by A F Stewart
He put his hand on the deck and reached out with a touch of magic to assess the damage. He felt the ship’s turmoil, a surplus of wounds, and sensed the uneven bearing, the listing of the hull.
Won’t capsize, though, but she’s low in the water. Flooded below decks. Damnation.
Rafe released the connection and lifted his tired head. He looked out at his home.
A strewn mess of broken wood and jumbled gear, mixed with torn bits of sail scattered the deck. The top of two masts were shattered, rigging and posts smashed into the prow deck and railing. Sailcloth flapped in tatters, and lines whipped free in the wind. Anders clung to the damaged wheel and the sailors who still stood manned their posts.
Rafe looked at them, the groaning injured, and the stalwart crew keeping to duty. He whispered, “What have we done?”
HUGH OPENED HIS EYES as light spilled down on his face. The black confines of the sea had vanished, replaced by the sand of a beach and the light of the moon.
“Awake, awake. Good.”
Blue eyes stared at him from a pale face and a straggled, dripping mess of wet silver hair. The Goddess of the Moon smiled and waved her fingers at him.
“Get up. Get up. Not a lazy day. He’ll be coming, coming.”
Hugh sat up. “Who’s coming?”
“My brother dear. Your captain, your wondrous Captain Morrow.” She giggled. “He won’t give up. Not him. Never, never, never.” She jumped to her feet, standing over him and flapping her arms like a looming bird. “He’ll swoop in on his ship, his ship.” She stopped, suddenly still, and whispered, “We must prepare.” She grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet. She darted forward, pulling him behind her in a tumble of momentum and scurrying feet. They dashed along the sand following the shore. “We must prepare!”
Caught in her implacable grip, Hugh had no choice but to follow. He shouted, “Where are we going?”
“Home, home, we’re going home!”
A few moments later, a structure both rounded and angular, a peculiar mess resembling a cross between a hut and a ship’s prow, came into view. Manume halted, released his arm, and spread her hands in a wide gesture.
“Home!”
Awareness dawned in Hugh. “This is where you live?” She nodded. “That means this is...this place, this beach is part of...” A chill pierced Hugh’s essence. “This is the Isle of Bones.”
“Bones? Yes, yes, bones! Bones are what we need!” She spun about with a cackle and a dance step and then raced into her house. She quickly returned, holding a crescent-shaped amulet the colour of alabaster.
“Bones!” She spun around, laughing. “White bones. Red bones. Together, together. Fly high! In the sky! Like the crow. For Captain Morrow!”
She ran past Hugh waving her prize above her head. He hesitated and then sprinted after her. He caught up with her on the beach and stopped cold in his tracks. She was dancing. Across the sand. Her hair flowing, white energy radiating from her skin, arms glowing red and waving, feet shifting, spinning. And chanting, her voice shouting singsong words he didn’t understand. Then realization dawned.
“Magic.”
As his whisper melded into the air, the ground beneath his feet shuddered.
At the tremor, Manume stopped and whirled, a grin plastered across her face. She stared at him, and shouted, “They’re coming!”
“HOW IS SHE? CAN THE ship sail?” A haggard captain stared at Blackthorne.
“You tell me!” The first mate snapped back. “You know this ship better than anyone! Ask her!”
Rafe sucked in his breath, his expression etched in misery and regret. “I can’t. She’s angry. The ship will sail if she’s able, but she won’t talk to me. Won’t tell me the damage.” He sighed. “I know I was reckless, but my sister’s still out there. With all her power restored and amplified. She’s more dangerous than ever. We need to find The Goddess of the Moon.”
“Spit and damnat—” Blackthorne bit off the curse, and continued. “Sometimes it’s bloody hard serving on this ship, sir. But the bilge pumps are working and the flooding below deck is under control. We can get her operational within the hour, sir.”
“Thank you, Blackthorne. I hope we have that hour.”
“So do I.” He turned as if to leave and then glanced back. “How are we going to find the goddess, sir? Are we going to traipse about aimless? She could be anywhere in these islands.”
“No. I know where she headed. And that’s the course we lay in, Blackthorne. Tell the men we are sailing to the Isle of Bones.”
