These texts were originally published as part of Hunt's Tide of Shadows, the live Event that ran from June 28th to August 23rd of 2023. Are they fact, fiction, fable, or fallacy? We may never know for sure, but there's truth to every lie, and a lie to every truth. Read on, and decide for yourself.
Summary: In 1893, a dedicated navigator works hard to see his boat—and the bickering passengers aboard—through an increasingly violent storm, while a cursed relic hides in the lower decks. In 1895, Cardinal Rain senses a supernatural sickness in the rain and makes moves to hunt the miscreation known as Rotjaw. Gar engages in an endless prayer in hopes of saving the monstrous gator, killing any who stand in her way. Wayward Helmsman leads the Smugglers through mortal danger in hopes of striking it rich.
Chapter One: The Navigator
TWO YEARS AGO
September 29th, 1893 Delphine Transit Log
4:44 A.M.
Underway early to try and beat the storm.
Crickets are loud. River is flat. Mr. Owl missed logging the passengers. Marked
down who I saw board:
Crew:
Captain Laffite
Mr. Owl
Mr. Douglas
Scrawlback Jim
Jellico Bennings
Passengers:
Mr. & Mrs. Carmichael
Frederick Dellowit from Algiers Ice
*Rest Unknown
6:45 A.M.
The river is cast in gray light. Higher than this time last year. A row of
houses sit half-flooded and sunk. There are children on the roofs throwing
rocks at us. The captain is thumbing the hammer on his rifle, and I don't
bother to stay his hand.
8:15 A.M.
We took a deep wake portside in passing a lumber barge. Something heavy
dislodged in stowage, and Jellico and Scrawlback started to scuffle. Captain
stepped in and slapped them both in front of the Carmichaels. No one will say
what they're transporting down there. But Frederick said he heard whispering
from one of the crates.
10:10 A.M.
Nearly broadsided an oak tree felled by the wind. Gusting up to 25 knots
already. Captain doesn't seem concerned. He's excited. I would be too if my
duty was to drink on deck all morning.
12:00 P.M.
I saw the gust blow a circus tent clear into the river and knew there'd be
people caught inside the flotsam of canvas and logs. Steered away as best I
could, but couldn't stop in time on account of it blowing over 35 knots. The
passengers don't know. Had Mr. Owl clean the blood off the bow.
If this storm wasn't haunted, it's going to be now.
4:00 P.M.
Captain won't let us turn back. The storm has burn-mark clouds. The wind is
getting stronger, tastes like ash. Every omen of a hurricane is upon us.
If we survive this, I'll make sure the captain never sets
foot on this boat again.
+++
Chapter Two: Cardinal Rain
PRESENT DAY
1895, Summer
Tale of Submission, Verse One
May I doubt the strangeness of the clouds no more. Many
forget, but those of us who remain Grounded know that there is something darker
lurking behind them.
There is a sickness in this rain. It clings too long to
leaves and bark. The sound of it dripping on the soil is wrong. Each drop
leaves the impression of an insect's footfall in my mind. The mist here tastes
rotten, and I'm repulsed anew with each breath.
The strange folk about are not bothered by the wetness. They
dart out of bushes and the rain holding iron, boards, wrack. They are building
a sculpture from this driftwood and the gnarled parts of a boat wreck. They
carry each piece as a sacred object. A rare treasure.
They are too caught up in their work to notice me.
I slunk to the altar they constructed and discarded the
secrets of my honor to its tainted form. In return, I have gained a Shadow. An
extra shade over my own.
The Corrupted cannot see me now. Not the Hives with their
screeching and swarms blown like leaves. Not the Armoreds strung with wild
barbed wire. If I'm quiet, I slip between them. I'm a Shadow thin enough to cut
light.
With the bayou's blessing, I can hunt the miscreation known
as Rotjaw.
But I have lost something.
When I close my eyes, I see veins of silver. They are my own
veins, but it is not my blood inside them. It is blood from a different land.
I feel it. Something else seeing through my eyes instead of
me. Something beckoning me to kneel on the banks. To kiss the tracks of the
beast with its jaws open to the clouds.
