“The Cape, the Cape! They saw her at the Cape, at the Cape!”
The call started in the mouth of a ragged man on the docks, and it sped from there to the streets and from there to the pubs and from there to everywhere, quicker than a blink. “The Cape! They saw her at the Cape! Red-eyed, saw-backed, coiled high on the rocks! Dame Brute – in solitude – hunts at the Cape of Sharp Stones!”
“My leg!” bellowed up from the depths of a half-flotsam pub, screamed by a whaler with the body of jerky and the lungs of an opera singer and – indeed – the leg of a pogo stick. “At last, the price for my leg will be paid to me! Up now with you all, down with your cups! Today we take back my leg! Today we take back our pride! Today we avenge our lost shipmates! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
“My bounty!” hooted a pirate as he held an erstwhile news-spreader up in one hand and her wallet in the other. “Hear that, kids? Ol’ Lum is going to pay off his debts to the state and Mend His Ways! You all are going to be Legitimate Persons Of Fortune once more, like in the days before the Unfortunate Moment which we will not be talking about at this time. We’ll be able to get drunk in public again! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
“My place!” whispered a trembling aristocrat to her aide. “Perchance, Pestersnipe, this shalt forsooth salve the wounds of mine unjust exile from paternal and maternal care and render unto me the fiscal and notional acclaim necessary to achieve the heights of society denied my most unjustly due to my unfortunate placement as the third-born heir in a second-rank family among the third-most-esteemed cadet branch of the fourth-grandest-and-most-fashionable-province of the Lesser Buulyeans.”
“Her ladyship commands the crew to put to sea to murder a waterborne snake – hurry, hurry, and hurry, and so on” said Pestersnipe to the marines, and they said ‘sir’ and nodded and it was so.
Thusly did three ships leave the harbour in such furious speed that they were barely able to raise sails and figure out north from west. Horns were sounded, signals were misinterpreted, six small local fishing craft were sent to the bottom, six large and irate local fisherman were press-ganged into service, and by the time the rest of the city caught wise to what was up and began to send feet to decks, the chase had already begun and there were only three real contestants, strung out along the horizon from each other like beads on a very cheap necklace.
The last sea monster was being hunted.
***
Pertinence was afore the first week, her crew driven by a dangerous combination of monomania and experience. Every hand on that boat thirsted for the flesh of the foe, every eye was keen with the knowing of wind and current – that many of the bodies aboard were shy a hand eye or elsewise meant little to such fierce determination. They slept what little they must, they ate in between heaves and pulls, they sang no shanties but hissed angry breaths between hard-bitten teeth, they squinted at the horizon like it was Dame Brute’s ally, a hostile wall between them and their goal.
Fancy Lee sauntered after her, lean and quick in trim and sail, if somewhat flabbier in crew. A dark cloud of lingering hangovers weighed them where their vessel did not, and though they were keen to be unwanted men and women once more they weren’t so sharp as to cut themselves.
Prince Gigantic brought up the rear at a respectable pace, one enforced by the stoutness of her hull and the request of her captain, who was sea-sick.
“I can’t sleep, I won’t blink, I won’t stop to smile or spit or sup until the Cape is before us and the beast is beneath us and the past is behind us,” vowed Jordan Hopp, who was nailing a blasphemous pact to Pertinence’s mainmast with such force that the deck creaked beneath their feet. “Open a vein and draw your mark if you can say the same!” And lo, the crew did as such to an able hand.
“Rough times afloat have the same cure as rough times ashore have the same cure as a hangover,” said Ol’ Lum in an unnecessarily loud voice. “The Good Shit is on the middeck today and it is first come first served, but no double dipping before everyone else has had their shot or else there will be Consequences.” And lo, the crew did as such to an able hand.
“Plorgh,” addressed Captain Ditherpunt-twixt-Mannhurdle through the window of her cabin to the sea. “Fffbbbltppphurk.”
“Her ladyship commands that you speed up,” said Pestersnipe. “Also, bring up the cask of medicinal brandy.” And lo, the crew did as such to an able hand.
All hands being able did not mean all plans went as made, and as such by the week’s end matters lay as thus, this:
Pertinence had spent two days dead in the water with her sails aimless due to an inexplicable outbreak of anemia and exhaustion among the crew. “The devil!” seethed Captain Hopp. “The devil and god themselves conspire against me! Well, to hell and deeper with them both!” And then they burned the blasphemous pact along with Pertinence’s mainmast, which cost the Pertinence a little more trouble.
The Fancy Lee made good if slightly wobbly time. Consequences had left her holster several times, but she did not need to be fired. Which was good, because Consequences never missed but what she hit wasn’t necessarily what she was aimed at.
While all the while Prince Gigantic churned gamely onwards, though her wake was oddly odoured and coloured and more expensive than most seawater. And so, in some difficulty, the pursuit for the most fierce – if now solitary – creature of the seas continued.
