Probably It's Prophecy, page 27
part #3 of Antiheroes Series
“But not far, I think,” Dannen muttered angrily, glancing back at the other ship in the distance.
“What did you do?” Tesler demanded, rounding on Mariana who stumbled back in understandable shock for likely she, like Dannen, had never heard the man raise his voice in anger or…well, in anything, really. In fact, Dannen wouldn’t have thought he was capable of it until that moment. “You let her go,” Tesler said, his tone accusing.
Mariana winced. “Tesler…I had to, I—”
“No,” he said, slapping away her reaching hands, “no, don’t touch me. You never did…you never did like her and now…now she’s gone.”
Mariana stood there, a hurt expression on her face, her mouth opening and closing as if she were searching for words and finding none. Dannen stepped forward. “It’s not her fault, lad. I told her to let the squirrel go. There wasn’t any choice. She saved us.”
Tesler sneered. “And Maela? Who is going to save her?”
Dannen glanced at Fedder, and the mage gave him a look that made it clear he had no ideas.
“What do they even want with her?” Tesler said. “It doesn’t…it doesn’t make sense.”
“There are magic users onboard that ship,” Fedder said, frowning out at the distant vessel as if it were a bug he meant to squash.
“What was your first clue?” Dannen demanded. “The damned magic portal?”
“Magic users?” Tesler asked. “You mean…mages? Like you?”
The big man gave an angry grunt, shaking his head and giving his bushy red beard a scratch. “No, lad. Not like me. Those on that ship…they’re wrong. Don’t think of them as mages at all, not really. They’re more like…vampires.”
Dannen blinked, confused, but it was Tesler who spoke, his voice shaky with barely-contained fear and rage. “Vampires?” he asked. “You mean like from the stories parents tell their children to give them a good scare?”
“Close enough,” Fedder growled. “They’re leeches, lad. Ones who suck the power out of other people, other…things. Who rob them of it and, in doing so, grow stronger. Likely, they’ve taken your squirrel friend to do just that.”
“You mean they intend to…intend to…”
“Take her power,” Fedder finished for him.
“And…what will happen to Maela? If they do, I mean?”
Fedder shook his head. “Nothing good. You see, lad, a regular mage, a man or woman who is able to touch the ether, well, such a leech would leave them without that ability, but they would live—assuming the witches didn’t take it in mind to finish the job and something tells me these aren’t much into leaving loose ends. But for a creature like your pet goddess, well, such beings aren’t able to touch magic, they are magic. And if you take that magic away…”
“Then they die,” Tesler finished, his eyes going wide with shock.
The mage winced. “I’m afraid so, lad.”
“B-but we can’t let them do it,” Tesler said, his gaze traveling to Dannen. “Please, Dannen, there…there has to be something we can do.”
Dannen glanced at the ship. He didn’t think it was just his imagination that the vessel seemed to be getting father away. He looked up at the top deck. “Captain,” he shouted. “Can we catch them?”
Two-Time glanced at the distant ship then back at him, an incredulous look on his face. “Not a chance!” he shouted back. “They’ve got the wind and even if they had not, their hull speed’ll be far greater than ours. No, they’re already gone.”
Dannen grimaced, turning back to Tesler. “I’m…I’m sorry, lad. We’ll track them, though, alright? They have to stop sooner or later and when they do—”
“But Maela will be dead by then!” Tesler shouted.
Dannen winced at the desperation in the man’s voice and turned to Fedder. “Is there anything you can do?”
The big man frowned, shaking his head. “I wish there was, Butcher—truly, I do. But I’m no wind or water mage—fire’s all I know, and that won’t do us much good, not here.”
“B-but we have to do something,” Tesler said, his voice quieter now, thick with fear.
Dannen put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, lad. Really, I am. I liked her too. But there just isn’t anything we can do. You heard the captain—the ship’s not fast enough and—”
“This is your fault!” Tesler yelled, spinning to stare at Mariana. “You let her go!”