The beast that drinks this rain and wishes upon us the
foulest season of rot and bloom.
+++
Chapter Three: Gar
PRESENT DAY
1895, Summer
Proseuchomai of the Primal
Volume One, Chapter One
This is the vow all Primal share.
I've only seen a glimpse of Her through the overwash.
Rot-dappled. Lumbering with a full bellied sway. There was someone inside Her,
not whole eaten. They shot a gun through Her flank to escape. But She tensed,
twirled the angels of Her stomach, and crushed them so only an arm dropped out.
I gathered that arm. I enwreathed it with blue crab. I
balanced it on the bitten carapace of a turtle to make myself a compass. Not
one that points near north. But one that aims true to the wishes of men soon to
be preyed upon.
The others want to gut Her. Lash Her mandible. Sip Her
salt-life until its red be gone and they possess magicks not known.
That Reptilian folk can't be tracked. He has gained some instinct—some knowledge of my presence without regard for the direction of the wind or sound, like he smells the blood beating in my heart.
His children are easily followed, that Ward and the
hornbacked one. They're clumsy. They move with the steps of drunk fairies and
leave their filth like crumbs.
I can lick a beetle and tell of their direction. That is the
filth they leave behind.
If there is testament to be writ here, it will be through
our proseuchomai: this prayer that does not cease. We will come face to face
with Her. We will offer Her the miracle of many fleshes. We will feed Her until
She cannot move. Around Her we shall make a shrine.
But I will be the one to sit atop Her. I will have a throne
in these waters at last.
+++
Chapter Four: The Navigator
TWO YEARS AGO
October 1st, 1893
Delphine Transit Log
2:00 A.M.
Hell is real and I am inside it. I am certain there has never been a wind such
as this on these shores, or else there would be no shore left to stand upon.
2:30 A.M.
The paddle wheel is churning up bodies of drowned people. They're bursting on
the deck when they fall.
2:45 A.M.
We passed through a wall of insects. It seems everything is made of them now.
Some have burrowed into the bodies on deck.
2:55 A.M.
A wave reached so high it broke the windshield. Brought with it a six-foot bull
shark. It's thrashing at the back of the pilot house. Some massive beetle is
screeching inside its mouth.
3:00 A.M.
The captain left us. I saw him. There was a kind of lightning I have never seen
before, and it scared him. It scared him worse than it scared me. It struck the
boat, and the sound of a gong rang out from the cargo hold.
The captain jumped overboard, holding onto a whiskey bottle.
I'm the only one who saw him do it. No one is going to believe me.
7:00 A.M.
We are lost.
This is not a poetic statement of the ship sinking. We are
somewhere that in no way resembles any causeway, inlet, marsh channel, or
tributary on the map. At first I thought it would be on account of the tide
surge. Everything is flooded. But no. We are somewhere else. The storm seems to
have put us in its eye and the breeze is calm, steady.
I would say it blows from the southwest, but the compass is
erased. I mean to say something has cleared all markings from it.
One more note: The sun didn't rise. I think the storm has
eaten it.
+++
Chapter Five: Wayward Helmsman
PRESENT DAY
1895, Summer
Helmsman's Land Log
The Smuggler's Pact is to put gold before souls. If they
don't bleed money, I don't care what risks they take.
But the Captain smells land worn. A coward, even. He clings
to his rifle and sweats.
"She's near," he sputters. "Rimbo, Jazz. Into the dew reeds to look for the cargo. Don't linger at the trace."
Get in the reeds they do. They slide through the pluff mud
and heron bones. Me and the captain wade across the still water and take cover
behind a palm fringe. We watch them get distracted by the trace.
The creek trembles. It shivers. Rattles my knees.
The Rotjaw breaches with Jazz clamped in her mouth. Those
jaws could crush a cannon ball. I don't know what to call what they do to
Jazz's head.
Wind surges. It whitecaps the marsh upstream. I brace for
the gale-force, steady the captain as he shoots. He's got dizzy aim. Sends a
bullet through Rimbo's chest.
Rotjaw purges her shackles. Bolts of blue-green lightning
leap from the water and burn Rimbo. His scream comes out of his eyes instead of
his mouth. I guess that's because his mouth is gone.
