Spirit of the Sea

by Keith Walter

  He prodded the flicker and it drew away—not likely an attack then. Instead, the presence gently breathed into his mind. He thought it might be words too faint to hear, like a whisper across a large room. Quieting his mind, he pushed the chaos of the outside world away and tried to listen. It wasn’t words he heard, not exactly—more like feelings. There were feelings of being trapped, a desperate desire for freedom, and a deep sorrow for the pain around him. Tiny wisps of memories inside himself resonated and reflected the same emotions.

  Charles turned in a slow circle, letting that flicker guide him. His eyes were drawn to the water, but it looked lifeless under the night sky. He considered ignoring the call and just running, but the emotions were too familiar. He sighed. At least he was being led away from the soldiers. Jogging to the edge of the water, he took one last glance to make sure no one had caught sight of his escape, then dove in.

  Charles wasn’t a great swimmer, but he made good time as he swam passed the empty docks toward the far end of the little bay. When he’d been on land, the flicker was something in the back of his head pulling him in this direction. In the water, though, it was an ever-present hum, growing louder and more desperate than before. The sound reminded him of those old nature shows that played the whale calls deep in the ocean. It sounded like he felt so often sad and terrified all at once.

  Climbing up on the deck of an old ferry, Charles’s foot immediately went through the deck boards. He moved quickly to catch himself from falling farther down. Looking around, he could feel the noises and emotions inside his head, but he could tell this wasn’t quite where they came from. It was as if the source of the flicker was right there, all around him, but he couldn’t quite get to it.

  For a moment, the winds shifted and a cloud of smoke rushed through the boat. Crouching down to keep from breathing it in, Charles saw a light shimmer between the ferry and a strange ancient-looking ship further down the dock. He tried to place the shimmer, but couldn’t seem to focus. Something was there, hidden beyond his senses. He couldn’t tell what it was he felt, which continued to unnerve him, but the emotion was impossibly strong now.

  He waited for several seconds until he saw the shimmer once again. A lifetime ago, leaping feet first into the unknown would have been no problem. Now, everything in him felt tired, like a trick had been pulled on him one too many times. With his eyes locked on the nothingness where the shimmer last was, he jumped off the ferry.

  Charles landed on the deck of a slightly smaller ship, though nicer, and immediately knew what had happened. He had landed inside a pocket. The sound in his head disappeared, replaced with a tingling sensation emanating from the deck. “Hello? Is anyone here?” he yelled, relieved to know no one outside the pocket would be able to hear. He walked around the main deck, but no one responded. Charles knew he didn’t have time for this. Though he had only sensed low-level soldiers on the docks, eventually their superiors would show up. He would be a little more formidable with the moon on his side, but he would have to pay dearly if it came to using that power.

  Charles had been on a ship a few times, but he had no idea how to find something hiding on one. The moon was high, but its light provided little help searching for someone that might be trapped inside. He needed light, at least, and a pleasant thought came to mind. As long as the pocket remained intact, he realized he should be able to turn on the ship’s power and no one would be the wiser.

  “Power,” he said under his breath, “where would I find…” The tingling he felt emanating from the deck suddenly changed. It began to ebb and flow, and he wasn’t sure how but Charles got the distinct impression he needed to head to the front of the ship. Following the odd sensation, he made it to a ladder leading up to what he assumed was the bridge. It was nearly pitch black inside, but one of the few benefits his lineage gave him was the ability to see clearly in all but the darkest areas.

  He ended up staring at a wall covered in dark, little buttons. Fancy script identified what they were for. Two engines were called out, bulkheads, and even cabins. None of them seemed what Charles was looking for, but he hovered his hand over the different buttons until the odd sensation below pricked him again. “Well, in for a penny, in for a pound,” he joked before pressing down on the button he felt drawn to. He felt excitement touch the back of his mind before he was overcome with the distinct vortex-like feeling of being drained. It lasted for less than a second, and then the lights in the bridge and outer decks lit up. Charles pulled back his hand tentatively. “Fancy ship,” he mumbled skeptically.

