The Last Illusion

CHAPTER SIX

Melly strode a few steps away from where Barry had begun breathing down her neck. She held the railing in a death grip, he noted.

"You afraid of water?" he asked, checking the sturdiness of a few slipknots.

"I'm not scared of anything." she snapped back.

"That's a dangerous thing to tell a sailor."

Melly laughed, what did he know about danger?!

"You're not even scared for your brother? What if something happened to him?" As soon as he said it he knew he shouldn't have.

A sudden 'pop' went off inside Melly, her anger boiled over and she glared fire when she turned on him, unintentionally reaching for her dagger. Now what made him say that?! Barry saw her hand reaching in for something and backed off a few stumbling steps. "Don't say anything about Aaron!" she commanded through clenched teeth.

"I- I thought that guy's name was Taioh?" he said softly.

Melly's shoulders tensed, her fists clenched and her fingernails dug unmercifully into the soft flesh of her palms. Barry backed off another step and asked quietly, "You wanna talk about it?"

Melly laughed, sending shivers up and down his spine, "His name is Taioh." she said.

"Then who's-" Melly glared at him and he silenced again.

"I don't give information about my personal life to strangers." she said turning away from him.

"But we're not-" a sound interrupted him in mid sentence, a sound like something huge crashing to the deck. Barry, curious, trotted towards the sounds of men shouting. "Stay here." He said waving a hand behind him.

Yeah. Right. Melly caught up and passed him easily, beating him to the scene. She looked around as a surge of magic ran through her, tickling every nerve ending. Drawn through the crowd, Melly fought to see, finding herself next to Drake.

As she glanced down where everyone was staring, her mouth gaped open and her eyes widened in shock. Three mermaids had thrown themselves onto the boat, writhing and shining with seawater. A force of curiosity held Melly where she was even though the crowd stumbled back as the mermaids transformed from a water dwelling creature into… who knew what.

Each had pale skin as thin as a gecko’s and yet, instead of being repulsed by it, each gazer was filled with a sense of awe and wonder. They had pale silvery blue hair, like ribbons clinging to their long necks and long bony arms.

The only sound was that of the waves patting the sides of the boat as the mermaids changed, Melly forgot about her seasickness entirely. Their blue-green fins split as scales dissolved into soft skin separating into two long legs; gills vanished as their skin rippled with a regular, opaque and glowing bronze skin; their round, gaping eyes turned almond and black; their pale hair, streaming with water seconds before, had red and brown tones flooding every strand slowly, starting at the scalp. Slowly, they stood up as the change was complete. Every eye was glued to the three… sirens standing there before them.

All three had threatening glares and tiny pointed teeth shining from a perfect bow shaped mouth, and despite this, the onlookers gazed upon each as a fantasy. This illusion of perfection and beauty radiated from their glowing skin, shone from unfathomable depths in their charcoal eyes, and undulated through every strand of hair that seemed to be made entirely of light and color. One could not tell if it was a smile or a baring of teeth of their faultless faces and no one seemed to notice how their muscular limbs were tensed and contracted, ready to spring at any given moment in one fluid movement.

A shock rippled through the silent crowd as the first, a woman- and obviously one of power and position among her people, spoke. It was as if a trance had fallen over everyone as they hung on every liquid word from her low voice… something about the Meriden trespassing or something onto siren territory, and everybody under warrant for arrest…

The first one could have charmed them all into bindings each individually by herself, had not a voice inside Melly’s head snapped her attention. She had a weak feeling in her knees as she became more herself. It was like something had taken over in Melly’s head and shoved her conscious self aside. Perhaps unconsciously she had been fighting it the whole time- but now she was free, and did it really matter how? Melly looked down at her hands. It did not seem like there was anything to do but slip away- and she couldn’t leave Drake.

Melly grabbed him by the ear and yanked, hard, bringing his head down to her level to face her, very effectively tearing off his attention to the three man-eating siren girls. Melly watched with a smirk as his eyes and his mind cleared.

“You ok pal? Had enough ogling yet?”
“You know that’s not fair to accuse me, and you have to admit, they are gorgeous creatures, are they not?” Drake tried to turn his head back to them but Melly refused to let him.
“Look at me!” she hissed. His head snapped back to her,
“Sorry.” He mumbled.
“Gorgeous creatures, my butt. They’re looking right back at you thinking how nice you’d taste with a bread stuffing and a honey glaze slow roasted on a spit over a low fire.” Melly imitated their low, sultry voice, “Pardon, could you pass the fried fingers? I’m about through with this green eyed soup here.” Drake shuddered.
“I’ll thank you never to do that again, you sounded just like her. Disgusting.”
“Then I’ll thank you to pay attention to what’s important!”
“What are we going to do?”
“Whatever we do, we hafta do it fast: look at her, running that tongue over those lips- I’d like to bust her face-“ Melly stopped as the siren suddenly turned and made eye contact with her. Melly shut off her mind to the siren’s tickling fingers trying to reach inside her head to hypnotize her.

