by EM Kaplan
“Charl!” she shouted. When she realized how ludicrous it was to knock while the boat was minutes from going down, she wrenched the knob open. Thrusting her head through the cabin door, she peered in as water slushed past her ankles across the threshold. Empty. She moved to the next. And the next. Three more and they were all empty. Maybe he’d gone overboard already and was floundering in the violent, dark waves. She suppressed a shiver at the thought.
A sudden roar froze her in mid-step. Like a subterranean grumble, a moving of earth, a deep, vibrating growl swelled in her ears and her mind. The sound was so loud, so ferocious, she jumped, fearing there might be an actual creature pursuing her down the corridor. She’d been chased through a woods by monsters not too long ago. The memory plagued her sometimes, through her dreams, when she was most vulnerable. Shaking her head, she moved on, Charl’s safety spurring her steps. Whatever had made that sky-shattering sound was getting closer to the boat, which meant their time was drawing short.
Aha. The next door was locked. Mel pushed off the wall and braced her feet against it, pressing her palms against the wood. The grain of the wood ran up and down. She flexed her fingers and pushed herself into it.
An axe chopped wood…in a forest outside of Navio, not too far from where Mel had grown up. Sunlight. Rain. Heavy branches and trunk shrank into a sapling… Which reversed into baby, leafed greens, into a sprout, into a seed. All this flashed through her mind. She withdrew and pushed herself the other direction. Axe chopped wood. Saws. Wood shavings falling to the ground. Now aboard the boat. Wood wore down until it was smooth under her palms.
In her mind, she jumped from the door to the floor, into the cabin. She’d always had an affinity for wood, trees, and what they told her. Through the floor boards into the leg of the bunk. Charl lay on the bunk, his back to the door. His shoulders rose and fell. Heart beat.
Mel pushed strength to her palm and struck. The wood shattered along the grain.
“Charl, the ship is in danger. It’s going down. We have to get off it. You need to come with me now.” She didn’t bother trying to explain the maelstrom. Not sure what she’d witnessed with her own eyes, she didn’t think she could explain it to him right now.
He sat up and stared at her, but didn’t move, a dull expression glazing his eyes. Perhaps he was sick or injured already. She crossed the cabin and reached for him. Snarling, he sprang to his feet atop the mattress. Feral, mind unhinged…he wasn’t himself.
“What—” She shrank back, alarmed, as he showed her his teeth. Though she had more strength than the average woman, she was little match for an enraged man of his size. Especially if he had no agamite within his veins. Without the agamite, she couldn’t control him. With a sudden burst of speed, he sprang past her, knocking her back and dashing out the door.
“Charl!” she shouted, running after him. She missed his sleeve by the length of a fingernail. Their footsteps splashed down the hall. He headed out to the deck where the sky was black and the water churned with a growling roar, the likes of which Mel had never heard before. “Stop!” she called again, but in just a handful more steps, he had reached the rail and vaulted over it into the water.
Mel hung over the railing, searching for him. Casting around, she looked for help. The crew had abandoned ship—their heads bobbed below in the frothing waves. Arms flailed as they thrashed hard to get away from the foundering boat. She shed her cloak, took a foothold on the highest rail she could, and jumped. Pushing strength to her legs, she arched high and far away from the spinning boat. She hoped she dived in the direction Charl had jumped.
Black water closed over her head. Underwater, she blinked, slowed her breathing, and focused her eyes. Ahead of her, headed toward the east bank of the Uptdon River—the side opposite Navio—she found Charl swimming, kicking with powerful, even strokes, as he escaped the pull of the maelstrom. The small boat that Ott had taken with Rav and Bookman was nowhere in sight. She hoped for all she was worth that they were headed to the port at Navio. People would assist them there. Give them shelter and warmth. Ott always carried coins. They would be fine without her…
She hesitated, looking up at the surface of the water, at the churning legs of the men and women who had crewed the boat. The riverboat lurched and spun again, and she dove deeper to avoid being pulled in its wake. A growl of frustration in her throat, she kicked away from the floundering souls, pushing strength into her arms and legs and churning her limbs against the swirling water, as she chased after Charl.
