Song of Destruction
I hated them. Every mother's son of them, save one, I despised. Nothing would have brought me more pleasure than to have sent them all to an eternal rest beneath the waves. Well...Almost nothing.
I had been aboard this ship, the Maiden's Call, for almost a year, serving as ship's physician. This I did, not out of any altruism or especial favor for the land who's colors it flew. I did it because my sailor was aboard. Taking on this drudgery, tending to these swine that sullied the water, was the only way for me to stay near him. So I bided my time. Waiting for his duty to be discharged.
So there I sat, in the small room aboard ship that had been designated for treating the wounded. I poured potions down throats, sang half hearted melodies of healing, and waited. The time ticked ever onwards, punctuated by the thunder of cannons, and cacophonous eruptions of impotent Warmage spells. A war had raged between two mighty island nations for centuries, with no end in sight. From the first volley, myself along with my brothers and sisters in the sea had watched with indifference or contempt. We had drowned more sailors than all the wine of the world's vineyards combined. "Come to us. Be our beloved, beneath the waves, forever," we sang, and they obeyed. Such fun it was, but in due course all things end. Power has its price.
The day I plucked a dying sailor from the waves, a change came upon my existence. That day as his ship sailed past my isle, I sang out to them, and watched. To them I did not sing in words as men do. In a sweet tenor, what I offered gentle melodies and warm promises. And they were enthralled, all save one. Even as they made with all haste for the rocky shoals he yelled, berated, and beat at them. All to no avail. The ship was dashed to splinters, and its crew cast into the sea. The one who had resisted me, I saved. He was a curiosity. Him, I kept, as a gift unto myself. Surcease from the empty waiting cold of he who swims deepest, and swims alone.
For a time I kept him in the deep cave beneath the island that I called my home. He raged at me for a season, languished for another, and relented at last. I sang to him, and fed to him the bounties of the sea, and casks of fine wine I acquired from my victims. In time I gazed upon my captive, with his pale flesh, eyes like peridot, soft brown hair, and strong form; and found him to be the most beautiful of my many treasures. I told him as much, and he in return told me of my own beauty. The part of me that was like unto a mighty shark he marveled at and touched often. My skin he compared to chocolate. He told me once that my eyes held all the promises of lost pirate's gold, and that my hair was like the dark waters of the sea before a storm. His words, graceful enough to belie his humble station, touched me.
I loved him, and with both flesh and word he worshiped me. But his heart was burdened. So one day it came to pass, that as he greeted me on my return I said to him:
"Something troubles you, my treasure. Tell me of it."
As he lay beside the pool that was my cave's entrance he told me that it was duty that burdened him. He spoke of his home and that he felt that he must return to the fight for her defense. Foolishness, all of it, but I could not bring myself to tell him so. His earnestness moved me, and though I wound not part with him, I saw that for him to be at peace he had to go. So I told him that he could return, but that I would go with him, and if he should fall my vengeance would be profound. With gladness and certainty he accepted my terms. I gathered gold, garments, and potions with which to my my way on the land, granted myself legs, and by my power we were transported to the shores of his home.
"Master Lamna!" Shouted a sailor as he burst into the room.
I gave him a cool look, "Yes?"
"Wounded, on deck... sir," he replied in a more subdued tone.
I grabbed my bag of healing supplies and followed him. Once above decks I let my gaze wash over the scene before me. The two mighty armadas were still locked in battle. The ship I stood upon had taken heavy damage. There were scorch marks, splinters, and a large hole were the main mast had been. In my reverie I must have missed the attack that was responsible. I surveyed the collateral damage, a few corpses, a man here and there that seemed too foolish to die swiftly, and then my eyes fell upon something of consequence. Laying at the port side railing was a still form with which I was very familiar. Kellan, my sailor. He lay there, pale, with a splinter of wood the size of my hand protruding from his chest, very near his heart. In a few steps I was by his side. "Sir..." began the young man that was leaning over him. Only to be interrupted by an abrupt trip through the air and into the churning waves below.
"Treasure," I said as I knelt.
He was ghastly pale, and so very near death. In his clouding eyes I saw love for me and horror. Through the bloody foam issuing forth from his mouth, he pleaded "Please....spare....them."
I smiled, all sweetness and sharp teeth. "You knew the cost that would be paid should you fall, beloved treasure." Tears rolled from his eyes as they slid closed. I took his larger form easily into my arms, I stepped onto the railing, then took a step more. The sea rose to lower me gently down into her embrace. Clothing and legs both melted away at the water's touch. Tail and fins took their place, and I was myself again. I put down my burden upon the water, and watched with pleasure as he was baptized by it. Reclining upon the water I gathered my might and the mantle of my authority unto myself. Raising my arms I beseeched the sea and cried out:
"Mother! My supplication, I offer! This hymn, I offer! These sacrifices unto you, I offer! From your eternal womb return what is mine to me."
The din of battle stilled and died as the veil of the sky grew dark, and the waters became like ink. Then I began to sing. The syllables flew forth like towering waves. Eldritch power their substance, love and malice in equal measure were the foam about their crests. Weapons and magics were turned on me, but the sea rose to defend me. After the first volley, in abject terror of my working, as one the Warmages on both sides called all the forces that were theirs to command and cast themselves into the aether. Transporting themselves to hearth and home, or places unknown to live you their long days in obscurity and shame. Leaving their compatriots, countrymen, and enemies alike to be sacrifices on my altar. How wise of them.
I tapped the vast well of power that was the sea and added that to my song as well. The waves, like mountains, rose in a ring for leagues in all directions around the two great fleets. The winds of every sea born storm since the day of creation gathered in the air. Lightning with luminescence enough to beggar the sun marshaled in the clouds. With one final note I called the forces I had summoned to fall upon man and ship alike.
A single terrible instant of destruction, the likes of which would be told in tales of horror for a thousand years, I wrought that day. A single instant of transfiguration and rebirth, that would please me till the last drop of the sea drys to naught, I bought that day. Thereafter, I never again swam the deeps alone. There after, the greatest of my treasures never again desired to stray from my side, or our watery home.
-End