The Hero of Varay

by Rick Shelley

  “They didn’t come for us until we were close before,” Xayber’s son reminded me. “The forest trolls don’t count. You brought that peril on yourself.”

  That made me think about Annick. I wondered what kind of torture she was inflicting on herself now, why she had been out in the wilds of Varay hunting trolls, where she was now, where she might pop up next. That last view I had of her, standing off an arrow’s flight away from me, she had looked more sad than angry.

  We went through the dowsing routine with the ruby three or four times a day. I dangled the jewel by its chain in front of the elf’s head and he confirmed that we were still aimed in the right direction. Aaron started looking into the ruby after the elf each time, but said that he couldn’t tell anything from it. Each time, Aaron qualified that with “yet.”

  The second week ended.

  “No mortal’s e’er been out so far from land,” Master Hopay said. “Leastwise, none’s e’er come home from so far out.”

  That was old news.

  Lesh, Harkane, and I had taken to standing watches of our own, in case the danger appeared right aboard our boat. Our sailors were nervous and unhappy. But Baron Kardeen had apparently chosen them wisely. Every man grumbled and talked of his fear and his wish to turn about and go home, but no one went beyond talk.

  On the eighteenth day, the sea developed a chop, a surface roughness we had not seen before, and Aaron’s wind had competition that took his full attention for several hours. That night, for the first time, Aaron called off his wind and we took in the sail and dragged a sea anchor to keep us from drifting too far.

  “I need the break,” Aaron told me as the sail came down. “In the morning, I’ll build the wind again—if we still need it. I think we’re getting close though.”

  Maybe he needed the break, but he certainly didn’t use the time to sleep. Aaron spent most of that night in the bow of Beathe, staring out at the sea in front of us.

  And on the morning of the nineteenth day, the Mist finally lived up to its name. Dawn brought the densest fog I had ever seen, worse even than the one that had enveloped Castle Arrowroot to give the elflord’s soldiers cover to retreat three years back.

  “We’re very close now,” the elf said. He didn’t even need the jewel to judge that. Over to the side, out of the elf’s sight, Aaron nodded his agreement.

  Aaron tried to raise his wind again but failed, so it was back to the oars. Our rowers hadn’t worked much through the voyage, so they were able to put a lot into the task for this push. Lesh and Harkane took turns on the benches too, which let everyone take an occasional break and kept us moving at a decent clip.

  “I can’t budge this fog,” Aaron confessed after perhaps two hours of effort. “I can’t even grasp it.” I wasn’t sure what that meant. The two of us were standing at the ship’s bow again, trying to see through the fog in front. “It’s not a natural fog.”

  “I know.” The fog had set off my danger alarm. For the first time in two weeks I was wearing both of my elf swords and my lucky Cubs cap, ready for anything and certain that “anything” was close. My bow and quiver were handy, and the others had their weapons where they could reach them in a hurry.

  “Someone is reaching out to us,” Aaron said a little later. “I can feel her mind probing.”

  “Her?” I asked. Aaron nodded.

  “Then it must be the Great Earth Mother herself,” I said. It didn’t make me feel any better. Something tugged at my mind then, and I turned to look at the elf perched at the forward end of the cabin. His face had turned ash gray in the fog. His eyes bulged out so far that it looked as though they might actually pop out of his skull. And now, he seemed to be choking—without a throat to be constricted.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, moving to him. The question was so ludicrous that I must have blushed bright red. Wellivazey’s eyes rolled up in his head. A strangled sound escaped from purple lips.

  “Aaron, can you help him?” I asked. We had to have the elf to identify the other jewel: someone of the blood of Fairy, pure and true.

  Aaron started chanting. After a couple of minutes, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a fierce grimace. His eyes narrowed as he squinted, staring at the elf, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. Some color came back into the elf’s face, gradually, but his eyes remained closed. He remained silent. Aaron started to sweat, and the temperature couldn’t have been more than fifty on the deck of Beathe.

  At the stern of the boat, Hopay shouted, “We have to turn back, lord!”

  “No!” I yelled back. “Don’t waver an inch from our course.”

  “We have to turn back!” Hopay repeated, panicked.

