Spirit of the Sea

by Keith Walter

  He heard the shields break as he came up for air and the flash of light dropped his jaw. Rage crept into his mind as the flames reflected across the water. He was left briefly out of breath as he felt Grace redirect energy from him to the shields. He was still relieved when he saw the shields come back up in time to deflect the next wave of cannon fire. He felt heavier as he pulled himself above the waves, but his anger pushed fatigue from his mind.

  Charles had never been much for dancing around his opponent. He was much better in close combat, where his unique body could flip the tables in an instant. Now, he thought he could use it to dismantle the enemy ship with his bare hands. He pushed his speed to the limits, not giving the enemy the chance to get off another attack. He extended his hand in front of him, runes spread out across his right arm like tattoos. Flashing bright blue, he cocked back his arm before punching a hole clean through the Entregon’s shields. Once inside, the tempest runes came to life and began shredding everything in sight as he touched down on the Entregon’s deck. Charles focused on pushing more and more energy into the tempest, looking to end the battle in an instant. But for a reason he couldn’t figure, the spell only grew weaker and weaker.

  Grace’s mother appeared in front of him, and he watched the initial damage to her decks repair in seconds. “Suitor,” Entregon choked out. “That is what my daughter called you.” She took a deep breath. “I commend your bravery. It has been centuries since anything has boarded me without my consent. Brave,” she repeated, “but stupid.” Charles felt his energy fall as he realized his mistake. With his last bit of energy, he tried to send a message to Grace.

  ◆◆◆

  Grace worked to carve markings of magical power on the anchor; she had never layered so many runes at once. She sincerely hoped she hadn’t misplaced anything. So focused on her task, she hardly noticed that Barclay had come up behind her.

  “Charles has been on board the Entregon too long,” he announced, voice shaky. “Should we be worried?”

  Grace stared across the water. “I…I can’t tell,” she admitted. “But he told me to stick to the plan.” She gestured to the water, where Barclay could see tiny ice shards sticking out just in front of the Entregon. “I’m…we’re almost ready.”

  “Your mother is about to get knee deep in your minefield,” he replied, impressed. He watched as the first tiny iceberg gently scraped against the warship’s hull. A spark of blue shot out and the ice grew, adhering itself to the metal. Immediately, the Entregon slowed, but then red lines shimmered across, melting the ice away. “Seems like the ice isn’t going to slow her down much,” Barclay said, holding his hand out as if trying to feel the water.

  “The kindest way to put it is that my mother is headstrong,” Grace replied through gritted teeth. “Whenever she sees something in her way she makes it a point to push through.” The sounds of ice crystalizing and cracking began echoing through the water as more icebergs released their magic. With each one, the red lines grew brighter and the Entregon melted her way through. Grace frowned. “Though I didn’t think it would be that easy for her.”

  “I see,” Barclay said, taking off his jacket. He reached out to feel the water once more before adding, “It would seem to me that all that magic going off makes sensing anything a real pain. I’d bet something quite a bit weaker might not be seen at all.” With that, he slipped over the railing before Grace could say anything.

  ◆◆◆

  Entregon was enjoying sapping Charles’s energy. He could tell by her voice, which kept getting higher and higher pitched as she anticipated him running out. When the ship slowed suddenly, he fell to his knees. After his last-ditch attempt to communicate, he realized his mental connection had been completely cut off. Grace was still using their shared magic, but he had the distinct impression she didn’t realize how weak he was getting.

  “I do not understand why my Grace is still fighting,” Entregon mused. She stood over Charles, her eyes searching for some answer in the man on his knees. “She should know better than most what happens to those who oppose me. I have tried to teach her that lesson over and over, and yet here you are. Did she not tell you, or are you just that much a fool?” She leaned down, purring as she drank his energy in. “I cannot tell you how many times I have done this, but it is always a special treat when I ensnare a member of the nobility. You creatures are a delicacy.” She smirked as she added, “Though I suppose you cannot enjoy it the same.”

