by Joel Ohman
The water was still.
Charley couldn’t be sure, but were those ripples expanding outward? Little concentric rings, slowly multiplying in increasingly larger circles. Or were they just a product of his overactive imagination and heightened senses?
He must be imagining things. He hopped up again, his eyes focused forward. They were almost halfway to the island platform in the center. He could now see that they were walking along just one of a multitude of sandbars that extended spoke-like from the island. There were people traversing the other pathways, en route from the arena tunnels to the island. Charley was piecing together that the platform must be their battleground for the reenactment.
As he placed one foot on the ground, it slid to the side, coming dangerously close to the water’s edge. He quickly righted himself, but again his foot skirted across the sand. The sandbar felt unstable; it was almost as if something big, deep below the surface, was slamming against its foundations, something caged that wanted to be free.
Suddenly, something broke the surface.
Charley whipped his head toward the movement, and a creature no larger than his fist shot out of the water and zinged directly at his face. Half-ducking, half-slipping, he fell awkwardly to one side, narrowly avoiding a fall into the water. The leaping creature seemed to float just in front of his face. It had the wide grumpy face of a bullfrog, big moist lips and bulging eyes, wings like a bat, a smooth legless underbelly, and a curly slender tail with a scorpion’s bulb-like stinger on the end. It splashed into the water on the other side of the sandbar. The first arrival to the surface of those released from the depths.
A hush came over the arena: the quiet before the impending storm.
“Run!” Hank screamed out behind him.
Charley didn’t need further encouragement and he ran, his feet slipping and sliding on the grainy sand.
The water erupted. Hundreds of tiny water leapers rocketed out of it as one, falling like hail on each of the sandbar spokes.
Charley heard screams. After a moment, he realized some of the noise was coming from him.
The crowd roared.
A stinging pain pressed into his flesh, lancing his forearm like a hot poker. He jerked his arm violently, whipsawing the little water demon that was attached back and forth. The creature slapped wetly against Charley’s arm, but the stinger remained embedded. Absurdly, the hideous creature turned a wart-covered face toward Charley, parted its broad slimy lips as if to attempt a princely kiss, and then croaked directly in his face.
Without thinking, Charley gripped the little monster around its fat neck, squeezed until its eyeballs bulged and tongue lolled out, and then ripped the stinger out of his arm. With a shriek that was decidedly less than manly, Charley hurled the creature back into the now roiling water.
A large red welt immediately bubbled up on his arm. Ducking and crawling, he tried to scuttle forward as quickly as possible while twisting away from the leaping creatures that now popped out of the water from both sides of the sandbar. Some of the slower-moving ones, gliding on the wind with their translucent bat wings, were easy targets for a good hard overhand spike back into the water.
The pro was that the only dangerous part of the strange flying toads seemed to be their stinger. The con was that there were scores of them rocketing out of the water, endlessly popping back up as soon as they submerged.
They were small, but even hundreds of them, clustered together underwater like a school of fish, could not have collided against the foundations of the sandbank with the force needed to jostle the entire thing like an earthquake under Charley’s feet. But now the sandbank was still.
Even amidst the chaos of trying to maneuver down the pathway while avoiding the leaping, stinging toad-bat-scorpion creatures, Charley felt that same warning tickle creep up the back of his neck. Something bigger than a flying toad was in the water.
An enormous whooshing sound filled Charley’s ears. Turning his face to the left, Charley felt the whipping of a manmade wind licking at his shirt, tugging him closer. The water churned into a whirlpool, swirling round and round, gaining momentum as whatever mechanism beneath the arena cycled it up. He felt even more unsteady; the whirlpool was like a wind tunnel, lapping at his clothes, and threatening to suck him into its center.
He felt Grigor’s massive hand pushing him down close to the ground. He could barely hear Grigor’s shout over the noise. “Stay down! Crawl forward!”
He hugged the sandbar like someone riding a trick pony, only to find that he was mounted on a bucking bronco. The sandbar was moving again.