  A new set of presences filled Charles senses and he raced out of the bridge, this time to the back of the yacht. He had been feeling what he assumed was the superior officers getting closer and closer. The smoke was doing an excellent job of confusing exactly how far away they were, but they were definitely close. He wasn’t let down when he reached the back deck and saw the crater in the docks by the original warehouse. He could decipher movement through the dust and smoke and saw a wave swell up from the lake and crash over the shore.

  “A water elemental,” Charles cursed under his breath. “That’s not going to be helpful.” The realization felt like he had been sucker punched. It was his own fault; he let himself think that there would be another escape, another chance to somehow keep going. A series of thuds across the deck brought him back to reality. “Well, shit, that was fast,” he muttered as he ran to the dock side of the yacht. He prepared to fight for his life once more, but instead found himself face-to-face with a growing group of bedraggled young men and women, each sporting a silver collar and fearful expression. He knew immediately these were converts, the collars a familiar precaution against the moon. Pieces of information started filling out a puzzle in his head: the explosion, the fires, and the almost calculated confusion. This was an escape.

  The first converts watched his approach with fearful eyes, several putting a hand over their mouths to muffle their shock. It wasn’t until then that Charles decided to glance down at himself. His tattered clothes were black with ash and soot. What was left of his shirt was matted to his chest from the water, and an intricate black script was clearly visible all over his chest and stomach. His exposed skin still bore the burn scars from the cell, as well.

  It occurred to Charles they weren’t frightened that he might be a soldier, but rather that he was alive at all in his current state. Throwing caution to the wind, he yelled with all the confidence he could muster, “Get everyone on board as quickly as possible.” The old authority in his voice seemed to work, and the escapees broke from their trances to move forward and help those behind them through the pocket.

  Seeing all these innocent people caught up in his problems was another punch in the gut. It was one thing for him to be captured again; he had almost made peace with his demise. It was something else entirely for these converts to be recaptured. As he watched many stumble and drag each other aboard, he realized they couldn’t possibly have escaped on their own. He begrudgingly hoped whoever had gotten them out had some sort of plan.

  Charles moved to the edge of the pocket, so far as he could tell, and helped usher the last escapees onboard. An young woman nearly didn’t make the jump, and he had to catch her by the shoulders and haul her aboard. Her initial relief turned to fear as she took in Charles’s appearance, and she scrambled from his arms as if burned. She ran so quickly Charles was left holding a blanket that had been wrapped around her shoulders.

  The remaining four people on the dock had no collars, though three had manacles similar to what he himself had been made to wear in his cage. Fear immediately came over him. The converts had been afraid seeing him, but full blooded fey would only be suspicious. They might jump to conclusions, consider him a threat, and start a fight. He had to get ahead of any distrust. Throwing the blanket he held over his shoulders, Charles tried to cover up as much of his torn shirt as possible. The group of four jumped from the dock to the deck.

  A quick glace and he could immediately te
ll they were all pure-blooded fey, no scent of human in them. The manacled man and women must have been prisoners like the converts. The fourth person, a man without shackles or signs of imprisonment, was the one he was looking for. He held himself with purpose, an unconscious fluidity and strength in his movements that suggested military training. This was the man who had rescued the prisoners, Charles knew. The fact that he seemed to keep himself apart from the other three suggested they didn’t know each other.

  A good first impression would be important here, Charles realized. This man needed to be an ally. Charles walked past the first three few and held out his arm in a standard military greeting to the one in charge. “Sir, my name is Charles. Whatever the plan is, I’m ready to help.”

  “Who?” The taller woman whispered, her eyes narrowing at the unfamiliar figure.

  “Charles.” The man smiled, grasping the outstretched arm around the wrist. “I’m Barclay.” He motioned to the nearest lamp. “How was it that the power was turned on?” he asked curiously.

