Lighting Distant Shores (Challenger's Call Book 4)

by Nathan Thompson

  “That’s genius!” Via exclaimed, eyes shining. “That’s the perfect mindset for protecting classified information! You guard the knowledge from abuse, but still make sure it never dies out!”

  It doesn’t explain how you went from a book guard to a marine and ship captain, though, I told him privately through the mindlink.

  I know, he replied grimly. But that’s a story in itself, and right now you need to know about the Icon-killing abomination in your seas.

  Fair enough.

  “But you’re saying the Nuckelavee was sighted near your old city, and projects a cloud very similar to the Flood that is supposed to be sealed there,” I mused.

  Gabin nodded uncomfortably.

  “I’d say that meant our knowledge was leaked, but our records have been hidden inside Avalon for the last couple hundred thousand centuries. Either the creature’s power and location was a freak coincidence, or someone else learned of the city’s location on their own.”

  “Since your people on Avalon were attacked by a small portion of the Flood itself,” I pointed out, “I’d say it’s entirely possible that someone else has retained their own records over the ages. The main thing we can learn, though, is that it’s possible that the Nuckelavee, in addition to its quirk about running fresh water, may have some of the powers and weaknesses of the Flood.”

  As I spoke, part of that strange rhyme leaped into my head.

  ...It poisoned us, we now depart...

  To the bottom, we must go,

  The silent, empty halls below.

  Where what is angry meets what’s mad,

  Nuckelavee, Nuckelavee…

  “I’m going to go ahead and assume they’re related,” I said as I sucked in a breath. The lines about silent halls below and anger meeting madness were strong clues to me. “Alright. If we meet the thing at a proper place for battle, I’ll wield Breaker and the Soulcurrent, and see if I can kill it or drive it off. Shard might help, too.”

  “Maybe?” Gabin shrugged at that last one. “The ice in it arguably counts as fresh water.”

  “Sorry,” Via stammered. “But say what? You think you can fight it yourself? After I just told you that our Icons—all our Icons—lost against the thing?”

  “I’m kind of at my best when I’m all out of good ideas,” I said with a shrug.

  She glared at me for a moment before replying.

  “That is the most ridiculous line I have ever heard, in any language, and you should feel bad for saying it.”

  “Hear, hear,” Eadric grunted from across the deck. Karim, Weylin, and several others called out in agreement.

  “In my defense,” I began defensively. “I’m actually planning on taking all the help I can get whenever it comes to the fight itself. I just want us to consider the possibility that we may have to fight the thing directly. Assuming Breaker can drive away the creature’s cloud like it did with the Flood fragment.

  “Fine,” Via sighed. “And from what you have told me, you’ve had a number of fights like that. You have a point. So if it comes to a fight with that thing,” her face hardened. “I’ll help you.”

  I reminded myself that Via had the most exposure to the Nuckelavee out of all of us, and the clearest understanding of what we had to lose if we went against it.

  She was also the only one that had any experience in actually driving the beast away.

  “Thank you,” I replied. “Can we think of anything else we need to discuss? Regarding the creepy sea demon?”

  “No,” Via shook her head. “We at least have some kind of plan, now. That’s more than we had before, even though I wish we had a better one.”

  “Okay,” I said. “How about we go check on your people again, and then maybe I can give you another tour of the ship?”

  The dark-haired Satellite’s eyes lit up, and she began pulling me back down to the cabin. I caught Gabin mouthing a silent ‘thank you’ to me as Via dragged me down for more exploration.

  We checked on her people first, of course. Via had actually gone to see them earlier, when I was still sleeping. They had been sleeping as well, in an even deeper and more restful state than the rest of us had been. The Woadfire anointing I had performed during my last Rise may have helped, but the real source of their comfort was probably Ball-ee and his new friend, who were spraying the light blue mist all throughout the sleeping quarters in the hold. Via smiled at me again, and I felt her squeeze my hand.

  “Thank you,” she said again. “Thank you for saving them. She was right about you.” She didn’t elaborate, and just pulled me onward to see the rest of the ship. We spent the rest of our time poring over the different magics that powered the ship, with Via getting more excited over each new thing I showed her. The fact that I still didn’t know what half of the glyphs did somehow made it more fun for her, because then she got to try and figure it out on her own, with me as an audience.

  I could see how the others would have found her curiosity to be irritating or even dangerous. But honestly?

  I had a lot of fun. I even started speculating with her.

  “I mean, if I had to guess, they probably Shaped the wood, then threw down a layer of Script magic, followed it up with some kind of Ideal magic, then threw down another layer of Script magic to sort of sandwich it into place.”

  “That’s what I was thinking!” The beautiful woman exclaimed. “But everybody always says that’s too hard!”

  “You get that, too?” I asked. “Everybody tells me I’m crazy for trying to learn more than one skill. Which Ideal magic do you think they used?”

  “They probably used more than one,” Via pondered. “They must have had a way for many different mages to partner more easily to enchant things.”

