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NOTES ON THE STORY:
This story takes place a few years before “Their Fearful
Symmetry”.
There have been a few things I have had to adjust due to plot, so here
are some warnings for you nitpickers out there:
And having said that:
Let’s go on a ride...
by "KarmaCat"
A red fox in a blue coat looked out a window a few miles above the ground, silently watching as a few white wisps of cloud drifted past. He put his booted feet up on a polished oak desk that had once belonged to some seventeenth century aristocrat, a desk that was lined in leather and etched with real gold, upon which sat a radio, and , presently, his feet. But he did not smile.
He held ten coins in his right hand and moved them rhythmically with his fingers, feeling the disks slide over each other, listening intently to the tinkling, scratching sound they made. He gazed, almost robot-like, into the blue hot skies, looking through the clouds at...at what?
This he did not know. So he sat back and decided not to think of it any longer, lest he discover something that didn’t please him. But still he was not ready to turn away from the window because it was too quiet in his quarters. He had no idea what that had to do with anything, but the quietude, the pure inaction, in his personal space was all consuming. It was too still. He hated things getting too still.
He knew what was coming, but he would have given anything not to. But even resistance, refusal to believe, was growing thin now.
He gave an inaudible sigh of discontent, becoming uncomfortable in his own room, his own skin, and thought that there was surely more going on outside, out in the world. Something he could stir up. Whatever he needed at this particular moment, in fact, whatever he had been needing for the past few months wherein which he was getting quieter, his quarters were getting quieter - whatever he needed to replace the noise was outside. And he would find it.
A short burst of familiar anxiety flickered in his chest. He slammed the coins down on the expensive desk. He would find it now.
He buttoned his coat and stalked out of his quarters.
“Good morning, you idiots!” Don Karnage called out from the balcony over his quarters. The gang of pirates, most of whom had either been playing card games they didn’t actually know how to play or having their day’s first round of beers, glanced up with weary eyes. He hated the way they had been looking at him lately, as if he had been losing his mind. Maddog looked with the most unease; of all his men Maddog had been there the longest, and Karnage knew that Maddog knew something was wrong.
And, in one of those moments where he felt himself getting very angry for no apparent reason, he growled, “Let us go.”
“Go vere, cap’n?” Dumptruck called.
He pulled a complete blank. ‘What?”
“Go vere?”
Thinking fast, he called, “To plunder!”
This seemed to be enough for them, and they went off to grab their weapons and
load up their planes, leaving their captain to devise a flight plan that was confusing
enough to make his men believe that he still had some passion for what he was doing.
“Bob’s Big Bar” was not the most elegant place. Nor was it the prettiest. The walls were unfinished wood, the lighting dim, and the place rank of spilt beer. The only things that decorated the walls were a moose head that had actually begun to decay before someone thought to cure it, and a dart board with three or four darts, a few of which had been shoved into the necks of a number of unlucky men in bar fights. The men were seedy and the women were less than credible.
Bob, a brown bear fattened and wrinkled by much more than age, watched the scene from his perch behind the bar. Usual crud. He sighed and shook his head, chomping on a three day old cigar, and turned to fill some drink orders for the table of pirates in the back. He eyed them carefully as he alternated the mugs underneath the tap. They were hooting and hollering, clashing mugs together. It seemed they were involved in some private engagement.
Bob didn’t care that much. Just as long as they paid. He’d known more than a few pirates to take advantage of the fact that he only had one pair of eyes, and those eyes couldn’t always be on the door.
He loaded the drinks onto a tray and carried them to the table.
Bob handed a mug to a red fox wearing a blue coat, the one who was obviously the leader. He took the glass and grinned keenly at Bob, his eyes in a bit of a shiny daze. He reached out, his hand shaking a little, and the bear knew from experience that he was swiftly approaching ill. Nevertheless, he didn’t say anything and his men didn’t seem to care one way or another. Nor did Bob, just as long as the fox took his upset stomach out the back door when it decided it had had enough. This guy, Bob knew, wasn’t very good at keeping it down, even though he’d like his men to think he was. He’d been here before.
“I am Don Karnage!” he announced grandly, yet giddily, to Bob.
Bob snorted. “Yeah, great. I’m Bob.”
The fox turned to his men and held up his sword. “Say hello to Bob, you idiots!”
“Hi Bob!” they squealed and moaned in unison, then erupted into stupid laughter.
“Hi guys,” Bob replied, bored.
Don Karnage pointed his sword to one pirate. “This is Maddog. Maddog was a good boy today, yes he was.” He leaned in close to Bob. “Do you want to hear the brave tale of Maddog?”
“Not particularly,” Bob replied, and made his way back to the bar.
Don Karnage waved his hand dismissively. “We don’t need him. Who is that? I tell you idiots instead.” He paused, his eyes glazed like donuts. “You are all IDIOTS!” he yelled proudly. The men responded with uproarious cheers and the clinking of mugs.
“All except Maddog. And that is for only today. For without Maddog’s great deed today, we would not have the fortune in plunder we now have in our greasy chicken hands. And we would not be here, celebrating our, how do you say...sobriety.”
“Hoorah!” A pirate cried.
Don Karnage cleared his throat. “Today, Maddog shot down four of Shere Khan’s planes of cargo! Four! All by his lone-self! That is more than most of you blithering morons can shoot in a year! Do you realize that!?” He raised his glass. “To Maddog, the Very Maddest Dog of all the Mad Dogs!!”
“MADDOG!” The pirates grunted loudly and crashed their mugs together, fragrant beer splashing on the table.
Karnage had been lucky. He really had no plan when they went out that afternoon; in fact, he was mostly planning on flying around aimlessly for a while, all the time talking big to his men to make them think it was all part of some meticulously labored-over plan. He had to keep up the pretense. He couldn’t let them know.
Fortunately they happened to cross paths with a few cargo ships, and in an unprecedented feat of sudden skill, Maddog brought down four of them. The captain still couldn’t quite understand how he did it, but was nevertheless impressed with the seemingly meek underling. Therefore it was easy to keep a jovial attitude, if he just tried not to think about anything, to keep it so loud he couldn’t hear the deafening dread inside.
“That,” Karnage beamed, “was most remarkable. I have truly underestimated you! For today.”
Maddog shrugged and burped. “Yeah. I guess it was.” He burped again and giggled. “Can I be Captain now?”
“No.....” Karnage responded pensively. “But I will tell you what you will be tonight. You will be, instead of an idiot, a gentleman. A gentleman of the finest sort.”
Maddog belched with an intensity that could frighten many small animals, which set a few of the pirates to cheering. He rubbed his belly. “M’yeah? How’s that, boss?”
Karnage grinned mischievously, and expression that seemed to envelop the whole table.
A few of the pirates emitted laughing “oooh’s”.
“Uh oh, Maddog! He’s got that look on his face! You better watch out!” One of the pirates yelped teasingly, patting Maddog on the shoulder. Karnage threw his head back and downed the entire glass, held back his gag reflex, and slammed the glass down onto the table. He turned in his seat and motioned to three chatting girls in the corner, all of whom were wearing way too much makeup and improbably short dresses.
They all pointed to themselves and asked, “Me?”
“No, no, not you,” Karnage said, waving his hand. “Not you either. Not you. HER. Yes, you. That one. Come here and sit with me.”
The pirates whooped and hollered.
The girl giggled and did as she was told. She was a young bear, with blonde hair piled messily on top of her head and circles beneath her eyes. She wore a tight, short, low-cut yellow dress with obtrusive black polka dots. A million bracelets jangled on her wrists. Instead of sitting next to Karnage, however, she decided to sit on his lap. “Hi there, sweetheart.”
Karnage made a surprised face for a moment and then put his arm comfortably around her waist. “What is your name, little bird?”
“Jenny,” she replied.
“Bob!” Karnage called across the bar, “get Jenny here a drink! On me!”
Bob grunted.
“Gee, thanks!” she giggled.
“So, my lovely, would you like to do me a tiny-eensy favor, yes-no?”
She smiled. ‘Sure.”
“Now, listen, my friend Maddog here...he did a great deed today, and I’m sure he’d like to tell a pretty little girly thing like you all about it. Wouldn’t you, Maddog?” Karnage flashed a winner’s grin at the pirate. Jenny’s face fell.
The pirates let go with a thunderous amount of hooting. Maddog turned a deep shade of vermilion and sunk his head into his shoulders. Jenny just covered her mouth, and her disappointment, and giggled. “Awww, he’s shy!”
