by S. M. Welles
Every last ton of water resisted my will, barreling through it like I wasn’t even there. The strain gave me a splitting headache. The water around me began to get sucked out to sea, pulling at my legs. I dug my clawed feet into the sand and it began to pile up behind my ankles. I held my hands over the ocean and leaned back as I pulled like I was playing tug-of-war with two ropes. I pulled at the receding water, hoping to rob the tsunami of more fuel. The line of water before me slowed to a standstill, but the rest of the few miles only slowed, until the strain was too much. One multi-ton water demon versus millions of tons of water didn’t stand a chance. I let go and started gasping for air as the water receded, leaving nothing but sand all around me.
I pulled my feet free, jerking them with a squelch, then reasserted a balanced stance and braced my hands against an invisible wall. It was time to change tactics. I had to find a way to stop the tsunami. It just couldn’t reach Newport. I flung every last ounce of will at it again, urging it to stop barreling to shore. The splitting headache returned but I accepted it and narrowed my eyes. The tsunami showed no signs of slowing, but I couldn’t give up. Just like Jessie had spent months kicking at her cell door on Tethys’s ship, until it finally broke, I would contend with the wave until it finally yielded to my will. It just had to yield if I kept at it long enough.
You are a stubborn one, Dyne Lavere.
Amphitrite’s voice made me do a full-body flinch. I pushed aside my surprise and reasserted my will against the tsunami.
You already know how this will end, yet you try anyway. You’re breaking my heart yet again.
I felt sorrow in her words. She was sincerely heartbroken, watching me fight, but I refused to accept it, couldn’t accept that she felt anything but hate and contempt for me. You don’t have a heart.
If that’s what you wish to believe, then I won’t argue. I pity you and what I must do to break you, but break you must. I suggest saving your precious crew while you still can. I have spared them from my creatures, but I won’t save them from the coming tide.
The sorrow emanating from her lingered in my chest, even after I felt her consciousness peel away from mine. My heart was already heavy from Newport’s devastation. Her added weight made my knees buckle. And her words… I took a deep breath and focused my concentration on the wave. I pressed my will against the front of it, imagining my arms were long enough to block the whole thing, and I pushed against it, trying to catch it, cradle it, hold it still—anything but reach land. Between the excruciating pain from the battle of wills and my multitude of injuries, tears fell down my snout. My vision blurred as I pushed against the tsunami with everything I had.
The wave barreled towards shore without variation. I could hear it rumbling. It sounded like the roar of a waterfall and the chug of a train. The wave gained height and the leading edge spilled over into a frothing breaker, turning brown with sand. I pushed against the leading edge, sending it up like high winds blow whitecaps away, but more water kept rolling in. I pushed up from the bottom, willing the entire wave to go up, instead of towards land. For some crazy reason it started working on the patch of wave directly in front of me. I spread my will outwards and pushed more of the tsunami into the air, and soon I had a mile-wide dome reaching for the fog. It cast a shadow over me. The tsunami rose high overhead, roaring away, but the higher it rose, the heavier it weighed on my will. If I could just hang in there and keep forcing it to go up, until it lost all forward momentum, I might just be able to win this fight.
Never assume defeat.
I began to teeter backwards as the battle of wills physically pushed on my body, but I somehow managed to maintain concentration as I staggered and regained balance. I spread my will farther, trying to catch the entire width of the wave, but I couldn’t reach it all. The father I reached, the harder it was to keep hold of what was already under some control, and the worse my head hurt. My entire body began to throb. I didn’t want to know how badly I was bleeding.
The tidal wave spread into a semicircle as the edge farthest to my left made landfall. I wanted to catch it but I’d lose my hold on everything if I stretched my will any farther. The washing away of Newport began.
I detached myself from the heartache that cropped up. I couldn’t let the sight break my concentration. My spine felt like it was going to snap, and my arms felt like two cement blocks with insufficient blood pumping to my muscles. They began to tingle and my whole body began to shake. Panic began to creep in. The tsunami wasn’t anywhere near done rolling in.