  Timon grabbed his bow, notched an arrow, and aimed it straight at Hopay’s heart.

  “The Hero of Varay said we must go on,” Timon said. Most of the rowers stopped rowing, waiting to see what would happen.

  “Put your bow down, Timon,” I said. I walked to the stern. Hopay’s eyes were wide with terror.

  “Master Hopay, we must go forward. There is no alternative. We have to reach the shrine, and it is still in front of us.” I tried to sound reasonable—encouraging, not threatening—but Hopay had to feel the tacit threat. I stared until he nodded.

  “Aye, lord, we’ll go on as you say.”

  “And when we reach the island,” I said, dropping my voice almost to a whisper, “you remember that there is no way you can survive to get home without us, without the wizard, the elf, and me. You know that as surely as you know your own name.”

  He resisted even longer before he nodded this time. “Aye, lord, I know it. And maybe not e’en then.”

  I knew what he meant. I continued to stare at him. I didn’t like the idea that my danger sense, or perhaps just my innate suspicious nature, forced on me. I didn’t like to think of the possibility that Master Hopay and his crew might abandon us when we went ashore to get the other jewel. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Gil!” Quickly!” Aaron shouted.

  I turned. He gestured and I hurried back to the bow.

  “He’s recovering, for now. I’m afraid it’s only temporary, but it’s the best I can do. The strain … He’s held on to the spark inside far too long already. My magic won’t hold him long. A matter of hours, no more, and if that other power grabs him again …” He shook his head.

  I looked at the elf. He opened his eyes.

  “I heard,” Wellivazey said, “and I could tell even without his words.” His voice was thick and weak, barely understandable. “You’ll remember your vow, Hero.” It was no question.

  “I’ll remember if you hold on long enough to fulfill your part of the bargain,” I said.

  “Get me to the shrine.” His eyes closed again, just as the bow of the ship emerged from the fog.

  The demarcation was as clear as it had been with the fog that shrouded Arrowroot while Wellivazey’s father pulled his troops away from the siege there. As we emerged, I could see the shrine of the Great Earth Mother dead ahead—a huge white building that looked to be the identical twin of the shrine in the Titan Mountains. But this temple was surrounded by white sand and gray rocks. The island was low, scarcely more than a sandbar, and not a hell of a lot larger than the shrine. It looked like no more than fifty yards from shore to shrine at the widest spots.

  There were no troops waiting to bar us from shore, no outer maze for us to penetrate, but the shrine was not without its defenders. As Beathe cleared the fog, a scaly green sea serpent showed itself. The beast surfaced quickly. It was wrapped completely around the island, and its head reared up over its tail.

  Our boat could have sailed straight into its mouth with the sail up and full of wind.

  18

  Plus Two

  I prayed for the first time since I was a little kid, and I wasn’t sure who or what I was praying to. The fangs on the sea serpent had to be fifteen feet long—four fangs, two upper and two lower, and there were long rows of sharp-looking teeth as long as Drago
n’s Death to go with them. The beast had a snake’s tongue that it flicked out to test the air in our direction, and the tongue was as long as our boat.

  “That son of a bitch must be more than a mile long!” I said, awed even more than I was frightened. None of our weapons could hope to hurt that monster. Naval artillery might not faze it.

  “This looks like my initiation test,” Aaron whispered, but his words didn’t register right away. My attention was locked too fully on the mouth of the sea serpent.

  Our rowers had stopped rowing again, but none of them had left their seats. They stared at the serpent, hypnotized by it, as was Master Hopay. Lesh, Harkane, and Timon came to the bow of Beathe to stand with Aaron and me. Harkane and Timon had their bows. Lesh had his battle axe. Despite the hopelessness of the challenge, we were all armed to face it as best we could.

  “What do we do, lord?” Lesh asked.

  I shook my head. I didn’t have any clue what we could try that wouldn’t be instantly suicidal. This sea serpent made the biggest dragon I had faced look like a $1.29 chameleon in a pet shop. Then Aaron’s words penetrated my skull. I grabbed his arm.

  “What do you mean, this is your initiation test?” I demanded.