“Um, gee boss...” Maddog stuttered.
Karnage felt eyes on him. A figure swept by in the background. He tried to see who it was but could not seem to align his vision with the motion of his head. He began to feel queasy.
Jenny rose from Karnage’s lap and held Maddog’s chin in her hand, tilting his head up so he had to look at her. “S’okay, cutie. I’m sure we’ll have tons to talk about.” She took his hand. “Come with me.”
Maddog starting sputtering wildly, looking back and forth between Karnage and Jenny. Karnage gave a wave, still glancing for the mysterious presence he felt. “Go on, Maddog. It is rare that I reward my idiots. This may be the only time.”
Maddog blinked and looked to Jenny. She smiled.
“Gee you’re a pretty lady,” he said in an awed whisper.
“You’re cute,” Jenny replied and led him off as the pirates
cheered for Maddog.
Someone swept by again, a figure, too quick for Karnage to identify. Nevertheless it made
him nervous. He knew that whomever it was had been watching him the whole night. He
blinked and tried to focus on the glass before him. It throbbed with every strike of his
swiftly pounding head.
Karnage suddenly rose and took his leave, walking quickly out the back door before he
keeled over. His stomach had swiftly decided he had had a bit too much, and he wasn’t
about to argue.
Karnage winced, wiped his mouth, and instinctually backed away from what was until recently the contents of his stomach. He steadied himself against the wall and dug the heel of his hand into his chest, feeling dizzy. He sighed.
“I really shouldn’t do that. Is bad for me,” he mumbled absently.
He heard a pitiful clucking from the dark part of the alleyway. “Still haven’t learned, have you, boy?”
His body tensed. “Who’s there?” Karnage asked into the darkness.
“You mean you don’t recognize the voice? I always knew you were an ungrateful little gyp, but this is too much.” He had the melodic sound of an accent worn by exposure to other accents.
The fox narrowed his eyes. “Wha-?”
The figure hobbled into the light. He had the frame of a salt and pepper wolf who had once been tall and strong, but was now only a receded shell of himself, thin and frail. His leg had been replaced from the knee down with a metal pole, one eye sunken like a black luster marble, the other pale blue and lazy; glass, Karnage realized. The wolf’s voice was a rusted whisper of its former self.
“Hello, Esteban,” the ghostly creature said. “So nice to see you again.”
Karnage’s eyes widened and he exclaimed a loud obscenity, then keeled over in an encore performance.
The figure limped over and patted him on the back. “Now, now, now, what did I tell you so long ago? Your kind can’t handle their drinks, you know that.”
Karnage braced his hands against his knees and took a few deep breaths. “Take your hand off me, I’m fine,” he gasped. “You’re the one looking like the bad shape. You said I would never see you again unless it was to repay you. So what do you want?” He heard the ring of his men’s laughter through the back wall.
He sighed. “Well, Esteban, I’ve been kind of down and out lately - stand up boy, you’re done with the dirty business.”
Karnage kept his hands on his knees. “One never knows. And besides, right now this,” he gestured to the ground, “Looks better than you. What has it been, ten years? What happened? You look like the hell.”
“I thought you wouldn’t give half a flying--”
“I don’t,” he spat.
“No, of course you don’t,” the hobbled wolf replied. “But like I said, Esteban-”
A flicker of resentment streaked through Karnage. “Don’t call me Esteban.”
“You still insist on being called ‘Don Karnage”? You pompous little-”
Karnage stood up and glared. “You annoy me enough! Get on with it.”
A sardonic smirk crossed the wolf’s face, and Karnage couldn’t help but focus on that one pale and lazy eye. It was ugly, but far less ugly, it seemed, than the alive and shining one next to it.
“As you wish, boy,” the wolf rumbled in the shadow of a voice that the
fox listening had been trained so long ago to fear.
Dumptruck nodded.
He wasn’t nodding at anything in particular. It just felt good to nod.
So he nodded.
His eyes moved slowly over the table of loud comrades.
“They’re my friends,” he thought to himself.
And he nodded, affirming that thought.
He blinked and looked around, and in a startling moment of clarity, noticed something that no one else had yet noticed.
“Where’s da cap’n?” he asked out loud.
“Huh?” Asked a slightly dazed pirate.
“Where’dee go?’
“Who?”
“Who what?”
The pirate burped. “Who went where?”
“I don’t know.”
He shrugged. “You just asked me, man.”
He eyed the fellow pirate suspiciously. The pirate raised an eyebrow back at him.
Dumptruck blinked and looked around, and in a startling moment of clarity, noticed something that no one else had yet noticed.
“Where’s da cap’n?”
And, as if on cue, the back door swung open and in walked Don Karnage with someone in tow.
“Dere’s da cap’n!” Dumptruck said happily.
Karnage approached the table. “Allo, you simpering morons! Let’s get this over with.” He gestured to the man behind him. “I want you to meet Vargas. He will be staying at Pirate Island with us for a while.” He gave the wolf a sideways look over his shoulder. “A short while.”
The wolf just smiled and gave a disdainful shake of his head.
The pirates stared, transfixed, at what appeared to be their captain’s newly adopted peg-legged old street rat.
Karnage eyed the group angrily. “As you can see, he is very ugly. And he is also very nasty and very mean and will eat you alive if given half the chance! So leave him alone!”
Vargas gave a flashy smile and waved. “Salutations, hombres!”
The pirates glanced at him, glanced at each other, and then glanced at their captain.
“But cap’n....” Dumptruck began with an endearing amount of stupidity in his voice, “why?”
“Why? WHY!?” Karnage fumed. The table leaned back as a collective. “Because he - because I say so, that is why! Because I am Don Karnage, your captain! You do not need any other reason!” And with that he whipped off Dumptruck’s hat and threw it on the ground. “Ungrateful little...” he muttered, turned, and stepped on the hat on his way out, valiantly attempting to walk past Vargas as if he wasn’t even there.
Vargas watched him leave and then turned back to the table of dazed pirates. Dumptruck sighed, leaned down, picked up and dusted off his hat. A few of them blinked.
The old wolf gave a slight snicker. “You boys should probably sleep on the
beach tonight,” he said. “I wouldn't suggest flyin’ in the state you’re
in.”
Maddog walked out of Bob’s Big bar with a grin on his face and Jenny on his arm. She smiled at him as he bowed, kissed her hand, and bid her good night as if she were a princess. She had certainly earned that position in his book. He kept glancing back at her and smiling as he walked along the beach.
Most of his comrades were asleep on the sand, but those who were awake cheered out for him. Maddog smiled but didn’t pay much attention. He was feeling positively philosophical as he watched the first few rays of morning break over the sea. The pirate planes bobbed up and down in the water.
Maddog sat down in the sand.
Someone sat next to him.
“Have a festive night?” asked a rusted voice.
“I’m in love,” Maddog sighed.
“Is that so, old friend?”
He turned then, wondering who would refer to him as “old friend”. The face didn’t look familiar at first, but as Maddog leaned closer and narrowed his eyes-
“Oh my God, Captain Vargas!” he yelped. “Please don’t hurt me!! Please!” He tried to get up and run, kicking sand in the wolf’s face, but Vargas grabbed Maddog’s vest and pulled him to the ground. Maddog flipped over and regarded Vargas with wary eyes.
“Relax, kid, I’m not interested in you. I want to know about that measly pickpocket Karnage. How’s he treating you?”
“Bad,” Maddog replied. “Does he know you’re here?” He was still lying in the sand.
“He learned well.” Vargas mused to himself, and gave Maddog a weary look with his good eye. “Sit up. Retain your dignity, for crying out loud.”
Maddog did so, shakily. “Since when do you care about dignity?” he asked.
He tapped his metal limb. “When you lose a leg you have to start.”
“Oh.” The weasel leaned back guardedly. “So, you’re not here to kill me?”
Vargas looked out to the ocean and shrugged. “What, for your betrayal all those years back? Ancient history, kid. Besides, you’re not worth it. I’ve got far bigger fish, as they say.” A slight, wry smile crossed his lips. “I’m wondering about your captain. Has he been, I don’t know, acting funny lately?”
“Funny?”
“Odd...?”
Maddog thought for a moment. “Well, he’s been...he’s been kinda...be’s been weird. A little weird. I guess.” He looked to Vargas to see if that was the right answer.
Vargas looked delighted. “Has he really?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Like how?”
Maddog nervously picked at his nails, throwing glances to Vargas every few seconds. Vargas could tell by Maddog’s posture that he was poised to go for his dagger at any moment. “Well, he looks almost...almost sad. But I’ve never seen him sad, so I don’t really know.”
