The Legend of the Lightscale: Book Two of The Scale Seekers

by A. R. Cook

  “What do we do?” Goude growled. He was as shaken as his little brother, who whined restlessly.

  “We have to take him out,” Gabriel whispered in a conspiring tone. “If we could find a way to distract him for a second—”

  Desert Rain put a hand on Gabriel’s arm. “We can’t fight him! That’s Merros, a very powerful Hijn. What he did to Chiriku is not even the tip of what he can do to us. Let me try to get through to him.”

  “Desert Rain, talk isn’t going to do any—”

  “Let me try. Trust me.”

  Gabriel’s lips tightened, but he reluctantly lowered his battlestaff. Desert Rain moved towards Merros, but the Distorted snapped at her. She stood her ground and spoke in the most authoritative voice she could muster. “Merros, you know me. I’m Desert Rain. You’re a Hijn, like I am. You were taken by Katawa, and he’s distorting your mind. Please, say something if you understand me.”

  The Ocean Hijn was silent. He lowered his hands and cocked his head sideways.

  “Please, talk to me, Merros! Why are you doing this? What is it that you want?” Desert Rain persisted.

  Merros made a sweeping hand gesture, and the Distorted parted before Desert Rain. He advanced towards her, and for the first time it seemed that he truly saw her. He spoke in an oily voice, trying to speak over the globs of fluid. “De…ser…Rai…”

  “Yes, yes, you remember me! Listen to me, Merros, I don’t know what Katawa said to you, but it’s a lie. He’s poisoned your mind. He’s not going to relieve you of your pain, no matter what you do for him. You must stop this. Let me help you—”

  All of a sudden, Merros clutched his head and emitted an excruciating scream, falling to his knees. Fluid seeped out of his mouth, and his eyes rolled back into his head. His body shuddered, convulsed, and the purple handprints on his skin started to bubble. Desert Rain wanted to go to him, comfort him, but his state of torment was too much for her. The convulsions and screaming stopped as abruptly as it had started. Merros was limp for a moment, but then he raised his head. A funny smirk appeared on his face. He stood up and looked around. It was as if he was taking in these surroundings for the first time. His gaze settled back on Desert Rain. His smirk blossomed into a wicked smile.

  “Ah, there’s my desert flower,” Merros said in a voice not his own. He caressed Desert Rain’s cheek, and she stepped back from him quickly.

  “Merros…” she started cautiously.

  “Oh, come now, Desert Rain. You know who I am. You’re such a clever girl.”

  Desert Rain’s jaw dropped, and her whole body shook terribly. “Katawa…”

  “Very good,” the Merros puppet said, clapping his hands. “I can speak through others by my Distortion. An artist puts a little of himself into everything he creates. Although I wouldn’t really call this ‘art’,” he noted, looking down at Merros’s body. “More of a tool, I suppose.”

  “How…why…” Desert Rain clenched her hands into fists. “Let him go.”

  “You know I can’t. There’s so much work to be done, and my Hijn have quite a lot to do. I had the feeling one of them would come across you when I sent them out.” He took another moment to look around, and he observed her companions closely. “Although I expected to find you with that green woman, not in the middle of the sea. What are you up to?”

  Desert Rain was silent, which she tried to pass off as defiance, although it was truly fear.

  Merros, or Katawa, scratched his chin. “It’s a shame, actually. I was sort of hoping you’d still have the green one with you. I’m starting to regret giving her up. She could be useful to me—if not as a mage, as something more pleasurable…”

  “Dragons damn you!” Desert Rain hollered. “You leave her alone! Leave us alone! We have nothing you want.”

  “Now I wouldn’t say that.” He cast his gaze among the group. “Hmm, that Quetzalin, and that man, and them—” He gestured to the Vermin brothers, “yes, they could be very useful to me as soldiers.”

  “Soldiers?” Desert Rain did not understand. “What do you need soldiers for? You already have the Hijn.”

  Merros chuckled. “Yes, but six Hijn against the entire Darkscale Court is a gamble. I like to have something to fall back on. As you can see, they’re quite intimidating, and completely loyal.” He petted the head of one of the Distorted creatures.