“I…I had to, Tesler,” Mariana said, “Please, I didn’t—”
“But they’re just right there!” Tesler said, turning back to Dannen and gesturing at the distant ship. “Surely—”
“Our ship’s just not fast enough, lad,” Dannen said.
Tesler had a panicked look on his face for several seconds but then it turned into a grim expression. “Maybe not,” he said, “but I am.”
He started toward the edge of the deck facing the distant vessel, gripping the ship’s railing with both hands.
“What do you aim to do, lad?” Dannen said, following him, each step a struggle as he just managed to keep his weary body upright.
“They took her,” Tesler said, his eyes still studying the ship, a look of fury on his face that Dannen had never seen there before. “I aim to get her back.”
“You can’t,” Dannen said. “Look at the waves—” He paused, gesturing at the turbulent water beneath them, water that grew more and more dangerous as the approaching storm drew closer. “The captain said there’s a storm coming, one that’ll be on us any minute, and even if there wasn’t, you could never make the swim. No man could. Listen, we’ll—”
“You’re right,” Tesler agreed, turning to look at him. “No man could.” His face softened a bit then. “Listen, Dannen, if something happens…if…if I don’t come back, thank you. For everything.”
“Thank me?” Dannen asked. “For what? Lad, it’s my fault you’re here, after all, I’m the reason you all came, the reason you’re in this mess.”
Tesler gave him a small, tight smile. “What are friends for?” he asked. And then he climbed onto the ship’s railing and leapt into the churning water.
Dannen let out a shout of surprise, reaching for the man, but he was too late and his hands closed on nothing but air. So desperate had been his lunge that he nearly spilled over the side himself, would have had Fedder not appeared beside him, catching him.
“Easy there, Butcher,” he said, “easy.”
“But…he’ll die,” Mariana said, coming up beside them. “What’s he doing? No one can swim in those waters, it’s impossible, where is he?” She leapt up onto the ship’s rail as if she meant to dive in after him, but Fedder caught her, pulling her back down.
“No, no, lass. You can’t go after him.”
“But he’ll die, Fedder,” she said, her voice somewhere between a cry and a shout, “can’t you get that? He’ll die!”
Dannen frowned at the water, frowned deeper as a sleek, gray form leapt out of it before diving back in, heading in the direction of the enemy ship. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“What?” Mariana said, spinning and looking at the water. “Do you see him?”
Dannen opened his mouth to answer but before he could, the dolphin he’d seen leapt up over the roaring water again before diving back in once more, and he was shocked at how much distance it had already traveled, for it was over halfway to the ship.
“Son of a bitch,” Fedder said from beside him. “I thought the bastard didn’t have any control over it?”
Dannen grunted. “So did I, but he’s lookin’ pretty well controlled now,” he said as he watched the distant dolphin take another graceful leap out of the water.
“Must be handy in the bedroom,” Fedder said.
Dannen frowned, glancing at the man. “Do women like dolphins?”
“That ain’t what I meant, Butcher. What I meant is—”
“I know what you meant, damnit,” Dannen interrupted.
“Who cares?” Mariana snapped. “So he’s a dolphin, so what? What good is a dolphin going to do against a boat full of assassins?”
Dannen winced, the feeling of relief he’d had vanishing at the woman’s words. “You’re right.” He looked back at the captain. “Two-Time, follow that ship!”
“I told you we won’t be able to catch her!”
“Then don’t—just follow her!”
“What do you mean to do, Butcher?” Fedder asked.
Dannen glanced at the man, then at Mariana, both of them watching him. “What we can,” he said. “And don’t worry,” he said to the woman, “I’m sure Tesler knows what he’s doing.”
She said nothing and, as one, they all turned to look back at the distant ship and, more specifically, at the dolphin who, by now, had nearly reached it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As always when she slept, Maela’s spirit, her being, traveled to the Green. She woke at the center of a great forest, one that stretched on forever, covering the face of the world. It had been a real forest once, but no longer. Trees, after all, fell. They fell to time and the works of men. The Green, though, remembered, and in its memory, it was still the great sprawling fields and forests that it had once been.
