Ultimus Thesaurus: The last Treasure (Era of Change Book 1) (12 page)

“They are here,” he said calmly and the sky began to darken.

Of course they chained us to the mast just to be sure that we wouldn’t get in anyone’s way until the situation was solved. Wild in spirit and yet rigid with fear, the crew went about their work, while the captain tried to find another way to steer the helm of the ship.

“We should just enter the maelstrom. ‘They’ probably won’t expect that. If this is only a test, then we must simply end it,” I suggested, but the others met this idea with strong scepticism.

“And what if we die? Maybe they do expect someone to say this. And perhaps this is just a maelstrom and not some kind of guardian. Aton could just be wrong,” said Lucia and tried to help the captain.

“I'm with Jacob on this. We have come too far and have sacrificed too much to now simply sail away. This is our opportunity,” said Isaac in the most convincing way possible.

The captain came directly to me and opened up my chains. He threw me to the ground and forced me to look in the direction of the maelstrom.

“If you think that it would be a good idea to throw yourself into the abyss of the ocean, why don’t you do us the honour? Should hardly be dangerous, right bub?” he said and pressed my head to the floor.

“We should give him the dinghy. He has at least a better chance that way,” said Lucia to my surprise, and she said it like she meant it.

“Do you hate me so much? Do you want me to die?”

“You said that it was probably just a test. Are you afraid?”

Since I had no choice, I decided to put my fears behind me. Aton had made the ship no longer manoeuvrable, and so it was only a matter of time until the others would follow me. They gave me a small paddle, barely larger than a child’s toy, and launched the boat into the water. Due to the strong current I fortunately hadn’t to paddle much at all, which is why I had more time to pray that I wasn’t wrong in my assumption. 

With every second that I got closer to the gigantic whirl, I looked back more often into the face of Aton which got smaller by the distance. It looked as if he knew that I did the right thing, but I was not even sure whether I read the feelings of this emotionless giant the right way. The volume of the stream was enormous, as was its nearly boundless power. After a few seconds in its vicinity the boat began to capsize and I tried my best to fight my way through the water.

But the current was too strong, and my breath became too weak, and so I soon gave up. I completely lost control and with every second, in which I tried to swim back up it just dragged me down even deeper. While I looked down to the ocean floor I saw a city with many temples and ancient ruins, but the water couldn’t touch it. It was as if I walked into a different world. Nothing that happened made sense to me, but without a means to intervene, I just let it happen. A few minutes later, I seemingly awoke from a dream. I opened my eyes and swam in the middle of the ocean. 

Neither the ship, nor the maelstrom was to be seen. In the distance however I spotted an island. With all my leftover energy I swam in the direction of the island, but with every stroke the distance got wider.

As much as I tried, there was no way to reach it, and no escape to a different location. I looked around, but neither right nor left of me could I see the ship of the pirates. The whole time I was afraid of it suddenly appearing in the sky above me, because I had no idea how I had even landed here myself. Just when I gave up swimming, I heard a noise in the distance. 

It was like a cry, and yet deeper and more powerful. Without the possibility to pinpoint the origin of the tone I decided to dive deeper into the water. Since there was no way forward or backward, there was only one last way I could go - downward. The water was very flat and to my surprise I could see a house, standing directly under me on the sea floor. As I approached it, the door of the house opened, and a man came out. He looked at me and smiled while he waved, seemingly inviting me to enter.

My attempt to swim closer failed however, whereupon I suddenly got grabbed by something and I woke up. I saw into the eyes of Lucia, who leaned over me and had tried to revive me.

“Was it all just a dream?” I asked totally out of breath, and I could still taste the cold salty water.

“You went into the maelstrom, just like us. This is the other side. When we arrived here, we found you lying on board - unconscious. And now stand up,” she explained and pointed over the railing.

I could not explain it, but it was the island I had seen while I had been dreaming. We had reached the island Singasteinn, and had come closer to this mystery once more. But whatever had happened to me, it terrified me and left me once again hoping that the liquid I drank really was safe.

The island had several small mountains that surrounded it and wrapped around it like a mantle, therefore it would be difficult to find a good place to drop the anchor of the ship. I used this time to think about what had happened. My lies had not only made others vulnerable, but also myself. If I was dying because of the poison that I took then only Isaac could help me. But I feared that he wouldn’t keep this secret to himself. The pirates did not worry me as much. While the guardians let them get onto the island, they could not find the treasure without us, and even Isaac hated them enough to tell them nothing. On the other hand Lucia wanted nothing more than revenge and each of her actions endangered me more. I didn’t know for sure if she really wanted my death, but I wouldn’t risk it anyway.

“Once we have found a place to drop the anchor, how do we proceed? We carry on in groups?” I asked and leaned on the mast that I was chained to.

“You bub go nowhere. We will get you if we need your help. But for the moment you will wait here, with the old mage who still gives me the creeps,” said the captain and cast a dark glance at Isaac.

He called what happened to Isaac and Magnus magic, and for his age that was probably understandable. His life span was nearing its end, and therefore he was ready to accept the mysteries of this world, but I myself still doubted everything that happened around us. For hundreds of years there has been no magician or magical incident. Why should all of this exist? It made no sense that no one ever discovered what we saw after just a few days of travel. 

Even if Jasper led us here, there were bound to be even more places like this and more creatures like Aton. But all the other prisoners were normal; none of them had threatening powers, like the ones he demonstrated during the jailbreak. Whatever it was that I felt wasn’t right, only the liquid that I drank left me doubting my own mental health.

“Well, if you think that it would be for the best, captain. You know where you can find me.”

My words did not meet with well-meaning ears and so I was greeted by a blow to my face.

