1
A long time ago
I knew something wasn't right. I was lying on my back and I couldn't move. A single light shined directly onto my face, but it wasn't strong enough to blind me. The light was strange, soft and vague, and seemed to throb ever so slightly. "You are awake, I see."
A dark voice, a voice one would hear in the deepest part of the night; surely a man's voice, but unlike any I had ever heard before. Any normal man would be afraid of such a voice but, oddly, I found I was only mildly curious. I said, "Aye, I am awake. However, I cannot move."
"No, not yet. If you agree to do what I want, you will move again, as you did before I saved you and brought you to me."
"Who are you? Where are you?"
"I am behind the Cretan light. Lovely, is it not? Shim-mery as a king's silks, warm and soft as a woman's fingers tracing over your face.
"I saved your life, Captain Jared Vail. In return I ask a favor. Will you agree?"
"How do you know my name?"
The Cretan light—whatever that was—seemed to brighten a moment, and harden into a column of trapped flame, then soften once more, the glow gentle, pulsing like a resting heart. Did it believe I had insulted the being behind it? Its master, perhaps? No, that was ridiculous; a light, no matter what it did, was without breath or feeling, without a soul— was it not?
"Why can't I move?"
Where was the bloody man? I wanted to see his face, wanted to see the human who spoke all those words.
"Because I do not wish you to as yet. Will you grant me a favor for saving your life?"
"A favor? Do you wish me to kill someone? I have not dispatched a pirate or a thieving dock rat for three years." Where had that pathetic attempt at humor come from? There was no laugh, more's the pity, for that would have made the voice human, and perhaps that was why 1 had tried to jest. Still, I was not afraid, even though I knew in some part of my brain that I should be scared out of my few wits. But I was not.
"Who are you?" I asked again.
"I am your savior. You owe me your life. Are you willing to repay your debt?"
"I have gone from granting a favor to paying a debt."
"What is your life worth, Captain Jared Vail?"
"My life is worth all that I am. Will you let me live if I do not agree?"
The Cretan light -flashed bright blue for an instant, then flickered, as if brushed by a waving hand. Once again it settled. The shadows behind it remained impenetrable, like a black curtain covering an empty stage. My imagination was on fire. The voice brought me back. "Will I let you live? 1 do not know." A heavy pause. "I do not know."
'Then I have no choice, do I? I do not wish to die, al-though I would be well dead now had you not saved me. But I do not know how you managed it. The huge wave was on me, and the wound in my side—I would have died from that blow probably before the water crushed me."
I realized in that instant that I felt no pain from the gaping tear in my side that had hurled me into a madness of agony. I felt nothing at all except the strong, solid beating of my own heart, no stuttering with pain or fear, no gasping to find a breath.
"Ah, the pain. That is another debt you owe me, would you not agree?"
Why was I not afraid? The absence of fear made me feel cold to my soul. I was thinking it made me less a man, less— alive. Had he somehow removed my human fear? "How did you heal me?"
"I have many abilities," the black voice said, nothing more.