“Depressed? Angry?”
“Yeah.”
Vargas gave a grin that was hauntingly similar to Karnage’s.
“Good.”
He reached out suddenly in a motion that was quick enough to make Maddog grab for his weapon, a blade aimed directly at Vargas’s neck, but the old pirate’s quick hand snapped out and immobilized the weasal’s wrist. With the his other arm he patted Maddog on the back like an old buddy.
“Thanks, kid. Now go get some shuteye.”
Don Karnage perched in a tree.
From where he was, he overlooked the roof of Bob’s Big bar and onto the beach, and
beyond that into the sea. He was much more comfortable above his men than on the sand with
them, even though the branch he sat on did not well accommodate sleep. But it wasn’t
as if that mattered anyway. He had had trouble sleeping for the past few weeks or so, and
he doubted this night, especially with current events, would be any different. Slumber was
a silken goddess who refused to lay her gentle hand upon him.
Karnage shook his head. Lack of sleep always made him have embarrassingly poetic
thoughts that he would never in a million years express. At least, not again, for there
was only one woman who had praised him for his ability to describe things; in fact,
praised him at all. And that goddess was a long time dead.
He reached up and broke off a piece of branch, then took out a pocketknife and began to
cut into it, watching the shavings curl back upon themselves and flutter down to the
ground below.
His eyes settled on two tiny figures talking on the beach. One of them, Maddog, he saw,
suddenly yelped and tried to run away from the person sitting next to him.
Karnage’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“So here you are, back again,” he whispered into the dark. A few leaves
rustled in response. “And I am left to wonder what more of me you want.”
Every other step Vargas took on the floor of the Iron Vulture made a sharp ‘clang’.
Each clang added fuel to the fire of resentment and anger that was burning in Karnage’s
chest as he led the old pirate to his bunk.
Karnage pushed open a door whose iron hinges squealed in protest.
“Here is your bed,” he spat, doing nothing to hide the hostility in his voice. He thrust an arm towards ancient, lumpy cot in a windowless room that was barely larger than a closet. An insect peeked out from beneath the sheets and skittered back under them.
“Great accommodations,” Vargas mused.
“Only the best for you.”
Vargas turned, re-gripping his cane. “But seeing as I have nothing to, um, unpack, I
think I’ll just walk around your ship for a while.” He started in one direction
and Karnage followed just a bit behind. “Quite a mighty vessel you’ve put
together here.”
Karnage was staring at Vargas’s hand as he walked, the bony structure and the pointed knuckles. It was so frail now. It did not seem at all like the hand which had struck sharply, stinging, across his face on a daily basis for years, the same hand he had felt the full wrath of when it folded into a muscular gray fist.
Vargas stopped suddenly and turned. “What are you up to?”
Karnage looked at him questioningly. “Up to?”
“Don’t walk behind me like that. Walk beside me. That way I can keep my eye on you.”
“Yes. Your eye, that is correct,” Karnage snickered.
They walked in silence for a few minutes as Vargas thoughtfully regarded the insides of the Vulture, years and years of tension and animosity building between them like an underwater earthquake, volatile and barely contained. But, as surprising as it seemed to many, Karnage was quite good at controlling himself when he wanted to. Vargas was even better.
They stopped at a window and stared down at the cellophane water.
“I should kill you,” Karnage finally said. It was more of a statement than a threat.
“You should,” Vargas agreed, “but you won’t.”
“Do not be sure,” he replied, voice low.
Vargas was silent for a moment, but then spoke slowly, in a language Karnage hadn’t heard in too many years, a language that was both delightfully lyrical yet painful upon his ears. It was his native tounge; a silken, dark language on the edge of vocal dusk, a dialect brown and rich as the smoothest cup of coffee. The sound of it, especially coming from Vargas, made his heart drop into his stomach.
And what Vargas said was not much better.
“//So it has begun, has it?//”
Karnage said nothing. He lifted his chin.
“//Don’t deny it. Even your men have noticed the change.//”
It took a moment for Karnage to remember how to formulate the words, how to move his tounge, like trying to sing an old, old song. “//There is no change. I am fine.//”
Vargas gave him a dubious look. “//Are you still telling yourself that? Take a look in the mirror, Esteban. Even I can tell that you haven’t been sleeping. That’ you’re depressed.That’s the first phase. Before long-//”
“//’Then is that what you’re here for!?//” Karnage suddenly exploded, his voice echoing off the walls. “//To take my place after I - I - //”
“//After you die?//” The old wolf finished for him.
Karnage shot Vargas a look of pure blood lust.
A few pirates who had been passing by stopped to listen, not understanding this strange melodious voice in which their captain was speaking. They had never heard anything but accented Uslandic out of his mouth.
Vargas looked at Karnage with a threatening eye that did not match his statement.
//”No. I have no use for revenge anymore. I am here because I have something you need.”//
Karnage glared. “// Why?//”
“//Because many years ago, a friend came to me with a small, furry red kid
who had a big problem that, out of a debt, I said I’d try to fix. You owe me, kid,
and I owe her. And that’s why I’m here.//”
A woman clothed in night held a newborn baby and wept for her misfortune.
She was a small woman, a red fox, who had just given birth to a starving baby, for she
herself was starving. Pregnant women were not wanted in the line of work she had been in
and few of the other women like her were willing to help. So she had watched this child
hang limply in her stomach for nine months as she grew frailer and frailer with no hope of
salvation, for herself or her baby.
Her baby...she knew upon looking at him what he was. He would die anyway, but not for a while.
Not unless.....
And this night-clad woman burst onto the dark dust street in that decrepit, poor, town, clothed in a brown linen frock whose last owner she had found dead, her baby wrapped in the only blanket she owned. She knew where he would be taken care of, where he could have a better life than she could give him, however short his little life may be.
She knew a woman. A pirate woman, known only as Gypsy Mother.
A clan of pirates had lit upon their shores for a few days. But these were not ruthless, bloodthirsty pirates. At this time, piracy was not purely crime and plunder. It was a way of life. The men were known as pirates. The families who traveled with them were known as gypsies.
And within these groups there was, more often than not, one kind and strong woman, who lived up to the very definition and word of woman, both mighty and merciful, that was the unspoken caretaker and held the foundation of a clan. And of this clan, Captain Vargas’s clan, this woman was known as Gypsy Mother.
Their temporary beach encampment was lit by a few dancing fires. The pirates drank and talked amongst themselves, hung upon by a few smiling gypsy women. A few gypsy children laughed and chased crickets. The dark woman listened to the trees sway in rhythm with the gentle tide, to the great flapping of three ship’s sails, clutching her warm and squirming child close to her chest. The baby gave a tiny cry and the woman hushed him lightly. For a moment she watched the children play. They were completely numbed to the fistfight that was breaking out between two pirates near their vicinity.
Not an entirely charmed life for her child, the woman knew, but far better than the paltry one she was barely capable of giving him.
She searched for Gypsy Mother, and found her, strolling by the fistfight, whereupon she stopped and caught both participants gaze. She cleared her throat and they separated from each other, walking in different directions but glaring nonetheless. Gypsy Mother was most definitely a woman. She was tall and wide, round, with breasts and hips and a waist, her black hair plaited with feathers, a brown wolf with a tremendous feminine power. She was the hub of this clan, the thread that held it together.
The woman dashed to her and took her arm with a silent desperation that Gypsy Mother recognized immediately. The fox almost dragged Gypsy Mother into the thick brush, and, weepingly heavily and quietly, placed her baby into the woman’s warm arms. “//Please,//” she whispered.
Gypsy Mother thought for a moment, looking down at the small red child. He opened his little black eyes, looked up at her, and smiled a tiny bit, then let out a keening cry of need.
Gypsy Mother was solemn, but then smiled. “//I suppose,//” she replied.
The woman let out a cry of relief, and then the real tears started. Gypsy Mother put her arm around her, this woman whom she did not know whose baby she now had. But it was not an uncommon thing, this. Gypsy Mother had cared for many a parent less child and this woman new that. It was unspoken.
“//He is Bandar-Log,//” the woman said between sobs.
