18 Is the bearded old hag a scammer?

“Zeeta, run! That bastard’s catching up with us!”

“I’m doing what I can! Phew… I made it to the coral reef. Ah, but crap, I lost a tentacle. Can I make it grow again?”

“Yes, if you eat sea ants you will heal up,” Kimberly answered calmly.

“But I only saw one sea ant so far…”

“The deeper you go, the more sea ants you will see, but you will bump into more monsters as well. Listen, you two. Ocean is divided into five zones: the sunlight, the twilight, the bathyal, the abyssal, and the hadal. It’s real, I didn’t make it up. Also, believe it or not, in reality, the tentacles of blue-blooded jellyfishes can regrow just like sharks’ teeth if they eat sea ants from the abyssal zone. They need more than one to heal up, though. Isn’t nature wonderful?”

“It is!” I agreed as I was pressing the buttons on my gamepad. “Yay! I’ve found a comrade in a coral! Time to register him… By the way, I love your game, Kim!”

I laughed. Kimberly was sitting in the middle, in front of his game console. Kimberly was a lighthouse keeper. Even though he was around my parents’ age and had the same job, he led a totally different life than them, since his lighthouse wasn’t on an offshore isolated rock but just some minutes away by foot from the huge city of Phoenix. Kimberly had many hobbies. He was a game developer, a linguist, a hacker, a biologist, and a fisherman too. Since he wore flowered boardshorts like me, he wasn’t surprised in the least to see us knock at his door after midnight like we had just got out of the water. He didn’t even show much surprise to see me at all, and even though we had just met once when I was nine years old, he recognized me right away:

“Oh, Misae’s kid, come in, I was just about to look for beta players on the net. Wanna try my new game?”

That’s how we ended up playing with the cool lighthouse keeper without any further question. Kimberly sure was a funny man.

His games, all turn-based and amateurish, were funny too, by the way. In the one we were playing right now, we incarnated a jellyfish that had to take a census of its species population while running away from sea worms, sharks, and other big bad fishes.

“I’m glad you like the game,” Kimberly said after taking a sip of coffee. “But I’ve been wondering for a while, now. What exactly are you doing here, brat?”

A shark had just crashed into a coral reef while I was escaping through a hole.

“Haha! Serves you right!” I then processed Kimberly’s words, looked at Zeeta… and suddenly remembered. The training. “Ray! He must be wondering where I am.”

Zeeta snorted, covering his eyes.

“I knew I was forgetting something more important than the jellyfishes.”

“Who are you, by the way?” Kimberley added, looking at my friend.

“Shouldn’t you have asked that when you let us in?” I laughed. We had been playing together, like, for two hours already. He sure was a funny guy.

“I’m Zeeta O’Bell Leonardo Sakamoto. Thanks for the coffee, the beer, the popcorn, and the chocolates. You sure eat a lot, by the way.”

“That’s why he’s fat,” I said.

“Oi, brat! Don’t badmouth your host. I’m on a diet right now, you know.”

I could hardly believe it.

“Do you even go upstairs sometimes to check on the lightroom?” I asked.

Kimberly’s lighthouse was located on the cliff, just in front of Yuutow Island. To get there, Zeeta and I had to go around, walk all the way back to the water station, then take the road up to the main island’s ‘carapace’. As soon as I had seen the lighthouse’s light, I had been wondering who was working there… then it turned out it was Kim, an old apprentice of my mom.

“Upstairs? No need, I have an apprentice,” Kim answered without any shame. “Also, I have installed a sophisticated automated system to warn me if there is any problem.”

“Oh? As expected of you. So the old apprentice has become a teacher himself?”

“That’s right. Toya’s a good boy. I’ll let him have this lighthouse in some years, when I retire.” Suddenly, the whole house trembled, I gave a loud gasp, and Zeeta put his hands on his head… “Oh, don’t worry, don’t worry. That happens all the time. It’s the phoenix turtle, who’s advancing. By the way, how are Misae and Jack doing?”

“… Th-they were doing fine last week,” I answered, glancing worriedly at the ceiling. “Since they don’t have a phone, we still communicate by letter.”

“They live at their own pace, huh? That’s great. I’ll always remember the month I spent with them at Keelung Lighthouse. Both were really nice people and excellent teachers. Anyway, what’s their son doing in Phoenix? I thought you were studying in Farskyer City.”

