sound like you're preparing to disappear." She stopped turning the bottle.

"I'm not letting you do that, Ivan." He opened his mouth, then closed it. He laughed, "Well, I spent ten years being background noise," he said after a moment.

"Hard habit to break." Rys's shoulder pressed more firmly against his.

"You're not background noise to me." Ivan didn't know what to do with how simply she said it. He had expected her to laugh or turn it into another joke, but Rys only kept her shoulder against his. The bottle in her hand swung a little as the ship rolled.

"Did I tell you… I can't remain drunk for long because of a Blessing?" she said. Her cheeks were warm, but her eyes had already cleared.

"But… Even when sober, do you think most people know what they're doing?" Ivan smiled. No, apparently they didn't. Somehow, that helped. Ivan turned the nearly empty bottle between his hands. If he let the moment pass, he would probably find a reason not to say the rest.

"Thank you," he said.

"For not walking away when I dragged you into the wyvern mess. For not selling me out when you realized what I could do. For… sticking around." Rys looked down at the emptying bottle.

"Now you're making it corny..." She bumped her shoulder against his. Neither of them looked away. Rys lifted the bottle, saw it was empty, and set it down beside her boot. She released a deep, disappointed sigh.

"I think the age gap is the problem."

"Huh?"

"I am hundreds of years old, while you're what, 27? Do you always need everything explained first?" Her hand rose under his chin before he could answer. She turned his face toward hers and kissed him. The kiss was direct and warm. Her lips tasted faintly of the berry drink. Her hand slid from his chin to his jaw, holding him there without force. His brain tried to offer commentary and then shut up. He kissed her back.

When they broke apart, he was still close enough to feel her breath and had absolutely no idea what to say. The ship was still moving, and the stars still shone high in the sky.

"Don't look so happy, Scribe." Rys rested her forehead against his.

"I might do that again."

"I hope you do." The sea rolled on into the night.