by J. A. White
“I know how to save Father,” Kara said.
With a shout of unbridled joy Taff leaped onto his cot, jumping up and down so high his head almost touched the ceiling. “Yes!” he exclaimed. “Yes! We’re going to be a family again!” Kara watched this impromptu celebration with a mixture of happiness, for the sight of her brother’s smiling face had never failed to warm her heart, and dread, for she knew what she had to tell him next.
Taff fell backward onto her lap, his legs dangling across the cot. Kara pushed his hair back so she could look into his eyes.
“There’s no reason to celebrate,” Kara said. “This isn’t a matter of snapping your fingers and everything is okay again. It’s going to be incredibly dangerous. And it might not even work.”
Taff waved her concerns away.
“You saved our village from a powerful witch. You freed the people of Kala Malta from Sordyr. You restored the Thickety. I’m not worried. Whatever we have to do, we’ll do it. Together.”
Kara pushed Taff into a sitting position and turned on the floor to face him. She took a long, steady breath, unsure how to begin.
Just tell him everything at once. Like swallowing a thimbleful of medicine.
“We need to enter the Well of Witches.”
Taff looked surprised, maybe even a little unsettled, but hardly terrified. Of course, he hadn’t been there when Aunt Abby’s grimoire opened up. He hadn’t seen the witches reach through the portal and drag Grace into their world. He hadn’t heard their voices: One of us, one of us, one of us.
Kara had seen it all. She was terrified enough for both of them.
“But the only way to get into Phadeen is by using the last page in a grimoire, right?” Taff asked. “That doesn’t seem like a very good plan.”
“There’s another way, according to Sordyr. An entrance that only wexari know.”
“He told you that before we left?”
Kara shook her head. “He wrote it down.”
The former Forest Demon—now just a man—had penned Kara a lengthy letter to help answer some of her questions about Rygoth and the world. Taff hadn’t read any of it. For all his intelligence, he had always struggled with reading. Sordyr’s cramped, antiquated handwriting—coupled with the nonstop rocking of the ship—had not helped matters.
“What did he say?” Taff asked.
“Sordyr writes about a place called Sablethorn, which is where he was trained to be a wexari. It was a school, just like back on De’Noran, only instead of studying about letters and numbers they studied magic.”
“That sounds a lot more interesting,” mumbled Taff.
“The headmaster was a man named Minoth Dravania, and he was the greatest of all wexari. Sablethorn was a place of peace and knowledge.”
Kara’s gaze went distant as she imagined what it might have been like to be a wexari studying in Sablethorn, how different her life would have been had she grown up during that time.
“As the years passed,” Kara continued, “Minoth became worried that his students were becoming too distracted by worldly affairs to gain mastery over their craft. So, using his great magic, he created a paradise just ‘outside the world,’ as Sordyr put it, where wexari could study undisturbed. There were gardens and mountains, waterfalls and rushing rivers. Sordyr said that there had never been a more beautiful place.”
“What does that have to do with—”
“Minoth Dravania had a name for this paradise. He called it Phadeen.”
Taff scrunched his face in confusion. Phadeen and the Well of Witches were supposed to be the same place. That’s why the terms were used interchangeably.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “Is Phadeen the pretty place with the gardens or the scary place with the witches?”
“Both. Princess Evangeline’s Last Spell corrupted the paradise built by Minoth and transformed it into the Well of Witches. But the entrance to the original Phadeen still remains in Sablethorn. Sordyr thinks we can use it to get inside. A lot safer than going through a grimoire, at least.”
Taff picked up a toy arrow and spun it in his hands. Fluid as black as a grave beetle’s carapace sloshed inside the sphere at its end, reminding Kara of the venom they had retrieved from Niersook.
“So if we find this Sablethorn school, we can get into the place that used to be Phadeen but is now the Well of Witches.”
“Exactly.”
“But why are we going in the first place? What could possibly be there that could help Father? There’s nothing but . . .”
He paused, comprehension dawning.
