Transcribed by Murk Lake, Seeker to the Old King

[Location Unknown], Age 5.6 U.C.

Vanesqua Vossier was a man who liked parties. Lush, lavish parties that left his face flushed and his throat sore for days after. It was an easy addiction to feed—he was born rich, with a third eye for business that opened on his first summer apprenticing the most successful merchant behind the Seawall.

Before his second-and-sept age, he’d secured a contract running barrels of dye from Capelle to Inlay. And it was the best dye, the colors distilled brighter than reality; red more ruby than rose, yellow brighter than buttercups, and blue so smooth and hot, the Fox herself may one day have it embroidered on her bridal shawl.

By the time Vossier reached his fifth age, he was wealthy enough to afford the kind of party that would serve as his best and last.

He hired a passenger vessel named The Silver Spirit and sailed into the western port of Inlay, coming in off a week spent on the island belt, and hauling a boat full of his closest friends and business partners. They marched through the portside beach camps and bonfires then down into the bowl of the island. There, they reveled for three days within spitting distance of the Tower of Fire drinking, dancing, singing, fucking, smoking, telling stories, growing sleepy, passing out in high, pillowed beds with their second or third partner of the day, waking up with hangovers, and doing it all again, until someone with a cherry mouth and plump hips whispered something in Vossier’s ear about skinny dipping.

Vossier liberated an amber bottle of rum from behind the bar and followed those plump hips up the city’s slopes, over a low stone wall, and into a boggy thicket of manicured jungle interspersed with native coffee and mango trees. At the center of the garden was a raised, flat stone with a bubbling pool at its center. They slipped into the water and circled each other, whispering about how they’d get in trouble for sneaking onto grounds owned by Inlay’s most prestigious Reliquary, and getting closer to each other with every shiver. Then it was steaming, her lips so wet, so tender, the drink so hot in his veins, Vossier had to clamber out of the water to clear his head in the fresh air.

He wandered through the trees, running hands over silken leaves, swinging his half-empty bottle at mosquitoes, until he came nearly to the edge of the garden, close enough to the Tower of Fire that its undulating light washed through the tree canopy. Vossier was plunged into a world of stark contrast; every bright spot igniting crimson, and every shadow cutting black. Vossier settled onto a rock and sipped, watching the light dance like a crab might from its burrow on the sea bottom.

A strange log was silhouetted in front of Vossier, and his eyes slipped along its smooth swells and dipping hollows. And something stringy, lichen or grass, banding it, almost like hair.

Was that hair? Was that a log?

Was it moving? Or was that just the light.

Vossier stood and stumbled closer, perhaps thinking in a moment of drunken wisdom that he’d fetch a light. But there was no more light, only Vossier in a fiery, glowing jungle. And a log, just a log. He’d check and see that’s what it was.

A broken limb jutted from the log’s top, ragged shards at the stump, but soft and fleshy at its base. Shoulder height—he shook this thought from his head. Get closer, closer.

Vossier was weeping, he thought it was him making that noise. The bottle had fallen to the ground, swallowed by soft blackness and gone forever. The log was slim, its edges outlined in red. The weeping was cresting in wet cracks. Vossier stepped over the log, straddled it so see its front illuminated, and—

Vossier wobbled through the door of the inn an hour after he’d left it, and he was alone. He hunted through the crowd for his closest friend from his early years on Capelle, one he’d known since he was young enough to skip stones, and who now is named Prisoner 94. Vossier herded 94 into a corner and told him to get everyone together; they were returning to the ship.

It had been a week, and each bright morning had begun stretching longer than the last, so while there was grumbling as the party climbed back to the beach, it was out of obligation to Vossier’s ego, rather than a disdain for returning to one’s own bed.

They cast off, and while most took up chairs on the deck in a cleared area separate from the crew’s workings and got back to drinking and reveling in the time they had left, Vossier disappeared into his quarters.

The party did not see Vossier emerge for three days, not to socialize, not to eat, not even to spend a sunny afternoon on the black-sand beaches of Volcanawa when the ship stopped to replenish its rations. The party began joking that Vossier had indulged more than any man ever could and was now paying his due unloading sea-churned guts into all the fancy vases they’d glimpsed adorning his quarters.