***
A whale was a free-swimming fountain of resources with a wily will to survive. A sea monster was a step above in that those resources would come looking for you and a step down in that they would then try to eat you.
That was an old puzzle, one that had in recent centuries found increasingly accurate answers. And now, it was almost completed.
***
In the second week the weather turned mellow – too mellow. All sails turned slack; the sun burned hot, and the string of three stagnated in their current order. Fancy Lee held the leading place, and by a healthy distance.
“I told you kids we would all see this through and I told you that what Ol’ Lum tells you is true Is That Not Fact?” asked Old Lum. “It’s okay, that was Rhetorical it means you don’t need to answer and Do Not Think About It. We’ve got this one In The Bag, and the harder you worry the harder it’ll get. Don’t sweat anything. Don’t think about how we’ve completely run out of places it’s legal to for any of us to Take A Load Off or get a drink or maybe breathe. Don’t think about what happens if we Screw This Pooch. Don’t think about how many times we have all Screwed That Pooch. Don’t think about it. And if you do, just imagine Consequences. But don’t. So do that. And don’t do that.” And lo, the crew did as such to an able hand except for what they didn’t do as such to an able hand except for when they did. Or didn’t.
Prince Gigantic wallowed the space between, her many decks turned to ovens. Pestersnipe stood valiant guard in his ladyship’s cabin, bent low with a mirror to check for breath.
“Bless thee, good Pestersnipe,” whispered Captain Ditherpunt-twixt-Mannhurdle in the faintest of voices, “for thy service in my darkest hour. From sea-sickness to heat-sickness – alas! Alack! I fear mine hour has nigh-come, forsooth forthwith forthright. I know the rabble and roustabouts of the crew shalt seek to shirk their duty in this time of my decrepitude, it falls to thee, wise and kind and true Pestersnipe, to take up the sword in my darkest hour. Flog them, flay them, skin them if you must, but make those wretches break us free of this damnable heat if you need to use half the crew’s bones as oars!”
“Her ladyship says you should take the day off and enjoy a double grog ration while we wait for improved weather,” said Pestersnipe. “Also bring up the reserve medicinal brandy cask.” And lo, the crew did as such to an able hand.
Pertinence had limped along on two masts, fore and aft. Now she lay with the stillness of a corpse. But one germ remained active on that body; one finger yet twitched at the end of its last nerve, and it was Captain Hopp, who climbed to the tallest remaining perch of the ship – missing leg and all – to describe to every supernatural being in all their extensive knowledge of time and tide and its creators exactly what they thought of them and their obstruction of their noble quest.
“Fuck you!” they screamed. “Eat shit!”
That night the calm broke and a hard wind blew.
Fancy Lee tacked into the wind, then headed off the wind, then downed sails on one side and tacked up to full on the other, then tried a secret fourth thing whose purpose and point was inscrutable. Consequences flowed freely, though lessons learned were elusive.
Prince Gigantic rose to the occasion and sped ahead on great wings raised with nimble speed; all its lumbering weight turned into a nimble dart in the hands of such a gigantic force. The complexity of its wake only increased in scope and scale, as did its smell.
And Pertinence was struck by lightning three times but each time found the fires extinguished by the force of the blowing gale, which put such spectacular fear into the crew’s souls as to lend them their own kind of wings, which thereby sped them onwards in due time. Thus, in grim determination, did the search for the murderous – if now solitary – reptile continue onwards.
***
Dame Brute had been given her name for her daintiness. Other sea monsters made sloppy messes out of ships; tore them open stem to stern and left them to founder slowly; carrying away screaming morsels from the deck as they left.
By contrast, although she was a scar-seared knuckle-nosed battering-ram of a creature that had once bisected a whaler in a single breach, she was a proper lady. She didn’t depart until her plate was picked clean, and she seldom left any garbage floating to mark her messes.
***
By third week’s time the Prince Gigantic held the horizon, a moving mountain – but one rendered almost invisible. The wind and rain had returned, then redoubled, then resounded. A full storm grasped all the flotilla in common, each an island unto itself more than ever, shrouded and set apart by the rage of the heavens.
“It is not all sorrows and tears in this tragedy, my dearest Pestersnipe,” pondered Captain Ditherpunt-twixt-Mannhurdle, who was feeling well enough to limp up above decks and goggle at the struggle for survival, like a child with a magnifying glass peeping a likely anthill. “For instance, dost thou know’st that I have had the liberty of observing many a sea-dog in our wake these passing weeks? They lap most fearfully at my vomitus that drags behind our keel. Not past this tenth bell, I did behold a wretched scavenger whose size was nigh half our vessel’s length! What a thing that would be, to give such a monstrous beast a taste for the rich and fine things in life beyond that of its station, eh?”
Above even the roar of the wind rose a dreadful thunking, chewing sound at the keel.
