by Ellis Knox
“Just a scratch on the leg. I’ll bandage it properly when Cosmas recovers. There’s a kit. Besides, it’s not really bleeding, only leaking.”
I gave him a look, and he surprised me by rolling up his pant leg. But the wound was up too high.
“Better have a look, Niki,” Henrik said.
“Sure, okay.”
Nik stood up and undid his pants. There was a time I would have shrieked an entirely female shriek of outrage. There was a later time when I would at least have turned around.
“It’s here on my thigh,” he said. “Behind the knee. What’s it look like? I can’t see.”
He tried twisting around, then gave it up. Square on the back of the leg, about a hand’s width above, was a red splotch with tiny markings that might have been from teeth. Or stingers.
“It’s just a scratch,” I said.
“Very funny.”
I described what I saw.
“Wonderful,” Nik said. “Now I’m probably poisoned. Can we go back home now?”
The bailing finished, Henrik seated himself and examined Nik’s wounds.
“There is no back for us,” the professor said. “The only road to home lies in front of us. That way.” He indicated the red glow on the horizon. I thought it maybe looked a little brighter than before.
“We can just fish,” I said. “Gather enough and dry it. We could all carry water. It could work. To go home, I mean.”
Professor Queller glared at me. “Imagine if Columbus had told the Empress he had turned around because everyone on board got hungry.”
We took stock of ourselves as the stone boat ran, steered by Nik, once more on course for the reddish glow. Which was now orange.
“Look,” I said, “our pole star is changing hue.”
“I noticed that from the beach,” Henrik said. “Before the excitement.” He rubbed at his arm.
“Are you all right, professor?”
“Surely.”
“You rub at your arm.”
“Ah.” He looked sheepish. “I got a scratch somewhere.” He waved his arm in my direction.
“But your sleeve is torn,” I said.
“Uncle, did one of those things get you?”
“May I have a look?” I said.
“No,” the professor said to his nephew. Then to Cosmas he said, “Best not to eat any of the plants we gathered. One of them scratched me.” He held out his arm. Just above a whisper, he said to me, “There may be a bit of infection. Please do not say anything.”
I frowned disapproval at him. The sleeve was badly torn, from cuff to elbow, probably from the attack by the creatures. Torn, too, was the shirt underneath, which I now saw was discolored. I pushed up the material to expose the wound.
A thin cut about four inches long on the back of the forearm. A scratch! What worried me most, though, was the angry inflammation running up to the elbow, not only the red of an infection but also swelling and a yellowish discoloration.
“Let me feel your head,” I said brusquely. What was he thinking, trying to hide this? Queller raised his other hand to block mine.
“That’s not necessary, Gabi.”
“I believe it is,” I replied.
Nik’s voice came from the stern. “What’s wrong up there?”
“Nothing,” Queller said.
For my reply I simply raised up the professor’s bare arm.
“Gods!” Nik cried.
“I have medicine,” Cosmas’s deep gravel came from above me. I moved out of his way.
“See if he has a fever,” I said to Cosmas. “He won’t let me look.”
Queller shot me a sour look. “You said you wouldn’t say anything.”
“I did not. I only showed your arm without comment.”
The look soured more, then turned to a grimace as Cosmas examined the wound.
“A lawyer’s point,” Queller muttered. I was pretty sure that was meant as an insult.
“When?” Cosmas asked. He felt at the wound with his fingertips, and a bit of yellow pus oozed.
“Back on the island.”
“And you didn’t say anything?” Nik exclaimed.
“We were somewhat occupied at the time,” Queller responded, making a try at sounding righteous. “Besides,” he added, “it was only a scratch. Ouch!”
This last, as Cosmas applied a poultice to the wound.
“Hold this in place, please,” Cosmas said. Queller placed his hand over the poultice. Cosmas took advantage by putting his hand to the professor’s forehead. Queller tried to swat it away, but the ogre was hardly a fly.
“He has a fever,” Cosmas said.