“Grace,” he whispered.
Kara nodded.
“Only the witch who cast a Last Spell can reverse it,” she said. “It has to be her.”
“But she’s dead.”
“Not according to Sordyr. Only trapped.”
“It doesn’t matter. Even if we find her, she’s not going to help us. She’s evil.”
“I didn’t say it was a perfect plan, but it’s Father’s only chance. Grace isn’t just going to volunteer to undo her spell. You’re right about that. But we have something very important that we can exchange for her cooperation. In fact, it’s what she wants more than anything else in the world.”
“What’s that?”
“Her freedom,” Kara said. She inhaled deeply before speaking again. “We’re going to help Grace escape the Well of Witches. And in return she’s going to give us our father back.”
Before Taff could respond, something broadsided the ship with a thunderous crash. There was no warning, no time to prepare. Kara’s shoulder slammed into the wooden frame of the cot. Her teeth clacked together painfully.
“What was—” Taff began, and the ship was struck again, harder this time. For a brief moment Kara felt a feeling of weightlessness, her entire body floating through the air, and then she crashed to the suddenly canted floor. The two Westfalls slid and rolled and slammed into the opposite wall. The floor stabilized and they rose to their feet, unharmed save for some nicks and bruises, bracing themselves for the next strike. A sound that Kara at first took to be rushing water rose from the deck above them, except as the ringing in her head cleared she realized that it wasn’t water at all.
It was screaming.
Taff tossed the rest of the magical toys into his sack while Kara grabbed her satchel. The two children made their way toward the upper deck through a tide of people rushing in the opposite direction. Most were silent, their energy focused on escaping as quickly as possible. “What is it?” Kara asked, and an old woman with a star-shaped birthmark just above her upper lip muttered, “Monster, monster . . .”
These are survivors of the Thickety. They’ve spent their entire lives surrounded by monsters. What could frighten them so?
She soon found out.
Those brave enough to remain on the upper deck had taken up spears and swords and were attempting to hold back a beast unlike anything Kara had ever seen. Even with the rest of its amorphous body hidden beneath the ocean waves, the creature towered over the ship. From a dozen appendages protruded polyps of every imaginable color and shape, some ridged and bulbous, like mushrooms, others short and spiky. It looked like an underwater mountain come to life, awoken from its immateriality by some sort of dark magic.
“Rygoth,” Kara said.
The creature lifted one of its limbs high into the air, slow and languid, and brought it crashing down across the bow of the ship.
The deck pitched upward. Kara snatched Taff by the elbow and grabbed the nearest guardrail before she lost her footing. A burly man slid past them, scratching for purchase at the surface of the deck. Before he slipped overboard, gravity pulled the ship level again. Frigid water crashed over the railing, chilling Kara’s ankles.
“How do we stop it?” Taff asked.
Kara’s first instinct, honed from months of practice in the Thickety, was to build a mind-bridge with the creature. She was in the midst of considering possible ways to do so—it must be lo
nely from all that time spent in the ocean depths, so perhaps a memory of companionship and warmth—before quickly realizing that there was no point. Her magic was gone.
She had never felt more helpless in her life.
Another appendage crashed into the ship. Kara heard a terrible cracking sound from somewhere deep within the bowels of the ship, a mortal wound. The deck did not right itself perfectly this time but remained tilted upward at a slight angle.
“Hurry!” Kara exclaimed, grabbing her brother’s hand.
They wove through grim-looking men and women holding swords and spears that were as useless as toothpicks against such a mammoth foe. Taff, having abandoned his wooden sword back in Kala Malta, withdrew the slingshot he now wore on his belt and fired at the beast as they ran. Kara heard an invisible stone clink off its body and bounce ineffectually into the ocean.
As they passed directly in front of the beast, a single, translucent hole opened in its chest, revealing a cornea of starry night. At first Kara thought it was an eye, but then the top and bottom moved in a terrible mockery of lips.
“Kara,” said a familiar voice. “There you are.”
