The cat was perched lazily atop the bowsprit, her favorite
part of a boat, and considered death. She had only died twice, but she was
beginning to enjoy it. It felt good. She wondered how it would compare to sex.
She couldn’t ask anyone of course, as she didn’t know anyone
who fit the criteria of being, or having recently been deceased. She considered
finding a ghost, spirit or perhaps another one of her kind, an Eneddi. She wasn’t
even sure why she compared it to sex, only it seemed that humans enjoyed it and
she enjoyed dying. She had never tried the other. She was still just a kitten after
all.
“Ankh’Si,” Tyro called her new name from across the deck.
The cat opened her eyes.
“Guess what’s for dinner?”
‘Maybe I’ll ask the homunculi if any of them have ever been
destroyed.’ It probably wasn’t at all alike, but she’d have to now that she
thought of it.
“Karl made sushi.”
“Hell yes!” Ankh’Si had no idea what the words meant, except
that Tyro used the term often. It wasn’t Atlantean, or Egyptian. The cat didn’t
even think it came from one of the other languages that the others spoke, and
there were a lot of those.
The ship was full of refugees from across the globe. All of
whom were just looking for a place to stay. Rare magical homeless bums, that’s what
they were. They were sailing to Troy, with a commission to retrieve unknown
cargo for some rich and coincidentally fat lord in Atlantis. Nobody trusted him
but they were out of options.
“Mermaid’s garden snake,” Karl announced as they assortment
of bodies made their way below deck. “Olympian tuna, and blue triton-tail.”
The cat salivated.
“What god gave you those?” Tyro asked.
“These gods!” Karl stuck his fists in the air above him,
below him and all around his sides. The hekatonkheire clenched each of his
hundred fists with pride.
“Easy to catch a fish with a hundred hands.”
“I guess.” Tyro conceded.
Conversation slowed as the sushi was passed around.
“How’s the weather?” Petra, a Satyr and head of the
sanctuary, asked.
The question was non-conversational and directed at the
designated seer. Redbeak. He was an imp and damn good at prognostication.
“Rain tomorrow.”
“Storm?”
“No, just big clouds and wet air.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll be arriving in Troy then
anyway. If the storm does get out of hand-”
“It won’t.”
“How-”
“Galemakers.”
Petra scrunched her forehead. They didn’t have any real galemakers
on board. Two or three of the homunculi had an affinity towards the craft but
none had any real training. Sione, the resident wereboar was one actually, but
he was still recovering from a nasty transformation and woldn’t be much help on
his own. It usually took about three galemakers to abate a bad storm, six if
you wanted them to last and still keep the ship on course.
“The Persians have better galemakers than Troy.”
“What?”
“The Persians have more too. The sea will be calm as long as
the siege is on.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Tyro butt in, “What do you mean the siege?”
“Master Tyro, the city of Troy is under siege by the Persians,
do you not divine these things for yourself?”
Tyro had nothing to say. Everyone believed him to be a
proficient at divination despite what he told them. He was right of course. He
was crap at that stuff. Seeing and foretelling were close to being the bane of
his existence. But, he had a smartphone and the habit of using it on occasion
in this world was something he couldn’t suppress. It was probably a good thing
the internet didn’t work on it. But he had apps and for some weird reason
functional gps. It made no sense but what was he going to do about it in Gaia,
where magic existed in technology’s place?
“I,” he paused, “was unaware.”
“I suppose you were too pre-occupied with the other current
events to notice another siege on troy.”
“Yes, between that and the sanctuary burning to the ground.”
“Indeed.”
“So how will this siege affect our contract?”
The imp looked at Petra with puzzlement “I had thought,” he reproved,
“That this would have already been accounted for.”
The rest of the present crew had silenced themselves to
listen. Petra wasn’t the ship’s captain but she was the ranking staff from the
sanctuary. She was the director of the organization. She had some of the management and staff, including Tyro, aboard the ship with her, but she called
the shots.
Tyro had only recently been promoted to a full-time position
but the management was required to stay in Atlantis. He was unsure how he felt
about the mantle placed upon him. He hadn’t stayed at one job for this long
before, but he believed in the cause. He was almost as passionate about it as
Petra was. Just because homunculi had no souls, it didn’t mean they shouldn’t be
treated like animals or worse, in many cases.
