Ocean House by Beth Goder
3700 words, ~19 minutes reading time
Issue 5 (Summer 2024)
Sil visits Ocean House on a rain-soaked day in the month of Chrome. The bright blue shingles are slick with water, each gable filigreed with swirls reminiscent of waves, like the curl of a bird’s wing mid-flight. The house is asymmetrical and always shifting, with an unpredictable number of rooms and too many doors.
Today, Sil is tethered to Antion, the god of misfortune, imprisonment, and long fingernails. Antion sees through Sil's eyes, hears with Sil's ears, and pulls at Sil's memories as if they are nothing more than tangled strings, easily straightened and even more easily discarded. The rub of cheap cotton against Sil's chest, the itch on his right thigh, his fear that comes around again to longing—Antion experiences all of this and more.
In Sil's head, Antion chimes. "Why are you leaving Torus?"
Of course, Antion knows the answer because he has access to Sil's thoughts. He is only asking to bring Sil's attention to the foolishness of his actions. The city of Torus is no sanctuary, but it is safer than Ocean House.
Sil pushes open the steel gate and creeps up the path to Ocean House. The air smells metallic from the melting pod next door. Sil carries nothing but the clothes on his body and a tarnished blue ring. It is better to go into Ocean House with fewer things, because there is always the chance you must give them up. Last time, Sil forfeited his favorite tea kettle, an odd brass thing embossed with serpents.
It was a fair trade for what he found.
"It doesn't matter to me," says Antion. "It is your body." Antion chimes again, a sound like a mallet being struck against a copper bell. "If you damage my tether, however, I will do you many harms."
Sil doesn't know what it would be like to be savaged by a god, but he surmises it would involve a misery particularly crafted for him. Gods do not have a mortal's sense of time so such suffering could last anywhere from three seconds to his entire life, and possibly beyond. Antion, an entity who swims in eternity, must find all periods of time practically equivalent.
Sil pushes open the door to Ocean House, revealing a mess of hallways and doors. Gold-streaked mosaic tiles decorate the ceiling, and gentle curves make up the floor—it is impossible to walk without swaying.
I have a plan, Sil thinks, for Antion's benefit. I'm not as stupid as you think.
Antion's chime is like a glass flute breaking. He is amused. "I see everything you are. I know your mind better than you can ever know it. Do not pretend that you can hide anything from me."
Ignoring him, Sil shifts down the hallway until he finds a door of unvarnished wood. He has a theory that the best things are behind the plainest doors.
Ocean House has its name for two reasons. First, the doors lead to other places. Open a door, and you will be carried away as if by ocean waves, tumbled about in nowhere-space. It feels like drowning, even though no water will touch you. No one knows where these places come from, only that no two have ever been the same. It’s not impossible to find your way back from these other lands, but it’s often tricky. Second, debris washes up from each place; some of it is junk, but other items are quite valuable.
The only people who come to Ocean House are treasure hunters, the desperate, and the chronically unfortunate. Sil is all three.
"Do not ever say I encouraged this particular behavior," says Antion. "When you speak to your friends of this, you must say I had qualms."
Sil opens the door.
For a moment of indeterminable length, he is nowhere, submerged in nothing, cold all over. He has forgotten how to see, how to smell, or perhaps his senses are only overwhelmed with emptiness. The sound of waves crashes around him, too close, then too far. He has stopped breathing because there is no point. His mind touches infinity, which hurts. Just at the moment he thinks he can stand no more, he is deposited on a rocky plain.
The air stills, smelling faintly of sunburnt stones. Around him, conglomerate rocks poke up from the ground, where the silt is made of alluvium, white chalk, clay, and sand. These geological features belie a history of water, but there is no water here, now.
In the distance are mountains of green stone, shining in the sun.
"Are you done with all of that?" asks Antion. "It is unpleasant to be in tethered to you when you insist on putting yourself through such pain."
It will be worth it, thinks Sil. You'll see.
Sil only has to walk for a couple of minutes before he sees it.
A book rests on a smooth stone.
The book is valuable—he can tell from the awe he feels in its presence, as if he has stepped into a scriptorium wreathed in quiet. Even Antion is silent.
If he sells such a book, Sil could buy a variety of luxuries—chocolate mixed with juniper berries, delicate globes from the glassworks, a massage from the grand masseuse castle in the Locket Quarter (it has been so long since he has felt human touch), a breathing stone, a new kettle. He thinks of luxuries before necessities, even though his stomach is often numb from hunger and his sleeping pod is barely large enough for his mattress full of sticks.
