by Tara West
The Eclective:
The Apocalypse Collection
With stories by:
Heather Marie Adkins
Emma Jameson
P.J. Jones
M. Edward McNally
Alan Nayes
R.G Porter
Tara West
The Eclective: The Apocalypse Collection
Copyright © 2012 by the Eclective
Kindle Edition
The seven authors in this collection retain and hold their individual respective rights to their stories.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
Cover Art by Tamra Westberry
Interior Formatting by Heather Adkins|CyberWitch Press, LLC
Visit the Eclective at eclectivebooks.com
The Shifting Sands
Tara West
Sindrï shielded her eyes as the heavy beating of Tan’yi’na’s wings doused her with a thick plume of sand. She had been dreading this meeting with her mother’s dragon, but as Kyan’s eldest daughter, it was her duty to try to soothe the great beast. Sindrï knew the dragon would not be happy to learn of the birth of her brothers.
Though Tan’yi’na rarely left Kyan’s side, Sindrï’s mother had sent her dragon on a fool’s errand, just long enough to distract him while she conceived and birthed her sons. It had taken only a fortnight for Kyan’s dark magic to work. And now, Sindrï feared for the safety of her family. The use of dark magic never came without price.
The dragon landed with a thud, nearly throwing Sindrï off balance as the ground shook beneath them. He pulled back his heavy golden wings, shaking them once as a bird would ruffle its feathers, spraying Sindrï with even more sand.
Sindrï coughed on the residue, which had coated her mouth and nostrils. She blinked several times while wiping the dust from her eyes.
“I must speak with my goddess.” The dragon’s command boomed inside her skull.
Sindrï looked up at Tan’yi’na, whose large golden eyes were bearing down on her while his fanged jowls turned in a harsh scowl.
Sindrï’s heart hammered against her chest. She had never known the dragon to be angry. What would he do if he learned the truth? “M-mother is sleeping,” she stammered.
“Are the rumors true, Sindrï?” The dragon’s voice was laced with accusation. “Did Kyan bear sons?”
She nodded slowly before answering. “Yes.”
So Tan’yi’na already knew. At once, Sindrï suspected her mother’s pixies. The wretched little vermin were known more for their desire to cause strife than for their loyalty.
Something akin to loathing danced in the dragon’s gaze. “There is a darkness cloaking you, Sindrï. Tell me now, did your mother use black magic to conceive her sons?”
Sindrï had not the courage to answer as she turned her gaze toward the soft mist of dust that swirled around her toes.
“Why did you not stop her?!” the dragon boomed.
Sindrï turned to Tan’yi’na with pleading eyes. “I tried, but Father wanted so badly to have sons.”
The dragon answered with a solemn shake of the head. “She has compromised her magic, and her daughters’ magic as well. Kyan’s sisters will take advantage of your weakness.”
Sindrï’s mouth fell open. She had not thought of her aunts. But why would Madhea and Eris wish to harm their own sister? Sindrï would certainly never inflict sorrow on any of her sisters. But something in the dragon’s woeful gaze made her heart sink like a stone.
“What do we do?” she pleaded.
Tan’yi’na heaved a sigh before turning his gaze to the heavens. “There is nothing we can do. The Elements trusted you with the safekeeping of their planet. I doubt even they can save you now.”
***
Imaya pushed an errant strand of golden hair behind her ear as she slowly turned the salamin roasting over the fire. She then slathered more palma jelly across its scales, a ritual she had performed since her mother had died eight years ago while birthing Imaya’s brother, Renì. Her family ate salamin and palma almost every day except on the days when Father was too drunk to go fishing. Then, Imaya would be forced to dredge up riverweed for the family meal. When she was able to sneak a few extra coins from Father, she would buy spices from the trading boats. The spices made everything taste better, even riverweed. But the family coffers were empty again, because father had been too drunk to haul in his fair share of fish. There would be no new spices for a while.
She scowled down at her father, who had passed out on a small cot beside the fire. Though he had his own bedchamber in the large hut he had built for their family, he had not slept in his bed since the night Mother had died. Actually, he had refused to do much of anything since Mother’s death, leaving Imaya and Renì to fend for themselves.
At only seven-and-ten summers, Imaya had a heavy burden to bear, trying to keep her father sober and out of fights, and protecting her brother from the bullying taunts of other children. Most girls Imaya’s age had begun their own families, but Imaya had no time for courtship when she had so many other responsibilities. Besides, the young men in the village had made it clear they did not wish to form an alliance with Imaya’s family. Though Imaya had heard the rumors many times before, just the thought of it made her heart break anew. They feared Imaya would birth them sons like her brother.
Though others called Renì clumsy and dumb, to Imaya, her brother was a blessing. He could sense things that other people could not. Renì could predict a storm days before even the slightest wisps of clouds dotted the sky. Renì also knew the best time to harvest fish and the best places to find them. It was as if Renì had a connection with the Elements. Imaya knew her brother was a special boy, and she resented any villager who thought otherwise.
