Still Waters Run Deep

I don’t remember the name of the ship that took me down here. It must’ve had a name, it was a legal ship. Legal… that word doesn’t really carry much meaning on a Free World. That’s a weird designation, don’t you think? A Free Wolrd… free of what? Control, certainly. Free of law and order, free of regulation and bureaucracy. Hovels and shanty towns rising up around space ports, people coming and going but never staying for long, shady deals, contraband from sectors of ”controlled” space, incognito travellers, fugitives, outlaws… and the few fools who think worlds like these are prime for settlement. Some bring their families and do okay. Tend to keep to themselves, coming to the townships only on occasion to sell the produce of their farms. They stay away from the vices and the vices stay away from them. It’s a Free World, live and let live, right?
I’m not here to buy organic lettuce though. I’m looking for… looking for something more. That’s the human condition, isn’t it? Always wanting something more than what you have? But that’s not why I’m here. The human condition I mean. I’m… I’m an addict, you might say. Lots of addicts in these parts. Addicts to substance, to adrenaline, to love of an exotic blend… not that many restrictions in the Free Worlds on that account. Plenty of brothels in every port too. At first I thought to go looking in some of them, but at the end of the day there was likely nothing in any of them that differed from the usual fare I’d tried in other places. I’m not on this world because I need sex with someone I’d never see outside a biology textbook back home. Oh, we’re long past that point now. What led me here was a tip, given to me for an exorbitant sum. They wouldn’t take Federal Credits, Imperial Marks or Royal Crowns either; I had to pay in Tanuki Tahlers. That’s a currency a man like me can’t move around without getting some attention from all the wrong places. But I had to get my info, so I paid. And then I chartered a trip here. A world so free they never named it beyond the designated coordinates. What’s in a name?

I follow the tip I was given to a specific port, to a specific part of town, to a specific neighbourhood. The labyrinth of prefab houses, shacks put together from whatever and stalls of all kinds of dealers and vendors is humid and stinks of every kind of food and sex. It’s a cosy smell. There’s a hubbub of haggling and laughter and moaning and giggling and hawking, all mixing together into a cacophony of background noise that makes you feel… at home. Like you belong in the crowd. I keep my hands near my pockets, knowing any kids or Goblin that passes me could be a pickpocket. I try to look for street signs but they’re all written in a mix of languages and alphabets, making navigation impossible. No navigator can guide me, the streets shift as the population’s needs demand so there are no maps and this world isn’t big on satellite surveillance. Yet the people find their way somehow, and as I wander and observe I try to learn the method to their madness.
Someone else had been observing me.

“You lost, mister?” asks the little street rat, her eyes almost covered by a head of fluffy hair, her clothes two sizes too big yet still leaving most of her midriff uncovered. Looking at her chest she doesn’t appear to be a street urchin but an adult. Her tail has several pieces of different coloured cloth tied to it. A local sign? Of what?
“Maybe” I reply. We are speaking in low Elvish, a language born for purposes of inter-species communication before humanity ever reached the stars. The street rat’s ears perk up.
“Need a guide, mister? You’re a long way from the port…”
A veiled threat maybe? Despite her size, she IS an adult, and could possibly be the leader of a gang. Are those pieces of cloth gang colours? I can’t tell. But what’s the worst that could happen? I have very little left to lose at this point.
“I am looking for something” I admit. “Would you perhaps be able to take me to the Still Waters Salon?”
She tilts her head, looking disappointed.
“I might, but there’s nothing in it for me” she says, avoiding my eyes. What’s this?
“You don’t think I can pay?”
“I know you can’t. Not allowed to take nothing from customers that go there” she says, shoulders slumped, kicking a pebble with her bare feet.
Well that was an interesting little factoid.
“Then you won’t take me there?”
“I’s got to now” she said and turned on her heels, pointing down a side street. “Third door on the right” she said. I looked where she pointed and saw the door in questions. It was attached to a wall of grey prefab that had no distinguishing features or signs, not even windows.
“I see. Thank you”
“Whatever”
The rat scurried along on her merry way while I headed to the door. I’d been unexpectedly close, yet I’d never have found it without local help. Part of me wanted to repay this favour with a small tip or something, but the girl herself had said she wasn’t allowed to take any so…

