by Clayton Wood
The seawater parted around his gravity shield, quickly rising to waist-height around him. The air trapped around him made him buoyant, forcing him back upward. He streamed more magic into his boots, forcing himself downward, until water completely engulfed him. He was immediately plunged into murky darkness, the hallway beyond blurry and indistinct. He wove magic, creating a small light beyond his gravity shield, bathing the hallway in a pale glow. Then he plowed forward through the water, counting the doors on the right as he went.
One, two, three, four...
He continued down the hallway, spotting two large holes in the left wall where cannons had struck earlier.
Nine, ten...eleven!
He spotted the partially open door to the right, and pushed through the water, the edge of his gravity shield forcing the door all the way open. He found his room just as he had left it, a large, gaping hole in the floor. He descended through it, bringing his magical light with him. Below, he found a huge room with vertical wooden planks running from a wide horizontal beam far below, curving upward on either side. Wide, thick horizontal beams crisscrossed the vertical walls, no doubt for support. This, he realized, must be the hull.
Kyle scanned the curved walls of the hull carefully. The warship's cannons had struck the on the left side...toward his room's door. He turned to face the left wall of the hull, scanning from left to right. If he could find the breaks in the hull...
He spotted two of them, nearly five feet in diameter each, spaced about twenty feet apart. They were a few feet above the floor of the hull. He used his gravity boots to move up to the right one, then closed his eyes, gathering magic in his mind. He wove rapidly, then carefully threw the pattern outward. A flat gravity field appeared a fraction of an inch beyond the outer surface of the hole. Kyle felt a slight tug pulling him toward the field, and he zoomed to the left until he was in front of the other hole. He repeated the pattern, creating another gravity field. Then he backed away to the other end of the hull, streaming more magic into each of the fields.
He saw the two gravity fields flash a brighter blue, but that was it. He frowned, then took a deep breath in, feeling a little lightheaded all of a sudden. There was only so much air inside of his shield; was he running out already?
Suddenly he felt a sharp tug, and he jerked forward from the wall behind him. He pumped magic into his gravity boots reflexively, resisting the pull. Sweat poured down his forehead and into his eyes, making them sting. He ignored the discomfort, concentrating on maintaining his magic streams – one to each hole, one to his gravity boots, one to his light, and the last to his gravity shield. He sucked in another deep breath, his fingertips starting to tingle. He felt panic grip him...he was running out of air!
Kyle closed his eyes, forcing himself to slow down his breathing. You have to do this, he told himself. People are counting on you.
He opened his eyes, ignoring the tingling in his hands, and streamed more magic to the two holes in the hull, sweating with the effort. He glanced up at the hole in the ceiling of the hull...the one leading to his room. It was impossible to see whether or not his plan was working, if the water level in the ship was decreasing.
He continued to maintain all four streams, feeling sweat dripping down his flanks now, his heart hammering rapidly in his chest. His head felt like it was swimming, and it was taking more and more effort to keep focused. His entire body was tingling now, his breath coming in short gasps. He closed his eyes, wiping the sweat from his forehead, then glanced up at the ceiling again...and blinked.
He couldn't see the hole anymore.
He stared upward blankly, then scanned the ceiling again, very carefully, but the hole still wasn't there. It was gone.
What the...
Then it came to him. He couldn't see the hole because he wasn't looking at the ceiling anymore. He was staring at the surface of the water...it had dropped below the level of the ceiling!
Kyle whooped out with joy, cutting the magic stream to his gravity boots. The air in his shield made him shoot upward like a bullet through the water, bursting to the surface not ten feet above. He cut his stream to his gravity shield, and immediately fell into the water. The ice-cold seawater soaked through his clothes instantly, sending a terrible shock through him, and nearly made him lose control of his gravity streams. He cried out, then tried desperately to suck air into his lungs. But the frigid water made his throat seize up, and he could barely breathe at all. He clawed at the water, trying desperately to keep his head above it. Black spots floated across his vision, his chest burning.
