She raised her hands and took his, removing them from her shoulders. She turned away from him then, looked back out over the raging tempest. He reached for her again, and found that he couldn’t touch her. She held him back with her mind, erecting a subtle force around herself.
“It’s all a lie, Petra!” he said desperately. She didn’t look back.
Lightning flashed brilliantly over the waves, stabbing down, seeking its mark. Thunder filled the world.
James tried to focus on Petra through the ribbon that connected them. He sensed the power between them, could virtually see the silvery thread pulse in the air between their hands. But she was shutting him out.
She was committed.
“Every bargain they’ve ever made with you was based on paying an impossible, unfair price, Petra!” he shouted, straining to be heard over the thunder and wind. “The Gatekeeper tried to make you kill Lily.
The Bloodline of Voldemort wanted you to kill Izzy. Odin-Vann said you had to kill me. It’s always the same deal, the same terrible cost. And what do you get for it? Nothing but a tainted soul and teasing shadows!
The cost outweighs the benefits! It’s just leprechaun gold, gone by morning! The death bargain is always a lie! And this time it’s the biggest lie of all! Judith has finally convinced you that the person you have to kill… is yourself!”
She refused to look at him. Her back was straight, her arms locked at the elbow, spread to grip the railing, squeezing it, waiting for the inevitable. Her hair flailed in the wind like a black corona.
Lightning was nearly constant now, accompanied by a seamless cannonade of thunder.
Seeing the inevitable now, James firmed his voice, raised his chin, and stated, “Judith will kill Izzy first.”
Petra’s shoulders tensed as if he had struck her.
He went on, bitterly. “When you’re dead, the connection will be broken. Judith won’t need Izzy anymore, and you won’t be there to protect her. Maybe you’re right, and in the end Merlin will defeat Judith. But she’ll kill whoever she can before that happens. Izzy will be the first, because she knows the truth. I’ll be next on her list. I’ll fight, but who am I compared to her? She’ll kill me with barely a second thought. All because you gave up.”
“Don’t!” Petra shouted, her voice carrying over her shoulder, shrill on the wind. “James, don’t! I have to do this! Don’t make it any harder!”
“Do you remember how Lucy died?” James asked, undeterred, taking a step closer, still speaking to her tensed back. “She died protecting Izzy. She’ll do the same thing again this time. You know she will. When Judith comes for Izzy, Lucy will get in her way, try to stop her. She’ll fail, and Judith will kill her again. History finds a way to keep happening. You may change the bigger story, if we’re very lucky.
But the little things will still find a way to happen just like they did last time!”
“STOP!” Petra shouted, and whirled to face him, her eyes more alive and sharp than he had seen them during the entire exchange.
Lightning illuminated the world, spearing down and arcing onto the Gwyndemere’s stern, where it struck the aft mast, immediately behind James. The base of the mast exploded into splinters. James felt them pelt against his back, stick in his damp shirt. The shudder of the force shook the deck. A juddering, groaning creak filled the air and ropes twanged, popped, tore loose as the mast began to topple. James didn’t turn to watch, even as he felt the weight collect over him, throwing the stern into deeper darkness beneath its shadow.
Petra’s eyes flashed upward. “James!” she shouted, alarmed, and acted apparently without even thinking. She rammed both of her arms into the air, palms flat, and a palpable wave of power shot up from them, arresting the motion of the collapsing mast. The deck split beneath Petra’s feet, crushing inward as she supported the weight of the mast, cushioning it with pure invisible force.
James could feel the power throttling between himself and Petra, warming his hand, making his knees tremble as if he had just run a mile.
Gently, concentrating furiously, Petra redirected the falling mast, angled it alongside the stern, and then let it drop again, this time safely off the side. The ship shuddered as the broken weight crashed down, rolled over the railing, plunged its tip into the waves, where it ripped, snapped, and drug away into the surging current.
