In the Gloaming Jungle Depths - The Pearldiver's Adventures #4

Being one of the Pearldiver's Adventures; a tale of Seduction, Seclusion, and Black Magic

Captain Molo is back for more, dear readers. Welcome to the fourth entry in The Pearldiver’s Adventures. Unlike the previous entries, this one is a direct sequel from the previous story, “The Ziggurat of Shodo Khal.” While this story can work on its own, I recommend reading the previous entry to get the fullest context.

If you’d like to read the rest of The Pearldiver’s Adventures, you may find them in the index:
The Pearldiver's Adventures, Index

I climbed atop that swelt’ring mount,
To the cliffs which overlooked sea.
I fled those gloaming jungle depths,
And yet her voice still called for me.
-Rosselli, “In the Gloaming Jungle Depths”

Late into the night, Captain Molo lingered awake in his cabin. Seated upon a squat bench, its plush cushion of red velvet bulging beneath his weight, he gazed to the west through the rear window of his ship, The Second Lady. The sea stretched beyond sight, ranging from the shores of Marrash, that debauched Telari port where he dropped anchor, to the Thousand Isles of Sanja-vai and beyond. Ah, but there was no seeing the Isles tonight, nor the horizon, which was darkened by the streaks and sheets of wispy clouds.

Only the moon was visible tonight. The wispy clouds and ocean waves could also be seen, but only by permission of her glow. Molo stared at that moon, that silvery disk made hazy by those brushstroke layers of mist in the sky, her reflection rippling in ocean churn. The eye of a pagan goddess remembered only by the ancient world, forgotten by all but the scantest few alive today. Faith in the Highfather had long since replaced the bulk of pagan worship along the lands touched by the Sea of Swords and its neighboring brother, the Southward Sea. Messages of peace, salvation, and rest in the world beyond, spread by acolytes who practiced teachings of charity and self control and other such virtues, had won over the people of this world a full eon before Molo was born.

Clutching tight his symbol of the Highfather, a simple bronze pendant sporting a star with four points, he wished he could feel that peace now.

Nigh on a tenday had passed since Molo and those two new crewmen of his, Sigurdr, the burly Stenisian with a troubadour’s voice; and the rapacious Khavosan half-blood Dibelios; found themselves on the receiving end of a wicked trick by a local mystic. Awakening in a ruin somewhere in the depths of Telar’s continental jungle, gumption and good luck saw them escape what Molo could best describe as a tribe of fanatics prepared to offer their lives to some heathen jungle god. Happily they’d managed to avoid that gruesome fate, but as they fled Molo caught sight of a vision which still haunted him.

She was a Telari woman of roughly his own age. Voluptuous and beautiful, her near-to-naked body was ravishing in a way that was swift to awaken his masculine desires, yet those desires withered just as swiftly when his memory turned to her eyes. Green eyes, beauteous and terrifying. They shimmered in the light of the moon much like the sea outside his cabin window. Like some pagan goddess, they peered with paralytic command into his soul and stripped him bare, down to his smallest self.

This was the ninth such night. Long and sleepless, the nights were the worst for him. She would appear before him, waiting, beckoning, and a part of him was tempted to follow, though he knew that to be folly. To pursue this wraith would surely mean his end, and so he considered leaving, pulling up anchor to sail west to the Thousand Isles of Sanja-vai, from which he originally hailed.

Yet that, too, would be folly. Molo was no expert in magic by any means. He did not practice such arts, nor did he have the capacity to, at least so far as he was aware. Inability was not the same as ignorance, however, and Molo had experienced enough in his time to be certain of two things when it came to magic. Firstly, it was not a force with which to trifle, as it had the capacity to shape the very world around it. Secondly, that no amount of distance would free him from a magical bond, and what were these visions if not that?

Difficult as the nights were, the days offered Molo little in the way of respite. They were neither as intense nor as immediate, but the visions assailed him during daylight hours, too. He first noticed her the morning after they made their way back to the ship, flitting in and out of the edges of his sight. She never appeared directly before him during the day. Only at night would she do that, and in its own way that was even more maddening.

He managed to avoid suspicion from the crew by feigning illness and leaving the day to day running of The Second Lady to his First Mate, one Francis Arnold Wuthers, who was the only other member of the crew to know the truth of what happened other than the roguish duo. So far the excuse making had worked, particularly as Molo’s unease about these visions played into his pretending. Nine days was a long time to be bedridden, though, and questions were starting to rise from the crew. They couldn’t stay in Marrash for very much longer, for the port’s prices were exorbitant and their stores were already so drained by an excess of drinking, gambling, and cavorting across their first two weeks in the town. A massive chunk of that loss was, in fact, the fault of Sigurdr and Dibelios. Those two alone frittered over a week’s worth of the ship’s coin on either games of chance, or by paying charlatans who took advantage of their foolish hope of finding glory and riches in the gloaming jungle depths to feed them bad information.

