Back to the Vara

by John Kerry

  Hami ignited his staff this time, keeping the light low. The dim glow revealed the smashed hull of a ship. A large green mushroom-planked vessel, upturned with a jagged hole in the bottom.

  The relief on the balcony was palpable.

  “There are others,” Hami said, shining a beam around at the other smashed and broken vessels they found themselves surrounded by.

  “What’s the matter with Louis?” Leiss asked. “He’s shaking.”

  “He’s smelt something,” Mehrak said.

  Sammy squeezed her eyes shut and wished she could go back to being bored. “Not the …”

  “No,” Mehrak interrupted. “Not the leviathan. Louis can’t smell underwater. He can smell dead people, though.”

  –THIRTY-EIGHT–

  LEVIATHAN GRUB

  Hami narrowed his beam of staff light, focusing it on a single hull. “The boards aren’t rotten,” he said. “This boat was destroyed recently. And look. The Regent’s insignia. These fishermen are from Honton Keep.”

  “They risked their lives coming here for some fish?” Sammy asked.

  “Just some fish?” Leiss said. “The white sturgeon that live in this lake fetch ridiculous sums back at the Keep. They’re the Regent’s favourite. You should see the security detail we provide a shipment of sturgeon on its way through the forest. I used to know a couple of the fishermen that worked this lake. Crazy guys. They’d make a fortune every time they came home, then spend it all on alcohol and women. I guess you have to be a certain kind of person to risk your life crossing this stretch of water.”

  It was an obvious dig at Hami, but the magus ignored it.

  Narok and Calven brought their karkadann around Louis. They bobbed alongside as Narok edged Indomit closer. “Do we double back and go around?” he called up in a raised whisper.

  “I’m not sure –” Hami began.

  Then Louis thrashed out.

  The cottage surged backwards. Louis back-paddled frantically, dragging Narok, Calven and the karkadann with him. His ears twirled up and down holding poses independent to each other.

  “It’s okay, buddy. Calm down,” Mehrak said.

  “Stop moving!” Hami whispered loudly. Hami aimed his staff beam down into the water.

  The swollen body of a man floated face down in front of Louis.

  Louis stopped but continued to sign and shiver in the water, while large, steaming breaths of air unfurled from his open mouth.

  “It touched him,” Mehrak said. “He got spooked, but he’s fine.”

  “We’re not fine,” Hami said. “These ships have all been dragged here. To this one place.” He cut the light.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” Sammy said. “You’ve brought us right into the leviathan’s lair?”

  “Quiet! It could be below us.”

  “For the love of Ahura,” Mehrak said. He lunged at Hami, scooping up handfuls of the magus’s cloak. “You’ve doomed us all.”

  “Get a hold of yourself,” Hami said as he batted away Mehrak’s flailing arms. “Everything will be okay as long as we remain calm. We’ve been unlucky. That’s all. I picked a bad place to cross, but we can get through this if we’re smart about it. The main objective for us now is to get out of here. If there are still bodies in the water, the leviathan may be back. Louis, you’ll need to be quick, but take it steady. We can’t allow ourselves to get tangled up in sails or rigging.”

  A large swell of water raised Golden Egg Cottage. Sammy felt the momentary weightlessness flip-flop her stomach and they came down bobbing and bumping into the karkadann.

  “What the hell was that?” Leiss said.

  Sammy lit up her staff. She hovered the beam over an expanse of water where bubbles were breaking the surface. “Over there! One of the boats has disappeared!”

  “Put out your staff!” Hami snapped.

  Sammy disconnected from the orb and it became black again.

  A large body launched itself from the lake ahead of them.

  Everyone panicked. Nervous energy crashed around the balcony. Sammy shoved and got shoved. She took hold of Mehrak.

  “It’s just a boat,” Hami said. He sounded as breathless as everyone else. “Keep still. And quiet. Especially you, Louis.”

  Sammy let go of Mehrak and clasped her hands together to stop them shaking.

  The boat slowly came to rest, eclipsing the lights of the islands ahead and drowning everyone on Eggie in shadow.