  “That… totally makes sense,” I said slowly. “And I should have thought about that way sooner. Everyone says it’s difficult for two people to work different magics together into creating a magic item, but if I have a whole fleet of these ships back on Avalon…”

  “A whole fleet?” Via’s gaze locked onto me. “You own a whole fleet of ships like these?”

  “Didn’t I mention it in the mindlink?” I asked, confused. “They’re damaged, but there’s a harbor full of them back on Avalon…”

  I trailed off, as the dark, beautiful olive-skinned woman leaned against me.

  “Go on,” she said, suddenly seeming very, very much like Merada in a way I couldn’t put my finger on.

  Yeah, Teeth suddenly spoke up. Brag, damnit. Girls like fast ships.

  I shook my head, but decided to humor her.

  “They’re a bunch of different sizes and types,” I said with a grin. “If I was a ship expert like you are, I could probably tell you more. But all I can do right now is say a bunch of stupid things to try and impress you with knowledge I don’t really have.”

  “Ah?” Via asked me, smiling, but blinking again. “You’d try to impress me?”

  She was being playful, but that question still showed me something. Via didn’t quite have the same level of fearless confidence that Merada had in speaking to me. There was just a hint of apprehension there, a desire to check and make sure she wasn’t being too forward, and it was always belated. As if she wondered right after committing, that people may not like who she was or what she was doing, and that it might already be too late to correct her mistake.

  Are you serious? Teeth growled in surprise. The smart, exotic, powerful, callipygian pirate-wizard worries about people not liking her?

  It’s a surprisingly common hangup in powerful people, even back on Earth, I pointed out to my inner dragon. And one I wish I didn’t identify with myself. Also, I thought I told you to stop obsessing about her ass?

  You might have, the new guy admitted. I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t listening.

  We were near the exit to the deck, and I could hear the lookout call out that he’d sighted land. Via’s head whipped around at the news.

  “We’d better go up,” I said, “but yes. I’d tr
y hard to impress you, and I’d probably embarrass myself terribly in the process.”

  She actually giggled at that.

  “Really?” she asked as we headed for the stairs.

  “Oh, yeah,” I replied. “I mean, you’d be sitting there thinking ‘I can’t believe this idiot thinks something like flux capacitors would ever be needed for a sailing boat…’”

  She laughed hard at that. I loved the sound.

  And, I realized, I loved her for being such an amazing part of Stell.

  People turned their heads as we walked back onto the deck. I noticed that a few of the Oceanfolk natives were watching Via and I with surprised expressions. A few of the Atlantean crew members either raised an eyebrow or smirked. Gabin and the Testifiers actually had unsurprised, bleak expressions on their faces. Breena perked up the most, though. She danced up and down in midair before flying behind Petal and Breyn, crossing her fingers and whispering.

  “Shh,” she said quietly. “Don’t jinx it.”

  I had no idea who she was even talking to, but I pretended not to notice.

  “Captain, I take it you’ve arrived at the landmarks Dona Via pointed out?”

  “That’s something I was just about to call our ally up to the deck to confirm.”

  “Yes,” Via said as she walked over to the side to get a better view. “Apologies for not coming up sooner, Captain.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gabin replied, before muttering under his breath. “Please, please, don’t worry about it.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” Via nodded. “Those are the Haven Islands.”

  “Haven Islands?” Breena asked. “That’s not on the maps.”

  “It’s my name for them,” her fellow Satellite admitted. “I call them that because it’s the only safe place I’ve been able to create in my world.”

  “Islands, plural?” I asked. “You’ve been able to create more than one safe haven?”

  Via sighed through her nose.

  “I probably haven’t been able to create any. But this is as close as it comes. The outer islands form a rocky ring around the ones in the center, meaning you can’t get to the inner islands by the same boat. Beyond that, I used magic to create as many freshwater streams around the place as I could, to try and ward the Nuckelavee away.”

  That didn’t sound like it should have been possible, I reflected. The Practitioner level was one of the most powerful ranks of magic, but creating lasting streams with sheer magic wasn’t normally within a Practitioner’s abilities. And from what I gathered from Breena, the islands weren’t set up in a defensive ring like this before, meaning she had used some other magic, and probably a monumental amount of engineering.

  “It’s not all rock,” she explained, pointing to the shore stretching across the horizon. “Some of the barricade in the water is just sunken ships and other wreckage.”

  “Did you do that?” I asked, because wrecking an entire fleet just to form a blockade sounded pretty hardcore.

  “More or less,” Via replied. “After our earlier battles with the Malus Men, the ships that survived were too damaged to fight or move quickly, and there weren’t enough trained sailors to man the crews. I took all the ones I could get a hold of and had the islanders form skeleton crews to bring them all out here. Then we sank them as strategically as we could between the outer islands.” She stared ahead as she spoke. Some of the fatigue I had seen in her yesterday returned. “We also gathered all the barrels of fresh water they had been carrying. Then we spent over a year digging our own network of lakes and river channels in the center islands, merging them with whatever natural bodies of fresh water we could find. After that, we poured the water barrels from a hundred ships into our new river networks, and we used every Water Mage we had to add their own water to the pool. Eventually, we were able to create something just barely sustainable, that would give everyone water and still ward off the Nuckelavee. Because as long as the Malus Men aren’t nearby, he’ll ignore islands with large bodies of fresh water.”