Those fool boys. Molo hadn’t seen them since the morning after they made their escape. He wondered if they’d ducked into the town somewhere, or perhaps took up with another crew, leaving him saddled with the massive debts they made. He wouldn’t have put either option past them, but something in his gut told him that’s not what happened. He couldn’t place what or why, but deep inside he just knew they’d made their way back into that accursed jungle. It was as if the knowledge was gifted to him, whispered into his ear by a force unseen.

Except, he could see it. Rather, he could see her, that nearly nude Telari with her tawny skin, straight black hair, alluring figure, and those savage green eyes. She stood behind him, reflected in the window, her green eyes glinting with a mysterious and commanding desire. In the reflection she leaned forward, caressing his chest and collar with her long nailed fingers. He could swear he felt her touch tingling against his skin, and then again as she pressed her ample bosom against his back.

Practically leaping from the bench, Molo crossed the distance between said bench and his desk in three strides. This was fairly impressive, as Molo wasn’t a tall man. In fact he was a bit shorter than the average, with the roundish features, silky black hair, and the toffee colored skin common to the people of Sanja-vai. He had a slight pot belly, though he’d trimmed it in recent months, and had once earned himself the nickname “The Prince of Otters” thanks to how his mustache and goatee affected an otter-like mien upon his round features. He was far from looking a hero, and was certainly no great man of legend. Most days a woman with the looks of this spectral heathen wouldn’t spare him a second glance, though that wasn’t to say he didn’t have his ways of charming them. This one, though? She was downright parasitic, clinging to him to the point she refused him peace.

Rummaging through his desk, the young Captain snatched a bottle of expensive rum he’d spent entirely too much coin on a couple weeks back. He’d thought to savor it at the time; to enjoy its notes of coconut and zesty tropical fruits, as well as the unique vegetal bite particular to Telari rums, across what were planned to be weeks of sailing. Instead he’d already drank a full two thirds of the dark amber libation, it having been the only reliable way to sufficiently addle himself into sleep despite the witch woman’s interference.

She seemed to know this, and that was one of the few ways that he knew what he was experiencing was real. Uncorking the bottle, he took a long draw that consisted of three large gulps. Hissing against the burn in his throat, he turned and glowered at her half visible form. She returned the angry look, her plush lips turning up into a scowl as she stared at the bottle in his hand. Smirking, the Captain gave a wry chuckle and took another two gulps. Then he spat at her transparent feet, stumbled through her body, and flopped backward onto his bed, tippling thrice more along the way.

The feeling of her presence receded, and the room began to spin. Molo clumsily corked the bottle, then dropped it with a muted thud into one of the large rugs splayed across his cabin’s hardwood floor. Taking one last look at the fading woman, Molo gave a triumphant grin. She would be back, of course. She returned every morning to haunt him through the day. Even so, at the very least he’d be free for the rest of the night.

And what then? Would he drink himself to sleep like this every single night, driving himself to an early grave? There was risk enough of that from his profession alone. He was no pirate, nor some grand adventurer, though he’d done a share of both. Nay, he was merely a seafaring trader, yet that was reason enough to draw the hungry eyes of greedy picaroons, especially in these southern waters.

No, he wouldn’t be able to continue this forever. Tomorrow would mark a tenday since these visions began. More than enough time for him to endure such supernaturality. It was decided then, he told himself as he drifted into his rum hazed slumber. Come the morrow, he would seek out the means to be rid of her.

The reality of Molo’s nighttime decision hadn’t sunken in until the eleventh hour of morning the next day. As with the previous nine, he once more found himself assailed by the disappearing, reappearing visions of that impossibly attractive yet entirely insufferable woman in his periphery. Movement would come to the edge of his vision, almost always in the form of an alluring glance at some sensuous part of her, only to vanish the instant he turned to face it. More than anything else this Telari witch had done - for this was the assumption he’d chosen, unwilling as he was to entertain the frightful idea that she might be the avatar of some foul jungle goddess - this was the most maddening; a mischievous little game wherein she teased and tantalized while slowly unraveling the stability of his mind.

He was sitting at his desk rubbing his temples with the first two fingers of each hand when Wuthers stepped in. “No change, Captain?” the work worn sailor asked. “Still seeing that green eyed trollop?”

“Just about every time I open my eyes,” Molo exhaled wearily. “This can’t go on, Wuthers. She’s going to drive me out of my mind at this rate.”

Withers took a squat chair from its spot along the wall and sat across the desk from Molo. Resting his lanky arms on the knees of his long, skinny legs, he looked like a stilt walking street performer seated in that ill fitting chair.

“Aye well, not that I’m of a mind to put a greater burden on your shoulders, Captain, but the crew have been getting antsy. They’re asking questions of me that I can’t answer,” the middle-aged sailor said.

Molo sank back into his own chair. The wood backing creaked in time with the tired sigh he released. “I’ll need to address them directly,” he murmured.

