Chapter 28

Sumnner

“Fire spewed out like spit from the hole in the earth; the Kindled burned.”

Folktales

Violent shaking jolted Noah from his sleep. He jerked up by instinct, grabbing at the knife hidden beneath his makeshift pillow made up of a stack of papers. Looking around, his eyes quickly adjusted to the dark room, but found nobody there. Instead, an abrupt shove of force pushed him off the small, cramped bed and threw him onto the floor, blasting him against the opposite side, quickly waking him up. He immediately reached out toward the wall and stabilized himself, settling his sped-up breathing.

Another jerk of the force nearly ripped him back onto the floor, but he somehow managed to hold onto his grip, gritting his teeth. Fucking ships, he cursed, only then remembering something. Wait… aren’t we on a fucking river?! Confused, he hid the knife into the inner pocket of his robe, waiting until another violent shake passed before opening the doors. To his left, he saw Sash leaning against the wall, shaking strangely. The black man jerked sideways and glanced toward Noah with brutal terror in his eyes, only recovering when he saw it was only him.

“… what’s going on?” Noah asked as another violent jerk nearly sent him spiraling down the narrow corridor.

“S-stay, stay in your room, Master,” Sash said, his jaw clanking. “For safety. Stay in your room.”

“…” Noah frowned; deliberating for a moment, he decided to instead go up and see what is going on for himself.

Realizing it was faintly a very moronic move, he ignored Sash's calls and pleas from the behind, making his way down the narrow corridor and toward the ladder that led up to the deck. The closer he got to the ladder, the louder the world around became; the sounds were eerily indistinct, impossible to pinpoint. The frequency of shaking increased until the point it repeatedly rocked left and right by the time he reached the ladder. However, due to the fact that it was gradual, he adjusted his body quickly to the change of the environment and the climate, easily avoiding falling down as he gripped the ladder's handles tightly, slowly making his way up.

Halfway through, voices finally reached amidst the indistinct, eerily loud sounds akin to rippling whistles and ambulance-like cries. The voices were still low and sounded dauntingly hollow, and he was unable to pick up on what they were saying, which prompted him to continue climbing until his head veered past the open lock that led to the dock. Though it was supposed to be dawn by his rough calculations, it was pitch dark – so dark that he barely saw the wooden floorboards a few inches in front of him.

Looking up, the blood in his veins froze; in line, he saw four people – all members of the crew – lying in the concentrated pools of blood, their bodies still spasming, shallow, green smoke lurking around them, almost like dancing fireflies. The remaining members of the crew stood to the sides, kneeling, their heads plastered against the floor, almost as though they were praying. Moving his eyes past them, they landed onto the front of the ship – it was something, that was for certain. Shapeless, best described, with tendrils of pitch-black smoke fluctuating around it and orbiting it like clouds. It was tall, at least three hundred feet from what Noah could observe with his limited vision, and it was wide, virtually encapsulating the entire ship within its domain.

He immediately ducked down and ran as though hellhounds were after him, nearly tripping over several times as the ship continued rocking back and forth. The journey that took him almost ten minutes prior due to the shaking now took him less than five and he found himself back in front of his cabin where Sash was still lying and shaking. Noah joined him in sitting down, closing his eyes and slowly controlling his breathing.

Being who he was, and living the life he did, meant that he could virtually control his adrenaline at will – compact it when unnecessary, unleash it when required. However, his reaction, perhaps for the first time in decades, has been entirely instinctual – fear. Fear gripped him like the cold hands of steel and held him down. It was not the ilk of fear that the prey had of its predator, but the type of fear that united all the cognitive living – death. Instinctual response to death.

Breathe in and out at infrequent, but regular, pace, stabilize the heartbeat, slow down perspiration, and regain the complete cognitive control of his body. It took him a while, but he eventually achieved it, realizing his stable state.

Opening his eyes, he battled with his mind to not recall that thing – he knew that the whole point of stabilizing himself would be lost if he pictured that thing inside his head once more. Yet, it was not as though he could ignore it, so he settled on one of the most basic techniques of combating fears – substitution. He ascribed the characteristics of the thing he saw, to something far less terrifying – in this case, a large, gray cloud hanging overhead. It won't have a penultimate effect immediately, and he'll eventually have to break the illusion, but it will help him to stay calm temporarily.

“… what the hell is that, Sash?” he asked the man sitting next to him after a few minutes. The rocking slowed down, seemingly retracing the steps it took from when it was infrequent.

“…” the man remained silent, his head plastered into his breast.

“Sash.”