The farther away they swam, the less the pull from the hectic water currents hindered them. Fifty lengths from the shore, the water was calmer. Mel finished the last of the distance with less anxiety, almost certain she could overtake Charl, that she would be able to catch him to find out what afflicted him.
Poison maybe, but from what? He didn’t have any of the agamite mineral in him. She’d been stunned to discover that. In fact, he had none of the green tinge about him that she could see in other people—some more than others, for reasons she couldn’t explain. Some people just seemed to have a natural tolerance for it. Others, a natural resistance. But as a northerner to have none of it in his blood whatsoever? She couldn’t come up with any explanation for the anomaly. After observing him with a feral glint in his eye and a snarl on his handsome, young face, she still had no theory, no hypothesis.
She didn’t believe in spiritual possession, other than taint from agamite. Tangible evidence that could be gathered and tested. Hypotheses that could be tested and either proven or disproved with research and observation. During her training as a Mask, she’d read about metal poisonings that could affect the mind. Ferrus, for example, could unhinge even a strong mind, if administered into the blood in consistent, measured doses. Too much of it would kill a large man before sunset in one day. But to change a man into a beast? That would take patience and care, a process that was hard to imagine taking place on the riverboat. Though Charl had seemed normal the earlier part of their journey, something had to have happened to him.
Mel reached the bank and pulled herself out of the chilly water. As she stood, dripping in the black night, she scanned the area, staying as still as she could. She listened, but heard nothing—the drops of water falling from her clothes and hair, hitting the damp dirt of the river bank. No footfalls or rustling of the scraggly underbrush and water weeds along the banks. No cries from startled animals or birds disturbed from their slumber. Taking a few hesitant steps up and down, she searched the bank for wet footprints, but found none. It seemed he had come ashore at a different spot than she had. She paused again, waiting for noises, any sound that would help her locate him.
But she heard only the churning waves and the screams of the riverboat’s crew in the distance, carrying across the water.
Charl had vanished.
Chapter 8
Mel stamped her foot in frustration. The night cloaked the terrain in blue-black, making it hard for her to see, even with her heightened vision. She had thought she would be able to collar the deranged man and restrain him on the shore, using her belt maybe, while she swam back out to the foundering boat. Now she neither had him nor had she helped anyone escape the dangerous water.
On the river behind her, the boat groaned and cracked, loud enough that the sound carrying over the sluicing of the water. The cries of the men and women struggling in the water rose to a higher, frantic pitch. Her heart pounding, Mel spun and ran back into the black water, diving as soon as it became deep enough. She undulated her body, then kicked hard across the current. Her plan was to pull as many of them as she could closer to the bank, at least until they could make it out on their own. She kept her head below the surface, slowing her need to breathe so she could go faster. She didn’t have enough strength to get them all, but she would save as many as she could, retrieving them until she could no longer do it, energy depleted.
Arms churning, legs kicking, she cut through the waves. The whirlpool had grown larger yet, its pull
more forceful. Now it worked in her favor as she neared the first man. When she grabbed his arm, he shrieked in terror and began fighting her. When his mind cleared and realization took hold, he attached himself to her neck and shoulders, as if to drown her. She knew he feared for his life, but he pulled her under, almost drowning them both—and would have if she were a normal woman. Turning with a forceful kick of her legs, she began to pull him toward the bank, using as much enhanced strength as she dared. Because he was clinging to her neck, she had to keep her face above water, which drained her strength more quickly. She would not have much more strength left to retrieve another man, never mind make it all the way to the bank with this one. Not more than a few lengths of her body away, the shouts in the water behind them grew louder, more desperate. But they were drowned out by a roar from the maelstrom, which grew even larger with an angry roar that reminded Mel of a storm, an enraged beast the size of a mountain.