Here, in the Forest of Memory, Maela had always found peace, but even as her eyes came open she knew that something was wrong. The Green had changed. Or, perhaps, it was more accurate to say that it was being changed.
The Forest of Memory normally existed in perpetual day, the sunlight filtering through the great green canopies of the trees overhead to splash along the ground beneath. It was a place of life and light, but now, shadows clung to the base of the trunks, shadows that spread even as she watched, growing across the ground like some terrible, deadly mold, covering the fallen leaves, covering the bases of the trees.
At first, she feared that perhaps the Green was dying, but she knew that such could not be true. The Green existed. Nothing truer could ever be said of it, for the Green was life. No, it was not the Green that was dying, she realized after a moment. It was her.
The twin witches were doing their work, robbing her of the Green, of her connection to it, and without that connection, she was nothing, could be nothing.
Maela had lived for eons, had watched the passage of time, had witnessed the coming of man and those other creatures which populated the world, but never before could she remember feeling what she felt in that moment—fear. All things, it seemed, had an ending after all.
She wanted to fight back, but shadows were not easily slain, and she was far too weak to do it, barely able to stand on her four paws. And these, of course, were not normal shadows, for they had a voice. Two voices, in truth, voices so intertwined that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began, sibilant, hissing voices that grated at her mind.
Maela wanted to scream, to fight, to visit her wrath upon the owners of those voices, to revenge herself upon those who would think to foul the Forest of Memory, but she was too weak, too tired, and so she did the only thing she could do. She crouched in the circle of light, a circle that grew smaller and smaller as the shadows, as the darkness spread, and she waited for her end to come.
***
“What do you think they’re doing…down there?”
Sloan barely heard the archer. He was busy staring at his hand, the one which had reached into the pool of shadow. It looked the same, the hand, and yet it felt…different, felt almost…dead.
“Sloan?”
He blinked, raising his head to look at True. The archer’s face was pale, his eyes slightly wild, and Sloan couldn’t blame him, for they had witnessed something this day, something terrible. He glanced at the door leading belowdecks, the door that, minutes ago, the twin sisters had gone through, along with their prize clutched between them. He shook his head. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to. We will leave the witches to their task. We have our own to worry about. The other ship—they have turned about.”
“They mean to follow us?”
“So it would seem.”
“But…that’s good, isn’t it? After all, we’ve come a long way to hunt them.”
Sloan considered that for a moment, then gave an angry shake of his head. “No. According to the witches, we aren’t ready to fight them yet. Not until they finish whatever it is they’re doing down there.”
He turned to the captain who was busily frowning at nothing in particular. “Can they catch us?”
The man glanced back at the ship in the distance then sneered, hocking and spitting into the wind. “In that tub? No chance. They’ll be lucky if it doesn’t come apart in this blow we’re gettin’ ready to have.”
True frowned. “Blow?”
“Storm, boy!” the captain roared. “It’s shapin’ up to be a bad one and no mistake.”
“Never heard of a good storm before,” the archer grumbled, but Sloan was barely listening. Instead, his attention was focused on a dolphin he suddenly saw leaping in the ocean.
Sloan knew little of boats and even less of dolphins, but it seemed to him that the creature was heading straight for them. “Is uh…that normal?” he asked the captain.
The man frowned, following his pointing finger. “Is what normal?” the man asked, one side of his mouth raising in a mocking grin, “a dolphin swimmin’ in the ocean? Sure—matter of fact, it’d be a bit odd to find them anywhere else.”
Sloan shook his head, annoyed. “I just meant that the creature seems to be heading right for us.”
“Sure, and why not?” the man asked as if it was the dumbest question in the world. “The critters love goin’ up to ships. They’re friendly, sociable.” He frowned, lowering his tone. “A damn sight more friendly, you ask me, than most men.”
