False Islands
You know, all my life I've spent on ships drudging through all the waters of the known world. I've frozen my whiskers in the northern winds and burned my nose under the southern sun. At this point, I reckon there is nothing in the world that could faze me. But that doesn't mean I don't wonder about some of the things I've seen.
In the western seas, far away from any port or land, ships sometimes come across with something we've taken to calling "False Islands". "Hollow Islands", is another name, one those nomadic seafolk and their ilk use. They don't have a real name, though. Nothing like that could be named by man.
Those islands, they never appear when the day is clear and cloudless, and the sun shines bright from the blue skies above. But when it's night, or evening, or when mist covers the waters so high and thick, you can't see the crow's nest from the upper deck, that's when you come across them. Never twice in the same spot and you never see them move, though I once heard a tale of someone who swore he saw one disappear beneath the waves, just sinking straight down, not falling or crumbling.
The island - well, they're not islands, not really - thus the names - but gigantic, sharp spikes of some odd, black rock rising from amidst the waves. They form around this gaping chasm that pulls the ocean waters into itself past those broken spires that form maybe two or three circles going further and further in.
The rock's all cracked and chipped, and sometimes you can spot something sickly green or maybe reddish purple grow on that rough surface. Smallest I've seen was maybe twice the height of the ship, mast included. And they just grow from there.
In the middle of those spires, there's no land. Water from the ocean pours into that center, unless it's already pouring out. Ships would go in, too, no matter which way the winds were blowing, unless we kept them straight. That's one reason we never go near them, even as the seabed is nowhere near enough to cause any trouble for even the deepest hulls and going around could cost us half a day. That, and the look of them. There's no words for it, no more than I've already said. They just look...wrong. They look like they shouldn't exist, but there they are, plain as day.
Best not to dwell on them, the old captain used to say. And I try not to, but something about them pulls me like it pulls the currents, right into its depths. Sometimes - and you'll laugh when I say this - but sometimes, when the setting sun hits those rocks just right, I could almost swear they look like teeth.
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