“It’s nothing.”
“You keep saying that,” I scolded.
Professor Queller fell into a fitful sleep. Cosmas hovered over him, repeatedly rummaging in the trägersack and muttering to himself, who thus far had not indulged in that peculiarly human behavior. Beso sat quietly, but his lips moved in a silent chant; talking to his First Ancestors again, no doubt. Nik stood at the tiller, his face set in granite determination. At least, that’s how I chose to regard it; he may simply have been in pain.
Having little to do for the moment, I drifted along the outskirts of sleep.
A memory floated toward me of a summer on Rügen, that strange and storied isle off the Mecklenburg coast. A dragon once had its lair on that island, giving rise to the inevitable stories of hoarded treasure. At the base of the white cliffs, what had once been an outwork of a merman fortress later became a haven for orc pirates. Between orcs and merfolk and dragons, the island was the source of a dozen tales told to wide-eyed children all around the Baltic. In my own lifetime, it had become a resort for vacationers from Lübeck and Rostock and Stettin. Thus do the centuries tame the legends of the past.
It was a lovely resort, with sprawling houses and white cottages, spas set in deep woods, and a trail that ran at the very edge of the tall, white cliffs. There I found myself one August evening, a girl of sixteen, escaped for a few hours from the suffocating eyes of my aunt. There I watched an enormous moon rise almost from the Baltic Sea itself—a grand, full moon the color of fresh Danish cream. It threw an avenue of white across the water, seemingly to my very feet, like an invitation from a goddess. Overhead, the Milchstraße was a boulevard across the night sky. I stretched out my arms to embrace the whole world and all that life promised. I was consumed by light.
Something rocked me, not gently. I sat in a stone boat, in the belly of the earth, and I was consumed by light.
I looked left and right, still shaking off the last strands of sleepy memory. A pale, brilliant light shone all around me.
It was coming from below the boat.
I looked over the side. For one instant I thought the moon had fallen from the sky, along with a thousand stars. Something huge lay in the water beneath us, glowing with phosphorescent intensity. It curved somewhat, like an inverted, shallow bowl. All around it, innumerable smaller versions of itself swam. From these draped long tendrils.
The sea glowed with the things. Thousands of moon-bright jellyfish, drifting alongside us. Nik became annoyed when they interfered with the tiller, but they retreated when he swung the rudder back and forth with sufficient violence.
“What? What’s this?” Beso fumbled into wakefulness.
“Jellyfish, I think,” I said.
Beso looked confused.
“I think it’s following us,” Nik said. “I’m trying to get us to land.” He sounded worried.
“Even if it’s the stinging type,” I said, not really believing myself, “we should be fine.”
Professor Queller stirred and moaned. Cosmas gave us all a look that hushed us, save for Nik.
“All right,” he whispered, “but if anything happens, you wake him.”
“How is your own wound?” I asked Nik.
“Itches like anything, but at least I’m not feverish,” he replied.
I nodded, relieved. Even so small a comfort was welcome.<
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We were halfway or better to the far shore. Silently I urged our boat onward. There was no telling if the thing beneath us meant us harm, but its sheer size was frightful enough. Whatever dangers might lurk on land, I felt safer about them than about floating above a creature the size of a caravel.
For several long, silent minutes we ran on, our living moon under us.
“Something’s happening.”
Professor Queller uttered this as he propped himself onto a bench. A moment later, we were beached.
Not on land, but on the back of the brilliant white surface. The creature had risen until its back was a few feet out of the water. The light was so intense, I had to squint against it. A smell of damp flesh almost overpowered me. It stank like the bottom of a well.
Our boat canted over to one side. Then it rocked back to the other side. We were not sinking, but we settled into a shallow trough. We appeared to have landed on the moon.
“It’s moving,” Nik said.
“Let us get back into the water,” Cosmas said.
“Right. Uncle, stay in the boat. The rest of us will push.” A note of desperation edged his voice. He did not point out that we were moving out to sea. So much for my idea that it might be herding us toward land. Suddenly I wanted very much to be on solid ground.
