Tauli Ch. 03

She put a hand to her beating heart, "What... Was that?"

"No idea." He shook his head, "Stank of sulphur and brimstone. Think... Think that was the magic. That thing is fucking scary. Mmm... Ever felt like selling the shop? Getting a new place?"

Kristen laughed weakly, "Not until today... Ooh boy. I... It took my pan. Do you think I'll get that back? Or be murdered in my sleep?"

"Think it wants to be left alone." The ratata stated, twirling his tail in one hand, "It's... I not have a shitload of magic. Got a bit. That thing? That thing might be able to out-magic me whole clan. Maybe even Rataraed. If I didn't have you, I'd be leaving the city. Maybe the country."

She glared at him, "So why don't you?"

"I'd die for you. Happily." He shrugged.

Kristen rubbed her face, "Well... So long as I have two invaders... Where did you come from? And why did you fixate on me? Also, what's your name?"

"Inny Jezyk." He replied with a broad smile, "I felt you, so I asked Maly Kiel, and she approved the bond. Took me a while to get here. First ship kinda didn't make it. Got stuck on island, eating sea birds."

She frowned, "You're not local?"

"Nope." He shook his head, and smiled at her broadly, "I love you."

"Why... Me? What exactly did you... Feel?"

He sighed heavily, "Oh, human things. I don't get humans. You can fall out of love, can't you? I can't. The bond is the bond. If Maly Kiel doesn't want it, then it doesn't happen. If she does, then it does. If Rataraed doesn't want it, then it isn't. But Inny Jezyk? I don't control it. The bond just... Is. It isn't just an emotion. I can feel you. Where you are. What you want. Always. I knew where you were, from another land. I could feel your stress, your amusement, your hopes and dreams. I... I am rattan. That is how it is."

Kristen rubbed her eyes tiredly, "I don't think I really followed that."

"I can feel your confusion, too. Or your anger when I follow you." He said with a small smile, "I feel it... But... I... I'm not, without you. That is the bond. I am with you, I am nor, without. Hurt me. Beat me. Ignore me. Doesn't matter. I don't exist, without you."

She felt overwhelming guilt wash over her as she realised the bond wasn't at all like love. It was far more intense than anything human that she might know. His soul was enslaved to hers, and neither of them had the slightest say in it. Kristen winced, "Oh."

"Don't feel bad. I don't like that feeling." He said quickly, "It makes me want to do things to make you happy. But I think you'd get mad if I were to try and cook something in your kitchen."

She found herself laughing, before she remembered. She waved a hand at the trapdoor, "So... We're just going to... Accept that?"

"Ratata accept everything." He shrugged, "Only thing that makes me anxious is knowing that you're unhappy. But I can't fix that thing. I know you think I'm dirty, but I do actually know how to cook. That's what an Inny Jezyk is. A chef. A baker. Those things, but for clan."

Kristen frowned, "Wait... Inny Jezyk isn't your name?"

"Human things. The name of the thing is the thing." He sighed, "What is a rock if it isn't a rock? You call a stone a stone. I am called Inny Jezyk."

She nodded, "Well... Cooking might actually calm me down. So, why don't you wash your hands, and we make something, together? What do you want to eat? Fried chicken?"

He smoothly jumped the counter into her kitchen, and put his hands straight into the pot of near-boiling water she kept on the stove. She diluted it with cold, usually. He really didn't seem to be able to get burned. Or if he did, he didn't seem to care. It made Kristen's stomach knot up.

She washed her own hands as he got something out of the kitchen coldstore, bringing back a small lump of meat that she didn't recognise. "Did you... Pick that up, somewhere?"

"Mmm. Been keeping it for celebration." He smiled at her, and then terrified her by hooking a claw into it and carving it in two with a flick of his wrist. "Haven't tried frying before. Can you mix the batter? Thicker than you usually do, and try to keep it sticky. More water."

Kristen fell into place as the assistant chef. She was surprised by how dextrous he was. His claws really were like a fine assortment of knives, and he was extremely quick. His tail also seemed to act like a third hand, coordinated without a second thought.

She'd never get her customers to accept a rattan cook, but maybe she had been overly judgemental.

The mystery meat was cut into fine pellets, and then the outside was grilled. Then they wrapped it in the soft dough and dropped them into the deep frier that hissed loudly. Whilst the balls were cooking, he also fried some cabbage and onion, flavouring it with a bittersweet fish sauce.

