Wavestrider Captain

Among the reefs along the shore, the wreck of a three-tiered warship had run aground like an enormous whale... That was the ship of the campaign against the Siren; the waves had pushed the ship back to shore, but abandoned the shipwrecked out in the open sea.

"O warriors of Phasegousa, whoever you may be, I earnestly beg you to rise and defend Skiana!" The king's despairing cry went unanswered. To face the Siren, the outcome would be nothing other than becoming a corpse drifting on the sea.

"Give me one large, sturdy ship, and give me fifty crewmen, and I will kill that wicked Siren!" A young captain in a wide-brimmed hat pushed his way out of the packed crowd, his hat giving off a light like a pearl, casting over everyone's pale faces a layer of seven-colored rainbow... His appearance was like dawn upon the sea, and in the blink of an eye the horizon turned silver-white.

"I will build you the finest ship in the world!" The craftsmen were drawn in by the young captain's bearing. The wood of that enormous ship would never rot upon the open sea, and its prow was even fitted with a plank hewn from the great tree of Cerces, steeped in the power of prophecy...

"Go, disciple raised by the sage, hero chosen by the gods, go and tame the madness of Phasegousa." Three days later, the ship, loaded with its crew, set out from Skiana.

Black clouds like lead and iron pressed down upon the top of the mast, and in the storm the ship drifted like a scrap of duckweed. Even the deck made of precious wood shook violently before the enormous waves.

"These waters, calm and windless all year round, have been infected by the Siren's frenzy as well." The young captain stood on the forecastle tower, his brow furrowed as he stared at the thick black clouds far off... The astrolabe on his wrist still gave no response.

A bolt of lightning struck down, the mainsail rope snapped with a thunderous crack, and the crew screamed and scattered... The young captain rebuked them, ordering the sailors to row hard at his command, directing the helmsman to change course and avoid the great waves that towered like mountains... They fought against the wrath of Phasegousa, enduring until the guiding starlight of Aquila flickered. Suddenly the captain raised his hand and shouted, and the navigational compass on his wrist reflected the dappled starlight...

"Everyone, follow that light, and we will come through the storm!"

The sailors gathered all their spirit and sang out the song of the sea. The ship was like a sharp blade cleaving across the waves, heading toward the dawn.

"Very soon now, we will bring her out of her chains... See the road ahead clearly, ready! Set out!"

A bronze arrow as tall as a man, wrapped in flame, tore through the sea mist, but the moment it touched the Siren's scaled armor it shattered into ash. Pale blue tentacles wound tight around the sailors' waists, and even when severed they still writhed on the deck, madly gnawing at the panicked crew.

"The Siren's limbs thrashed in the air, weeping and calling my name, and that was the most terrifying sight in my whole seafaring career." The captain's voice trembled, and he was not lying.

The enormous Siren rose to the surface of the sea, its curling tentacles clutching the ship tight, its spine like a moving island. The first mate drove a red-hot iron spear into the mouth full of sharp teeth, and foul black blood stained the whole deck black. The crew narrowly escaped a fatal blow by a hair's breadth, but when the captain turned his head to look, the tower at the stern had already been smashed by an enormous tentacle, like a walnut crushed by Nikador's Spear of Divine Punishment. This was a chance in a thousand years; charge or flee, all eyes turned to the captain...

"Hard to port! Oarsmen, full speed! Raise every sail, prepare to ram!"

The captain's cloak flew in the sound of the wind, and the crew too had steeled themselves, ready to face death... Iron and steel struck hard scales, the keel shattered, the Siren shrieked. It had lost the might it once held, and slowly sank to the bottom of the deep sea.

On a beach no one could name, the young captain lifted his face to the sky. The light of the setting sun laid a coat of gold over the ravaged shore... Within this halo, distant Skiana seemed suddenly easy to reach... He knew that this was the final moment of his life.

"...We have tamed the madness of Phasegousa." The Siren had long since fled into deeper waters, and for a hundred years it would not be able to invade the coast again.

The wooden plank hewn from the giant tree of Cerces asked the captain for his last words. It would ride the waves back to the Skiana he had longed for day and night, praising the heroic voyage, encouraging many young people to put out to sea. The captain looked at his own severed lower half, at the tall boots the sage had given him, the boots that had carried him through countless city-states... But now, his long, long journey would end here...

"Tell them, I still have an underworld sea to conquer. My homeland, do not grieve for me."

The sea wind blew softly against the walls of Skiana year after year, and the story of the Siren became a gentle lullaby with which mothers rocked their children... The sailors who escaped the raging sea are still waiting for the captain to come treading back over the waves.