‘But when would he have the opportunity to do all that?’
‘He has plenty of opportunity. I am sure he is often skulking about, unseen for days. He is certainly not sitting idle in his cabin all that time.’
Leopold was not convinced. He had only just come around to Samuel being on his side.
Someone else then spoke up, and Leopold and Lomar were equally surprised.
‘You are certainly one to speak of lies,’ said Jessicah, trotting down the stairs from her room.
‘Jessicah?’ Leopold queried as she stopped beside him.
‘It’s me,’ she confirmed.
‘What’s happening? How did you get out of your room?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Rei has been keeping me locked away more and more. I woke up several moments ago, alone. I called to the guards and they did not answer.’
‘How intriguing,’ Lomar said, observing the woman with interest. ‘It seemed only Rei fell victim to my spell, leaving her beautiful young captive to roam free, albeit only temporarily. Samuel will have to do something about that.’
‘He’s working on it,’ Leopold replied darkly.
Lomar looked towards the tower. ‘Hmm.’ Far away, a black speck of fluttering cloth could still be seen circling the mighty stone. ‘Samuel will return soon. I will be away before he finds me. Remember what I have told you, Leopold. The moment of reckoning is at hand. When it comes, you must be ready.’
Something caught his attention as he finished speaking. His tilted his head, listening intently.
‘Ah ...’ Lomar said with realisation. ‘Very clever, Samuel. I presume you have been here the whole time. My senses are not so keen in this form. Although I should have guessed.’
‘Of course,’ replied the voice of the magician, seeming to echo from all around. Leopold looked towards the great pillar, but the flying shape had vanished, nothing more than an illusion to bait the trap. ‘I must admit it was difficult to remain silent throughout your amusing discourse, but it did allow me to examine your Journey Spell quite closely. I’ve been hoping to learn some of your refinements for quite a while. I must say you’ve done a fine job—sending your image, hearing and seeing from such a distance. It’s just what I’ve been looking for. Now, let me be first to formally welcome you aboard the Farstride.’
‘What!’ Lomar declared, flabbergasted. He flapped his hands and stamped about on the deck with rage, although the cause was not immediately apparent. ‘Why—how have you done this? I should not be here!’
‘But you are here, old friend. I reached through your spell and untied the other end. Now you are here in more than just spirit. I have brought your flesh and blood through to join you. Did you not notice? You are here, whether you like it or not.’
‘Damn you!’ Lomar roared furiously.
‘And don’t try leaving in a hurry; I won’t allow it. It seems we have some talking to do—about my son. You can begin by telling me where he is.’
Lomar eyed Leopold sideways. ‘You see, boy? He is deviously clever. This is what you must contend with and overcome. You have to catch me first!’ he called back to Samuel.
‘Very well,’ came the reply and a black blur exploded from nowhere before anyone had time to react.
The magician struck Lomar like a thunderbolt. The ship shuddered with the impact and Lomar vanished, thrown clear into the sea, skipping across the water’s surface like a tossed stone, sending sheets of transparent spray to either side. When he slowed the ocean swallowed him with a plop, while Samuel arced up and way into the sky.
Gobsmacked, Leopold thought the matter may be finished already, but a geyser erupted from the sea and Lomar rocketed from the top of it, sailing up to meet Samuel high above. They fought in the sky, wisps of white cloud trailing behind them. They circled and collided with resounding booms and crashes, and Leopold was thankful the men chose to battle so far away. The brute force of their conflict would surely do them all harm if nearby.
‘What do we do?’ Jessicah asked.
Leopold looked to their north-east, for they were closing on the towering stone island and it was now looming in front of them. ‘We need to turn this ship. If not, our voyage is going to end very shortly.’
She looked to the crew all frozen in place around them, scores of them still holding onto their ropes. ‘Can we do it?’
‘We must try,’ he said.
‘How?’
Leopold was thoughtful before answering. ‘We cut the ropes, drop the sails.’