“//I see,//” Gypsy Mother said sadly. She looked down at the child again. A wolf-fox hybrid. Well, she figured, given his coloring he looked enough like a fox to make him inconspicuous at best. But she knew now this child would only be an eventual source of sorrow. Hybrid children, or Bandar-Log, as they were called, had a defect. When they reached about age nine their own bodies turned against themselves, the wolf genes and the fox genes fighting for control.The child became depressed, then ill with a painful disease that ended with the body simply shutting down, the force of the internal struggle too hard to take. If the illness, by some miracle, did NOT set in before nine, he would almost certainly die before middle age. So these children were disappointments. Wonderful, of course, because they were children, but letdowns. And that was why these children were often outcastes, because people did not want to get attached. Few women were as strong as Gypsy Mother, and could take that kind of heartbreak. And in this quiet bush she had already begun to brace herself.
The fox gently petted her child’s head. “//Goodbye, little thing. I love you,//” she wept. She looked to Gypsy Mother with wet, innocent eyes, and said, “//Teach him love.//”
Gypsy Mother nodded and held him up. Moonlight caught his tiny eyes. “Name him,” she said solemnly.
The fox blinked and gave a small smile. “For my dead father,” she said with a hushed tone of wonder, “I name him Esteban.”
With that she reached out and lightly touched the blanket he was wrapped in, and
disappeared into the night from whence she came.
The only light in Gypsy Mother’s tent was provided by a small oil lamp that hung from a beam. Hers was a large tent that usually housed many an ill child or adult, but not tonight. Tonight she was to devote the evening seeing to this tiny child’s welfare. She wiped his face, fed him from her own breast, and gently sang him to sleep.
“//Alashla,//” came a voice from outside.
“//Yes, Vargas,//” she replied softly.
A silver wolf pushed the flap of her tent aside in an impatient manner and regarded her with cold black eyes. Gypsy Mother returned his look with a similarly steely gaze. They both feared and respected each other equally, seeing as both had tremendous power over their clan. Though it seemed at times that they volleyed for power, feminine and masculine, old wisdom and young impetuosity, they balanced each other marvelously. If the scale were to be tipped in any direction the entire clan would dissolve.
“//I brought you water,//” he said, placing a small bucket on the floor. The heel of his hand rested against his sword and he peered at the small burden in Gypsy Mother’s arms.
“//Whose child is that?”// he asked.
“//He is not one of ours,//” she said. “//I have taken him in.//”
“//Ah,//” He nodded, as this came as no great shock to him.
“//I - I think he will make a strong young pirate one day,//” she said. There was a hint of sadness in her voice. The baby made a small noise and pulled himself closer to her body. Vargas cocked his head slightly, studying Gypsy Mother’s falling face as she looked at the baby, then studying the baby. “//One day,//” she muttered, clutching the child suspiciously close. Vargas, she knew, had sharp eyes. Despite herself, she feared his power, his control over the clan. Her they loved, but for him - for him they would gladly walk to their certain deaths if his very look so commanded it.
He held out his arm. “//May I see him?//”
Gypsy Mother seemed taken aback. Vargas rarely took any interest in the clan’s children, with the exception of his own; even they readily clamored for Gypsy Mother’s attentions as emotional filler, as did their many mothers.
She hesitated. Gypsy Mother and Vargas had an enormous talent for reading each other, and she knew he was becoming suspicious of the child. So, with the hope that Vargas’s sharp eyes would simply glance and disregard, she handed the baby to him. He supported it with one strong forearm and it began to struggle and cry out. She prayed that he would not recognize what he held - for he was one of the few people who were observant enough to discern it - she hoped -
He peered down at the child, and, after a moment, “//What is this? What am I holding?//”
His voice was angry. He knew.
Gypsy Mother summoned her strength. “//It is nothing, Vargas. Give the child back to me.//”
He did so, roughly. “//You say it is nothing? You have taken a Bandar-Log into our clan!//” He fumed quietly. He looked to the child with malice in his eyes, then to her. “//Are you so easily seduced by the young, Gypsy Mother? A child like this is not good for our clan! He will be nothing but an extra mouth to feed for a few years until he dies!”// He shook his head and grasped the hilt of his sword. “//I’ve half a mind to kill it now.//”
Gypsy Mother clutched the baby and met Vargas’s eyes. “//You will do no such thing.//”
“//You are not one to tell me what to do,//” he replied, yet averted his eyes. Gypsy Mother continued to stare at him. “//The child will die anyway.//”
“//Yes,//” she replied, “//but first he will live.//”
He clenched his teeth and glared down at the baby, still avoiding her face. For a moment he did not respond. He wanted to rid his clan of this burden, but dared not do it -- he had opposed Gypsy Mother’s convictions before with ill results. He could not overcome her possession of the clan’s heart. And he could not overcome the strange, resisting love even he had for her, for she was everyone’s mother - even, in some way, his own. Vargas had no command over his love. As much as he wanted, needed, to control her, it made him back away at every attempt.
Alashla, he thought, the one facet of the clan he could not readily command, and his inherent weakness against her, the only weakness he knew of, lay there in front of him in the form of this useless child. He looked at it with an even line of anger. A half-breed. The only half-breeds born were the children of prostitutes. Shameful children who did nothing but die...
A perfect captain should have no weaknesses.
Vargas glanced up into Gypsy Mother’s stern rock of a face, immutable,to the baby, and a bolt of frustration rushed through him.
This child would not live a happy life.
“//Yes, it will live,//” Vargas whispered begrudgingly, “//but remember, Alashla, a chain is broken by its weakest link. Do not let this...this thing become a nuisance to me, or there will be a dire price to pay on his part...and on yours.//”
With that, he turned and walked out of her tent, accidentally knocking her bucket of water over with his booted foot. Luckily her tent was situated uphill and the water flowed out of the open flap.
Gypsy Mother sighed and looked down at the baby. “//Little Esteban,//” she said, “//perhaps you are more trouble than you are worth?//”
Esteban’s only reply was a coo and a deliciously satisfied grin.
She couldn’t help but smile. “//Ah, you are the charming one, aren’t
you?//" she asked lightly. “//Well, worry not, little one. I will take care of
you. But I hope you learn that I cannot do anything but bandage your wounds if you get in
the captain’s way.//”
A gypsy child played in the sand of some other lit-upon beach a few years later. It was early evening, the sun sinking below the horizon, casting brilliant orange gleams upon the water. He took great, happy scoops of sand into his cupped hands and poured them, one after another, into a hill. A few small friends sat with him, laughing, all within the age vicinity of six.
One of them turned up his little nose and played with the gold ring that pierced his long, floppy Beagle ear. “//It’s so dumb, you know. Gyppie Mama says she loves us all the same, but she doesn’t.//”
Another snickered at him. “//Whad’ya mean?//”
“//I mean she loves Esteban the best.//”
“//Huh?//”
They looked to Gypsy Mother’s tent, smiling at the warm glow that emanated from it. Her lamp, many remarked, always seemed to burn more brightly than any other. And a few had also remarked on little Esteban’s constant presence within or around that tent.
He was only six and had no parents in the clan, the adults reasoned, it was nothing to be concerned about. For the children, however, it was not so easily explained. He had become the main focus of Gypsy Mother’s attentions. He trailed her like a baby duck trails its mother, watching her every move. They had a relationship of constant giving. She had taught him how to walk; when he was old enough he would fetch things for her. She had spent hours upon hours teaching him to speak until no child’s speech was more beautiful and well thought-out; in return he listened to her when she needed a listener, gazing up at her with those dark, inquisitive eyes.
Gypsy Mother never had a listener before. All the gypsies and pirates she heard with compassion, none were there to hear her. And for this she pampered the child, gave him special attentions, for she came to need him as much as he needed her. The rumors that she had taught him to read and write were true, though she sternly warned him to tell no one, especially not Vargas; he saw to it that only certain members of his clan obtained that knowledge. It was one of the many ways he kept them obedient.
There was a sadness in teaching him to read, however, when she recalled his bleak future. She tried not to let this charming being too deep into her heart, she was all to aware of his upcoming devastation, but she hated reminding herself THIS CHILD WILL DIE. Somehow, this knowledge just led her to love him more, so she went about the duty of teaching him the brilliant magic of the written word so that he might unlock a few stories for himself before it was too late.
How quickly he learned! She would have had to be blind not to see that little Esteban had a stabbing intelligence. He was sharp and observant; he noticed things that most passed by without a glance, he could catch subtleties in her speech, understand humor, irony. She knew some adults who couldn’t do that...
It made her wonder about his mother.
But one day, something awful happened.