“Are you mad? We can’t sail there! If the superstitions swirling around that place aren’t sufficient to dissuade the crew, the harbours and inlets of that island are too treacherous! We’d never get close enough to lay anchor! You know that!” Blackthorne’s ire fired again at Rafe.
Rafe whirled on his first mate and cast him a look that would burn the heart from any other man. Blackthorne stood his ground, if going a shade or two paler in complexion. Rafe held the look and spat his words out slowly. “I know nothing of the sort, Mr. Blackthorne. Only that I gave you an order, and I expect you to follow it. To the letter. Do you understand?”
Blackthorne straightened his spine, his mouth drawing close to a sneer as he replied, “Aye, Captain. Your orders will be executed. We head to the Isle of Bones.”
“HOW MUCH LONGER ARE you going to sit on the beach?” Hugh let exasperation and bewilderment creep into his voice. “You’ve been there for hours.”
“I have. I watched the tide come in, go out. Got wet.” She looked up at the perpetual moon. “Now I am dry.”
“How long are you going to sit there?” Hugh sighed. “Can you at least tell me why? Why any of this?”
“Why? Why is irrelevant. You know why. He’s is coming. We must be prepared.”
“Why isn’t irrelevant! It might be pointless, but not irrelevant!” Hugh screamed, startling some seabirds into flight.
The Goddess of the Moon turned her head. “Pointless?” Her face looked confused.
“Yes, pointless. This whole fight. Pointless. No one will win anything. You and your brother are both doing it out of stubbornness and spite. Because neither of you will surrender, or apologize, or admit you were wrong.”
“Pointless.” In a low voice, she spun the word out like it was a gossamer thread on a loom. “Pointless. Pointless.”
“Yes. I don’t believe either of you tried to fix your problems. I’m not certain the thought ever entered your heads. Fighting was easier than facing your fears. Destroy, destroy, destroy. No point, but fighting. And running from yourself. Like you can ever escape that.”
“There I go, and here I am. Run, run, and never get away. That’s what we do. That’s what we all do.”
“And does it ever work? Maybe you try stopping. Try standing still.”
She shook her head. “That’s when the voices whisper.”
Hugh closed his eyes for a moment and then glared. “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you need to listen to—”
“They’re here!”
Hugh stared out at the sea. Indeed, a ship could be seen approaching, unmistakably the Celestial Jewel. “And so it starts all over.” He spat in the sand. “I’ll not stand here and watch!” He turned on his heel, but before a step could be made, Manume shouted, “Look!”
Hugh glanced back toward the ship. It had pulled up to anchor, sitting still in the water. Except the water wasn’t there. At least in front of the vessel. He could see the captain standing on the jutting prow, glowing in blue magic. Before him, the ocean parted. Whatever spell he worked pushed aside the water as the tide sweeps debris to shore. Hugh stared at the shell and rock-covered sea bottom, watching in fascination as a few crabs scurried to find a new place to hide.
A shout broke the strange, silent scene. “Time to finish this, sister!” Rafe jumped from his ship, floating down between the suspended walls of water. As he walked to shore, the sea filled back into space he left behind. Soon, he
stood on the beach. The tide nipping at his heels.
The Goddess of the Moon rose to her feet. She bowed to her brother, God of Souls. “One last fight. Winner takes the Worlds.” She turned and glared at Hugh. “Go inside. Stay there.” Hugh glared back but fled the beach for whatever safety her home provided.
She turned back. “Let’s begin.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Last Battle
MANUME, GREAT GODDESS of the Moon, raised her crescent amulet above her head and laughed. Her cackling shriek raised itself to the sky and swirled the beach sand. Sparks snapped from Rafe’s fingers in response and his eyes glowed a deep blue.
Manume then stuck out her tongue and screamed, “Cyfodryrhyn!”
The sky rumbled and a boom, much like thunder, split the air. The sea and sand quivered, the trees rustled, and a loud ceaseless rattle echoed from every corner of the isle. From grave and hollow, from shore and rock, they emerged, grotesque piles of bony remains fused with magic life. Click, clack, click clack, misshapen skeletal creatures rising, moving, cavorting from their lost graves. This echo of clattering bones gathered along the beach to form a company of fantastic creatures, monstrosities ready to do battle.
