by D N Meinster
“Map?” the Mayor asked.
Before either of them could elaborate, Aros burst into the room. All three heads locked onto him as he ran to join his friends.
“They’re coming,” he told them seconds before the unmistakable grunts and dragging claws became audible.
“Get the Mayor out of here!” Doren cried to Rikki.
“He’s gone!” Rikki replied.
Doren turned back toward where he’d last seen the Mayor, but he was no longer there. He’d probably hidden himself back inside the nest.
“Mayor?” Aros asked.
“Maybe we should follow his lead,” Doren suggested. Hiding was probably the second-best choice they had. The first would have been shifting, but they couldn’t do that now that they knew where the Mayor was.
“No way,” Rikki said, stretching her left arm above her head.
Her silver staff rose out from the junk piles and soared toward her open hand. It was followed in succession by Aros’ clawblades and Doren’s shield.
While Rikki snatched her staff from the air, the other weapons continued onward to their rightful owners.
Doren slid his hand through the shield’s grip while it was still airborne, while Aros latched onto the hilts of both his clawblades.
Aros immediately took an offensive stance with his blades, facing the entrance which he’d come through. Rikki, too, had her staff pointed in that direction. And Doren’s arm was tensed and ready to bash his shield at whatever came charging at them.
The frost urchins came into sight within moments. They entered like a swarm, crawling on the floor, ceiling, and walls, with but one intention: attack the interlopers.
Their quills appeared to stiffen all at once, and their red eyes were all targeting the trio. There were so many of them that it appeared to be one giant dark blue creature that was taking aim at them.
Rikki made the first move, letting loose a green fireball and then following it up with a blast of lightning. The urchins she hit went down, but the rest merely climbed over them and continued on their track.
“Ready, Aros?” Doren asked, preparing to move in on them.
“Wait,” Rikki ordered. “Let go of your weapons.” She glanced at her friends. “Both of you.”
Doren and Aros did as instructed. Though they moved their hands away, the shield and clawblades remained floating in the air. It was then that their weapons soared at the creatures, slicing and colliding with them as they zigzagged around the room. As they circled and downed the urchins, it was clear there were simply too many to be able to halt their advance with only three weapons.
So the metal objects that composed their nest rose into the air. And, like tentacles lashing out at its prey, they shot out from their resting positions and crashed into the oncoming horde.
While Rikki directed her metallic appendages as they twisted through the pack of urchins, Doren caught sight of his shield as it was about to pass him. Instead of letting it go, Doren grabbed hold of it, and he was pulled into the air and toward the frost urchins.
Doren kicked out at the creatures as he flew through the air, his shield prodding and smacking them on one end and his boots smashing into their faces at the other.
Aros noticed Doren’s strategy and tried to replicate it. But while he managed to grab the hilt of a clawblade, he merely flapped from it as it impaled and slit open several urchins.
Rikki noticed her friends flying about as her bundles of metal scrap wound their way around the nesting chamber. Feeling that it might be better for them if they regained command of their own weapons, she relinquished control and focused solely on her own attack.
Doren cried out as his shield lost its momentum and began to tumble downward with him attached. He braced himself as he hit the deck and was immediately tackled by several urchins. His cloak protected him from their barbs, but they clearly wanted to make a meal of his face as they snapped at him.
With a wide swing, Doren knocked three urchins out at once. He tripped up two more by going low, and then launched himself at another group.
Aros had taken to cutting off the quills of any urchin that moved with his reach. This seemed to be an unintentionally effective deterrent, as they surrounded him but refused to get too close.
Rikki was piling up the carcasses on her own, as her unusually effective creation took out urchins with every collision. Whenever an urchin got too close to her on the ground, she conjured up a barrier and pushed it backwards.
When it seemed enough dead and injured urchins had piled up around the trio, they stopped entering the room. Rikki set the metals back to the ground while Aros and Doren regrouped with her.
“Does this mean we win?” Aros asked, doubting his own hopeful tone.
“Mayor Kellig!” Rikki called out.
Doren searched for any hint of movement in the nest, but his eyes caught something else coming into the room.
A frost urchin of immense size, with muscles nearly double the width of its brethren, and a height enhanced by the fact it was walking upright on two legs, was approaching. It had the same quills and red eyes as the others, but it was also wearing some sort of clothing: a tattered red cloak that draped down from its shoulders.
“Zeniri’s cloak,” Doren whispered as his friends noticed the new arrival.
This urchin apparently knew how to use it, too. It lunged toward them while spinning, and it shifted and reappeared right at the tip of Rikki’s staff.
As Aros tried to nick it with his blade, it shifted again, this time behind them.
Doren twisted just in time to block a quilled arm as it tried to strike them with it.
Rikki shot out a white beam from her staff, and it spun just as the light made contact.
It reappeared just above them.
Aros stuck up both his blades, hoping it’d fall onto them. But more urchins were entering the room, and one knocked him over as the bipedal urchin landed.
Rikki readied her staff to summon the nest back under her command, but the bipedal urchin grabbed hold of it with its claws and tried to pull it away from her.