"That is indeed an interesting item," says Antion. "Perhaps you are not quite as much a fool as I thought. Never tell your friends I am not a curious sort who can still be touched by wonder."
Sil approaches. Although the sun beats on his skin, the book rests in darkness, even though there is nothing to cast a shadow.
Gently, Sil lifts the book from its altar and opens it.
The world unravels, coming undone in a swirl of rocks and stone and sand. Or perhaps it is not the world that is being turned inside out. Perhaps it is Sil.
A harsh, insistent scream rings out. Sil thinks he is the one screaming before he realizes it is Antion.
The god moves in his head, first writhing and then regimentally still. Sil feels a curious puckering in his brain, as if the tentacles of an octopus are being pulled off, sucker by sucker.
With a whoosh like a great bellows emptying, the world rights itself.
Sil lowers himself to the ground, shaking. He waits for Antion to berate him, but the words do not come.
Antion is no longer there.
Frantically, Sil searches for him, prodding the place where Antion used to be, unable to believe that such an obstinate god could so abruptly disappear. When Sil doesn't find him, he feels relief and, unexpectedly, a sharp sadness.
The book wriggles, as if a beast pulses within its covers, then stops. The faint murmur of Antion's voice comes from it, but Sil cannot tell what he is saying.
It is not lost on Sil that the god of imprisonment is now himself imprisoned. Sil would laugh if it wasn't for the possibility of the severe retribution that Antion will mete out if he ever escapes.
Sil considers leaving Antion stuck in the book (his head is blessedly quiet, without chimes or ill-mannered commentary), but he quickly discards this idea. He decides he will free Antion for several reasons. First, the tether appears undamaged, nestled in his head like a snail shell. If he points out this bit of luck, he hopes Antion will be lenient. Second, perhaps if Sil exorcises the book, he can sell it after all. Third, he is pretty sure the other gods will find out about this (some of them are omnipotent) and he does not want a pantheon to crowd into his head, raining down whatever punishments they see fit.
It is not that he has become fond of Antion. Definitely not.
Nervously, Sil works his blue ring up and down his finger. He does not want to open the book again, but putting it off won't make things better. With a deep sigh, Sil reaches for it once more.
The stone liquifies and the book melts into it, submerged as if in quicksand. Sil grasps at the cover before it goes under completely.
His hand is coated in dripping stone, which starts to harden. Frantically, Sill scrapes it off, managing to discard most of it, although his hand retains a greyish hue.
In the place of the book sits a polished green gem the size of a dragonfly.
Sil takes account of what he has. His clothing, his intellect, the blue ring, a green stone, fear of a god's vengeance, a wistful longing for his sleeping pod, and—despite his long spate of misfortune—hope.
In the distance, Sil finds mountains made from the same green as his stone, glinting in the sun. Back and forth Sil goes, gazing from the mountains to the stone, searching for the connection. Green mountains, green stone, he thinks. The mountain rumbles gently, almost as if it is sighing, and a peak flattens, looking almost like a beckoning finger. He puts his great intellect to the task and figures out that he must get to those mountains.
Sil groans. He is not made for questing.
In lands like these, it is difficult to tell distance. There are no guarantees that the rules here will be the same as in Torus. He could walk all day and not move a single step, or he could find that he has passed the mountains without being aware that he was near them.
Sil has been through doors in Ocean House several times. Although each place is different, they all have two things in common—an annoying tendency to embrace the fantastical and an overt disregard for the laws of reality.
Sil moves with intention. He lifts his foot, closes his eyes, and pictures the green mountains—how it would feel to slip along their polished curves, how the shadows would rest against the peaks just so.
He steps forward. When he opens his eyes, he is there. He congratulates himself thoroughly, then realizes he has no idea what to do next.
Without a better plan, he steps up to the mountain and knocks. The mountain swings open (which is very difficult for a mountain to do), revealing an inviting, well-lit cavern. Sil once again congratulates himself. Perhaps this won't be so hard after all.
He enters the mountain, which promptly begins to chew. Vibrations run up Sil's legs, shaking his core. The walls of the cavern moisten and tremble, dripping salty liquid on his head. The small tremors get larger and before long, it is clear that the mountain intends to eat him. This is very inconvenient, he thinks, wanting to amuse Antion before he remembers that Antion isn't there.
The walls press in, brushing him lightly, then harder.
Desperately, Sil holds up his blue ring. "I have something to trade," he says. "Don't crush it."
