by Callie Kanno
One of the younger crewmembers was stationed at a far catapult. Captain Zulimar had given no orders to cease their tasks, so the young man reloaded and fired in reckless haste.
He misjudged his aim, and the barrel careened directly towards the aekuor. There were several shouts of dismay, but it was too late. The barrel exploded on impact, forcibly jarring the aekuor out of its trance.
Its eyes turned red with rage, and it let out another shattering shriek. It turned its attention to the retreating ship, and began its vengeful pursuit.
“Abandon catapults,” roared Captain Zulimar. “All hands prepare for impact!”
Adesina desperately tried to regain control of the monster, but it shook off her vyala with mindless fury. It was gaining speed to ram the ship. The L’avan queen cursed under her breath and turned to Mar’sal.
“Slow it.”
In a flash, he called forth his vyala and changed the density of the water surrounding the ship. The aekuor slowed noticeably as it drew nearer, but not enough to stop completely.
The monster’s arrow-like head battered the side of the ship, throwing everyone to the deck with the impact. Than’os was already using his own vyala to manipulate the properties of the wood. Instead of splintering from the attack, the side of the ship merely dented.
Adesina leapt to her feet and sprinted to the railing. Her vyala whipped into a frenzy, almost as if it was ready to retaliate of its own accord. The air crackled with pure energy, and she sent a fiery wave at the head of the gigantic beast.
The aekuor screeched in pain, but the damage seemed minimal. The sharp fins along the edge of its head were singed, but the hard scales of its face protected it from fatal injury.
The serpent raised its long tail and brought it down on the side of the ship. The crashing sound of impact shook the air and the tumultuous water sprayed Adesina’s face. Once again, Than’os protected the vessel from crippling damage, but he had to jump out of the way to prevent being crushed.
Captain Zulimar appeared to realize that it was too late to try to escape, and he began shouting a new set of orders. “All hands, battle stations! Man the catapults. Aim for the beast. Helmsman, take defensive position.”
The crew was stunned. It was as if he had ordered their deaths.
Satosh also seemed to understand that they were beyond retreat, and he was the first to run back to his station. “Come on, you cowards! Fight for your miserable lives.”
The others followed his lead with heartened expressions.
The exploding barrels hardly injured the sea monster, but it was enough of a distraction that the L’avan could weave their magic with more precision and power. Mar’sal continued to slow the aekuor’s movements in the water, and Than’os focused on keeping the ship intact.
The wood of the vessel moaned and cracked from the abuse it received, and Adesina feared that it would not last much longer. The salty scent of the ocean was mingled with the strange stench of the sea monster, making the beast seem even closer than it was.
Adesina focused all of her efforts on creating a massive illusion. She hid the Zephyr from sight, and made it appear that there were a half a dozen other ships surrounding the aekuor.
The monster howled and lashed its tail at the illusions, passing through them and causing no more than waves and spray. The ship’s helmsman used the opportunity to create some distance between the vessel and the beast.
After a few moments, the aekuor stopped its fruitless attacks and dove beneath the water. There was a breathless silence and those aboard the ship waited to see if they were safe at last.
Satosh ran to the side and peered into the water for a moment before whipping around. “It is sensing our wake, Captain.”
“All hands, brace yourselves,” bellowed Captain Zulimar.
Adesina clutched at the railing, allowing the illusion to disappear. Without warning, the aekuor burst from the water, ramming its enormous head against the side of the ship. The young queen heard the wood splinter and felt the ship tipping to its side.
She gripped the railing with whitened knuckles, her heart was frozen with fear as she wondered if they would capsize. Adesina knew that the aekuor would not cease its attack if the ship were destroyed. The monster would kill them all, one by one.
She looked down and the black water roiled sinisterly, as if to welcome them to their graves.
There was an eternal pause in the motion of the vessel, and then it slowly began to right itself.
“Hold on,” urged the captain.
The backlash was not quite a violent as the initial attack, but Adesina’s arms ached from clinging to the rails. A wave of water crashed over the deck, forcing her to hold on even tighter.
When the water subsided, she sputtered for breath and tried to push her silver hair away from her face. The shriek of the aekuor sounded dangerously close, and Adesina acted on pure instinct. She released the railing and lashed out with her vyala, pushing herself to the opposite side of the ship.
The action saved her life.
The aekuor loomed over the Zephyr, with wrathful eyes that glowed with bloodlust. Its head darted forward, clamping its jagged teeth on the main mast. The monster’s powerful jaw crushed the thick pole, and the top of the mast crashed down where Adesina had been only moments before.
Thanks to Than’os, the deck of the ship held against the force of the falling mast, but it was clear that the Zephyr would not survive many more attacks.
“Captain,” shouted the L’avan queen over the cacophony of the battle, “what can we do?”
There was a grim expression on his dark face. “There is nothing we can do,” he answered with deadly calm. “Our lives ended when we failed to escape this beast.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “I refuse to give up.”
A fierce gleam flashed in his eye. “I am not suggesting we jump into its maw. I will fight with every breath in my body. But you should not fool yourself into thinking that we will survive this.”
