The Sirens of Kentara

A short little story set in my as of yet unnamed developing fantasy world. Part of an anthology meant to help me build out the world and give potential readers some insight into it.

The ship cut like a knife through the waves off the coast of the Kentaran homeland. They were making good time. By this time tomorrow, their prize would have them all able to retire in the lap of luxury. The captain couldn’t keep a grin from cracking the hard stone of his features.

            A Kentaran Siren. He wouldn’t have believed it had he not captured her himself. The Sirens were charged with protecting Kentaran waters and guarding the coast of their people’s province, and as such were notoriously elusive. On the occasion they did decide to show their faces, they merely picked off an outlander and scurried back into the depths. Oh how the gods had sent them a miracle. To not only see a Siren, but capture her, as well! It was truly a stroke of luck for this roving band of outcasts.

            A crash and a shriek from below broke the captain’s reverie. Shortly thereafter, a man popped his head above deck. “Sir, you’re needed below decks.”

            The captain sighed. Valuable as she was, the Kentaran had been trouble since the moment they’d found her. Not only was she a Siren, elusive as can be and trained her whole life to protect the homeland, she was also an Exorcist--a Death mage--and a powerful one at that. Before they’d finally taken her down, she’d killed a half dozen of his men with a few flicks of her wrist. Leaving command of the ship to his second, the captain followed his crewman into the ship.

            “What did she do now?”

            “I don’t rightly know, sir. But it can’t be good. I wasn’t in the room, but one of the men standing guard started screaming bloody murder out of nowhere. I’m not a mage myself, so I figured I should look for you.”

            “If what you say is true, you figured right.”

            The scent of salt grew stronger than it was even above decks as they approached the entrance to the holding cells. The captain went to open the door, only to find that it wouldn’t open, as if someone were holding it shut. He turned a questioning look on his companion.

The deckhand, slightly annoyed, approached the door. “I’ve brought the captain, boys. Open up.”

No answer.

The captain stepped up to try his hand. “Open up, you lot!” he shouted, banging three succinct knocks on the door.

Still no answer.

The two men braced themselves against the door. The captain smelled it now, this close to the source. The hinges had been rusted shut. Damned Death magic. With a little effort and a few synchronized shoves, they got it open. But the scene that awaited them on the other side was far from ideal.

            There were four bodies strewn across the room. Three of the four were dressed in roughly the same garb, all that of working sailors. Their eyes were sunken, their skin pallid, their clothes, well-fitting mere minutes ago, were now baggy around their skeletal bodies. It was all the deckhand could do to hold down his lunch, while the captain just stared his icy stare.

            The final body, chained to the wall by a pair of manacles, was not human. The Kentaran Siren had the tail of a fish, strong and powerful, the gleaming scales shining a rainbow’s spectrum of light from the lanterns hanging from the walls. Thick light blue lines cascaded from her bald scalp to just below her piercing yellow eyes. The tattoos of a Siren. By human standards, she was naked, the only things that could be considered clothing being the strange leathery belt that formerly held her weapons and the odd scaly headdress, colorful as her own scales, atop her head.

            She was muttering in a foreign tongue, breathing heavily and shaking, when the burning started. As the captain knew from his own experience, the Fire magic of a Boiler mage--those rare few gifted affinities for the opposing Schools of Fire and Ice--was especially potent, even when compared to that of Fire mages with a supreme affinity for their School.

            Without creating any live fire, the captain held the Siren’s body in a constant state of searing and cooling, just enough to cause her agonizing pain without leaving any long-lasting damage, for what, in reality, was likely only a minute or two, but felt to the both of them like hours. When at last he released the Siren, the captain, slightly winded, approached the writhing figure.

            The captain crouched down, close to the Siren. “Looks like someone’s been a bad girl,” he whispered, lightly brushing her cheek.

            She only spit in his direction.

            “What are we going to do with you?”

            She glared at him for a long moment, then rasped, “We are prepared,” pausing after each word, as if it pained her to get them out.

            The captain cocked his head. “Are you now? Mind explaining how that’s so?”

            She only glared through him, a snarl revealing a set of pointed, razor sharp teeth. “We are prepared.”

There was a crash from above decks.

“Sir?”

The captain whipped his head around to look at the speaker. He had forgotten the crewman was still there. “Go see what that was, will you?”

The crewman nodded and scurried out of the room, secretly glad to be away from the Kentaran.

The Siren, meanwhile, had started muttering again.

“Fine, keep it to yourself. But won’t you at least tell me what you’re saying?”

Her eyes narrowed with puzzlement at the man who had just finished torturing her.

The captain didn’t give much thought to the yelling coming from above, more focused on his prize at the moment. “Don’t give me that look. I may sell exotic creatures for a living with not a qualm about what happens to them, but why should that mean I cannot partake in the cultures the Continent has to offer?”

The Siren sighed. “It is saying of my people.”

Sounds of something tumbling down the stairs leading into the ship.

“Hurt begets hurt,” the Siren continued.

A slithering sound, like leather across wood.

“Pain begets pain.”

Slowly, the captain realized that something was wrong. The frequent yelling that was commonplace on a sailing vessel had stopped. There was no talking, even. The only sound was that gentle scraping.

As he turned to face the open doorway, the captain was confronted with a small group of figures approaching. Figures with blue tattoos and scaled headdresses. He slammed the door shut. The color drained from his face and for the first time in a long time, the captain felt fear.

One by one, the door’s already-decayed hinges snapped.

Behind him, the captive Siren showed her razor-sharp smile. “Death begets death.”

The door fell inwards.

Author's Note

Questions, comments, concerns, reviews are all greatly appreciated.

And most of all, thanks for reading!