There. A shadow from the mast as the ship turned. She leaped into it, then ran along its length—jumping over the veins of silver in the deck. It would hurt her if she touched it, she knew, but she was stronger in this shape than common spores. Mere proximity wouldn’t harm her.
She reached the captain’s cabin, which occupied the space directly underneath the quarterdeck. She definitely shouldn’t have been able to squeeze under that tiny gap between door and deck, but she did. The reinflation took longer this time, but her eyes re-formed faster than the rest of her, and she was able to scan the room.
Crow sat at her desk by the porthole, writing something by the waning light of the setting sun. Her hat hung on a peg by the door, her canteen was open next to her, and she wore her jacket unbuttoned.
As soon as her feet were back, Midnight Tress scrambled into the deeper shadows beneath a bench. Crow smelled wrong. Of rotten weeds, and burning flesh, and something else Midnight Tress couldn’t identify. The other humans smelled of sweat and sweet flesh. Not Crow. Crow wasn’t a person, not entirely. The parasite was winning.
Midnight Tress realized she should have waited. Waited until Crow and Laggart were meeting. She should have planned. But plans…plans were things for people who didn’t exist yet. And Tress existed now.
What was that little book Crow was writing in? Midnight Tress inched closer. Could she keep to the shadows enough that she could read the book? She craned her neck, looking up from the floor, trying to see. But the angle was all wrong. Could she…
No. No, she’d have to get right up beside Crow to look at the book. She felt excited and eager in this body, but…but even in darkness, she wasn’t invisible.
Just a little closer. She could get a little closer.
With effort, Tress held herself back. It was like trying to keep from eating when ravenous. She wanted to do what she wanted. Didn’t she?
No. No…
Crow would leave soon. Evening mess. She’d go like she always did, get food, and then return. Wait.
Wait.
WAIT.
The call went up. Crow shut her book, took a long drink from her canteen, then stood. She took her hat off the peg, went out the door, then locked it behind her.
Now!
Midnight Tress scrambled out of the shadows. She climbed up the table leg with claws too sharp for her otherwise soft and malleable body. Then she sprang onto the top of the table, so eager to reach the book that her feet twisted and distorted as she ran, extra nubs of more legs growing like tumors at her sides.
She reached the book and bit it, pulling it open to the page that Crow had left marked. And inside was…words?
Words that smelled of dust. Dusty, dirty, boring, stupid, melty, inky words. Why words? Why had she been so eager?
Words. Read the words.
She didn’t want to, but she did anyway, growing her eyes larger until they bulged from her face—taking in more, making the details more distinct. Many of the words looked printed by some device. But written in the margins, in what she assumed was Crow’s handwriting, were notes.
A way to be rid of them, finally? the note said. A way to banish the spores from my blood?
Curious. Midnight Tress focused on the text.
It is clearly evident that Xisis has the power to cure any disease. In 1104, a supplicant reported being healed of cancerous tumors in a very extreme state of progression. This individual, Delph of the Zephyr Islands, is a well-known and respected scholar—and his word is trustworthy.
We have another extreme example. In 1123, Queen Bek the Fifteenth was cured of her spore gestation, and remains the only person—in thousands of years of recorded history—to survive such an infestation. Xisis was involved.
Stupid words. Stupid sawdust-in-the-eyes words. Why? She should find something to bite, something that bled warmth and liquid salt.
She fought with herself, writhing, her shape bubbling and squirming. She almost ripped herself apart in her anger. But she won, finally, and forced herself into the ragged rat shape. She bit pages, moving back through the book. She passed other notes from Crow, but most didn’t draw her attention—until she saw two words that stuck in her mind from what Huck had said earlier.
Secret meetings with Weev indicated there should be a way to find the proper location. Too bad he turned to blackmail. Ah well. At least he showed some spine before I killed him.
That didn’t explain what Xisis was. She flipped through more pages to find the start of the chapter. What was this thing that could cure diseases? An herb? A potion?
No, a being.
Xisisrefliel lives beneath the spores in a palace that somehow exists on the bottom of the Crimson Sea. Though his age is unknown, he has lived in that same spot for at least three hundred years.
Many would, very rationally, call him a myth. However, this chapter will establish that he is undoubtedly real, as evidenced by the testimonies of trustworthy supplicants. Granted, traveling the Crimson Sea is not for the faint of heart. Indeed, there are many who would call into question the sanity of any who sail those spores. This has repeatedly been the reasoning for dismissing testimonies of the dragon’s existence.
My own efforts to locate the dragon have so far failed, but I can prove it wasn’t insanity that led them to their course, but desperation. Their words are trustworthy. Unbelievable though it may seem, Xisis the dragon is real.
The dragon.
Crow thought the dragon was real.
And she wanted to force her crew to sail the Crimson Sea to find the dragon and heal her affliction.
It was the first thing she’d discovered about Crow that made perfect sense. Midnight Tress needed to know more. How did one find the dragon? She’d heard he granted wishes— everyone had heard those stories—but surely there was more to it. Was locating the dragon enough, or did you have to pay him?
But no. Words were splinters for the eyes. Stupid, useless, bloodless, saltless, flavorless, screamless words were over. No more.
The fight began again and her form disintegrated. Mush on the desk, slapping itself and writhing.
Footsteps.
Fighting against the one who wanted words and the not of the will of being again the words.
Footsteps outside.
No no no no no no no no no obey.
Crow was returning. Key in the lock.
Had to—
In a flash and a burst of black smoke, Tress was cast out into her own body. She found her mouth parched, dry like it was full of sand. She couldn’t recognize the feel of her own tongue, now like a lump of cloth, and her hands were withered before her. She had collapsed sideways on the bed, and when she tried to speak she let out only a croak.
“Tress!” Huck said, squatting before her face. “Tress!” He held the silver knife awkwardly in his paws. “There was a line of darkness coming out of your mouth. I didn’t know what to do, but you were coughing and…”
“Water,” she managed to force out. She reached toward the second waterskin.
Huck scrambled over and grabbed it in his teeth, pulling it toward her. She managed to dump it into her mouth. As soon as it touched her tongue, her mouth burned. She kept drinking through the pain, choking on the water, forcing it down a throat that was dry as parchment.
After that she lay on the wet mattress, wheezing. If she had been that dehydrated normally, she would undoubtedly have died, but this was no normal effect. Timely application of liquid reversed the process, reinflating her twig arms as the burning in her mouth and throat faded.