My will began to crack. The truth of the matter began to sink in. I began to concede that I stood no chance against the force of a tsunami. The series of waves were piling up, driving the water higher and higher. Next thing I knew, I was on my knees with shaking hands level with my head. The wall of water I’d created dwarfed me. Even though it was morning, it looked dark enough to be evening.
I got one foot back under me and couldn’t move without losing concentration. I was fighting a losing battle but I didn’t want to believe I couldn’t protect my home. It couldn’t be possible for me to fail at this. The wall of water began to crest, and the edges spread inland. I pushed against it, but the mass in front of me slowly crept forward, and when it brushed up against my knee, I made the mistake of stretching my will to push it back. The sheer size and strength of the tsunami crushed me all at once. My will broke and I couldn’t hold my arms up anymore. I toppled backwards, my body getting driven into the sand, and my mind saying “no” over and over. This couldn’t be happening. I gasped for breath and let blood flow back into my aching arms as my brain refused to believe what it was seeing. Gravity pulled the water back to the ocean floor and the tsunami’s momentum heaved it inland.
This just couldn’t be. I raised my hands and threw my will at the water but one push on it and my head spun. Bile rose in my throat and my vision swam. I gave up and pushed to my feet, and just stared, taking in the impossible scenario my mind and heart didn’t want to accept.
As the base of the wave began washing over my feet, I shifted to my aquatic form and rolled forward onto my belly, then charged up the crashing wave like a surfer, then plowed through the crest. I turned around midair and sped down the wave, using my command over water to propel myself forward and carry a chunk of water with me. I had no choice but to make good on my promise to Jessie.
I threw water ahead of me and the tsunami, and used it like one massive feeler to locate my scattered crew. I poured water into one rubble pile after another, feeling for familiar faces and bodies. I found Jacobi huddled inside a demolished home. He panicked and cried out when water enveloped them. I pulled it away and scooped them into my arms.
Jacobi swung his sword at my arm but stopped in time. “Captain!”
“Where are the others?” I said urgently.
“I don’t know. We got scattered the minute that guy started attacking.”
I rode water to Sam’s home next, filling up a rubble pile and finding him, Scully, a wife, and two kids. All of them were beat up. I added them to my armload and bolted for the Pertinacious on a cushion of water. I didn’t see any other humans scrambling for cover; just monsters fleeing the incoming water. I grabbed the smaller creatures with water hands, yanked them into the roiling water, and ignored the bigger ones as I made my way to the wharf. I also used my command over water to tote all living local I came across in attempt to save as many lives as possible. I deposited my three crew members and Sam’s family on the bow, along with the locals, then assessed their physical state real quick. They were all conscious and in one piece, but all of them were dinged up, covered in dirt, and soaked. Jacobi was coated in my blood.
“Stay here.” I swam off for more as the tsunami began to swallow the southern end of town. I found Ed, Ted, Mido, and Jessie, and dozens of survivors where the hospital used to be. I grabbed my crew and as many strangers as I could carry, despite their screams, and delivered them to my ship as well. I’d left behind more people than I wa
nted to put a number to. Guilt weighed me down as I swam off to find my last four crew members. As much as I wanted to keep the whole town alive, the safety of my crew took precedence over theirs. It was nothing personal. O’Toole was still alive and hiding in the cargo hold. I’d managed to not flush him out earlier.
The tsunami steadily swallowed Newport, filling the gaps between debris piles and slowly washing over them as it clawed inland. Thousands of people were about die or have their lives changed forever. I collected many more strangers who were fortunate to be close to my crew when I found them, but other than that, I couldn’t play the real hero. I had to return to my ship to keep it afloat, otherwise the tsunami would capsize it, hole in the hull or not.
