2. The Sand King

Claes was used to the ever-present voice in his head, and it was a female voice with a warm tone, but that didn’t make it any less annoying. Let Olombos sleep all day, it repeated four times.

Send your little sand creatures to Apra, it continued. The Sand King turned into a dolphin and jumped from Meogg’s ship to slice through the surface of the water without a splash. Swimming towards Olombos’ ship, he sent messages to his little sand creatures.

Some were overjoyed about the Apra, who had taken control of nearly half the world and were trying to come up with fair laws. Like the Law of First Landing: the creature that first sets foot on a territory claims it. That could save Meogg’s family, if they arrived first.

Others would rather see the Apra disappear into a hole in the ocean, along with their endless rules.

Sometimes the voice in his head didn’t even use words. She’d frustrated about something and he only received aaaaaargh. Like right now.

“What’s the matter?” he asked aloud. After all that time, he refused to have any more conversations in his own head, and she could hear him everywhere anyway.

The birds. They’re also on their way to that island, because someone was so stupid as to leave half the map lying around.

Claes tried to pretend he knew nothing about it. But the voice had created him, saw everything inside him, knew every grain of his sand—and could only sigh.

“You try holding a map with sandy claws! It’s hard enough that I now have to find the Dodo egg with half a treasure map.”

Your fault. Do the crime, do the time. You were sleeping during the mission briefing.

“I fall asleep at your humor.”

Once at Olombos’ ship, he jumped out of the water and turned into a salamander that stuc to the hull. Two wild boars stomped across the deck, grunting at ghosts. At least, that’s what Claes always assumed, since he saw no other reason why they would snort and make noise out of nowhere.

He crept over the edge, through the shadow of the great mast, leaving a trail of sand leading to Olombos’ quarters.

As sunrise arrived, captain Olombos stepped outside. A dark-gray, wild boar with washed hooves and snout, whose weight made the planks creak and quiver. Olombos was already large, but after his first successful voyage there was no limit to his hunger, both for food and for gold.

All the more reason to stop him and make his second voyage fail, he thought. Or said the voice in his head. He could no longer tell the difference.

He burst into five innocent little piles of sand. Olombos eagerly stomped on the first, on his way to the helm.

A place he never reached, for he fell asleep right there, on top of the Sand King.

Mission accomplished, now scram.

“I’d love to,” he whispered with a muffled voice, “but—”

The other boars ran to their captain. Apart from this crew, Olombos had also picked up some foxes who fortunately moved around less noisily. Claes pulled at his grains of sand until he had regained control of most of them, then turned into a brown cannonball. With the next swell of the ship, he rolled away from the scene.

“Olombos? Captain?” some concerned boars called out.

They tried pushing him onto his side with their snouts, but Olombos was far too heavy. He snored, sunk in a deep sleep that would surely last a day. Claes was satisfied and thought maybe he could also make those birds sleep for a while.

Until a couple of foxes just shrugged and took the helm themselves. They hoisted the sails, steered, and perhaps even made more progress than before.

Olombos finally rolled onto his side. The boars saw the grains of sand on the floor and nudged each other.

“I always get that too! After a long sleep, I have to shake sand grains from my eyes in the morning.”

“But it’s morning now. And Olombos is sleeping like a baby boar.”

“Oh well, Olombos never did much anyways. We’re all still awake.”

They let Olombos snore in the middle of the ship and temporarily made themselves captain.

Yes, the crew is still awake. Claes already understood. He followed the boars to the galley, now shaped like a light brown barrel that could walk. In the kitchen of the ship, slabs of meat were laid out, ready for preparation.

Most importantly, no one else was there. Claes tipped onto his side and thundered over the two boars as a rolling barrel. They wouldn’t get back up any time soon.

“Do I have to put everyone to sleep?” Claes whispered.

If necessary. Claes growled and shook his head, as if that would make the voice go away for a bit.

“Allow me to wreck their ship. Please? Just this once?”

No, and you know why. You are the god of sleep and restoration, the OPPOSITE of destruction.

“Gods should have freedom!” he shouted.

Too loud.

A group of foxes entered the galley and glared angrily at Claes. As a barrel, he might have gotten away with it, but he was currently his own, true shape. A round head, with round thick arms and legs, and dimples to suggest a face, like a decorated gingerbread man.

“By Feria’s tail!” the foxes shouted. “Intruder! Intruder!”

It’s been a while since I heard that name, said the voice in his head, seeming pleased with these words. Claes, however, was certainly not pleased.

As if on cue, they simultaneously jumped at him, biting without hesitation. Claes felt nothing, of course, but was now a figure with holes in his arms and legs. He wanted to change into a lion or tiger.

With the grains he had left, though, a mouse was the only solution. He scurried between the tables, past the barrels full of meat and fish, to a hole in the wall leading to the bilge.

A boar gave a speech, standing on a soaked carpet. He was surrounded by foxes who were either hanging to his lips or absentmindedly picking at their nails.

“We’re almost there, mates!” the boar said. “A great treasure, the birds gone for good, all thanks to Olombos!”

“And yet he never says what the treasure is,” said a fox in the corner.

No one noticed Claes, not as long as he hid behind the crooked tree trunks that served as sitting places. To reach the exit, he unfortunately had to get past the boar.

“According to the rumors, the very last egg of the Primal Bird lies there!”

“Then don’t we actually want it to not hatch? Because we hate birds?”

She sounded as if she had just randomly boarded a ship without understanding what they were doing. Another fox agreed with her. “I think it’s all a terrible plan. I say we sail on.”

“Maybe. We could break the egg and destroy it! But if we get such a powerful bird on our side, we’ll be the masters of the skies. Then we are … then we are …”

His eyes fell shut. His audience had already found his speech rather soporific.

Claes slowly gathered more grains of sand. They were everywhere, certainly on ships that often came ashore. His mouse grew into a rabbit, then a dog, and then into a tiger.

He ran onto the deck, now chased by everyone. A fox climbed down from the mast, but fell asleep and wrapped himself in the sails like a mummy. Three boars turned a wheel to weigh anchor—but anchors are heavy. Not long after, three sleeping boars spun faster and faster, while the anchor sank back to the bottom of the sea.

The edge was in sight, but the foxes cut him off again. One popped up right next to him.

“Grab him! He’s putting us to sleep!” was the last sentence the fox would utter for some time.

Paws, teeth and tails lashed out at him. For this one time, he was glad the voice controlled him and that he had no real body. It didn’t hurt him and he kept enough grains to rise up, just like the Primal Birds of the past.

For he had experienced them and would actually like to see them return. But if they merely think the island has one egg of an extinct bird lying around and nothing more, he thought, they underestimate its power.

Flying, he saw that Olombos’ ship moved at least twice as fast as Meogg’s. The bullfrog’s ship seemed pulled by a snail, or as if it was being held back. If they didn’t change something quickly, the bullfrogs would arrive much too late.