“That’s…”

We explained our circumstances. After some minutes, Kim rubbed his furry belly thoughtfully.

“I see. I didn’t know the Nyomin was holding such a training event in Phoenix. Well, it’s pretty careless of them to let some brats cross the Neck at night. And you say your friend can’t swim? Then how are you supposed to cross?”

“That’s what we don’t know,” I admitted.

Kim put down his empty cup.

“Okay, I’ll ask for my apprentice to give you a ride to the island.”

“Seriously?!” Zeeta and I smiled at each other, hopeful.

“He will be here in the morning. For now, just relax and let’s play a bit more. Tell me if you find bugs. Do you really not want a coffee or a glass of water, Armen?”

“No, thanks, I’m all right… Agh! A bug, Kim, I just found one! The jellyfish turned into a carnivorous giant sponge!”

“It’s not a bug, it’s a mimic spell. Some porifera are mimetic.”

“Oh.”

Not much after, Zeeta and Kimberley went to sleep. As for me, I spent the whole night playing. I wasn’t in a hurry. As far as I knew, there was no time limit for this first challenge, so as long as we had our badges, we could enter the Academy any time. By the morning, the elite trainees would have most likely already stopped looking for us.

The one I worried the most about was Ray. If only phones worked in Yuutow Island, I would have been able to speak to him.

I had been feeling that the deathforce circulating in my body had been less and less effective. Perhaps my necro-bond was decaying or something. From what the Lord had said, a barely two-month-old undead like me wouldn’t last more than three days away from his master without starting to experience a severe loss of motion functionalities. Well, I would soon pass the limit with almost no consequences. I remembered Uncle Adrian saying that my unusual resistance could be related to my inner soul; I had also the impression that Kaspar’s electronic necromancy was helping me. In any case, I was feeling mostly well.

My jellyfish was running away from a shark… I got eaten up, and a big “YOU DIED” appeared on the screen. I was shocked. To think I would see one day such a truth displayed in front of me…

I put down my gamepad, and in the dim light of a lamp, I looked at Zeeta sleeping a few meters away. Kim had settled two futons for us before going to his own bedroom, and Zeeta was making the most of both beds, embracing my pillow and drooling over it. I smiled silently as I kept staring at him, as still as a rock.

I liked to see people sleeping, even more so when they were people I cared about a lot. Seeing them so defenseless and trustful while I was listening to their breathing, trying to imagine their dreams, looking shamelessly into their secret world… It was even better than contemplating the sea and listening to the waves.

After some time, however, I stood up and left the room. I went upstairs, to the lightroom, gazed at the stars, the crescent moon, then looked at the sea of lights on the main island. Phoenix City looked nearly as big as Farskyer City. To think that the turtle was able to carry them all and keep moving forward… It was amazing.

I turned to Yuutow Island. I could see the lights of the Academy, as well as its strange structure.

When my eyes fixed on the absolute darkness, beyond the island, I remembered a scene of my life, back at home, when my sister had just gone away to study. I had slipped under my parents’ covers without a word, the heart heavy…

“What is it, sweetheart?” my mom whispered. My dad was snoring on the other side. “You can’t sleep?”

“Mm,” I nodded.

“Why is that? A nightmare?”

“Mm,” I confirmed again. “A giant clam fell from the sky and destroyed the lighthouse. I woke up, but my big sis wasn’t there, and it’s dark at night. I was scared.”

“I see, a giant clam, huh?” she murmured, amused, in the silence of the lighthouse. “You miss your big sis?”

“I do.” I embraced her arm in the dark. It was warm. “When will she come back?”

“For Christmas, honey. Your big sis is studying far away. You will, too, someday, since Mom and Dad can’t teach you everything.”

“I won’t.”

She chuckled quietly.

“You will. You will experience the world, know people, make friends, learn new things, discover new places, and eventually find your own dream… That’s how life goes, honey. But always remember: if you miss us, you’ll just have to look at the sea and think about us, who’ll always love you.” She kissed my forehead. “You’re not scared anymore, are you?”

I smiled courageously.

“No.”

“Then sleep well and don’t dream about clams falling from the sky.”

“Clams falling-e from the sky?” Dad suddenly asked. He had stopped snoring. He turned and patted my head in the dark. “Oh! Sure is a clam. A big-e one, at that! Say, Misae, should I eat it for breakfast or should I eat it now? Should I fry it or make a delicious soup-e?”