Adesina admired his spirit, but she could not—would not—resign herself to such a fate. L’iam needed her to live.
She was suddenly filled with fresh determination regarding her husband. This was not the first time they had faced an impossible situation together. In spite of how hopeless some of their battles had seemed, they found a way to overcome them all.
She would do the same now.
Adesina didn’t care what ancient lore said about her ability to save L’iam from dark rituals. She had accomplished the impossible before, and she would do it again. She would find a way to save L’iam’s life.
But first, she needed to survive the aekuor.
“Ravi!”
Her guardian was bracing himself against the wild motions of the ship. His black fur was dripping with water, and there was a gash across his back. He turned his eyes to his ward, and she could see that the golden color had taken on a strangely rainbow sheen.
Another wave crashed over the deck, causing Adesina to pause in her efforts to reach the Rashad. She regained her balance and hurried forward.
“Ravi, there has to be some way to defeat the aekuor.”
His feline face was drawn and unusually taut. “I am trying, Ma’eve, but this is a creature of the old world. It bears the strength of the ocean itself. The aekuor were not meant to be defeated by mortals.”
“Are you saying it is invincible?”
He shook his head. “No, but we do not possess the power to defeat it.”
Adesina felt her courage failing. “What can we do?”
“I told you, Ma’eve, I am trying. It is much more than I have ever attempted before, and it will take some time. You must protect this ship until then.”
The rainbow sheen in his eyes was growing more pronounced. Adesina’s intuition told her that he was calling on his own form of vyala. She had never seen him use it in battle, and she had no idea what to expect. However, somewhere deep inside herself she knew that she was about to witness som
ething extraordinary, and that filled her with confidence.
“I will assure you all of the time you need,” she promised.
Adesina turned back to the aekuor, who was now whipping its tail across the deck. She reached up to draw energy from the sky, and pulled down a bolt of lightning to strike the sea monster.
It wailed in pain and retreated momentarily.
When it tried to advance again, Adesina called down another bolt of lightning. The aekuor howled in frustration, but kept a careful distance. Its brutish eyes were unnervingly thoughtful as it considered the situation.
The serpent-like body of the beast slipped back into the water, circling the Zephyr over and over. The crew rushed back and forth, repairing what damage they could and helping the wounded to get below deck.
The respite was brief, and the aekuor’s renewed attacks were as vicious as ever. Its head speared out of the ocean, swiped the side of the ship, and then disappeared again before Adesina could prepare any countermeasures. Then the beast continued to circle, repeating its assaults at random intervals.
Adesina’s vyala seemed to be taking on her feeling of desperation. It became less and less controlled, swirling around her in its desire to strike. When the aekuor appeared again, a tight beam of energy leapt from her hand of its own accord. The beam struck the monster in the eye, and its head recoiled with a shriek of agony.
The young queen felt a mixture of elation at finally causing the beast some damage and terror at what her vyala had done.
When she had first begun her training with L’iam, she had experienced an eerie feeling regarding her vyala. She had wondered what would happen if it ever, in a sense, stepped outside of her. Since then, she had strived to keep in under tight control.
There had been a handful of times when her emotions were overpowering and she lost some of that control, allowing her vyala to become manifest in the eyes of those around her. But she had never experienced anything like what had just happened.
Her vyala had never before controlled her.
“Ma’eve, what is it? Your mind is filling with panic. Ma’eve!”
Adesina choked on her words, unable to describe the fear that was overpowering her.
“Mar’sal,” shouted Ravi. “Come quickly!”
The young L’avan sprinted towards them, slipping in the pools of water and stumbling from the violent motions of the ship. He knelt beside Adesina and took her hand in his own.
“Bring her mind back into harmony,” instructed Ravi.
Mar’sal hesitated. “I do not know if I have the ability for that.”
“I will help you,” said the Rashad.
Together they reached into Adesina’s mind and brought it back from the brink of paralyzing panic. Her fears did not go away, but she was able to control her emotions again.
“Thank you,” she breathed, struggling to get to her feet.
The aekuor was also recovering, and it reared back with a hateful hiss. Adesina had hoped that it would retreat after being injured, but it seemed to be beyond reason now.
The L’avan were about to return to their defense of the ship, when Ravi’s strained voice brought them to a halt.
“It is here!”
The Rashad gave a deafening roar, and a wave of golden power shot out from his body.
Satosh pointed to the night sky. “Look!”
A streaming ball of fire hurdled through the air towards them. Adesina had never seen a meteor before, but she knew enough about astronomy to recognize what it was.
Some of the ship’s crew panicked at the sight, and dove off the side of the ship in an effort to save themselves from the death that rocketed towards them. Everyone else watched in awe as the flaming stone curved gracefully towards the aekuor.
Adesina had to shield her eyes from the bright light, and the force of the impact knocked her from her feet. When she regained the strength to sit up, the aekuor was gone and Ravi had collapsed.
Chapter Twenty: Joining
There was a stunned silence after the death of the aekuor.