Boots!
He gasped, fumbling for a thread of magic. He found one, then shot it toward his boots. He rose quickly out of the water, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling above. Water dripped down his arms and legs, splattering on the quickly receding waterline. He took deep, gulping breaths, the black spots fading from his vision. The tingling in his fingertips faded slowly.
“Guts!” he heard a voice shout from above, the sound echoing through the now half-filled hull. He looked up, spotting Slim and Guns peering down through the hole.
“It’s almost empty!” Kyle shouted back, glancing back down at the waterline. “Get your stuff ready,” he ordered. “I'll bring you both down when it's empty.”
“What do we do?”
“There's two holes in the hull,” Kyle explained, his teeth chattering. He hugged his arms to his chest. “We need to patch them up before I run out of magic.”
“Got it.” Slim frowned then. “How much time we got kid?” Kyle paused, mulling it over. Once he got all of the water out, he could drastically decrease the amount of magic he was streaming to each gravity field. He only needed to keep the ocean out, after all...and he didn't want to suck Slim and Guns through the holes.
“Ten minutes maybe,” Kyle estimated. He glanced down; the hull was nearly empty now. In fact, the water line was below the holes now; no more water was being sucked out. He cut back on the two magic streams carefully, until water started pouring back in. He increased the streams slightly, then waved at Slim and Guns.
“Move back,” he urged. Then he flew up through the hole, hovering above it. Both men stared at him, their jaws slack. “Drop the wood through the hole,” Kyle instructed. They both nodded, then ran out into the damp hallway, to two large heaps of wooden boards. They grabbed an armful at a time, lugging the wood to the hole and dropping it through. It wasn't long before all of the wood had been tossed down to the hull.
“How you gonna get us down there?” Slim asked. Kyle extended a hand.
“Grab your hammer and nails,” he replied. “Then grab on to me. I won't let you fall.”
“If you say so kid,” Slim muttered. He reached down for his hammer, tucking it in his pants, then grabbed a large bag of nails. He reached out to Kyle, and was immediately sucked in by the gravity boots' stabilization fields. Kyle dropped quickly through the hole in the floor, flying up to the leftmost breach. The water line was right below it...there was nothing for Slim to stand on.
“Set me down on that cross-beam,” Slim ordered, pointing to one of the thick, wide wooden support beams running horizontally across the hull. There was one right below the hole, immersed in a few inches of water. Kyle complied, setting Slim down there. Slim clung to the next highest cross-beam with one hand, handing Kyle his bag of nails. “Take these, and hand them out when I tell you.” He pointed down at one of the long planks of wood floating on the water. “Get me that, but get Guns here first.”
Kyle nodded, flying back up the hole to his bedroom. He carried Guns to the support beam, on the other side of the hull breach. Slim asked for a piece of wood, and Kyle retrieved one. Slim held it on one end, Guns on the other, crossing the very bottom of the hole. Kyle gave both a nail on request, and they made quick work of securing it to the hull. They repeated the process, nailing the next plank to the one below to force them as close together as possible, then securing it to the hull. And so it went, until the entire hole was cove
red.
“That'll do it,” Slim stated. “Feet are frozen,” he added ruefully, lifting one foot out of the water and shaking it. He turned to Guns. “Shimmy on to the next one.”
The two sailors did just that, patching the hole the same way they had the first time. By the time they were done, Kyle was nearly out of magic, only maintaining his streams with the greatest of effort.
“Drop the left one,” Slim told Kyle. “But be ready to put it back up.” Kyle nodded, slowly decreasing that magic stream. To his dismay, water wept around the top, but even when he cut his magic stream, the patch otherwise held. He repeated the process for the right one, and got a similar result. Slim grinned, punching Guns on the shoulder.
“Well ain't that the purdiest thing you ever saw!” Slim declared. He turned to Kyle. “Now get me on deck so they can amputate my feet.”