Even though it was a new recipe, everything finished cooking at the same time. He served them both a portion on a pre-warmed plate, and they went to one of the booths to eat.

As they sat down, Kristen felt his tail curl around her ankle. She glared at him, to no effect, but didn't complain. The cook took a tentative bite of the crunchy ball, and was met with a juicy explosion of flavour. "Pork! It's pork."

"Tongue." He nodded, "Hard to get, here. No one really eats pig, do they?"

Kristen shrugged, "Most of my customers would have a problem with the smell. Human scent sucks. But the sniffer of a neko or a cannidae? They hate the smell of pigs. So not many round here have a use for the animal. Have to rely on hunters and wild hogs. I think Arylia exports? But with... The Pale, between us, there isn't much trade."

"Slept in the Pale, when I was still on my way." Jezyk said, scratching behind one of his floppy ears, "That... Was a mistake. I didn't believe in ghosts. Not until I heard the howling. It wasn't the wind."

"You were lucky to make it." She said in surprise, "If the heat and sand didn't get you... There are a lot of darklings there. Something about the Pale... Twists things. Oh gods! It isn't a darkling, is it? In the basement?"

"Cursed beast? No." He shook his head, "They smell different. They make me want to throw up. Mm... Actually, the Pale smelled like sulphur, too. The magic of the place. Bad magic. Maybe it's a god?"

Kristen stopped chewing, and swallowed painfully, "Ratata worship... The dark gods, don't they?"

"Eluthei is goddess of the clan." He nodded casually, as if he wasn't admitting that his entire people worshipped the demon of blood and bone. Not exactly a dinner conversation.

She shivered, "I sincerely hope it isn't."

"Dearst made us." Jezyk said quietly, "The rattata. I know it makes humans uncomfortable. But the dark gods are our... You don't have a word for it. Communal parents. Maybe king is close to the meaning? Something like that. We were born from them, to serve them."

Kristen stared, "You weren't made by the gods...?"

"Dearst. But he died. Eluthei is his daughter." Jezyk shrugged, eating noisily, "But mostly we worship Rataraed, not the gods. He's our will."

"You've said that word before. I've never heard it."

He nodded, "Mmm. Private. Not to tell outsiders, sorry."

"Riiight." She shook her head, "So... I like the cabbage, too. I think I might actually add it to the menu. Cheap, easy and fast to make."

He grinned, "Rattan food. Can get it in any village, here to next world. I have lots of food like that. We often have to eat in the field. Ratata have always been slaves. So decent food that fast to make when no one is looking, from stolen scraps, has always been needed."

She felt even more guilt for her prejudice against his race.

Jezyk made a pained look, "You don't like that idea? I just wanted to cook with you. I don't need to teach you. I'm happy when you are."

"I..." She shrugged, "I'm an idiot. A scared idiot. You can sleep at my feet. It's not permission to push for more. But... I'm terrified of the basement."

He smiled weakly, "Want to look at the stars, after? Go for a walk?"

"Nope."

---

"Captain!" Koustoff yelled, but the halfcat was already standing on the side of the mast, her arm wrapped around a rope as she stared at the graveyard ahead of them. Hundreds of battered ships, of a range of ages, shrouded in the infernal mist wall.

She felt her ears pull back, and she let out an irritated snarl, as she repeated her earlier orders, "Light the lanterns! Douse mainsail! Where's her fucking spotters, do you all want to join the dead? She'll send them down, herself!"

Kinny rolled her jaw, feeling the trepidation as they moved into the ghostyard. She could smell the stench of death in the air, almost toxic in its pervasiveness. From the bonemeal of the long forsaken to the gangrene of the recently deceased. It burned her nostrils and filled her lungs.

However, there was one more scent on the waves that truly concerned her.

The smell of dark magic. Her mother's magic.

This is where she really needed Exilia. The selfish prat had sacrificed herself to fuel their escape, but she'd left Kinny without a decent mage to hand. She couldn't exactly tell the crew that they were sailing into a space where someone had been playing with demons.

The superstitious nature of the sailors wasn't worth it. Kinny's opinion of the gods wouldn't be shared by these folk. She was an actual figure out of prophecy, out of the most sacred of nekan prophecies, and 8n the end it had meant absolutely nothing at all. The gods just played with their destinies, all you could do was be who you are. Fuck the gods.

Her eyes darted back and forth, watching the mist pull backwards, the way it wafted in front of the skeletons of the ships. She yelled out firmly, projecting with a deep voice, "All stop!"