The mountain speaks in a voice like an avalanche. "What would I want with a tarnished blue ring?"
Sil considers lying. He could say the ring has mystical properties, that it cures all manner of illnesses, that it can guide a lost heart. Instead, he says, "It is what I brought to give."
"And what does it mean to you?" asks the mountain. The entities in the lands beyond Ocean House always ask this question.
"It is the ring I wore when I first came to the city, when I went to the great waterfall in Devovere District and ate jelly pastries dusted in sugar. I wore it at my mother's deathbed. I wore it when I went before the All-Seeing Eyeball, who told me my future for free."
"And what did this eye predict?"
"That I would die, crushed by stone." Sil has never worried about this premonition. Until now.
The mountain rumbles. "That ring is of some value. And what do you propose I give you?"
"I believe you have a book of mine," says Sil, hoping that the green stone he found, the one that led him here, has set him on the right path.
"It is not your book at all," the mountain says. "In any case, the value of these items does not match. Your Eyeball was right after all."
As the mountain begins to chew, Sil cries out, "But the All-Seeing Eyeball is never right. Everyone knows he's a fraud."
The mountain chews harder. Sil feels stretched between the realms of infinity. It is like going through a door in Ocean House, until it is not, until he feels only an avalanche of disappointed ambitions and a firm pressure on his lungs.
The mountain is merciful. The last crushing chomp is too swift for him to feel any pain.
When Sil wakes, he is sure he is dead. His body is flattened; he cannot move. The cavern walls drip moisture onto his prone form, staccato drops he can’t blink away.
The mountain shifts under him. He is unceremoniously flipped like a pancake.
"I have been thinking," says the mountain. "You are bad at negotiation. But I will let you have another try, for your blue ring is indeed worth something."
Sil tries to speak, but his airway has been crushed. Strangely, nothing hurts. Compressed into this diminished existence, with everything squeezed too tight, he has transcended pain. Instead, he feels only an itch near his right eye and a longing to move.
He decides he is not dead, after all. The afterlife cannot be full of speaking mountains. That is not in any theology of Torus. (After the experience of having a god in his head, Sil is brimming with belief.) Ocean House is a conduit to strange places with their own idiosyncratic rules. Perhaps there is no "being dead" here. Perhaps there are only different ways of being alive.
Despite Sil's unfortunate state, he is joyous. It surprises him—this desire for life, this bright light in his brain that opens like a flower.
The mountain sighs, a great rush of air through the caverns of their body. "Hold on."
Wind rushes through the cavern. Soon, Sil is no longer flat, although his back is too straight and his knees do not bend quite right. He feels overfull, his veins rushing with vast quantities of liquid, everything puffed out and softened. It's like he is a stone coming to life, expected to move and bend and speak. Before long, he remembers breathing. And hunger.
"Thank you," says Sil.
"I will take your gratitude as payment for setting you to rights," says the mountain, magnanimous. "Now, your blue ring."
Sil considers. He could ask for his life.
Instead, he asks for Antion.
"You wish to trade a ring for a god?" the mountain asks, rumbling menacingly. "Do not make me eat you again."
"He is not a great god. Not even a minor god. One might say he is a miniscule god." Sil hopes Antion cannot hear him.
"Does he not have power?" asks the mountain.
"He is the god of imprisonment, yet he cannot imprison or free anyone. He is the god of misfortune, but he cannot direct anyone's luck." This is not quite true. Antion brings misfortune to any person whose head he occupies, but prayers cannot cause him to possess anyone in particular. He is stubborn that way. "He does have the power to make fingernails grow."
"That is something, but not much," says the mountain. "Why do you want him back?"
"It is not so much that I want him back," says Sil. "It is more that I have an obligation."
The mountain considers. "I want your blue ring, and every memory you made while wearing it."
Sil shakes his head. He doesn't even have to think about it. "No."
"It is a good trade," says the mountain. "A god for a trinket and intangible memories."
Sil will not give up his memories. What is Sil if not a collection of memories? Who would he be without them?
"Let me give you something else," says Sil.
He considers what he has: his clothing, his intellect, the blue ring, a green stone, fear of a god's vengeance, a wistful longing for his sleeping pod. And his memories.
"You can have my blue ring, and the clothes from my body, and three drops of blood."
The mountain rumbles.
Desperately, Sil says, "You can have my knowledge of chess, my predilection for curry, the feel of sunlight on my skin."
"That is not what I asked for," says the mountain.
Sil thinks of Antion, immortal, trapped forever.
