by John Bierce
Sabae flooded even more mana into her armor and blasted forwards dangerously fast.
The water was already growing murky with depth, so when she slammed into the adult serpent, she only had a moment’s notice from her eyes. She’d been watching the serpent carefully with her water affinity sense, however. At the last second, she flipped around and slammed into it with both feet, detonating the water armor around her legs as she did so.
The serpent was sent tumbling off course, and Dell slipped out of its mouth, floating limply in the water. She could see clouds of blood billowing from his leg.
The juveniles, apparently, could detect Dell’s blood too, because they’d turned upwards and were racing towards him.
Sabae accelerated down towards him, but the momentum she’d lost hitting the big serpent cost her most of her advantage in getting to him. The juvenile serpents were just feet away from him when she arrived.
She shifted her water armor from its chase spin pattern to a more combat focused spin pattern, then sent the first pair of juveniles tumbling away with a powerful water-burst from each arm.
That, unfortunately, sent her tumbling backward— she hadn’t had nearly enough experience using her magic underwater for her comfort, and this was her first ever underwater combat situation.
She frantically rolled to orient herself just as the next juvenile lunged for Dell.
Talia was pacing back and forth irritably when Hugh, Godrick, and Artur raced onto the deck. It probably hadn’t been more than a minute, and the rest of the water mages on board had already started looking for Sabae and Dell with their affinity senses, but it felt like it had been an eternity. Even Alustin, standing up in the rigging, was looking with his farseeing affinity, but it likely wouldn’t help much— he apparently had as much trouble seeing through water with it as he would with his eyes normally.
“What’s going on?” Hugh asked as he rushed over to her. “Where’s Sabae?”
For some reason, he was cradling that damn crystal spellbook in his arms. Irritably, she drew two of her daggers— the one Hugh had found for her in the dungeon with the kinetic anchor enchantment on it, along with the one carved out of dragonbone. For a moment it almost seemed like it was trembling in anticipation, but that was surely just her own nerves. There was nothing— nothing— Talia hated more than feeling helpless.
Talia scowled and pointed into the water. “Sea serpents took one of the Radhan boys,” she said. “Sabae went after him.”
“My brother’s name is Dell,” Yarra said, sounding offended.
“Hugh doesn’t know that, and it’s no time for introductions!” Talia snapped. “Keep looking.”
She felt her arm with the dagger tremble again, and an idea came to her.
“Hugh, your spellbook doesn’t need to breathe, right?” Talia said. “Send it down to look for them.”
Artur shook his head. “Bad idea. The pesky little book went an’ made itself sick, eatin’ somethin’ it shouldn’t a.”
Talia raised her eyebrows incredulously at that. “It did what?” she demanded.
Hugh shrugged and gave her an apologetic look. “It ate the journal Kanderon gave me to communicate with her,” he said.
Talia snarled in frustration and channeled mana into her dragonbone dagger, which burst into flame. She was about to release a few choice curse-words when she felt a curious buzzing in her hair.
Then the back of her head decided to catch on fire explosively, sending her flying face-first into the deck.
Rather than try and blast the juvenile serpent out of the way, Sabae sent a water-strike towards Dell. Not a strong one, but enough to send him tumbling out of the serpent’s path. She rapidly switched her armor back to her chase spin pattern, and shot after him.
She barely reached Dell before another juvenile did, grabbing him around the waist with an impact that sent them both tumbling wildly through the water. She cursed as the water blasting off her arms exacerbated the tumbling even more, and quickly switched to a combat spin pattern again.
Another juvenile rushed her, jaws agape. Sabae frantically twisted her legs into position, pulling as much water as she could into the armor spinning around them.
Just as the juvenile began to close its jaws around her feet, she detonated the water armor around her feet as hard as she could. The juvenile simply exploded from the inside out, and Sabae and Dell were sent jetting away from the cloud of gore.
As Sabae got their motion under control, she took a moment to take stock of their situation. Her heart was racing and her muscles were already screaming, and it was starting to get harder to breathe the air she’d brought down with her. Dell wasn’t moving at all, but she didn’t have time to check for a pulse.
The scattered juveniles were regrouping to come after her again, and the adult was recovering from her attack, and was turning back towards her.
Sabae made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat and rapidly began pulling more water into her spinning armor. Her mana reservoir, already heavily depleted, began draining even faster.
She carefully adjusted her grip on Dell, then envisioned a spellform in her mind’s eye.
Other than cantrips and healing spells, Sabae seldom used spellforms these days— most of her magic involved completely spellformless casting. This wind spell, however, was absolutely essential if she wanted to survive the next few seconds— or, for that matter, if she wanted Dell to survive.
If he even was alive.
It wasn’t a spell that she’d learned at Skyhold, either— this one was a spell taught to all Kaen Das mages who went to sea.
The juveniles were only a few feet away when she reached the limit of how much water her armor could hold. The enraged adult serpent wasn’t far behind them. She’d pulled Dell partially into her armor, at least as much as she could without disrupting its spin.
Sabae took one final deep breath, flooded the spellform in her mind’s eye with mana, and detonated her water armor downward. Not just the water around her legs, but all of it. The remainder of her air even went with it in a cascade of bubbles.