James turned back to Petra, eyes wide with surprise, his mind reeling at this sudden, unexpected change of events.
“You ducked last time,” Petra explained weakly, slumping back against the railing, dipping and shaking her head. Her shoulders hitched as if she was beginning to sob. “You ducked out of the way, leaving the mast to hit me alone.”
James ran to her, grabbed her shoulder, fearing that she might still tilt back over the side, fall to the heaving waves below.
She wasn’t sobbing. She was laughing. It was a weak, helpless sound, but genuine. “You insufferable, noble, stubborn, gallant git,” she said, and leaned against him, still shaking with helpless amusement.
“You were so intent on saving me that you didn’t even move to save yourself.”
James smiled, nervously relishing the sound of Petra’s fragile laughter. “So you saved me instead. Does that mean… we’re even?”
Petra raised her head to answer, looking James in the eyes even as rain began to fall in earnest.
A clatter sounded from nearby. James remembered. When the mast had fallen last time, some of the deck hands had run up from below to investigate. He didn’t remember them coming this quickly, though.
“It’s not over,” Petra said, tensing and growing serious again.
“She won’t give up this easily.”
The door on the side of the galley wrenched open, accompanied by the sound of panicked, stumbling footsteps. It wasn’t a deck hand that emerged. Instead, a lanky young man half-ran, half-fell out of the galley entrance, catching himself on a nearby railing. He pushed rapidly upright, brandishing a wand in one hand, pushing his hair out of his face with the other, looking around frantically.
It was Donofrio Odin-Vann, only not as James knew him. This version of the future professor appeared barely out of his teens, smaller and more gangly, the thick sheaf of his hair longer, greasy and lank on his forehead.
“He stowed away,” James said in dark wonder, his voice nearly lost in the stormy wind. “He was on the ship the whole time!”
“He wasn’t, actually,” Petra said, her brow lowering at the newcomer. “At least, not the first time through. This is a changed event.”
“Petra!” Odin-Vann stammered, clearly surprised to find her there. His voice was higher than James remembered, cracked from disuse during his days of hiding. He shot his gaze around at the wet deck littered with splinters, the missing aft mast. “You’re… still here!
Only, she said…”
“Who said, Don?” Petra asked coyly, cocking her head, her eyes narrowing.
He tried to straighten his matted robes, to recover and mask his surprise. “Your, um, friend. You know. The Lady. She said… she said that you and she were very close. But she said that you would want it this way. I hope you haven’t had any sort of…” he gulped, and glanced around, “of falling out?”
Petra shook her head slowly. She seemed caught between rising anger and sad pity. Resignedly, she asked, “What did she tell you, Don?”
He gulped again and looked around, his eyes bulging at the raging mountains of water, the seething magical storm. “She said… she said that you called her into the world, but that I could take the burden from you,” he called reedily over the rushing wind. “I would host her, and get her power in return. All the power I ever wanted, because she’s some sort of… of goddess. I would be her new sponsor in the earth. And then she would grant me the strength to… to…”
He forced his eyes back to Petra, blinking rapidly, apparently reluctant to go on.
Petra said, “The power to have revenge on all those who mocked you and bullied you
. More, the power to never be mocked or bullied ever again.”
“You don’t hate me, do you, Petra?” the young man said earnestly. “You always understood me. We always supported each other…”
She shook her head again, with sadness and betrayal. “I never really knew you at all. Did I?”
Odin-Vann gave a grimace. “Does anyone ever really know anyone else?”
James saw, with frustrating dismay, that this young man was not yet the manipulative mastermind that he would grow to become. And yet he was clearly toxic with power delusions and fantasies of revenge, dangerous more for his desperation than his power or intellect. James only hoped that Petra understood the same.
“You made yourself a fool, Don,” Petra sighed, confirming this.
“The Lady of the Lake won’t help you. She will only use you. That’s what she does. She uses, and manipulates, and lies. And then, when she is done, she kills.”