“That would be best,” Wuthers agreed, but the tone of his voice hinted at his uncertainty. After so many nights where drinking himself to sleep was his only reliable means of doing so, his exhaustion was plain to see. It was reflected in the mirror this morning, and it showed to Wuthers now.

“What’ll you tell them?” his First Mate asked.

Molo considered that. He’d need an excuse that would allow him the time to learn what, if anything, he could do to drive these visions away. What’s more, he also wished to find Dibelios and Sigurdr again. Fools though they were, they’d also been capable, and he had a hunch he’d have need of them if the situation turned to violence.

His silent pondering drew on for some time. Long enough that Wuthers started to say something else to him, but the older sailor cut his words short once Molo spoke.

“I need to find some way to rid myself of her, Francis,” he said. “I don’t know what or how, but there has to be something.”

“That seems wise, but where should we start?” Wuthers asked.

“Here in Marrash,” Molo replied. “The night those young rogues and I awoke in those ruins, they brought me to a seer on the edge of town. I doubt he’ll still be there, but there might be other clues. It’s the best place I can think to start.”

Wuthers crossed his arms and was nodding along. He was speaking, too. Molo could see his mouth moving, how it caused the creases on his weather beaten, work worn face to shift. Whatever those words were, he was deaf to them. He felt her touch upon his skin again, her hands caressing him at the collar. Her nails pressing into the skin of his throat, pushing against his trachea.

“Nothing will you find there,” she whispered. Her soft spoken words were eerily said in perfect coastal Bertosian, the exact dialect which Molo himself spoke.

Her breath was hot upon his ear and he could all but feel her lips brushing against him. No comfort was found in these sensations, nor allure, nor appeal. Dread alone settled in his gut, and with it came a new vision, one as yet unseen. The shadowy jungle stretched before him, flanking the winding basin of the very same river he used to make his getaway days earlier. It was dark there, like it had been on that night of escape. Shafts of moonlight filtered through the broadleaf canopy, and one fell directly upon him as he emerged from the water onto a muddy shore.

He looked around, searching for anything else he might recognize. That old seer. The ruins he and those roguish youths had fled. The youths themselves, Sigurdr and Dibelios. The ziggurat. He even searched for the woman, but he saw none of these things. Instead, he saw twin shadows stretch into the moonlit shaft in which he stood. Stretch and shift and move with malicious intent. Scrambling away, he made for the water again, only to realize that he’d shoved himself backwards out of his chair.

Blinking thrice, he looked up at Wuthers, who’d been shaking him by the shoulders. “Highfather bless us,” he huffed as visible relief washed over him. “Are you alright, Captain? You froze up as I was talking, gripped your chair as if your very life were dependent on it before you flailed backwards onto the floor.”

Molo was most certainly not alright. He was anything but. His old friend’s story attested to him sitting in his cabin the entire time, the young Captain couldn’t take his mind off those shadowy apparitions he saw in the jungle. Whatever those thing were, their intent to kill him was clear. Vision or no, had they caught him, he was certain he wouldn’t be breathing right now.

Molo swallowed hard, licked his lips, then took a deep breath. “I’m fine, Francis,” he said at last. “Leastways, I think I will be. Go and gather up the men for me, I’ll address them in short order.”

“We’re sticking with that plan, then, Captain?” Wuthers asked, and Molo nodded in reply.

“Aye, Francis. For now, we’ll stick to the same plan. Now go gather the men, I’ll be out there soon.”

With a nod and a declaration of assent, Wuthers first helped Molo to his feet, then headed out and started calling for the men to gather round. As his First Mate did so, Molo focused on gathering himself, doing his best to steady his thoughts and calm his racing heart. Long, deep breaths filled his lungs, and he let them out slowly. Moving to sit at the side of his bed, he closed his eyes, focusing on his impending search instead of that woman’s words.

Her voice came to him anyway, warning of the futility of seeking out that old seer’s shack. Did he trust those words? No, but neither did he disbelieve them. He didn’t expect to find much of anything in that shack on the edge of town, but what else did he have to go on?

His answer came to him as he stood and made for the door. It wasn’t in the form of her fleeting image, nor the tantalizing threat of her touch, nor the chilling heat of her breath. Rather, it came to him in the form of two simple words:

“Seek me.”

Her words lingering in his mind, Molo poured himself a glass of water and lime juice from a pitcher Wuthers placed on a nearby table and quaffed it. Then he finally emerged from his cabin to address his gathered crew. They watched him with a mixture of expressions ranging from concerned to unnerved, but all could see how the prior tenday had left him pallid and visibly exhausted. They simply didn’t know why, believing it illness instead of his curse, or haunting, or whatever else it might be called.

“Captain on deck!” Wuthers cried, and Molo finally began.