  “Something every apprentice must go through to become a full wizard,” Aaron said, so calmly that he sounded half asleep. “He must face an impossible challenge and surpass it with only his craft.”

  “Impossible is one thing, but that monster is outside the normal rules,” I said, trying to turn Aaron so he wasn’t staring at the sea serpent. I didn’t succeed. Aaron was simply too strong for me to turn him without his cooperation. The monster seemed to fill Aaron’s eyes. I could see it reflected there.

  “No, this is my challenge.” Aaron used his other hand to peel my grip from his arm, and he was too strong to resist. He pulled my hand away as easily as if he were the brawn-over-brains hero and I were an eight-year-old kid. “There’s no other way,” he said, not taking his gaze from the sea serpent for a second.

  No other way? I couldn’t even see that this was a way. But I had trouble finding words to use.

  The sea serpent continued to watch us, its body undulating, though it wasn’t really doing anything more than treading water. Its eyes, set in knobs on top of its head, were as big as those round plastic sleds. Its nostrils flared larger than hula hoops.

  “Parthet said that I would meet my test on this voyage,” Aaron said, finally releasing his hold on my wrist. I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn’t—and that was before I had any inkling how he planned to deal with the sea serpent.

  “How will you do it, zap him with lightning?” I asked, hoping it would be that simple … but not believing it.

  Aaron frowned and thunder rumbled in the distance, which made me think of Parthet.

  “No, I think not,” Aaron said. “Give me a moment to myself.” He gestured, and the rest of us backed off as far as we could without abandoning the bow section of Beathe altogether. I glanced at the elf. His eyes were barely open. His nostrils flared and relaxed as if he were having difficulty breathing. And he had no breath at all.

  Aaron stared at the serpent and started to chant softly. He broke off after only a moment and turned to me, but he spoke loud enough for Master Hopay and the rowers to hear as well.

  “When the way opens, drive through as hard as you can, right up onto the beach. It’s the only chance any of us has.”

  I nodded, and Aaron turned to face the monster again. Aaron resumed his earlier chant, or started a different one. I’m not sure which. The rhythm was different, but it had the same sort of feel. The spell he wove was hypnotic. I felt the words in my bones, jarring, adhesive, but my tension seemed to recede. It became more difficult to worry, more difficult to listen to my danger sense or to watch the sea serpent. It was hard to do anything but pay attention to the chant.

  It lulled me so completely that I had no chance at all to hold Aaron back.

  He put his hands on the gunwale and vaulted over, dropping into the sea. Aaron sank to his shoulders, then started moving forward. It wasn’t until he had come back up to waist level that I came out of my trance and realized that he wasn’t swimming, he was walking, and his feet were nowhere near the bottom of the sea.

  Aaron continued to move forward through the water and he continued to rise, just as if he were walking ashore through rapidly shallowing water. Magic was magic to my Varayan companions, but I had—in this case—the misfortune of knowing about a precedent for walking on water, and Aaron’s mimicry knotted my gut more than the monster he was moving toward. He headed straight for the head of the sea serpent, chanting all the time, his voice getting louder with every step.

  The beast slowly closed its mouth and lowered its head until its eyes were on a level with Aaron’s head and chest. The huge eyes were the same amber color as a dragon’s eyes.

  Aaron’s steps slowed as he neared the monster’s head. He held out both hands, palms open and facing the beast. Then Aaron stepped onto its snout, which was almost level with the sea’s surface. He moved back along the snout, reaching toward the beast’s eyes. It was a stretch, even for Aaron. The eyes of the sea serpent were set as far apart as Aaron could reach.

  The monster started to sink below the surface.

  “Push it!” I shouted, turning to call back to Master Hopay and the rowers. “Hurry, dammit! Get us through while we can!”

  Master Hopay shouted orders. The rowers started pulling on their blades. I turned to watch the confrontation in the water again.

  Aaron’s hands seemed to almost sink into the pupils of the serpent’s eyes. The creature’s eyelids closed from both sides, narrowing to the barest slits, and Aaron’s hands were right there. When the gaps were narrow enough for Aaron’s hands to span them, he pulled the eyelids shut and leaned against the bony ridge between the eyes. The serpent continued to sink. Water rose to Aaron’s waist, to his shoulders, then over his head. He didn’t budge.