Imaya jumped as the door was thrown open and Renì burst inside. Imaya could feel energy radiating off her brother, like the frenzied wind from a summer storm, as he spun a circle around her skirts.
“Come see! Come see!” he looked up at Imaya with his one good eye.
Imaya looked down at her brother and smiled. Though he looked much like her, with golden skin and hair and large amber eyes, the entire left side of his body appeared to be wilted, like a flower petal that had been plucked and one half left out in the sun. His left arm was practically useless, while his eye on that side remained permanently shut. His leg was good for balancing, but not much else, as he was forced to drag it behind him whenever he walked. But despite his deformities, Imaya thought her brother was beautiful, for he filled her heart with joy whenever they were together.
Imaya pulled the salamin off the flame while wiping her hands on her smock. “What is it, Renì?”
He jumped up and down on his leg while waving his arm wildly. “Fishies, fishies, on shore everywhere!”
Then he dragged himself over to his father’s cot and rattled it with his knee. When their father didn’t’ respond, Renì bent over and screamed loudly in his ear. “Da, come look!”
Imaya laughed into her palm as her father snorted loudly and then rolled off the cot in a tangle of furs and limbs. He sat up and peered over the cot with a dull look in his eyes. His matted greying hair was sticking up in all directions. He groaned while rubbing his head as his gaze shot to Imaya, who offered him no sympathy. A grown man should not have spent the day wasting away when there was work to be done.
Father smoothed a hand across his weathered and dirt-s
mudged face as he looked up at Renì. “What is it, son?”
“Water gone!” Renì shouted with a wild excitement in his eyes. “Fishies flopping.” Then Renì began jerking about while puckering his lips as if he were a fish out of water.
The hairs on the nape of Imaya’s neck stood on end as her limbs iced over with fear. “What happened to the water?” she breathed the question to her father.
“I don’t know.” Father shook his head. “But I’m bringing my net.”
***
The further they walked across the barren shoreline, the louder Imaya’s heart pounded out a drumbeat in her ears. All around them was chaos. Fishermen greedily scooped flailing fish into their nets while children chased each other down the sandy slope. It was as if a crack at the bottom of the ocean had drained all of the water. Plant life and coral were exposed to the elements, baking in the summer heat. Imaya shook her head as she observed how the other villagers seemed unconcerned that their water had vanished. But where had the water gone? Were these stranded fish truly a gift from the Elements, or a portent of darker things to come?
“What has happened?” Father asked Sol, another fisherman, who lived by the ocean’s edge with his wife and four healthy sons.
Sol was one of the few fishermen in the village who actually talked to Father, but his words were usually laced with insults. He was larger than father by nearly a head and wider, too, so father usually took Sol’s barbs with a grin, not wanting to lose his teeth in a brawl with the beefy fisherman.
“I don’t know.” Sol shrugged while hauling his net of fish up the bank over one broad shoulder. “One moment the water was here, and the next moment, it was gone.”
Imaya swallowed while latching onto her father’s arm. “This is not natural.”
“What are you waiting for, Tunnuk?” Sol said to her father as he laughed heartily. “Fill your net before they are all taken.”
Renì drug himself up beside Father and tugged on his other arm. “Danger, Da, danger!” Renì nudged his limp hand toward the empty shoreline.
“Father,” Imaya spoke with a trembling voice. “Renì, is right. Since when has the Sea Goddess given us such a bounty? Never does she reward us without price.”
The people of Imaya’s village worshipped the benevolent Land Goddess, Kyan, but her sister, Eris the Sea Goddess, was known for her vengeful and jealous nature. Imaya would not put it past the witch to try to cause harm to Kyan’s followers.
“Danger, Da! Big water!” Renì let go of his father and jutted his finger toward the horizon.
“Listen to Renì, Father,” Imaya implored. “He is never wrong about such things.”
Father looked at Renì for a long moment before his shoulders slumped and he nodded his agreement. Then he turned toward the other villagers and shouted. “We must get to higher ground! Hurry!”
Sol strode back down the incline with an empty net slung over his shoulder. “What are you babbling about?” he chuckled.
“There is danger coming.” Father raised a shaky finger toward the horizon. “My son can sense these things.”
A broad grin split Sol’s sun-kissed face before he swept an arm toward the flailing fish. “There is enough fish here to feed my family for an entire season, and you think I’m going to listen to a drunk fool and his freak son?” He laughed out loud and nearby fishermen joined in his merriment before returning to their frenzied harvest.
The lines around Father’s eyes tightened as his skin took on the hue of sunbaked coral. He clenched his fists by his sides before jutting a foot forward.
“Father, no!” Imaya reached out and clenched her father’s arm. “He’s not worth it.” She motioned toward the barren landscape before them. Any moment, and she knew Renì’s prediction would come to pass. “We don’t have time!”
Father stepped back before picking up Renì and hoisting him on his shoulders. Imaya turned and followed her father before casting one more wary glance at the villagers, knowing they would all perish for their foolish greed.
“Where are you going?” Sol called at their backs.
Father turned and spoke with a heaviness in his somber voice that Imaya felt in her own heart. “To higher ground. I suggest you do the same.”
