World Warden, page 21
It took him an instant to realize what had happened.
I’m in the water.
I need to swim!
He tried to move, but the backpack strapped around his body weighed much more than he had anticipated, and it dragged him down. Panicking, he kicked with all his might, and his terror increased tenfold when he realized he did not know which way was up. The water around him roiled and spun him around, and Elias began to feel the burning in his lungs that heralded the moment when he would be forced to breathe in and fill his lungs with water that would drown him.
His vision clouded over. He fumbled with the backpack strap around his waist, but he could not get it loose. In desperation, he made one last-ditch effort to fight against the forces dragging him down, his addled mind realizing that if he fought against that pull, he would be going up. He forced his arms to propel him and kicked as hard as he was able.
He made a little bit of progress. He kept his eyes open in the stinging salty water and saw faint clarity immediately above him. His lungs were on fire by then, and he almost gulped for air, but he clamped down on the reflex with the last erg of strength left to him and, with a mighty heave, broke through the surface of the water at last.
He gulped in a mixture of air and water, but another wave rolled over him and pushed him down.
He tried to swim again, but he did not have the strength. What little air he had been able to inhale merely increased the pain in his chest, and he cast his mind desperately out, trying to call the wurl.
Get Tristan, he told them. Save him.
Something large torpedoed through the water and bumped into him, punching the last of the air out of his lungs. Elias grabbed on to the creature, and a split second later, he was able to gulp in blessed air as the two of them broke through the surface and remained there long enough for him to be able to breathe normally again. The storm around him was shockingly violent, but Elias’s grip did not loosen. He grabbed Siv’s warm body with his legs, not even caring that one of Siv’s spines was digging into his thigh.
From Siv he sensed a worried query. Siv did not know what to do next.
Tristan! Elias cast out with his thoughts as soon as his brain cleared slightly. Find him!
There was faint mental reassurance from nearby, coming from Vanor. With it there came the wurl’s faint sensation of Tristan grabbing on to the underside of his powerful neck.
Elias nearly loosened his grip in sheer relief. He did not do so, though. He knew Siv might not be able to find him and rescue him a second time.
Away from the storm, Elias told both wurl. Stay together.
He got tired acknowledgment in response, and Siv swam through the water, spending most of his strength in ensuring that Elias would be able to breathe at reliable intervals, but being forced to dive underneath the waves every few seconds because of the ravaging storm.
Elias nearly passed out twice more, but he forced himself to remain awake. It was only when minutes had gone by and Siv had not submerged himself again that Elias opened his eyes and tried to ascertain where they were.
Something was different. The wind had lessened and no longer howled in his ears. There was still rain, and the waves were big, but the gales were dying off. The booming thunder sounded farther away.
Elias held on until his arms trembled and he feared that his own strength would give out. At long last Siv slowed down, although he still swam in the same northeasterly direction he had been following. Elias was able to clamber onto Siv’s back then, avoiding the worst of the spines, and straddled his neck with his legs. Thankfully, Siv’s spines had only inflicted superficial wounds on his thigh. He grabbed the scaled neck in front of him with both hands, balancing precariously and wishing he could simply unbuckle the backpack that was incredibly heavy and threatened to destabilize him yet again.
He was almost dizzy with relief when he realized Vanor was swimming not two meters away from them. Sitting on his back, much like Elias, was a bedraggled but conscious Tristan.
They were both too tired to yell, but they shared a glance that spoke volumes. Elias sent a wordless but heartfelt thank you to both wurl.
The first ray of sunlight was almost surprising in its brightness more than an hour later. Elias blinked and realized that the black cumulonimbus clouds were behind them now, off to the southwest.
Calm returned to the world as Vanor and Siv still swam. Soon even the last of the clouds overhead had been blown away by the wind, and in their stead was only a vast blue sky where the sun shone and the wind was still. After the violence they had just endured, Elias had trouble understanding the peace of the environment they were traversing. The ocean around them, fathomless, was again flat and restful. The temperature rose until it was as hot as it had been before, and Elias marveled at the fact that he was able to see for endless kilometers in all directions once more.
The ocean is… incomprehensible, he thought to himself.
Siv underneath him acknowledged the thought and offered a fragment of a memory. Elias got a sense of black depths and endless expanse, of swimming near the bottom looking for food, and then—something in the water with him. Something that glowed.
Elias patted Siv. “So you knew the ocean from before, huh? Thank you for saving me back there. I couldn’t have made it without you.”
Siv did not acknowledge the thought again, but Elias did not mind. Unlike Vanor and Narev, Siv had always been rather distant, much more feral than his two brothers. Nevertheless, the way he had acted during the storm proved that Siv, too, felt kinship toward Elias. He had been willing to endanger his own safety in order to keep the boat afloat and had rushed to find him after the boat had capsized.
Elias waved to Tristan, who was riding on Vanor’s back. He received a tired-looking wave in return, and Vanor approached so the two wurl would be swimming side by side.
If it had been possible, Elias would have walked over to Tristan in order to hug him, but he had to make do with a smile.
“Tristan, you’re okay. I was scared.”
