by J B Cantwell
Sleeping was difficult. Even though Jade was wide awake and standing guard, my eyes kept flitting open, searching for the next threat to our quest, or our lives. Erod sat across from us, sleeping soundly. His giant mouth hung open, and a croaky snore rattled out of his throat. I watched Jade alternate between sitting, standing, then sitting again, her deep green eyes searching the deck for any sign of movement.
Finally I couldn’t take my own silence anymore.
“Do you think we’ll make it?” I whispered. She jumped a little at the sound of my voice. She was wound tight.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Whatever honor used to guide the men of Ossenland, it seems to have long since left them.”
I stared up at the sky. The absence of stars through the fog added to my uneasiness and left me feeling like a frog in a pot with a lid tightly fitted to the rim.
“I don’t know what they’ll do if anything else happens.” Despite the fear of those giant snakes still fresh in my mind, I found myself much more concerned about the water. The snakes, while terrifying, seemed to be part of the sea. But if the sailors were right, that giant wave had been set upon us. Someone was trying to bring us down. “Who do you think is causing the Torrensai?”
She looked frightened at my question.
“The Solitaries,” she said after a pause. “That is my guess.”
“What are Solitaries?” I asked.
She stared into space, her eyes lingering on Erod. When she spoke her words were soft, almost inaudible.
“When I was a child, when everything started going wrong, the Solitaries were very active. They lived on the island where Riverstone stands, and they normally kept to themselves, but when the weather started to change and people started getting sick, they rose up against us. They are the reason Father and I and Brendan all left Riverstone. They are zealots. They believe that the end of worlds is upon us all. But they have believed it for many, many centuries.” She paused, smirking slightly in my direction. “We are still here, you see, but the same belief has persisted in their people over millennia. To them, we are always on the verge of ruin.”
“Why do they think that?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But I do know that they live their lives in constant fear of death. There is no peace in the hearts of those people.”
“What did they do when they rose up?” I was sitting propped up on my elbows now, happy at the distraction from my worries of attack.
“It was sudden. One day they were silent, invisible. The next they were breaking through the gates of Riverstone. They thought, falsely, that if they had the tools my father held that they could do his job better than he. Perhaps even some wished to bring on the end of worlds faster, despite their fear, just to prove themselves right. Foolishness. As if a plain mortal man with no magic in his blood could ever dream to wield such power.
“We fled the castle that night and took refuge in Stonemore. It was an early beginning to Father’s quest, but he had already laid the groundwork. The others were able to follow by morning.”
“And these people are waiting for us?” I asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because, honestly, I don’t know if they’re still there at all. Things have changed a lot since I left Riverstone. At least, everywhere we’ve been together so far is very different from when I was little.” She picked at a loose piece of leather hanging from the heel of her boot. “And they were very sick when we left. I guess I hoped that they had all perished. But whether they’re still there or not, it doesn’t really change anything. We still have nowhere else to try.”
It was true. Almara’s trail had run quite cold. Though, as usual, Jade had left out some crucial details about the known dangers of our destination.
“If these Solitaries don’t have magic, then how can they be causing the Torrensai?” I asked, trying to stifle my frustration.
“They were fierce,” she shrugged. “Fiercer than most men, fiercer than Cadoc, even, in a way. They should not have been able to breach the gates, and yet they did so. How? I have asked myself this question over the many years that I have had to ponder all that happened when I was a young child. Why were they able to get through? And now, if they’re still there, defiling my own house after all this time, they seek to defend their prize. Perhaps, I do not know if it is even possible, but perhaps they have found some sort of magic they, too, can wield.” She hugged her legs with her thin, white arms.
“Or maybe they have someone else helping them now,” I said, finishing her thought for her. She nodded.
Cadoc weighed heavy on my mind. He had spoken, in the moments before his death, of three brothers. Three, we guessed, who were just as terrible as he was. If these Solitaries Jade spoke of didn’t have magic, could it be that these brothers were the ones responsible for the attacks today? I wished, not for the first time, that I had never set foot on this ship.
What a mess we were in. We sat, trapped on the front end of a massive ship full of men who wanted to rob us, even kill us. And these Solitaries that maybe waited for us on the other side of this journey, what would they do with us? The same as any of these sailors might? Clearly, if it was them sending the Torrensai, they didn’t want us to enter the castle. And if it wasn’t them doing it, if it was these brothers of Cadoc’s…
It seemed we had two choices. Death on the ship, or death in Riverstone. And had we stayed behind, abandoned our quest, neither of us would have ever been satisfied.
We never heard them coming. Jade’s attention had been focused entirely on the deck, never thinking that the men might approach from another direction. But just as my foggy brain finally started drifting into sleep, the first of the men climbed over the railing and jumped to the floor of the deck. Jade and I both scrambled to our feet, but it wasn’t us he was going for first, it was Erod.