When she looked back, the boat wallowed on its side as the hungry mouth of the whirlpool sucked down the stern. Great swirling tendrils of black water reached out of the river and grabbed the boat, tearing it apart and splintering it as if it were a child’s water toy. The boat exploded in the watery grip. Broken planks of wood rained down on them, a splinter slicing her cheek. With great roaring gulps, the maelstrom drew the remnants of the shattered boat into itself, like a many-armed octopee drawing prey into the hungry maw at the center of its belly.
In the water beside her, the man she was towing fainted and stopped struggling at last. She reached the shore with a final kick and pulled the man onto the sandy bank. Panting, she leaned over and examined him in the dark, running careful fingers over his drenched clothes. At his neck, she encountered a large splinter of wood. Close to blind in the darkness and from the water streaming into her eyes, she glided her fingers over the wooden shard that had flown from the shattered boat and struck the man in the neck. The sharp splinter had pierced the side of this throat, at just the point where his life’s blood flowed most freely through his body. And which now drained onto the bank. His blank eyes stared at her, open and empty of life. She reached out to him, trying to sense movement from his heart, any kind of pulse within him, but he had lost too much of his blood.
In a rare fit of temper, Mel cursed and banged her fist on the ground next to the man’s body. She’d failed to save him. Any of them. They were all dead. Now, as she looked at over the black water of the Uptdon, the surface was smoothing out, enormous ripples fading, as if the river had turned into a glassy lake, at least for the moment. The maelstrom had vanished, its fury spent. With it had gone the remains of the boat and its crew.
“But where—?” She couldn’t help but say it out loud. Her eyes scanned the water, but all signs of the anomaly had vanished. Masks didn’t turn to faith for explanation of extraordinary phenomena. The northern people, among whom she’d lived for many months now, for the most part prayed to their multitude of old gods. In the east and the west, people tended to pray to one god, in a casual, lackadaisical monotheism. The southern desert dwellers had another, separate belief system. As for Mel, she’d been raised on science. Fact and data explained the mysteries of the world. Or so she had been taught. Staring out at the calming waters of the Uptdon now, she wasn’t sure what to think.
She got to her feet, panting, not bothering to slow her rate of breathing in her fit of frustration as she weighed her options. She could continue toward Tooran in search of Charl—she felt sure he had headed that direction despite the lack of footprints or other signs of him. Behind her, separated by the river, safe on the other side, were her friends. Ott.
A groan of frustration escaped her throat. She wanted to be with them. But they had Ott with his berserker strength to keep them safe, and Rav wasn’t stupid—she’d keep her wits about her, traveling in a strange place with a small child. So vulnerable, all of them.
With a sigh of resolution, she turned toward the Tooran travel depot. A small amount of money was sewn into the hem of her tunic. She could pay for passage to the city to search for Charl and get some of the supplies she and her friends had planned on procuring. She just wished she had a way of letting them know she was all right. Most of all Ott—what if he fell ill and needed her to cleanse him? But if she were to spend the time trying to cross the river back to them now, they’d have to travel to Tooran anyway, which would waste valuable time getting Rav back to her sisters.
She gritted her teeth. Then she broke into a lope and headed toward the dim, green lights of the travel depot not far away.
Chapter 9
After a treacherous run along the sandy, crumbling river bank with unexpected scrubby brush that made her trip, Mel reached the open-air rotunda and outbuilding that comprised the depot. For most of her run, the agamite-powered lamps had been her guide—a beacon with their hypnotic, glowing green hue.
At this outpost, travelers transitioned from the river to the road that led to the city of Tooran, which nestled at the base of the western mountains. Even at this time of night, the depot was noisy with querulous voices. As Mel drew closer, she discerned that many of the conversations were vituperative complaints about the whirlpool.
An older woman in a well-worn great coat carrying two cases said, “The river’s still not right. We can’t go anywhere on it. They’ve stopped all ferries to Navio, as well.”
Mel turned to stare at the river and gauge it for abnormalities, of which she found many. The fierce current had died down—halted, as a matter of fact. The water was still, as if it had become a stagnant pond—one that spanned a mile across. Not right was a bit of an understatement.