In a second, all three sirens stalked over until they were directly in front of Melly, towering over her with their long shapely bodies.

“You were saying?” said the smallest one.
“I said, I’d like to bust-“
“Bust out in song!” Drake interrupted, “Yeah, we know Kristine, you said that already. Gosh, ya know how you just sometimes feel like singing?” Drake stumbled on, but it was too late, the sirens were changing a second time. Yet, this time, instead of becoming any man’s (or woman’s for that matter,) fantasy, they became creatures with nightmarish features.

If three rows off pointed, needle-like shark teeth and elongated fingers and claws weren’t scary enough, their dark-as-a-lightless-vacuum skin was enough to top it off. Their vicious eyes glared daggers; if looks could kill… These were the man-eaters in their truest form. Their outsides were as ugly and dirty as their demonic souls that shone through pernicious yellow-green eyes that were without pupils. It may have been this, or the growling and gnashing of teeth that snapped everyone out of their fantasies so quick that many crumpled to the deck weakly from the shock of having the invisible ties into their minds ripped away.

Without warning, the first siren flung herself at Melly, like a cat- tackling its prey and knocking it flat by flinging its weight into the prey’s chest, clinging with all it’s claws and riding it to the ground. Melly’s head cracked against the deck and she saw stars, her breath had caught in her throat with it’s suddenness and she gasped for want of air. Almost instinctively, Melly turned her face just in time to keep her eyes from being gouged but the same five claws bent on gouging, pierced soft flesh of Melly’s cheek instead. She howled in pain and kicked out with her legs thrashing and trying to roll the siren off of her belly so she could take a proper breath.

The siren hissed and bent low over Melly’s face, her hair streaming over her shoulders and face, tickling Melly's face. She clicked her sharp teeth together, lips pulled back into a snarl, “Here’s your chance girl,” she said in a voice like nails on a chalkboard, “Strike little girl, why don’t you? Are you too weak to lift your arms?!” The siren slammed her knees onto Melly’s arms. Melly ground her teeth as her elbows were mashed and scraped into the deck, that’s gonna bruise.

“You bet it’s going to bruise, you little brat!” the siren said, giggling with a feral laugh and grinding her claws into Melly’s shoulders, tearing the skin as she curled her fingers slowly, almost as if she enjoyed it.

“Mucie! I want a turn to play!” called the smallest siren.
“We’re hungry too, Mucie! Don’t make us wait much longer!” the other screamed, laughing and eyeing the bodies within the crowd. The two flicked their pink tongues over their blood red lips and sucked their teeth with painful smacking noises, oblivious to the fact that their tongues were cut open by their own teeth. The blood ran over their lips and down their chins, splashing onto their chests, a sight that instilled terror into the still silent onlookers. “Mucie, we’re starving, let us have them, we promise to share!” the youngest piped, narrowing her eyes and glaring at Mucie as if she intended to strike her if she refused.

The siren called Mucie gestured to the other two evil nightmares, both of which were looking hungrily at Drake and the others. Some sick guttural sound of glee came from their lips as they leaped to attack the crowd with full force. Melly took this second of distraction to contract all her muscles for a backwards roll. She gripped the siren quickly with her legs, rolling backwards over her own neck and shoulders easily, not forgetting to slam the siren’s head face first into the deck before completing a full roll, clinging to her the whole way.

Melly grinned, now in the advantageous position above the siren, who lunged and writhed to bite whatever she came in contact with as Melly fumbled for her dagger, any dagger. Mucie snarled, “Grabbing for your puny little needle of a dagger?” A smile, if you could call it that, spread widely across its ugly face. Melly withdrew her hand and saw that she was clutching the curved black griffon’s talon. Mucie fought with increased furry at the sight of it, growling and hissing and spitting. Melly thrust three fingers of her free hand into the base of the siren’s throat to stun the breath out of it.