Esteban came panting into her tent one afternoon that they were freshly lit upon some beach somewhere, something cupped in his hands, his black eyes sparkling. He had found some new treasure, she supposed; Esteban was usually the first off the ship to explore, though mostly by himself. The other children saw how Gypsy Mother treated him and were unsure of his status, so they left him alone. But Esteban had not yet begun to care about that. He had painted his world in a six-year-old’s palette and the colors only included himself and Gypsy Mother. Other children were inconsequential, and Vargas was a small blotch of foreboding darkness somewhere on the horizon.
“//Gyma!//” He exclaimed into the tent, struggling to hold some squirming creature between his palms. She looked up and smiled at him, so happy, dressed in blue. She always dressed him in the most regal blue linen she could spare.
”//Gyma, look! Look!//” He kneeled down and slowly released a panicking amphibian from his grasp. “//I found a frog, Gyma. See how green he is? Look, Gyma!//”
She laughed a little and conformed that she was indeed looking. Esteban could be rather demanding of attention sometimes. He liked to make the most of every discovery, to put on a dramatic show.
“//He was hard to ca - well, actually I don’t know if it’s a he or a she because I...I just don’t know.//” He blinked and scratched his head. “//How do you tell, Gyma?//”
She opened her mouth to explain, a task she would have willingly fulfilled seeing as he was now wise enough to see the question, but he didn’t give her the opportunity.
“//Anyway, he was hard to catch because frogs are fast and slippy, and fast, but see I thought that maybe if I-//” She saw that he was going to explain another one of his outlandishly brilliant plans on how to catch frogs and went back to stirring her pot of broth, still listening. His schemes, sometimes foolish, and sometimes shockingly clever for a child his age, never failed to entertain. And the delight he took in his conquests always delighted her.
He never got to finish his story, however, because at that moment a group of frightened children burst into the tent, all yelling unintelligible things at Gypsy Mother, pleading for her help. Esteban’s initial annoyance at their presence was quickly dissolved by their urgency.
“//What!?//” Gypsy Mother asked. Their noise was like a tidal wave of cacophony. “//What is it!? QUIET, children! One of you at a time, now!//”
They quieted down and one opened her mouth to speak, but the problem came through the door before she could put a word forth. A twelve year old, dark, scrawny weasel came through the tent flap carrying a much younger beagle child who’s face contorted in pain. Esteban saw that the boy’s leg was bent in a way he had never before seen a leg bent.
Gypsy Mother stood and took the child from the weasel. “//Maddog,//” she said to him, “//what happened to little Paul?//.”
“//He tripped over a stone in the stream,//” Maddog replied. His speech was somewhat broken; he was one of the few in the clan whose first language was Uslandic. His voice was a high-pitched whine and his eyes were somewhat dull. He was not quick like Esteban. The beagle released a sharp cry of pain. His leg was broken. Gypsy Mother lay him down on the floor of the tent, thanked Maddog, and told the other children to leave. They lingered for a few extra seconds, however, to see if Esteban would be ordered to leave as well; naturally he stayed where he was, assuming those rules didn’t apply to him. And Gypsy Mother would have let him stay, too, if not for one child’s ill comment.
The voice came in a cruel, mocking tone. “//You should leave too, ‘Steban. Or are you always Gyppie Mama’s baby boy?//”
Esteban was about to reply that of course he was her baby boy. He had never in his life been taught anything different. And Gypsy Mother immediately saw where a problem would soon be forming among the children, and decided right then and there to nip it in the bud.
“//Esteban, go,//” she ordered sternly, looking down at the injured child. She went about readying a splint.
Esteban hesitated, not understanding, looking back and forth between her and the expectant, snickering children at the flap of her tent. Their cross looks matched their crossed arms.
Gypsy Mother looked at him firmly, and Esteban returned her look with one of complete and utter question. She raised her arm and pointed towards the door. “//Go//,” she demanded.
His face fell. It broke her heart. With the look of a puppy who does not
understand what he did wrong, her most valued slunk out of her tent and out into the open
with the other children. She held back a torrent of emotion, knowing that what she had
just done would make Esteban’s short life a lot more pleasant, as painful as it was
for both of them. If he clung to her too much, they would never let him be. She understood
well the nature of children, and she could not be selfish and keep that little light all
for herself, as much as she wanted to; she was determined to let him go along normally
until his end.
From then on Gypsy Mother did not so readily shower her attentions on Esteban. By no means did she ignore him; she still cared for him, fed, him, dressed him, talked to him. He still slept in both her tent and her quarters upon the first of their clan’s three ships. The Red Fandango housed the women and children, and usually trailed the other two pirate ships by a good three quarters of a mile; those were for plundering and attacks. Vargas’s clan was one of the largest; over two hundred members.
Gypsy Mother busied herself with other things when Esteban lingered too long. She
saw to it that he played with the rest of the children. At first he was reluctant and
angry, but he soon grew used to children his age, and they soon grew used to him; at least
as used to him as they were going to get. He had been branded an outsider, she knew, and
it was her fault, her selfishness, her wanting someone for herself... It put a grieving
ache into her chest. This boy, this boy, this boy!
Esteban was seven and could spit the farthest. He and seven other children his age were lined up along the railing of the Red Fandango, high above the waves, hocking their spit as loud as they could, and making a big show out of projecting it out into the air. Despite the fact that it was dark out and impossible to see where it went, everyone assumed Esteban won, because he always did. He had figured out how to use air currents to his advantage.
Farther along the deck sat Vargas, who had decided to spend a rare night on the Red Fandango instead of the leading ship, Cutlass. Unbeknownst to the children, Vargas only did this when he had his eye on a woman or two, and he usually spent the latter hours of that night with them, whether or not they were willing.
The children glanced over to where he sat, with a small group of other male pirates who shifted crew duty on the Red Fandango. They were dark, mysterious figures lit only by a single lantern. The children were awed by Vargas’s posture, the way he leaned back, comfortable in his power, running his finger along the hilt of his sword. He spoke to his men with a threatening tilt of the head, his voice a rumble from far away. The men leaned greedily, as if they were trying to catch his words. The children were somewhat seduced by this adult council and crept closer.
Esteban stayed near the back of this group. Gypsy Mother’s warnings were fresh in his mind. “//Vargas does not like you. He does not like children, Esteban, please don’t go near him. Please.//”
He swallowed. “//You guys, why don’t we spit some more, eh?//” he asked his friends quietly, trying to lead them back to the railing. They glared at him suspiciously. Despite his talent for spitting, the other children did not take too kindly to Esteban. In fact, they barely tolerated him.
“//Naw, you always win. We want to look at Vargas’s sword!//”
He would’ve resisted more, held back, but he was curious as well. This wonder enveloped him and he crept along with the children. His walk was smooth. One gets used to the motion of a boat when one has spent their lifetime upon one. Vargas’s back was to them.
They were close enough to see moths fluttering around the lantern, to hear Vargas talk. “//Celeste,//” he said,“//I think Celeste, tonight.//” His tone were as if he were decided what sort of meal to have. Esteban didn’t understand it. He said something else and the men laughed.
He leaned his sword against a crate and continued talking. The children gazed upon the gleaming metal salaciously. To simply touch Vargas’s sword was a high honor among the youth of the ship. It was almost as if running one’s finger along the intricate carvings would bless him or her with some magical power.
They crept forward, so entranced that they barely noticed Esteban was lagging behind. One by one they touched it, giggling, each looking to see who went next. Vargas watched them with a weary eye but let them have the satisfaction of pretending he didn’t notice.
Esteban, however, could not bring himself to move beyond Vargas’s chair into the light. His chest tightened and he felt hot all over. Gypsy Mother’s warning rang true in his head; he knew that moving where Vargas could see him would be inviting certain doom. The children crossed their arms and moved aside, making a clear path for Esteban to touch the sword. Their eyes were cold, critical.
“//What’s wrong? Scared?//” they asked.
“//No,//” Esteban replied. His voice shook just a little.
“//Then touch it!//”
“//Yeah, it’s right here!//”
He stopped breathing and took a single step forward. One of the children, Manuel, who was often ridiculed for his tendency to do stupid things, grew frustrated with Esteban and took the sword in his hand, laughed, and pretended to fence. No sooner had Vargas’s arm flashed by like a lightning bolt and snatched the weapon out of the child’s hands. “//Give me thaaaaaat!//”
The children gasped and backed away. Vargas shook his head and leaned the sword upon the arm of his chair. They retreated and surrounded Esteban.
