After a bit more of discussing we settled on that using the sea bed to go to Hostania would be the best thing to do despite the dangers. While Julia, who was a shape shifter, could go to Hostania in her wind form, she was afraid that she might blow away if a strong gust of wind came while she was moving over the sea. Plus, she didn’t want to go to Hostania without Gnaria and me.
And so it happened that the following morning, just as the sun was rising, after a quick breakfast Julia, Gnaria and I set off for the sea. Julia used her spell and as we put our heads underwater the bubbles appeared around our heads enabling us to breathe.
We had sighted Hostania from the island and it had been a mere line in the horizon, many kilometres away. For the first hour of the journey we barely talked to each other. Being at the sea bed made me feel cut off from the rest of the world. We had even left Julia’s island a good distance behind and that made us feel even more isolated.
Strange sea creatures swam past us. The surface of the sea was a good way up and little of the light of the sun reached the sea bed so down below. Some of the sea creatures could produce their own light. There were many insect-like beings that I had never seen in the past, not even read about them in books. Once Gnaria stepped on a rock, and the rock suddenly sprang to life as it turned into a small octopus. The octopus spilled ink at us and fled.
At least two hours passed by.
“I really hope one of the other wives is in Hostania,” Julia spoke the first words in a long while, “because otherwise I am torturing my legs for nothing.”
Just then Gnaria pointed up towards the surface.
I looked up and realised to my horror that it was a great shark and a really big one at that. The three of us froze. While we knew enough spells to deal with land dangers, I wasn’t sure if we could deal with such a big shark, especially when we were in its element.
And then the shark suddenly made a ‘u’ turn and swam away fast. I let out a sigh. But the next moment, a dark shape appeared in the water. One that was much, much bigger than the shark.
“It’s a whale!” Julia said.
The whale was headed in the direction of Hostania, and an idea flew to my mind.
I pointed my paw towards the great mammal.
“Hug me tight,” I ordered Julia and Gnaria.
“Why? What are you going to do?” Julia said confusedly.
“I think I know,” Gnaria said as she wrapped her forearms around me. With some hesitation, Julia did the same. I activated the long hands spell.
Immediately my paw began to elongate and shot towards the whale. I put a considerable amount of mana into the spell to make the paw move faster in the water. After a moment, I had successfully wrapped my elongated paw around the tail of the giant mammal.
As the whale moved towards the island, it took us along at a speed many times of what we were otherwise doing walking the sea bed.
“I just hope it doesn’t eat us,” Julia said, looking at the great beast pulling us along with much concern. Thankfully the whale entirely ignored my paw that was wrapped around its tail. The whale kept moving in the direction of Hostania, never once changing directions, as though the great mammal existed with the sole purpose of taking us to Hostania, and I couldn’t thank fate more for that.
In merely twenty minutes, the dark shape of Hostania that was underwater came to our view, just a few hundred metres away. It was only now that the whale turned itself in a different direction. I deactivated the Long Hands spell and my paw shrunk to its original shape.
“That was fast,” Gnaria said looking at the whale as it calmly moved away from us, as she let go of her embrace of me and so did Julia and the three of us fell to the sea bed softly.
Chapter 29
We rested for a time at the spot, mostly because my paw ached. I had never used the Long Hands spell for such a great duration of time. Mostly I had used it for a handful of seconds earlier in the past. I entertained myself watching a sea insect try to catch a small fish a number of times and then I got back up. I didn’t want to waste the time we had gained by resting.
“Let’s go,” I said.
It took us about twenty minutes to cover the distance that separated us from the underwater part of Hostania.
“Let’s get to the surface then?” Julia said.
“Wait,” I said. I had spotted something dark and circular at a certain spot of the underwater part of Hostania, and this somehow sparked my curiosity. “I want to see what that is,” I said, pointing at the dark and circular thing.
A few steps made it clear that the dark and circular thing was actually a great cave at the bottom of Hostania. And further into the cave there were what looked like worms on the walls and roof of the cave that glowed an unnatural bluish green light.
The worms moved very slowly on the surface of the walls and the roof.
“I have never seen a cave like this one,” Julia said, and it was her voice ringing inside the bubble that brought me out of the trance of awe and wonder that I had fallen into just by staring at the cave.
“Let’s stick to the important thing and get to the surface,” Gnaria said.
“Should we?” I found myself saying. There was something about the cave that attracted me. I wanted to go inside the cave, explore it. My mother had once told me about a cave at the bottom of a hill that she and father had explored and it had turned out to be the dwelling of a great colony of ants and father had acquired a strange helmet which had allowed him to exercise control over the ants.
“What do you mean?” Julia asked.
“The cave is in Hostania after all,” I said. “The chances that we would find one of the wives inside the cave are the same as that of finding one of the wives on land in Hostania.”
“I don’t know, but I am finding this cave a bit creepy, even to look at,” Gnaria said and there was a good bit of uneasiness in her voice. I did not understand her discomfort at all.
“I think it’s worth some exploration at least,” I said.