  Desert Rain shuddered, staring into the pain-filled eyes of the Distorted. “How can you do this…they’re innocent people…”

  “Innocent?” Merros laughed between his gritted teeth. “Let me explain to you the whole illusion of ‘innocent.’ While you’ve spent your whole life with your head in the sand, you haven’t seen how despicable people truly are. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it! This, my art, is the proof of it. These innocents, as you call them, are as deformed as they already were on the inside. No more, no less.”

  “Liar!” Desert Rain’s green eye flashed. “This is not who they really are. They have been marred by your insane imagination! What good are they to you, other than pets? They have no magic of their own. They’ll do you no good fighting the Darkscale!”

  The Merros puppet smirked at the flash in her eye. “I would think you would appreciate this, Desert Rain. After all, if the Darkscale are distracted by an army of my Distorted, my Hijn are better protected. Besides, the Darkscale are all cowards, all of them. It’s pitiful that the Knighthood defeats them at every turn. Now I can finally put them all to rest, out of their miserable existence.”

  Chiriku by now had regained her senses, and she pushed her way through to stand by Desert Rain. “You want to mess with us? Then come and get it,” she hissed.

  “No, Chiriku! We can’t fight him! That’s still Merros’s body. And those creatures were—are—people!” Desert Rain pushed Chiriku back. She turned towards Merros. “You tell me all this so openly. Are you so sure you can’t be stopped? I’ll tell the Knighthood about all of this—”

  The Merros puppet snickered, coming over and placing his hands on Desert Rain’s stiff shoulders. “Tell them, if you want. You ask, so I answer you. You’re my golden girl, after all.” He massaged the tips of her ears, and she flinched away from him. He grinned. “It doesn’t matter much, anyway. My Hijn have collected many good specimens for me, and they’ll continue to collect as many as I like. Sooner or later, they’ll find your little green friend and bring her back to me, where she belongs. They’ll find the other missing Hijn. And then, of course, there’s you…”

  Desert Rain felt something slip down her arm and stop around her wrist. She could feel the cool, soothing metal—it was the shaman’s bracelet. She shimmied the bracelet off her wrist, catching it with her long fingers and holding it in her hand. It began to feel hot, as if energy was flowing through it.

  She remembered the shaman’s words. It will protect you for the time being…

  “What about me?” she asked. “Are you going to do to me what you did to Merros and the others?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he replied. He pulled her close. He could see how uncomfortable she was, especially seeing how it was Merros’s body that was holding her. “Although, it was exhilarating to watch you squirm beneath my grasp while you screamed and begged me for mercy. To feel the blood pumping through your body, the heat of your fear…”

  “Can you feel me right now? The real you, wherever you are?” she asked.

  Merros paused, but then grinned. “Yes, I feel you as much as if it were me standing beside you right now.”

  “Then feel this!” She slammed the bracelet against Merros’s forehead, creating a shock of golden lightning that rippled throughout his body. Merros shrieked in pain, and the electric blast shot him back, sending him sprawling across the deck of the ship. The Distorted howled at the golden light, shrinking away as it burned their eyes. Now that the Distorted were distracted, Gabriel swung at one of them, knocking it to the floor, and dug the end of his battlestaff into the creature’s eye until it drove through with a we
t “pop.”

  “Gabriel, those are people!” Desert Rain reiterated in panic.

  “They aren’t people anymore. We don’t have any choice. That Hijn and these monsters are under the demon’s control. We have to fight them,” Gabriel said.

  “No! It’s not Merros’s fault Katawa has done this to him! There must be a way to snap him out of it!”

  The Distorted broke into a charge. Chiriku beaned one smack in the face with her warhammer, but another caught her by her pant leg and yanked her to the floor. Gabriel thwacked his battlestaff at any Distorted who came his way. Mac and the Vermins made a mad dash for the ropes of the ship, climbing up them towards the mast with the frenzied speed of frightened mice. Three of the Distorted pursued them, struggling as their twisted limbs tried to keep a firm hold on the ropes as they climbed.

  Desert Rain was not being attacked by the Distorted, most likely because they were afraid of her now. She watched as Merros staggered to his feet, a burned circle mark on his forehead. His eyes had lost the cunning wickedness of Katawa, but now they were wild, thoughtless, ravenous.