Gently, he takes every happy memory from his mind. It is like pulling on a red thread. The memories jerk out of him one knot at a time. They shine brightly in his hands, shimmering like a summer day, roiling like ocean waves. He feels an emptiness within himself, an unlatched sorrow.
"I cannot accept that," says the mountain. "It is worth too much. I am not a cheat, not a swindler."
Sil separates one memory, holding it globelike in his hands. The first time he came to the city, smelling newness and the light summer flowers, full of hope. He felt like his life could be anything if he stayed in Torus, as if the city itself was blessing him, telling him he could be more than his past. It is the memory he holds at night, in darkness, when he needs to remember why he's here, what he wants.
Quickly, he smooshes the memory into his ring. He shoves the rest of the memories back into his body, his chest filling with lightness. "This is what I have to give."
"Yes," the mountain says. "This is worth a small god."
The book materializes. Carefully, Sil sets the ring down, where it melts into the mountain.
Sil remembers what he gave up, feels the empty space in his brain. The day he moved to the city is a blank canvas, and he does not know how he felt or what he saw or why he decided to stay.
Gently, he picks up the book. "Will it trap me?"
"Who knows?" says the mountain.
Sil opens the book.
The phenomenon he unleashes is like a storm in reverse. Everything swirls outward. He is taken from the mountain, taken back to the door that is not a door, but rather an outline, a passage back to Ocean House.
Antion shrieks, then laughs. He twists and turns, stretching out limbs that never seem to completely materialize, limbs that change in number.
The god settles into Sil's head, scooping up the tether.
Sil's hands grasp air. The book is gone.
Another misfortune. Now he will have nothing to sell; instead of disappointment, he feels oddly comforted.
"It took you long enough," says Antion. The sulky sound of a gong rings out.
"I freed you as fast as I could. And the tether is intact."
Antion shuffles through Sil's memories. "Well, I can see that you did. I have decided, after all, not to damn you to the twelve hells, nor devour your heart. I will not turn your liver inside out or gift you the five unnamable sorrows. I will not even plague your days with gnats and snails. Never tell your friends I am not beneficent."
Antion shifts around in Sil's head, like a cat circling before settling into a sunny spot.
Without delay, Sil steps through the doorway back to Ocean House. He has had enough of rocky plains and talking mountains, of trapped gods and quests.
Going back is the same as going forward. He is no longer Sil, but a mass of atoms, without hope or sorrow or a mind. Right before the point where he feels he will dissipate, he is deposited in Ocean House, the gentle curves of the floor solid underneath him, the air smelling of Torus, metallic and layered.
Behind him, the door dissolves, until there is only a wall where it once was. All around him, other doors wait, leading to places he has never been.
Antion grumbles. He chimes, muted, a brass knocker against a wooden door. "I believe your head is no longer suitable," he mumbles.
Through the connection, Sil can feel Antion's fear. This has never happened before. Never has Sil been able to see into Antion's mind. Antion is scared of where Sil will go. He is scared Sil will come back to Ocean House, that he will go through more strange doors and open more dangerous books.
"I am not running. Never tell your friends I was afraid. It is simply that you have become uninhabitable."
Antion flies from Sil's mind, a bird finally free. The tether is pulled out of Sil like a snail coming unstuck from a hand.
The newfound quiet is comforting and disturbing all at once.
With the god of misfortune out of his head, Sil gets a job rather easily.
He becomes an archivist. Now all the treasures come to him, in the form of archival documents and rare books. He still thinks of Ocean House, the siren song of its many rooms. It is not the treasure he wants now, but the ability to touch that liminal space between worlds, the space between the door and the destination.
He will never admit this, but sometimes he misses carrying divinity in his skull.
He begins praying to Antion, the only one to do so in Torus, even though it's a religious city. Since Antion does not have a temple of his own, Sil bends his knee (which still doesn't work quite right) outside of the prison. He starts with the common verses, praying in hushed breaths as he would for a great god, but soon, he switches to just telling Antion about his day.
Once, during his prayers, his fingernails grow two inches, and he hears the echo of a chime, and a voice saying, "Never tell your friends that I did not honor you. Never say—" But whatever words complete the phrase do not transfer to Sil; they become lost in the waves of his mind. This does not trouble him. It is merely the pattern of his life, to miss words of significance, to have just a bit of misfortune dabbed onto everything he does; in this way, he touches divinity gracelessly, brushing against the unknowable, timing his breaths to the cryptic, unseen movement of gods.