“My apologies for keeping you all waiting here for so long, both in terms of my meeting with you now and our ship remaining moored here in Marrash,” he said. “I had hoped this sickness would pass on its own, but it seems that’s not to be. Measures will need to be taken, and it’s possible they might keep me away for some time.”

The crowd of sailors murmured and muttered. Of what measures did he speak? How long would they be stuck there? How long could they be, with their stores and coin alike running so low?

“Keep it quiet, you lot! Your Captain’s got more to say!” Wuthers commanded. Save for two or three near the back, the crew quieted.

“Thank you, Francis,” Molo said. Then he took a deep breath and resumed. “I’m going to be away for a while. I don’t wish to be, but it’s a necessity, and I’ll need Wuthers with me to help me find a doctor who can treat this interminable sickness.”

This drew renewed fervor from the crew, who were now more concerned than ever. Not only would their Captain be absent, but the First Mate as well? Raising both hands high, Molo quieted them back down with assurances that all would be well.

“The coming days will be difficult, that much is true, but if all goes well we won’t be away for long. In the meantime, I’ve some things I’ll need you all to tend to while we’re away. Foremost among them is the maintenance of The Second Lady. I want at least five of you here seeing to it that the ship is kept seaworthy and ready to sail. I intend for us to make for Sanja-vai just as soon as I’m well enough to make the journey.”

“What of the rest of us?” one of the men asked, and his words were echoed by the others.

“Everyone else will be tending to tasks we need to see done in the town. For at least half of you, that will be finding whatever day work you can to help us resupply. For the rest, I want you scouring the town to find Sigurdr and Dibelios.” Pausing once more as a fresh commotion awoke, Molo eased them into silence by raising his hand. “I’m well aware of the trouble they caused us recently, but the fact is they’re still marked as being of our crew. That means whatever trouble they may have gotten into could come back to haunt us-” Oh, if they only knew. “-so we need to find them either to ensure that hasn’t happened, or that it won’t.”

“How long will you be away, Captain?” another crewman called out.

“I wish that I knew,” Molo replied. “My hope is that it won’t take me more than a day or two, but it’s impossible to say for certain. That said, I will be leaving immediately, as will Wuthers, so don’t waste anymore time dallying about here. You know your tasks, so divide the work amongst yourselves and hop to it!”

While their worries were still far from allayed, the crew still executed their orders. Gathering on the main deck, they set immediately to working out who would be assigned to what tasks and for how long. As they did, Molo bid them farewell and disembarked, making his way into Marrash with Wuthers in tow. Hopefully not be for the last time.

The shack was empty, just as she said it would be. It wasn’t only that the old mystic was nowhere to be seen, either. All signs of the haggard man who seemed to live here were gone. His cot, his table, even the fabrics which hung in front of his door had been removed. The only things left to indicated someone once lived here were the ash filled fire pit in the shack’s center, the seat carved out of a stump near the left side wall, and of course the shack itself.

“Damnation,” Molo cursed as he paced about the empty space.

Stood in the doorway, Wuthers asked, “What’re we to do now?”

Molo didn’t respond, even though he had the answer. The honesty of the witch unnerved him, particularly as he could still feel the old mystic’s power lingering in this place. Or perhaps it wasn’t his power at all? For all he knew the old man was a ruse the witch put on, a disguise to hide her true face and her intent to drive him to madness. Yet if this was all she sought, then what need was there to capture and drag him into the ruins? The circumstances he awoke to there were quite clear. Neither he nor Sigurdr, nor Dibelios, were meant to make it out of that place alive. He may not have been a native of the continent, but these southern jungle lands were once Molo’s home, and he knew enough about those old, dark Telari customs to recognize exactly what their plans for him were.

Too many questions hung over him; downward pointed swords dangling on skinny strings about to snap. Too many threads hung loose and scattered with no sufficient answers to be found at their ends. And with this latest revelation, this uneasy truth he’d been led to, Molo was forced to accept the reality of her parting words. His only way out was through. He needed to find her.

“Francis, how much would it cost us to sail a local mercenary band up the river?” Molo asked, staring down into the empty firepit.

Wuthers frowned. “More than we can afford. Why?”

Molo’s sole reply was to meet his First Mate’s gaze with a determined look. Wuthers caught its meaning immediately, and he protested with equal immediacy.

“All due respect, Captain, you can’t possibly mean to sail upriver to try and find this ghostly wench,” he exclaimed. “Sailing back is one thing, the current flows to the sea and all the waterways that branch from it feed into it in that direction, but sailing the opposite? You’d never find your way.”

“Be that as it may, I see no other options,” Molo countered.

Pushing his way past his First Mate to head back outside, the argument between them continued for a short time longer. Wuthers was adamantly against this idea, and he had sound reasoning to support him. Molo argued that reason and logic were of little use when black magic was so clearly at play. Doubtless their back and forth could’ve continued for minutes on end, as it often did in those rare occasions they took to bickering, but Molo quickly found himself distracted when something in his coat snagged on the shack’s roughly made doorway. Cursing and tugging at the ensnared garment, Molo’s already fraying patience finally broke. Spitting out a foul string of expletives, he grabbed the snared flap of his coat in both hands and yanked with all his might.