I found Cancer, Sam, and Rammus together in the northeast. They were near where monsters were seeking shelter from the water thundering inland. I picked up a few dozen more survivors, then finally found Sauna way the hell north. He’d somehow climbed onto the wall guarding the naval base. I scooped him up and bolted for my ship, which wasn’t where I’d left it. The water was pushing it deeper into the harbor, along with every other vessel that’d been tied down. The entire wharf was underwater.
I added the rest of the crew and more locals to the deck, then shifted back to having legs and crouched over the bow, one hand held out to help me command water. “Everyone hang on!” I guided water out of the hold and rode out the tsunami as we continued to get sucked inland. I was dead tired, hurting all over, and having a hard time holding my arm up. Willing such a small amount of water to do my bidding made my head hurt anew. Still, I helped the ship stay afloat as Jessie, Ed, and Ted held Mido down, and Cancer limped from person to person in need of medical attention. Sam, Rammus, and Scully helped Cancer as they could, holding people down, tearing off chunks of shirt to create makeshift tourniquets, and speaking soothing words to frightened landies.
The tsunami rolled in, one wave after another, roaring in our ears and pushing us inland. Debris piled up everywhere, splashing over what remained underwater, until all eleven square miles of Newport looked like one massive network of rapids. Trees got uprooted and the ocean rocketed through the harbor from getting bottlenecked between two landmasses. A few landies got seasick all over the deck but I didn’t care. They were alive. They would hate me forever, but they were alive. My crew was alive, and they squeezed everyone on the stern since I was dripping blood all over them.
And my hometown was gone.
By the time the tsunami finally lost momentum, we were probably halfway to Providence. I dropped to my hands and knees to catch what breath I could, until the ocean began pulling everything out to sea. I stayed on my knees and use both hands to direct the water to swing the boat around. I needed to see what I had to deflect from putting more holes in my hull.
Within minutes, the tsunami receded, laying bare a featureless landscape that was now Newport.
My heart broke. That was it. Everything was gone in minutes. Thousands of lives changes forever, including my own. I reached over and pierced a wheelhouse window with a claw, then released the anchor once we were where the Wyndham Wharf was supposed to be. I was shaking all over and aching with the need to revert back to human. I was spent, emotionally and physically. My hometown was gone, my last link to my humanity. So many people had lost their lives because of me. This day was all my fault. And I’d even transformed in hopes of things turning out better than this.
The anchor found the bottom of the debris-choked harbor and I waited for enough rode to be released before locking the line, and then I collapsed on the deck and watched Newport wash away, just watched while my mind numbed with shock. The sea monsters departed with the water and debris.
Several pairs of footsteps drew closer. I dragged my head around. Jessie, Ed, Ted, Cancer, and Rammus approached me, their faces forlorn. They stopped near my snout, which was surrounded in a pool of my own blood. “Cancer, don’t bother patching me up. Just throw me in my lockdown container. I’ll see all of you after I revive, and we’ll have a lengthy discussion about what we’re going to do from here on out. I don’t want to put any of you in harm’s way like this ever again.” My body began to steam and tingle, and I began to shrink back to human. I looked at all of them and my eyes stung with tears. Their injuries and my destroyed home left me so thoroughly brokenhearted. I looked at each of them in turn, Jessie last. “I’m so damn sorry.” I closed my eyes as the pain of my injuries set in. Shortly after I was back to human, I passed out and died again.
* * *
When I came to, I was back in the cave full of nereids and naiads. I was floating in the pool again, lying face-up, with a greenish glow filling the empty space. I was wearing the scaled skirt thing Poseidon had conjured for me the day I’d spoken to him. At least that would be easy enough to grow out of once I built up the will to escape.
My home was gone. My town was gone. The last link to my pure human past was gone. I’d done everything I could and it hadn’t changed the outcome Amphitrite had aimed for.
Strangely, the water around me was completely still, the air full of pregnant silence and the smell of plants and moisture. I lifted my head, started treading water, and waited for them to attack, but they didn’t. They did nothing but watch me forlornly, sitting on their haunches or treading water at the pool’s edge, all of them saying nothing. I wanted to ask them why they weren’t torturing me, but I quite honestly didn’t want to goad them if they were going to give me a reprieve. I deserved their torment, though, after all that happened.