“No, don’t! Mom, protect me!” I said laughing, as my dad tried to catch me under the covers…

Leaning on the stony ledge, in the lantern room of Kim’s Lighthouse, I smiled as I thought about my childhood. Yeah… My parents sure were wonderful people.

I had gazed at the sea for a long moment. I turned around.

“Well,” I said to myself in a whisper. “Undead have a lot of time to kill. Guess I’ll take a quick look at the Phoenix City.”

I left the building and went down the hill, soon reaching the first houses. From the light room, I had noticed there were few skyscrapers on the island, even though there were a lot of high buildings. On the outskirts, however, few residences had more than four stories. The streets were calm, but not empty. There were still some bars and restaurants open, and I saw a group of teenagers in a park. Gangsters? Drunkards? They didn’t look so. They were just talking and eating pistachios. The aura Phoenix City gave off seemed quite different than that of the Old Docks.

I was heading back when I heard a voice coming from a small park.

“Yungo-yungo! Dja wanna chandja futu?”

A very old woman with a long beard was talking to me. She was sitting cross-legged on a board and was wearing almost no clothes.

“Yungodi! Dja wanna chandja futu?”

I smiled at her, troubled. What language was that? Then my smile froze when I noticed that the board she was on was full of nails. I panicked.

“Let me help you!”

She was so skinny that I managed to lift her quite easily in my arms, then… her light green eyes met mine, and I realized I had put myself in a very awkward situation. She smiled, showing a perfect set of teeth.

“Yagadoy.” Her hand touched the necklace Linah had given to me, and it slipped the pendant out of my shirt. “Insing, antee. Use witchisti?”

“S-Sorry, I don’t understand, don’t touch that…” I tried to say something in Sarwish, the Common Language, but words weren’t coming. Language barriers were so troublesome… I added: “I’m putting you down, okay? Are you hurt? I mean…” I pointed at the board of nails, increasingly embarrassed. Dammit. I had got forty points in my last Common Language exam, how could it be that I couldn’t say a single thing? Then I remembered a sentence and said: “Er… meteo es hao… No…” Crap. I just said that the weather was nice, didn’t I? “I mean… Komo yu sta?”

“… You are from Farskyer, aren’t you?”

I blinked. Did the old woman just speak in my language? I smiled, relieved.

“So you can speak normally, thank goodness.”

“Yaha-yaha-yaha,” she laughed. “I was speaking the Phoenix dialect, since when I talk in a more standard Yanganese like now, the Phoenix people don’t always understand me.”

So she wasn’t from Phoenix herself? I jerked up when she sat down again on the board full of nails as she kept talking with a quavery voice:

“You must be a good boy if you worry about a stranger like me. Young people nowadays are so much better educated. May the darkness never cross your path.”

“Ah… Thanks. Everything’s fine, Grandma?”

“Mm?” She followed the direction of my gaze, and she smiled. “Yaha-yaha! A bed of nails is the best bed of all. At least for me. I’m a fakir-witch.”

“A fakir-witch?”

“Fakirs nurture their spirit from the Universe, witches wield the magic of the world, fakir-witches serve the spirit of magic. Magic is everywhere. I’m traveling around the world according to this universe’s whims, and I ask questions, to the people, to the wind, to the sea. Lately, I’m asking people this: do you want to change your future?”

A blanket of silence fell over the park. Suddenly, it struck me: an old woman with a beard sitting on a board of nails at night… That was not normal. I thought of how many times Zeeta had already warned me against scammers, and I stepped backwards.

“N-No, thanks, whatever will be will be. Sorry, I’ve gotta go…”

I ran away.

When I arrived at Phoenix Neck Lighthouse, the sky was clearing up. Zeeta was sound asleep. Kim’s snores could be heard from down there. A few minutes after I had started a new game on the console, the door got open.

“Kiiiim! I’m coming in!”

I turned my face at the shirtless and disheveled kid in shorts who had just come in. He gaped at me and repeated:

“Kim?! What happened to you?”

Did he take me for Kimberly? I smiled.

“I changed overnight. Some ungrateful brats were saying I was fat, so I went on a radical diet.”

