Voyage of the Elawn

by Ted Neill

  Their mistresses gone, the Furies followed with dogged determination, crossing the antechamber with speed that belied the heavy material they were made from. Adamantus entered the maze at a lopsided gallop. The numbers they passed were not in the correct sequence.

  “You’re going the wrong way!” Gabriella said.

  “I know, but the traps might be our only allies in this chase.”

  A tile slid downward under the weight of Adamantus’ hoof. The entire floor shifted to a sharp angle. At the farthest end, where a less sure-footed victim would have slid, a forest of spikes shot down from the ceiling, creating a wall that frustrated the Furies.

  Nicomedes had helped them again.

  With the statues prisoners behind bars, Falik waved his arms like a field commander, and Alkeron and Catab disappeared to either side.

  Adamantus did not head directly towards the bridge leading to the first half of the maze as the Furies might have anticipated. Instead, he cut an erratic path, tripping traps and sending them in confused directions. It was a deadly game of hide-and-seek.

  The maze continued to aid them. Catab was caught with a hook that swung him against a wall. Alkeron was punted across a room by a hammer. Darts bounced off the Furies’ stony forms, raising up dust clouds from their pocked bodies.

  Catab and Alkeron were conspicuous in their pursuit, but Falik was more elusive. Once or twice Gabriella saw him, and a few times Adamantus claimed he had when Gabriella had not. She became disoriented in the maze. Adamantus galloped into another room and came to a skidding stop as two doors snapped open and a contraption rolled out. A web of iron arms holding swords unfolded from the machine’s body, a blooming steel flower. Adamantus ducked the swing of a sword. Immediately after, he caught the thrust of another on his antlers. The impact jarred Gabriella. Adamantus’ wounded leg gave way beneath him, and Gabriella nearly rolled to the floor. The elk retreated and nudged her back into place with his head. Falik leapt through one of the adjacent doorways.

  “The Furies are getting closer!” Gabriella gasped.

  Adamantus turned and ran for the doorway on the left as Catab bore down on them. Adamantus bounded to the right. A tile in the next room released another iron contraption, this one free of blades but covered with blunt rams. Set on wheels, it rolled about with amazing speed, turning unexpectedly and crashing into the wall. It switched directions again, only to abruptly turn once more and crash into the edge of a doorway. As Catab rushed into the room, the ramming machine spun around and knocked him against a wall, cracks spreading through his body.

  Adamantus turned for another doorway, but the sword machine blocked his way, waving its blades like a nightmarish octopus. The elk picked another room, but Alkeron appeared in the doorway.

  With the legs of a raptor, Alkeron launched himself across the room. Gabriella held tightly to Adamantus’ fur as the elk changed directions once more. He dodged a swing from Catab’s slashing claw—the Fury reached from where he was pinned against the wall by the ram and managed to lop off a length of Gabriella’s hair. Adamantus rushed for the closest door. The ramming machine spun around after them.

  “It’s going to hit us!” Gabriella cried out and braced herself. The machine reached the doorway right after them, hitting Adamantus’ hind legs with its rams just before it collided with the doorframe, splintering the bricks all around it.

  Adamantus stumbled into the next room, his hoof inadvertently landing on another trick tile. More doors snapped open, and two more ramming machines were released. The elk danced sideways through the door on their right.

  Falik waited for them in the center of the next room. He stomped down on a tile with his boar’s legs. There was a whoosh over their heads as a saw blade sliced the air above the elk’s antlers. Adamantus ducked and lost his footing, crashing them both to the ground. They rolled across the floor just as the doorway behind them shattered.

  This time bricks and mortar could not hold the ramming machine, which came careening across the room at Falik. With the saw blade that the Fury had set off hovering over his own head now, Falik was forced to dart into the far corner to avoid the machine. It gave Gabriella opportunity to remount Adamantus and flee into the next room.

  There was no hiding the desperation in their flight now. The traps were compounding as each machine depressed tiles that released others. A mechanized cart full of lumber saws rolled through the rooms chopping down invisible trees. A metal scorpion leapt from the ceiling and came scuttling after the elk and Gabriella, swinging a tail of razors above its head. Another mechanized cart, this one with a massive rolling pin in front of it, coasted through another room, darts and spikes bouncing off it harmlessly.