‘Won’t that leave us adrift? We’ll be helpless.’
‘You’re right,’ he admitted. ‘Given the situation, that could leave us worse off. I’ll try turning the rudder, but that’s not going to achieve much without also adjusting the sails.’
He made his way below the aftcastle and Jessicah followed. They ducked and weaved along the passageways and corridors until they found the tiller, buried several decks down.
‘How does it work?’ Jessicah asked, passing her eyes over the complex mechanism that filled the room, centralised by a large, rear-facing hand wheel.
‘The rudder is too heavy to turn by hand, so this does the job for us. It’s all gears and levers.’
‘Can I help?’ she asked him as he glanced over the equipment.
‘Just stand back,’ he warned. There was a funnel that led up through the ceiling for relaying commands from on deck, and beside that was the locking arm. Leopold slammed it out of position and spun the wheel. Heavy gears rumbled into motion. ‘Oh. That’s not right.’ He stopped and reversed direction, spinning the wheel back the other way. He paused occasionally to check markings on several of the cogs, until finally, ‘That should do it,’ he announced. ‘Too much at once and I’m not sure what will happen.’
‘I can’t feel anything.’
‘That’s good. A ship this size and sudden changes can cause all sorts of damage. Come on.’
He darted back out the way they had come and Jessicah followed close behind him, soon stepping out onto the main deck.
Poltamir’s citadel had grown uncomfortably close. They could see the waves pounding up against its slick, grey sides and it was now clear they were not going to skim past it at all—they would smash directly into its face.
‘Blast it!’ Leopold swore and looked to the sky. There was no sign of the two magicians, but the sounds of their battle echoed from the heavens, banging and blasting within the clouds. ‘I’ve got to let out the drivers.’ He set about climbing onto the aft deck. They passed the immobile crew, edging past them carefully where necessary, and Leopold wondered if they were still awake and could see and hear what was happening around them. He hoped not.
He drew his sword on the move and ran around one of the huge triangular sails at the back of the ship, commencing hacking at its ropes. The sail slackened, and fell rolling to the deck. He did the same for the enormous twin sail beside it.
Leopold waited, catching his breath and, slowly, just within perception, the ship began to turn with the wind.
‘Is it enough?’ Jessicah asked.
‘It has to be.’
The wall of stone loomed in front of them, enormous spirals and impossibly high motifs ingrained in its surface, gigantic patterns chiselled across its face. There was no sign of window or wall in that solid block of stone. It climbed upwards, endlessly towards the heavens. Clouds still gathered around its top, but they were darker now, angrier, as if in protest that the tiny ship at its foot might just escape, or more likely, they had been churned up by the battling magicians.
Leopold ran to the port side and looked ahead. Slowly, but surely enough, the Farstride was turning, and at last he could see a gap of daylight between the side of the hull and the pillar ahead. ‘We’re going to make it!’
They were close, perhaps only twenty strides away—Leopold could have thrown a stone against its side—but the Farstride squeezed past, edging by the ominous stone in near silence. It was strange to be aboard the ship and
for everything to be so quiet.
Only the wind still whispered as she filled the sails. Then, alarmingly, the sailcloth loosened and the wind lulled.
They entered the shadow of the stone, shielded from the breeze, and in response, the Farstride slowed, making Leopold all the more nervous. There was no indication of how the battle was faring above, but there was a mighty series of clamours now coming from within the tower.
They continued very slowly, and as the minutes passed they re-entered the wind. From then, every moment had the pillar further behind them, and the wind blowing stronger in their sails, and they were picking up speed with it.
With a menacing boom, and much to Leopold’s disbelief and dismay, the tower began to sink. It slid away, disappearing into the sea at an astonishing rate, its massive carved decorations vanishing one after another beneath the waves.
‘What’s happening?’ Jessicah cried out with alarm.
‘I don’t know,’ Leopold replied. ‘But I think we’d better hold on.’