The blow the sailor thrust at Erod knocked his giant gaping mouth to the side. He didn’t even flinch, but with his eyes still closed, his face scrunched into a frightening scowl. The sailor turned his back to face us, thinking him dealt with, but it was a mistake. As he bore down on us, Erod rose up from behind him, seven feet of muscular man, and with an alarming swiftness his hands wrapped around the man’s head and snapped his neck with a loud CRACK.
He tossed the broken body to the ground like a bag from a garbage can, and thudded to the railing. The second sailor was just making the top edge, his fingers gripping the edge as he hoisted himself towards the deck. Erod flattened his hand like a cleaver and brought a blow down across the sailor’s fingers. Several lighter clicks echoed through the night, followed by the scream of the sailor, his fingers broken. Another strike on his remaining hand and his broken hands released the railing, the sound of his pain falling with him to the icy waters below.
Jade and I stood rooted to the spot. It wasn’t until the third man appeared, combined with the noise from behind us on the deck, that I even realized what was happening. They were all coming for us.
I grabbed for my backpack and slung it over my shoulder, then gripped the link tightly in my fist, trying to decide what to do. I had known it would come to this, that we would need to jump, but now that the moment had arrived, I hesitated. This could be it, the moment of my death. But as I saw Storm approach, unsheathing a long, rusted sword, my resolve was hardened.
I wasn’t going to die like this, like prey ripped apart by scavengers.
“Jade!” I shouted. “Hang on to me!”
It took her a moment to process my words amidst the fighting men, but when she did, she understood. She gripped my arm tightly, and together we moved towards Erod, who was punching the third sailor to make the top of the railing. He held the man by the front of his shirt with one hand and pummelled him with the other.
“Grab him!” I yelled. He was coming with us whether he knew, or liked, it or not. I just hoped that he would remember his earlier inclination to protect us, and that he wouldn’t rip us apart like he was doing to these men.
“Erod!” Jade screamed. He turned, surprised, and dropped the sailor into the night. Jade gripped his arm with her other hand and I held up the stone, pointing it in the same direction that the ship currently traveled in. I hoped Riverstone lay that way. It would have to do.
“Forasha!” I shouted.
Around us on the decks every eye stared wide, every sailor pulled inward towards us by a force they had never known. I smiled, hoping that they, too, would feel the painful pinch of Kiron’s inexpert links. Then, the power of the jump slammed the men to the deck, and Jade, Erod and I spun away from the danger.
I had only a moment to think as we swirled through space. We would have to fight for the surface, and then Jade could bring up the rocks. It was our only chance. Even if Erod could swim, he wouldn’t be able to swim all the way to Riverstone.
Bright flashes of light popped in front of my eyes as our bodies were transported. When we hit the water, it was much colder than I had expected. It pierced my skin like a thousand tiny knives. The three of us all let go of one another instinctively, putting our efforts into staying afloat. After Jade released my arm, I had no sense of what was going on around me, only that I wasn’t faring well. The water found ways into my nose and mouth, and despite my flailing I was unable to breach the surface of the sea again once I had gone under.
I quickly became lost. Night still hung dark in the sky above, and I couldn’t see in any direction. The sound of the others’ splashing was quickly muffled by the waves and my own choking attempts to breathe. For a horrible moment I feared my companions would be lost to me, that we would all drown to the depths of the sea, our mission unfinished and forgotten.
But he grabbed me from the back of my shirt and pulled me towards the surface of the water. I spluttered and coughed as soon as my head hit the cold air, and Erod spun me around to peer into my face. In his other hand he held Jade. How was he staying afloat himself? The ways of swimmers were foreign to me, and for a wild moment I thought he must be some sort of wizard, himself.
But I didn’t have time now to think about how. I needed to think about next.
Erod spoke first.
“What have you done?” he bellowed.
“It was a link,” I coughed. “Jade! Bring up the rocks!”
“What?” she gurgled. Her long hair clung to the sides of her face, her teeth chattering from the frigid water. She was shaking violently, seeming to have forgotten our plan.
“Rocks, Jade, we need you to keep us afloat!”
“You are a stupid child,” Erod said, looking between the two of us. “I can swim, as I told the girl, but I cannot swim forever.” He turned in the water, searching the waves around us. “Look!” he bellowed at the empty sea. “No land in sight! Do I look like some sort of—”
But his words were cut short. Jade had been muttering while Erod ranted, and from the bottom of the sea now rose a thousand small stones. They spun below our bodies, slowly joining to create a lattice, woven together like a net. A moment later I felt the hard, sure surface of our raft scoop us out of the water from beneath, and I rolled over onto my stomach, stretching my fingers over the rocky platform with relief.
Erod sat, dumbstruck, on the raft of stone. The tightness of his grip on my shirt collar didn’t ease.
“Erod,” I said. He didn’t respond. “Hey! Erod!”
“Huh?” he said, turning his head.
“My neck hurts. Could you let us go now?”
His face remained confused as he released his grip on us, his swimming services no longer required.
The rocks undulated below our bodies, forming a kind of skin on the surface of the water. It wasn’t entirely dry, but anything was better than the frigid ocean choking in my throat. I crawled over to Jade.
“Are you ok?” I asked.
She nodded.
