Red Marigold Dressed

I have no doubt that I will be remembered as evil incarnate. Those who defend me would be wrong to do so. I make no attempt to rectify my reputation.

What follows on these pages is a retelling of my inexact revenge. I make no claims to be of good or noble stock. As I already said, I never had any intention of upholding such an honor.

On the day I made my final decision, I knew all that mattered was the water and the waves.

A dance with death in that red marigold dress.

Yours forever,

Zerah the Salamander

“I am owned by no man. I am owed by no man.”

Imperfect Justice

I found my way after the Musarsk Shipping Company murdered my family and destroyed my home. There was nowhere else to go as the rest of the village burned. Erased from the map. What little remained was covered in scars. A crushing defeat under marching orders.

I did what needed to be done.

Survive.

Earth is uneven at the best of times. There was a path through the sea. Some official noise spewed from the mouth on one of their traitorous soldiers. I stabbed him with no hesitation. Many soon followed.

His kind paid mine no mercy.

I repaid the courtesy.

My name grew into a mythos for those on that coast. Islands and treasures meant nothing to me. That was why they failed to capture Zerah the Salamander.

Until the day I heard something new.

“The gravity anomaly is just a calculation error!” My latest victim shouted at me as his blood pooled in the wet sand. High tide. I would commandeer his captain’s boat and command the crew. “Something about the surface! That’s all it is!”

“What’s hiding in the shadows?” I raised my blade. I needed to sharpen it.

“What?” His voice was raspy as life left his veins. “You can’t see anything out there! You’ll never even notice…”

“And yet you cite the differences in what is observed and what is theorized?” I raised my other hand and looked down the barrel. Traitors are of little use. I shot him dead and left him where he lay.

Against the rocks where his body would be surely swept away by waves.

The way the water reached his neck reminded me I needed to get moving or I’d miss the right winds and weather.

Blessed Journey

The Holy Faith was an old vessel, but she knew the ocean well. By the time that mattered we were already caught in the gravity hole. I learned the history after I took the boat as my own. I killed that wretch with little protest from his men.

They were conscripts who suffered or cowards who deserted. None were the type for organized mutiny. I was the strongest arm of lawless rule.

“I’m the only one left who knew the original crew!” Pergi Raha was quickest to gain favor. He stepped over the dead captain’s corpse and kneeled in front of my still raised arm. He was the kind of useful slime needed to run a ship of that size. “They had some trouble making it this far. On the losing side of Unification it seems. The Holy Faith drifted up from Antarctica, past Thule and the Cape. I only met her when the winds started blowing north!”

We were a crew of nearly one hundred men.

I looked him over without saying a word. Everyone on deck was silent. They were lost souls swimming to their fated end.

“Pergi Raha at your service, sir.” He stood up with his eyes lowered. He didn’t look nearly as tired as he should. He lived a better life than the others. Yet his clothes were all the dirtier. The scent of salt mixing poorly with the sweat on his skin. “You are… you are him?”

“Who do you think I am?” I lowered my arm and holstered the weapon. The blood from the shore was dripping down my other leg. I needed to sharpen my blade.

“The Salamander?” Pergi looked up. His eyes were almost yellow he was so scared. “Am I wrong?”

“Clean up this mess and let’s get going.” I turned around and he began barking orders. The crew was nothing more than abandoned boys who would listen to anyone who claimed the role of captain. The divide between our peoples meant less for anyone risking heritage for heresy.

That was partially the demon’s fault. Thus, it was partially my fault too.

The nightmares soon followed.

I never escaped them.

I thought we would avoid contact on the open sea.

I was, unfortunately, only mostly correct.

“You wouldn’t know a lehenga from a third leg!” Pergi elected an elite few to join him at his table close to my quarters. He grew confident with the scraps of power I let him pick at.

Usul Bari was the loudest of that bunch. His voice was harsh, but everyone on the ship was a part of the same rough bunch. Castaways and castouts who had nowhere else to call home.

The Holy Faith shone as a beacon for us ghosts. Comradery was the only option.