They blasted upwards faster than Sabae had ever moved in the water before. She almost lost her grip on Dell, and she was fairly sure that she’d sprained something in her shoulder. Behind her, she could feel the juveniles go tumbling through the water with her water affinity sense, and farther back she could feel the adult racing upwards.
She switched her armor into chase mode almost immediately, and the spin began accelerating her upwards before she could lose much of her momentum.
The spellform in her mind’s eye was draining mana from her wind reservoir at a truly terrifying rate. It was her largest reservoir by far, however, given how much more she’d used it than the other three, so she shouldn’t be overly worried about it running out. Still, she couldn’t help but be nervous— she’d heard countless horror stories about what could happen to mages that ascended through water too quickly without its protection. It curdled your blood, somehow, turning the air you’d breathed into your lungs and veins toxic. If the spell failed, she and Dell would die a gruesome death, even ignoring the sea serpents.
The adult sea serpent’s pace while swimming with Dell in its mouth turned out to have been a leisurely swim for it— it was swimming faster than anything else she’d ever sensed in the water, and despite her absurd speed, it was steadily gaining on her.
Sabae’s heart was pounding and her body was struggling with her lack of air as the water around her lightened. She could feel her whole body trembling, and her lungs ached as they demanded she take a breath.
When she erupted from the waves into the air at speed, her armor collapsed entirely, as did the spellform. She tried to spin up wind armor, but she couldn’t focus between gasping for breath as she and Dell hurtled skyward.
Below her, the surface erupted in spray as the sea serpent launched itself into the air, its jaws agape. Sabae frantically tried to summon her wind armor, only to have her grip on bot
h her magic and Dell fail entirely.
She reached the pinnacle of her ascent and began to fall straight downward towards the serpent.
Sabae took a deep breath and closed her eyes, hoping her death would be a quick one.
Even through her closed lids, the light that followed was blinding.
Her fall began to slow, then she came to a stop entirely, floating in midair.
She blinked the afterimages away, then swiveled, where she spotted Dell hanging beside her. She kept turning and spotted, nearly a full ship’s length away, the Rising Cormorant.
Hugh was standing at the stern railing, waving at her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Destructive Resonance
Several Radhan sailors carefully guided Dell onto the deck as Hugh levitated them in. The ship’s healer was already examining his injuries before he even touched the deck.
Hugh carefully looked Sabae over as he guided her in. She seemed exhausted, but he didn’t see any visible injuries.
Sabae staggered as she landed, and Hugh caught her— with his arms, this time, not a spell.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Sabae said raggedly. “Just exhausted.”
They embraced for a long, quiet moment. Hugh was just barely tall enough to see over her shoulder, where a water mage was drawing seawater out of Dell’s lungs while the healer worked on his leg.
“Hey Hugh?” Sabae said quietly.
“Yes?” he asked.
“If I ever catch you talking badly about yourself again, I’ll beat you till you’re more bruise than not. I literally can’t even count how many times you’ve saved my life now,” she said.
“You’ve saved my life before too,” Hugh said. “I don’t…”
Sabae squeezed him a little harder. “Till you’re more bruise than not,” she repeated.
Hugh felt a smile work its way onto his face.
“Thanks, Sabae,” he said quietly.
They stepped apart, and Hugh’s smile turned into a smirk. “Even if you’re turning into Talia.”
Sabae rolled her eyes at him, and sent a lazy punch his way that he easily dodged.
Then his smile vanished. “Oh, crap, Talia!”
He grabbed Sabae’s hand and dragged her back towards the prow.
“What’s going on?” Sabae asked. “What happened to Talia?”
“I have no idea,” Hugh said. “Her hair just kind of randomly exploded when we brought my spellbook near her.”
“What?” Sabae demanded, as she stumbled and almost fell on a coil of rope.
“I don’t know!” Hugh said. “The healer stopped the worst of the bleeding, and the others are looking her over right now.”
They got to the prow, where a small crowd was gathered.
“Uhhh… pardon me,” Hugh said, awkwardly shuffling at the edge.
Sabae rolled her eyes at him.
“Hey!” she shouted. “We saved Dell. He’s back towards the stern!”
Most of the Radhan immediately headed towards the back of the ship.
“How did you know I was coming up behind the stern?” Sabae asked.
Hugh shrugged, feeling a little awkward still. “Most of the water mages on board were watching for you with their affinity senses. They tried to stop the ship as fast as possible, but we figured we’d still passed you by, so I waited at the stern for you. They also let me know you were being chased by the serpent, so I got the starbolt ready.”
Sabae started to say something, but was interrupted by two of the Radhan nearly tackling her with hugs. Hugh recognized them as the boy and girl Talia had been waiting with.
“You saved my brother,” the girl said.
“You’re amazing,” the boy said simultaneously.
Both showered her with further praise for a little while longer, then each kissed her on a cheek and were gone.
Sabae just stood there blankly, slightly in shock.
“I think you have some admirers,” Hugh said.
“Um,” Sabae said.
“Don’t get greedy, though,” Hugh said.
“Uh,” Sabae said.