Doren realized the futility of their battle as he spotted more urchins climbing into the room. They had to find the Mayor and get out of there.
Doren tightened himself behind his shield and ran into the bipedal urchin and the others that were attacking Aros. He kept running until he made it to the nearest wall. “Mayor, we can get you out of here,” he said as he started digging through the urchins’ collection.
Getting back on his feet, Aros saw Rikki and the bipedal urchin tugging her staff back-and-forth. Aros waited for the right moment and slashed down on the urchin’s stretched out arm, promptly relieving the creature of it.
The urchin let loose a garbled howl before Rikki jabbed her staff through its stomach. As she held it there, the silver began to glow, and she subsequently slid it vertically, cutting the urchin in two from the gut to its head. When she withdrew her rod, it fell forward, blood oozing from its openings and staining the old wooden floor.
“Keep them away from me!” Doren requested as he dug through the nest with his arm and shield.
His friends obliged, moving toward him and fighting back the endless procession of urchins.
When he failed to locate the Mayor, Rikki called out, “Switch!”
Doren jumped out from the nest and slammed his bronze shield into the nearest urchin while Rikki dove into the metals.
The entire nest began to quake, and all of the objects that constituted it slowly rose into the air. But this time, she did not make a cudgel out of them. Instead, they kept rising and spreading away from each other.
“There!” Rikki said.
Doren spotted the Mayor tucked into a ball on the floor, hiding amongst stationary, spherical silver objects that were about half his size. “Eggs,” Doren said, recognizing what they were. As he took a step in their direction, the urchins noticed the man quivering between their most precious possessions.
He
tossed his shield at one that was going for the Twilean leader, knocking it off its path.
As Doren ran toward him, a clawblade zoomed over his shoulder and stuck another urchin that was on its way to the Mayor.
Doren scooped up his shield and stood in the way of any urchin that dared try to get at the man curled up behind him.
“This is the Mayor?” Aros asked after cutting his way through to them.
“No time to judge,” Rikki said, shifting to their side. The nest settled back into place before she kneeled down and tightened the Mayor’s arm around her staff. “Stand back,” she warned her friends. A stream of fire shot out of her necklace and the room went up in flames.
“Meet you outside,” she said before shifting away with the Mayor.
Doren and Aros both stood transfixed by the fire as it consumed the nest along with the ancient ship. The urchins let them be as they whimpered and cried before tossing themselves one-by-one onto the growing flames.
“What are they doing?” Aros asked, stunned by their actions.
“Trying to smother it,” Doren replied. Some had even begun to drag the carcasses of the dead along with them.
“I can’t watch anymore.” Aros slid both blades on his back before spinning and shifting away.
Doren only lingered a minute longer before he shifted out of there as well.
Chapter Twelve
Disembark
Wisps of smoke rose from the bowels of the Cartographer, swiveling up through the ship and toward the sky. The top deck was stuffed with frost urchins, and many resorted to clinging along the sides. Putting their nest in danger had indeed drawn many of them back to their ship. Stragglers sped past Rikki, crunching through the snow and jumping aboard their home. She did not understand their biology, and how they might be able to snuff out the fire with just their presence, but she figured they were intelligent enough to have a plan.
Aros and Doren eventually appeared at her side, while the Mayor cowered at her feet. They watched as the vessel was overloaded with urchins, their desperate growls audible even from the distance.
“How many have hatched since their arrival?” Doren pondered.
Rikki glanced down, expecting the Mayor to have an answer. But he only continued shivering and twitching amongst the snow.
As she turned her attention back to the ship, she noticed the plumes of smoke were diminishing. “It’s time.”
Rikki stepped over the Mayor and toward the Cartographer. Though there were still a handful of urchins making their way back, they’d be capable of handling them once the others were gone.
She spread out her arms before taking her staff in both hands. The channeling crystal had become a vivid white more dazzling than the surrounding snow. Rikki placed it horizontally at her side, sliding it back and then heaving it forward with as much force as she could muster.
A resonant grind filled the air before the Cartographer inched out of its position and moved closer to the Unending Seas. But the currents had yet to gain control of the ancient vessel, and the urchins began to clamor as they realized what was happening.
Rikki pulled her staff back and staggered forward again. Though the ship inched closer to the waters, it would take many more pushes before it was in any position to set sail.
The frost urchins began to drop off the side of the ship and make their way back. They would be under siege within moments. There was not enough time left to finish what she’d started.
Rikki conjured up a few barriers which the incoming urchins delightfully crashed against. She heard Aros let out a chuckle as she tried to slow the creatures down.
But she was only giving them seconds. She needed to both stop the urchins and set the ship out to sea.
Time. She could try manipulating time to give her as long as she needed. Yet she’d never even practiced such a feat. No, she needed a more reasonable stratagem.
Looking around for something that might aid her, she realized the answer was all around her. Snow. She could use the snow.
Rikki lifted the staff above her head and began to twirl it over and over, willing the white powder under her command. Sheets of sleet climbed into the air, followed by chunks of the glistening mounds.