The column continued to descend, thundering into the sea, already a quarter of its height diminished. The ocean shuddered and the waves were thrown to chaos, rushing every which way, colliding together and slapping themselves apart.
Leopold dreaded what would happen next, for he feared what might occur when the pinnacle vanished altogether. He remembered the wall of water that had engulfed Cintar.
So near, they were at its mercy. There was nothing they could do except run to the back of the ship and watch on as the last of its height disappeared, swallowed into the sea. When the flattened stone top vanished there was no surge of water or mighty wave. It was worse than that. The citadel continued its descent, leaving a vacant space behind it the size of an island, and into that the ocean began to plunge.
The pillar of stone had left an abysmal gulf in its wake, as wide as fifteen Farstrides, and the sea was roaring into it, like water spiralling down a drain hole, gathering speed as it churned and twirled, foaming white.
‘Oh dear,’ Leopold said.
‘What is that?’ Jessicah asked anxiously.
‘Trouble,’ was all Leopold could reply. ‘Where is that damn magician when we need him?’ he uttered under his breath.
Their ship lost speed. The water was dragging them towards the hole faster than the wind was blowing them. The sudden disappearance of the stone must have also upset the sky, for the clouds had been thrown into turmoil and the wind was rising to a gale.
‘Grab an axe!’ Leopold told her, picking one up from a nearby bracket, and he ran.
She followed him, all the way back to the main deck, where he readied by one of the mast poles. Driving rain fell and the wind squalled.
‘What are we doing?’ she yelled, already dripping with water and holding her axe by her shoulder, not even sure what she was going to chop.
‘We’ve got to bring the stern around quickly or we’re going straight into that hole. We drop the mainsails and leave the forward jibs intact. The drag should shift us around.’
‘I thought you said sudden changes might tear the ship apart?’
‘Do you have a better idea?’ he shouted back to her, for the thundering noises of the whirlpool and the rising roar of the wind was making it all the harder to hear.
He lifted his axe above his head and brought it down hard against the deck, cutting through the thick rope that a score of frozen crew were holding. One side of the lowest squares of cloth fell. The men holding the rope fell backwards onto the decking, like figurines tipped over, the rope still threaded through their hands. Thankfully they did not shatter or break as Leopold had feared.
He ran to the other side of the deck, where another team was in the midst of pulling their rope. He cut that one and the teamsters also toppled. The sail now dropped completely limp. Looking up, that was one sail of the six on that mast alone. He swallowed hard. There was not much time.
Jessicah followed him closely. ‘Which ones should I cut?’
He looked to her bleakly, for she was holding the axe-head the wrong way around, pointed towards herself. She followed his gaze and realised her error, quickly righting the head to be away from her.
‘Give me that.’ He took her axe and buried its head into the deck with one sound swing of his arm. ‘Remember the rudder mechanism?’ She nodded fiercely. ‘Go find it again and spin it all the way until it doesn’t stop. The same way I turned it. Can you do that?’
‘Of course!’ she told him. ‘I can use an axe you know!’
‘It’s not that,’ he told her. ‘I can just do it faster alone. And I need that rudder turned all the way.’
‘What do I do after that?’ she asked.
‘Shut the door. Stay there. Hold on as tight as you can.’
She understood his meaning and ran as quickly as she could, lifting her skirts to help speed her way.
Leopold turned resolutely back to his plan. With a roar of determination he rushed to the nearest sheet and swung his axe. Chopping was faster than undoing the line, and like that he worked from mast to mast, cutting the ropes whether they were fixed or held by motionless crew. Sail by sail the cloth fell, until only the triangular jibs at the front of the ship were still in place.
Together with Jessicah’s efforts below deck, the Farstride indeed began to turn. The fierce wind was pushing on them, but the heavy rear end of the ship was dragged sideways. The timbers groaned under the strain, until she lay perpendicular to their direction of travel, just as Leopold had hoped.
