The Last Will and Testament of Captain Nemo Page 3
By such time as you have reached this point in my narrative you will have made certain deductions, I do not doubt. In them you are correct.
You, Erwin, are my son, the child I carried from the Mer city in the Mediterranean to the island of Ceylon. You are the last and only reason I have possessed for living these thirty-three years since the deaths of your mother and sister.
For my long and silent absence, my son, I beg your forgiveness, and desire you to know that it was not for lack of love or concern for you—indeed, it is love and concern that have kept me silent. I am a hunted man with many enemies, and I knew no fear greater than that Captain Rackliffe might discover your existence and bring you to harm, and so I withdrew to the silence of the distant ocean. You are not to conclude from this, however, that I am ignorant of your doings.
I must confess the pride and pleasure that I felt upon discovering that you had begun pearl diving, that the call of the sea was still strong upon you. Because of the time you spent above the surface immediately after your birth, and during our journey together following the deaths of your mother and sister, I fear that some of the unique abilities of the Mer were not able to develop fully in you, hence your need for more frequent returns to the surface for air. While, to the humans around you, you seem to have extraordinary capacities for swimming and suspending your breathing for long intervals, to one such as myself who knows the signs your Mer blood is obvious. Yes, my son, I have watched you, prayed for you, protected you, provided for you, all from a distance that for your sake I could not risk breaching.
Indeed, in all your years, I have closed the distance between us only once. Though the date itself may not call to mind any significance, you no doubt possess vivid memories regarding the incident of February 29th, 1868. You were diving for pearls in the Gulf when you were set upon by a shark, which struck you with its tail and flung you unconscious to the ocean floor. The beast would have finished and devoured you but for the grace of Almighty God, which saw fit that I should at that moment be watching you from the shadows beneath the waves.
With the invaluable assistance of a certain harpooner of whom you shall certainly read further in my complete personal records (as well as in the delightful records of a certain Professor Arronax, who was also in my company at that time), I was able to dispatch the shark and bring you to your boat. Oh, my son, to hold you in my arms again after so many years, such joy mingled with such terror that I had come too late and would not succeed in reviving you—what blessed relief and flood of longing when you awoke and I saw your mother’s eyes staring up at me from your face!
Would to God that I could have remained with you, that I could have removed my diving helmet and revealed myself to you as a man, as your father! Would that I could have answered the countless questions I saw in your wondering stare. Would that I did not have to leave you there with only a bag of pearls as a feeble token of my love for you, my son.
I could with ease dedicate an entire volume to expressing my devotion to you, but my hand weakens, and I must soon conclude my account and bid you farewell before my life leaves me.
When I had delivered you as a child safely to Ceylon and left you in the care of the trusted friends whom you know as your family, I returned to the Mediterranean with the sole purpose of completing my weapon, that I might put an end to Captain Rackliffe’s assault upon the Mer and bring him to justice for the lives he had already taken.
It had become clear to me that I would not be able to single-handedly pilot my weapon; it was too immense in size, too complex in its workings. I would need a crew to assist me—but where to obtain such a crew? I dared not recruit a crew for the same reason I dared not seek to employ assistance with the construction: For fear that one of them, whether by intention or otherwise, would bring word of my doings to Rackliffe and wreck all.
However, upon my return to Vaelish the magistrate from whom I had sought blessing upon my endeavor came to me with the news that, since the beginning of the war, it had been discovered that there were a number of human men and women who, like myself, had fallen in love with and, in many cases, wed themselves to Mer—Mer whom they had now lost to Captain Rackliffe’s devastation. These people’s loyalty was with the Mer…and thereby with me. I had the assistance I needed, and a crew whom I knew would be loyal to our cause.
I selected the most skilled of the men to be my crew, and the work on the weapon resumed at a speed I had not previously thought possible.
I completed the weapon, Erwin—a feat of engineering and science that to this day surpasses anything the human world has seen or known; a ship that travels beneath the waves with ease as great as and greater than that with which it cuts the surface; powered by and armed with harnessed electricity, and fully armored against the strongest attacks.
