Tales from the Twelve Gods, Prologue excerpt
Sherry felt small, staring up at the growing storm clouds that irritated the water enough to question it’s unending strength. She smoked the last of the sunflower with a stomach craving seaweed wraps and tapped the ash into a jar along her hip. Wind picking up just as—it sounded like—the pirates below all began their traditional rendition of A Sparrow’s Love. It brought a quietness she never expected when joining them and now it created an uncomfortable silence in the worsening weather. The rain that flew into her eye almost burned.
“Father Earth, allow us a nice night nimo. Mio rure.”
On cue, a whale off in the distance raised out of the water and sprayed up a geyser before descending once more. When Sherry remembered her promise to Yorin, she steamed from the ears and reluctantly walked the creaky dock.
Somebody had put out a pile of ash in the lantern, leading down below where candlelight hummed and flickered against the shadows of waves. Their new crewmate sat in the center of the room while every eye stared his way intently and on that book that made him so approachable in the first place. Vao was the name he gave them—a lie Sherry had yet to prove—which puzzled her regardless of any intent. It was an Orcish name of the Wild Peaks, synonymous with judge. Sherry stared at his crusting old hands as he flipped the old pages in them.
Some flaked off in his nails, getting lost in the breeze from a porthole. “… in a way us surface dwellers have yet to learn. In one slash, using the dust from a comet, Earth took a finger from each of the six hands and sent Death plummeting to the surface, a place she found no home in, no solace, and where she would stay for thousands of years until her banishment was released. Yet, had her reign flourished, all in part to those centuries of solitude. At this time, life was all that existed in the universe. Stars stayed forever, never disappearing from the twinkling sky. Creatures of the sea and night became stronger and stronger. . .”
Tales from the Old Land. Usually, she only got an earful when the circus wound up in Juniper for the week; the illusion broke when that changed to hearing it every Feast. Pirates only followed the wind and tides, using starvation as a compass, and this man was no different. Verbose in dead languages or not, those hands had craved before. She sighed and turned back up onto the deck with hopes for more smoking. It would be another half hour before they’d remember prayer, and Captain would be eating in no time. If she was lucky, their next stop—
“Sister Sherry!”
Like a cat, her haunches raised, and she nearly shot off a blast of ocean water into Yorin’s head. Staring at the singes of hair washed off in a frigid cut, Sherry lowered her arm. “I’o mi i’o! Has your head been cut?” It didn’t faze him as much as she expected. Yorin was already striding across the deck and the Sister finally got a good look at him. Above, in some land perhaps thousands of feet in the air, cracked deep thunder. His eyes were a raw red. “Something’s wrong. Captain needs you, now.”