“You sure?” she wasn’t looking at me, but instead her gaze was distant. She nodded again.
I put my hand on her shoulder and gave her a small shake.
“I have to concentrate,” she said. Just that momentary lapse in her mind, just long enough to say the words, and the rocks began to separate below our bodies. The sea water splashed up between the cracks in the fine mesh of stone that had held us aloft.
She quickly regained her focus, and the rocks knitted themselves together again.
This was not good. How long could she keep it up, I wondered? My wet clothes pressed into my cold skin and I shivered in the ocean breeze.
“Erod, how well do you swim?” I asked. I looked over at him, and he sat staring at Jade, his eyes unbelieving. “Erod?”
“Forget how I swim. How is she doing this?” he answered, his eyes still locked on her.
“She has powers over stone. She can sort of, make rocks do what she wants. It’s hard to explain.”
His eyes drifted over to me.
“I can swim alright. But there ain’t nowhere to swim to.”
I looked out over the water, searching for any sign of land, for anything at all. But all that greeted me was the darkness of night and the black ocean swells.
“Jade, are you ok to do this for a while?” I asked. Through her haze she heard the question and answered, nodding slowly. I let out a deep breath and sat back onto the slick stones.
I couldn’t figure out what to do next. I had to think. I had formed the plan up to this point, but I hadn’t thought farther than this moment.
Come on, think.
But the minutes, and soon hours, passed by in a haze of chattering teeth. With no method of propulsion, we were simply adrift on the wide open sea, helpless to direct our movement. Whatever power Jade had, I hoped she was able to somehow push us towards Riverstone. But she couldn’t speak and keep us up at the same time. I would have to simply trust her and hope that she could somehow get us to shore.
After a while I became concerned about her condition; she must be freezing, too. I crawled over to her and felt her cheek and hand. They were hot to the touch. The force of her power radiated through her and lit her up like a burning torch.
“Erod,” I called. He sat on the edge of the stone blanket, huddled against the night. “She’s warm. Come over.”
He looked up. “What do you mean? How can she be warm?”
“Just trust me,” I said. I settled myself close to where Jade sat, not touching her, but close enough to catch the heat that came off her body. Erod made his way over, and soon we were both well on our way to drying off.
“Why did you help us?” I asked after a time. “You could have just let them take the necklace.”
“I, too, seek passage to Riverstone,” Erod answered.
“You do? Why?”
“It is my home. I have long since desired to return, but it has been some time since the ships stopped traveling that way. It was my good fortune that you two happened to hire ours. I have not been so close to home in many years.”
His home?
“Why not?” I asked.
He shook his big head slowly from side to side.
“Madness. The elders became sick long ago. I left when things became too much to bear. And my people are not friendly to men such as me. Not long after my departure, the Torrensai began, though the simple minded men on the docks do not understand them. To them, it was a simple matter of markets. With no markets, there is no commerce, and thus no ships are needed. And they do not question it, as they have come of age believing these waters have always been treacherous.”
“No markets?” I asked. “What do you mean? Where did everybody go?” Could Jade have been right? Maybe Riverstone was abandoned.
“I know not,” he said. He leaned back and gazed casually at the horizon, his shirt finally warm and dry. “Perhaps they all fell ill. Perhaps the place is full of naught but ghosts. But someone, or something, is setting the Torrensai.”
“Jade thought it was the Solitaries,” I said.
He chuckled. “No. My people do not hold the power to do such things. Nor do they desire to.”
/>
“Wait. You mean you—you’re a—a Solitary?”
He peered down at me.
“You don’t need to say the word as if it, itself, is a curse.”
“I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “It’s just that, well, Jade said that Solitaries were, um, not normal.”
Erod sighed heavily.
“I do not know what she has told you, but hear me now. The people of different lands and beliefs often find the others around them to be undesirable, do they not?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“What one man knows of a society from the outside is quite different from what one might know from within. Because we prepare for war does not make us warmongers. Because we wish to defend ourselves does not make us set monsters on other men. No, whoever is doing this is not of Solitary heritage. It is all but impossible.”
We sat quietly for a time, and again my imagination began attempting to put a face to whoever was doing this. The closer we got to Riverstone, it seemed, the less I wanted to go.
“So why go back? If things were—are—so bad in Riverstone, why do you want to return? Especially after the attacks today?”
“Why does she want to return?” he asked, tilting his head towards Jade. “It is my home. Perhaps I can help. But no peace lies out there, away from it.”
I thought about his answers, and they seemed to add up, this last one more than any of the others. I had just one more.
“What about the necklace?” I asked. “Don’t you want it for yourself?”
He smiled and chuckled.
“I have no use for gold, boy. I ain’t no link maker, and I expect I’ve traveled plenty.”
“But you could be rich. Why wouldn’t you want gold?“
“Because I ain’t a fool,” he said. “I see what you are, even if the others don’t.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. Especially now.” He gestured to the rock raft we sat upon. “And don’t think I don’t know what’s going on out there. But when the end comes, I expect I would rather be home than anywhere.”