As the sailors scrambled to follow through, she turned and sprinted up the side of the mast, hoisting herself up to pounce briefly into the crow's nest, before running across the span of the mast. She stubbornly refused to offer a prayer to the divine as she leapt from the edge of it and into the clinging mist. "Mother, protect her."

Kinny hit the hard surface of a well-polished and intact deck, drawing her cutlass as she rolled into her shoulder and sprang to her feet. She didn't announce herself, or offer a peaceful conversation. She greeted the surprised crew with steel. She spoke to them with a cutting blade, offering her disapproval of the trap.

Four pirates had struck the ground before they even realised the catgirl was on them. A fifth fell, holding his spilling entrails before the pirates began crying out for someone to stop her.

Kinny ran up the chest of a surprised sailor, her feet grabbing his head and breaking his neck, before she launched from the topling frame to land beside the wheel, her shining steel dripping as the tip touched the captain's throat. Her blue eye shone brightly, and she bared her teeth silently.

The man lifted both his hands, "Well, fuck me thunderstruck. I know when we're o' the beat. If it be surrender ya seekin', ya bitchin' got it."

The accent caught her attention. It was somewhat like the south of her continent, but the cadence was off. Not just a localisation, either. This man was evidence for the other continent, which meant as untrustworthy as he was, Kinny needed the fucker. Or, at least, his charts.

She turned her head a little and growled, her fur bristling, and she pushed the sword a little firmer against his throat. A trickle of his blood joining that which she had already spilled.

The frozen and stupified pirates were starting to break out of their shock. Looking at her and wondering if she was alone. Beginning to think about what it would take to remove her from the context.

"Name." She growled quietly, voice barely louder than the creak of the deck.

The man swallowed nervously, "I been called Jack o' the Black Flags. I'm the this-here captain o' this ship. May I ask your name, miss?"

"Kinslayer."

The crew stopped moving. They had a familiarity with nekan names, then. They would know it had meaning, that no parent would be cruel enough to call their child that, meaning that her name was earned. With her demonstration of force, it was the hesitation she needed.

She flicked his hat from his head by her blade, landing the sweat-laden object on her head. She lowered the point of her blade, but didn't sheathe it. Kinny spoke loudly, declaring to the crew, "You belong to her, now. Serve her well, you live."

That was one of the tricks her mother had taught her. Never finish your threat. Leave the negative completely to the imagination. Don't even start and then trail off. There's nothing you can do to intimidate someone worse than not mentioning an expected evil.

Some of the most intimidating things her mother had done were smile and drink her tea, after being a picture of politeness... Where it wasn't expected or warranted.

Kinny turned and yelled, "Kou! Outfit her crew!"

The tauran bellowed back an affirmative, immediately, as if he had been expecting it. Boyfriend or not, the man would make a decent quartermaster. She hadn't been expecting that. Hadn't expected him to handle a ship at all, if she was honest. Koustoff seemed like the kind to need solid ground beneath his feet.

She raised her chin at the deposed captain, before lightly flipping down to the deck below. She tossed aside the hat and strode into the captain's quarters with an outstretched palm.

Inside was organised chaos. She stepped over a rolling barrel, and a red flag trailing across the deck, to the desk. She looked down at the charts, casting her eyes over them quickly. Her ex had been a sea captain, and navel charts weren't so different to the maps of the countryside she had used in the army.

She traced a claw over the familiar but different shapes that formed the writing. An archaic form of draconic. Her mother would be incensed at how poorly Kinny could read it, but she could get the general gist of things.

Most of the notes were about where certain ships had been sunk. Places to avoid, or places to plunder, depending on the terrain left behind.

She tapped one of the spots, and looked up as Jack followed her inside. "Did he just find the ruins of the Meerhalla, or did he sink it, himself?"

"You know o' it?" He said in surprise. "That weren't worth shit. We thought she were a merchantman, but she was a military scout. Tree hours we circled each other, but couldnae get away 'til one o' us were sunk."

Kinny gave a chuckle, "They had something far worse after them than you."

"And... What was that?"

"Mother." She gave a bitter laugh, "This far south... He heard about the bells, didn't he? The spell, two decades past?"

"No more bells." The captain shivered, "We all 'eard it, even if we didnae know exactly what it meant. Not until slave bracelets started popping left and right. Fuckin' Tauenlytara was released. Ever met an angry salamander in battle? Ain't worth ya hide."