Mucie choked, grappling with her throat and tearing at it with her own claws, blood spilling from the evil scratches. Melly used this weakness to wrestle the she-beast to the edge of the boat, near the railing. She kicked a gaping hole purposefully with her feet, still wrestling with her hands the entire time. Finally, Melly lifted her arm and sank the talon deep into the first place she could stab it, into the soft inside of the siren’s elbow. A sick toxic green permeated through it’s bloodstream under the skin where it had been pierced and as the siren twisted away it twisted the talon down and out of her arm, slashing a long deep cut.

Melly struck outwards with her foot to knock the siren overboard to die and the siren’s body flopped overboard and would have fallen if not for the claws that sank into Melly’s left foot. They both screamed a blood-curdling and shattering scream, the siren for a victorious last strike and a hold onto life, and Melly with a searing and intense pain. Mucie dragged Melly down until Melly was gripping the splinters of railing still clinging to the deck; Melly screamed again. Having no other choice, Melly lifted her other foot and kicked at the siren’s face, freeing her foot by tearing the claws away as the siren fell away, laughing a demented cackle, with a slap onto the water. Surprised, Melly wiped the talon off and turned her head upwards to see what else was going on.

Equal amounts of men were wrestling the other two sirens to the deck. Melly caught sight of Drake and threw him the talon. Drake caught it expertly and looked at it as if he didn’t know what to do with it. He looked back at Melly questioningly curious and Melly only shrugged; now was obviously not the time to explain how she had come by that rarity. Drake took the hint and fought his way back through the crowd of men, each eager to be a hero and save the day, Melly thought bitterly.

She let herself lie there in fatigue even though it terrified her to be so close to a gaping hole in the rail. Other than the incessant stinging in her calves, cheek and shoulder, a few bite marks on her arms, bruised elbows, plus a few other miscellaneous injuries- she was ok- having tackled a siren by herself while everyone else mostly just watched and waited for the siren to slash her open in front of everybody and eat her on the spot. Let everyone else handle the other two, she certainly wasn’t in the mood for favors.

Finally the other two sirens were tossed, dead, overboard. “The sea is owned by no one!” Melly heard some macho idiot shout. Drake found Melly bruised and bleeding and with her eyes shut and immediately assumed she was dead. He knelt and shook her, getting panicky and stupid. Melly opened her eyes and shot him a look.

“I’m not dead yet, you dolt, but I will be if you continue to shake the life outa me!” she growled.
“I’m sorry- I’m sorry. Here, let me help you.” Drake started to scoop her up to carry her but Melly twisted and writhed in his hands, slipping and falling on her face.
“Drake! I don’t need your help now- but even if I did, I seem to recall that you prefer to watch the show.” Melly said getting to her feel slowly. Drake’s entire face and neck burned a bright shade of red to drown out his freckled face.

“I’m sorry, there’s no excuse-“
“You’re right, there’s not-“
“I’ll do better next time-“
“You’ll have to, or else there won’t be a time after that and I’ll hate you forever-“
“Do you hate me now?”
“A little, yes.”
“I guess I can allow you that.”
“You guess?!” Melly snorted, she rolled her eyes. “You’d hate me too if I’d left you to your own devises”
“I couldn’t hate you.”
“Stop it.”
“What!?”
“I don’t want to hear that right now, I’m trying to hate you.”
“I’m relieved you have to try.”
“Comments like that help fuel it.”
“Ok, I’m shutting up now.”
“Good, because your speaking privileges have been revoked.”

They looked around, several men had been injured and pools of blood stained the deck, the scarlet of human blood mixing with the chartreuse of the mermaid-siren beast’s blood; and the smell was horribly metallic and also smelled of something like sulfur and steamed from where it collected. A voice behind Melly distracted her attention. She turned around, “Pardon?” she said condescendingly to Barry, the owner of the aforementioned voice.

“I said, you might want to get that looked at.” Barry caught hold of her arm and Melly wrenched it away. Until she did so, she had been oblivious to the pain but now it gushed over and through her. There were three bite marks, two on one arm and one on the other, each had broken the skin and, she noticed now, had siren’s teeth stuck there.

“And who is authorized to look at it for me?” she retorted, cradling her arm.
“The ship’s doctor.”
“Thank you, but I trust my own knowledge to take care of it.”
“Suit yourself.”

Melly walked purposefully back to the cabin, Drake following behind closely. Once inside, she sat down and sterilized the blade on her best dagger.

“What’s that for?” Drake asked, getting queasy.