“//You still have to touch it!//”
“//Um, well...//”
Another child hit him in the shoulder. “//Yeah, what’s wrong with you? You’re the leader, you should have been first!”//
“//Who cares?//” Esteban spat, defensive. “//It’s just a stupid sword!//”
“//WE all touched it. And I touched it the most,//” Manuel said with a smile. “//And maybe if I did, Gyppie Mama would love me the most,//” he muttered under his breath. The other children snickered.
“//Yeah, maybe we don’t need a funny-looking wussy fox following us around.//”
Esteban was flabbergasted for a moment. As often as he was picked on this way, he would never get used to it. His little hands balled into angry fists, and he felt the first burnings of something that would later have a great influence on his life: ego. “//You think I can’t do it? ?//” he seethed, “//I’ll do it. I’ll touch his sword. I’ll...I’ll steal it from his chair!?//”
The other children smiled.
The orange lantern light glinted off the sword.
Esteban crept forward. Fear beat in him like a primitive drum, growing stronger with every strike. He felt his ears would explode with the sound of his own heart. The noise of the water below and of the sails above thundered like a symphony.
He crept closer to Vargas, his voice like a constant growl, lantern light splashing over his threatening countenance. Esteban’s hands shook. He reached through the darkness towards his objective, but a bolt of fear undescribably strong caused him to yank his arm back. He bit his lip and turned to the other children.
Their eyes screamed judgment. Manuel was smiling.
Perhaps...perhaps Gypsy Mother was wrong...maybe...she never did tell him why he should stay away from Vargas...he had to prove himself, he had to...
Esteban swallowed and continued to reach forward...his fingertips just brushed the cold metal...Vargas eased up out of his chair...it was now or never. With a quick swipe, Esteban snatched the sword away. It was heavier than he expected, and cold. But he realized in that split second that he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with the sword after he got it.
So he just stood there, terrified.
Vargas suddenly turned and looked directly down into Esteban’s eyes, and the child felt a sudden bolt of electricity, saw a gleam of rage in Vargas’s eye, and he knew something awful was going to happen.
“//You...//”
The sword was ripped from his hands and Esteban felt a rush of wind, then the terrific stinging impact of the back of Vargas’s hand savagely striking his face. Vargas wore jeweled rings; Esteban felt them cut into his cheek like blades. He fell backward onto the deck, twisting his ankle.Warm blood dripped down his face, dizzy with fear and shock.
The boy caught himself on his elbows and looked up at Vargas. Vargas looked down at him, and wit a sudden movement pressed the tip of his sword to the boy’s neck. Esteban cried out.
“//This is MY sword,//” he seethed. “//Do you understand that, you little bastard? Don’t you ever touch it. EVER!!//”
Esteban just looked up at him with wide eyes. Vargas pressed the sword a little deeper into the boy’s throat, as if he were waiting for a reaction. Esteban just looked, dazed. After a moment Vargas shook his head, removed the sword, and left, muttering a curse. As he passed by the other children, he scolded, “//That goes for you little idiots, too.//”
When Vargas was out of sight Esteban began to breath again. He held his hand to his cheek, too shocked to cry, and looked to the pirates Vargas had been talking to. They glanced back with a mixture of pity and something else Esteban couldn’t identify, and then went off.
The children gathered around Esteban with awe, looking down at him as if he were some sort of dying warrior...or a dying animal.
“//Are you okay?//” one asked with a strange sort of fear.
“//Yeah,//” Esteban replied with a slight warble.
None of them seemed to know what to make of it. Esteban blinked back tears, feeling the sting of the war wound on his cheek. They looked at him as if they were afraid to touch him; it was as if they dared to help him, they would be struck as well. They knew Vargas had a temper, but they had never seen him do that before; so they unconsciously decided that there must, all in all, be something wrong with Esteban that made Vargas react that way. They didn’t know what, and they did not think to ask.
Manuel crossed his arms. “//I still touched it the most.//”
Esteban decided that would be a good time to make use of his knowledge of air
currents, and forcefully sent a large wad of saliva flying up into Manuel’s face.
Later that night Esteban crept into Gypsy Mother’s quarters to his bed, making sure his injured cheek was turned away from her. He went unnoticed for a moment, for Gypsy Mother was talking to a blonde-haired wolf who knelt on the floor before her.
“//I don’t want to...I don’t want him...//” she wept. Esteban crawled under his covers and pulled the sheet up over his nose, watching the woman and Gypsy Mother, his eyes like tiny obsidian droplets.
Gypsy Mother stroked the woman’s head. “//Celeste...you know there is nothing I can do, especially not when he has his eye on a woman. Vargas is the captain, I have no power over him. You must bear it, child, it is the way of things.//”
Celeste looked up suddenly, her eyes red and furious. “//I must bear it! I must bear it!? I can’t...I...I WON’T!!”// She touched a case upon her ankle. “//I have my dagger here, I will do it, I swear to you I will!”// Her breath shook.
Esteban watched, enthralled. He had no idea what was going on.
“//The only thing I can do is offer you the night’s stay in my quarters...say you are ill. But he will come for you another night,//” Gypsy Mother said quietly.
Celeste stood and glared down at Gypsy Mother, holding her silver-handled dagger in a white-knuckled grip. “//Cowards!”// She seethed. “//Every woman who ever carried a child of his, cowards! I won’t be treated like half a concubine! And you! You, who tell me to bear it, and you have never bore it yourself!//” With that, she stormed out and slammed the door behind her.
Gypsy Mother looked after with wide-eyed sadness and sighed.
“//Gyma?//” Esteban asked quietly from the corner.
She extended her arm. “//Little one, come here.//”
He did so, completely forgetting about the cuts on his cheek. Gypsy Mother gasped and touched them. They stung. “//Esteban, where did you get these?//”
For a moment he didn’t answer, only looked towards the floor.
“//Esteban?//”
“//Nowhere//” he replied. That was enough to tip Gypsy Mother off, however. She knew. She lifted her finger from his cheek and her hands balled into tight little fists. Esteban was frightened for a moment; he thought that she was mad at him. She stood, and it seemed as though her entire body might collapse from the shaking, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. She took in a great shaking breath and closed her eyes, as if she were trying to calm herself down.
Esteban backed away. He had never seen Gypsy Mother angry before. She let her head sink into her hands for a moment and cursed Vargas. His eyes widened. He had never heard a word like that come from her mouth, and said in such a pained way...
She looked to him, a tear in her eye, and drew him close to her. Esteban wrapped her arms around her neck and rested his head against her shoulder. “//Oh, my little thing, I told you to stay away from him! But I suppose you had to learn on your own, didn’t you? Let me see it, I’ll take care of it.//”
Esteban bore his cheek towards her and she began to tend to it. Her eyes were so terrifically sad. He would have done anything to get that look out of her eye, so he suddenly thought again to ask how one tells between a girl frog and a boy frog. And Gypsy Mother explained it to him, along with all the information that accompanied it. At the end of the speech, Esteban’s brow folded and he considered it.
After a moment, he snickered a little, and asked “//When’s dinner?//”
And Gypsy Mother laughed.
The next morning a blonde-haired wolf was found at the bottom of the staircase that lead to her room. Her dress was ripped, her neck twisted; she was dead. They wrapped her body in old linens and with a prayer threw it into the sea; a traditional pirate burial.
A fellow pirate thought to ask Vargas what he thought had happened.
“//It appears she fell down the stairs,//” he replied calmly, and looked out to the sea with cold eyes.
The fellow pirate nodded and watched Vargas’s back as he walked away. There
was a glint of metal - Vargas putting a silver-handled dagger into the pocket of his coat.
The next three years went by, relatively uneventful. Esteban was nine and unpopular with the other children. They would tease him relentlessly; calling him names, coming up behind him and slapping the back of his head until he became angry and chased them with sticks. He had often voiced to Gypsy Mother that he would rather stay in with her than go out to play, but she would not let him. She told the boy that he needed to be strong if he were to be a pirate one day, besides, she wasn’t going to be around forever. Even though deep inside she knew he never would be.The would be ...gone ... long before that.
She kept that thought to herself. Only she and Vargas knew of Esteban’s affliction, and she was going to be sure it stayed that way. If the clan were to find out about that, the boy would be rejected by everyone, not just the other children, who did not like him because they couldn’t understand why Gypsy Mother loved him and Vargas hated him.