She pulled back her hair, showing a tiny wisp of a scar just beneath her jawline, "Reenhalla gave her this, once, when she threatened to arrest the dragon's bride. Kinslayer cut her from navel to breast in return. She's fought dragons. She finds them... Overrated."

"Gods take me soul." He breathed in surprise, "What kind of fucking beast are you...? I've never seen eyes like that in a neko."

"Her father was an elf, and a demon worshipper, like the mage in your crew." She replied, turning back to scan the maps, "Her mother, on the other hand, was the neko that ate the heart of Dearst."

The man laughed, "I ain't dat foolhardy. Ate the heart of a god?"

"Dearst killed her brother." Kinny replied angrily, "Her twin. Taken before he could be born. The Golden Kitsune decided that it would be useful, and so allowed her mother the chance. She's met gods, captain. She doesn't like them. Well... Maybe Arina. But she can be a cold-hearted bitch when she wants to be."

He stopped laughing, "Either you're insane... Or you really have met one..."

"More than one." She rolled up two of the charts, before also pilfering his magnifier and gryscope. Kinny looked up at him, eyes firm and resolute, "She has worse than gods trying to step on her tail, captain. She's a traitor to the empire to the north. Her mother, who broke your fucking slaving spells, was Empress Toofy. Wife to Arina, goddess of death."

He stared at her, "The new goddess... Is your... Mother?"

"Aunt." She shrugged, "And even her aunt not dare to get in her way, right now. So... Jack o' the Black Flags... She'll offer you the choice again. Absolute loyalty. If his men lift a hand against her... Cut a single hair from her head... He will be required to take responsibility. Can it be done? Will they toe the line?"

"Come with me." He replied urgently, leading her out and briefly onto the deck, before descending. "Watch your head, bit tight down here."

Her elven eye saw clearly into the darkness, as he led her to the source of the stench that had given them away. The smell of demonic magic poured out of the room as Jack opened up the door and revealed a mage's quarters. She recognised less than even half of the ritualised markings.

In a circle in the middle of the room, marked by burning black wax candles, was a man in a kind of meditative stupor. He was sitting cross-legged, bolt upright. His breathing was shallow and his cheeks were gaunt.

Jack waved a hand, "He's been stuck liken this, for near a week. Any o' us approach, and fire comes outta da candles. Turns into a shield o' some kind, locking him away."

"It's a summoning circle." She crouched, "Kinslayer's not a mage, human. She has no magic, and she doesn't need it... But she recognises this. Since the Divine Gate came down... Dark gods offer power, in exchange for souls. She's hunted enough mages who thought it didn't mean their own souls. This one... The name looks like Alarhaim."

The captain winced, "What do we do?"

"The demon is eating him alive." She stood up, and there was a burst of light as the flames roared upwards. She ignored them, flicking her blade through the space and granting the mage passage to the world beyond. Better than being stuck halfway, forever.

She wiped her sword on her sleeve, and then sheathed it, "If he has any sense... He'll seal the room. Most everything in here stinks of demon. Probably cursed. She'd say burn it, were it not on a ship."

"You... Killed him."

She grabbed the captain by the throat, "Wasn't she clear enough? She has an empire to hunt, human. She will not waste her tears on those who cannot be saved. He finds himself in a war. Innocence is dead. Murdered by the wayside. Gods or men, Kinslayer will kill them all for what was done to her mother."

He nodded silently.

She snarled and strode away, back towards her ship.

---

Cobblestones exploded in every direction, followed immediately by a huge billow of blue flames. The heat from the fire causing the flags on the other side of the square to spontaneously ignite. The soldiers guarding the walls screamed out orders and acknowledgements as they ran to the wall, passing out spears. A distant bell began to toll out the alarm.

Sweat ran down their cheeks, trickling down their backs.

The flames reduced in size, but didn't altogether recede, and then one large black-scaled hand slammed up and out of the hole, surrounded by the blue glow. The entire ground shook with the impact, a crack lancing out along the square and up the side of a nearby house.

Spears lowered, and an unlucky captain of the guard screamed out, "Where the fuck is the mage!? He's here!"

A second hand gripped the edge of the cavernous expanse, shattering stone into chips. There was a moment of anticipation, the assembled soldiers holding their breaths. The only sound the wicking of the flames.

The dragon's roar hit them as it swung itself upwards, screaming out a bellow of rage that tossed rubble and wind at them. The soldiers stumbled backwards a foot under the force. One or two throne spears clattered into the palace wall behind as they failed to penetrate the soundwave.