“What if something dangerous lurks inside the cave?” Julia said. “What if those worms are not as peace-loving as they are looking from here?’
“Ever since I have embarked on this crazy quest, I have faced much frightening things that worms,” I said.
“Okay, maybe we can explore it a bit,” Julia said, and then turned to Gnaria to get her opinion. Gnaria pursed her lips and thought hard for a while.
“Okay then, we get in and then we get out,” she said.
I nodded, though to be honest I planned to spend a longer time than that in the cave. Perhaps it was the adrenaline that was still in my veins from the task I had accomplished of using the whale to move fast to Hostania that was making me ignore fear. I stepped into the cave, and the two women followed me.
The glowing worms lit the cave rather well from a certain point along the cave. And the cave led upwards all the while, such that after a time, because of the curvature in the tunnel, we could no longer see the mouth of the cave.
The cave was unending at best.
Up and up we went and as the time flew by, claustrophobia began to sink its teeth into my mind. Julia and Gnaria told me that it was time we went back out of the cave, and to some extent my mind agreed to their rationality. At best the cave penetrated deep into Hostania and there was a sudden end awaiting us. But my legs refused to listen to my mind and just kept moving forward. My legs seemed to think that somehow this cave was going to lead us to the wife who resided in Hostania.
And then just as my mind had decided that it was time to exercise some control over my legs when up ahead the tunnel we saw a light, one that was definitely not created by the worms on the walls of the tunnel. The light was also a purple one unlike the bluish green light that the worms produced.
“What is that?” Gnaria said.
“Well, there is only one way to find out, right?” I said, as my heart picked up pace.
We half swam, half ran to the purplish light up ahead. It was a
section of the tunnel that suddenly became much wider than the rest of it. We entered the purplish waters.
“Magic!” Julia said immediately the moment we entered the purplish waters. “I feel that someone had cast a very powerful spell here, which turned the water itself purple.”
“Is that an octopus, or is that a cat?” Gnaria meanwhile said, as though she had not heard Julia at all, her attention fixed somewhere else.
I looked upwards. My heart skipped a beat. I was staring at the end of the tunnel, which led to open air, and near the surface of the water there was a half octopus, half cat, half human creature. A female that too without a doubt. If I was not mistaken, she was one of the wives of the goat king that I had seen after eating the fruit back in the island the other night!
“Oli,” Julia whispered, looking at the other wife of the goat king with much awe. Oli meanwhile was in a conversation with someone that was standing outside the water. It was a cat.
“I don’t think she knows we are here, just a few metres below her,” Julia said. “And who is that she’s talking to?”
“I think you should talk to Oli,” I said to Julia.
“The last time I spoke to her it was in the midst of some quarrel,” Julia said with some bitterness.
“Is there no way we can hear what she is talking with the cat?” Gnaria asked.
“We can,” Julia said, and she mumbled some strange words, which caused the air bubbles around our heads to vibrate, and immediately I could hear a lot of sounds. I could hear the sound of my own heart and that of the hearts of Julia and Gnaria. I could hear the little sounds that the glowing worms were making in the narrower section of the tunnel below us, but more importantly I could even hear the sounds above the surface of the water: the conversation between Oli and the cat.
“… Am I still not worthy enough for you?” the cat was saying, his voice beaten by old age. “Even after all these years, have no feelings of love for me blossomed inside of you?”
“Love?” Oli replied, her voice almost musical, “No, Narth. How can you even expect me to fall in love with you after you have confined me, imprisoned me in this small space for so many years. The only emotion I feel for you is hate. Have I not made myself clear?”
Narth the cat sighed.
“I still remember that day when I first saw you,” he said, more to himself than to Oli, “I was on a fishing trip with my men. You surfaced a few metres away from my boat—”
“Because you caught an octopus and the octopus was crying out to me for help,” Oli injected.
“—And you were the most beautiful sight that my eyes had caught. I shall always cherish that first time when I saw you. I am the king of Hostania, and I have ten wives, yet you are the one woman who has taken my heart. I have barely seen any of my wives ever since I first laid eyes on you.”
“There was more chance of you winning my affections if you had not tricked me to come up the tunnel to this place, and killed all the octopi in front of my very eyes,” Oli said, her words venomous as though she was recalling a dark day.
“Everything is fair in love and war, they say,” Narth continued, “and it is what I have always believed.”
“That is what weaklings say to themselves when they cannot win love or war through fair means,” Oli said.
“Come on,” Narth said, “I killed the sorcerer who charmed the octopi and made them come here so that you would follow them. The octopi that died here that day ages ago have already been avenged.”
Oli led out a sardonic laugh.
“You are psychotic,” she said to Narth, “you kill your friends like they do not mean anything to you. I am sure the poor sorcerer never thought you would get him killed after he helped you. He was an idiot to trust you and give you that necklace with the magical locket you carry on your chest so proudly. If someday I can get that necklace off you and make you powerless, I shall kill you. The octopi that died here by the hundreds that day so many years back shall be avenged only when you die.”
Narth led out another sad sigh.