Esteban came to command a small, rag-tag group of other rejected, unpopular children. He would often bark orders at them, imitating Vargas. It always broke Gypsy Mother’s heart to see that, considering the nights when he would return to her with a black eye or injured wrist. She would tell him that Vargas was not a man he wanted to imitate, and he said he understood, but he didn’t. She could tell. He had no idea why he was singled out for beatings; being a child, he didn’t often question it. He figured it was the way of things. Nevertheless, he would follow Vargas around, offering compliments and favors until he was struck for his annoyance; it seemed the more Vargas disliked him, the more desperate Esteban was for his approval.
She had tried to confront Vargas about it, but Esteban’s punishments were always worst when Gypsy Mother got into an argument with the captain, or if he had been drinking. Those were the only times when the captain actually went looking for Esteban. It was revenge. He could not beat on Gypsy Mother without threat of mutiny, so he beat on “her” child instead. Whenever she said anything, Esteban ended up hurt.
Esteban came to treat his wounds like badges of honor when the other children remarked about them, for they didn’t see his tears; they only saw the tilt of his chin and the gleam in his eye as he claimed that Vargas was only trying to teach him to be a better, tougher pirate. At that young age, Esteban saw the beatings as a symbol of Vargas’s inherent power. And he wanted a piece of that power.
And only she could see the very real fear in his dark eyes, the fear that he shaded from all but her. She could see it when he even went so far as to strike one of his friends in the same way Vargas struck him. Esteban was slowly becoming darker and more bitter. After a while he stopped playing with his few friends, woke up in fits in the middle of the night.
One evening Esteban came back to her talking about the captain with a great deal of bravado, but coughed up some blood. She had gotten into another argument with Vargas that afternoon so she kept him locked in her quarters until he stopped coughing.
There was one problem.
Esteban didn’t stop coughing.
“//He’s sick,//” Gypsy Mother said to the small group of children who had gathered outside her door in search of Esteban. They looked frustrated, their little bodies swaying in keep with the rapidly rocking ship; there was a storm outside.
“//Well, when will he be better?//” they demanded, as if asking when a machine would be fixed.
“//Soon,//” she replied, barely a whisper. “//Go now.//”
And she closed the door.
The boy slept sporadically, sweated, moaned. She lay a cool washcloth on his forehead every fifteen minutes, wiped his mouth when he coughed blood; it was all she could do to keep the child comfortable. She could almost see his little body fighting itself. He would curl up, wincing, an elbow in his stomach. She would stroke his head and talk to him through her thinly veiled tears. For years and years, she knew this was coming, yet she let herself become attached anyway. For some reason she began to mend all his ripped clothes, and every time she pricked herself with the needle she wished for another prick. Some irrational part of her figured that the pain of the prick would prepare her for the stab of a broken heart.
As the nights passed he became worse and worse. He awoke in the middle of the night and opened his eyes weakly. They were no longer the shiny cobalt spheres they once were; they were now dull and sweaty. He tried to throw the covers off his hot little body but could barely move, so he just watched Gypsy Mother as she went about her business in the quarters. When she noticed he was awake she sat down beside him and gently stoked his forehead.
“//How are you feeling?//” she asked. She heard the scurrying of children running through the halls, accompanied by heavy footsteps. There was a knock on her door.
“//Come in,//” she called.
The door opened to reveal Vargas. A few children poked through behind him, trying to get a better look at Esteban. He shoved them away. “//Alashla,//” he said gravely, and closed the door behind him.
She couldn’t help but glare. She had slowly come to hate the sound of her given name coming from his lips.
“//What do you want?//” she spat, a little harsher than intended. Esteban took a look around with his little delirious eyes and saw that Vargas was standing over his bed. The boy’s eyes widened in terror and he cried out, instinctual holding his hand up as if to block a blow. A wave of rage rushed over her.
“//Leave,//” she said, “//I have a sick child here!//”
A smirk played on Vargas’s face. “//I see that. I heard that the little Esteban was soon to be deceased, I thought I might pay some last respects.//”
“//Gyma!//” Esteban cried out, half hallucinating.
She stood. “//Leave him be!!//”
“//I wasn’t going to touch him. I just wanted you to see what good you’ve done by bringing this thing into our clan.//” He snickered at the boy. “//He’s been weeded out as a reject among the children, been an extra mouth to feed, been a particular annoyance to me...nothing but a pain. And now he’s going to die. Break your heart, I’m sure.”// He extended a claw and tapped her collar bone . “//Now you remember that next time you want to take in a mutant. Remember this hurt. And remember that I was right.//”
She slapped his hand away and narrowed her eyes. He turned to leave.
“//I could leave this clan,//” she hissed, “//and half of it would come with me. Don’t underestimate my power, Vargas, I have far more than you know. I’m not afraid of you.//”
He turned and gave her a sardonic grin, but it soon faded when he realized she was serious. “//Is that so?//” he asked quietly.
She just glared at him.
There was a moment’s standoff, and then Vargas reached out suddenly, grabbing her by the arm and drawing her near. She extended her claws and prepared to strike, but the blow was blocked by Vargas’s forearm and the dagger he gripped in his fist. He held it steadily beneath her jaw.
Gypsy Mother drew in a quick breath and glanced at Esteban. He was staring at the opposite wall in a trance; he had no idea what was going on. She would have breathed a sigh of relief if not for the cold edge of steel at her throat and Vargas’s whisper, “//If you leave this clan, I will hunt you down and kill you. You say you are not afraid of me, Alashla? Well, I am not afraid of you!//”
With that, he released her, casting her against the wall, and walked out the door.
A little while later Gypsy Mother watched Esteban from across the room, thoughtfully sheathing and resheathing a dagger. The boy gave a rickety sigh and a noise of discomfort. His eyes kept closing and opening; he seemed to always be on the edge of sleep, slipping from this world to the next. She looked at him hard, trying not to feel, watching his restless sleep punctuated by faint murmurs of pain. Murmurs now, not even cries. He was too weak.
Esteban’s face contorted in pain.
She gritted her teeth behind closed lips and swallowed, recalling an oath she had made to herself when Esteban was merely an infant...
There was a concoction she had mixed a few years back, a powerful herbal liquid she had allowed to ferment in order to increase it’s strength. She had poured it into a small gilded bottle, too beautiful for the substance it held, and hid it in a trunk underneath the bed where Esteban now lay.
Suffering.
She reached into a leather pouch round her belt and extracted a key. The mixture would be incredibly strong after all these years. It wouldn’t take long at all to work, and it would be painless. She had designed it that way. She unlocked the trunk and removed a small bottle filled with a fetid, black potion. She held it up to the light and her claws clicked against the glass; she realized her hand was shaking.
Esteban wheezed.
She was not going to let him suffer any more.
She gently unscrewed the top of the bottle, and the smell from it was so overpowering that she almost dropped it all together. Quickly she screwed the cap back on, barely able to stand it. Esteban seemed roused by the scent and opened his eyes, coughing.
“//Gyma?//” he asked weakly.
She bit her lip, looking at him. How could she have? How could she have even thought of it!?
He looked at her strangely. “//Stop that,//” he said, “//Don’t cry.//”
She wiped her eyes, not even realizing she had been crying, and rested her head against his pillow, looking into his little face. “//Oh no, little one, there’s just something in my eye.//”
He looked into her eye, and said weakly, “//I don’t see it.//”
She smiled and stroked his cheek. “//Are you feeling better?//”
“//No.//” He looked thoughtful for a moment. His eye steadied in a moment of clarity, unhindered by fever hallucinations. “//Gyma, I’m...different, from the others, aren’t I?//”
For a moment she was terrified. He couldn’t possibly know! Not unless Vargas had told him, but somehow she doubted that. Nevertheless she remained calm and replied, “//How do you mean, Esteban?//”
He rubbed at his eyes. “//They’re not...they don’t...like me.//”
“//Ah,//” Gypsy Mother said. “//I see.//”
“//And I don’t like them.//” He coughed.
“//They’re not fast enough for you.//”
He blinked. “//What?//”
She soaked a washcloth for him and put it on his forehead. “//They don’t all have quick little brains like the ones you have in there.//”
“//Quick brains. I have quick brains,//” he said happily. He sighed and began to fall asleep again. “//I’m going to...I’m going to get well for you, Gyma...//” he drifted.
No, you’re not, Gypsy Mother thought in agony. I will place a luck-charm in your pocket before they throw you into the sea...
“//Quick little brains, handsome little boy,”// she whispered, unsure if Esteban could hear her. It may be his last night with her, and she could definitely stand to give him this one last flattery. Tears gathered in her eyes once more. “//Oh, my sweet, compared to them you are of nobility...you are a Don.//”
And as Esteban fell asleep once more, that last word repeated in his mind like a
heartbeat ...Don, Don, Don...