  “I turned it on,” Charles answered. “Though I’m not exactly sure how—”

  Barclay cut Charles off with an open palm, clearly not interested in a story. “Do you think you could do it again? We only have a few hundred yards between us and them and we need to get moving. We can’t be here when their leader returns.”

  Charles didn’t know if he could, but the presence in the back of his mind was excited, and he could feel the tingling in his feet pull him toward the rear of the ship. “Actually, I might, yeah,” Charles replied. He immediately began walking. Whatever had called out to him was trying its best to help. And he wasn’t fool enough to turn down help right now. He picked up his pace as he focused on the feeling, running around the main cabins and down a flight of stairs to the very belly of the boat.

  ◆◆◆

  Barclay had no idea if Charles could really get this boat moving, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. Something about the other man running to the engines gave him a little bit of confidence. There was a look to Charles that said he would do whatever it took. Barclay was surprised he hadn’t recognized those eyes earlier when he assessed the group back at the shipping crates.

  The ship rocked against the dock as another large wave washed over the fires on the other end of the little bay. Barclay knew he had maybe five minutes from moment the majors realized the prisoners were gone before every inch of the docks were scoured. In his early days, he would have jumped out and tried to fight his way through his opponents. If he was honest, he may still have tried his chances were there just a couple of the majors. But years of battles had taught him better. He had to think his way out of this one, and he was running very low on surprises.

  Turning to the three purebloods still standing next to him, Barclay began to bark orders. “We have to be out of here as soon as possible, but we’ll need a decoy.” Three pairs of eyes opened wide at the prospect of what that meant. “Not one of you,” Barclay said, dismissing their concern with a wave. “You wouldn’t even give us enough time to undock.” He didn’t have time to sugarcoat the situation. “I need the big boat next to us untied and shoved out into the water. There are five jugs sitting on the deck nearest the dock. I need you to dump them in the water on the side opposite where we are now. Once you’re done, get back here.” He waited a beat, then asked, “Do you think you can handle that?”

  The three looked at each other cautiously. The dark-haired man opened his mouth, but the shorter woman talked right over him. “We will get it done.” She turned and jumped back to the dock without another word. The man frowned at her, but he and the other woman jumped out of the pocket behind her.

  ◆◆◆

  Charles followed the feeling in his feet to a large door held closed with a heavy chain and steel lock. Grabbing the chain, he immediately found his strength sapped. Dropping it quickly, he realized it must have been enchanted. Someone didn’t want this boat leaving unless they were on it. Charles surveyed the lock and realized this wasn’t going to be as easy as getting the power back on. The lock was old and seriously powerful.

  Mustering as much energy as he dared, he focused on the mechanism. He let it draw more magic from him in order to read what was needed to open it. Runes lit up around the edge of the door, emanating from the black bolts anchoring the chain to the metal. There was an enchantment that required a unique energy signature, no doubt specific to the individual that placed it. The chain, meanwhile, had been designed to pull energy from anything that it touched to reinforce the lock.

  An idea popped into his head. In any other circumstance he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but for the first time in a long time he had people that he could actually help. Grabbing the lock, Charles closed his eyes and began to focus on the storm raging inside him. A spell like this could only be broken by overwhelming the lock quickly. If he had tried to gradually push more and more energy into it, then the spell would continue to reinforce itself. It was cruelly similar to the manacles from the prison.

  Lights flickered and bulbs popped as Charles released the restraining runes and spells keeping his body together. His energy increased erratically as the lock grew hot. He hoped the lock could buffer what would otherwise have been an explosively dangerous display. Delicately, he called off just enough of his restraining spells to begin to feel the full force of what was inside him. Surges of energy washed through him into the lock like a hurricane. The storm of his magic would ebb and flow like the wind until he felt a dangerous calm. If the lock hadn’t been there to absorb the energy, Charles was sure he would have incinerated himself on the spot. But the lock’s magic was old and intricate, with layers reinforcing layers, each carefully woven into another.