The interior lining of his pocket ripped and Molo stumbled onto his back. Slumping against the hard packed soil, he gazed up through the steamy jungle canopy above, dejection creeping into his mind and heart. How strange that such a small failing could be the push that would savage a man’s resolve. Yet it would not remain so, for as he stared through the shadowed leaves into that cloudy jungle sky and silently bemoaned his fate, Wuthers retrieved the trinket which had fallen from his pocket.

“Well isn’t this a sight. Where’d you find this, Captain?”

Glancing at him, Molo’s eyes went wide. Wuthers was holding the silver scorpion, that ancient Telari armlet that the old mystic had given to the rogues, and which they in turn showed to him. The wiry sailor continued remarking on it as Molo scrambled to his feet. It must’ve been in his coat this entire time, though he couldn’t recall putting it in his pocket. As far as he knew it had been taken with the rest of his belongings during his captivity. Was this artifact how that wily woman was able to keep in contact with him?

Taking it from Wuthers, Molo turned it end over end, examining every part of it. His possessing it couldn’t be a coincidence, and the trinket might have some clue as to the whereabouts of his spectral seductress. Alas, if it did, then he could not find them. Though his eye for jewels and treasures did reinforce its monetary value, it did little for helping him spot anything else he may have missed. The armlet’s body was solid, a silver scorpion with a curved tail that rested against the wearer’s arm. Six legs, three on each side, curved inward underneath the body to hold it in place and its paired claws came together to clasp an oblong sphere of transparent green jade roughly the size of his thumbprint.

Nothing else about the treasure stood out to him; no alien markings, cryptic texts, or hidden compartments that he could find. By all appearances it was just a strange but ultimately mundane piece of ancient jewelry. Yet Molo couldn’t rid himself of the idea that must hold greater significance. He could feel something radiating from it, a tingling sensation that reminded him very much of the feeling he got not just while he was in the mystic’s presence, but every time that green-eyed witch visited him.

“Hang on now,” he muttered to himself. The witch’s green eyes, they matched the color of the gem! Perhaps if he were to look through it?

“Francis!” he barked, clasping his First Mate by the wrist as he peered through the sparkling green stone. “Francis, look here!”

Forcibly hoisting the stone up to his friend’s eye, Molo felt himself smile for the first time in over a week as his First Mate’s expression changed from confusion to stunned awe. You see, when Molo peered through the oblong gem, the shape of the jungle warped to fit its contours. As it did so, a path revealed itself to him. Marked with glittering shafts of light to match the green of the witch’s eyes, that path weaved through the jungle to the ruins of an ancient Telari temple. A temple which he’d seen before, for it stood at the zenith of the ziggurat.

“Wuthers, I’m going to the river to see if this trinket reveals any new paths,” Molo said. “Return to the ship while I’m gone and gather the men again! Once all are present, have them prepare supplies for an eight man expedition into the jungle. I will explain everything to them upon my return.”

Molo did exactly that, revealing the truth of what he’d been enduring as sunset settled into dusk. He anticipated many uneasy responses from the crew. Sailors were an especially superstitious lot, and for many the revelation that their Captain had been touched by some kind of black magic was particularly unnerving. Yet opportunity had fallen into their laps, for they had a chance to fight back and all it required were the stout hearts of six good men skilled with flintlock and sabre.

It was of little surprise that the six who volunteered were Molo’s longest serving men. Men like Marco Abate and his younger brother, Caius, who fought hard and well against many a picaroon over the years. Men like Richmond Morris and Arthur Lark, both old friends of Wuthers who sailed together when they were young. Men like Elmer Fallensteller, a former Riverran navy man with a bitter streak who was nonetheless fiercely loyal to the young Captain for his second chance at life. And men like Rangi Spearfisher, who was a cousin to Molo, twice removed.

Half of these men were older than their Captain. The others, his age or younger. Yet all held fierce loyalty, for their bonds went well beyond the transactional. These were friends and kin, men that Molo would fight and die for just as they would fight and die for him. Even so, heartening as this thought was, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Loading their supplies, the eight men boarded the narrow outrigger canoe that Molo and that roguish pair had stolen when they made their flight from those ancient ruins. Oars went into the water, and the little vessel glided along Marrash’s shoreline to the river inlet. Then, as they started upriver, Molo brought the scorpion armlet up to his eye. Peering through that oblong lens of jade, he followed the path that opened before him.

In the days since making his escape, the river’s current had grown more powerful. Rain patterns over the steep mountains of central Telar resulted in dry highland streams being filled. These streams flowed down to the lakes and river basins, which also rose with the heavy rains. The result was the difficulty Molo and his chosen men now faced.