Rygoth.
She was speaking through the monster somehow, her tone whisper-soft yet louder than a thousand screams.
“Do you like my latest creation?” she asked. “I call him Coralis. Perhaps I needn’t have made something so grand, but I thought I owed you a memorable end, at least. And I do so enjoy using my powers now that I’m free.” Her voice, which had been flitting and playful, dropped to a colder, more serious tone. “You shouldn’t have followed me, wexari. I would have left you alone, had you stayed on the island.”
“You stole my magic.”
“Your magic was wasted on you,” Rygoth said. “You were never strong enough to wield it.”
Kara felt her lip began to tremble and hated herself for it.
“Oh,” Rygoth said, “I’ve hit the mark, haven’t I? You understand. You’re not worthy of such power. You never were. And yet despite all that, I permitted you to live. And you disrespect that gift by attempting to interfere in my plans. My children informed me the moment you left the shore. All the animals of the sea and land are my eyes, girl. Did you really think you could pursue me unnoticed?”
“I’m going to—” Kara said, the tears coming freely now. “I won’t let you—”
Rygoth’s laugh rippled through Coralis’s body. “Didn’t anyone teach you not to make empty promises? Oh—I suppose not. Your mother, no doubt, died before she could impart any valuable lessons. And your father—well, he wants you dead as much as I do. Poor, powerless Kara. Since you refused to accept my gift of life, allow me to give you another gift instead.”
Coralis swung an arm downward and Kara braced herself, excepting another devastating blow, but the limb stopped before it struck the ship and hovered little more than a stone’s throw from Kara’s head. From this distance she was able to see the shells and polyps that composed Coralis’s body up close, their swirls and colors lacking only a different context to be beautiful.
A tentacle with serrated edges poked out from between the inner folds of Coralis’s torso. Here comes the attack, Kara thought, but she was wrong again. The tentacle did not seem nearly long enough to reach them, and instead of striking the ship it slashed at the appendage hovering over her head, at the point where it met Coralis’s body. The giant creature rocked back and forth in apparent pain but continued to strike itself until finally, with a burst of ermine fluid, the limb was cut free from its body and fell.
Kara dove out of the way as shards of wood exploded into the air.
The severed appendage stretched across the length of the deck. A salty smell pervaded the air, like the sea but older somehow, and rank. Kara and Taff approached cautiously, along with the remaining members of the crew. Kara saw Captain Clement glare in her direction, as though this had all been her fault from the very beginning.
Taff drew back the pocket of his slingshot.
The limb began to move.
It wasn’t the movement of something alive, exactly, but the pulsating shudder of an object containing living things inside it. A spider sack full of hatching eggs. A corpse ballooning with maggots.
From within the shells, creatures emerged.
An older crewman who had gotten too close found himself suddenly face-to-face with a crablike monster as large as a child. It had six claws in all, four on which it walked, spreading them open and closed for balance as needed, and two for pure violence. It attacked the crewman, snapping off his forearm as easily as cutting thread.
“Shunings!” Captain Clement exclaimed.
Kara had never seen a shuning up close, but she knew what they were; on rare occasions one of the deep-ocean dwellers, no doubt lost and disoriented, had made its way onto the shore of De’Noran. The moment it was sighted someone would ring the alarm, bringing dozens of well-armed graycloaks. Eventually, through the use of nets and spears, the single shuning would be killed, though it often took a few men with it.
Kara now saw at least a dozen of the creatures clicking their way from the folds of the severed limb.
Taff fired his slingshot at an approaching shuning, and one of its claws bent back at an impossible angle. It scuttled away in the opposite direction.
“I need to get up higher,” Taff said. “I’ll be able to pick them off.”
“No!” Kara shouted, grabbing his arm.
“I can help! One of us has to do something.”
The implication of his words fell heavily between them.
Because you can’t help at all.
“Kara . . .”
“Be careful,” she said, releasing his arm.