  The calm inside came like the receding waters in front of a wave. Then his full power hit with the force of a tsunami. The lock shook as it tried to contain the energy. Seering pain erupted through his body as the lock shattered, the force knocking Charles on his back. His hands immediately went to his chest, touching familiar runes to reapply the restrictions on his power.

  Charles stood, taking a moment to catch his breath. He noticed the walls of the ship were stained black from the explosion. He spun the bulkhead lock on the door and opened the engine room. A rush of air shot out as if it had been hermetically sealed for quite some time. The feeling in his head was oddly comforting, drawing his attention to a large panel on the wall, to a switch at the top labeled Master.

  Charles wasted no time slamming his palm on the switch. He felt the familiar vortex and heard mechanical sounds from behind him. He spun in time to see two giant diesel engines spring to life. In seconds, their deafening hum echoed throughout the ship and he knew his job was

  ◆◆◆

  The familiar rumble from a ship’s engines was the only comforting thing Barclay had felt the entire day. How Charles had been able to get them running when Barclay himself couldn’t even get the damn door open was perplexing, but ultimately unimportant. What mattered now was that there was a chance for this escape to work. He had just finished applying concealment runes on the boat when he saw the ferry next to him begin to move.

  Somehow, it was all coming together. By the time he made it to the bridge, the ferry had drifted far enough back that he had a clear view of the docks and the majors. The soldiers had regrouped surprisingly fast and were running buckets as the major with an affinity for water pulled wave after wave over the warehouses to stop the fires. Barclay realized almost all the flames had been doused, and he could see soldiers entering the husk of warehouse thirteen. He didn’t wait for the ruse to be discovered—throwing the engines in Reverse and trying to match the drifting ferry.

  It took the sudden feeling of stretching and twisting, of being in two places at once, before Barclay remembered the pocket. He reached under the steering wheel and turned the ornate golden key off. The pocket key was an amazing relic, but trying to travel while the dimension shifted around you was suicide. The key crea
ted a pocket dimension a few hundred yards in diameter. If the key moved so did the dimension, but anyone at the edges would have been torn apart, lost between this world and the next. The concealment ward, however, was working well enough.

  The three purebloods straggled up the ladder to the bridge, and Barclay began to bark orders the moment they were inside. “You,” he pointed at the shorter woman.

  “Serin,” the woman replied with a hint of challenge.

  “Serin, your job is to back the ship out at the same rate as that ferry is drifting. We need it to block us from their sight.”

  “How do I do that?” she asked seriously.

  Barclay hardly had time to teach her the intricacies of driving a ship. He placed his left hand on the steering wheel and his right on a flat lever. “Steering isn’t anything special. Push this lever up to speed up, and down to slow down. We’re already in Reverse, so don’t touch anything else.”

  “How do I, um, make sure I don’t crash or something?” Serin asked, furrowing her brow.

  Barclay ran a hand over his forehead before replying, then pointed to the taller woman. “This one goes up front—” he pointed to slick-dressed man “—and this one goes in back. They are going to relay how close you are to the dock, as well as how far you are from the ferry.”

  “What are you going to do?” the taller woman wondered aloud.

  “I am going to make our diversion,” he replied. Just then, two thunderclaps resonated through the docks. Barclay’s heart sank as he stared out the bridge windows. The dust didn’t need to settle to tell him what had happened. The majors had discovered the missing prisoners, and had just rained their wrath down on warehouse thirteen. If they noticed the escape before this old yacht got up to speed, they were sunk—literally.

  The only thing he could do was play the plan out and pray for whatever luck he could find. Barclay ran out of the bridge and aimed his finger at the ferry like a gun. He clicked down his thumb like a lever and tiny ball of fire shot out toward the shore. Burying itself into the water between the ferry and the shore, the bay was suddenly alight with flames. As hoped, the alcohol he’d told the others to dump spread the flames to the ferry, which burst with red smoke from the small crates he’d stashed in case of emergency. If the majors weren’t looking right away, they would be led to think the ferry had started on fire from shore.