Now that it had partially surfaced, the thing’s size came clearer. We were close to its middle, and we were easily thirty feet from the water, and the creature’s edge extended still further under water.
“The back seems solid, but step carefully.”
Nik was already out of the boat. I blinked as I realized he might easily have sunk into the thing’s flesh. But no, if it were that soft, we would have sunk already, boat and all.
I stepped tentatively anyway, until I felt the surface for myself. It was like walking on layers of wet wool, solid enough, but still giving a bit with each step. Or, I thought, shuddering, it was like walking on meat. The four of us arranged ourselves toward the stern, Nik and Beso on one side, Cosmas and I on the other. At Nik’s command, we pushed.
My feet slipped, but I managed not to fall. I adjusted my stance, trying to gain purchase, but the thing was alive and the surface moved. Every half minute or less, the whole beast surged. Water sloshed up on one side. It was swimming. Within that movement, the creature’s back made small convulsions, like ripples.
Moving the boat was proving surprisingly difficult. We had moved it easily back on shore; why was it hard to move here?
I soon saw why. Those convulsions in part were taking hold of the boat. The glowing flesh lapped against the sides of the boat, forming a suction.
Professor Queller kept insisting he get out to help. We all commanded him to stay put. We could move it. We would reach the water. Whether the creature would let us go or not was a question I refused to consider.
After we’d shoved and tugged the boat all of five feet or so, the first tendrils appeared. Slender ropes covered with tiny hairs slid across the surface toward us.
“Don’t let them touch your skin,” Professor Queller called out in a cracked voice, but that proved impossible. The tentacles danced and writhed and multiplied until scores of them surrounded us, rising from every side of the creature. For a few frantic minutes we tried to drive them back. The tentacles did not attack, nor did they try to defend. They retreated and returned. Tirelessly.
Nik urged us to keep pushing. We hardly needed encouragement. All that mattered was to get off, back into water.
We kept pushing. Our progress could be seen by a shallow trough that marked the creature’s back. I pushed until my hands were raw and my legs ached. A tendril swept across me from behind. Its cilia ran across my bare neck and I cried out, but nothing more happened. They were not poison, as I had imagined and feared.
Professor Queller caught my eye. He sat facing the stern. He was staring in that direction, so I glanced back.
An opening appeared near the center of the creature. It grew quickly until it was three feet, then six, then ten feet long, slightly curved. A shadowed smile across the face of the moon.
The monster had a mouth.
The action of the giant stirred all life forms around and under it into frantic action. The twisting, living vines threw up bits of plant matter. A large fish leaped high in the air, landing several feet from us, where it jerked about until a tendril snaked up and tumbled it into the mouth, which snapped shut with sickening speed and a wet, slapping noise. Then it opened again.
We pushed with redoubled effort. Panic lent strength, at least for a time. Queller didn’t bother arguing; he climbed out on his own and added his shoulder to the push.
The beast sensed our frantic efforts. Tendrils rose again, pale as a death mask, thirty feet long and longer. They waved to and fro like a forest of cobras.
We were still yards away from water, scarcely more than halfway between the water and the maw. The tentacles descended in a coordinated attack. Several whipped downward, coiled, then rose again, triggering a second set. The attack was blind—tendrils struck all across the surface.
Nik pulled out his gun again.
“Beso,” he shouted, “keep them off. Everyone else, keep pushing!”
The pistol cracked once. I kept pushing, but the boat was perceptibly heavier. I dug in with hands and shoulder. I slipped and saw one hand was bleeding, but I felt no pain. All I felt was fear. At any instant, a writing snake would grab me and sweep me into that yawning mouth. I would fall into needles and teeth and acid; I would die of a dozen causes simultaneously, and none of them quick.
My world became weirdly narrow. I was conscious of my feet digging into rubbery flesh, my hands and shoulder straining against what felt like a mountain, and a small patch of the stone boat, stained by blood. Above, behind, around me, cold death hovered, choosing its moment.