On the morning of the fourth day, Prisoner 94 braved a knock on Vossier’s door. There was no answer, but the man had grown up with Vossier, and knew from childhood illnesses that the merchant was more likely to sit in bed demanding he be treated like a king than hide away in silence when he felt more than a sniffle. 94’s concern was so great, he pushed the door aside and stepped in without being invited.

Vossier’s quarters were the nicest on the ship, nicer even than the captain’s with high windows overlooking the oncoming horizon, and ornamented with drapes and baubles the merchant had purchased along the island belt. But the view was obscured by tightly closed drapes of thick Capellan make, and only the cleanest slivers of light escaped around their edges with the swaying of the ship. On a wide, four posted bed, Vossier lay atop tucked silken sheets, his arms relaxed at his sides, face blank and staring at the plank-board ceiling.

94 announced himself and Vossier rolled his head to face his childhood friend. Even in the dark, grey hairs shone at the merchant’s temples and the lower lids of his eyes were dragged and baggy. Vossier had never looked old before.

Vossier asked his friend how long they’d been sailing. When 94 told him it had been four days, Vossier sat up, curling from the mattress one vertebrae at a time.

“I think I… did something,” said Vossier, and began running his fingers over his lips. “Or I… saw something.”

“What did you see?” 94 asked.

A peculiar look crossed Vossier’s face, a ripple over smooth water. “I don’t remember,” he said.

On the morning of the sixth day, The Silver Spirit was leaving Beakscoop—the last notch on the island belt—and plunging into the five-day stretch across the Barrel to Capelle’s Harbor of Jewels.

In the night, a man named Rona—whom Vossier had invited in the hopes of securing a trade agreement for bolts of silk—rose from bed, and snuck an apple form the kitchen below deck. He sat munching alone in the dark, cutting slices and popping them into his mouth using a short blade with a handle of carved opal.

At least, he’d thought he was alone.

A hand shot from the darkness and grabbed the blade. Before Rona had time to shout, the knife plunged into his neck and he died, apple still in hand.

This was the conclusion the party came to when they discovered Rona’s body that morning. No one had an explanation for the body’s bloodlessness, or the clean, white neck wound still clutching the blade up to its opal handle.

There was discussion with the captain—the party wanted to return to Beakscoop and escape the confines of the vessel holding them in close quarters with a killer. But the captain overruled them; crimes committed over the Barrel were lawless, and the murder of a Capellen merchant would need to be delt with in Capelle.

Guards were set at the party’s bunks, but most sat up through the night—not certain that one of the men guarding them wasn’t hungry for their lives.

No one thought to inform Vossier. The man had not been seen by most of the party since leaving Inlay and so he slipped from their minds in the face of larger Calamities.

Until Prisoner 94 was roused in the night by the man himself.

94 followed Vossier onto the deck. Vossier was looking better—less drawn, his skin less sagging—in fact, he looked much better. Against the light of the moon his silhouette seemed broader, taller.

“You need to lock me in,” Vossier said to 94. “You need to stand guard at my door—I think I may have…”

94 didn’t need Vossier to finish to understand what his old friend was confessing to, but with every question he asked, Vossier only grew more frantic, more hounded.

“I don’t know!” he hissed, hands petting through his silver hair, tears glistening in his eyes. “I don’t know why! I don’t know what!”

94 agreed to stand guard at Vossier’s door—not to prevent someone from entering in the night, but to keep the man locked away from the rest of the ship. He slung a bar across Vossier’s door and sat with his back to it, a long sparring blade he’d previously only carried to stay in line with the fashion, laid across his knees.

He did this for two nights, never hearing a sound behind Vossier’s door.

The Silver Spirit crossed the center of the Barrel and with several day’s buffer between them and what happened to Rona, the party began relaxing back into old habits. They were only two days from the Harbor of Jewels, and they were beginning to think of the stories they’d tell at their homecoming—how they’d been trapped on a ship with a killer, and bravely returned to seek an investigation in the name of justice.

After an evening’s respite lounging on deck with the goal of finishing the casks of rum they’d purchased on Volcanawa, they were able to forget that one of them had likely stuck a knife in another’s neck.