“I don’t care if it’s jhumar or aksak, you won’t dance! No sea legs and you’re appealing to a coward’s pedantry!” Usul felt comfortable enough to play past the pretension. That or he no longer cared if he lived or died. Either way, it was ample entertainment as we drifted through the lows.

I set us on that new course the moment I was in full control.

You could feel every wave as those conversations waxed and waned. A breath in and the bow fell. Breathing out with the rising aft. Twists and turns heard in every nail and creaking in an echo of loose planks.

A waltz in three parts with every lurch forward. Five feet or two inches more, I prayed every night that my men saw no reason before the gin ran dry.

“Who names a fucking island after a holiday?” The table welcomed another voice at an empty seat. Modro Drani wasn’t as loud as Usul, but he shared that ease in conversation. They would work each other up into a frenzy, openly asking questions while others hid in the shadows.

“Ask Zerah the Salamander!” Pergi looked around nervously when he tried to keep up with their confidence.

“I won’t bother the captain. I mean, I know it’s something. Not Bhadu… Oh, what about that Frithlic feeling?” Usul was the hero of those three. His tongue felt no fear against any God or the Seven Saints. He spoke his mind and let it sting where it lied.

“What?” Pergi would nervously answer if the curses went too far.

“Just some religion in Antarctica. Popsicles have nothing else to look forward to down there.” Usul would invite Modro to join him in a round of loud laughter. Pergi didn’t know if he should utter a sound at all. He turned his neck to look for me. He wasn’t aware of my full story, and yet he was rightfully afraid to offend.

They were mixing up the information. That was all the better for me and mine.

I left it vague to keep them in the dark.

I just never thought that would lead to us being stuck in the hole.

Contact

“Yes?” A voice crackled through the static. Pergi opened the door with one of the keys on a chain he wore around his neck. His hand was shaking. I’d just shot three more of his crewmates dead.

We were a crew of fifty strong.

“Past here you’ll find the radio.” His voice was soft and he choked on his words. “I-I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.”

He’d kept the room hidden. His kind of slime is always looking for underhanded power.

“Round up three more.” I watched his eyes lose their focus. He was so afraid of the fire in mine.

“B-but, captain!” That was the only time he tried to defy me. I knocked him down with the blunt of my blade and stepped hard on his head. “Y-yes. Right away, captain.”

I tore down the door with my leftover rage and let it fall on Pergi. He would need to claw himself up to fulfill my command.

The task at hand never needed him anyway.

“Is this the captain of the Holy Faith?”

Her voice boomed from the old machine. It sounded so official. Artificially important and out of scope for a warship. Someone must have sold us out.

“Aye. Captain Zerah at your service.”

“Zerah the Salamander?” The voice coughed then cleared her throat, sounding more human. I didn’t know if that was a part of the programming or just a reaction to my reputation.

“Aye. Zerah the Salamander has commandeered your vessel.”

“You have stolen Musarsk property. Comply with the contract or find your life forfeit under our internal policies.” She found new composure as the situation settled. A Musarsk representative would be used to negotiating with pirates.

“What’ll you have of me?” My voice was calm. I didn’t fear retribution. I was curious and I knew who she was.

Kesuma Koj.

My beautiful love.

“Set a course for Moni Natal. Avoid any contact and you’ll be paid more than double the value on the black market.” She made the deal instantly appealing.

“Well, it seems like you know how to get things done.” I paused as I thought about where the company wanted us to go. “What’s your name?”

I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway. The living world does not enjoy knowledge sourced from the damned.

“You can call me Kesuma.”

“Kesuma…” I repeated the name under my breath. The communication cut out after that. I found some peace with the bodies Pergi offered as sacrifice, but I started seeing her in my dreams again.

I needed to sharpen my blade.

When I welcomed the dark into my mind, all I saw was Kesuma Koj dancing as flames across the rooftops. A strong desire painted in marigold flowers. The familiar scent of home let me know none of it was real.

I loved her all the same.

The way the thin fabric draped down her shoulder and kissed her neck. The colors flowed with her steps and made peace with her time.