“Me too,” Tristan replied. “As soon as Vanor saved me after I fell into the water, I kept screaming at him to find you.”
“I did the same thing with Siv.”
A couple of seconds passed while they reflected in silence. The only sounds were the paddling of wurl legs through the water.
“We lost the boat,” Tristan lamented. “I’m so sorry, Elias.”
“That’s okay, we’re alive.”
Tristan shook his head. “I should have made the boat sturdier. Maybe wider, or heavier at the bottom. I didn’t know—”
“Tristan, stop that.”
“What?”
“That thing where you think you’re responsible for our safety. Listen, we’re in this together. Out here you’re not responsible for me. You are a Colony Patrol officer, but we’re not in Portree right now. You don’t have to protect me all the time. And besides, like I said before, you don’t control the weather. We had no idea a storm was coming.”
Tristan nodded.
“I’m just happy we’re okay, thanks to Siv and Vanor,” Elias continued. “That’s all that matters.”
“We lost most of our supplies, though,” Tristan observed with a worried frown. “All we have left are the backpacks.”
“I know.”
“We have no idea how we’re even going to get where we’re going, and we can’t ride the wurl all the way across an ocean.”
“I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
Vanor growled at that moment, interrupting the conversation. Siv echoed the growl a split second later.
Elias looked ahead, and from his vantage point, he was able to see something small and dark on the horizon almost directly east of them.
“What’s that?” he asked aloud.
As if in response, Siv growled louder. His spines stiffened, but he relaxed them again in response to Elias’s surprised yelp.
Both wurl picked up speed despite their exertion from before. Elias was now fully focused on the black spot, which grew as they approached until it was a diffuse block. At first Elias thought it was an island, but it was too small to be one—it looked more like a floating platform of some kind.
What is that? he asked of the wurl. He received no direct response from either of them, merely a sense of urgency.
That’s when he saw that there was a shape on the platform. A large and spiny silver shape.
“Narev!” Elias shouted.
“Is that him?” Tristan asked.
Elias quested forward with his mind. He tried to focus on the prostrate figure that grew larger with every passing second and thought he received a faint mental echo from it. The echo was full of alarm and a desperate call for help.
“It’s him,” Elias confirmed. “Narev! Come here!”
But Narev did not move, and Elias’s anticipation was now tinged with worry.
“What’s wrong?” Tristan asked him. “Why’s he not moving?”
“I don’t know.” Elias tried to suppress the faint tingle of fear coursing through his body.
He’s okay. He has to be.
They were closer now, close enough to begin making out details. The platform grew as they approached until Elias realized that it was a sort of round surface made out of what looked like thick kelp, dark brown and slimy looking. It was big enough for several adult wurl to stand on, and it appeared to be floating on the water with no discernible means of locomotion, perhaps merely going wherever the wind and the currents took it.
Narev was in the center of it, lying on his side, bound by a multitude of kelp strands.
“Narev!” Elias shouted again, and this time they were close enough that Narev was surely able to hear his voice. The captive wurl struggled, but he was completely entangled in the seaweed and appeared not to be able to move.
“He’s trapped somehow,” Tristan observed.
“Let’s help him. Before something else comes.”
Neither Vanor nor Siv needed Elias’s mental urging to go faster. Both of them powered through the water, and less than a minute later, they arrived at the edge of the platform. Up close, the surface looked much more unsteady than Elias had assumed. It was a knotted mess of twisted kelp strands nearly as thick as Elias’s hand, many of which poked out of the water, where they were many shades of brown and dark green. However, there were pools of water on the platform itself, and it did not look as though it would be able to support the weight of a wurl at all. Underneath the water, Elias could see the strange algae growths extending into the deep, out of sight.
“Vanor, let’s go! Up onto it,” Tristan said.
Vanor immediately turned, swimming away a little bit and then powering forward through the water, fully intending to land on the platform after leaping out.
“No!” Elias shouted, and incredibly, Vanor halted less than a meter from the platform. The waves in the wake of his motion made the closest brownish kelp sway.
“What’s the matter?”
“I think it’s a trap,” Elias said. “I think the Singer made Narev swim onto this thing until he was entangled by it. Look. He can’t move.”
As both of them looked at Narev again, it became clear that the wurl must have thrashed with great strength at some point in the past. Wide swaths of the plantlike growth had been torn to shreds, and there were a couple of spines partially submerged in the tangled web of slimy leaves. The place where Narev was now, perhaps twenty meters away and near the center of the floating platform, was the spot where the kelp grew thickest and where its color was darkest.
Narev struggled again, sending out a mental call to all of them with the same insistent alarm Elias had felt earlier.
Elias gasped.
“Elias?”
“He’s not calling for help. He’s telling us to get away.”
“Who? Narev?”
“Yes,” Elias confirmed. “He doesn’t want us going near him.”
“What do we do?”
Tristan was not the only one asking. Both Vanor and Siv sent mental queries to Elias. They wanted to climb onto the platform and help Narev.
No. You’re too big, and you’ll get tangled in that thing too, Elias told them, hoping they would be able to understand the complexity of his idea. He got confusion in return, so he knew the wurl did not fully grasp his meaning, but they did hold position where they were.
