The Brothers Tuerl & The Staffs of Zeus
Page 30
Chapter 30-Victory at Sea
It occurred to Idus as he was soaring through the air, that perhaps diving off a beach wasn’t the greatest idea he had ever had, but then, as he was floating forward, he caught a glimpse of Helen’s beautiful face, and he knew showing off was the thing to do. He entered the water a moment later sleekly slicing through a wave, going down into the depths of the sea. The soft sea water caressed his face as he plummeted into it. Then he felt another, coarser feeling on his face and arms. His speed slackened and came to a crunching stop. He turned to stand, and found that his feet were positioned firmly on sand. He rose up to his full height and felt his torso emerge from the water. The water drained from his face and ears and he heard laughter coming from the shore a few feet away from him.
“Nicely done, Irgen. That was a splendid way to show your prowess in the water. Couldn’t have done it much better myself.” Gregory and Idus were screaming like jackals on the beach. Irgen brushed the sand off his face and arms, and a sheepish grin appeared on his face as he looked back at the two of them and shrugged. It took a while for the two of them to calm down. Meanwhile, Irgen’s legs started to freeze up as he stood in the icy cold depths. Helen and his mother had each taken a seat as though waiting for the show to begin.
Irgen felt his blood grow hot within him as he watched the lack of compassion coming to him from the shoreline. Suddenly he realized that now would be the perfect time for him to begin warming himself. He closed his eyes and concentrated on gaining that shield of warmth about him. As he did so, he felt the heat from his core spread throughout his body, he felt his legs loosen up again, and he opened his eyes and found a thin membrane of fire surrounding him. To his surprise, it was not like the fire he had conjured earlier. It did not cover him in dancing orange and red light, instead the membrane seemed to be made up of bright blue flames. Idus decided the flames must be like those emitted by a butane or propane stove.
His sheepish grin disappeared as the howling laughter from the beach disappeared. It was replaced instead by quiet awe. He turned and threw his body back into the water and found the flame did not stop on his entrance. In fact it seemed all the warmer once underwater.
“It was now or never,” he thought as he resurfaced. He felt the energy pulsate through him as he prepared himself to head for the sea. It rose in him, and he struck forward. Turning onto his back, he began a soft steady stroke towards the outlet into the ocean. As he did so he felt a new presence in his mind. A soft whisper came to him, and more power swept through his body. Idus was with him.
He felt his arms go forward and back as if by their own free will. He felt he would be driven mad by the feeling of having so much power flowing through him. He had the craven idea to speed forward with all engines running, but a calming voice echoed softly inside of him, and no matter what he did, it kept telling him to go slow and steady. He was too overjoyed at the newfound strength to notice that perhaps this voice didn’t belong to him, but at the moment he wasn’t too concerned with who it was. He did hearken to its counsel though, and he found himself doing just what it was saying to do; he found himself going slow and steady.
The figures on the shore grew steadily smaller as Irgen made his way out of the bay. The soft waves massaged his back as he rolled smoothly out to sea. As he reached the mouth of the bay, a force hit him that had not been present the day before. It was as though the sea was combining its powers against him, trying to stop his progress through the waves.
The force not only made the current feel like Irgen was pushing against a brick wall, but it acted as though buoyancy no longer existed. It ripped Irgen off his back, and no matter how hard he tried to keep afloat, it seemed he could no longer float. Panic started to fill his body again as he struggled to keep his head above water.
Gone was the exquisitely happy feeling he had felt earlier. Instead he felt strained as the waves struggled to quickly rip him apart. Irgen’s lungs compressed within him as the sea wrenched him into their dark depths. He strived haplessly trying to fight off this new unknown foe. Its power was phenomenal. Frustration and desperation rose within him as the unknown power crushed his futile efforts to escape. Then, Idus’ soft voice rang through his head. “Concentrate with me.” It was all that Irgen needed. Suddenly the energy from his panic convulsed within him. The unseen chains which held him ever so agonizingly bound, melted like butter on hot fresh bread. His body exploded upwards and he rose triumphantly from the waves. He let out a defiant yell as he prepared himself for his reentry into the waves, but it didn’t happen.
Astonished, Irgen looked down and found he was now riding on what looked like a big surfboard, but it was made out of, not fire, but electricity. And more than that, it appeared the sea was following him as he rode out to sea.