Sol and the other villagers answered with more laughter.
***
The wall of water bore down on the village swiftly. Imaya tried to shield her ears from the terrified screams of the villagers below, but it was of no use. The memory of her town’s destruction would be eternally etched in her mind.
“Hurry, daughter!” her father called down to her as he continued ascending the treacherous terrain with Renì’s small arms wrapped around his shoulders.
Imaya slipped on loose rock and cried out as she nearly lost her footing. It was then she chanced a look down at the devastation below. The monster tide toppled huts and boats and everything in its wake. Water swirled beneath them, continuing to rise at an alarming rate. Imaya feared that the steep slope they were climbing would not be high enough.
When Imaya neared the top of the cliff, her father held a hand down to her and hauled her up. Imaya fell against his chest and sobbed, unable to look again at the devastation below. The villagers’ screams had been silenced, but the violent sound of water battering the landscape continued to fill her heart with sorrow and dread.
“Imaya crying,” Renì sniffled from behind their father.
When her father pulled her back and looked into her eyes, Imaya saw strength reflected in the amber depths that she had not seen before. “No time for tears, daughter,” he said as he wiped the moisture from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “We must keep moving before the water rises.”
Father pointed to the crest that loomed above them. Kyan’s magnificent temple was perched on the highest point overlooking their small fishing village of Aya-Shay, a village that was no more. The temple priests had named the village several centuries ago. Aya-Shay: Blessing by the Sea. The irony made Imaya want to weep anew.
She trudged up the incline toward the temple, wincing as the rocks and dry grass chafed her bare feet. She silently sent a prayer to Kyan that the goddess would keep them safe. If she and her family had a chance of surviving this cataclysm, it was within the sacred walls of Kyan’s temple.
***
As the water had swarmed the temple steps, they had climbed to the top of Kyan’s temple, hoping that their goddess would protect them, but the water had continued to rise. Imaya and her brother now sat huddled together, wet and frightened, while the sea raged around them. Father paced the top of the temple, scanning the horizon for any sign of hope. Imaya feared she did not know how long the temple would hold before they would be completely submerged. And then what? There was nowhere else higher for them to run. Imaya and her family were trapped and they were rapidly running out of time.
Dusk had fallen, shrouding the watery landscape in an eerie blanket of crimson and gold. Soon it would be nightfall. Imaya feared she and her family would die a dark and lonely death, sucked into the bleak abyss, like pawns in Eris’s fit of vengeance. Imaya knew such devastation had to be the work of the bitch goddess.
But why, she wondered, had Kyan not risen up against her sister? Why had Kyan not offered aid to her people?
“Do you see that?” her father said in a harsh whisper as he pointed to an object floating toward them.
Imaya squinted against the setting sun. “What is it?”
Father shielded his eyes. “It looks like a boat.” Then he turned to his children. “Stay here with your brother. I will try to swim to it.”
Fear welled up in Imaya’s throat as she cried out. “Father, no! You will drown.”
The tide was too fast. Imaya had already seen roofs of huts and toppled masts of fishing boats float rapidly past them. Father would be swept away in the current as well.
Father laid one calloused hand on Imaya’s shoulder. “The water is rising, daughter. It is our only hope.” The look of desperati
on in his narrowed gaze was replaced by something more. Again, Imaya read strength in her father’s eyes, and for a fleeting moment, she actually believed that her drunk and useless father might actually save them.
And then in a flash he was over the side of the temple, splashing against the current as he swam toward the drifting mass in the sea.
Imaya cried out and clutched her brother tightly.
Renì looked up at Imaya and cupped her cheek with one small hand. “Father, live. Wind save Father.”
Imaya watched in amazement as the mass floated right toward their father, pushed across the oncoming current as if it were being propelled by magic. As the object neared, Imaya realized it indeed was a small fishing vessel that could hold maybe ten passengers. Father seized a rope hanging from the side of the boat and pulled himself inside.
Then, as the boat was propelled dangerously close to the side of the temple, he tossed the rope to Imaya. “Grab the rope!” he called out. “Hurry!”
Imaya quickly grabbed the rope and pulled the boat toward the side of the temple, the strong current fighting against her efforts and threatening to snap the rope in two. The water had risen much higher now, nearly submerging the entire temple beneath its tide.
“Come to me, Renì,” Father called as he leaned out from the boat and held out a hand.
Imaya’s brother climbed inside with surprisingly quick movements.
Then Father held out his hand to Imaya. “Now you.”
Imaya swallowed a knot of panic as she looked into her father’s somber eyes. For so long she had never been able to depend on him, and now she was trusting him with her life. Who was this man before her and could she continue to have faith in him?
The water had risen higher, lapping at her feet now. Imaya knew it was only a matter of time before her foundation crumbled and she was left with no choice but to climb in the boat. She sent prayers to both Kyan and the Elements before she placed her hand inside her father’s and let him pull her aboard.
In the next instant, their boat was rapidly pulled into the vast current. Imaya held her brother close, burying her face in his hair while praying even more fervently that the Elements would somehow guide them to safety.