“Hold up,” Guns stated. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing down. Kyle followed his finger, spotting something lying at the bottom of the deck. He flew over to it, realizing that it was the backpack that had gone missing. He picked it up, slinging it over his shoulders, then brought Guns and Slim back up through the hole in the ceiling. They made their way to the stairs, both Slim and Guns limping – and complaining about their frozen feet – the whole time, but in a good-natured sort of way. They reached the end of the upper hallway, and opened the door to step out onto the deck of the Defiance. The Captain and Grotes were both standing at the right of the ship, directing sailors into the lifeboats.
“Hold up!” Slim shouted, limping toward the Captain. “Bring 'em back on deck!” The Captain and Grotes turned, staring at Slim.
“Explain,” the Captain ordered.
“Guts here drained the water right outta the ship,” Slim declared, wrapping an arm around Kyle's shoulders. “Guns 'n me patched the hull. We're afloat!”
“You drained the entire ship?” Grotes exclaimed in disbelief. He glanced across the deck to the ocean, then turned to the Captain. “We are riding higher, Captain.” The Captain nodded, glancing toward the rear of the Defiance. The warship was a little farther away than before.
“Put a hold on lowering the lifeboats,” he shouted. He turned to Grotes. “Keep putting the crew in the lifeboats,” he told the First Mate. “Hold them there until we're sure we’re not taking on more water.”
“Yes Captain.”
The Captain turned to Kyle, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“You, my young friend,” he stated, “...just saved every soul on this ship.” He smiled then...an expression that looked out-of-place on the surly Captain’s face. “Thank you.”
Chapter 19
Kalibar yawned, sitting up in his bed. He glanced at his clock, discovering with dismay that it was only five o'clock in the morning. He'd gone to bed late the previous night...or more accurately, earlier this morning. He'd canceled most of his meetings yesterday, spending the majority of his day and night reading in the Runic Archives. Then he'd come here, to his bedroom, to continue reading.
About Orja. About Verhan.
Very little historical information survived regarding the enigmatic continent and its capitol city. Apparently even the Ancients had been mostly ignorant of the place. Only the coastline of the continent – rumored to be even larger than their own – had been explored. Verhan and its surrounding cities had been accepted as colonies of the Empire in the last decade of the Ancients’ reign. Renowned for its legendary diamond mines, Verhan had offered a lucrative boon to the Ancient Empire, in exchange for inclusion into the most powerful and influential government in the world. After the Ancients had been destroyed by Sabin's armies, Verhan – indeed, all of Orja – had been all but forgotten.
Kalibar sighed, stretching his neck from side to side. He considered going back to sleep, but decided against it. He'd spent hours lying in bed staring at the ceiling before finally sleeping, his mind continuing to race long after he'd stopping reading. Now he found himself doing the same, and he knew that there was no chance of him falling back to sleep. Luckily, he was more than accustomed to sleep deprivation. A good night's sleep was not a luxury Grand Weavers typically enjoyed.
He sat up again, swinging his legs over the edge of his bed, then standing up. He stretched his arms, then his back, feeling none of the stiffness and soreness he'd grown accustomed to for the past ten years. He hadn't felt it since that night, about two weeks ago, when he'd been given back his eyes. He suspected that Ampir had done much more than just give him his sight back – and the ability to see magic.
Kalibar yawned again, walking the short distance to his master bathroom. He stood before the sink, staring at his reflection in the mirror. Brown eyes stared back, crow's feet sprouting from the corners, shallow horizontal lines crossing his forehead. His white hair, not yet washed or combed, sprung in wild tufts from his scalp. He raised his chin up, noting with dismay the wrinkles in his neck.
He looked old.