I looked up at the black hole in the cenote. Creatures lines the walls, all of them looking down at me.
One of them said, “Demon pet go back. Mistress waiting for you.”
My heart sank anew. She’d broken me like she’d promised. I had no will left to fight anymore. I didn’t want to deal with her for a long time. I’d rather quietly accept my curse for a while than have any interaction with her.
I swam to shore and heaved myself out of the water. The nereids created a pathway to the wall. I gave them a suspicious look.
“She waits.”
“No tricks?” I asked.
“No tricks,” it said with a shake of its head. Others echoed the declaration. None of them cackled. Instead, they fell silent again.
My hopes wanted to rise but I refused to let them get dashed again. I more tiptoed than walked to the vine-covered wall and touched it. They didn’t taunt or attack, or anything; just watched on as others cleared a path up to the opening. I looked around one more time, then, seeing no reason to just stand there, made my way up. I climbed steadily, not enthusiastic about escaping. It was just something I had to do. I was prepared to go demon if I had to. I wasn’t entirely sure they were going to leave me alone, half expecting them to attack at the last second right before I could make good on my escape.
When I had just a few feet to go, I paused. The entire cenote splayed out before me, all of them looking up and watching on. I gazed into the void, which looked like a starless night without clouds, and climbed into it.
I came to inside the pitch black of my lockdown container and took a few minutes to orient myself back to reality. I was lying on a cot sticky with probably my own blood. My body was whole again, and I was tired from the repair process my curse had made my body undergo. I sat up and my head started pounding in my temples, probably from dehydration. I winced as I got up and felt my way to the food hatch, and found a jug of electrolyte water and a box of crackers. I hesitated. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty, but if I didn’t give myself sustenance, I would die again, just to be revived again. I drank the water, started feeling thirsty, then guzzled it down until I felt hydrated enough. I opened a sleeve of crackers, then sat down and ate mechanically. They tasted bland. I ate until my brain said I’d had enough, and then I just sat there in total darkness and quiet, ruminating.
* * *
Some time later, someone knocked on the container door. I got up and walked over. “I’m back,” I said just loud e
nough to be heard. I didn’t want to talk, but I owed my visitor a response.
“Welcome back at last, Captain,” Rammus said. “You’ve been gone a long month.”
“How many left?”
“No one quit. We’re all here, all alive.”
I fell silent. I didn’t know how to react to having retained my entire crew. How could they possibly want to be anywhere me after all that?
“You have four more days of lockdown, by the way.”
“How’s the crew holding up?”
“Well on the mend. Just a lot of scabs, bruises, and mending bones left over. Mido had a collapsed lung but it’s fine now. We had to go to Providence to find a hospital so everyone could get taken care of, even Cancer. That was funny watching him boss around the RN trying to tend to his injuries.”
How was he so light and jovial already? All those injuries because of my own stupidity and obstinance. “I’m sorry.” I bowed my head, my heart aching.
Rammus fell silent a moment. “No apologizing, Captain. You sound really down, so I’m gonna leave you be for the next four days. Collect yourself and find your inner strength again. That’s an order from your second-in-command. We’ll have a nice long talk as a crew after lockdown.”
I walked away in silence. What could I say? My crew—I shouldn’t even call them that anymore—had ample reason to hate me. Come the end of lockdown, it would be high time to hand the Pertinacious and crew over to Rammus. He’d taken good care of everyone and everything. No more sucking people into my cursed life. As for how I’d live out however many more centuries in solitude, I’d worry about that once all business affairs were taken care of.
* * *
For the next four days, I ate when meals were sent up to me, towel bathed clean what I could feel, and slept when I couldn’t stay awake anymore to ruminate. I didn’t sleep well at all though. My mind was too full of racing thoughts, and I felt like a beaten dead horse, one that’d been revived to be beaten again.