Spellbound (the Spellbound Series Book 1) (15 page)

I watch her for a moment, replaying last night’s conversation in my head. It’s still hard to believe that she, of all people, basically confessed her love for me. Or had I imagined that, attributed meaning to words that were completely innocuous? No, I didn’t imagine the look in her eyes. Alyssa is in love with me, of this I’m sure. She must know that I can’t possibly feel the same way; I’m already dating Nick, and I’ve never expressed any romantic interest in girls before. Alyssa seems to feel my eyes on her, because she turns to face me, and this time it’s my eyes that automatically flit away. My heart beats slightly quicker than usual, and I question it for a moment, then shake my head and convince myself that it meant nothing.

The entire ship shudders without warning, and in an instant, I’m wide awake and on my feet. I quickly surround myself with trigger shields, and yell to Ryan, “What the hell was that?”

“Dunno,” he responds, “but I didn’t like it. Wake up Jasira, things might get ugly.”

Alyssa gives Jasira a shake, just as another tremor rocks the ship from stern to bow. We run to look over the edge at what’s attacking us, and I get a glimpse of what looks like a tentacle before it moves out of sight. Then, two tentacles thick as tree trunks erupt from the middle of the ship, sending water and splinters of wood skyward. I try to retaliate, but the creature attacking us retracts its arms too quickly, and I get the impression that we’re beginning to sink. Alyssa and Jasira are already looking out on the water, waiting for the beast to appear again. “You guys try to kill that thing,” I yell, “I’m going to head below deck and fix the hull.” They nod in agreement, and Alyssa shoots me a worried look as I head down the stairs to the bowels of the ship.

In a remarkably short amount of time, the hull has begun to fill with water; it’s up to my ankles, and the attack only started a minute ago. The rising water is already littered with shattered pieces of wood, and the crumbled remains of a previous crew’s supplies. I can easily spot where the two tentacles entered the ship; twin geysers of water shoot up into the hull, and by the time I walk over to the closest one, it’s nearly up to my knees. Without stopping to wonder whether or not it can be done, I focus on stemming the incoming flow of water. The geysers gradually lower to a trickle, then stop altogether. I take the floating chunks of wood, and use a spell to mold them into place over the holes. I press my foot against one of the makeshift plugs, and I’m satisfied that it’s going to hold pretty well.

I’m congratulating myself on a job well done when two more tentacles tear through the side of the hull. One of them whips around and catches me in the midsection with such force that it breaks through my shield spells, and knocks me backwards into a wall. For a moment, I can’t draw breath, and the air around me is hazy and filled with multicolored sparks of light. I can just barely make out another tentacle gunning for my head, and duck in time to avoid taking a similar hit to the face. It pulls back, and just before the creature strikes out for a third time, I fire a burst of energy at the tentacle, causing it to explode in a shower of red. Blood and bits of flesh hit me square in the face, and as I wipe the disgusting gunk out of my eyes, the creature looses a terrible, piercing cry. I cover my eyes, and blast the other flailing tentacle before it comes after me as well. This time, instead of getting splattered with gore, I lose my footing and fall face-first into the water. The entire ship is tilting to the side; Ryan must have made a sharp turn to avoid something. Once we’re back on an even keel, I scramble to my feet and head back up the stairs.

When I reach the top of the stairs, I find that everything has devolved into chaos. The sky has darkened, as the sun’s light is blocked out by a massive, storm gray cloud overhead. Alyssa and Jasira aim spells at a creature that looks like a massive squid, which responds by slamming its tentacles on the deck, leaving huge holes and less space for us to maneuver in. Ryan does his best to steer the ship out of the creature’s reach, but to no avail; no fewer than three of the creature’s arms are wrapped around the ship itself. It doesn’t seem like we’re going to be staying afloat for much longer. I lean over the side of the ship, and watch as stray spells hit its body, leave a red mark, and makes the beast angrier than ever before. Only the tentacles appear to have taken any damage so far; I realize what we’ll have to do, and relay the plan to the others between the piercing cries of the creature.