  With so many machines loose, the maze was crowded with devices of death, the contraptions raising a loud metal clamor. Gabriella was not sure which machines Adamantus had released, which the Furies had released, or which had been released by other machines. The maze had not been designed for so many intruders at once. It was slipping out of control into a surreal nightmare. Walls were crumbling. Machines were attacking other machines. A centaur-like figure on stilts swung a metal head full of spikes. A moving suit of armor hacked at one of the Furies with an ax. Two battering rams collided and exploded in a spray of bolts and springs. A mechanical bull crashed into the flower of swords. Rooms and doorways passed in a blur. There was no time for Adamantus to read numbers or look for the x’s Mortimer had left behind.

  Adamantus halted suddenly, dragging his feet across the tiles as they slid towards a doorway into nothingness. Gabriella felt herself flung forward and slipped halfway around the elk’s neck. She knew exactly where they were now. The doorways of the front half of the maze faced them over the chasm.

  The bridge was five or six rooms to their left, and tossing Gabriella onto his back, Adamantus whirled and galloped toward the crossing. Then he stopped, their path to safety blocked by Falik. The fury had beaten them there. He stood in the center of the room of carvings, his hood spread wide, his forked tongue making a grinding noise as it slid across his stone lips.

  Despite the din, they could hear Catab behind them, his lumbering footsteps moving closer. Alkeron, wrestling with the iron scorpion, thrust the machine away and turned towards Gabriella and Adamantus. Garmr, too quick to be caught, barreled his way past spikes, saws, hammers, and machines toward them.

  Three of four doorways open to Adamantus and Gabriella were blocked by their foes. The fourth led to an impossible drop.

  “This must be how it feels to have the noose close,” Gabriella said. Adamantus twisted his body around once more and faced the last doorway—the one leading to the chasm. He stepped backwards.

  “Adamantus, what are you doing?”

  The elk was silent. He continued to walk backwards. Gabriella watched as Alkeron neared from behind. She repeated her question, louder this time. Adamantus was backed into the doorway now. Alkeron swung the crushed metal scorpion over his head like a club. Garmr crept closer. The elk stretched his legs, shaking out his injured one.

  “Hold on.” He sprinted forward past Catab and Falik. The air rushed past Gabriella’s ears in a powerful wind. Her hair was flung back. The doorway stood open before them. Adamantus’ crown of antlers danced before her eyes. They passed beneath the keystone. Then the clatter of Adamantus’ hooves on stone went silent as they floated into the abyss. The stream passed under them, a glittering thread, a snail’s trail, far below.

  The far wall receded as the lip of stone, the edge of the opposite doorway, hovered tantalizingly close. But even as it grew larger, it also grew higher—they were falling. Gabriella closed her eyes. They would miss it.

  Adamantus’ body shook with sudden impact. His hooves skidded across stone. Gabriella felt her elbows scrape and her legs twist uncomfortably beneath her, but never had she been so grateful to slam down against a floor. They both tumbled over and came to a stop in the center of the room, breathing hard. The elk was too out of breath to notice the sou
nd of the covers sliding off the small openings in the wall, but Gabriella grabbed the fur of the elk’s neck and pulled downward.

  Darts whistled and clanged into his antlers, two falling harmlessly to the ground, others striking the far wall. A second set of doors slid open, and Gabriella heard the sound of air sucked into bellows. She pulled the elk down again as the next salvo fired from the far wall. A flock of darts soared across the room into the chasm—the chasm which the Furies now leapt. Gabriella knew it was too late. They could not get up from the floor in time for a final run.

  Then a stroke of fortune. Stone was not as light as flesh and blood. Alkeron was the first to leap the crevasse, and even with all of the momentum built from his straight sprint up the hall, he fell well short. His flailing form, still wielding the crushed scorpion, disappeared. Catab, in the air just behind him, fell even shorter, disappearing into the abyss.