Captain gave up watching the frenzy. He stares east.
"There it is, mother of Mary. There it is." The captain
drops his gun.
The smokestack of a ship rises through the gatorfroth. It
steams with a dead fog. But it's real, knocks a tree over. The Rotjaw stops
playing with what's left of Jazz and Rimbo. She slinks away and follows the
smokestack as it glides downstream on vapors.
"I don't see how we're supposed to get treasure from a ghost
ship," I tell the captain.
He winces. I imagine he's thinking the thoughts of all
cowardly captains: that one day gold might float true enough to save him from
what he's left to drown.
+++
Chapter Six: Gar
PRESENT DAY
1895, Summer
Proseuchomai of the Primal
Volume One, Chapter Two
She is generous with Her gifts.
I find Her cage, perched in the middle of the still water,
rocking like a cradle with two Hunters tucked inside. Pine beetles march up
their legs, enter the chapel of their mouths and come out of other holes and
windows. What kind of prayer is at work here I do not know, but I study the
patterns of the beetles till dawn.
The metal of the cage trap is soaked in Her blood. I taste
it. I feel its rot melt and molt and multiply. She is healed through the things
that hurt us, and this is a special wonder to me.
On those metal ribs are all sorts of wire spools—veins from machines. Things pretending to be alive. It disgusts me. A plate welded on one of the nodes reads: Algiers Ice Company. Curious, this science that crowns the ribs of our queen.
Whyever the reason, it is sacrilege.
I spear a catfish and touch it to one of the cage spikes.
Lightning sparks and smokes through its gills. It doesn't turn to ice.
The sound of it is loud, foolish, causes someone to find me.
I feel their soul as gentle as a moth lands on a skull at night—a pollen of orange flittered in the darkness of my vision, an Instinct. This sense is new, a gift from Her, and it will keep me safe.
I pick up a railroad sledge from one of the dead Hunters. It
is slick with tide rot, oyster filth.
I slide quiet, crouching around bundles of pampas grass 'til I hear the person swish their cane in the water.
I time my movements with the swaying of the tall stalks.
My legs move as Hers move. I am silent in the stream.
I raise the hammer and know that I am blessed.
I let the hammer fall and know that I am blessed.
+++
Chapter Seven: The Navigator
TWO YEARS AGO
October 1st, 1893 (Still)
Delphine Transit Log
00:00 A.M. - Time Unknown
Time is irrelevant here. As is hunger, thirst, and other bodily functions. If
Mr. Carmichael were to cut me open, he would find clockwork. Clocks inside all
of us. The moon here is a joke. It barely moves.
00:00 A.M.
There are more people aboard than I thought. Most are hiding in cabinets or
shuddering naked beneath poker tables. Some find river snails and isopods and
shove them into their eyes. There are only a handful of the crew and passengers
left to talk to.
00:00 A.M.
I told the rest that the captain abandoned us.
Mrs. Carmichael called me "faithless." Said I steered us
into a twilight hell.
Mr. Carmichael accused me of pushing the captain over and Jellico agreed, mentioning that our cargo was "immaculate."
Frederick claimed we had the Ark of the Covenant onboard,
that he could hear a voice from it without using his ears.
Mr. Owl said he'd gut Frederick if he kept on like that.
Scrawlback Jim shot off some rounds, shut them up. He said
he wasn't hungry and hadn't pissed for a thousand years. There was something
stalking the boat he wanted us to go shoot. Apparently the Delphine is full of
guns and stolen goods.
He mentioned some kind of crenulated “insectile head" like
an artifact, too.
00:00 A.M.
They've been shooting for an hour. At the giant beetles that plow these
channels with their migrations. At the trees. At the waterlogged, roaming
sailors that explode silver vomit from their mouths. The sailors seem out of
time, more lost than we are.
00:00 A.M.
The gunshots woke something up. It raised the Delphine a whole foot out of the
water then swam out, turned, and rammed us head on. All I saw were jaws tearing
into the paddle wheel.
+++
Continue here to read Tide of Shadows Part Two.