  “And you managed to dig rivers for the entire island network?” I asked in surprise. But the Satellite shook her head.

  “Just for the inner islands. We have a few people in the outer islands to serve as watchers. If they see either the Nuckelavee or the Malus ships, they’ll flee to the canoes on the other side and escape to those islands. If it’s the Nuckelavee, we wait for it to leave. If it’s the Malus Men, we attack when they try to cross to the inner islands, use Water magic to destroy them all, and then tug their ships into position and sink them, since we can’t use them.”

  “Don’t the Malus ships have Horde that can swim?” I asked. Via let out another sigh.

  “They do. We just do the best we can. Mostly though, we’ve survived by hiding whenever it looks like trouble is coming. So I’m going to have to message them to let them know we’re not trouble ourselves.”

  With that, she walked to the prow of the ship. She motioned with her whip, and everyone stood back far enough to give her room to use it. With one hand, she began twirling it over her head, making it glow blue again, and with the other, she began scribing symbols into the air.

  Whatever she had done must have been sufficient, because a light reflected from beyond the rocky shores in our direction.

  “This is an impressive setup,” I told her. “But I’m a little worried about leaving our caravel on the outer side of your haven.”

  “We can hide it in the cove where I keep my own ships,” Via offered. “It’s bigger, but there’s still enough room. And we may not need to go to the inner islands themselves. The watchers will be able to take the people we rescued over in their own canoes. You can put any of the supplies you were planning on delivering on their canoes as well.”

  “We’d need to anyway, since they’re the only way in to your real haven,” I pointed out. “How many people should we prepare supplies for?” I probed, hating my lack of tact, but unable to think of a nicer way to ask her how many of her people were left.

  “We have…” she closed her eyes, as if she was doing some more mental math. “Just under ten thousand people. And we’re growing our own crops, and we have dug some wells, but we could always use more food and water. And blankets and clothing, if you have any.”

  “I do,” I answered her with a wince. “But I only packed about a thousand pounds total of clothing and blankets, and we have about ten tons of food packed onto this ship. I don’t think we packed anywhere near that much water.”

  Gabin nodded at my numbers.

  “That’s plenty, Wes,” Via told me. “Stell’s made a couple shipments as well, so your supplies will help us last through the year, at least. Especially if you brought mostly food that can be planted.”

  I nodded at her, then remembered the additional seeds I had acquired from the Woadfathers back on Avalon, ones that could create special plants ideal to island life.

  Hey, Via? I sent to the Satellite. Great job. This is an incredible number of people to have saved on your own.

  Thanks, she said glumly. But you’ve already saved two worlds, counting Avalon. So there was room for me to do better.

  Not by yourself, there wasn’t, I sent back firmly. I broke out of a prison and saved under a hundred people, with a little bit of assistance from those three Testifiers. Every moment after that, I’ve had help. In the Woadlands I had a highly experienced team of fighters from another age at my back, as well the Testifiers, Breena, and another Challenger in my retinue. And in both of the big fights I had support from the Icons themselves. You, though. You haven’t had any of that. You have a cool-looking magic whip, some untrained locals to help with guard duty, and a couple of small boats that you probably built by hand. What happened to your world freaking sucked, but it wasn’t your fault. The only thing that’s your fault was the lives that you saved. Those people are still breathing and holding their loved ones, and that’s all on you.

  I had told her something along those exact same lines earlier. I
didn’t mind saying those words again. Because a person can still need to hear the truth more than once, even if they believed it the first time.

  I kept those feelings open through the mindlink as well, so that she could feel those sentiments on another level, and because I thought it would make my message less of a lecture if I did it that way. She chose to take it with good grace anyway, and I saw her turn her head to me and flash a dazzling smile.

  You’re right. I’ve been having this same fear every day, and thought I was going crazy for thinking it. But it’s not a defeat for me to still have these feelings. It’s just another opportunity for victory.

  Then, for the second time in one day, she lowered her head, closed her eyes, and pushed.

  Once again, there was a brief flash of green, and a stream of water materialized from the air and began circling around the dark-haired woman. It spiraled around her entire body before vanishing, and then she opened her eyes.

  Two Rises, in one day, she said happily. You’re right. I’ve been winning a lot more than I realized.

  Something in her own victory washed back over me. I dimly noticed my mindscreen informing me that I had taken another step on the hidden trail of the Path of Kings.

  We sailed into the cove that Via had directed us to, keeping a careful distance from the half-dozen small ships on the other side. All of them looked to be tiny enough to be crewed by one or two people in a pinch, and some of them looked like they were constructed in a hurry. Via’s islanders were waiting for us when we landed, some looking wary, some hopeful. When Via and I came ashore together, she spoke to them rapidly with an excited tone, and they let out a cheer. A moment later, my mindscreen informed me that she had told them I was the Challenger of Avalon, and that I had aided her in defeating several Malus pirates and rescuing other islanders from a Horde Pit.