So what if they were man-made? So what if all the best
alchemists could transmute homunculi? That didn’t meant they should be slaves. Soul
or no soul, being created intentionally by a mortal did not negate one freedom.
People have children on purpose all the time and don’t get to force them into
servitude or sell them as commodities. Of course even the worst case scenario
is a reality somewhere, but in civilization, such things are illegal.
It didn’t seem right to Tyro that just because homunculi
were made artificially that they deserved anything different than other
sentient creatures. And they were sentient. Most homunculi could think and act
of their own volition. Tyro had seen them during his previous apprenticeship in
Japan. He had worked with the alchemists that were forced to produce “false-humans,”
as they were called, for the Yakuza. When Herakles made a plan to escape Tyro
resigned and joined them. It was perfect timing for him too. Any longer and he
was sure to have been roped into more Yakuza affiliation.
“There’s no way were getting into Troy!” Someone said.
“We might as well turn around now!” Said another.
“Hesperides will never give us funding now!”
“We might as well take the ship and disappear.”
There was a chorus of agreement with a few mingling
suggestions of new destinations and ideas of what to do when they got there.
“Listen!” Petra shouted. “We’re not going to become whalers
in Greenland. And we’re not going to all end up in whatever underworld you-
Look,” she said, “We are going to go to Troy. We are going to appeal to the
Persians or wait out the siege. We’ll explain it to Hesperides when we get back
and apologize for the delay. We’ll get our funding and re-build the sanctuary.”
“Hesperides,” one homunculs argued, “won’t give us funding,
he hates us.”
The small cabin exploded in debate once again. Petra grabbed
her plate and left. Tyro followed her and the cat followed him.
“Are we really going to appeal to the Persians?” Tyro asked
as the three of them walked to the forecastle.
“It’s worth a shot.” Petra said. “They’re going to
quarantine our ship anyway. There’s no way we can get close to Troy without the
Persians knowing, not while a siege in going on.”
“What’s the deal with the siege anyway,” Tyro asked.
“It’s a demonstration.” The cat said. “The Persians are
protesting Greek tariffs.”
“You knew about this?” Petra asked incredulously.
“Well,” the cat said, “I just overheard some stuff at an
oracle parlor one night.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t think about it until now.”
Petra sighed.
“So,” Tyro asked, “It’s not a war then?”
“No, the Greeks are just getting a little out of hand on
taxing imported Celtic and Viking goods.”
“Good.” Petra sighed again. “A war’s the last thing we need.”
“But,” Tyro said, “If the siege is about imports and
exports, they’ll be less likely to just let us in to Troy and pick up our
cargo.”
“That is a problem isn’t it?”
“By the way, has Redbeak had any luck scrying what the cargo
is?”
“No, none at all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, that means it’s something big.”
“Big?” The cat asked.
“Expensive, or important or something, we’re not just going
after a boatload of really nice pillows or anything.”
“Well duh!” Ankh’Si said. “Why do you think he sent us? It’s
probably something illegal. Drugs or something.”
“Boy I sure hope not.” Petra added.
Silence followed. The three of them gazed in the direction
they were headed. East. Toward Troy, the Persian fleet, and their unknown
cargo. The salty air filled their lungs and the stars overhead shone comfortingly
to them as they each wished according to their own traditions. Petra silently implored
her goddess for help. Tyro adopted a weak hope in nothing in particular and
Ankh’Si considered getting some more sushi.
“You know Hesperides,” Tyro said, “he’ll find a way to make
us all his slabs, not just the homunculi. Even if he does give us our funding,
there’ll be a catch.”
“What about your mother?” Petra almost pleaded with the cat.
“I know you two aren’t on the best of terms but…”
‘Best of terms?’ Ankh’Si thought, ‘I slit her throat!’
“I don’t know, she said. I guess we are even now. I won’t say there isn't a chance.”
Petra turned and reached to the cat for a hug.
“It would mean to world to me, and the sanctuary if you
could at least talk to her.”
The cat’s fur changed to a dark purple as she allowed
herself to be hugged.
“I promise I’ll talk to her.”
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