“… Sumnner.”

“… Sumnner?” Noah muttered, frowning and glancing sideways.

“Sumnner…” Sash repeated, seemingly unwilling to add anything.

A sudden jolt sparked electric-like currents to wiggle throughout Noah's body, snipping him into the bout of almost impossibly painful reality; he cried out instinctually, his entire body thrown up into the air, levitating against his will. His muscles contracted and he felt his mouth drying up, his mind throwing out an endless stream of alarms. No matter what he tried doing, his body wouldn't listen, almost as though it didn't belong to him. Then, it didn't.

With a flash of blinding light, he almost felt spat out – ejected out of his own body, thrust through the liquid-like membrane, and into a place he'd never seen before – a sea of bones stretched around and about, engulfed in the smoking stream of darkness. The floor beneath him crunched as he tried climbing up only to slip down.

He suddenly felt a strange pull from the front as it cradled him, rising him up and forcing him to face the front – where a pair of blood-red eyes each the size of a small house awaited him, staring directly into his soul. Fuckin’ Christ, what the hell is this?! He was too relaxed, he chided himself. Too confident in his abilities. He’d almost forgotten this was not Earth – this world had magic. He’d gotten it into himself that Light, however powerful it was, was not widespread, and it was living on the fringe. Right now, he knew, that wasn’t the case.

“… who… are you?” a voice spoke seemingly directly into his mind, causing him to cringe and jerk. It was a very uncomfortable sensation, almost as if someone drilled holes into his cranium and started poking his brain with small pricks. However, the fact that it spoke made him far happier than uncomfortable – any time a conversation is involved, there is a chance. He’ll have to be careful, however, as he can’t exactly measure this thing’s mind against the people he usually manipulated.

“… who are you?” managing to stabilize himself slightly, Noah asked back. Fear, in the end, was pointless to him. He already knew to assess the life-and-death situations and decide what to do within the moment’s spark. Fear simply inhibited his cognitive ability to make choices quickly. If he was to die shortly after, it would be entirely because he made a set of mistakes that led him to the situation within which he found himself near death.

"…" the voice remained quiet for a little while, dragging out the silence that Noah found encouraging. He could extrapolate several things from the silence – namely that the thing most-likely never encountered a similar response, and was either trying to process it within its mental capacity or was thinking curious thoughts. "Sumnner.” I won’t die… Noah breathed a sigh of relief inwardly, as his chance of death dropped to almost insignificant. The key to surviving when you can’t overpower the other party outright is to establish a rapport – one in which they see you as a lost kitten, rather than someone worth killing.

“Nice to meet you,” Noah said. “I’m Noah.”

“Noah?”

“Noah.”

“…” silence fell between the two once again, with Noah staring directly into the massive eyes surrounded in the clout of black smoke. “Who… are you, Noah?”

“…” he held back from frowning; it seemed that the creature, somehow, sensed something was different about him. He didn’t exactly know how physiologically compatible he was with the peninsula’s natives, and whether he could even have sex with them – or, well, impregnate them, as the sex part is usually doable. Perhaps the creature had access to that, in some way, and noticed distinct differences between him and the rest. “A traveler.”

“… Outlander.”

“… Outlander.” Noah confirmed as the red eyes narrowed.

“Been eons since the last.” The creature said.

“… and who are you, Sumnner?” Noah asked back, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“A relic,” the creature said, its voice mellowing somewhat. “Your Light is tainted, Noah. Yet… remarkably… it is not foul.”

“… like yours is?”

“Like mine is," the creature confirmed. Its voice was low and elongated, but clearly tangible. So much so that Noah suspected that all he was seeing was simply smoke and mirrors and that behind the curtain was a very much human-looking thing. Naturally, however, he had no way of confirming this. "Why?”

“… I don’t know.” Noah replied.

“… you have done terrible things, no?”

“… I have.” He said.

“Yet… your conscience is not burdened, fouling your Light.”

“Yours… is?”

“I have done terrible things, too,” the creature said. “Why are you different?”

“…” Noah frowned, wondering whether the creature was seeking validation, the actual reason, or a philosophical debate. Rather, all three options made the creature seem… eerily childlike. “Aren’t we all different?” Noah settled on the philosophical debate, as the meaningless word-spewage was his specialty.

“…” the creature fell silent once again, the red eyes withdrawing into the darkness shortly after. Just as Noah was ejected back out of the dreaded room through the same, liquid-like membrane, he heard the creature’s fading voice reaching his ears. “Warn your King, that the Fire and the Kindled are coming…”