Something was rising from the depths on the right side.
Charley turned. A scaly, serpentine upside-down U the width of his waist broke the surface before slithering back below.
He fought the urge to close his eyes and hoped he had simply imagined the giant sea snake.
A scream pierced the air, decreasing in volume before abruptly cutting off. Charley jerked his head back to the left, just in time to see a teenage girl flung through the air, her limbs scrambling furiously, before disappearing into the vortex of the ravenous maelstrom. His fingers dug into the shifting sand, clawing for purchase. The pull of the whirlpool was significant, even lying prone on the ground. If he was still standing, there was no doubt he would have found himself flipping along on the wind right behind the girl.
He looked ahead to the island. No one from the other spokes had made it to the center yet. He pursed his lips together to avoid getting a mouthful of the grit swirling through the air and military-crawled his way forward.
He looked again to the right. A large sinister head, mouth full of spiky teeth, bobbed out of the water just inches from Charley’s face. Both Charley and the snake-like water beast remained motionless, as if considering each other. Breaking the stillness, a long forked tongue flicked directly at Charley’s right eyeball. Charley screamed.
Grigor shoved Charley forward roughly, batting the snake creature’s head to one side with a single explosive movement. “Go, go, go!”
Grigor bear-crawled forward, half-pushing, half-carrying a stumbling Charley with just one of his massive arms. Grigor moved forward on the sand like a running back, low to the ground, cradling a hysterical Charley with one arm, the other arm extended straight ahead in a stiff arm.
Orson gave an undignified yelp as he peeled a flying toad’s stinger out of his leg and then pegged it at the water beast’s diamond-shaped head. The toad bounced off the side of the snake’s head with a wet splat, spraying water like an exploding water balloon. The snake whipped its head around to face Orson. Narrow yellow slits for eyes focused in on him.
Another head rose out of the water. Then another. Then three more, all identical to the first.
Hank looked at Orson. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve made its brothers angry, too.”
Orson cursed under his breath. “Actually, those aren’t its brothers.”
“Then what—”
As if in answer, the beast rose higher out of the water, the waves swelling around it and then crashing back, the overspill lapping onto their feet.
Hank’s eyes widened. He stared at the beast, transfixed. “Oh …” he said dumbly, his mouth gaping open.
“It’s one monster,” Orson said dryly, gazing upward as the creature swayed back and forth. “It just happens to have six heads.”
Droplets of water fell from each of the heads towering above them. The heads twisted in and out, writhing in a strange interplay of scaly, greenish-purple-hued savagery. Charley was unable to tear his eyes away from the creature looming above him. Looking closer, the heads were all connected to the same body, but each seemed to have a mind of its own. One head brushed too close to another and was met with a snap of lightning-fast jaws.
“It’s Scylla!” Grigor shouted. “And the whirlpool is Charybdis. They’re recreating the Greco-Roman myth.”
Orson swallowed, the pallor of his face lightening. “Then my dad is definitely here. He always used to tell me this story when I was just a boy.” He grimaced, his eyes fixed on the polyheaded creature. “This has got to be his doing.”
Charley glanced at Orson’s ashen face and then back up to the Scylla monster again. It amazed Charley that surrounded on either side by actual sea monsters, Orson still appeared more frightened of his father’s upcoming appearance.
“So, should we keep moving forward?” Hank asked. “It’s kind of just swaying back and forth up there. I think it’s waiting for us to move, and then it’s going to strike.”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Grigor said, pointing at the sandbar, which was now disintegrating more rapidly and falling into the water. “Better to run for it, than to try to swim for it.”
Darting forward, driven more by fear of the six pairs of yellow snake eyes than by actual courage, Charley sprinted along the sandbar toward the island.
Churning up sand in his wake, Charley thought again of Alec. It gave him a sinking feeling, as if some premonition of imminent death had brought him to mind. A sad but very possible realization loomed: he could have made it this far, actually into the arena with the murderer of his brother, and then die before he could even confront him.
