Pushing up, to gulp a lungful of air, he dived beneath the approaching wall of water. Water slipped over his head and he began sinking. Overriding his lion’s instinctive panic was difficult, but he let himself go down. Sinking beneath the worst of the turbulence he found himself in a dark but far quieter world. The water above him seemed to be boiling with violent turbulence. He was very glad he hadn’t been tossed upside down this time. Not knowing which way was up had terrified him.
He only had so much air in his lungs. If he didn’t do something now, he’d have to try all over again. He was known as a powerful wizard, damn-it, he should be able to work something out to save his own life. He went still so he could concentrate, aware it was now or never.
A sudden distortion of the water and an odd heavy sensation told him he had successfully created a shield to encase him. Unfortunately, creating it under water meant it was full of water. Hastily he directed it to the surface but it was heavy and didn’t float. Running out of air he forced it to break the surface. As soon as he could, he opened the top and pushed water out over the sides so he could breathe!
Taking his first gasping breath tasted like the sweetest honey, but he couldn’t rest yet. Coughing and sneezing out salty water was miserable but he was now able to breathe. Methodically he worked to clear the water. It was not easy to tailor a spell in his present frame of mind, that would only affect the seawater inside his shield, instead of working against the mountainous weight of the entire ocean just inches from his nose. However, the more water he expelled, the easier it was to keep the shield above the waterline until it actually began floating on the surface like a tiny transparent boat.
He’d almost drowned making this shield and he curled in a miserable ball, panting and shivering from the chilly water clinging to his soaked through fur. Noticing the rain was still hitting him and that he was already sitting in a new sloshing puddle, he remembered to reinstate the roof, so the waves and rain weren’t able to refill it.
Safe for the moment, he lay back, limp with relief. Waves buffeted and slapped against the ball of his shield with angry vigour. He was quickly disorientated, tossed and spun around dizzyingly and completely beyond his control. It was taking all his willpower not to retch. If he’d eaten recently he knew he would certainly have lost that battle. All he could do was concentrate on recovering his wits. Only then could he take stock.
He’d been hit by lightning! He took a moment to assess his body and realised his shield must have dispersed much of the charge, protecting him from the full and probably deadly current. However, he could feel the sizzle of excess power running through his body and knew his ability had accepted at least some of the electrical charge, feeding his magic. Without anything around him to compare his body against he couldn’t be sure, but he suspected he’d physically grown again. Was he carthorse sized again or even larger? Whatever, he could think about any ramifications later. Right now he needed to work out how to survive this hostile watery environment and get home. He had no idea where he was or how far from home he’d been taken though. He was lost.
Realising he was shivering he remembered the spell he’d created before when he’d been drenched and needed to dry off. With his fur dry he warmed up and felt considerably better. He lay down on his belly and his shield altered shape to match his posture, becoming a tube rather than a sphere. Just that simple alteration stopped him spinning and he was able to look around.
As he crested a wave he spotted the large shape of the ship. It was already in the distance and heading quickly away. He’d been both more vulnerable and safer aboard it.
He’d sensed the presence of another wizard aboard, but it was no-one he knew. With his mind now clear, it was an obvious conclusion that no-one who was his friend would drug and chain him.
There was only one reason to be kidnapped and kept drugged aboard a ship; someone wished to use him, claim him by force. There were spells that could take over someone’s mind or harness a wizard’s power. Drugged the way he had been, or kept subdued, he’d have had little defence. His leach ability might protect him from the full force of an attack, but unless he shielded from the outset, he always felt the initial first moments of a spell. Those moments, necessary for recognising and adjusting to an attack, meant he was vulnerable before his ability kicked in fully. If his enemies discovered this, then they only need act quickly and without warning. A fully formed spell could be fired at his mind that would be difficult to defend against. He wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he was invincible. He could be exploited as easily as any other wizard. This abduction proved that.
Whilst most of those spells were deemed illegal, he’d heard horror stories of prisoners of war being made into mindless puppets, forced to turn on their own people. With their magic and sometimes their very will trapped, they were helpless to resist.
They had nearly succeeded in taking him somewhere and he angrily considered the ramifications of that. If they had succeeded, they might have used him with legal impunity. It now occurred to him his independent status meant he no longer had a guild to protect his rights or wellbeing. To protect a wizard from that sort of abuse had been one of the founding reasons the guilds had been established. He was now very much alone.
However, circumstances had intervened and he was no longer a prisoner. Equally he was now at the mercy of the ocean and indeed his own strength limitations. He had no idea how long he’d been kept unconscious, but knew he had lost weight. His magic needed food to sustain it and having already lost weight he had fewer reserves than normal to start with. The adrenaline coursing through his body on awakening was gone. He’d expended strength battling to overcome the effects of the drugs and then keeping himself shielded from the storm. He needed to eat to recover his strength, but all he could see were white frothed violent waves and an empty expanse of water. The storm was finally easing, but he was still just a passenger until it passed. He dropped his chin onto his front paws and quickly fell asleep.
***
Jim woke to sunshine falling across his face. The storm had finally dispersed. The clouds were a lighter colour and now had breaks in them allowing the sun to fall though in patches. He’d slept for a few hours he suspected and certainly felt better for it.
‘AMELIE! Can you hear me love?’
‘Jim? Where the hell are you? Why haven’t you been answering?’ she demanded, relief colouring her tone.
He let her see his memory, such as it was and his current watery view. Now he was rested, his mind clear and not fighting fogginess and fear, he could sense the direction she was located. How could he get home? He looked below him into the inky depths of water and saw only small fish against the darkness below. There didn’t seem to be anything large enough to eat him.