He sighed, turning away from the mirror. He seldom engaged in such foolishness, contemplating his appearance. Probably because he still felt as though he were in his thirties, young and full of life, an infinity of days ahead of him. His reflection told the depressing truth: time was ever marching forward, and his body was slowly betraying him. He recalled the first time he'd spotted a bit of gray in his beard, the shock that had been. The first wrinkles. Of tugging on his skin, trying to flatten those wrinkles out, only to watch them spring back again when he let go. The realization that, though he felt no different than he always had, he was getting older.
Vain, that, to never expect it could happen to him.
Kalibar stepped forward into the shower stall, then heard a chime coming from his bedroom. He turned about, walking back to his bed, spotting the communication orb on his nightstand glowing faintly. He grabbed his bathrobe, putting it on hastily and walking quickly into his main suite, toward the front entrance. He saw High Weaver Urson standing behind the transparent front door, dressed in his usual black and silver uniform. Kalibar rushed to open the door.
“Grand Weaver,” Urson greeted tersely, saluting sharply.
“At ease,” Kalibar ordered. “What's going on?”
“Your children were not on the second ship that left port today, the Explorer,” Urson replied. “A group of Battle-Weavers flew on the Defiance’s route. We found the remains of a Verhanian military warship along that route.”
“Go on.”
“We found and questioned the few remaining survivors. They claim they had orders to intercept the Defiance, destroy its cargo, and apprehend its captain, who has been found guilty of smuggling illegal goods into Verhan and bribing customs officials.”
“So what happened?”
“The warship attacked, the Defiance was crippled,” Urson explained. “Then a girl and a boy attacked the warship and destroyed it using magic.” He hesitated. “They matched your children’s’ descriptions,” he added, “...accounting for their likely disguises.”
“What?” Kalibar exclaimed. “They destroyed an entire ship?”
“Yes sire,” Urson replied. “The Defiance managed to escape with only a mizzen-mast left standing, and multiple confirmed hits to its hull.”
“But your men haven't found it yet?”
“No,” Urson confirmed.
“Thank you Urson,” Kalibar said. He hesitated, then put a hand on Urson’s shoulder. “Don’t let word get out that my children destroyed that warship,” he instructed. “The last thing we need now is an international incident.”
“Yes Grand Weaver.”
Urson saluted, then left the suite as quickly as he had come. After the door had shut behind the High Weaver, Kalibar closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly. His heart was still pounding in his chest.
They're alive.
He turned away from the door, walking to one of his couches and sitting down. He put his face in his hands for a long moment, then leaned back in the couch, staring up at the crystalline c
eiling above. Kyle and Ariana were alive. The Defiance had been crippled, and still had not been found, but it had escaped the warship. And even if it had taken too much damage and sunk, Kyle had brought his gravity boots. They were safe. They had to be safe.
Unless...
They were still in international waters, wanted criminals almost certainly being hunted by a fleet of Verhanian warships. In an all-but-incapacitated cargo ship.
Kalibar stood up from the couch, feeling suddenly restless. He turned about, looking at the suite all around him. The spotless granite floors, the marble columns extending all the way to the sloping transparent roof above. Riches everywhere he looked, the trappings of an emperor. Any man who first set eyes on this room would be struck with awe, but to Kalibar these luxuries were mere distractions. Functionless, useless. Priceless to others, but to him, worthless.
He closed his eyes, picturing his children out there in the ocean somewhere, standing on the deck of a crippled ship. Alone.
He opened his eyes, staring at the finery around him. He imagined the Void Behemoth's fiery gaze melting the stone, setting fire to the furniture. Melting flesh to the bone. Imagined Erasmus, Owens, Lee, the Council...everyone screaming in agony as they burned.
Kalibar sighed heavily, feeling the weight of millions of lives on his shoulders, all of them looking to him to save them.
And what could he do? What could he possibly do?
Defeat was inevitable. Either he sacrificed the ideals of the Empire – freedom, self-determination, cultivation of the inherent excellence of Man – and allowed Sabin to rule, or he upheld those ideals and watched helplessly as the Empire burned. As his friends, his people, and even his children were taken from him.