His arms pumped and his legs pistoned, jetting him forward, powered by a potent cocktail of pure fear and adrenaline. The island loomed closer, and Charley could see the craggy volcanic rock jutting upward in its very center, a pinnacle that represented everything he had ever wanted.
The czar. Revenge at last.
The noise of the boisterous crowd rose in anticipation.
He was almost there. Charley could feel at least three stingers embed into him as he ran, but he didn’t even slow. They were like miniature cattle prods, each a jolt of nitrous that only propelled him along faster.
One moment he was racing down the sandbar, so close to the island. The next moment he wasn’t.
A tightening sensation cinched his waist, squeezing him until his ribs crackled like dry twigs on a forest floor. He was being lifted straight up into the air with a whoosh. He was being squeezed so hard, he could feel his face turning purple as he fought for air.
Abruptly, he was slammed down into the water. Submerged in the icy depths, bubbles streamed around his face, and with his eyes open he could see a school of toad-bat creatures propel their way past him. His mouth still open, frozen in a silent scream, he felt paralyzed. The contrast between the sun beating down on his brow in the arena a moment earlier and the frigid depths of the manmade lagoon stiffened his body into instant rigor mortis.
He felt like a corpse. A sadness, blue as the waves around him, enveloped him slowly and steadily, draining his life away and leaving one thought. So this is how it will end.
A seemingly irrational fear of snakes had turned out to be not so irrational after all. Having never even seen the ocean, he was to find his final resting place in the icy depths of this manmade re-creation.
This could be his final resting place, but he would have no rest. He had been so close to avenging Alec, but he wasn’t going to manage it. He struggled mightily against the great corded strength of the water creature, to no avail. His arms were free, but even clawing his nails against the scaly skin of the snake had no effect.
His limbs bobbed in the water like loose spaghetti. He was a helpless rubber doll, fading fast. He was no longer able to think straight. He considered whether he should inhale a big gulp of water and be done with it. It was a moment for honesty: who did he think he was to think that he could challenge the System? He was just one person, and kind of a hotheaded screw-up, if he was being honest.
A slow-moving bat-toad wiggled through the water. Turning slowly, it rotated to look him directly in the face, its big blubbery lips opening and closing, opening and closing.
Charley’s eyes began to shut. Now was certainly the time to be honest with himself.
He was drowning.
Alone.
His shoulders slumped; his head lolled forward. His parents had left him. Alec had left him. And he could never get them back. Nothing he could ever do would change that. He was alone, and now he would die alone.
A violent thrashing in the water jolted his eyes open. Grigor’s powerful shoulders torpedoed directly toward him, descending with aggressive snaps of his arms and legs. Shaking Charley’s shoulders, Grigor’s wide concerned eyes lightened upon seeing that he was still alive. Drawing the dirk from his boot, Grigor wrapped his legs around the slithery beast and, using all of his weight, pressed the dirk into its flesh. Burying the blade up to its hilt, Grigor held on to the handle with both hands and dragged the blade toward him, ripping a long gash that sent a cloudy miasma of blood expulsing outward.
Through the blood, Charley could see Grigor’s face, grim with determination. Grigor had come for him.
The effect was instantaneous. Charley’s head snapped back as he and Grigor were lifted out of the water and thrashed toward one of the Scylla’s heads.
Charley coughed out a sickening amount of water and gasped in a breath of air. While Grigor ripped the dirk out of the beast’s side and sliced upward, tearing another wide gash under its serpentine head.
Out of the corner of his eye, Charley could see that the other five heads of the beast were preoccupied with a volley of rocks thrown by the Low Scores, many of whom had already made it onto the island, and were now raining little black volcanic rocks on the beast. Hank and Orson were actually hurrying the final few Low Scores across the sandbar, casting anxious looks at Charley and Grigor, high above in the grasp of the beast.