Higher ground will be safer anyway. I doubt these creatures can climb ladders.
Taff quickly vanished into the mill of moving figures attempting to fight off the vicious beasts. Kara saw a short-haired woman drive her spear through the unarmored joint of a shuning, pinning it to the deck. Before she could withdraw her weapon, however, a second shuning was upon her, and then a third, and the woman disappeared from view.
Someone grasped Kara’s shoulders and spun her around. She found herself inches away from Captain Clement’s furious face.
“Help us, witch!” he screamed, shaking her. As he spoke, blood curled down the side of his face and into his mouth. “My people are dying! Do something!”
She felt movement against her leg and screamed as a shuning opened its claws, preparing to snap them together just below her knee. Captain Clement kicked the creature and it skidded across the deck. He raised his sword, ready to pursue it, but paused a moment to look back at Kara.
“Worthless,” he muttered.
He’s right. There’s nothing I can do to help them.
Despite the sounds of violence surrounding her, the desperate scrambling of people fighting madly for their lives, a sudden weariness settled over Kara.
She fell to her knees.
Just a little rest. There’s nothing I can do anyway.
“Kara,” someone said.
It was a girl’s voice. A voice she recognized.
“Safi?”
At first she thought she was imagining things, but turning to her left she saw that Safi was indeed standing next to her, the familiar dark skin and sharp green eyes, hair tangled and unkempt.
“How are you here?” Kara asked.
“Later,” Safi said. She managed a small smile and pointed at Coralis. “I think we should worry about the giant monster first.”
With long, fine fingers she snatched the grimoire from Kara’s satchel and entered the fray, the book already open before her. A shuning charged in her direction, but Safi spoke a few words and the creature flew into the air and over the side of the ship as though caught in its own personal tornado. Safi spoke again and a second shuning spun upward and shattered against the mast of the ship. Shards of black shell clacked to the deck like hail.
Kara followed in Safi’s w
ake as she continued her rampage, eliminating one creature after another. She must have been hiding on this ship the entire time. That’s the only thing that makes sense. But if she knew I stole her grimoire, why didn’t she try to take it back before this?
An explosion of brilliant fire lit the night sky.
The world sharpened and Coralis wobbled backward, its appendages flailing high in the air as it tried to regain its balance. A second explosion, this one even brighter than the first, struck it high upon its torso, and Coralis fell into the ocean. The ship rose on a massive wave. Kara was certain it would capsize this time for sure, but she heard Safi scream a long string of indecipherable words and the ship suddenly straightened, as though a giant hand had reached down from the sky and steadied it.
The remaining crew and passengers of the Wayfinder cheered in triumph.
At the center of them all stood Safi, the grimoire now closed in her hands. They clapped her on the back, threw their arms around her slender shoulders. Taff rushed over, the slingshot dangling from his hand, and hugged her tightly. There would be time for explanations later; right now he was just happy to see his lost friend.
Kara made her way to the edge of the ship, where the ocean stretched out in every direction beneath clouds as wispy as frayed cotton. The sun just now rising over the horizon streaked the darkness with early-morning hues. It was a gorgeous sight—a magical sight—but it did little to brighten Kara’s spirits.
If it weren’t for Safi, everyone on this ship would be dead right now. And it would be my fault. I’m the one Rygoth wants. I’m the reason she attacked us. And there was nothing I could do to stop her!
How can I defeat Rygoth? How can I save Father?
I’m nothing without magic.
Nothing.
At a feast in her honor, Safi told Captain Clement that she had snuck aboard the Wayfinder in order to help Kara and Taff pursue Rygoth. “I knew they’d need me,” Safi said, “but I also knew that my father would never let me go. It was the only way.” The other adults at the table, still in awe over Safi’s defeat of Coralis, readily accepted this story as fact. Kara didn’t blame them. It sounded convincing enough and, as with all the best lies, it held a kernel of truth. When the children retired to their cabin that night, however, Kara sent Taff for water and extra blankets and took a seat opposite the girl.