Alyssa and Jasira join me in firing spells at the tentacles rather than the body itself, and before long, there are only three left. The creature wails, and thrashes out with its stumps, but evidently values its remaining limbs too much to keep attacking. What little there is left of our enemy looses an angry shriek, and slips underneath the water’s surface. The ship continues its determined path onward, and the frothing red water behind us fades until there’s nothing to see but innocently still water in the distance, and the waves left in our wake.

Surprisingly, I’m not overcome with guilt over what we just did. Killing spiders and insects are one thing, but all other animals are usually sacred to me. I’m almost ashamed to admit it to myself, but what I feel more acutely than guilt is a strange sense of accomplishment; I proved to myself and the others that I’m not entirely useless. We don’t get to celebrate our victory for very long, though. Mere seconds after we think the battle is over, I become aware of a continuous squawking coming from above. I assume there are a few birds flying overhead, but when I look up to see them, I realize we’re still not done fighting.

What I had taken for a massive cloud at first glance was actually hundreds, no, thousands of birds flying in a tight formation. They are all an ugly shade of gray, and sport wingspans of at least six or seven feet. Several of them peel off from the formation, and dive on the main sail, tearing right though the fabric with their razor sharp beaks. Alyssa and I fire off a few spells at them, and the entire flock goes insane. Scores of birds dive at once, and it’s all Alyssa, Jasira, and I can do to keep them from causing more damage to the ship. Ryan leaves the wheel to join in the ship’s defense, but the four of us together can barely keep the birds at bay. Several of them still make it down far enough to rip the sails to shreds, and a few of them even target us. Pretty soon, Jasira’s bleeding heavily from a gash on her forehead, and the rest of us have at least shallow scratches up and down our arms, our faces, everywhere.

During a short lull in the attack, I stop firing, and look up at the flock. Our efforts seem pointless; we’ve been firing at the birds for ages, and have hardly made a dent in their numbers. I decide it’s time to pull out the big guns. Over the past months, Krystal taught me a few spells that I was never to use unless in dire situations. The risk of causing civilian casualties is too great. There are no civilians around now, and I consider being attacked by thousands of birds to be a dire situation, so I decide now is as good a time as any to see what I’m really capable of.

I shut my eyes, and focus on a point high above the ship, between us and the birds. I force the air around that point to circle it, faster and faster, force it to grow in size and ferocity. I can feel the wind whipping by us long before I open my eyes, even as far beneath the tornado as we are. Countless birds are sucked into the vortex, and flung into one another, breaking necks, wings, and skulls with every collision. We can finally see patches of sky through thinner portions of the flock. The remaining birds know better than to attack us now that they’re in danger of flying straight into a tornado, and in a surprisingly short amount of time, each and every one of them goes their separate ways until the sky is clear once more.

I release the spell, and the tornado stops spinning at once, sending hundreds of dead piles of feathers flying into the water. I have to sit down for a while; my vision is fading, and waves of fatigue crash over me until it’s all I can do to refrain from laying down on the shattered deck. I haven’t felt so drained since the day I first met Nick. The others go about repairing the damages to the ship, and once the sails have been repaired, we start picking up speed again, and plow onward through the water. Ryan heads back up to the wheel, and on his way up, he pats me on the shoulder, and says, “Not bad, kid. That was pretty damn amazing.” I shrug it off, but only because I’m too exhausted to give a proper response.

For a few hours, we sail the open sea without further incident. I try to sleep for a while, but I wake up after only an hour, feeling more intensely how hungry I am, how badly I want to go home. I don’t dare complain out loud, though; after hearing Alyssa’s story, I don’t feel like I have any right to whine about our lack of provisions. Instead, I suffer in silence, laying on my back with the sun beaming down on me. I only sit up once, when Jasira shouts out the five words I’ve been waiting for hours to hear.

“I think I see land!”

Chapter 17

What seems like an eternity passes before we actually reach what Jasira correctly assumed to be land. Judging by the sun, it’s just after noon when we slow to a stop alongside a deserted dock at the bottom of a cliff. The jagged rocks splintering from the cliff face and the utter lack of vegetation give the place a foreboding atmosphere, but it’s still land, so I’m not complaining. As we come to a stop, the ship’s sails are pulled down by some invisible force, and a gangplank slides out of the starboard side, landing with a clatter on the deck. Alyssa is the first one off the ship; she all but runs ashore, and I get the feeling that she’s sorely tempted to kiss the ground. I’m still a little wobbly from using the majority of my energy, but I walk down after her with the others, and once we’re all on the deck, the gangplank retracts into the hole it sprang from.