  Chiriku bashed the Distorted holding her. She got to her feet, looking over at Merros. “Is that demon still in him?”

  “No, Katawa’s gone,” Desert Rain replied, sliding her bracelet back onto her arm. “But that’s the least of our worries.”

  The coiling serpent mark in Merros’ palm shined with a vibrant light, like a blue flame, and he raised his hands above his head as he intoned a sharp, guttural Dragontongue spell. Desert Rain could already feel the immense energy behind that magic, could feel the ripples of power pulsate with each word Merros spoke. She heard the rumble, the increased lapping of the waves, the boat swaying dangerously again.

  The waters of the ocean swelled up at the hull of the ship. It began as a tidal wave, rushing higher and higher, roaring in its strength. The wave took on a form—it thickened, swelled, spread its newly grown arms, rose its faceless head. Water ran down the length of its body, as if it was continually bleeding, but it grew larger in size. Everyone, even the Distorted, froze as they saw the water titan, as tall as five ships, loom over them, its shadow casting a blue-green sheen over all below.

  The Vermins, clinging to the ship’s ropes for their lives, simultaneously screamed in fright at the water titan. Mac’s eyes bulged out of his head, and from his panic sweat he turned pink all over. “What in g-g-great g-gurgling swamp muck-kk is th-that?” he stammered.

  Desert Rain was petrified. She wished at that moment that she could use the Blueshine on herself, for being instantly shattered into little pieces sounded better than being smashed by a water titan.

  The water titan bent down, its body pouring heavy rain down over the boat, and cupped its massive hands around the vessel. It lifted the ship clear out of the water, as if it were a toy boat in the titan’s bath tub. The sudden upward rush caused everyone to lose their footing, and they were glued to the deck under the pressure of the lift. When Desert Rain could raise her head again, she looked to find Merros was no longer on the deck.

  “Up there!” Gabriel called.

  Upon the titan’s shoulder, floating on the water, was Merros, his expression blank. No one could guess whether he was preparing to command his titan to smash, crush, throw or tip the ship upside down to spill out its passengers. The titan brought the ship to be level with its head, and Desert Rain could surmise by how tall the titan was that abandoning ship at this height would be a fatal fall.

  One idea popped into Desert Rain’s head, and it was perhaps the weirdest one she could had thought up. She dug into her pocket for the black pouch, yanking it out and practically tearing it open as she yelled, “Gothart, I’m open to any suggestions you might have right now!!”

  Out of the bag poked a little mechanical toy goat’s head, blinking tiredly.

  “Suggestions for what?” the toy Gothart asked, stretching its little arms and yawning. He looked up and took in the water titan’s head, with its three depressions for eye sockets and a gaping mouth. Gothart’s eyes sprung out of his head on coiled springs as he bleated at the top of his little lungs, and almost in the same instant, the wind-up key in his back transformed into a little propeller. It twirled rapidly, lifting him out of the bag and into the air.

  “What are you doing?!” Desert Rain yelled after him.

  “You’re on your own, dear,” the toy goat answered, flying out of Desert Rain’s reach. He propelled himself up and away, zipping off into the sky.

  Desert Rain had nothing left. She couldn’t even think of the words of Blueshine, even if that could have helped her in this situation. All she could do was squeeze her eyes shut and clasp her hands together tightly. Great Guerda-Shalyr, or anyone who might hear me, please, please save them—even if it means my life, please save my friends!!

  The wind picked up aggressively. It spun around the ship like an invisible whirlpool, causing everyone on deck to be blown this way and that way. The Distorted that had pursued Mac and the Vermins up the ropes lost their grip and fell to the deck, while the lizard and the three brothers hung on to the rigging with every ounce of strength they had. The titan froze as if it had become ice, and Merros snapped his head around like a startled animal.

  “What is he doing now??” Chiriku squawked, trying desperately to keep her balance.

  Desert Rain caught onto Chiriku, hoping that they could help keep each other balanced. “Merros can’t be doing this. He has power over water, not the wind.”

  A violent gust of wind drove into the water titan’s face, punching a hole clean through it. Then another, and another blast bore into the titan. A wind strike to the shoulder caused Merros to almost fall off, and to lose his concentration. The water titan started to dissolve, and it dropped the ship clean out of the air. Everyone on board screamed as the boat plummeted towards the ocean, sure to be obliterated on the rough, hard waters.