I knock on the door. It slides open with an automated swish and I enter white room with some decorated plants, ornamental pillars and couches. There’s a rich rug under my feet, looks like Steppeweave, two centuries old. Yes I do antiques, how did you know?
The door swishes shut behind me. There are windows here, holographic windows, each showing a different world. There roaming seas, roaring fires, jungles caressed by the wind, billowing sand dunes, spire cities that reach above the clouds, the usual fare. Not too tacky but not overly cheap either. There’s a chandelier hanging from the roof, the candles, real candles I might add, arrayed in the traditional Sabbath orientation. All in all the reception hall seems like it’s intended to cause a sense of familiarity and trust in the average man, but look around enough and a sense of disquiet settles in. The pillars depict floral patterns, but look long enough and you notice they are Alraune, Mandragora, Dryad, Liliarune, Matango, Myconid… and each is entangling men. Look at the statues and figurines displayed among the decorative plants and you will notice each represents a different culture and time period, but each with the common motif of a Monster enraptured by the submission of Man. I don’t need to go into details, do I? The Steppeweave carpet is no different, and the Centaur is generally not overly fond of such depictions. You might consider it a skilful forgery if you didn’t have my knowledge of the subject. The rug is absolutely genuine, yet the culture that originated it wouldn’t have made it. All this and many more small details – like the particular scent of the candles – are designed to make any man who enters this place feel off their game, like they are entering a den of lions but only in a dream. Yes, this is the salon of a Tanuki without a doubt.

I walk up to the reception desk, seeing as there is no one else here. The Tanuki herself enters from the backroom, through a door of hanging beads… no, pearls. Those pearls were likely fished from the seas of a different world each and hung up on the silk of an Arachne species. Now that is tacky.
The Tanuki herself is no better. Her clothes are silk, a mixture of the dress of an Apsara dancer and a Federal bureaucrat, her loose harem pants and vest accompanied by a white, collared shirt and a black tie, around her waist a red sash and around each of her fingers a golden ring. Her midriff is bare as the shirt is too short for her (maybe a local custom?), and a little too tight around the chest. She does not appear to be wearing a bra under it. Her ears and tail flap happily as she leans on the front desk. I know fully well she has been observing me since I entered and waited for me to soak in the atmosphere before approaching.
“How may I be of service, effendi?” she asks, her accented Fed-Speak putting me in mind of an aristocratic undead from any number of porn videos set on a southern-hemisphere beach resort. Why yes I do watch such things on occasion.
“I was told that Still Waters Run Deep” I tell her, forwarding the password that had been given me for the massive sum of Tahlers I had been forced to procure.
The Tanuki smiles so wide I can see all of her teeth and she winks at me.
“I know what you mean, sir! If you would please follow me…”
She turns to head to the backroom by a different door, this one covered by purple curtains depicting a starry sky with little black dots for stars. Behind the curtain the air is moister than it was even outside. I pull at the collar of my shirt. I would like to take my coat off but want to keep my hands free just in case. Just in case…