The kid swallowed, then cried out:

“Kim! Kim! There’s a stranger in your house! No… There’re two of them!!” Oh, so he didn’t believe me. After all, he must already be twelve years old. Wait, but maybe he fell for it for a second? The kid ran up the stairs to Kim’s bedroom yelling: “Kiiiim!”

Lying on a futon, Zeeta grumbled, yawned, sat up, and opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was me, crouching a few inches away from him with a smile. He jolted.

“Morning, Zeeta.”

He brusquely lay down again, covering himself with the blanket and gasping:

“Gods.”

“Heh… You sure are religious, praying so early in the morning.”

“Shut up.”

“Is your heart doing all right?”

“I said shut up!”

Minutes later, Kim was still laughing at his young apprentice while eating breakfast. Toya was pouting.

“So? Why do I have to carry those guys I don’t know across the Neck?”

“Because you’re a good sailor.”

Toya immediately blushed and showed more complacency. I bowed to him.

“Please, Toya, take us to Yuutow Island, you’re our last hope!”

That was the last straw. Toya struggled not to chortle as he said with a strong accent:

“Shoriaf! Guess I can help you guys, since you’re Kim’s friends and all…”

I grinned and thanked him. He blushed even more. Soon, we said goodbye to Kim.

“Give your mam and dad my best regards.”

“I will. Thanks for having us!”

“Well, that’s natural. Plus, I used you as beta players. Come back any time.”

“Sure thing!”

“Hurry up, you two!” Toya said impatiently, already far away.

Kim’s eyes smiled.

“He’s a good boy, isn’t he?”

“He is.”

“Well then, good luck with your training!”

We didn’t go down the same road as last night but down a staircase that ended on the left side of the turtle. There were small houses there, as well as lots of colored fishing vessels. Toya waved us towards a small boat.

“Get on board!”

The kid sure knew his thing. I was all respect. Although I had lived the first ten years of my life on a rock surrounded by water, I knew nothing about boats. Taipei’s Navy was always the one in charge of giving us rides when needed. I felt a bit useless, but didn’t offer my help: it was clear as water that Toya was enjoying himself helping us and rowing like a pro.

“I had a weird dream,” Zeeta said suddenly as we were sailing along the coast.

I looked at him curiously.

“What kind?”

“I was stalking you as usual when suddenly I felt as if I was followed, I looked behind, and you were there. You were in two places at the same time.”

“Oh.”

“Then, I thought: which way should I go? I stopped, and suddenly there were a lot of Armens around me, like, a whole crowd.”

“The hell? That was a nightmare.”

“It wasn’t.” I raised an eyebrow as Zeeta confessed, rubbing his neck: “I was quite happy. Am I weird?”

That guy… He was always asking himself things like: am I weird? am I gross? am I a monster? am I not good enough?

I shook my head.

“What if you are, Zeeta? You are you, that’s a fact. It’s like eight plus eight is fifteen.”

“… Sixteen.”

There was a silence, then Toya laughed heartedly.

“Man, you guys are weird! Is it true you’re the son of a lighthouse keeper?”

“It is. I’m curious, Toya. Why did you decide to become Kim’s apprentice?”

The kid shrugged.

“I like the ocean. I like video games too.” So Kim was making his apprentice play his games…

“Shouldn’t you be at school right now?”

“It’s Saturday.”

“Oh, right. I forgot about that.”

“By the way, are those people on the beach people you know?”

We were getting closer to Yuutow Island. I narrowed my eyes at the group, increasingly anxious. Didn’t they give up on us already? Then I frowned. Something felt off.

Five people were doing push-ups in line while a four-armed guy was watching and a kid in white was yelling at them. There was something like a big pile of clothes behind them.

From Zeeta’s expression, I could guess he was using his power to listen to their conversation. I asked:

“Is it bad?”

He gave a nod.

“Worse than you think. Toya, I know it’s asking too much of you but couldn’t you get around the island?”

“Shoriaf, I can’t. There’s a strong current on the sides. My boat can’t go there.”

“Is that so…”

“Yeah. Sorry for that. Those guys over there are trouble, right?”

“Well… Don’t worry, it can’t be helped. Armen? Listen.”

“Huh? I can’t hear them from that far, Zeet—”

“I mean listen to me! No matter what…” Zeeta’s eyes glared at the scene. “Don’t let those guys catch you.”