And just in good time, for a cavernous space awaited beside the ship. Leopold held to the railing and his heart almost stopped when he saw the yawning hole. The Farstride was teetering on the lip of it, then she began to roll as she went over. Leopold held on as tightly as he could as the ship plunged sideways down the edge of the vortex.
The raging wind chose that moment to tear the jibs away completely, leaving only one remaining, torn and fluttering.
Despite this, Leopold’s plan had been realised. Instead of impacting the whirlpool directly, they met its turning edge, and the rotating water drew them around, following the rim of the plunging spiral. At its centre, a vast waterfall ringed a chasm of blackness.
‘That’s it,’ Leopold said to himself, looking at the storm clouds above. ‘I’ve done all I can do.’
The ship continued to list, now almost one third the way over, and the frozen crew tumbled over the side of the ship in droves. Leopold grabbed the cut lengths of rope and tied as many together as he could. It was slow work, running rings around the deck and looping people’s arms and legs, threading it through their belts, tying the ends securely to the sturdiest fixtures he could find. He took special care with Kali, Phoenix and Destiny, wrapping the rope around their waists and knotting them carefully to avoid breaking their limbs should the lines snap tight—a luxury he could not extend to most of the men.
Jessicah appeared from a hatchway, making a wavering trail towards him.
‘I told you to stay put!’ he yelled. He had barely finished securing half of those on the main deck. On the other decks, there was little he could do.
‘I don’t think it’s going to make much difference!’ she cried back, her eyes wide as she observed their predicament. An earthly howl emanated from the black hole as air rushed in, above the din of the wind, rain and rushing water.
‘Here,’ he said and pulled her over, strapping her to the railing beside Kali. ‘Hold on tight. You never know. We may just survive. Stranger things have happened.’
It was then that everyone sprang back to life. Without exception, every person still standing fell over. Those who had already been tipped onto their sides due to Leopold’s rope cutting or the tilting of the ship thrashed in confusion until they realised where they were. Many near the downward side of the deck were overcome with surprise, lost balance and fell overboard. Nearly every figure in the masts, some forty men at that stage, fell—most into the sea, some onto the deck. Shouts of dismay and horror came fro
m everyone, for on one side they were met with a looming wall of torrential water, towering high above the masts of the ship, on the other an abysmal gulf. Many more lives would have been lost if not for Leopold’s ropes, but scores went tumbling over the side to their sure deaths.
‘What is this?’ Jessicah asked aloud with confusion, Rei awakening within her. Her eyes came around to see the great mouth in the sea, and she too filled with panic. Her chin moved, but she failed to find any words. At least she had the good sense to clutch the railing.
‘Hold tight!’ Mister Chapman bellowed, and his voice, heard by those nearby, did rouse many to take hold of anything fixed nearby to them.
‘Mister Chapman! Get us out of here!’ cried Captain Merryweather, before the both of them looked up to the empty masts, sparking bewilderment.
‘Get everyone to tie on or hold tight,’ Leopold yelled into their faces.
The bosun did not ask questions, and relayed the commands. The men, as terrified as they were, went to work swiftly and obediently, strapping themselves to the railings where possible. Some soldiers came pelting out from below decks, confused by what had happened. One could not stop and continued running right over the side into the sea while the others grabbed onto the doorway for dear life. Captain Orrell burst onto the deck and skidded onto his face. He recovered quickly and he looked to Rei with concern and a bloodied nose.
‘Stay there!’ Leopold shouted, for crossing the deck was too dangerous.
The captain attempted to cross despite Leopold’s cries, and each time he fell and was forced to turn back. He looked hopelessly desperate, and was finally forced to hold onto the doorway, exhausted from his efforts.
‘Leopold!’ Kali called. ‘What is happening?’
‘We’re in trouble. Just hold on!’ he replied.
Something fell from the skies. It landed right beside them and when it stood, cloaked in black, they saw it was Samuel.
The Ancient Ones (The Legacy Trilogy Book 3) Page 44