“I’m gonna saw off my arm with it, what do you think?” Melly replied sarcastically. With the blade she carefully and nearly painlessly removed nine tiny pearly white teeth. The open wounds bled again as she cleaned them but stopped after she applied some of the same herb paste she had used for Drake. She could feel a tingling, almost itching sensation where the wounds were as new skin cells gathered at twice the normal speed to close the gashes.

A noise outside startled her. Melly got up and limped to the door. There was a sound of men fighting and wrestling on deck. Drake and Melly went out to watch.It was a fight all right. Fights were uncommon on board, so naturally most of the passengers were crowded around and looking on intently.

Three grown men were grabbing at each other's throats. Then for a second her view was blocked when she could see again one of the men was lying in a pool of his own blood, the crowd gasped. The Captain was yelling and screaming on the sidelines, not really helping the situation any at all. All three men would be thrown over, whether or not they lived, an unwritten code of sailing.

No self-respecting captain let any of his crew engage in this type of crude behavior; Captain Lars was no exception and seriously considered ending it with his own steel sword.

The biggest man made a swipe at the smaller man and missed. Barry pushed Melly backwards, a little roughly, "You don't need to see this. As if I haven't seen this before. In fact, she had been the cause of worse...

Now the bigger man was holding the other man by the throat a good six inches off the deck. No one seemed to know what the fight was about but now everyone was involved, naturally. The few sailors not fighting now were jeering and taunting the others on alongside their boys. The Captain was so red in the face he was nearly purple, the little veins in his high forehead near bursting. Not a word could get in edgewise and it was hard to hear. The Captain demanded an explanation but received none. Waves began to crash over the sides and a few dark clouds huddled menacingly over the ship, Melly observed nervously that the siren’s had probably conjured a storm… and inspired a fight for the distraction.

The smaller man finally landed a powerful jab to the other man's ribs. They all heard the sickening cracking noise. Drake paced on the sidelines uneasily, worry lines playing over his face. His breath knocked out, the bigger man stumbled too near the edge and fell over, unconscious now. In a second the Captain had the other sailor by the collar and tossed him over as well. "Swim to shore if ya can, but you'll never get another job on a boat as long as ya live!" he bellowed.

Melly turned away, not wanting to see anymore. Everyone had seen the fight but no one wanted to part with the details to the Captain. Melly didn't even know how it started and she was usually the one with all the details. It was the boat's fault, she concluded; but this was no time to be letting her abilities to slip. Drake hovered close behind her. "You ok?" he asked.

Melly turned around, walking backwards, "Drake, I appreciate your maternal instincts, I really do, but I can't even breathe with everyone hovering over me." Ok, so not everyone's hovering...

Drake nodded absently but didn't take the hint. He had already assumed the position as her escort. In her mind, she relayed the events and scenes from the fight, working out what she would have done in any of the three men's situations. She did not care much for their reasons for fighting, those were the kind of messy details that got people in trouble. This usually calmed her. Usually, meaning sometime other than the present. She wandered back to the cabin and curled up on the couch with her writing tablet.

The pages were yellowed and wrinkled but for the most part they had withstood the test of time. The first part of the book was crammed with handwritten receipts and the yellowed pages served as a ledger book, accounts carefully recorded and kept to date.


Melly loved numbers. Unlike many she was well educated beyond basic reading and simple numbers. Not that literacy rates were extremely low or that people were stupid. For the most part the non-essential learning was for the more well off, namely, boys. Melly had received a good education as Drammle had seen it a necessity. Melly was clever enough and caught on quickly in the math department. Numbers were facts. Whatever you did to the problem, whatever the outcome, it was either right or wrong. No in-between answers allowed, strait facts. That was Melly's reason for taking pleasure in keeping her own accounts.

The second part of the book was for charcoal drawings. Some were people and places she had seen and a few were from dreams. There were not very many, maybe twelve in all, but all of them were finely detailed. As of now she was working on a city, Slathom, near the Brayex River. A clear evening with the lights still glowing from a few windows. With a short stub of charcoal she dragged it over the lines, fine tuning the bold strokes and smearing in a few shadows where necessary. Drawing was just a hobby, though, if she ever needed extra money, she would have no trouble selling the drawings. She always had to be occupied, drawing filled in the extra time she had. She was too stubborn to just exist, Drammle had commented once before.

Bored with her work, she eased her leg out from under her and swung it onto the floor. She strode over to the washstand and proceeded to rinse the black powder left on her fingers. Suddenly an idea struck Melly, that she may need to know how big the boat was and where everything was, a blueprint would be nice... just in case... you know... basic procedure, practically a requirement, she thought, mentally scolding herself for not thinking about it before.