When she believed she’d taken enough for her needs, she aimed her staff forward and ordered the snow to careen along the targeted path.
A solid funnel of ice and snow shot down from the sky, arching down in front of Rikki and launching at the Cartographer and everything in between. It swallowed the inbound urchins first and then crashed into the bow of the ship with the force of a giant battering ram.
The Cartographer lurched into the water as the snow continued to push it out to sea. When Rikki ran out of snow, she summoned the winds to put even more distance between the Twilight Islands and the ancient vessel.
Rikki planted her staff into the snow and sand, leaning against it while she watched the Cartographer disappear over the horizon. Letting out an exhausted breath, she saw it hang in the air for only a second before it vanished.
Doren and Aros came up beside her, staring out at the empty sea, watching the waves crest and the waters foam. They’d accomplished what they’d set out to do. They’d saved all the Twileans who had survived thus far. But they didn’t celebrate. This victory only brought about a somber demeanor in them. And they all knew why, though they didn’t say it: their journey was coming to an end.
Rikki stroked the silver Key on her neck. They might all go back to Kytheras together, but it wouldn’t be the same. Doren would have to deal with his father again. Aros would go off to see his family and then shift back to Terrastream. She would find out what exactly it meant to be the Grand Mage in Castle Tornis. And then they still had Hatswick to deal with, wherever he might be. Would they take him on together? Or were they coming to the end of their time as a trio?
She and Doren would stick together, one way or another. But Aros had another life waiting for him, both at home and with Loraya. They could visit each other, of course, but this was probably one of the last days they’d spend together as an inseparable unit.
Rikki wiped at her eyes before tears could form. She looked away from her friends and back at the Mayor, who was getting onto his feet. He stretched a bit before meandering over to them.
“You don’t have anything to eat, do you?” he asked.
When all three looked at him blankly, he said, “Oh well.” After scrutinizing them further, he added, “I’d like to apologize to you. If you’d seen what I’d seen those things do, you might be paralyzed by fear as well. Maybe not you three, but most would’ve been. Anyway, I suppose I should properly introduce myself now that you’ve saved me and my islands. I’m Brent Kellig, Mayor of Twilight, though it seems you already know this.”
“We met the Acting Mayor,” Aros relayed to him.
“He might be disappointed I’m still alive,” Mayor Kellig stated.
“We’re not,” Doren spoke up.
“You needed something,” the Mayor said, pointing a finger at him.
“The map,” Rikki said. She explained who they were and why they needed it.
Mayor Kellig pulled at his beard, considering everything she’d told him. “I took it from Tunsev Manor once we had no choice but to abandon the place. I thought we might be able to use it against the invaders.” He reached into what was left of his pants and pulled out a brown scroll. “It is a mayor’s sworn duty to not only protect the Twilight Islands, but to protect this map as well.” He held out the map for Rikki. “From here out, I suppose it’ll be to solely protect these islands.”
Rikki took ahold of the map and slid it from the Mayor’s grasp. The parchment was heavier than she expected, and despite its age, it was in pristine condition.
As she held it, she couldn’t help wondering why it was in her possession and not Hatswick’s. Was he waiting for them to dig it up before he attacked? Did he want them to gather all four Keys so he wouldn’t have to do the work? Then he could spring a t
rap just when they’d thought they’d won.
His absence made no logical sense to her. He wasn’t in Terrastream. He was nowhere to be found on the Twilight Islands. They were missing something. They had to be.
“What’s wrong?” Doren asked, noticing his girlfriend’s hesitance.
“Hatswick,” she said, not having to add any explanation.
“Right,” Doren replied.
“Any word from the Goddess?” She looked at Aros.
He shook his head.
“Goddess?” Mayor Kellig inquired. Rikki hadn’t gone that far into detail for him.
All three of them glanced at each other before focusing on the Mayor. They seemed to agree not to tell him anything without having to debate it.
Rikki gave the map to Doren. “I’m going to take him to Set. I’ll meet you back here.”
“Is that where everyone went?” the Mayor asked.
“It was the last island free of urchins,” Rikki stated. She extended her staff toward him. “Grab on.”
Mayor Kellig seemed more cautious now that he wasn’t paralyzed by fear. He eyed her staff suspiciously. “And what will that do?”
The Mayor trusted her with the map, but he didn’t trust her enough to touch her staff? It was likely his head still wasn’t right due to his isolation and starvation. All the more reason to get him to Set.
“It will get you back to your people,” Rikki said.
He tilted his head before placing a single finger on the staff. When nothing happened, he added four more.
Almost instantly, their snowy surroundings faded away and were replaced by a hospitable environment more familiar to the Twilean.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked as he gawked at the warm beaches. The Mayor dropped to his knees and spread out his arms, basking in the sun’s light.
“I guess you never shifted,” Rikki said, adding under her breath, “besides for the last time I shifted you.”
Mayor Kellig dug his hands and arms into the sand before he stood back up. After looking around, he asked, “Where is everyone?”
“The other side of the island, I hope.” Rikki thought that’s where she had taken them, but apparently, she’d been off.