  Falik appeared on the far ledge. She remembered the agility he had exhibited before, and now it served him well. He leapt the length of the chasm with ease, landing firmly behind them. Adamantus shifted to get up, but his injured leg betrayed him and he collapsed. It was Gabriella who was on her feet first, placing herself between the elk and the Fury. She knew her actions were futile, but she also knew she could not run and abandon Adamantus here.

  Falik spread his hood wide like a snake about to strike. He turned his head sideways, as if perplexed by Gabriella’s determination. But his curiosity passed, and he stepped into the room, his mouth open to show his fangs.

  Then he exploded. Gabriella fell backwards, stone and dust peppering her body. Adamantus shifted to catch her on his side. She opened her eyes and wiped away the dust. Stone beat on stone. A great mass of it bit and chomped away at what was left of Falik. It was Garmr. He, too, had cleared the chasm, but his hind legs hung off the ledge. His forepaws wrapped around Falik. The Fury attempted to beat at the dog, but his left arm had been shattered by the collision and his legs smashed into gravel.

  They were just stone, Gabriella reflected, and yet their personalities were true to form—the Furies bent on the destruction of those that crossed them, and Garmr seeking revenge for his own torment. Falik’s intact right arm gripping the doorway was the only thing keeping both of them from falling into the chasm. Garmr struck it with his paw. When that did not loosen Falik’s hold, Garmr chomped down with a vengeance.

  Falik’s arm turned to powder in the dog’s strong teeth.

  Both statues slipped over the side. Nothing was left behind but bits of stone and dust.

  Chapter 21

  Mage Fire

  Now Gabriella and Adamantus could follow the line of x’s that Mortimer had left behind. Gabriella briefly thought about the creature following them before they reached the treasure house, hoping it had been scared away by the noise and commotion. Wherever it was, she felt no more fear of it. She had run out of the emotion. She was numb. It could have leapt out at her with eight eyes and razor claws. Weary as she was, she doubted she would flinch.

  They reached the entrance chamber, Adamantus still limping. When Gabriella saw the twisted and crushed door, she felt grateful to the mother wyvern, and then she burned with shame. She could not bring herself to find the broken egg. Two wild creatures of terrible beauty, mother and offspring, were now gone because of her. She and Adamantus slipped out through the destroyed doors, which glowed with heat left from the mother’s fire. The air shimmered like the outside of a kiln.

  All the shrubs on the outside of the entrance had been burned to nothingness. Rocks were blackened and melted. The mother wyvern was nowhere in sight. She must have been trapped in the collapsing treasure house, Gabriella thought. At least, in death, buried beneath the rubble, the dragon would be released from her sadness. Too many had suffered as a result of this trip, she reflected. She just wanted to go home.

  They shuffled along the edge of the cliff. To her relief, Gabriella found Dameon waiting near the Elawn. He was leaning against the tree that the ship was moored to, his hand resting on the line. Upon seeing Gabriella he grabbed the edge of her shirt, but he did not know what to do next. He kept his eyes focused on the empty space behind her. He shook his hand anxiously, tapping Gabriella through her clothing. It was the closest she would come to getting a hug from her brother.

  “I’m glad to see you too, Dameon. Where is Mortimer?”

  Dameon pointed to the Elawn. The decks were crowded with trunks and bags of treasure. The rectangular trunks on the port and starboard decks reached as high, even higher, than the mid-deck. Narrow pathways snaked between the walls of loot, but Gabriella knew it would still be impossible to maneuver about the decks to properly handle the rigging. Mortimer, with limited sailing experience, would not know this. Squeezed between bags of coins piled on the port deck, he was trying to push the heavy sacks against the gunwale to make more room. The boards beneath his feet groaned with strain. Gabriella feared the whole ship might break apart. She crossed the gangway, Adamantus and Dameon behind her, and faced Mortimer.

  “What are you doing?” He looked up from the bags.

  “Mr. Creedly, we are leaving.”

  “I doubt that—” he began to say.

  “Sybil and Libys are dead. So is the mother wyvern. The treasure house has been destroyed with the wyvern and the princesses inside of it.”

  “What?” Mortimer said, his eyes wide, his jaw slack.

  Gabriella explained what had happened. She knew he believed her. If the sisters or the wyvern were still alive, she would have been in a greater hurry to escape. But she took her time answering his questions, not wavering from her main point: they were going back.