He dropped all four legs through his shield, so his body remained dry and began swimming. His lion might not have webbed feet but his four legs were powerful, his paws were large and worked admirably as paddles.
‘Can you sense where I am now?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Why couldn’t I find you before? I knew you were alive and travelling farther away all the time, but I couldn’t pinpoint you,’ she complained.
‘It was the drugs. Knowing I’m a wizard they would have needed to keep my mind closed off, just as much as keeping my body unconscious,’ he explained. ‘You feel far away,’ he added uneasily. The wind was still coming from the wrong direction, but if it shifted he hoped he’d be able to fashion a sail to give his legs a rest. ‘I think I’m going to need help getting back,’ he admitted. ‘Oh, and I was hit by lightning before I went overboard. I might be too big for you to carry.’
‘You what?!’ she exclaimed in consternation. She shook her head; her man never ceased to surprise her. ‘Let me see what I can come up with. Reserve your strength love.’
Jim felt a whole lot better for speaking with her. He knew she would come for him whatever his predicament. He paddled until he grew cold and tired and then let his shield serve as a boat
once more. Whilst he might be able to push his shield through the water with magic, he guessed that would be a very draining and inefficient spell. He knew from experience that doing any magic for extended periods of time took a toll on his body. The thought of running out of magic, so he could no longer even maintain this shield, scared him. Could he catch anything or would they be too quick? Nothing came close enough to attempt to snag with his claws though.
The afternoon light was waning and he knew he was going to have to spend the night out here with only his shield for protection. He could not see the ocean floor beneath him and not knowing what might lurk, waiting to pounce, occupied his thoughts.
‘How are you doing love?’ Amelie asked, breaking in to his thoughts quite some time later.
‘I’ve been better. I keep worrying that my shield will fail.’
‘Are you paddling?’ she asked sharply.
‘Yes. That’s not using magic.’
‘Get your feet back inside your shield,’ she said sharply. ‘Don’t you know that the sound of your feet thrashing will carry through the water and attract sharks? The biggest ones hunt at night and its already dusk. You must keep as quiet as possible.’
‘You could have told me that earlier,’ he complained, disliking the sharp shard of fear that went through him at the mention of sharks. He’d been paddling for hours on and off. Had he already attracted any? To minimise his energy expenditure his shield was in truth only designed to float and keep out water. It would be a flimsy and non-existent defence. He immediately wove a stronger defensive barrier into the base. Sharks had very sharp teeth.
‘Maybe I should try to attract a shark. If one came close enough to attack me, I might be able to kill it. Then I’d have something to eat.’
‘Sweetheart, they’re extremely dangerous. I don’t want to scare you, but I wouldn’t bother trying to attract them, they’ll find you. It would be best to sit quiet through the night when the big ones are hunting and wait for daylight to catch something. You’ll at least be better able to see what you’re aiming for and if there’s more than one nearby. Of course as soon as there’s blood in the water you’ll be ringing a dinner-bell for every predator to come to the source from miles around, so dump the body fast.’
The lion respected his mate for the huntress she was and listened. He instinctively understood a successful hunt relied on knowing how your prey was likely to act and where it could be found. Scavengers were always annoying when they tried to interrupt a hard-won meal, but he knew if there were enough of them, even a strong hunter could be driven off.
He might be exceedingly hungry and could hunt on land in darkness, but the black waters below him defeated even his sharp vision. He sent his senses into the water and was astonished and worried by the scale of the living presences he could detect nearby. He had no clue as to what kind of creatures they were or their size, only that there were countless numbers. He hoped it was a school of fish rather than predators he sensed. He sat quietly and accepted her assertion that hunting in daylight was far less risky.
‘I’m heading for the coast,’ she told him and let him see her view of fields passing swiftly beneath her eagle’s wings. ‘Keep an eye out for driftwood. That’ll aid your buoyancy and will help hide you from below. I’d better stop talking now; this takes strength out of both of us. I’ll let you know when I have news. Be safe love.’
It took power to converse, especially over distance. Despite knowing he was scared and very alone, she couldn’t let him waste his strength trying to reach for her unnecessarily. Travelling to the coast would reduce the distance between them, which would help. She rather suspected he was beyond the distance that she could fly in a day however. She grimly knew it would do no-one any favours, for her to fall into the sea and drown from simple exhaustion. Only once she reached the coast could she discover what options were available to head out to sea.
She’d called Stripe, but didn’t know if he’d heard. He could very well be out of range, which would also mean it would take him longer to come to her aid. Stripe could not only fly exceedingly swiftly, but his massive size and natural strength meant he would be able to lift and carry Jim’s lion whatever his mass. Certainly the last time he’d been pumped full of power Jim had grown to the size of a carthorse. What had lightning done to him? There was no way she could carry him, even at normal size, but Stripe could. She desperately needed help.
Of course, by the time they did manage to reach Jim, it was entirely likely he would have expended his new power and no longer be as large.
She just hoped they could get to him before his strength failed entirely and therefore his ability to use his shield as a boat. Once that happened and he was in the water, his odds of survival dropped significantly.
‘I love you,’ he responded simply and clung to her surge of warmth in reply. Darkness had fallen and as he looked around him, he felt the weight of being but an insignificant speck in the middle of the vast ocean. The indifferent moon, cast the endless, ceaselessly moving water in coldly beautiful silvery ripples. Reluctantly, he let the bright spark of her presence fade from his mind, leaving him utterly alone.
The End
Forging Alliances: Wizards of White Haven Page 36