  Pictures flashed through my head. I could see myself hurdling over the side of the boat into the sea, both elf swords flashing, to rescue Aaron and kill the sea serpent. The images were as sharp, as vivid, as reality, but they had to remain a fantasy. Some deeds are beyond the abilities of any Hero, and I had to think of my primary mission—especially now that Aaron had given the rest of us some chance to get on with it.

  Beathe slowly picked up momentum as the rowers strained at their oars, panic giving them almost superhuman strength and determination. I hung to the side of Beathe, up in the bow, and continued to stare at the spot where Aaron had disappeared. There was a frothing of the water at first, then a string of bubbles that popped as they reached the surface, and then … nothing. The sea calmed until we crossed that spot and Beathe’s wake rippled past to disturb the flat water. I could see the outline of the sea serpent as we rushed over it. By that time, more than five minutes had passed since Aaron’s head had sunk beneath the Sea of Fairy.

  I climbed on top of the boat’s cabin after we crossed that spot and went back as far as the mast while Beathe continued to drive for the island. With one arm looped around the mast, I divided my attention between the spot in the water behind where Aaron had vanished and the shrine up ahead.

  Our keel ribs grated on sand. Beathe lunged to an abrupt halt.

  “Over the side,” I shouted. Only my grip on the mast had kept me from being thrown from my feet by the impact. “We have to haul the boat up on the beach, out of the grasp of that beast.”

  There were thick nautical hawsers coiled in a box under the deck at the bow of Beathe. The crew, and my own people, dropped over the side as soon as Hopay and his men attached two of the hawsers to thick rings in the gunwale. We all dragged on the ropes as we waded through the shallows and up onto the packed white sand of the island. With thirteen of us pulling, and a little help from the sea swell pushing from behind, we got the prow of Beathe past the waterline, and the boat listed to starboard. Timon clambered back aboard the boat to g
et the elf. Lesh brandished two thick stakes he had discovered somewhere in the boat’s stores. We drove the stakes into the sand and secured the ropes to them.

  It had taken the efforts of all of us to get the boat that far. I didn’t think that the crew would be able to free it alone, especially not if I kept Master Hopay and two of his rowers with me.

  “The rest of you keep watch here,” I said. The sailors—soldiers—all had weapons, their short swords at hand, their spears lashed to the sides of the cabin. With land beneath their feet and weapons out and ready, they were less prone to panic, but they were still frightened enough by the memory of the sea serpent that none of them argued with my orders.

  Timon had Wellivazey in his cage. The elf’s condition was deteriorating rapidly. His eyes no longer focused together. His mouth hung open and his tongue was darkened and swollen. He looked dead, finally.

  We had just started marching toward the shrine when I heard heavy coughing behind us and an echo of distant thunder. I glanced over my shoulder, then stopped walking and turned all the way.

  Aaron was wading ashore.

  The six men I had left with the boat backed away from Aaron rapidly, fear flowing out from them in a wave I could feel. Aaron, still coughing and spitting water, stared at them for a moment, then joined the rest of us.

  “The monster sleeps within,” he said. Absently, he shook off water. His eyes were bloodshot and cloudy—murky. I couldn’t tell what the cause was, but Aaron set off my danger alarm as wildly as the Elflord of Xayber ever had.

  “I thought you were dead,” I whispered, trying to avoid showing him that the special sense of the Hero of Varay considered him a “clear and present” danger.

  “No, not dead. I am a wizard now,” he said, just as quietly.

  “Hurry up,” the elf croaked. “So little time!”

  The gold double doors, identical to those on the shrine in the Titan Mountains, were on the south side of this temple. Beathe had beached on the east side of the island. Eight of us hurried across the sand, through the field of scattered rocks, toward the entrance. I was waiting for soldiers to emerge from the doors as they had at the other shrine. But no one came out to bar our way. Lesh and I tried to open the doors, but we couldn’t budge them. They wouldn’t move in or out. Then Aaron laid his hands on the gold and the doors popped open-violently. One door snapped off its hinges and fell into the shrine.