“It’s up to us,” Elias said.
“You mean the two of us?” Tristan asked him.
“Yes. We climb on and cut Narev loose. We’re small enough that we won’t sink. I hope.”
Tristan looked at the kelp platform, and then back at Elias. A moment later he nodded. “All right. Let’s do it.”
Bring us close, Elias told Vanor and Siv. Watch out for danger.
The wurl complied and swam up to the first leafy strands of the algae that floated, almost lazily, in the balmy tropical water. Carefully, mindful of Siv’s spines, Elias climbed down and into the ocean, where he used Siv as support in order to prevent himself from sinking. He almost immediately regretted his decision. He was still carrying the backpack, and it dragged him down like before.
“Leave the backpack!” Tristan shouted from nearby.
“Right,” Elias muttered. He unfastened the buckles with much trouble, but managed to do it in the end. He kept Sizzra’s spine in his hand, and then he heaved the backpack over the side and onto one of Siv’s larger spines, near the base of his neck. The backpack lodged there, and Siv did not seem to mind it.
Now much lighter, Elias swam in the water awkwardly, fully clothed and wearing shoes. He had gotten much better at swimming during his time in Crescent Valley, but this was an entirely new environment, and his clothes did not help him one bit. He kicked hard, though, and used his arms to propel himself forward. He was able to grab the first handful of seaweed, which felt as slimy as it looked, along with quivering gently under his fingers for some reason.
“Gross,” Elias said to himself.
Tristan swam nearby, evidently having as much difficulty in the water as Elias.
“Hey,” Tristan said, stopping a few meters away. Then he simply swam forward at full speed and, when he reached the algae, grabbed on to them and pushed himself up as if he were climbing out of a swimming pool. The kelp bent under his weight, but it did not break or sink. Tristan swung one leg over and onto it, and then the other. He rolled on the surface of the platform and then knelt up smoothly. “Your turn, Elias.”
“Right,” Elias responded. He tried to do the same, but his speed did not avail him, and he ended up having to use Tristan’s help to clamber onto the platform. He also rolled on the slimy and strangely spongy surface until he was sure it would not give out under him. Only then did he attempt to stand up. Tristan followed suit.
“Well done,” Tristan told him.
“I had no idea you were such a good swimmer,” Elias observed.
“Let’s help Narev.”
“Yes,” Elias said, distracted. He looked at where Narev was still struggling and felt his acknowledgment but also his alarm. He kept insisting that they go away.
It’s okay. We’re here now. It’s going to be okay.
Elias took one step, and his foot sank amid the seaweed strands, but only partially. Now that he was on top of the platform, the overwhelming stench of rotting and moist plant matter was impossible to ignore. It was everywhere, and as Tristan and he carefully made their way to where Narev was lying, the smell grew even stronger. The surface underneath grew firmer too, and the kelp stiffened the closer they were to the center.
“I had no idea plants could grow like this,” Tristan said.
“Neither did I. It looks like seaweed of some kind, but there is no record of anything like this in any of my biology books.”
“It’s really sturdy here,” Tristan pointed out. They were now a handful of meters away from Narev. “Look at the plants. They’re a much darker brown here, and my foot doesn’t sink anymore. It’s almost like this stuff is stiffening now that I’m stepping on it.”
“I was thinking the same thing…,” Elias said. It was odd. There were no enemies in sight, no Flyers or Singers, and yet Narev’s alarm only grew the closer they got to the center. He huffed a couple of times, signaling that they should leave.
Elias stopped a few steps away from Narev. Tristan did so too, with a confused look on his face.
“What’s wrong, Elias?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly, surveying his surroundings. He motioned for Tristan to be quiet, putting a finger up to his lips.
He listened.
He heard only the faint sound of water washing against the kelp platform, and behind them, the splashes of Vanor and Siv, who were looking at them with concern. There was nothing else, and yet….
Tchk. Tchk.
Both of them heard it at the same time. Narev’s alarm reached a crescendo, but Elias did not see anything threatening.
He looked at the algae underneath his feet more carefully. It was exactly like before, thick strands of a leather-like substance, dark brown, almost black.
Wait. This kelp looks too different.
He looked closer, taking a careful step nearer to Narev. Near the center of the platform, the seaweed strands were no longer slimy, and they were much sturdier than at the edges. In fact they looked less like kelp and more like taut lines, flexible and strong, reminding Elias of muscle fibers under the microscope.
Tchk. Tchk.
He exchanged a glance with Tristan. The sound was coming from behind Narev. Carefully, both of them edged around the captive wurl until they were able to see what lay past him, having been obscured by Narev’s bulk.
“What’s that?” Tristan whispered.
There was a dent in the middle of the seaweed platform about a meter away from Narev. It was perfectly round, about two meters in diameter, and completely black. It looked like a hole amid the kelp, and the inside of it was ringed with sharp, stubby spikes.
Tchk. Tchk.
The hole was making that sound. Elias watched, aghast, as the dark opening increased its diameter slightly. The seaweed ropes around Narev tightened and pulled the wurl a few centimeters closer to the yawning opening. Narev struggled, but his bonds tightened in response.