  No one moved.

  A small swell buffeted Eggie and several of the boats bumped into each other, making hollow thuds.

  When there was no further movement, Hami whispered down to Louis. “Slow strokes. Aim for that gap between the two ships ahead.” Hami moved across the balcony edge towards the karkadann. “Narok. Keep close.”

  Louis pulled forward. He shivered as he brushed past the dead man again.

  Another large whoosh and a ship ahead creaked and splintered.

  “Stop!” Hami whispered loudly.

  Louis stopped. The ghostly shapes of ruined vessels floated all around them, creaking and knocking against each other. All large foreign objects in the dark.

  Then one submerged.

  “Another ship’s gone down,” Sammy rasped.

  “That wasn’t a ship,” Hami said.

  “That had to be a ship,” Mehrak whimpered. “It was too …”

  “… big?” Hami finished.

  “It’s here?” Sammy was entering panic mode. “It’s really here?” Her head seemed to be contracting, her eyes expanding in her head. The leviathan had come for them and they were dead. Mehrak was right. She should’ve stayed at home.

  Hami moved to the front. “Listen!”

  They waited in silence again. Another swoosh through the water. Way off, behind Eggie. The cottage bobbed up and down again.

  “It’s circling us,” Hami whispered. “It knows we’re here.”

  “We need to make a swim for it,” Leiss said.

  “No. The islands aren’t as close as they look. Even if the distance were halved, we wouldn’t make it.”

  “So what then?” Leiss said. “We stay here and wait to die?”

  “We wait,” Hami said. “And hope we don’t die. We’re still alive, which means the leviathan doesn’t know exactly where we are.”

  Another movement, the rush of water being displaced, and another object submerged.

  “There it is,” Sammy said.

  “No,” Hami said. “It was another ship. The leviathan is systematically working its way through all the floating objects in the area.”

  “Great Ahura!” Leiss said. “We could be next! We can’t stay here and wait to die.”

  “It can’t tell which object is us.” Hami’s eyes were alive. “It must use motion to track its prey. It felt Louis’s ripples when he panicked but because we’re still, it can’t triangulate our exact location.”

  Another ship plummeted into the black abyss.

  “Hami!” Mehrak squawked.

  “I’ve got a plan,” Hami said. “Louis, there’s a gap opening up ahead, between two of those wrecked ships. When I call ‘go’, swim as hard, but as quietly, as you can. You guys, too. Narok. Calven. Did you get that?”

  Narok held up an arm.

  “Sammy,” Hami said. “I need your help. We’re going to create a diversion. Follow me.”

  He took her through the bedroom to the back balcony and pointed down to the silhouette of the dead man in the water. He had drifted a little way behind, but was still close.

  “When I nod my head I want you to concentrate on his belt. We haven’t moved organic matter in our lessons so far, so we’ll go for the belt. It should be sufficient if we work together. The plan is to hoist him slowly from the water, then fling him as far as we can in that direction.” He pointed out behind them.

  Sammy stared down at the dead man.

  “Are you okay to do this?”
/>   Sammy nodded.

  Hami placed a hand on Sammy’s back. It was warm. One of the few times he’d touched her without gripping or hurting her. She was ashamed to admit it, but it felt pretty good.

  She snapped out of it. She had a job to do. She concentrated on the belt, imagining it in great detail, and picturing it on a molecular level.

  They lifted. The man’s bottom came up first, poking out of the water. Sammy could feel herself straining, her mind pulling at the seams. It was hard, but they kept going.

  The man rose up into the air, water pouring off his clothes.

  Hami pointed to the man, then in a sweeping movement of his arm, the direction they were going to send him.

  Then he held up his hand indicating that Sammy should wait.

  They waited, keeping the body suspended over the water. Time was dragging out. The strain was beginning to hurt. A headache was pounding in her temples.

  A ship to the left went under. Sammy could hear the remaining wrecks move around in the resulting eddy.

  The alignment of the hulls must’ve come good because Hami gave the command, “Go!”