It’s dark in here, the only light coming from a series of low-set orbs, each giving off a different colour. Nearest to the doorway they were red, then pink, and then the floor began to head downwards in a gentle, spiralling loop, leading us down with orange, yellow, green, brown, white, a deep blue, a bright blue, white, and finally a purple. That is when I heard the trickle of water.
“Please remove your shoes, effendi. In the box…” the Tanuki said, pointing out the box to me. She herself was barefoot and her pants only reached up to her ankles, where golden bracelets hung. So tacky.
I took off my shoes and socks, and while I was at it decided to get rid of my coat as well. I rolled up my pant legs and looked to the darkness where the water was.
“How deep is it?”
“Not so very deep, effendi, if you walk along the path”
She tapped her foot on a piece of raised platform than ran into the waters.
“Walk along that and you will be fine, hm?”
“Ladies first…”
“Oh no effendi, I will not be joining you. Is a very private thing, yes?” she beamed with a smile and looked me up and down.
“Perhaps remove pants as well? And the backpack? Won’t want them to get wet if effendi slips and falls, hm?”
This is suspicious. Every instinct should tell me not to. But I do it anyway. What does it matter if what I’m looking for is at the end of the path anyway?
I leave my effects in the box and wade off into the water that reaches up halfway to my shins when I stand on the raised platform.
“There are no lights further on” I said.
“No, but there is no need. Slide one foot before the first effendi, and go on!”
I look at the Tanuki’s irritating smile. She waves at me. I turn my back to her and begin to walk, sliding one foot before the other. The water is warm and soon I am beyond the reach of the last light source. I keep walking ahead slowly in the darkness, unaware of where the walls or ceiling might be. To think that just a little before I was walking the streets up above! The Salon must run along below the entire neighbourhood, or at least the block it’s in… this place can’t be moved, that is for certain. No matter how the town around it changes, this place remains. What does that imply? Could this place be more ancient than… could this place be a remnant of an older civilization? If I was right in my own theories it was perfectly possible that what I was looking for was in fact a remnant of just such a race. And into these chthonic depths I had entered, leaving behind anything and everything that I might defend myself with, almost naked and now blind in the dark, deep waters all around me. What a fool I was!
	YOU ARE NO FOOL
And on top of that I was hearing voices in my head, can you imagine…
	COME TO ME
…what it’s like when there’s another voice in your head, speaking the way you speak to yourself but that’s not you?
	I AM WHAT YOU SEEK
Must’ve been drugs in those Sabbath candles. Or maybe fumes from the water?
	YOU ARE QUITE LUCID
That’s wishful thinking of course…
	DO NOT BE OBSTINATE
Well I suppose not but…
	DO NOT STOP MOVING
Of course, my mistake, better keep moving. It’s getting a little deeper here…
	MIND THE STEP
I mind the step and find myself knee deep. Good think I took off my pants.
	YES, PANTS ARE NOT NEEDED HERE
Now that I think of it wouldn’t it have been better to just strip naked and swim?
	YOU COULD ALWAYS STRIP NAKED AND SWIM
Yes I think I’ll do that. I take off my shirt and underwear and throw them away, then dive into the embrace of the water, keeping one foot near the platform to keep me guided.
	YOU DO NOT NEED THE PLATFORM, I WILL GUIDE YOU
I kick away from the platform into the vast darkness all around me. The splashes I make in the water echo from the ceiling and walls. The space I am in must be enormous. How? Where is it in relation to the town above?
	YOU ARE NO LONGER WITHIN THE SPACE YOU LEFT
Well that settles that then, wouldn’t you say?
	I WOULD SAY SO
Where would you say I should swim now?
	THIS WAY
I have no words to describe “which way” but I knew beyond all doubt which way that was and that’s where I headed. And then I began to see… light. Blue light.
	THAT IS ALGAE
It’s beautiful!
	AND STICKY
Sticky isn’t so bad…
	THERE ARE ALSO MUSHROOMS
Ah yes, the green lights in the ceiling and walls… so far away and so high up… but I can’t be that deep, can I?
	STILL WATERS RUN DEEP
But of course they do.
	SWIM FASTER
I beg your pardon?
	I WANT YOU
Oh. Yes. I will swim faster.
	YOU HAVE BEEN VERY NAUGHTY, HAVEN’T YOU?
This was the first question I had been asked. And indeed, but…
	DO NOT TRY TO HIDE IT FROM ME YOU NAUGHTY LITTLE THING
Well that is…
	USURPATION OF FUNDS? YOU LITTLE THIEF…
I may have mixed up company funds with my own but we all make mistakes…
	USING THE MONEY TO VISIT SUCH PLACES… THE NERVE!
Hey now, I’ll have you know the establishments I used to frequent were very classy and…
	DO NOT TRY TO HIDE THINGS FROM ME
I’m not!
	THEN CONFESS YOUR SINS
I like to be dominated by women!
	YES…
And I came here because I don’t think it’s enough to get it physically
	NOT ENOUGH?
I want to be ruled over in both body and soul. Or if not soul, at least in mind…
	AND THIS IS WHY YOU COME TO ME?
Yes…
	YOU’VE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE
I stop to admire the beauty of the algae and mushrooms all around me now. It’s almost as bright as daylight here. Everything feels so unreal. Something sticky is writhing around my thighs. I… wait.
“H-hey!”
I flail around as tentacles wrap around my thighs and biceps and a warm hand closes over my mouth.
	SUBMIT
I immediately stop resisting. A tongue flickers around my ear and wet, warm lips kiss me cheek. There is a whisper.
“Let’s play”
And I am free.