Everyone seemed frozen, unable to move or think. The sound of men thrashing in the water soon brought someone out of their daze and a shout rang through the air.
“Man overboard!”
There were about half a dozen men fighting the waves that still buffeted from the dying motions of the sea monster. The crew sprang into action, throwing out ropes and hauling the men back to safety.
Adesina’s only thought was to reach her guardian.
“Ravi! Ravi!”
She was exhausted from her fight with the aekuor, but her vyala willingly flared to life. She ran her hands through his thick black fur, while her power reached out tentatively to touch Ravi’s spirit.
He was dying.
“No, no, no, no,” Adesina said frantically.
He had expended most of his life force in the effort of calling down the meteor, and now his spirit was flickering like a fading candle. Adesina’s vision tinted a golden yellow, creating a mixture of energy and healing from her vyala. She spread the magic over her guardian and waited for his body to accept it.
Nothing happened.
The vyala was still there, as if she hadn’t done anything with it. Her vision shifted to a light green, and she studied his spirit carefully.
It was a kaleidoscope of colors, which was perplexing to observe. Adesina was only accustomed to using her powers on humans. She had never used her vyala on Ravi before. It almost appeared as if her magic didn’t fit him, as a non-human. However, that didn’t make sense to her either, because she had been able to use her gifts on the aekuor.
“Healing must be different than taming,” she muttered to herself as she tried to find a solution as quickly as possible.
Normally, she would have consulted with an experienced healer, but Mar’sal was quite preoccupied with healing the injuries of the crew. Adesina felt an overwhelming wave of fear and uncertainty as she realized she was completely on her own. She didn’t even have Ravi’s advice to guide her.
His life was slipping away quickly.
The young queen tried to heal him again, but it felt like there was something in the way. It was like trying to fit a chair into a trunk. She knew that if she could get the right “angle,” it would work.
She studied his spirit again, this time viewing it as an opening rather than an object. Perhaps if she nudged at the corners a little bit, she could widen it and set the healing spell inside.
Time was running out.
Her vyala pushed at the edges of Ravi’s spirit, expanding it ever so slightly. His body quivered, but there seemed to be no other side effects. Adesina pushed again, and he shuddered once more.
A few more adjustments, and Adesina nodded in satisfaction. She created the healing energy and placed it within Ravi’s spirit, but something about the magic felt unstable and she was afraid to let it go.
Acting on instinct, Adesina shot some golden beams of pure energy through the spell in an attempt to strengthen it. She anchored the beams to her own spirit, and released the magic to do its work.
The vyala shimmered, growing steadily brighter. Then, with a flash, a pulse of visible light shot out from Adesina and Ravi.
The Rashad remained unconscious, but his breathing grew deeper and Adesina knew that he would eventually recover.
“What did you do?”
She turned around and saw that the whole crew was staring at her. Mar’sal and Than’os looked especially concerned.
The young queen hesitated. “I…am not certain…”
Adesina felt weak and queasy. She tried to stand, but her legs were too unsteady. The two L’avan soldiers hurried to her side and reached out to steady her.
“I tried to heal him, but it was not working,” she explained.
“His body or his spirit?” asked Mar’sal sharply.
“His spirit.”
He shook his head. “It is not possible to heal a Rashad’s spirit. We can heal physical wo
unds, but their spirits are too dissimilar from our own.”
Adesina looked at her guardian in confusion. “But…I think I succeeded.”
Mar’sal used his vyala to inspect Ravi, and his eyes grew wide. “What did you do?” he asked again.
She wasn’t sure how to explain. “I moved his spirit so the healing would fit, and I connected it to my spirit.”
It was clear that Mar’sal didn’t understand, but that didn’t seem to matter at the moment.
“I have never seen anything like this before. I am surprised that it did not kill you both.”
Than’os grew stern at these words. His pinched features drew downward in a fierce expression. “Why would you take such a risk, Adesina?”
“I did not know it was so dangerous,” she answered honestly. “I just knew that I had to heal him.”
“Well,” replied Mar’sal slowly, “I believe that he will live. We should take him below and keep him warm.”
“You should probably rest as well,” added Than’os, giving Adesina a look that brooked no argument.
“You, there,” called Mar’sal to a passing crewman. “Help me to carry this Rashad below deck.”
The crewman blanched at the suggestion. “No disrespeck, sar, but I don’ like the idear o’ touchin’ that beast.”
Adesina gave her coldest stare. “That beast is the reason you are still alive. He defeated the aekuor, and he deserves your respect.”
The man wilted before her anger, and he raised no more objections. He helped Mar’sal to carry Ravi, and Than’os supported Adesina as they moved away from the scene of the battle.
“Mar’sal and I will heal the crew and see to any repairs that need immediate attention. Then we will explain to Captain Zulimar that we need rest before we continue.”
Adesina indicated her approval of this plan. “I can assist you-” she began, but Than’os cut her off.
“No, Adesina. You have used more vyala than what is safe. You need rest more than all of us.”
She wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. She sighed reluctantly. “Very well. But please, do not push yourselves too hard. I can help again tomorrow.”