With the ship completed, my crew and I began making ready to enter the war anew. Among ourselves we spoke exclusively the language of the Mer, to ensure that word of our doings, if overheard, could not be understood and carried to Rackliffe’s ears.
Unfortunately, it was about this time that we discovered that the power of the Mer’s kiss that prevented drowning faded with time. As we had all lost the Mer we loved, we were unable to renew this invulnerability, and so were required to dedicate a few months to developing and producing apparatuses that would allow us to travel and breathe underwater beyond the hull of our ship if necessary. When this was done, we were ready.
We laid in our supplies, made our final preparations, and boarded our ship to leave the world of mankind forever. Just before our departure I christened the ship, giving it your mother’s name, Eyrál—or, as her name is translated into English: Nautilus.
I also took a new name for myself, one that reflected my abandonment of my native race in its translation. I suppose it is possible that you have heard this name, if you have chanced already to read the book by the aforementioned Professor Arronax, which made its way into the world a few years hence.
I will not weight your soul, my son, with the details of the war to which we gave ourselves for nearly three decades. Death dealt in the name of justice is death still, carrying all of its burden, and vengeance brings neither healing nor peace. Should you desire to know of what has transpired, you will find a complete and accurate account of the war among the records I have left for you in my library on board my ship.
Yes, my son, upon my death I am leaving you the Nautilus with all of its treasures: the library of knowledge of the sea that I have gathered, the records of its voyages and discoveries, the accounts of its conquests, the specimens that I and its crew have collected, and its unrivaled power as a portal to a world that is beyond anything that even you in your experience can imagine.
The war against Rackliffe and his armada is over, ended two days hence in the same conflict from which I received what shall be my death wound. Neither Rackliffe nor any of his men or ships remain, and the world of the Mer is safe from their ravaging. The Nautilus need no longer be a weapon of war; it is now free to serve as an instrument of discovery, and a vessel of peace. There is much to be rebuilt in the world of the Mer, and infinite knowledge yet to be discovered in the depths of the vast oceans.
All of this I leave entirely at your disposal. The crew of the Nautilus stands ready to acknowledge you as their new captain, and to follow any command which you may give them—yes, even to the dissolution of their company and the scuttling of the ship, should you so choose. But I pray, my son, that you will do both me and the Nautilus the honor of boarding, of walking its galleries and witnessing its power, if only for a few days while you consider your course.
Nevertheless I leave all—crew, ship, and the innumerable treasures contained within—in your hands.
With this final declaration I have at last revealed the truth in its entirety, as God is my witness. At this moment the Nautilus bears me towards the coral fields where I shall soon be laid beside your mother and sister. I leave this world at peace, bearing only this single regret: that thi
s wound did not grant me sufficient time to be reunited with you and to make my revelations face to face.
May God have mercy on my soul, and may he see fit to continue the protection for which I have beseeched him these many years on your behalf.
In life and in death I remain always yours.
Your faithful servant,
Captain Nemo
Post Script, added by Giuseppe Marello, First Mate of the Nautilus: Our beloved Captain Nemo passed from this life on 14 June, 1874, on board the Nautilus. He was laid to rest beside his wife and daughter on 15 June.
The Nautilus is at anchor one mile from the shores of Ceylon, and a longboat is ready to bring you to your ship. We humbly await your arrival, Captain Harrison.
Sincerely,
First Mate Marello & the crew of the Nautilus
Mary Schlegel is a tea lover, four-leaf clover hunter, bookworm extraordinaire, IP designer, lover of all things steampunk, author, and clothing designer. She lives with her husband Aaron in the heart of the Ozark Mountains. Visit her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
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The Last Will and Testament of Captain Nemo by Mary Schlegel
Published by Magical Ink Media
www.magicalinkmedia.com
This book and parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photo-copy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations for reviews and other instances allowable by United States of America copyright law.
Copyright 2017 by Mary Schlegel
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events are purely coincidental.
Cover Designer: LoriAnn Weldon
Printed in the United States of America
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