Embodiment of Fate

  500 miles off the coast of the Mirk-Morat Isles. 37 A.T.F (after the founding of the Morati capital, Marmatiti.)

  “Oh my, it’s always so difficult to avoid laughing when we do this. I know how crucial the stern voice is for it all, but it’s just so bloody hilarious. Being the incarnation of fate punishing you for your sins is such a riot.” Isisot adjusted the angular black mask that covered his face, distorting his voice into a deeper, sinister impression of some embodiment of terror. He watched the Voyage Queen come closer and closer into view. He could see its crew buzzing about frantically, and could taste the panicked looks on their faces. Such a poor little minnow. He thought. They can barely make twelve knots. We’ll take them in not five minutes. Lamps up on poles lit both ships against the blackness of night.

  “I agree. Avoiding laughing at you in that I’m-a-scary-ghost-thing-oooohh-

I’ll–eat-your-soul-for-your-sins getup never fails to make me want to roll around laughing.” Eot looked down at Isisot, dressed in a black cloak with the hood up, black leather armor studded with metal bits and bobs more for show than protection, with a sword in a long black scabbard across his back, and grinned.

  “Not a ghost, my good sir. Well, sure a ghost, I suppose, as at least one of the accounts of me holds, but not merely a ghost. The embodiment of fate itself, of otherworldly punishment. And fate is resourceful; it always takes money and useful things, along with a good bit of the sinner’s dignity. Works in our favor that not even Tyrorians can beat up Morati for being superstitious.” The crew of their ship, the Black Blackity Blackness, who had named it themselves for the deep coat of black that covered it bow to stern, readied their weapons and threw on black cloaks.

  “Well, what can the embodiment of fate do? Got such little dignity himself, he’s got to pocket a little bit here and there or he’ll run dry.” Eot had his own cloak on, and a sword at his belt. His arms were as thick as Isisot’s legs. Skinny legs, granted, but still.

  “For insulting the embodiment of fate, you shall be judged for your sins, on top of being judged for being plain old ugly. Everyone knows ugly people do bad in the afterlife.”

  Eot made a show of bowing. “In eternal groveling apology, I admit my unworthiness before the embodiment of eternal fate, snotty be he, and extend in a spirit of apology a gift; that gift being knowledge that if I dropped you into the water right now, I’d give even odds that a beautyfish would swim along, take you for a mate, and do to your back end as every prostitute you’ve ever visited has done.” Beautyfish were large fish with long, snakelike bodies that wrapped around each other to mate. They were known for their stupendously ugly faces.

  “For your insinuation, you have earned eternal damnation. And in the interest of maintaining his purity, the embodiment of fate ensures that his prostitutes are all quite female.”

  “You have the men dress up in dresses? Now that’s just cruel.”

  “We’re all villains here, aren’t we? Now shush. Get in the headspace of somebody ominous.”

  A few minutes later, Isosot’s black boots clomped across the plank, his arms swaggering as he boarded the Voyage Queen. He turned and whispered to Eot. “Funny as it all is, there’s something about seeing a hardened ship’s captain groveling that makes me want to puke.”

  “Oh please, Black Captain! For what are we made unworthy of the favor of Mortomann?” The captain’s face was buried in the deck, but Isosot could see he was an old man, thick limbs, with thinning hair and speckled, dark skin. The crew, which had circled around him, cringed and shuffled back as the crew of the Black Blackity Blackness boarded.

  “Please, don’t take my children! I ain’t never done nothing to deserve that!” cried a sailor in a broken voice.

  “Your children are on land, stupid. Get a grip.” hissed another.

  “You’re going to take all our money, aren’t you?” whined a third.

  “Not just that! Our right hands!”

  “No, it’s your right ear and foot!”

  “Look at him wrong and you hang by your balls from the mizzenmast!”

  “Silence, or, as your friend said, some hanging from the mizzenmast will be in order! And that’s the least we can do, so shut your traps and let the Captain speak!” Eot boomed. He gestured at Isisot. 

  Isisot cleared his throat. Bless you, Eot, for however the hell you managed to make a mask like this one. “You, all the men of this ship, are guilty, for you all have sinned.” he swallowed a chuckle before continuing. “Mortomann has sent us as messengers of your guilt.”

  The captain looked up. “Oh, I know what I have done, and I repent, should I be spared my life!” he wailed. “For what I’ve done with Umatam’s wife, I repent!”