“This is a travesty,” a man said. Just a few steps from her, he was encumbered by large rolls of belly fat, attired in a thick red robe and tight black leggings. The agamite jewels in his numerous rings and ear clips glinted, even in the dim light of the depot. His wealth was a gross display in light of the agamite shortage, now that the northern mines had shut down. Raw, uncut agamite still flowed south, but the flow of that supply would soon dry up.
However off-putting his appearance, Mel agreed with him, glad that someone in this complacent crowd had voiced the obvious. A river did not stop its course. A boat the length of a small farm did not explode into bits from an eddy. Rivers did not swallow a hundred men and women in a single gulp. And whirlpools did not have tendrils, nor did they roar like monsters.
He went on, the jowls of his chin shaking with his adamant proclamation, “Someone needs to do something about this. Some of us have engagements we cannot break. I have several business transactions in Navio and I’ll not waste another day going back to Tooran and waiting for the river to start up again.”
Business? How could his commerce be more important than the lives of the people lost with the boat? How could he be upset about an inexplicable disaster? Why was he not more upset that the disaster could not be explained away by simple occurrences of nature? Did he not understand the magnitude of the strangeness of the maelstrom?
Mel almost asked him on what he based his reasoning, but then was distracted by the implication of his words. He'd said waste another day going back to Tooran. Was that a figure of speech? A single day? Ott had said the trip took a week or more.
“Excuse me. How quickly can I get to Tooran?” she asked him.
He rolled his eyes, but then gave her a second, shrewd look. As he looked down at her body, she realized she stood in river-drenched clothes that clung to her form. Further, she’d forgotten to dim her gold-brown hair or dark eyes as she did when she did not want to attract attention. His almost tactile scrutiny implied he found her to his liking, to her dismay, and his further advancement put her on her guard.
“How quickly would you like to get there?” he asked, bobbing his brows. His sour, mead-soaked breath swirled around her face. The chains of polished green minerals hanging from his fleshy earlobes swung as he leaned closer. Like many of the people she’d encountered south of the agamite mines, he wore his gre
en stones as a symbol of his wealth and status, not giving much consideration to the sacrifice in blood, sweat, and human lives that it cost to remove the agamite from deep under the ground.
“How long does the journey take?” she tried again, crossing her arms and refusing to retreat even a little though he came even closer to her. He was near enough that she could see the veins running through his eyes. She reached out, probing into him, sensing his beating heart, which struggled to pump the blood through his heavy body—and yes, the taint of agamite ran even through this man’s veins. He would be easy to control. Very good.
“How long do you like it to take?” he said, drawing out the words as if offering her an intimate embrace or more. She was glad his thoughts were closed off to her. She knew they were lascivious, if his expression were any reflection of them. Suppressing a shudder, she prepared to put her balled fist into his paunchy abdomen, if necessary. But first, she reached inside of him, enabled by the agamite flowing through his blood, and gave his innards a harsh pinch. Doubling over, he clutched his gut. He groaned low and long, and then hastened away without another word.
“I wonder what got into him,” the woman with the travel cases said. “He was coming on strong. Then nothing. All bluster and vile innuendo. Then nothing to back it up.” Mel shrugged, feigning unconcern. They watched him hobble toward the privies.
“Bad food, perhaps,” Mel said. She didn’t feel the least bit remorseful.
The woman frowned for a minute, then shrugged. “I couldn’t help but overhear you asking how fast it takes to get to the city now. You must not be from around here not to know the latest invention to come from Tooran.” She leaned closer at Mel’s raised eyebrows. “The velowagon. Don’t even need horses anymore.”
“Can you say that again?” Mel had heard the woman’s words, but her comprehension was slow to catch up as she broke down the word into its parts in her mind. Velo meaning velocity. A high-speed carriage? Horseless, too? Even she could admit the thought was exciting—her academic brain churned at the possibilities. How would it work?