The Mariner Read Online Free

real name?” she asked as she too slid into the tub.
    He shrugged. “John.”
    They bathed together in silence, and in time they made love.
    Not long after that, Isabel was dead.

    3
THE SECOND NIGHT OF OUR TALE
     
    T HE WIND WAS PICKING UP. It could not yet be felt on deck, but he could hear it in the sails. They protested as they were battered this way and that. The Mariner was pleased there was more wind in the air, perhaps it’d take him to the Island. And from there: the Oracle.
    His day had been a dreary one. He’d exercised a little, running up and down the length of the boat. A little was all he could manage though, his limbs were weak and without food he would soon perish. Below, the devils seemed to be doing well, their matriarch had found strength from the jerky and was hunting vermin for the rest. Not that they couldn’t hunt themselves, they were resourceful buggers, but even the rats were becoming scarce, and they needed all the guile their devil-mother could muster.
    Addiction was gnawing at him again. It had abated during the day, but now that night was creeping in, so too were the pains and the shivers. They would flow over him, as if on the wind, passing through his body and then vanishing, leaving him exhausted, haunted and perplexed. There was only one bottle of wine left, but it was too soon to give in. He had to delay. He had to
    When Isabel had remarked that he knew little, her words had contained more truth than intended. The Mariner remembered nothing of the world ‘before’ as others he’d met seemed to. Every stranger he encountered, although there had only been a few, seemed to have access to a whole narrative of past experiences as rich as any storybook tale.
    Instead of a history the Mariner had... nothing. Just one day he was sailing his ship. The day before that was a mystery. But such is life; memories have to begin somewhere. He didn’t even know how to sail. Now that was peculiar. He simply willed the boat to travel and, most of the time, it did just that. Occasionally he’d get a funny feeling he should be pulling a rope here, or releasing a sail there, but mostly it worked itself. The Mariner didn’t even realise something was amiss, until he’d witnessed another ship with fully functioning crew. It didn’t look appealing to him. So many people must make for awfully cramped living.
    The sun had set and yet still the stars were only just beginning to appear. This was not a problem. The Mariner did not navigate, he did not read signs in the sky. He simply sailed. Sometimes he looked at maps and willed the Neptune in a certain direction, but maps were more often than not wrong. Besides, it was more like destinations drew him to
them
. The Mariner owned no compass.
    An intrusive chill settled in and the Mariner pulled his coat about him, grateful that his dark locks, which hung down to his shoulders, covered his ears from the worst. It was funny that he should be thinking about Isabel. Usually his thoughts were drawn to the events directly after, when he’d met Absinth Alcott. He’d had Isabel to thank for that meeting, or perhaps he should curse her for it. Ultimately her actions had led him from there to here, to this landless stretch of a hopeless ocean.
    Perhaps it were the woman he’d seen in the water that had got him thinking of poor dead Isabel.
    And then, as if summoned by his wandering mind, he heard her. The water sprite. The woman who had visited him the previous evening.
    At first he could not see her, her presence only given away by her lustful gasps and giggles that echoed to his ears. He ran to and fro, searching the waters. Finally he realised his error; he’d been looking too far, assuming she’d swim over like before. This time she was already alongside the Neptune, laying upon the surface as if it were a bed.
    Once again he was dumbfounded by her beauty. Entirely naked, she was spread before him, legs splayed and hands skimming across her stomach and