Young Odin-Vann nodded a little, and a tentative smile curled his lips. “She said that’s what some people would say. But she also said that you would be happy to be relieved of the burden of being her host.
I don’t know how you summoned her into the world, but I do know that you don’t want that responsibility anymore. We’re going to help you let go of it.”
Here, young Odin-Vann’s eyes switched to James, squinted with an insincere smile. “And this is young Mr. Potter, then, is it? The Lady told me about you as well.”
James felt anger well up in him. He drew his wand without even thinking. “I beat you once,” he said with iron conviction. “And I can do it again.”
“You beat me, you say?” Odin-Vann replied quickly, as if moderately impressed. “I don’t recall that. But I’ve been beaten by so very many. Beaten, and laughed at. But soon, the laughing will stop.
Even yours, Mr. James Potter. I hope you enjoyed your one victory. I think it will be your last.”
The confidence in his voice was puzzling. A split second too late did James realize what was happening. The stowaway young man was distracting him and Petra, keeping them talking, goading and occupying them for his own nefarious reason.
James turned back to the raging ocean behind them.
A tentacle of icy water blasted him backwards, knocked him to the deck so violently that he lost all sense of direction, knew only vicious motion, and the sound sudden screaming laughter, and a jolt of wracking pain as he struck some hard surface, smashed through it, and crashed into darkness.
“You didn’t play your role, dear sister!” Judith’s voice screamed, bright with good humour, horribly vibrant. “But no matter. I remember how the story is supposed to go!”
James tried to find his footing. He slipped and tripped over broken pieces of something, a table and chairs, smashed by his passage through the galley wall. Cold wind and mists of ice battered through the dark, pushing him back down, forcing him to strain against the force.
Petra didn’t respond to Judith’s taunt. Instead, shudders of violence shook the ship, battered it as it rocked atop the heaving waves.
James crawled forward, cutting his hands on broken glass, not feeling it.
The broken galley wall loomed before him, revealing a barrage of magic and flailing, watery motion. Odin-Vann was there, but cringing in terror, backing away, his hands raised.
James realized, on some dim, faraway level, that it was not only the blasting force of Petra’s and Judith’s confrontation that was pushing him back. His arms and legs trembled with weakness. His vision pulsed with waves of grey. He could feel the drain as Petra drew from him, drawing strength like water from a deep well. The cord between them thrummed like a pulse.
He was her battery. Somehow, he stored and held her banked power.
He forced himself to his knees and clambered through the shattered wall. The storm raged harder than ever, forming a torrential backdrop to the battle.
Judith was in her prime again, James saw. Beautiful and terrible, her red hair loose and flying in waves, her eyes blazing with strength, her teeth bared in a fierce grin. She lunged at Petra, launching a cloud of icy arrows. Petra hunkered and dug in, extending both arms and erecting a shimmering shield, obliterating Judith’s attack.
Footsteps clanked and pounded up the mid-ship stairs. Two deck hands appeared on the port side; Merlin and James’ father on the starboard.
Odin-Vann glanced back at the newcomers, his eyes wild and terrified. His wand was in his fist, but he did not fire. Instead, he dropped to a crouch and covered his head with his skinny arms, whimpering.
“Halt!” Merlin shouted, his voice booming through the storm.
Judith flung a hand at him, turning it to a bludgeon of ice. It struck the headmaster, bowling him backwards into Harry, knocking both back down the stairs.
“The harder you resist me, sister,” Judith cried, renewing her attack on Petra, “The more of your friends will die. Poor Merlinus is no match for me here on the ocean. His strength is the green of the wild. I am the blue of the depths! I will crush him like a dung beetle!”
“No!” Petra shouted, lowering her voice to a furious command.
She planted her feet, knees bent, and shot out both of her fists, left and right. As she did, a shockwave of force blasted away from her in all directions.
James’ mind went grey. He began to crumple to the deck, completely sapped of strength.