“So, do I take that as a ‘no’ for you for this month?” he said.
“A ‘no’ it is forever,” Oli replied firmly.
“I have turned from a young cat to an old one over the years,” Narth said, “but come next month, I shall visit you once again with the faith that you shall finally accept me and my love for you, because I know that the universe wants the two of us to be together. Why else should I have seen you that day so many years back? Why else should this natural tunnel exist which allowed the sorcerer to lead you to me?”
“You would have been a wise cat,” Oli replied, “perhaps even worthy of my love. You are persistent and see the universe as something that is always aiding you. Good qualities. But a psychotic cat you are and your virtues have turned to your vices.”
And then suddenly, Julia spoke.
“Oli,” she said.
Immediately Oli looked down and her eyes went wide as she saw the three of us. The cat Narth too looked down towards us, shocked that someone could be where we were.
“Julia?” Oli said, her expression one of great astonishment. “Is that you?”
“It is,” Julia said. “Have you been trapped here by that vile cat?”
“Yes,” Oli said, her voice convulsing with pain, “For decades I have been here.”
I recalled that Oli had earlier said Narth would be powerless without his locket. Perhaps if I was able to somehow destroy it, then Oli could be free from this place.
I swam up to the surface as fast as I could.
Chapter 30
“Who are you?!” Narth let out a cry.
The locket was sparkling on his chest.
I leapt out of the water and Narth backed away. The air bubble around my head disappeared.
I took in the place quickly. We were in some kind of a naturally occurring chamber, lit by torches that hung on the rough walls. There was one passage which led out of the chamber.
I pounced for the locket on Narth’s chest, but he stepped away, such that I tripped on the uneven stony surface and fell face first.
“Not so easy,” Narth hissed.
He put his paw over the locket and the moment he did so that a beam shot out from the locket. I leapt away just in time and the beam hit the place where I had been and there was an explosion of considerable size, bits of rocks flying in all directions. That was a close one, I thought even as I inhaled deeply.
Narth grinned at me maliciously.
“I do not know who you are,” he said, “but you are going to die today.”
And yet another beam shot out from the locket. I evaded it only barely and it hit the wall behind me. The bits of rocks from the explosion hit my back.
I was contemplating what I should do. Why, a rope spell could work wonders! I already had enough mana, since it had been a while since I used the Long Hands spell on the whale.
As Narth prepared to shoot another beam of power at me, I pointed my paw at him and threw a rope spell. Immediately ropes appeared around him, binding his arms to his torso. His eyes went wide, not having expected me to throw such a spell.
I sprang to him and I pulled the necklace out of his neck.
“No!” he cried.
“Shut up,” I told him. “Now how do I destroy this thing?” I hit the locket of the necklace against the rocky wall, such that it shattered. The moment that happened, the water lost its purplish colours.
“I am free!” Oli cried.
“Let’s get away from here,” Julia said, grabbing Oli’s arm and pulling her down the tunnel that led to the sea floor.
I was about to jump to the water myself, when suddenly arms grabbed me from behind. Narth! He had somehow managed to get the ropes off him. I should have put more mana into the spell.
“Help me!” Narth cried at the top of his lungs. Instantly, a bunch of cat warriors came into the chamber through the opening. They were upon me the moment Narth let go of me. They pinned me to
the ground and hit me repeatedly on the head. I felt light headed and struggled to think anything clearly that could help me get out of the precarious situation.
My eyes met with those of Gnaria who was still in the water. She was coming to the surface fast, undoubtedly wanting to help me. Some of the cat warriors leapt into the water.
Somehow, my much abused head caught an idea. I shook my head at Gnaria.
“Go,” I mouthed to her. “I will manage this. Trust me.”
She hesitated, her eyes fixed with mine. Then she nodded, even as the cat warriors dived towards her. She turned and swam down the tunnel fast.
And then I activated the Rage Barbarian spell.
The moment I did so, a great anger came over me, the kind that I had never experienced in my entire life. I shivered with the rage, even as my limbs felt ten times stronger than what that had been. The grasps of the cat warriors on me felt like the grasps of children.
I stood up, in the process flinging away several of the cat warriors.
I wanted to kill and that was the goal of my life. I activated Human Hands and grabbed one cat warrior by the neck and smashed his head against the roof of the chamber which was rather low. Another cat warrior tried to land the sharp end of his sword on me.
While I received considerable pain as the sword hit me, but the sword couldn’t penetrate my skin. I snatched the sword from the warrior and I snapped the blade of the sword on my thigh. The cat warrior still tried to plunge a knife into my heart. I blocked him and landed a punch on his chest with such force that the distinct sound of his ribs breaking reverberated about the chamber.
The other cat warriors were now unsure what to do and they tried to keep their distance from me, but they did not leave the chamber. I let out a great roar and threw myself upon them. I closed my eyes and I threw punches and kicks in all directions. By the time I opened my eyes to view the damage I had caused to the cat warriors, countless of them were littered about the chamber, most of them dead, while a select few were taking their last breaths.
Still the rage did not leave me.
Catheroes Page 40