94 did not join them. Instead, he settled in to carry out his duty once again, keeping watch over Vossier. The night was still and warm. 94 counted stars and did not slumber. With the pink glow of sunrise, he rose and stretched, finally catching the hope his friends had felt the night before.

Only one more day to Capelle. The call of seabirds already echoed abovedeck.

He climbed upwards, ready to break his fast before finding some sleep. His boot stepped onto sun-polished wood and squelched.

94 peered down and realized he’d stepped on a finger. But not a regular severed finger—not that 94 had seen many—but he knew they weren’t meant to be as spongy as this one was. It popped under his boot like a fat silkworm.

It occurred to 94 that the call of seabirds was closer than he’d thought, too close for them to be flying above the ship. He followed the sound up to the crew’s deck.

A pile of alabaster bodies sat beneath snapping white sails. Seabirds dove at them, gouging beaks into eye sockets and stomachs, unspooling bloodless entrails.

There must’ve been thirty corpses, everyone on the ship. Everyone but him and Vossier.

One night remained between 94 and Capelle. He didn’t know how Vossier escaped his quarters without leaving through the door, but he had no intention of ending up a bloodless piece of fish-meat. If he was going to survive, he would have to confront his friend, if he was still that. Something told 94 it would be unwise to wait until the sun went down.

94 held his sword ready and pushed open Vossier’s door. The room was much brighter than before—one of the huge windows was shattered and the heavy curtains flapped open on either side of the hole. The bed was shredded, feathers and something white and wet smeared the walls. It stank bizarrely of overripe fruit and cinnamon. 94 spotted the top of Vossier’s head sitting in a shadowed corner, his hair shining like a silver helmet. 94 crept in front of him, keeping the tip of his sword pointed in front of him.

Vossier was curled over himself, his face buried in his knees and arms wrapped around his stomach. 94 called out to his old friend. He still had hopes of reaching the man he had known so well. After all, as inexplicable as Vossier’s methods were, the man had clearly chosen to spare him.

“It… won’t…stop,” Vossier was panting. “I can’t… make it… stop!”

Vossier, looked up at 94 through bloodshot tearing eyes, blood dribbling from his lips, and unfolded his arms from around his middle.

94 fell backwards, clutching his sword desperately. Where Vossier’s hands had been, were two oozing stumps, the flesh blackened and crumbling like charcoal around a slimy, protruding mass. Staring through the sharp lens of fear, 94 realized the white object was too spindly and opalescent to be Vossier’s arm bone. It looked more like three thin spears meeting together in a point.

“It hurts, it hurts. Nothing makes it stop!” Vossier moaned, and as he spoke a clod of what was once his forearm broke off and fell to the floor.

94 was able to pull his eyes from Vossier’s corroding limbs to watch his mouth move. He spoke like he was chewing rocks. There was a faint crack and another large chunk of flesh detached from Vossier’s arm. He titled his head back and howled in pain, and behind his teeth, 94 saw three rows of bloody, needlelike fangs.

“Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop,” Vossier was muttering.

And that’s what Prisoner 94 did.

That night, he wrapped his old friend’s corpse in the Capellen curtains—probably colored with the very dye Vossier once traded—and he rolled him into the ocean.

When asked why 94 would do this by the Capellen guard, he explained that despite the sword driven through the center of its chest, Vossier’s body began moving when night fell. Not reanimated, he claimed, but swelling and deflating like a bladder, like something inside was breathing.

The Capellen guard is not known for its leniency on murder, and without Vossier’s corpse, the culprit was obvious. Instead of being hailed as a hero or a survivor, Prisoner 94 was thrown in a water cell to await trial by the Queen.

Luckily, our people got to him first.

We bundled him out under cover of night and put him on a ship to His Majesty’s Island, where he has been set to dig for His Majesty’s purpose.

The chipping away he does under supervision of the Select has not removed the clarity of Prisoner 94’s memory.

I understand now, My King, why you bid me visit the island. It is not to record the futile pleas of a man who does not realize he’s already been buried. You had a much greater purpose in mind—to extract that which cannot bleed or die: stories.

I will continue with my quest.

Until Calma,

Murk Lake