But the deck suddenly bucked beneath him, threw him aside, and wrenched hard toward the bow. A massive, splintering crunch rocked the ship as it seemed to ram to a halt in the water. James rolled and slid on the varnished planks, fetching up hard against the broken galley wall again, his head spinning.
“Neptune’s Trident!” a voice—one of the deck hands—called out, breathless with shock.
Dizzily, James scrabbled to his hands and knees, pushed up against the leaning galley bulkhead, and blundered back toward the starboard railing.
He was utterly unprepared for the sight that met him.
The waves beyond looked like a Muggle photograph, suddenly and utterly frozen in place, shocked white as if by a flash of lightning.
Their peaks glinted like glass daggers, their troughs sloped with deep bottle-blue, perfectly still, like a split-second in time.
With a shock of surprise and awe, James saw that the Gwyndemere lay tilted hard to port, locked in an expanding island of flash-frozen ocean. Even as he watched, further ocean peaks crunched to stillness, overcome by Petra’s expanding, icy spell.
Petra’s eyes flared like twin suns.
“You shall not touch anyone on this ship again,” she declared in a voice of cold thunder. Punctuating this command, she struck out with both hands.
Her attack was a wave of force that visibly bent space around it.
The bolt connected with Judith in an instant, blasting her backwards, exploding her through the deck and railing behind.
“Petra!” James’ father called, clambering up the tilting stairs again, Merlin struggling upright behind. But Petra was already leaping to follow her nemesis over the lowered port side, landing on a slope of ice.
“Stay on the ship!” she called back. “I will keep her away and busy! When you can navigate the ship again, fly! Don’t look back!”
The storm still raged, now howling and whistling over the frozen mountains of ice, tattering their crests into sparkling streams of snow.
Rain blatted down, slicking the icy canyons, freezing into icicles from the peaks.
Judith laughed shrilly from the echoing chasms.
“Come and find me, Sister!”
The ice rumbled. Cracks appeared around the Gwyndemere, unsettling it. Black water bubbled and spurt up around it. Petra’s spell was already weakening.
James drew his wand, helplessly watching as Petra reached the bottom of the frozen wave and broke into a run, seeking the laughing monster beyond. He considered joining her, but knew it was no use.
He could no sooner assist her than he could lift the ship with his
own two hands.
And then someone pushed him from behind, two hands planted in the middle of his back, hard enough to propel him straight forward over the railing.
“James!” his father shouted in alarm, but the sound was already diminishing, muffled with distance as he flipped over in air, landed hard on his back and tumble-slid down the rocklike slope of a frozen swell.
Spells lit the driving rain in flashing hues. Voices shouted.
James gasped to recover his breath. His entire body ached and shivered, both with cold and wet and weakness. He lay in the shadow of the ice-locked hull of the Gwyndemere, staring aside at the half-buried rudder, now encased in a thick sheath of ice.
Another figure slipped and clambered down the icy wave, nearly falling atop him.
“She will want you for this,” the figure gasped through gritted teeth. It was young Odin-Vann. He reached, clambered over James, and wrenched the wand from his hand.
“Come!” he commanded, grabbing James by the fabric of his shirt and dragging him roughly to his feet.
Spells spat down from the ship, competing with the flash of angry lightning.
“Stop!” a voice called from above, barely heard over the ripping wind and teeming rain. “You’ll hit my son! We must go after them!”
James clambered along after Odin-Vann, off balance, tugged in the young man’s merciless grip. They clambered through a rippled gully of ice, sheened darkest blue with depth. Before them, James sensed Judith and Petra still battling, just around the nearest mountainous peak. He felt the drain of power as Petra struggled franticly to match Judith’s prime force. It wasn’t working. He sensed her desperation, the faltering quaver of her strength.
Petra’s element was the city, after all. She could not match Judith here any more than Merlin could.
James Potter and the Crimson Thread Page 62