  “But we can sift through the rubble, find the wands—” Mortimer said.

  “They are better lost,” Adamantus said.

  Mortimer’s eyes moved towards the gangway, then back to the three of them. His hand drifted down towards his belt of knives.

  “Don’t think about it, Mortimer,” Gabriella said. Her use of his first name surprised even her, but something had changed between them. “And spare me your supplications. I don’t trust you. I don’t like you. But I recognize that you might be different than Sybil. She had nothing but good things happen to her, and she chose to be bad. She was bad through and through. You had bad things happen to you, but now you can choose better. I know you can. You can choose not to try to stop us. You can choose to help us again. I’ll even give you this.”

  Gabriella dug into her pocket. The gems clicked against one another. She took one in her fist and held it out to Mortimer. It was the green stone, Falik’s. Mortimer was transformed by the sight of the gem. His face reflected the greenish light of the emerald. Even his eyes took on a jade hue. His hands were trembling.

  “It’s yours,” Gabriella said, “if only—”

  She did not finish her sentence. He rushed her, one hand spreading wide for the stone, the other wielding a knife. Gabriella let go of the stone and stepped back. The abrupt shifting of weight was too much for the overburdened deck. The planking below them collapsed. The stacks of trunks tipped, their contents rattling and spilling out in a golden rain.

  “No!” Mortimer cried as bags of gold fell away. He clung to the lip of the mid-deck, his feet pressed against a single plank that had not dropped away. A rift yawned open in the boards, moving towards the bow, clearing the deck. A set of chests tumbled into the abyss, and next to them teetered Dameon.

  The drop to the ground below was dizzying. For a moment Gabriella struggled with a return of her vertigo. Her hands felt clammy with fear, her armpits wet. Dameon waved his hands to regain balance, but it was clear he was falling forward, following the chests. Mortimer was too far away to save him. So was Adamantus. But she was not, and nothing else mattered.

  Before she could think, she took two running steps, flung herself over the gap in the floorboards and shoved Dameon away. He fell backwards onto his tailbone, crying out in pain, but he was safe.

  “Gabriella!” Adamant
us called out. She struck the splintering planks face-first. The impact dazed her, but she struggled to focus and grab hold of an exposed joist before she slipped over the edge. She felt warm blood on her face. Her weight was bending the weakened boards she clutched. Snaps and pops ran the length of the wood. She dared not move. Below her the broken pieces of the Elawn flipped end-over-end along the sheer face towards the valley floor. The trunks spun sending their contents out in golden clouds.

  Adamantus and Dameon were frozen, like witnesses to someone who had fallen through thin ice. Adamantus stepped forward, but the boards all around creaked.

  “Stop, don’t come closer,” she said.

  “Dameon, get a rope,” Adamantus said over his shoulder. “Hold on Gabriella.”

  Mortimer shifted and squirmed, the fabric of his clothes rubbing up against the mid-deck wall. His face was twisted as he strained to reach Falik’s jewel resting just out of his reach on the edge of the gaping hole in the deck.

  But he had also moved closer to Gabriella. She was within his reach.

  “Mr. Creedly—Mortimer, please, help,” she said, her voice small.

  Mortimer made no immediate acknowledgement, no recognition of her plea. Gabriella realized he was calculating. It’s the emerald or me, she thought. She knew she should have been filled with anger at his hesitation, but she was too scared, too vulnerable right then. She could only plead. She and Mortimer had been companions, partners—unwilling—but partners nonetheless. She wanted to say all these things, but all that came out was, “We’re both Harkenites, Mortimer.”

  The greed left his face, and for a moment, perhaps for the first time since Gabriella had known Mortimer Creedly, his face was candid and open. Gabriella could see the young boy who had so valiantly tried to save his family, who had knelt on the capsized boat, the sound of lapping waves and pounding hands filling his ears as he tried fruitlessly to peel back the boards that sealed his family in a watery tomb. She could see a Mortimer Creedly who had yet to close his heart to others. She saw the Mortimer Creedly who had leapt into cold, rushing water to save her brother. The same man who had brazenly challenged the wyvern on the deck of the Elawn.