Riven Isles

6 | At Wit's End

Dr. Oswald easily accepted that the fastest way to contact the unadmirable Captain Clarke was to visit a tavern at the sleezy west port. It's a terrible place, Lilton West, especially at this evening hour, approaching seven o'clock. A place of nightmares. Having lived a sheltered life—this is how Simon put it after witnessing my gawking—I had never before seen a drunk man. Here, I can point them out, plain as I might point out a woman with a beard. Peering out the carriage window, I swear, I'd seen a few of those, too.

There's smoke everywhere. Not all of it is tobacco. We passed, on our way, an opium den, a gambling den, and a gentlemen's den. I'll tell you what I've learned from it all; any sort of 'den' is a place to avoid.

When the carriage, at last, comes to a stop, I can't help but feel reluctant to step out. A crew of men stumble along, singing a song slurred beyond recognition. A band of toothless women lift their skirts right there in the street. A tall, hunched man stalks the cobbled stones, and I can't help but fear that there's nothing seemly beneath the long black coat he's wrapped in.

Simon places a marker in his book and closes it. Tucking it under his arm, he steps onto the street, and mutters something about diseases. Dr. Oswald dismounts from the other door. I choose to exit on his side. He sticks out like a sore thumb, more so than Simon in his tweed and corduroy.

Dressed in the crispest white coat, complete with gold buttons, and gold-buckled shoes, the doctor might as well have glowed in the dark. Looking around, anxious, I see a number of beady soulless eyes upon him.

Reading the uncertainty in his expression, he isn't blind to his 'admirers'. He clutches his ebony walking stick and gestures for me to go ahead of him, then follows closely behind. Simon, clinging to his book as though it is his dearest possession, keeps close to him. The Aquians show no change to their demeanor at all. Nor should they. There was nothing that they had that anyone would bother mugging them for.

The rowdy tavern guests seem to silence upon our entry, but only for a moment. They eyeball our clean clothes, our polished shoes, and our good postures. I catch a few shouts about how we're on the wrong side of town. I catch a few more shouts of racist comments on our companions. We didn't ask for them. The companions that is, not the comments.

"For the sake of all things factual, Cornelius, we should get out of this joint before we are raped, mugged, murdered, or worse," Simon hisses. "Find your common sense."

"If you feel so inclined, Simon," returns the doctor calmly, "you may wait in the carriage."

"I'm not letting you out of my sight, sir! If any of these rum-pot wrecks lay a finger on you, I'll be here to stop them. But, that doesn't change facts. You should have just sent a letter. This is not a good place to be for people like us. And not for a boy, either."

Dr. Oswald stops walking. He tightly grips Simon's upper arm and pulls him close. He whispers to his assistant, something important and urgent by the delivery of it. It makes me feel a spike of jealousy to not be included. Their eyes meet, and they look serious. Then they look at me. In unison, just like that.

"What is it?" I ask, and my voice whines.

"Don't go running off anywhere," Simon orders pointedly, as if he expects that I would. Then they both just carry on walking, and I get pushed along with them. I huff, and assure, heatedly and under my breath, that I won't go running off anywhere, because I am not a child, and I understand that it would be a terrible thing to be lost here. What's more, I am as much a part of this endeavor for our captain as either of these older men, and I am no more likely to 'run off' than they are.

I clamber onto a stool at the bar. Dr. Oswald and Simon stand over me. I don't look for the fish people.

The doctor hails the bartender, a gruff-looking man who seems not to have decided whether to shave or to grow a beard, with his whiskers at an odd sort of halfway.

"Evening, sir," greets the doctor.

The bartender grunts.

"Would you be so kind as to point us to one 'Hank Clarke'?"

The man wheezes, and I'm sure that it's a laugh. "Clarke? Ye don't seem 'is type." He directs a stubby finger to the noisiest, most crowded area of the tavern. "'E'll be o'er thar."

He doesn't linger to answer further questions, lumbering to the other end of his bar to serve a newcomer.

"Very helpful," Simon blandly remarks.

I purse my lips. The area in question is jampacked with people, of various levels of sobriety, dancing and hooting and singing and strumming a variety of instruments. There is a band, which plays just fine, but their music is ruined by a number of individuals with their own banjos, accordions, and triangles, either attempting to play along, or playing their own lousy songs. I swear I hear my tune among them, just for a moment. The one I whistle, but never learned the name to, or the words, if there are any.

"We'll listen for his name, or call it ourselves," decides Dr. Oswald with strong resolve. And so, we follow the tap of his walking stick across the bar. Even he has no interest in walking through the crowd, so our path skirts around it, to a balcony that overlooks a pen of pigs. There are two men fast asleep in the mud.

"Drunks," Simon sneers, "are disgusting."

I hold onto the railing and gag at the smell. How could they bear to sleep in that? Simon grabs me by my bandana and drags me along. He may not be kind, but at least he isn't allowing me to be lost.

"Time for some shut-eye, eh, Clarke?" laughs a voice from among the chaos.

The three of us freeze in our tracks. The fish people get a little too close for comfort.

"Not I!" slurs a short, stumbling man. He barely seems capable of keeping his eyes open.

"Ah, have pity, Smoky," says a sailor on a stool, leant against a beam with a banjo in hand. He strums the banjo tunelessly. "Throw him over."

The next thing we know, the little man, Clarke, is lifted by two lean sods. They carry him, to his protest, to where we stand in the way. Simon, I guess, senses some sort of danger, and thrusts me in front of him like a shield.

Clarke grabs me by my shirt, and I, shocked, begin to tremble.

"Ah, let the lad go, Clarke!" drawls one man.

"He ain't gon' save yeou," chuckles the other.

Clarke doesn't let me go. His facial expressions go by one after the next, as if he can't decide what sort of mood to be in. Then, he hiccups. And he covers my shirt in his bile. I holler and hit him until he releases me.

The men carrying him roar with laughter and throw Clarke over into the mud. I start to hyperventilate, my arms raised as I try to decide what to do with myself now. I can feel the vomit through my shirt.

Dr. Oswald, expression tight with his own distaste, passes me a handkerchief. I do what I can with it, but all that means is that I get the chunks off. I suddenly have an overwhelming desire to go home. Any home. I discard the sullied handkerchief in the pig pen.

While I moan, Simon peers over the balcony. He doesn't touch the railing. His lip curls. "So, we've found the great Captain Clarke. Still set on this vagabond, doctor?"

"Not so much," mutters the doctor.

Thank Laod.