Hugh rolled his eyes, then led her over to where the others were clustered around Talia, who was sitting slumped on the deck, staring at her own lap. He carefully stepped over the piles of wooden coins lying everywhere as Godrick and Artur made room for them.
“Ow,” Talia said. “Ow, ow, ow!”
Talia was in rough shape. The healer had reset and healed her broken nose before Sabae had retrieved Dell, but blood still caked her mouth. Her hair was a charred mess, with big clumps of it simply gone. Her blue spellform tattoos extended all the way across her scalp underneath her hair. There were bleeding wounds in her scalp cutting through the tattoos. Alustin was picking bits of metal out of the gashes, an irritated look on his face.
“Can I help somehow?” Sabae asked. “I do have a healing affinity, after all…”
Alustin shot her a flat look as his storage tattoo lit up on his arm.
“What have your healing instructors told you about head wounds?” he asked, pulling a sheet of paper from midair.
Sabae sighed. “Don’t do anything until you’re a fully trained healer. You’re more likely to hurt the patient than help.”
Alustin nodded. “Go back over to the healer. See if she needs any help with the Radhan boy. We need her back here as quickly as possible, with as much mana left in her reservoirs as possible. Oh, and congratulations on saving him, and I’m glad you’re safe, Sabae.”
Sabae gave Alustin a look that seemed almost suspicious to Hugh, then nodded and left.
“Have you figured out what happened yet?” Hugh asked.
Alustin yanked another bit of metal out of Talia’s scalp, then turned towards Godrick.
“Could you do something about the smell of burnt hair?” he asked.
Godrick, who was still cradling Hugh’s spellbook, just nodded, but the smell immediately started to diminish, replaced by the smell of… fresh bread?
Alustin turned back to Talia’s scalp. “Yes, Hugh, I believe I have figured it out. Talia, were your hairpins enchanted?”
“They could turn into lockpicks,” Talia said. “Godrick gave them to me.”
“And you had how many of them in your hair?” Alustin asked.
“…five?” Talia said.
Alustin sighed. “And how many other enchanted items did you have on you?”
Talia winced as Alustin yanked another fragment of hairpin out of her scalp.
“Two enchanted daggers and a couple magic needles in the backs of my shoes,” Talia said.
Alustin exchanged an exasperated look with Artur.
“Resonance cascade?” the huge stone mage asked.
Alustin nodded. “Resonance cascade.”
“Resonance cascade?” Godrick asked.
“A chain reaction in the aether between enchanted items that can cause them to fail catastrophically, often triggered by having too many in close proximity,” Alustin said. “How many enchanted items do you think I carry with me?”
Talia shrugged.
“Just two,” Alustin said. “I have plenty of papers inscribed with glyphs, and my extra-spatial storage tattoo, but my only actual enchanted items are my sword and the book I use to communicate with Kanderon and the other Librarians Errant. Artur?”
“Mah hammer, a ring that filters poisons, an’, well, one other,” Artur said. “Ah’ve got ta keep some secrets.”
Hugh realized that he’d never actually seen Artur carrying his hammer outside battle. Did he have a storage tattoo like Alustin? The big stone mage wore three rings— one of bronze, one of stone, and one of iron. He assumed one had to be the poison-filtering ring— was one of the other two enchanted?
Alustin turned back to Talia. “I specifically warned you, I believe, about carrying too many enchanted items.”
“You told me that they could interfere with each others’s function, not that they would ju
st randomly explode,” Talia said. She sounded angry and miserable, but also a bit off, somehow.
“Enchanted items exploding is a rather… extreme outcome,” Alustin admitted. “In this case, it was most likely triggered by your large number of enchanted items in proximity to Hugh’s spellbook suffering gastric distress. Especially if you were using any of them. It probably set off a cascading resonance between your enchanted items.”
“That spellbook is the worst, and I hate it,” Talia said.
Hugh frowned. Talia was definitely slurring her words. He crouched down to take a closer look at her.
“It wouldn’t have been a problem if you’d been careful enough to listen to my advice,” Alustin said. “Just be thankful it was your weakest enchanted items that detonated. It usually is during a resonance cascade, but on rare occasions it can detonate a more powerful item. One of your daggers would have killed you for sure, and if it had been a more powerful magic item, like my sword, it could have torn the entire ship into splinters. A enchantment on the scale of Grovebringer or some of the other truly powerful items out there could level a large village.”
“Is your sword really Helicotan?” Talia asked, looking up at Alustin. “Are you really Helicotan?”
“Hold still,” Alustin snapped at her. Then he sighed, and continued in a calmer tone. “And I don’t like to talk about it, but yes, I am. And I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to cut your hair off entirely. It’s too thick for me to get all of the shards out, and it’s definitely not safe to remove the shards with magic or heal you with them still in.”
“What? No!” Talia said, struggling away from Alustin. She lost her balance immediately, and Hugh barely caught her in time with his magic.
Hugh briefly considered how odd it was that his first reaction was now to catch someone with his magic and not his arms, but most of his attention was fixed on Talia’s eyes.
“Alustin,” Hugh said, alarmed, “Talia’s eyes aren’t focusing right.”