My life was lost on that day so long ago.

When the ocean died and the Salamander crawled onto the shore.

I started hearing her voice crackling over the radio in those distant dreams. She sounded exactly like I remembered. A perfect harmony for an impossible melody.

And as the Holy Faith crossed the gravity hole, those visions turned darker. It was a shared nightmare for all the unlucky survivors left aboard.

The poor sods.

I would execute them on a whim when emotions ran too high. They thought me their equal, but I will never die.

The demon in me replaced the human soul on the day everything else burned. When Kesuma finally fell and her dance stopped.

Her body on the ground in a bed of burnt petals.

I still remember the smell.

None of those men were loyal to anything like we were to each other. It turned out Pergi and Usul weren’t quite as close as I had thought either.

We were a crew of thirty strong.

Song and Dance

There were short silences at the beginning of each bar. Those were then followed by a simple off beat rhythm. Everything was stained in blood.

A red tide following a harvest moon with desert dust sweeping in from the horizon.

The depths below tried to hide our fate, but the boat sang our demise. Shipwrecked in a pile of salted flesh, I worried when Pergi tried to map out our progress. He wasn’t as good at it as Usul.

Nine nights on the water and no land in sight.

It felt like a trap because it was one.

“Been crying into the ocean longer than the boats have been crossing!” I could hear his ghost speak to me. I heard all of them. They would whisper into my ear until I set them free.

“Which boats?” I spoke to him freely. It added to the fear in the remaining sailors’ bones. They sounded an alarm and sang my name. And these were the ones who called me mad?

Perhaps they were right, but I was far from the only one.

“Fuck if I know!” Usul always made me laugh though. I appreciated his humor on those days when all hope was lost.

“What do you think he’d say?” I pointed my gun at Pergi’s head. “Does he even remember your name, Usul?”

The look in that slime’s eyes. He didn’t know what to do, his head turning on its neck to follow a conversation he couldn’t hear.

“That backstabbing bastard doesn’t know his head from his ass!” Usul got me to laugh again and the sound made Pergi piss himself on the deck.

I shot him in the leg and told him to clean it up.

“Careful of infection!” I nodded at Modro who joined in the cleanup. Those still loyal were making the best of the time. I shared the orders with them and we made our own route in kind.

The port on that island was ours for the taking. Kesuma offered a fair price on behalf of the Musarsk Shipping Company, but why take a bargain when I could have the whole market?

The glaring issue was our predicament in the gravity hole. We were circling and it didn’t make any sense. Pergi was a shit navigator and there were no landmarks to speak of. The wind was blowing every which way and there were no birds in the sky.

It was impossible to tell how to set a proper course.

The radio only picked up static.

“Anything else we can do?” Modro trembled when he spoke to me. He was a bad replacement for Usul.

All I could do was pray. The stars would be a guide if only I avoided sleeping. But the nightmares always came to claim me.

I could never focus.

Not when I knew she was waiting.

Kesuma dancing along the waves. Her red dress was a sign, blood spilled in the water to track a new path. She could show me the way to that Moni Natal.

Even without her voice on the radio, I heard the siren’s song crystal clear.

I chased her as the Salamander from the day she first fell. Her shrieking call in the dead of night made it hard to follow every echo.

The ghosts were crowding the helm.

I needed to let them go.

I needed to sharpen my blade.

We were a crew of only fifteen left.

Sunkissed

There were no more signs. Just another nightmare. Night after night. Day after day. Pergi tried to tell me that my screaming from the quarters scared the crew, so I killed a few more of them.

Ten was more than enough anyway.

The tide rose into a swell that consumed the continent. With the dead in our wake, the Holy Faith rode those waters onto the shores of Moni Natal. For every soldier I lost, we would kill one hundred more. Victory in our grasp when the rivers were stained red.

If it wasn’t Kesuma and her dance, that was what I saw.

And on one of those mornings after I screamed all night long, we heard something new.

I knew the sound.

We all knew what it was.

The birds. Some kind of land. We would arrive and the port was ours for the taking.