  The ship did not smash down into the ocean. In mid-air, its fall slowed, as if sinking into a soft cushion. Desert Rain cautiously opened her eyes, clinging with all her strength to Chiriku, who was clinging onto her as well. She blinked and looked around. She saw a cyclone whooshing around the ship. The cyclone settled the ship down onto the ocean, causing a slight rocking as the boat regained its balance on the water.

  From out of the sky dropped a diminutive figure, and it came to hover right in front of Desert Rain. It was a Yopeis-Gichen, with two appendages shaped like gliding fish pectoral fins extending out to the sides of his head just above his small round ears, which allowed him to float on the wind like a kite. He possessed all the typical characteristics of a Yopeis: the ear-fins, the little pearlescent face, the soft scales covering his scalp and backside, and the four-foot height. His buttercream-yellow scale color, however, was a hue no Yopeis possessed naturally – most were green, obsidian, silver or blue-gray. He also wore full attire, which was rare for a Yopeis - he dressed in a leather overcoat with matching boots and gloves that were far too large for his little four-fingered hands, a green vest tied in the front with red ribbon laces, and a pair of bright red trousers that covered his limber legs. Most notable were his long white “whiskers,” which were modified illicia like those of anglerfish. Each illicium possessed a pearl-like bulb on the tip. Two of these illicia stemmed from his eyebrows, and two from each side of his nose, and each had the sensitivity to sense each of the four winds. The only Yopeis to have such a trait was the Hijn of the Winds, local protector of the Rings of Springs.

  “HiDesertRainhowareyoudoing?” Woasim asked, landing gently on the deck. The Wind Hijn rambled at a pace often too fast to be clearly understood.

  “Woasim!” Desert Rain was stunned. “Wh…where did you come from?”

  “NiceboatyouhavehereneverthoughtI’dseeyouallthewayouthereoooohwhatarethosethey’renotveryfriendlylookingarethey?” Woasim twitched his long whiskers, wrinkling his nose at the Distorted surrounding him. He didn’t seem afraid of them, but curious, even though the Distorted were bearin
g their jagged teeth at him.

  Desert Rain was going to tell Woasim to get off the ship, but before she could say anything, the Wind Hijn inhaled deeply and unleashed a gale-force blow towards the Distorted. For one so small, Woasim’s gust of breath was so strong that it sent all the Distorted sliding backwards across the deck like scraps of rice paper. With one final huff, Woasim lifted all the Distorted up into the air, over the ship’s rail and dropped them like pebbles into the ocean.

  “Ihopeyoudon’tmindthatIgotridofthosethingsbuttheydidn’tseemverynice.Let’sseewhat’sgoingonhere.” Woasim whisked himself away on his currents of wind, up towards the head of the water titan, where Merros still stood.

  “Woasim, wait! Merros is not himself!” Desert Rain’s words could not catch up to the quick-flying Wind Hijn.

  “What is he doing here?” Gabriel called to her.

  “He’s the Wind Whisperer. He’s another Hijn. He can help us,” Desert Rain assured him. But he has a bad habit of leaping before he looks, she thought.

  Woasim brought himself to hover before Merros, who stared menacingly at him. The Wind Hijn apparently did not notice the ferocity in the Ocean Rider’s eyes. “HeyMerrosoldbuddywhatareyoudoing?That’sareallygreatwatergiantyougottheredidyouseeDesertRaindowntherebutanywaydidImissanythingatthemeetingI’msorryIcouldn’tmakeitbutI—“

  Woasim was cut off by a strong gush of water to his face. He rolled through the air head over heels but summoned a cushion of air to keep himself aloft. Before he could finish rubbing the salt water out of his wide, owllike eyes, the titan’s hand came down on him, slamming him down onto the ship’s deck with bone-crunching force. The hand held him down, entrapping Woasim underwater, the pressure not allowing the Wind Hijn to free himself.

  Desert Rain slipped and slided over to try and pull Woasim out from the titan’s hand, but the water poured down the arm like a waterfall, and it was flooding the deck and making the boat start to sink. The rush was too great for her to reach her arm through it.