  When Charles tried to stand, she poked his shoulder, causing him to fall in a heap. “I have heard that when a fey grows weak, they begin to feel heavy. It is as if their body has no idea how to function without the magic within. For someone like you, I wonder if you are already accustomed.”

  Charles tried standing again, but his body felt magnetically attracted to the deck below. “Do not worry,” Entregon hummed, “most become delirious before the end. It will be just like falling asleep.” A faint smile flitted across her face and a mist began creeping over the edge of the deck. “You could stop it, you know. I offered my daughter leniency if she were to surrender herself to me. If she will not listen to me, perhaps she will listen to you.”

  Charles spat on the floor. “I’d rather die than help you.”

  “I think,” Entregon smiled wider, “that if you die, she will not have the strength or will to defend herself. You would sacrifice the both of you for your pride?”

  “She’ll never be under your thumb again,” Charles retorted. “I won’t let you have her.”

  Entregon laughed, loud and seriously amused. A royal blue chaise appeared on the deck and she fell into it as the laughter continued. With her face next to his own while she lounged, she stifled her laughter and pretended to wipe a tear from her eye. “Let me? Oh, dear boy, I can see why she likes you. You both share the same naive belief that the world will follow your lead if you just hope hard enough.”

  Charles was struck by how much she sounded like himself. He had said the same thing about Grace when he first met her. Then, it had been cutting, entirely designed to push her away. Now he considered just how much he had changed in their short journey. The realization pulled him from his righteous indignation. If he wanted to get out of this, he’d need to lean on the lessons he’d learned. Pulling his right arm to his chest, he began tracing a large symbol. He remembered every single spell and rune that had been applied to his skin to keep his power in check. He couldn’t carve them all, but just one might be enough for a short time. He caught Entregon’s eye just as he slapped his chest,” Don’t underestimate your daughter. She’s gotten the world to follow her lead already.”

  Entregon was confused momentarily when Charles seemed to disappear from her senses. He stood suddenly, no longer weighed down by her vampiric spell, and made a run for the railing. Entregon closed her eyes and shook her head. In an instant, she appeared in front of the fleeing man, arms crossed over her chest. “That was almost clever,” she mused. Charles tried to spin around her, but her hand slapped his back and threw him across the deck. “Cutting off access to your own power, thus cutting off my access to it, you managed to break my spell.” She appeared above him as he rolled to a stop. Reaching down, she lifted him by the throat until his feet dangled above the deck. “But it also left you completely powerless.”

  He grabbed her wrist to keep from choking under her iron grip. Even in such a powerless position, he smirked. Choking out the words, he added, “Made you…look.”

  Suddenly the whole ship launched sideways and a spear of ice pierced the hull. The spear traveled up, sprouting from the deck precisely where Entregon had been standing. Charles fell to the ground gasping as the manifestation disappeared. He wasted no time running to the rail and leaping into the water below. A bubble of water lifted from below and caught him like a mound of pillows. “We can’t afford to have you out of the fight,” Barclay mumbled as his blue face appeared above the surface.

  ◆◆◆

  The old fey hadn’t much of a plan
when he’d leapt into the water, thinking naught more than to avoid detection and try to get on board the Entregon himself. As he passed by one of Grace’s icy traps, he felt it pull and try to follow. That was enough. He proceeded to swim in a long, lazy curve, drawing as many of the traps along as he could. He had no chance of hurting the Entregon himself, but Grace’s magic was another story. Just as he got close, he cast a spell of his own, creating a spike of water. He let the traps close in, and at the very last moment before they crushed him into the Entregon, he dove hard and shot the spike up at the same time. The icy traps smashed into the Entregon’s hull, and took over his own spell instantaneously. The spike, weak on its own, was empowered a hundred-fold and Barclay just managed to direct it at the strongest energy he could feel.

  Charles sat up on the water cushion and slapped his chest to release the rune. He took several deep breaths before responding with a cheeky wink, “I knew my hero would come for me.”