The gun fired again and again, but then went silent. The whole boat rocked, and I lost my grip and fell. Upon scrambling back up, I saw three of the snakelike arms wrapped around the boat. In moments the beast dragged the boat five feet back toward its mouth. Dismay held me fast. All I could do was whisper, “No, no.”
Nik yet lived. He threw his gun into the boat and grabbed hold with both hands. Cosmas did likewise. They dug in their feet and hauled against the tentacles. Futile, utterly futile. Like watching a man flap his arms as he fell from a cliff.
Then the boat stopped moving. Something boomed in the distance. A shudder ran through the beast. A strange smell reached my dazed senses that spoke of lightning—a strange, stray thought brought on no doubt by the loud noise.
The boat scooted still closer to the maw of the monster. Weird colors coruscated over it, and it shuddered again. It did not release the boat, but the other tendrils withdrew, and the creature began to swim.
“What’s happening?” My own voice surprised me, for I had given myself up for dead.
“Storm’s coming,” Nik said, and with those two words full awareness returned to me.
The creature was moving with astonishing speed away from land, into deeper water. Wavelets ran up its leading edge. Behind us, the sky was erupting, as if a volcano hung in midair, spewing jets of plasma in all directions from an unseen central mass. The way these shapes waved and twisted reminded me of the beast’s tendrils, but these flashed in an array of lurid colors and fantastic shapes. Red and orange sheets descended and vanished. Jagged arms of pink coral lanced outward, branching like impossible trees. Massive forks of swamp green stabbed at sharp angles. Vortices of indigo and purple danced like waterspouts, and everywhere black and gray clouds roiled in a vast circle. The reddish glow that had for so long been our pole star was gone behind these subterranean thunderheads. The display took up a third of our field of vision and was utterly silent.
And it was getting closer.
Again a shudder ran through the monster beneath our feet. One by one, as if reluctantly, the three mighty tentacles released our boat and disappeared beneath the black waters. The glow
from the creature illuminated the water to a depth of several feet. Shapes moved there.
“Get in the boat!”
Nik issued the command even as he took hold of his uncle, leveraging him roughly over the side. Queller collapsed into the bottom, having exhausted his remaining strength.
We boarded amid alien light that pressed ever closer. The dark, encircling clouds ignited over and over, bursting into spasms of ice blue, emerald green, or furnace red before collapsing into a dark churn.
Cosmas came into the boat last, just as the monster sank beneath the water. For a moment we saw a hundred tentacles waving above the vast disk of the monster, then they convulsed as one and the beast shot downward to disappear in inky black.
“Thank the First Ancestors,” Bessarion said in a shaky voice, “we are saved.”
“Don’t celebrate just yet,” Nik said. “There is still that.” He pointed at the storm rushing toward us in a wide arc, like outstretched arms.
Numbly we sat, helpless, watching the storm approach. The air grew acrid. It smelled like burning copper mixed with sulfur fumes tinged by the ozone tang of electricity.
It smelled of violence.
Soon after we heard a sound. My own imagination threw one impression after another in quick succession: wagon wheels on cobblestone, the first rumbles of a landslide, a hailstorm, surf crashing against rocks.
I looked back at Nik, whose gaze was fixed on the storm. Beso looked at me. His eyes were huge, round, like those of a frightened horse.
“Wizard storm,” he said.
“Phlogiston thunderstorm,” Henrik said. “There hasn’t been one of those on the Surface in decades.”
I knew of wizard storms only from legends, which told of massive storms summoned by a powerful wizard. Some were conjured to batter an enemy, sometimes whole kingdoms. Others were the result of a conjuring that went wrong and got out of control. All the legends ended badly.
“I’d rather face a storm in this boat than on the back of that monster,” Henrik said. “We’ll ride it out.”
“I hope so,” Nik said. He pushed the tiller savagely. It swung back and forth twice. “The damn rudder’s gone.”