“Stand back,” demands an unfamiliar voice, and I look up to notice a tall, stern looking woman materializing in front of us in much the same way Freyr did earlier. We take a few steps away from the ship as instructed, and the woman waves her hand once. Nothing happens for a few seconds, and then, right before our eyes, the ship folds in half along the metal ridge going down the middle, with a series of loud groans and creaks. It folds in upon itself several more times, presumably along smaller metal perforations, until the entire ship is the size of a sugar cube, and the tiny square flies up into the air, and lands in the strange woman’s outstretched hand. The stranger then turns her back to us and walks away, calling over her shoulder, “Follow me.”

“Hey, lady, we need that ship back,” Jasira says as we fall into step behind the woman. After a moment, she adds, “It’s sort of not ours, and I don’t want to get that guy angry, especially if he’s a Norse god, like I think he is…”

The woman merely looks over her shoulder at us, and responds, “Worry not. I will see that
Skíðblaðnir is returned to its rightful owner.”

I’ve never heard the word “Skíðblaðnir” in my life, but I get the feeling that it’s the unreadable word on the side of the ship. Jasira shrugs, and stares at the ground as we continue following the stranger.

We turn into a narrow tunnel that’s been dug right into the cliffs, and almost immediately, the slowly waning daylight and the sound of waves crashing against the cliff side are swallowed by the solid rock around us. We’re left with nothing but crushing darkness until the woman ahead of us conjures a golden ball of light. I wonder about her… if this place is crawling with gods, like we theorized, then which one is she? It’s nearly impossible to tell by looks alone, and she hasn’t exactly introduced herself. She turns around to check on us, and I spot something around her neck; a bronze amulet, with an owl engraved in the metal. Suddenly, a wave of memories from a mythology class in ninth grade wash over me, and before I can stop myself, I blurt out, “You’re Athena, aren’t you?”

The woman just groans, and keeps walking, but doesn’t deny it. Under different circumstances, I would probably geek out about meeting one of my favorite figures from mythology, but as it stands, I really just want to eat something, preferably something warm, and sleep for a few days.

The end of the tunnel draws near, and for a moment, the light seems too bright to handle. But my eyes adjust, and when the world comes back into focus, I’m almost convinced that we’ve been transported to another part of the world. Fresh green grass extends as far as the eye can see, only interrupted by the occasional tree and a massive temple. Pristine white marble adorns every surface of the temple, save for the doors, which are made of solid gold. As we approach the beautiful structure, Athena explains, “This is the Hall of the Guardians. Here is where we spend eternity, tending to the needs of entire generations of new spellcasters. We, who were once worshipped as gods, reduced to mere shepherds in the hereafter. I suppose it’s a role more suited to us, as we were once only mortals.”

“Hold on,” Alyssa half-shouts from the back. “Are you telling me that you aren’t actually a god?”

“Strictly speaking, no. I was once a mortal, like yourself. During my time on Earth, my powers were so revered, that people began whispering amongst themselves that I was something more than human. That is how it was for most of us, in the days of old. After the dawn of Christianity, however, the idea that talented spellcasters were of the divine became less common, until we lost favor entirely. As our sway over humanity began to decline, so too did the influence of the clans scattered across the world, until things deteriorated to their current state.”

I frown as I take in this new information; Krystal never mentioned how the clans began to unravel. I make a mental note to ask her for more details when I get home. In the meantime, I turn to Athena for answers I can get more quickly. “So… if you’re not a mortal anymore, what are you? Is this where people come when they die?”

Athena snaps her fingers, causing the golden doors to swing open outward, and allowing us in. “This is hardly the final resting place for souls. As you likely know, energy cannot simply be destroyed. Normally, when someone dies, spellcaster or not, their energy is redistributed into the earth. When a spellcaster is strong enough, however, they can choose to leave behind an echo of themselves, an ethereal being made of their own life force. That echo of the former person becomes a Guardian, and comes here, a realm parallel to Earth, and similar in structure, but far from home all the same. The soul then continues on to wherever it was meant to go.”