  Barclay rolled his oversized eyes. “Let’s go. Get off my spell before she sees us.”

  “I just need a second to catch my breath,” Charles replied. He crossed his legs and lifted his face to the sky. For several seconds, he just breathed, focusing on the air and sun. He drank in the copious magic around him, trying to replace what had been lost.

  Barclay frowned, but complied. He turned toward Grace and began swimming. He tugged the spell behind and brought Charles along for the ride. He only managed twenty yards before he felt the massive buildup of energy behind. He made the mistake of turning to look, finding a cannon pointed directly at him where the ice spear had been melted away. The end was already glowing red hot in preparation to fire. “Shit,” he muttered before kicking his webbed feet as hard as he could.

  Charles was not nearly back to full strength, but he was aware enough to know what was coming. He considered pushing all the magic he’d gathered into his legs, grabbing the captain, and trying to run. But he knew at this distance he’d never get far enough away for the captain to survive. Instead, a foreign thought filled his head. He saw the incantation and runework of a spell he’d never known before. His connection to Grace had come back and she had a better idea.

  The cannon roared and blinding light poured over the escaping pair. Barclay closed his eyes, aware he didn’t have a chance. But instead of searing pain, found himself suddenly out of the water, held up by a hand around his upper arm. Squinting against the light, he looked ahead and could just make out the silhouette of someone in front of him.

  “Hold on,” Charles cried out. “She’s not done yet.” Charles hovered inches above the water with Barclay in hand. The old sailor was quick to latch onto Charles’s wrist, and pulled himself up enough to see over his friend’s shoulder. Relief was instantly replaced by sheer terror as he recognized the magic the man was using.

  The big cannons above deck lit up and Charles narrowed his eyes. A pitch-black ball, seven feet in diameter, floated in front of his outstretched hand. The cannon blasts impacted the singularity and were consumed, but the perfect sphere lurched and threatened to break. This kind of high-level gravity magic was normally beyond him. The concentration and precision required to pull it off without killing yourself generally took centuries to master, and to use it in an actual battle only made things harder. But with Grace in his head, and admittedly doing most of the work, the two of them were able to compensate. Almost.

  The blasts continued and he was quickly losing control. A particularly large hit shook the sphere and it bubbled out, consuming the tips of his nearest fingers. He cursed, knowing he only had seconds before the singularity went completely out of control. Pushing backward, he began skimming across the water and leaping from side to side. The cannons couldn’t keep up with his movement, giving him a small opening. The real danger in this kind of magic, Grace explained somewhere within him, was that it fed off the caster. If it wasn’t contained, it would eat Charles whether he avoided the cannons or not. Now that he survived the initial fire and had gotten farther away, he needed to close it himself.

  He could feel the hesitation though his connection, but assured Grace he trusted her completely. He let go of the singularity, giving Grace complete control over maintaining its integrity. A moment later, runes appeared around Charles outstretched elbow as he shifted his focus. They glistened like glass and expanded out like a starburst. The singularity was encompassed just like Grace said it would be. But the singularity was wavering more and more, and Charles realized he didn’t have time to do it all proper. Decision made, Charles pushed the new spell to close before his outstretched hand was free. The runes cut into his forearm just above the wrist. The shimmering runs retracted, crushing the singularity smaller and smaller. Charles’s hand was consumed almost immediately and he pulled the bloody stump back.

  Barclay hung on to Charles’s as the shimmering rune turned the singularity into a pinpoint. Just as it disappeared, all the consumed air rushed out like an explosion. He held tighter as Charles and himself were thrown into the air, noting with some disappointment that Charles shielded him from the blast.

  Grace had never seen something so dangerously beautiful. Though she had learned the spells inside and out in the decades of confinement, she’d never tried it herself. Even with Charles working with her, holding such a magnificently destructive force had been almost impossible. When he had handed over complete control of it, she’d nearly passed out from the strain. Still, it had worked enough. They were free, even if a little worse for wear.