A large wave had crested behind him and pushing him forward as he rode away from land. After a short while the cliffs began to disappear and Irgen decided it was time for him to head back. He turned his will and the waves turned with him. As he did so he heard Idus’ voice in his head, “Nicely done… now just wait till you get back to shore.”
After a few moments, Irgen found the bay in sight. He willed the wave to go faster as he neared the shoreline. It grew larger and larger behind him, and then just as he was about to land, the massive tidal wave disassembled, spraying those on shore with a torrent of rain. The haze of rain blocked his eyes as he tried to survey the scene. Irgen tried to peer through the veil as he stepped lightly ashore, as he did so, the surfboard vanished silently behind him.
When the scene cleared, Irgen had a number of different reactions flow through him. His first reaction was to laugh at the hilarious view which presented itself to him. He saw two swamp rats before him. Their long hair dripping, their clothes soaked, even the chairs Jennifer had created earlier were nonexistent. Only little mud hills remained from the once glorious seats.
Irgen felt a smile begin to appear, but once again the voice told him that laughing right now was not the thing to do, so Irgen stooped down and bit his hand as though wiping the water off of his face. When he looked back up he saw why it was a good thing he didn’t laugh. Off to the left a little lay Gregory flat on his back with his eyes closed; crouching beside him was Idus.
He looked at the two girls again, and he found that they had swept the hair out of their face and now Irgen quailed under the furious look coming out of both of their eyes. He thought then that truly “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” He braced himself for the tirade he was sure was coming. His mother raised her arm and Irgen winced, fearful of what was coming, but she just let out a deep sigh, scratched her head, and walked over to where Gregory lay.
Irgen straightened up, shocked that the inevitable had not happened. He started to walk towards Helen, but her angry look did not dissipate. He slowed down and knew that the first storm had missed him, but the second one was going to hit him dead on. He bowed his head knowing that the only thing to do was weather the onslaught.
“DO-YOU-KNOW-HOW-LONG-IT-TOOK-ME-TO-DO-MY-HAIR-THIS-MORNING!!!” Irgen shrugged not willing to take his eyes off of the now very appealing sand. He felt envy now as he looked at the fine grains below him. If only he could be a grain of…
“WHY DO BOYS ALWAYS HAVE TO SHOW OFF?” Her voice trailed off on her last word, and Irgen looked up hopefully. Hoping against hope that the storm was over and he had weathered it, but as he did so he found those same blazingly furious eyes boring holes into his body. He quickly cast his eyes back on the ground wondering if he had lost something there earlier, but fortunately for him, the worst was over. Panting, Helen turned on her heel and stomped over to the other three.
Irgen looked up somewhat expectantly. “Had Christmas come early?” He thought somewhat gleefully. He was young, but he knew that getting off so easily by no less than two women was no simple feat. He strode cautiously to where Gregory was lying. He had assumed ea
rlier, by the way the girls were not tending to him that he was not in terrible condition, but he still wondered what on earth could have happened to him.
As he neared the group, Idus’ voice boomed in his head, “Don’t worry too much about Gregory. It’s absolutely comical what happened to him actually. He tried to mess with the water so you would fail on purpose, but then we broke through his defenses, and it seems that in so doing we found that we can control the sea as well, the only problem is that in so doing, we somehow managed to knock out old miste’ Gregory.” Irgen grinned as he focused on responding, but as he did so, his mother turned around and shot him a glance that would have curled the freshest milk.
“She can’t really read my mind can she?” He thought haphazardly. “I mean I’d know she was there… wouldn’t I?”
“You don’t know when I’m here.” Was Idus’ soft reply.
“Stop trying to be philosophical. And for your information, I do know when you enter my mind; it’s just how long you stay that I don’t know.” Idus turned and looked at Irgen, as though in recognition of the last few words.
“We’ll talk about it later.” Shaking his head, Irgen crouched down next to Helen, although after a moment of repeatedly catching short, nasty glances from her, he decided sitting next to Idus would be best.
By the time he moved, Gregory stirred beneath him. A faint flicker of his eyelids was the only sign of life which registered on his face, but a sigh of relief came out of Jennifer’s moist lips.
“Luckily, he’ll be fine. But for now I guess we’ll call that good for the day. I think you two have done enough damage this morning. Lord knows what I’d do if something like this didn’t happen every day.” Her voice sounded strained, so neither of the twins pressed the issue. Instead they each retired to walk behind the floating stretcher of leaves, their mother conjured.
They made the trip back to the castle in absolute silence, and as far as the twins could tell, no words were spoken. Be it verbally or nonverbally.