“Do you like my new children?” She squealed her taunt with another mad bout of laughter following.
“No more than the old ones, sister!” Rafe shouted back in retort. “Let me show you mine!”
The blue sparks flickering off his fingers became flames. He gestured downward and the fire fed its way into the sand, snaking backward into the sea. The ocean danced with azure fire and glowed in sapphire. Waves undulated across its surface, shooting upward into waterspouts. Moans and the screech of the damned rode the cascades, and a host of ghastly spirits swept onto the shore to face the army of the Moon Goddess.
“Meet the Ghouls of the Sea, sister.” An air-rupturing shriek sounded from the hoard of phantoms. “Drowned sailors condemned to an afterlife as denizens of the ocean. Angry souls, the unrepentant, unredeemed, rejected by the After World, doomed to an eternity trapped beneath the waves.” Rafe smiled, a grin not of mirth, but of malice. “Some sent to their fate by your children, oh, Goddess of the Moon.” Another shriek blew across the beach. “How shall we do this sister? Battle by sea or land?”
“Neither, brother! We take to the air! Ride the invisible stars and moonbeams! See where the fight goes from there!” With more laughter trailing her like lightning, she rose into the air fast as a storm wind, her grand legion of bones following her with rattling thunder.
“The sky it is then!” Rafe chased her to the clouds on a streak of blue, leading the horde of angry screeching souls into war.
The sky erupted in a blaze of energy, cerulean and red-tinged pearl, a sizzling clash melding against the vaporous indigo heavens. A cacophony trumpet of sepulchral howls and cadaverous clatter became the thunder of the unfolding deity tempest. The moonlight faded against a sky erupting in light and colour, and the wind whirled a gale swooping down to bend the treetops and bounce the sea into waves.
“Show her your anger!” The booming voice of the God of Souls commanded his host, and his ghouls wailed the blood ravaging cry of the accursed undead. The bedlam discord surged like a hurricane breaker and smashed through her first line of bone creatures, striking the Goddess of the Moon with the full force of a tsunami. Flung above and past the island, chased by shards of skeleton, she skidded to a bloody dishevelled halt, but still primed for a fight. Below them, a ship rocked on the ocean, and a strange hut quivered with the echo.
“First hit, brother, but not good enough!” She shook her amulet with the force of the lunar tide and a fearsome growl spit from her throat. Crimson and ivory sparks spit from her mouth spinning into the bone shards from Rafe’s attack. The fragments twisted on a whirlwind and hurled themselves back towards her brother, tiny arrows driving at his heart.
As sleek and fast as breath, five spirits moved to protect Rafe. Their ethereal mass became corporeal. Thunk after thunk, the shards embedded themselves in revived flesh. Then, in a lingering whoosh, solid became soul once more, and the impaled fragments fell to the sea below.
“Not good enough!” Rafe couldn’t resist the taunt.
The Goddess of the Moon laughed. “Well played, brother! See how you fare against this!” She swayed against the clouds, swinging the crescent talisman. “Dyrwich aei gulyd! Gened galeth Draic!”
Streaks of white energy cracked over the sky—magic born lightning—hurtling down to pierce her army in a shattering explosion of bones. The sky danced with ruptured skeletons—a vast framework of the dead—soaring, twirling around their Goddess as if in a macabre ballet of subservience and worship. They veered and dove and merged in cracking jangles and snapping thwacks to arise all bone and patchwork and giant wings within the forever twilight sky.
Against the silver moon rose a flying beast.
A dragon of bones held together with silver and crimson magic.
And cackling, triumphantly riding on its back, silver hair blowing in the wind from its magic fuelled wings, stood the Goddess of the Moon.
“Attack!”
The great beast swooped across the gloomy sky, chased by the sound of dying ships and falling stars, careening through the sea ghouls as if they were paper lanterns set adrift. Rafe spun upward in a tornado of blue fire, angled himself at his sister, and smashed into her in mid-flight. The pair rolled down the spiny back of the airborne creature, locked in a battling embrace. Then, with a flick of its tail, the immense monster flung them both backward. They tumbled apart, scrambling to their feet, facing each other in a conflagration of magic and hatred.