  Charles caught the air under his feet and redirected the captain and himself toward Grace. They crashed to the deck and rolled. Both flipped to their feet as if they did such things every day. Charles moved just behind Grace, cradling his left arm. “Please tell me we’re close.”

  Grace swung her senses out across the water, noting her mother was still advancing through the ice. The captain’s trick had slowed her mother down, and she was just at the center of the minefield. “Yes!” Grace announced suddenly.

  “Good,” Charles replied. He allowed himself to relax and the bloody stump that was his arm began to grow anew. “To be honest, I’m pretty winded. This is going to be our best chance.”

  Grace focused on the chain at her front, causing it to glow yellow. The light ran down under the water through nearly half a mile of twists and turns before illuminating the anchor she’d been layering with hundreds of runes. When the anchor lit up, a sound like a bell rang out beneath the water. A circle of yellow runes as spread across the water like the ripple of a raindrop in calm waters. With every hundred feet, another ring of runes flowed across the water. In seconds, the first ring crossed the Entregon and immediately her shields rose at full power.

  Grace could feel her mother’s engines churn the water to reverse direction as fast as she could, but it was too late. The magic she used had a myriad of layers interacting and feeding on each other. She had been infusing them with all the energy she could spare since the start of the battle, and the chain reaction couldn’t be stopped. The water surrounding the Entregon began foaming. Wind pushed and pulled at the great warship as it tried to outrun the radius.

  A second bell rang out and the temperature dropped below freezing. Wind drove water in great waves onto the Entregon, and it froze over her shields. Grace knew that the shields were powerful, but they couldn’t stop the ice from encasing her. Her mother was being buried under ice, more than even she could melt away.

  “She is moving too fast,” Charles said, alarmed the Entregon was still moving at all.

  “No,” Grace replied seriously. “The third bell is about to toll.” Turning around halfway, Grace caught Barclay’s eye. “Please tell everyone to hold on to something. This may be a challenge.” Barclay didn’t wait to get an explanation, racing back to the bridge and locking the large metal hatch behind him. “You’re going to want to hold on to something, too,” Grace said, motioning to Charles.

  He took two steps and grabbed her hand. “Neither of us wanted it
to end like this,” he replied, knowing how bad she felt.

  “I know,” was all Grace said.

  The final bell rang. Bubbles erupted through the chunks of ice sloshing around the Entregon. Water raced away from the ship as sand rose from the bottom in the shape of a giant hand. Ridges and valleys began to appear on the surface as the water was displaced through a two-hundred-yard circle. Rusting hulks of shipwrecks long forgotten poked through the water, and the Entregon slowed to a stop as her propellers chewed at the murky mess. The giant sand fingers of the hand closed around the Entregon as if it was a bath toy.

  “Now it’s my turn,” Charles said with dark determination. He gave a quick kiss to Grace and put her tears out of his mind. This was the only way. He leapt from the deck and flew straight toward the now-stranded Entregon.

  Charles could feel energy flow to him as Grace used a smaller amount to hold the spell. Pushing it through his body, the bumps and bruises from before evaporated and his right arm healed almost instantaneously. The tempest runes wisped to life around his left hand and he started mentally preparing the next spell. Even in this precarious position, he couldn’t underestimate the Entregon.

  Her shields still held, and she was completely suspended in the air within that squeezing grip. Bursts of light let him know that she knew he was coming. Dodging up and over the sandy fist, he threaded between the blasts and homing spells. He knew it was a simple waiting game now. The trap would continue to squeeze until her shields gave out. It wouldn’t be enough to destroy her itself, but Charles only needed one unimpeded shot. Flames began to dance around his right hand, etching red runes up to his elbow.

  Charles wasn’t sure how long he dodged the volley of cannon fire, but a shimmer caught his attention. Focusing in on the back of the Entregon, he could just barely make out the shields dulling as the big guns started to fire. Indeed, the volleys seemed to be less powerful than he remembered, as well. This was what he had been waiting for. The runes around each hand sprang to life as he swept behind the crippled ship.