The boy’s fever burned through the night. To Gypsy Mother’s infinite surprise, it broke at about two A.M.
“//I don’t understand this...//” she mumbled to herself, feeling that the boy’s forehead was not quiet as warm as before. His face was calm and he slept soundly. Her face fixed in a puzzled expression. She was sure this was the calm before the storm, he certainly must be about to die - she tensed - but someone above must have wanted a wonderful child to have a peaceful death.
She could hardly blame them.
She kept a sharp eye on the boy until she herself finally drifted off, her head
sinking down onto the mattress. Her hand gently blanketed Esteban’s and she listened
to his breathing, growing steadier every moment, until her eyes closed and she fell
asleep.
Gypsy Mother awoke with a start the next morning, expecting to find a cold body lying next to her. The first thought in her mind was regret that she hadn’t given him the concoction before he passed; she could have made it painless for him, but no, she was too selfish --
She looked up.
Esteban was sitting up in bed, peering down at her with a peculiar look on his face.
Gypsy Mother’s jaw dropped.
“//You’re drooling,//” he said, a little disgusted.
She hesitated. “//I - what?//” She had half a mind to ask him what he was doing still alive. She took his face in her hands. “//You are - you are well!//” she stuttered. He wasn’t completely healthy, still a little pale and hot, but he was much better than he had been before.
He looked at her questioningly. “//When’s breakfast?//”
“//You want to eat?//”
His expression changed to puzzled. “//It’s morning, isn’t it?//”
“//Yes, it is...I...Esteban...how...you were so sick!//” Gypsy Mother inwardly chided herself. How could she expect him to know?
He just shrugged. “//I told you I was going to get well for you.//”
She just looked at him, open-mouthed. Outside the sun broke through the heavy rain clouds as the ship gently rocked on a calm ocean surface.
He caught something in her look. “//Why...why didn’t you believe me, Gyma?//”
Gypsy Mother swallowed. This...this she had not been expecting. She knew that there were Bandar-Log who lived to middle age, who underwent spontaneous remission. But he was so sick, Esteban was so sick...she never in a million years would have thought that he could be one of them.
Suddenly, for some reason, it all became clear to her. Esteban had always been special. Why should he not be in this case as well?
However, she knew one thing: if Esteban was going to continue to live, he could no longer remain ignorant of what he was.
She smiled kindly and hugged him. “//Esteban...I have something to tell
you.//”
A few weeks later Esteban was peeling vegetables in some dark corner of the Red Fandango’s mess hall. He did the job halfway on each, deeply resenting having been put there. It wasn’t his fault the small band of children he commanded were idiots. If they had followed his plan step by step, instead of being stupid and messing it up, it would have worked. Esteban was a fantastic practical joker - he and his small group had been methodically stealing lady’s corsets and hanging them out the windows, and they all thought this was riotously funny. But of course they had been caught, because one of the kids actually showed the corset he stole to the lady he stole it from, and Esteban was put on peel duty as punishment.
Stupid peel duty.
He hated peel duty.
Peel peel peel peel peel stupid peels... He picked up a balded fruit and threw it out into the dark, waiting for it to splatter on something.
It didn’t.
“//Thought I’d find you here,//” a deep, slurring voice said from somewhere in the dark.
Esteban froze. “//Captain Vargas?//” he asked weakly into the dark.
He stepped into the light, holding the fruit in his hand. “//You shouldn’t be throwing these. You could hurt somebody.//”
“//I’m sorry,//” Esteban said quickly. Vargas stumbled a bit, and Esteban could smell the alcohol on him. The Captain crept closer to the boy.
“//You’re supposed to be dead, you little bastard,//” he slurred.
“//I know.//” It was the first thing he thought to say.
“//Oh, you know? So she told you what you are, you little mutant?//”
Esteban hesitated. “//Yes. She told me I was...special.//”
Vargas laughed. “//Special! Ha! Like a chunk of dung in your stew, special. You should have kicked off, but no...you’re always there like a little red insect, reminding me...//” The boy saw rage rush into Vargas’s face, that look he had begun to recognize as the precursor to being hurt.
“//Please don’t-!//” the boy exclaimed, but saw Vargas’s fist pulling back and closed his eyes-
-the peeler clattered to the floor -
-felt a succession of painful blows, blood rushing into his mouth-
“//You’re supposed to be dead!//”
-saw Vargas’s vengeful, yellow eye-
“//Dead!//”
-heard a horrible shrieking and realized it was his own little voice-
“//Stop!”//
-before he finally blacked out.
Gypsy Mother looked down at Esteban’s bruised body in her bed. He had barely moved since they found him lying facedown in a pile of swiftly rotting fruit. No one knew who had beaten the boy up; they figured it was some other children, seeing as they didn’t like him anyway. No one knew except Gypsy Mother.
Esteban breathed weakly. Gypsy Mother clenched her jaw, bit her lip.
She was so tired of seeing that child lying there...so very tired...
A few nights later Esteban had recovered somewhat. He had a broken arm that Gypsy Mother had splinted and set as best she could, and she refused to let him leave her quarters for a little while. However, on the third night of his recovery, Gypsy Mother knelt down and put her hand on his shoulder.
“//Esteban, I want you to gather your things and stay in Scarlet’s quarters for the next few nights. I have already arranged it with her.//”
Esteban looked a little take aback. “//Why?//”
“// And I don’t want you to come into this room for the next few nights, either.//”
“//But why?//”
“//Don’t ask questions, just do as I say!//” she snapped, much harsher than intended. Esteban’s eyes widened; he jumped.
Gypsy Mother gave a frustrated sigh. “//Little thing, I’m sorry, it’s not you that I’m mad at. Just go to Scarlet. For me.//”
He bit his lip as if considering whether or not to accept her apology. After a moment his face brightened, however, and he said, “//Scarlet...with the corn-color hair?//”
“//Yes.//”
He snickered a little. “//I think her corset’s still hanging out one of the port windows.//”
Gypsy Mother laughed and opened the door. “//Go on, you silly little
thing!//”
Gypsy Mother crept into the mess hall. That night soup was being served, and Vargas had taken a night on the Red Fandango partly to enjoy it, but mostly to stake out a few women. The ladies serving up the soup greeted her with smiles and invited her to try it; she sipped some to appease them and eventually made her way to Vargas’s silver bowl.
She looked to her left, and then her right, and extracted a small gilded bottle from
the pouch on her belt. Quick as lightning she unscrewed it and, almost too fast for the
smell of the black liquid to escape, she put a drop or two into the bowl. It landed with
two gentle thups on the flat bottom. Hurriedly she screwed the cap back on and
ladled some steaming soup in herself, and left the bowl on the counter for the ladies to
serve.
She sat in her room, sewing.
There was an urgent knock on her door and she opened it, revealing two hefty male pirates who carried an ill-looking, halfway unconscious Vargas.
“//Gypsy Mother, the captain is sick!//”
“//He is?//” she asked, feigning surprise. “//Did he drink too much?//”
“//No, not a swig!//”
She gestured toward the bed. The pirates all too willingly lay him down on it. One of them looked to her with panic in his eyes. “//He just- just-//”
“//Fell over!//” the other finished. “//Facedown on the table! He can’t even move! Can you...fix him?//”
She looked to Vargas. His head was lolling.
She nodded slowly. “//I’ll see what I can do.//”
A little while later Vargas awoke. He turned his head, seemingly the only part of his body that would move, and was startled to see Gypsy Mother sitting across from him, glaring like a bloodthirsty animal. She leaned back in her chair and looked at him from underneath her eyebrows, sheathing and resheathing a dagger.
Vargas was not a stupid man. “//You did this to me, didn’t you, you wench?//”
“//Yes,//” she replied quietly, low and dangerous. “//And I could have done more. I still can.//”
Vargas swallowed. For once in his life he didn’t quite know what to say.
Finally, he replied. “//You wouldn’t dare.//”
She stood.
“//What are you doing?//” he asked quickly.
She walked over to the bed, unsheathed the dagger, and shoved her right knee into his groin. Vargas opened his mouth to yell but she grabbed his snout and held it closed in a surprisingly strong grip. The only sound produced was a muffled cry of pain.
She pressed the blade into his neck and put her face next to his. “//I think it’s time,//” she hissed, “//that you learned a little humility.//”
No one knew what occured in that room that night, but one thing was for certain: Vargas did not lay a hand upon Esteban for a long time afterwords.
Continue onward in the story...