  Sammy dug deep. She could feel Hami do the same, and they launched the man.

  The body spiralled away into space.

  “You’re becoming powerful, Sammy,” Hami said as they lost sight of the body.

  Sammy slumped on the railing. She couldn’t see his face but she could hear the pride in his voice. The effort had taken a lot out of her, but she’d done good. That smallest of compliments warmed something inside her. Not enough to make the boat trip of death a worthwhile experience, but it gave her the boost necessary to rise from her metaphorical foetal position and enter a zen-like fight-for-your-life mode.

  A distant splash. The body had landed. Something large below shifted and the lake seemed to drop away as water was displaced beneath them.

  “Go Louis!” Hami called. “Smooth, powerful strokes. No splashes.”

  Louis pulled forward hard. The Marzban on their karkadann followed, but the gastrosaur was pulling hard enough to drag them along with him.

  Sammy followed Hami through to the front balcony.

  Two ships hit each other as Louis approached. The hulls shattered, throwing up splinters.

  “Go right!” Hami yelled.

  Louis leant right but got caught in the undercurrent and was pulled into a ship, slamming the cottage hard and knocking everyone into each other.

  Mehrak was thrown across the balcony and hit the railing. “My ribs,” he moaned. “Again.”

  “Keep going!” Hami called.

  Louis forged on past the ships. He cut through the water, pulling the karkadann with him and out into open water.

  Behind them, a thunderclap splash followed by a roar that boomed out like an oil tanker’s horn.

  “He sounds like a big boy,” Eva said, matter-of-fact. If she was scared, she didn’t show it.

  “That’s not funny,” Mehrak replied.

  “Louis. Stop!” It was Hami. “Narok, Calven,” he called out. “You guys too. You have to stop!”

  Louis and the karkadann floated to a stop.

  “He’s heading back,” Hami said. “We need another distraction. Sammy, with me.” He led her back through the tower and out onto the back balcony again. The others followed this time.

  The wrecked ships had been left behind, but were still visible in the light from the islands.

  Hami levelled his staff and the orb lit up. He fired a bolt of lightning at one of the ships and blew a hole in it. Planks flew in all directions, then fell, splashing into the lake. Off to the left, a series of serrated dorsal fins broke the surface of the water, cutting a line for the ship.

  “It’s working,” Leiss said.

  “Go Louis!” Hami shouted. He fired another shot at a different vessel. Another explosion. “And don’t stop!”

  Louis pulled forward.

  Sammy exploded a ship using Victa’s staff. The pure violence of her action mesmerised her. She marvelled at the destruction and resulting carnage of flaming planks. She blew up another. And then another. This was totally metal! Burning mushroom timbers rained down like mini comets, lighting up the ship graveyard like a fireworks display.

  A curved mound broke the surface of the water in between the shipwrecks. Scales on its surface shimmered in the light of the flames. It was as vast as an island and ridged like a dragon’s back. Then it was gone.

  Hami snatched the staff off her. “That’s enough,” he said before handing it back. “The diversion will only work for so long. Mehrak, do you know if Louis’s echo location works underwater?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Get him to start using it. See if he can scan the underwater topography. Get a landscape for us. The leviathan will realise we’ve gone sooner or later and will cast its net further afield. Get Louis to look for anything that might hide or protect us. Shallow areas, rocks just under the surface of the water. Anything we can put between us and the leviathan. The water should start getting increasingly shallow as we reach the islands and that might give us the edge we need.”

  Mehrak dashed through the tower.

  They left the ships behind, receding into the darkness. Hami launched two more bolts from his staff, blasting apart another ship.

  Amidst the burning wreckage, Sammy glimpsed a silver mound with white eyes. The leviathan was looking for them.

  Until then it had been difficult to gain a true sense of scale of the creature, until its head rose further from the water, placing it alongside a broken hull. There wasn’t a lot of difference in size between them.

