Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 97

Myth and Legend Holy Family Canossian College, Cheung, Carrie - 15 It is a great honour to be chosen for this voyage, they say. It is unprecedented, revolutionary. Anyone who goes will be making history. Captain Zheng stands at the prow of the flagship, back ramrod-straight with pride, with a fleet of ships and the wind at his back as they set off, the sweet incense they burned in front of a statue of Tian Fei for safe travels clinging faintly to his robes. The crew buzzes with excitement as they set off, the younger men with grand fantasies of honour and glory, the more experienced sailors grateful for the chance to join a voyage of such magnitude. The sea is a fickle mistress, and every day they offer up worship to gods they don’t completely believe in that the sky will be unclouded and the wind will be in their sails, that pirates will not attack. At first, fortune seems to favour them, and the sacrifices they make to the gods seem to hold. The ships go steadily on their course. past Champa, Java, Ceylon and Calicut. Trading, navigating, sailing on calm waters. There is a brief skirmish with a pirate lord, but they still make it through, weary but still alive. Then they reach the Indian Peninsula, and their luck runs out. ----- “Harder to starboard!” Captain Zheng roars, trying to make his voice heard over the ear-splitting shriek coming from the monstrous creature towering over the ship. “There’s a monster,” the fishermen had warned him, “It’s been there for as long as anyone can remember, takes anyone who is fool enough to go near. You’d best to avoid that cursed place, captain.” But he’d ignored them, and now he is staring into pitch black eyes that seem old as time itself. She had surfaced in front of the ships after they entered the peninsula, water rolling off her in curtains as she roared in challenge. The sailors quake with fear at the sight of her, and the ships creak and groan in protest, having seen battle against pirates just weeks before. Waves of seawater cascade from her ivory limbs as she lashes out at the ships, each arm as tall and thick as the masts, and the crew are fighting to keep her tail from coiling around the ship and crushing them into matchsticks, jabbing at her coral red scales with long metal spears. Some of them pierce too deep, fountains of blood spurting out, and spear handles stick out of the writhing mass of scales. The mermaid shrieks even louder in a tongue they do not know, but it paralyses them all the same, some of the crew freezing just long enough that the waves she stirs up wash them overboard. The air is thick with desperate cries, and the copper tang of blood mixes with the salt of seaspray. “Tell the cannons to open fire!” the captain shouts above the din. Someone gives the signal, and the other ships pelt her with cannonfire, the bowmen peppering arrows into her flesh. She struggles as weighted nets are thrown on her tail, trying to shake them off and further opening up the cuts bleeding out all over her body. Her movements grow slower, and finally she lets out an unbearably sad cry and falls beneath the waves, the seafoam stained red and the water churning black with blood. The ships breathe a quiet sigh of relief. They tend to their wounded, count their dead. There is grief for lost friends, and tears are shed, but they move on, operating like clockwork, assessing the damage and salvaging whatever they can from the waves.