This is a short story set in the world I've envisaged in my dark fantasy novel
Flames of Herakleitos, which is now available as a Kindle e-book and can be found on Amazon
The Taste Of Clay
It’s not the stygian darkness or the gelidness of the vast depth of water in which I find myself entombed—for even here in the sea’s murky abyss strange creatures drift and coruscate with bizarre lights, either hunting or being hunted— they are not the things that tax me so. And this is not an infinite purgatory, for although I have been trapped here for what seems an eternity, common sense tells me it has probably been weeks or perhaps months at the most and my particular purgatory will end when this body finally succumbs to the water’s corruption and pressure. An amorphous entity, more a mass of gelatinous transparent flesh, than what I would call an animal, wafts by and illuminates my one remaining hand. I study the deep cracks and holes and when flexing my fingers nod knowingly as particles crack and break off. Hopefully it will not be long now before this vessel, this crude body within which my anima is captured upon a hex-tile will break down and the tile itself will fracture and release my soul to hell, for heaven will not accept it, not after what I have done, perhaps even hell itself will balk at the thought of admitting me. However, as the light fades and darkness swallows me once more I do not fear the isolation; I do not despair of it. What does despair me is something the mage never mentioned, and that is the taste of clay.
Two Months Previously
When the news that my daughter, her husband and my two grandchildren had been taken by freebooters, less than a handful of leagues from port, something churned deep within me, something that warned me of a lie. Freebooters are rife within the waters around Angleland, but so close to port and within easy reach of the Militia? I think not. However, even with the kind auspices of an old friend in the senate I could not take matters further. The captain of the vessel on which they were travelling had a friend in the senate too, and he was in a position of power which superseded that of my friend. And so, after an enquiry, which would have been better suited as a farce in the town’s theatre, was held and a verdict passed that the captain had did all in his power to protect his passengers and was not culpable in anyway for their abduction, he walked away a free man.
That there had been no demand for ransom and my family’s belongings had mysteriously been the only things taken from on-board whilst the captain and his men had suffered no loss whatsoever was accepted as fortunate for them.
Captain Lynbrook and his crew were in port for the weekend and I went home to find my sword. In my youth I had somewhat of a reputation with the sabre. I trained many a Militiaman and even some of the brave lads who went to fight in The Saffron Wars, but that had been many, many years ago. The passage of time showed on the rusted metal of my old blade as I withdrew it from its slumbering and from its scabbard over my fireplace. The passage of time also showed upon the lined and gaunt face that reflected back at me from the mirror above that very same fireplace, and doubts crept into my mind like worms to an apple’s core. Nevertheless I strapped on the weapon and left my large and empty house with the cold taste of revenge on my tongue and the sickening ache of loss in my stomach.
The Fallen Mast was a mariner’s bar not far from the quayside. It stood facing out to the bay and the herringbone brickwork and the once-white half-timbered fascia looked worn and weary with the battering it had received over the years from the off-shore salt-filled winds. I knew for a fact it to be the hostel which Lynbrook and his men frequented as—heaven forgive me—it was where I had found them and had commissioned them to collect my daughter and her family, scarcely a week before. Acid bile burned my throat and an unnameable anger burned deep within my heart as I opened the door to the inn and stepped in. In my younger days I’d have cut a foreboding figure entering an establishment of this nature with my hand on a half-drawn sabre and a gleam of revenge in my eyes. Now all that was seen was an old fool with a rusted skewer and eyes that were filmed with tears. However the buzz of voices faltered and stopped until.