Grigor waved the dirk, feinting back and forth, his knees still grasped around the twisting beast’s body. Charley wiggled his way upward; the beast was losing blood, and its grasp was loosening.
The sixth head maneuvered close to Charley and Grigor, yawning open its spiky-toothed mouth and flashing its yellow eyes. With a vicious strike, the beast snapped down at Grigor’s arm. Narrowly twisting away, Grigor flashed the dirk upward, deflecting the strike, but it glanced off a wickedly sharp tooth, and plummeted to the water below.
A long, sinister forked tongue flicked out, mere inches from Grigor and Charley. With the dirk gone, they were weaponless—and the beast seemed to know it.
Well, almost weaponless, Charley realized.
Drowsily, Charley reached down with both hands and tugged a bat-toad stinger from his thigh. Grasping the tail just above the onion-like bulb, Charley used all of his strength to jam it directly into the snake’s yellow-orbed pupil.
With a shriek like talons on the Devil’s chalkboard, the Scylla released Grigor and Charley. They landed on the sandbar with a thud of tangled limbs, before scrambling up and running the remaining few yards to the island.
As one, the Low Scores retreated to the volcano, under cover from a continuing volley of the jagged black rocks.
Falling to his knees in the sand, Charley promptly threw up what seemed like a gallon of murky water.
“We made it through Scylla and Charybdis,” Hank said cheerfully, pulling Charley to his feet. “Oh, by the way, we need to start climbing this volcano right away, I think.” He pointed to one of the other sandbar spokes. “Look, here come the Circumcellions. I don’t think we want to be hanging out down here.” He gestured to some of the other spokes. More warriors and animal combos streamed toward the volcano.
Orson shielded his eyes against the sun, looking to the summit of the volcano. “And my father will be at the top.” His face twisted into a grotesque grimace before he spoke in almost a whimper. “It’s all about him; it’s always about him.”
Charley could hear screams in the distance. Scylla and Charybdis were moving on to the other spokes. The roaring of the crowd was only drowned out by the roaring in his ears. He threw up again.
; “We must keep moving.” Grigor extended his hand, lifting Charley to his feet, almost tenderly, like a mother with an infant. “You can do this.”
He looked at Grigor, an unlikely instrument of grace, but never a truer one. “Thank you. I mean it. Whatever happens.” Charley lowered his head. “Thank you.”
Like a sunburst splitting through grey clouds, Grigor smiled, teeth gleaming. “No need for the long face—the day’s not over yet. Let’s get going.”
Charley climbed, the rough-textured pumice of the volcano grinding against his palms as he pulled himself upward. Exposed on the volcanic rock, the sun was brutal and he was already beginning to dry. From the higher vantage point, he could see the stands filled to capacity, but no emperor in the royal box. Maybe he was readying himself to parade out onto the arena floor, particularly if his back-door assassination attempt of the czar proved successful. Charley hoped they at least had the element of surprise going for them. As Low Scores, the czar wouldn’t be expecting much from them, and if he looked half as pathetic as he felt, Charley was in a fine disguise indeed.
Reaching the summit, Charley hefted himself up and over. And for a moment, he was alone. All was silent, even peaceful, on the plateau of the immense manmade volcano. Low cottony clouds floated by. If only they could carry him away, up to the skies, forever freed from the evil and the hate, the violence of it all. After the adrenaline high of encounter with the water creatures, the plateau, by contrast, was a soft and comfortable blanket of tranquility.
But the feeling only lasted a moment.
A tremendous beating of heavy wings pounded the air, forcing Charley to flatten himself against the rock, eyes twisted up to the sky in panic. An evil dragon-like creature, easily as big as Shooey, hovered above him, talons extended, before landing on a spire of black scoria. The wings folded back before the creature—Charley guessed it was a vulcodile—perched on the rock, facing aggressively outward like a gargoyle in repose.
An enormously muscled warrior hopped off the creature’s back with a flourish. He was heavily armored, wearing full battle gear complete with a helmet with large wicked horns protruding from the top.
