Inktober 2026 29
Inktober 2026 29, Tusk
The dapper man collected things. I should have guessed. Somewhere aft of the passenger deck, past a door that had not been there the day before, he had a long, quiet room lined with trophies, and he invited me in as though I were a guest rather than a captain without a ship.
Most of it I couldn’t name. But the piece he stopped at, he lifted from its stand himself: a tusk, ancient, yellowed to the colour of old piano keys, curving up to a split and weathered tip. It stood in a banded collar of pale metal, ribbed like a barrel hoop. Down its length, cut with a needle’s patience, ran a whale. Heavy-lidded eye, deep furrows along the head, the tail curling away round the curve of the ivory, every line as fine as a hair.
“Scrimshaw,” he said, turning it so the light ran along the engraving. “Not humanity’s best period.”
I braced for the rest. He glanced at me, at the ragged crew behind me.
“You’ve improved,” he said. “A bit.”
I decided to take it as a compliment. On this ship it seemed the safest thing to do.
Tusk.