  The beast turned its ship-sized head towards her then, and their eyes and minds locked. Sammy gasped at the cold bloodlust projected towards her and her friends. This creature was an apex predator. There was no fear, no fury, just a calm and calculating motivation to kill. Louis and the karkadann were in its sights and it knew there was no escape.

  The head submerged.

  “It’s coming for us!” Sammy screamed.

  Hami sent bolts of lightning at the remaining ships, setting off a cacophony of explosions, but when he stopped nothing moved.

  “It’s coming!” Hami shouted.

  Eggie pitched and they changed direction.

  “Louis’s found something!” Mehrak shouted from the front balcony. “A sandbank. A wide one just below the surface. He’s heading for it now. The water should be too shallow for the leviathan to follow!”

  “How far?” Hami shouted back.

  “About two stadia!”

  Hami stared out across the water. He was breathing hard, his eyes wild.

  “We’re not going to make it, are we?” Leiss said. Voicing what Sammy could already surmise from Hami’s expression.

  “What about Calven?” Eva screamed. She seemed genuinely panicked for the first time. “We have to save him!”

  Trailing way behind, Eva’s karkadann, Bludget, was panicking and Calven appeared unable to calm her. The beast’s legs were churning water, and the rope was taut. Its flailing was slowing them down and Louis was having to drag them.

  “Calven!” Hami shouted. “You don’t have long. Don’t panic and do exactly as I tell you!”

  Calven stared back, his eyes wide and fearful, but he nodded and set his jaw.

  Hami fired a lightning blast into Bludget, where its neck met its shoulders. The karkadann screamed as a patch of hair and skin flapped open and blood gushed out of its neck. The terrified animal began thrashing harder. It roared in pain and panic.

  “Bludget!” Eva grabbed Hami by the throat, but he elbowed his way out of her grip.

  “I’m saving your friend’s life!” he growled. “So I’d appreciate you keeping your hands off me!”

  “By killing my karkadann?”

  Sammy couldn’t believe the calm manner in which he’d mortally wounded the animal. There’d been no hesitation, no weighing up options
. Bam. Sentenced to death.

  “Untie the saddle!” Hami shouted. “But keep hold of the rope. Whatever you do, don’t let go!”

  Calven fumbled with the rope, struggling to untie it. It had been pulled tight by Louis forging ahead and he couldn’t get it undone.

  A swell rose up in the distance behind the karkadann. A vast submarine mass, racing towards them, displacing water around it. The leviathan was coming, closing the gap unnaturally fast.

  Then it went under.

  “Use your blade!” Narok screamed.

  Calven unsheathed his sword as the top and lower jaws of the leviathan broke the surface either side of Bludget. Huge crocodile jaws that kept coming as rows of shark-like triangular teeth sawed their way out of the water.

  Calven gripped the rope with his free hand and slashed the knot with his sword. With a snap, he was yanked from his saddle as the huge jaws closed on Bludget and dragged the karkadann down.

  Sammy recoiled, but there was nothing to see. No gore or horror. No screaming. Leviathan and karkadann had gone.

  Calven remained, at the end of the rope, dragging through the water behind Narok and Indomit.

  Hami reached his hand out towards the flailing Marzban.

  Realising what he was doing, Sammy latched on to the rope and helped raise it from the water. The rope came up, arched over like a fisherman’s rod, Calven dangling from the end like a prize carp. They directed the rope over Indomit’s back and placed him in the saddle behind Narok.

  Hami’s plan had worked. Ending Bludget’s life had saved Calven’s. Maybe all of theirs. Sammy didn’t like it, but it had been effective. How did you reach a point in your own life when you could make snap decisions about ending something else’s?

  “Are we safe now?” she asked. Her voice cracked as she spoke. “I mean, the leviathan’s eaten now, right?”

  Hami said nothing. He pointed.

  Way off, a serrated ridge of vertebrae broke the surface, slithering snake-like through the water as it came at them.

  Hami began firing lightning bolts at it. Sammy instinctively joined in. Water exploded upwards with each blast. The leviathan writhed each time it was hit, but didn’t slow. Then it went under.