“Don't forget who I am, bub” roared the captain, but it was not the volume of his cry that I heard.

It was a monster of such enormous size that it concealed the mountains behind it, and even the water below and the sky above. Its cry alone tore the masts apart and scattered the debris in the wind, while we all just watched the sails of our ship fly away we hardly knew what just had happened. The captain called upon his men to operate the cannon, but none of them could think straight in a moment like this.

“By the gods,” I said without even wanting to and tried to open my chains that were still attached to the bottom piece of the mast.

The monster had the head of a demon, but the body of a snake. Its long and enormous tongue glided over the sea and slowly started to wrap around our ship. The captain was still trying to load the cannons, but he himself didn’t really believe them to benefit us, as the monster began to raise the ship into the sky. It held us up with nothing more than its tongue and its powerful and pungent breath robbed us of our consciousness. Only Aton was left absolutely unmoved. He just kept still and looked at the monster, just as it also looked at us. Lucia opened the shackles of Isaac and was now trying to help me.

“Please, don’t let me die here,” I begged her, but it was as if she was unable to help me at all.

“It’s you. You are to blame for everything. Perhaps the captain was right,” she said and let go of her sword.

In this moment the monster threw us high into the air and let go of the ship. The force with which it threw us, pressed us firmly to the bottom of the deck, but soon we felt how this power turned around.

The attractive force pulled us downwards from the turning point of the throw and I could only hold on to the ship by the chains that bound me to the mast. I saw how the pirates, but also my friends got carried away from the deck and it almost seemed as if they were floating in the air while the heavy ship pulled me down. I believe that I heard the extreme impact of the vessel when it clashed with the cool skin of the sea, but in reality I had already lost my consciousness during the fall. Nothing and no one could have survived such a fall, and yet I woke up under water. Whatever this island was, it changed the rules of nature.

With all my might I tried to get rid of the shackles, but I could not. Only when a man swam towards me and wanted to help me I understood it all. I was dreaming again. It was the same man I had already seen before. He smiled at me, and unlocked my chains. In this moment, as if I just now realized, I gasped for air. I choked under the waves and completely lost my orientation. The man grabbed me by the arm and with incredible speed we reached the surface of the sea. I saw the ship wreck, getting smaller and smaller and when we pushed through the ceiling of the sea, I opened my eyes again.

There was sand under me, and around me I saw the wreckage of the ship. I had again seen something that hadn’t happened to anyone else. First I saw no one, but soon some of the pirates emerged from the remains of the ship, and finally the captain himself. Isaac, Aton and Lucia however were nowhere to be seen. Whichever gods mocked me on this day, they worked with a daring precision. Maybe it was the punishment for my actions, but it could’ve also been appreciation of the gods themselves.

“Bub!” roared the captain, and tried to desperately find a weapon in the rubble.

His injuries were severe and I saw a piece of the wreckage sticking out of his groin. He coughed strongly, while blood ran down his body. His staggered movement and roaring made it almost look as if he was dancing. His crew members franticly tried to help him, but soon the mighty Greybeard lost his consciousness. Even if it was wrong, I was hoping that his eyes were not to open ever again. It would make many things easier, especially the search for my friends. At first glance the island seemed to be much larger than it should be. The mountains were many hundred meters high, and the beach many thousand meters long. At least it seemed to me as if all of this magic, which had hidden this island, was too powerful to even exist.

Our journey had started with a simple task of finding a treasure, a book full of knowledge, but it had changed with time. It was less about finding a treasure, than mere survival.

Only four men of the crew had survived the disaster, and one of them, the captain himself, was in a coma. He probably only had a few days left, because such a condition without treatment always ended fatally. But even if he should die, I was still a prisoner of the other men. They set up their camp directly on the beach of the island, because they were afraid. My attempts to talk to them remained mostly short and unsuccessful, but more and more information gathered up with the time. Not all of them had experienced the same things. One reported of a monster, while the other said that a storm had destroyed the ship. None of them however remembered the maelstrom, and besides me no one thought that this could be magic. But an invisible island of this size could not simply be created from nothing.

As the first days went, the captain woke up again and the men went hunting. One of them had tried to catch some fish but nothing seemed to live in the waters around the island. The captain had been hit hard, and his underlying disease had worsened. Without a weapon bound to a piece of the wreck, I could do nothing to improve my situation. I had hoped that the others had survived, but I had a hard time explaining to myself why they weren’t with us than. Even if we all experienced something different, there could however only be one truth.

“What is your plan? You won’t survive for long in your condition. We should reach the centre of the island. Perhaps there are people living there. As far as we know, the titans are no more, but this does not mean that there are no other living things around,” I said and hoped that the captain would think about my words.

A journey in his condition would very likely be fatal, and it would also be a way to disperse the group even further.

“We will wait until my wounds are healed. Here at the beach there is only one direction from which they can attack us unseen. We are too few for such a big risk. Should people live on this island, they could try to force us away. And what do we do then?” asked me the captain and drowned in a further coughing spasm.

The men came back soon, and brought with them unknown animals. They looked similar to foxes, but their skin was blue and their heads twinkled in the light of dawn. The darkness brought us the fire and they began to burn the wood since we did not need the wreckage for anything else. The captain was afraid however, that someone could notice the smoke, and so he kept the fire small. His men watched me every second and they only gave me enough food to survive. The crew was still hoping to be richly rewarded, and I had nothing to claim against their captain, without seeming like a cold-blooded murderer. His life was more important to them than the treasure, and his revenge was more important to him than his own life, which slowly died away just like the weak flame which was warming his sickly body.

“How do we want to leave the island? Even if we find the treasure, we need a ship, or do you think differently about that?”