“Pergi!” I shouted from my quarters. We needed to whip up the crew to storm the town.

“How are ten of you going to take down a Musarsk Shipping Company stronghold?” The ghost of Modro was much more confident than the living man. Something about no longer needing to breathe seemed to have calmed his nerves.

“You don’t think the captain steered the Holy Faith wrong?” Usul was quick with a joke. His wit sharpened in death.

“No, but can we trust Pergi to have done anything right?” Modro smirked and the three of us shared a laugh.

Pergi stepped past the missing door. His eyes darting around the floor of the room. It made him uncomfortable when I spoke to the ghosts of his friends.

“Captain…” He didn’t dare raise his head.

“Get the men ready for the raid.” I looked out the window and saw Moni Natal. A small island that looked barely fortified. They thought themselves protected by contracts.

Idiots.

“Yes, sir.”

Pergi scurried away and I laughed at another of Usul’s comments from beyond the grave. I can no longer remember what he said, but I wanted the survivors to see how much it amused me.

It wouldn’t be long before the demon took full control. The one they called the Salamander was where I found the strength.

We were still ten remaining.

I managed to control myself.

We needed a body count at least ten times that.

The Salamander convinced my crew to take the spoils of victory as its own prize.

Whatever foolish nonsense worked as a convincing spell.

Then the series of events that led to the razing of that village were simple. All it needed was an initial spark. When we were close enough to wash ashore, I gave them the cue.

Or maybe it was the Salamander.

It’s hard to tell past the veil.

One of us set the Holy Faith on fire and shot five bullets into the air. Pergi’s cowardice led the charge. He instantly lost an arm, but the others continued marching forward.

Desolation

As a demon reborn, I transformed Moni Natal into a hell of my own making. The village burned and the defenses faltered.

My crew grew stronger as the living fell in battle.

The men defending the Masarsk Shipping Company couldn’t comprehend that power. They saw madness on my scars.

I kept on searching through the flames.

The ghosts were finding peace in that place beyond life. They would almost thank me as they drifted away on a newly christened vessel.

I offered them a route past the gravity hole and they chuckled at the bearing. We all knew where they were really heading.

A bargained deal that only ever ended with eternal damnation.

I had found the island on a forbidden map and claimed my victory in blood. A worthy sacrifice for my unholy cause. A lesson those poor souls needed to learn as the sun fell in the sky and the nightmares came to claim me.

The last to fall was none other than the coward himself.

“Zerah Koj!” The one-armed Pergi Raha found me in the burning rubble. “I know why they call you the Salamander!”

I needed to sharpen my blade.

“It was me!” Pergi shouted, looking the Salamander right in the eye. “I called it in! Do you know the price on your head?”

“I would be more surprised if it wasn’t you, coward.” I pulled out my blade and raised it above my head.

“I was a part of the crew who conquered your shitty little village!”

I sliced Pergi’s head clean off before he could say another word. I had long since grown tired of his crooked tongue. His spirit found no rest in death. I watched as his soul refused to admit defeat. He would linger as embers until a new colony settled, paid in full under a new name.

A gift for the investors who would pick up the tab and the trash.

We were a crew of one when I was done.

I danced in that despair and smiled against the setting sun. Those moments before my candle’s light flickered out, I could almost smell the marigold flowers again. The familiar feeling of a home I once knew.

“Why do they call you the Salamander?”

She asked.

My flesh burned in response.

“I am owned by no man. I am owed by no man.” I felt the fabric of that red dress. Across infinite possibilities, my arm reached for hers.

We were meant to share a life together, but I would settle for death. I pulled her close and the warmth of our bodies together was everything I ever wanted.

All those in my way were contrived distractions for that final moment together.

I leaned down and our lips met as the flames formed walls all around us. A kiss to connect our souls beyond the barrier between our worlds. The oranges and reds swirling into a more familiar pattern as I fully remembered our love.

We were in a field of marigold flowers.

I watched her dance in that dress.

“Are you finally coming home?”

Kesuma was so beautiful. I can’t believe I lost her that day.

Erased from existence.

My legacy is as ash.