  “With whose wife?!” The first mate thundered forward, a young man with a mustacheless beard. Probably a Sacian. Isosot thought.

  “I-last week, before we put out-I-we-she asked me to-” the captain stammered.

  Umatam clenched his fists. “If you used our special sex pillow, I’m going to fuckin’-”

  Eot wrapped his arms around Umatam’s and practically heaved him up. “Oooookay. Looks like somebody’s hanging from his balls today.” He said. They always played on whichever particular things the people they happened to be fleecing expected them to. “Somebody help me get him up the mizzenmast." A few members of the crew of the Black Blackity Blackness followed Eot, shouldering past wide-eyed sailors.

  “I…” Isisot shoved his lips together tight. His chest quivered with laughter struggling to break free. “Hmm. While quite the admission, good captain, that’s not what I was getting at.” He was playing with fire, he knew, pulling this joke on the whole crew. If he wasn’t careful, he’d burst out laughing and just might blow the whole game, but it was too good to resist.

  “Wh-what? What have I done beyond that…incident that is evil in the eyes of my lord Mortomann?”

  “Do not pretend that in all your wicked days you have forgotten your years of debauchery as a prostitute, doing what is evil in the eyes of your Lord.”

  “As a…what?”

  “Oh, not this again. You sinners always pull this. ‘Ooohhh, Black Captain, I don’t remember doing that!’”

  “But…a prostitute? I would swear before my Lord that I have never-”

  “Silence! The minds of the wicked are forever clouded, so that they may forget their guilt and not repent! You must repent for that which you pretend you do not know, should you wish to live! Bow to the ground!” Crew from the Black Blackity Blackness were already making their way belowdecks to search for valuables.

  “...yes, Black Captain!” the captain bowed his face back to the deck.

  “After me: I repent of the sinful costume I have worn! Seriously, the feathers just made it egregious.”

  “I repent of the sinful costume I have worn!” Isosot could already hear the tears in the man’s voice. Something hurtled from the top of the mizzenmast and splashed into the water. The fellows they hung by their balls never seemed to stay up for long.

  “I repent for my sinful banter that I have made with other men!”

  “I repent for my sinful banter that I have made with other men!”

  “I repent for lying with a man as with a woman!”

  “I repent for lying with a…a man as with a woman!”

  “And I repent for cuddling with him after!”

  “And I repent for cuddling with him after!”

  “Good. Now your path toward repentance for your sins has just begun." The first trunks of, presumably, valuables were hauled up from belowdecks, and Isosot could see Eot and a few other men making their way down the mizzenmast. “Men,” he said, gesturing to the crew of the Black Blackity Blackness, “inform these men of the sins they have let slip their mind. Anyone who does not declare his sins out loud gets a knife to the throat.” Daggers gleamed as the crew passed around the ship, whispering in the ears of the terrified sailors.

  “I repent for robbing my hometown tavern!”

  “And I shall hereby burn the collection of panties that I stole from the women in my hometown!”

  “I’ll apologize to my father for mixing in dead chungs with the dinner and feeding it to him!”

  As the crates of whatever valuable things the Voyage Queen had on board began streaming out onto the deck, one man fell to his knees and wept. “Why, oh why did I feed my baby brother to a swamp viper?”

  It was all too much. The howling laughter that Isosot let out, he figured, would be immortalized in some song or tale as the terrifying laugh of the dreaded Black Captain.

* * *

  “How come you always get to be the Black Captain?” Eot grumbled as the Voyage Queen faded into the night behind them.

  “I’ve told you this before. It just doesn’t make any sense if the Black Captain grows a few inches and gains fifty pounds. Plus, the mask wouldn’t fit you. We got at least a few thousand talent’s worth out of all the stuff on that ship. Be happy. The embodiment of fate commands it.”

  “The embodiment of fate should watch himself, lest he become acquainted with the embodiment of my fist.”

  “You really should curb your heresy, Eot. It’s getting to be chronic.”

  “It’s true, I do have many things to repent of. I repent of not asking a blacksmith to hammer your balls flat before we left shore. And a skilled blacksmith at that, to hit such a small target.”

  “Eternal damnation for lying. The embodiment of fate has no small targets anywhere on his perfect body.”

  “About lies, the embodiment of fate can hardly be talking.”