Sloan grunted as he watched the creature leap into the air then disappear beneath the waves only to reappear in another leap, still moving directly toward where their ship sailed through the waters. Watching it, he thought that despite the captain’s words, the creature didn’t look friendly. There was something purposeful, something almost angry about it.
He watched it come closer—in another few minutes, if it kept its course, it would end up ramming the side of their ship, not that the ship would notice, of course—almost mesmerized by it. Then, finally, Sloan shook his head, telling himself to stop being a fool. It was just a fish—the ocean was full of them after all. Just a fish and whatever troubled feeling it gave him wasn’t because of the fish itself, he was sure, but because of the Twins and their strange magics. The Twins who, just now, were belowdecks doing the gods alone knew—or wanted to know—what to the squirrel who they claimed was an ancient goddess.
He forced his gaze away from the dolphin to the enemy ship, still trailing in their wake but pointed like an arrow in the direction of the vessel on which he now rode. An arrow which, according to the captain, would never find its mark.
Still, the ship was close enough that Sloan could see its passengers and crew. The crew went about their task, trimming this or tacking that, Sloan didn’t know the specifics and didn’t care to, for his attention was instead drawn to the passengers standing on the deck. Passengers which included Dannen Ateran, Mariana the assassin, and Fedder the Firemaker, the great giant of a mage who had ruined his face.
He frowned. He did not see the fourth—Tesler was his name. Sloan knew it just as he knew all their names, for he had made it a point to know, a point to learn everything that he could about each of them so that, when the time came, he would be able to exact as much pain from them as possible before he allowed them to die. He had studied Fedder and Dannen’s pasts, had spoken with those men and women who had tutored Mariana during her time in the academy—or at least, to those who had been willing to speak with him. For reasons beyond his understanding or comprehension, many of the woman’s tutors had liked her, although they nearly all had agreed that she had been odd.
He knew what he could of those three and even in Mariana’s case he knew enough. But the fourth man, the man called Tesler, was a puzzle and despite Sloan’s efforts he knew no more than the man’s name and even on that score he was not sure. It was as if the man had just appeared out of nowhere in Talinseh one day, with none of the history and past acquaintances that every normal person left behind them.
That had bothered Sloan, the man seeming to have never existed before their encounter outside of Talinseh, but since then he had decided that the man was by far the least threatening of the four companions and had given him little thought. Now, though, he did find himself thinking of him mostly because while the others stood on the deck staring out at Sloan’s ship, the man, Tesler, was nowhere in sight.
And more bothersome still was that the more he looked at them, the more Sloan became convinced that they weren’t staring at him or even at the ship at all but were instead staring at something in the water.
He frowned. He had heard the tales back in Berush, of course, those describing a sea monster that attacked anyone foolish enough to travel on the ocean—the captain himself had warned him of it until Sloan had convinced him that while a sea monster might kill him, a dagger in the throat certainly would. He had heard the stories, but he had not believed them. After all, sea monsters were creatures out of fables, out of legends. Sure, they had probably existed once, but that was a long time ago, and they had no place in the land of modern man.
Or so he’d assured the others—and himself—as they’d climbed aboard the ship. But now, with the waves crashing loudly all around them, the ship itself rocking and swaying, with clouds gathering overhead so dark they looked black and distant lightning tracing its way across the sky, Sloan could almost believe it.
And despite his own assurances, he found himself looking over the side, studying the roiling water for any sign of a sea monster. He’d never seen one before, so he wasn’t entirely sure what to look for, but he figured that if there was any benefit about sea monsters, it was that a man knew one when he saw it.
But despite his fears, no great monstrosity of ancient times lifted itself out of the churning ocean bent on destruction and Sloan was just preparing to turn away, dismissing his unease, when he heard a muffled thump from somewhere beyond his sight on the outside of the ship’s hull. He frowned, thinking that surely he must have imagined the sound but in another moment, it came again. Thump.