“Her ladyship asks you all to grab boarding pikes and head to the vessel’s stern to kill a giant drunk shark,” said Pestersnipe. And lo, the crew did as such to an able hand.
Pertinence travelled with one mast now and half a sail, hellbent forwards on momentum more than the wind.
“Jettison it all,” howled Captain Hopp into the wind, eyes bugged, teeth bared. “Food, water, bedding – all dead weight now. We want but for irons for our task! All else goes to the deep!” And lo, the crew did as such to an able hand.
The Fancy Lee was running a little light on crew in the wake of manifest Consequences, and though the notion of what to do with her sails was strong the ability to manifest it was less trivial.
“Pull, my kids, pull!” said Old Lum, who was himself heaving on the steering wheel like it owed him money and was lying facedown on its wallet. “There have been rough times and hard times but right now we are owed a good size of Good Times and we are almost there you Bet Your Ass. Every sail goes on! Every hand pulls! Almost there, and then We’ve Made It!” And lo, the crew did as such to an able hand.
With so many hands at such furious work in such thorough ignorance as to all outside their business, perhaps the outcome, although invisible to all concerned, was dully obvious to any uninvolved. Thus, the ramming of the Pertinence at full-force into the stern of the Prince Gigantic – where it skewered a very large, drunk, and angry shark that had chewed off half the latter vessel’s keel – was in an absolute sense very unsurprising despite coming as a great shock to a large number of people. Likewise, the slow, showy swirl of a corkscrew that took the Fancy Lee to drift broadside into the two of them, where it stuck firm.
Some screams, some shouts, some smoke and splinters. And above it all, a storm turned to a sputter, and light shining on a sea filled with sharp, splintered stones
And thus, at the fourth week and all at once, altogether, they reached the Cape, and ruined the solemn solitude of that place.
***
The Cape of Sharp Stones had been a seasonal haunt for sea monsters for who knew how long. Then it had been a refuge, since nobody that wasn’t extremely desperate enjoyed navigating waters filled with constantly splintering, constantly changing mazes of giant jagged rocks.
And now, it was a ghost house you could lose several provinces in.
***
The waves had calmed enough for a civil discussion above decks involving all. As befitted such an occasion, every jack involved was armed to the teeth. The marines fixed bayonets to long-guns; the pirates put cutlasses on every remaining limb and a few that weren’t; and the whalers simply clutched the most unpleasant and visceral devices every conceived of by man like they were their own dear children.
“How doing there my Good Fellow Travellers,” said Old Lum through his megaphone and a big smile. “If you wouldn’t mind Making Right Of Way for some Gentlefolk Of Free Will And Fancy we can all go home safe and sound and Settled Of Mind.”
“Dame Brute is ours, by right of pain and hatred,” said Captain Hopp, who was braced on an entire handful of hideously barbed and gigantically elongated pieces of metal – and more thoroughly, on a well of unyielding spite. “Ours is the expertise required and the justice demanded.”
“Such lowly bequests must bide their good time in turn when the right of birth and expedience is called to its proper place in the nature and order of the world as demanded, by decree of kingdom, country, and common law – in our favour, no less, for a matter of most esteemed and most imperative honour is at stake, in which I bear the most pertinent interest – ah, my fortune! Such Providence is granted to me in matters of the material, if not, alas, the heart,” explained Ditherpunt-twixt-Mannhurdle.
“We’ve got the most guns,” said Pestersnipe.
“And we’ve got the most folks that know how to use them to make The Big Money. But ah now my fellow Gentlefolks Of The Sea, there is no reason for this to come to Unpleasantness,” said Old Lum, hands raised to display both conciliatoriness and Consequences. “If we all stay Cool Headed, I’m sure we-”
Captain Hopp flung a fierce harpoon full-force, whereupon it lodged in Old Lum’s brisket. He sagged and loosed Consequences, which struck Pestersnipe athwart the bows of his noggin, beheading him.
“Unleash the full-fouled bowels of Hades upon every one of them, child and grown, without discrimination nor kindness nor hesitation!” screamed Captain Ditherpunt-twixt-Mannhurdle, pale palms grasping her fallen manservant in mortified sorrow.
The marines looked at her, hands flexed and waiting.
She closed her eyes, breathed in and out once, a great shaking sob, then peeked them open again with utmost care.
“Kill everybody?” she said.
And lo, all the crews did as such to the last able hand, then the least able, and to the end.
***
As the timber creaked and the water gurgled the great spired sentinels of the Cape of Sharp Stones grew ever higher and higher to the few remaining witnesses until they lost sight and slipped below, still entangled – bow to stern, blade to ribcage – and began that last, lonely dive down, down, down down, where they landed with crushing force atop silt and stone amid many other older wrecks and one more thing.
It was the skeleton of a great old sea monster, newly laid to bone by busy scavengers, not more than a month picked clean, gnarled by age and killed by nothing more than time.
And now, no longer solitary.