Rowing into the jungle around sunset wasn’t particularly challenging. The inlet through which they entered the river was part of a larger delta which slowed that powerful current considerably, spreading it over a wide area. However, as they lit their lanterns and made their way further inland, they soon found the river’s strength to be too much for their oars.

Pulling the canoe ashore, it was decided they would set up camp. Moving a short distance deeper into the jungle, they found a suitable enough clearing and quickly set to mounting tented hammocks and leather tarps between the trees. Initially some of the men intended to stake tents into the ground, as they’d often done along the many islands and shorelines to be found upon the Sea of Swords up north. Molo, supported by his cousin Rangi, swiftly disabused them of this idea. While such camps were safe to make in the more temperate climes they were used to, the jungles of continental Telar and Sanja-vai’s isles teemed with all manner of insects, many of them poisonous or, at the very least, prone to painful biting. Hammocks were preferred for this reason, as those pests which crawled were far more likely to stick to the familiarity of the ground.

Molo hung his hammock closest to the river, and as he glanced around he saw that his men had set their camp up in a haphazard circle with their fire in the center. A good strategy. A central fire would provide light and warmth for all of them during the night, and the smoke would help keep flying biters like mosquitos and sand flies at bay. Once he finished securing the hammock he started on his tarp, as did Rangi, who secured his hammock and tarp beside Molo’s.

“Cousin, why did you not tell us of this priestess sooner?”

Rangi spoke in a low tone low as they worked. Being a half head taller than Molo, he’d taken to tightening tarps while Molo checked the ties of their hammocks.

“It seemed the wiser choice,” Molo answered. “Much of the crew are of a superstitious sort, and I didn’t wish to panic them. Ah, but that was a fool’s reasoning. With all the sleep and peace the witch denied me, I was muddied in my thinking.”

Rangi nodded thoughtfully, then suddenly began to chuckle. “A shame she turned out such a terror for you. I should dream of being followed by such a beauty! Black hair and luscious curves, and green eyes? Not often you see those in Telari women!”

The words Molo’s cousin spoke brought him pause, and not merely for the foolishness of his assumptions. As he looked upon the chuckling features of Rangi, who busied his hands with the final knots he made in their tarps, he was stricken with a distinct sense of unfamiliarity. Stood beside him was a man who was well muscled and tall for one of the Thousand Isles, and laying eyes upon him always drew the same idea to the forefront of Molo’s mind: This man is Rangi Spearfisher. He is my cousin, twice removed, and has sailed with me for the better part of eight years.

However, as he lingered on the face of his smiling cousin this idea rang ever more hollow, for try though he might, Molo failed to recall any significant details of their many years together. Conflicting feelings formed within him, each one standing firm in their clash like two Sanja-vai warriors engaged in ritual grappling. Rangi Spearfisher was his cousin, and they’d sailed together for nigh on a decade. Yet no memory of this time came to him when bidden. No recollection of Rangi’s presence fighting alongside the crew in times of strife, nor of spirited laughter and joy in times of celebration. Indeed the more he tried to recall, the more he found his memories of this man wanting. Soon the warrior representing the idea of Rangi in his mind began to yield, sliding back under the strength of his own memories, or lack thereof as it were. And when this happened, when Rangi next turned to face Molo that he might brag of how lovely it would be to have the attentions of such a woman, be she priestess or not, he realized that he had no idea who this man was.

Molo drew his flintlock and aimed at the man who called himself Rangi Spearfisher. “Who are you?” he demanded.

Nonplussed, the stranger stammered out his supposed confusion, but Molo wouldn’t hear it. He cocked his pistol, then demanded answer once more. “Who are you?! Speak honestly, or I’ll blast that grin out the back of your skull.”

Rangi sighed and shrugged, and his grin widened as he rolled his eyes. That’s when Molo saw the glint of green reflected in them. He squeezed the trigger. The powder in his pistol boomed, filling the air before him with fire and smoke. Yet the ball did not strike its mark. Instead it deflected off the surface of a square pillar of worn stone which wasn’t there a second ago, pocking it with a fresh scar. Drawing his curved sabre, he glanced around and quickly realized he was no longer in his camp.

The space was much darker here, devoid of the campfire’s light. Where trees had once surrounded him, now there stood pillars of stone covered in creeping vines and moss. To his back there was only darkness. To his front, those familiar old ruins lay far below his vantage, and the jungles of Telar stretched far beyond. Cursing, he took a step back and wheeled to face the darkness, his sword raised and ready, for he knew exactly where he was: the Temple of Shodo Khal, stood high atop the ziggurat which he once spied from those ruins below.

“I know you’re in here,” Molo said, but no response came. He quickly sheathed his pistol. It would do him little good now that his shot had missed, and reloading would take too long, leaving him open to attack.