“No more emissaries! We end this between us!” Rafe slammed a blue flame at his sister, who dodged and stabbed at him with a white-hot blade of magic energy conjured from the depths of her being. The blow shattered on a hastily constructed shield, and he countered with a fireball that singed her hair as she jumped to avoid it.
Abruptly, the dragon banked left, chased by screeching sea ghouls, sending Rafe stumbling down its framework wing in a whirligig manner to retain his balance. Manume fell, grabbing on to a protruding piece of bone to keep from plummeting off her beast. Rafe pitched a cobalt-hued fireball at her before tipping sideways from another soaring swerve. He tumbled, roars and howls in his ears, rolling along the wing to its edge. He slammed to a stop against a jutting ridge, fingers clutching it in a life-saving grip. The dragon dove and rose in a dizzying seesaw, banking a circle around the island, always keeping the sea beneath its course. From the corner of his eye, Rafe saw his ghouls in dogged pursuit.
He screamed, “Back away!” and the ghouls stopped chasing. The beast levelled its flight, content to fly loops around the isle as the sea ghouls watched.
Rafe scrambled to his feet and rushed his sister, mustering his magic as he ran. He blasted blue energy at her as she lunged forward. The pair crashed together in a surge of blue, white, and red combustion before lurching apart. Manume lashed out with her foot, kicking Rafe off his feet. He went down, striking his head against bone, stunning himself. He looked up to see his sister looming over him, and a blaze of white energy smashed into his chest. His body lifted, and his sister’s power flung him into the back of the dragon’s head. A shower of bone shards followed him, cutting into his flesh. Moaning, he rolled along the neck, smearing red specks in his path before returning to more solid footing.
Rafe rose to one knee, bloodied and battered, his left hand still ablaze with magic. His right hand steadied him against the dragon. “You could have finished me with that blow. Are you getting weak? Tired? Do your worst or surrender!” He stared, studying her, waiting.
Manume glared back, breathing heavily, but made no move to attack.
“What no follow-up blow? No clever words? Why haven’t you ended me? You can’t do it, can you?” Rafe stood, straightening to full height on shaky limb. His face was sad, bitter, and resigned. “But I can.” He raised his hands, and summoned his ma
gic, readying a decisive blow against his sister.
“No!” She screamed, and the cavernous echo shivered down the spine of the flying beast. Her hands shimmering in white light streaked with red. She dropped to her knees and smashed her fists and her amulet against her dragon. The creature quaked and cracked, fissures spreading like floodwater, splitting asunder in a roaring fracture of snapping bone. Any solid footing was lost as beast and magic disintegrated into light, dust, and shards. God and Goddess plunged into the ocean surrounded by a shower of bone and pursued by howling ghouls of the sea.
The force of hitting the surface slammed the breath out of Rafe’s lungs, and jagged pain shuddered through his body. Dazed, he sank into the cold embrace of the water, watching the sparkling moonlight above recede farther and farther away. Around him, he heard moaning echoes muffed by the oppressing sea.
Close your eyes, and submerge.
For a moment, he nearly gave into the thought until his conscious brain, his survival instinct, kicked into gear. He flailed his limbs, struggling to swim, stroke after stroke, back up to the surface. His head broke into the clean, fresh air, and he gulped a deep breath of life and coughed briny liquid over his chin.
He glanced around. Bones floated in the water, scattered all about, but he saw nothing of his sister or his sea ghouls. A shiver raced his spine—reinforced as a faint scream reverberated below him—while the sea beside him boiled and exploded in a deluge of fluid and splintering magic. Chaos burst upward as the Goddess of the Moon ascended in a monumental struggle with the Sea Ghouls. She lashed out with fists, magic, teeth and scratching fingers as the ghouls swarmed her, shrieking, clawing with their reaching, grabbing hands. In moments, their numbers overpowered her and dragged her down into the black, frigid ocean where they lived.