“Show yourself, witch!” he demanded. Reaching into his good pocket with his free hand, he removed the scorpion armlet and started to raise the gem to his eye.

Out of the darkness, two figures charged. Molo struck at the first with his sabre, his movements more swift and precise than one would expect of a stocky and somewhat portly man like himself. The assailant stopped in his tracks, but deflected the blow with his own blade while his partner closed the gap.

Molo’s left arm was grabbed by a tall, strong figure. He tried to thrust at him with his sabre, but the man who’d deflected his blow had already closed the distance. The sword was wrenched from his grasp and, with both his arms and shoulders firmly held, he was forced to his knees.

The darkness receded, driven off by the igniting of a brazier in the center of the chamber. Stood behind it, pacing slow and sensuous to Molo’s side, was the flesh and blood form of the green eyed witch. And his assailants? Well, it was all Molo could do to say their names, he was so angry.

“Dibelios? Sigurdr!” he exclaimed.

Sigurdr, the statuesque blonde Stenisian, paid him no mind. However Dibelios, the half-blooded Khavosan who’d clipped his pointed ears, shrugged and gave a rueful smile.

“Sorry about all this, Captain,” he said in that light, roguish voice of his. “The good Lady here offered us quite the deal to keep you detained and, frankly, we’d have been damn fools to pass it up.”

“Treacherous curs!” Molo spat. “And here I worried for your wellbeing, damn fool that I seem to be!”

Sigurdr chuckled, his softly spoken baritone sounding a bit like falling gravel as he laughed. “Well they do say fools and their coin are easily parted, and we parted you of a good deal of yours,” the northerner remarked.

A snap of the woman’s fingers silenced the arrogant youths. She stopped in front of Molo, then sank down into a crouch in front of him. Hugging her legs against her ample bosom, she rested her chin upon her knees and stared into his eyes.

“So very difficult,” she muttered. Once again, she spoke in an eerily perfect coastal Bertosian dialect. “This could have been so much easier if you’d simply come when first beckoned.”

“What shall we do with him, my Lady?” Dibelios asked, interrupting Molo as he started to speak. This earned him a cold glare from the green-eyed woman that immediately silenced him.

“You have questions,” she continued as her eyes once more met Molo’s. “Ask them.”

After all he’d endured to now, Molo had little trust in any answers this woman had to give. True she’d been honest about the old seer not being found at his shack, but it was difficult to place faith in a creature that spent days toying with his mind. Even so, if he could at least keep her talking, maybe he could think of a way out of this mess.

“Who are you, and what do you want with me?” he began.

“You already know this,” she sighed, sounding more like a bored debutante than some primitive jungle priestess.

“Humor me,” Molo grumbled.

“I am Shodo Khal, and this is my temple.” She motioned to the space around them, the walls covered in ancient Telari carvings which had faded with age or were hidden by the invasive moss and creepers. “So say the primitives who dragged me here half a decade ago, the damnable fools.”

Molo frowned, eyeing her warily. “You’re not one of the Telari?”

Shodo Khal met his gaze directly, giving him a coy grin. “You still can’t tell, even after having met one of my kind before?”

Initially confused, Molo intended to ask what she meant by that, but his words were cut short by the green glint of her eyes. She was making use of her witchery again, though this time it wasn’t to force alluring visions into his mind. Rather, she left him with a distinct feeling, a lingering sensation that was familiar to him. Yes, he had met one of her ilk before, he realized. On a cool spring night upon the Sea of Swords, Molo had what until now had been his first and only encounter with a spellcaster of Bayel.

Shodo Khal’s grin widened as she saw the recognition in his face. Molo wasn’t sure how to feel about this revelation. The knowledge that she wasn’t truly some heretical jungle priestess who sustained her power through ritual bloodletting and cannibalism should have comforted him, but it didn’t. He’d had few encounters with the remnant descendants of the Old Empire, and the few he had showed the New Bayelans to generally be of a haughty and arrogant sort at best. Malik, the spellcaster he’d encountered in the past, was an exception in this regard. This made him all the more terrifying in a strange way, even though he’d been as a savior to Molo and his men.

Yet where Malik had been honest with him, the woman crouched before him now had already proven herself deceptive and shrewd. She toyed with Molo’s mind to lure him out here, and likely did the same with the two young rogues currently detaining him. She lived among this vicious Telari tribe for five years, which meant she must have involved herself in their affairs. Why? With her power, she must have been able to leave whenever she wanted, so why remain?

He decided to ask her.

“Leave?” she huffed. “To what end, wandering through this wretched jungle?”

“You brought me here with your magic. Surely it can help you escape,” Molo replied.

She shook her head. Apparently, leaving wasn’t as simple as weaving some spell of teleporting, which she soon informed him was the sort of rare magic that even users like herself were unlikely to find nowadays. Her choices were either to meander into the jungle where, magic or no magic, she would likely die; or to play her part here until an opportunity presented itself. And Molo, it appeared, was her opportunity.

“So it’s freedom you seek. Then why not simply ask me?”

She was becoming frustrated, he could see it in the twist of her expression. “I did. You refused to listen, silencing my words with your superstition,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“What words?” Molo countered. “I only heard you speak to me for the first time this day!”

“Enough of this,” she barked, and she leaned in close. “You will take me from here tonight. You will sail me downriver to your camp, and from there bring me back to your ship so that I may finally leave this wretched jungle for good.”

Molo protested, but Sigurdr and Dibelios wrenched hard against his arms. Sharp pains pierced into his joints and he hissed against them. Eventually he assented, offering to take her as far as Sanja-vai, where she could then charter a northward bound ship. To his great relief, she agreed and bid the rogues to release him.

Rolling the stiffness from his shoulders, Molo retrieved his sword and considered sheathing it. Given the current circumstances, he decided against that. “The path from here to where the outriggers are moored is wide open,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to sneak our way there as we did before.”

“We don’t need to worry about that,” Sigurdr replied.

“Aye, that’s true,” Dibelios agreed. “So long as we have the good Lady with us, we’ll be fine. Those savages will follow just about any order she gives.”

That thought sat ill with Molo, as did everything else about this situation, but if it came down to it then he might be able to break for the canoes and escape by himself. The chances were slim, but if push came to shove, he was willing to try. With this in mind, he reluctantly agreed to follow Shodo Khal’s lead.

The false priestess marched through those ancient ruins with an air of unflappable confidence. And why shouldn’t she? Even as her brutal Telari tribe slowly gathered around them with their leather slings, stone-tipped spears, and clubs embedded with sharp predator teeth all drawn and ready; even as they leered and snarled at the three men accompanying the woman they viewed as the voice of their savage gods; not one dared to make a move against them. Following the four down to the embankment where the canoes were moored along the river, the men and women of this ancient tribe observed with a mixture of unease, confusion, and curiosity as Shodo Khal boarded one of the vessels.

Wasting no time, Molo untethered the outrigger from the stone post to which it was bound. As he did, Dibelios stepped up to the side of the craft with Sigurdr standing directly behind. “My Lady, I don’t mean to press you, but I can’t help noticing you’ve not brought anything with you for the journey,” the half-blood Khavosan said.

Feigning no interest in his words, she eyed him with open distaste. “By that you mean your promised reward, yes?”

Dibelios nodded, and his voice was sickeningly saccharine as he answered her. “Aye, that I do. Normally I wouldn’t deign to question a lady such as yourself, it’s just that, well…”

Dibelios paused, and as he searched for polite phrasing, Sigurdr cut in and shoved his way past his more tactful partner. “You gave us your word that if we aided you we’d receive a king’s bounty in silver, women, and jewels. Now we ready to board this canoe and I see none of these things present, save what you wear upon your near naked form.”

Leaning against the edge of the canoe, Shodo Khal tapped gingerly against the branch that connected the boat to its outrigger. Then she gave the pair a gentle and sensuous smile, shifting her position in such a way as to amplify the fullness of her curves for their eyes.

“This is true,” she cooed, “I did promise you these things. And what sort of wretched hag would I be to deny you?”

Rising back up to her feet, she stepped back out of the canoe and approached the pair of young men. Her feet sloshed through the shallow waters of the high river, causing the sheer silk sarong that dangled low from her belt to dampen and cling to her calves and thighs. Her fingers traced soft lines against each of their bared chests, and she gingerly took each one of them by the hand as she led them towards the gathered tribes folk. Then she said something in the Telari tongue, and the men of the tribe stepped back while the women stepped forward, many of whom also bore belts, bangles, and anklets of silver and jade, though none so fine as Shodo Khal’s.

“The wealth of a king,” she cooed, beckoning them toward her. “Step forward, my charming rogues, and receive your just rewards.”

Young fools that they were, Sigurdr and Dibelios had blinded themselves in their expectations of wealth, sex, and fame. With broad grins plastered upon their faces, they gladly stepped forward into the crowd, only for those grins to invert as they died screaming under the ripping nails and biting teeth of the tribe’s women. Only Molo noticed the glint in Shodo Khal’s green eyes, that telltale sign of her mind bending black magic at play. Grinning to him as she approached, she reclaimed her seat in the canoe with a haughty elegance that perfectly paired her bloodthirsty deceit.

“Come along, Captain,” she nonchalantly hummed as Molo watched the carnage unfold. “We’ve no need for untrustworthy thieves such as they.”

Pushing the canoe into the water, Molo’s gut twisted. As he rowed back down the river, he wondered, would bringing this Bayelan to Sanja-vai truly be the end of this? Somehow he doubted it, as he doubted so many things at this moment.

Of only one thing was he certain: this woman whom that savage Telari tribe called Shodo Khal would get what she wanted no matter what means were required. Woe be unto any who tried to stop her.

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