Tundra

Some mages ask me whether I miss Blackmouth, and I tell them that I only miss the people. This is not quite true, though it borders on truth, where I may consider myself a person to be missed. I miss Achevon, the Master who taught me, but I also miss the way that I was Agamon there, before I gave up my name. As Agamon, I shared my Master’s passion, which was in water. Though we were encased in black sandstone in the lonesome highlands, where only the distant, glittering bay was of all the world’s blue things visible from the high tower on a rare, cloudless day, we always found a place for it.

I might be a Runecaster by profession, but my source of inspiration has always been the sea. My runes are different from those that other Runecasters sketch, set apart by their dorsal fins and tiny loops like breaking waves or the appendages on weedy dragons. The sea is my magic, and always has been, for I come from the delta below Blackmouth, where Tyrian City meets the end of the continent and my heart, an anchor, plunges into the turmoil of nothingness and everything that is the churning ocean. The sea is my wonderland, even now on the tundra and its surrounding, jagged coastline, where the breakers are more savage than the peaceful, chasing wavelets that encircle my dear home.

There are some things that the sea possesses everywhere. Underwater, enchanted forests sway under the swelling crests of waves, and fishes dart, small and silver as elf arrows. Octopi are kites. The ceiling is crystal when you are underwater, and when you stand over it, through its lens there is so much to be seen. There is really nothing like a squall when you’re below the restless surface of the world, your hair salt straggled, insulated from all harm. To be in the sea is to be unborn, shielded and protected.

Our boat skimmed over the sea, and I was at its prow again. The squall raged on, become a mature storm, as Eiron stroked inside our bubble. Icebergs skated by us, the ocean’s molars. The air was cold and biting. We sailed for the open ocean, where kraken reigned bigger than islands; where Erasmus’ fleet and the spirits seemed to be going. Aais swum ahead of us, checking the tides and scenting the currents. He had dived deep, however, and was not resurfacing.

‘Aais should be back by now,’ I told the others. ‘We’re almost on top of him.’

Eiron spoke first. ‘You think this is a trap?’

Turon answered him. ‘No, look at how we found out about it. It’s not a trap. Still, you’re right, it is concerning.’

‘Do we have any way of contacting him?’ Hackley asked me.

‘No,’ I told her. ‘I gave him a stone with a rune of sending, but he hasn’t used it.’

‘We can track the stone, can’t we?’

‘Yes, and I’ve done so. He’s down there somewhere, we just don’t know what he’s doing.’

‘Then send something to where the rock is,’ she suggested. ‘It’s not a perfect solution, but it should work.’ I nodded, folding my hands so that a tiny dove appeared in the air. Positioning a bubble over its head, I sent it diving into the depths. I knew it would be some time before it returned.

‘Why are you here, anyway?’ I asked.

Hackley shrugged. ‘We’re both Blackmouth mages, and we’re the only ones out here,’ she informed me. ‘We have to stick together.’

‘I’m not a Blackmouth mage,’ I said bitterly. ‘I was ejected from that school.’

‘Yes,’ she said patiently, ‘but neither of us are locals, are we? Neither of us call Lightshale or Firepeak home. I have never felt right in the nameless school. I appreciate the power of words and the weight of history, but I want to innovate. I want to make my own pacts. I want to succeed on the strength of my own intellect, not that of those who’ve come before me. Hence, Blackmouth.’ She peered over the side of the boat, watching the endless ocean, where the dove had sunk.

I stared elsewhere, my gaze skating off the diamond waves. ‘We’re nothing alike.’

‘I know. But we’re still more alike than anyone else here.’

Another squall picked up, hammering in my ears. It was too fast to be ordinary, non-magical. I peered at the writhing mass of clouds where thunder pierced the darkness and stabbed the sea. I knew those bolts were targeted at wrecking our fleet.

‘They come,’ Turon said. ‘This storm will scatter us, and they’ll go straight through us.’

‘Leave that to us,’ I found myself saying, despite having just distanced myself from my Apprentice. ‘Hackley, we need a calming rune.’

Hackley withdrew a small roll of parchment from her pocket and sketched a sign on it; a sign that automatically lifted off the paper and hovered in mid-air, enlarging like the clouds that swelled on the ever-nearing horizon. The sigil rose into the sky like a beacon, and other signs quickly joined it from other boats– the improvised calming symbols of a dozen shamans. None was quite like Hackley’s.

From out of the thunder, ships were emerged. Their torn sails flapped noisily, carrying a breeze by some miracle helped along by dark, druidic magic. Some had the damaged prows of Seafarer boats ransacked, hands and heads missing, or else split in hideous ways. Others were not Seafarer at all, and boasted carvings to match the druids’ own eclectic appearances. As the ships neared, it was possible to see what had boarded them. They were as mismatched an amalgam of parts as the ships themselves. Rotting ears hung through lank hair, and antlers were raised like thunderbolts in reverse, black reliefs against the sparky sky. The fungus bloated limbs and faces, garnishing everything with crimson.

Turon did not react well. ‘Men! We, I mean, I, we must, ah, that is–’

‘Where’s Erasmus?’ Eiron shouted. He shook, and the handle of his great, iron axe, hefted high into the air, was glistening with sweat. ‘In the names of my ancestors, I’ll have his head! Where is he?’ Immediately, he ordered his ship to the centre of the druids’ fleet. It clove the flotilla in two, and he jumped, supporting himself over the edge of the starboard side with one hand, kicking back his assailants as he landed on the deck of an enemy ship. In two clean strokes, his weapon offed two heads. Other Seafarer ships sailed to his example, coasting coolly into the fray. ‘Erasmus!’ he continued to yell. ‘Erasmus! Where are you? Come out and face me!’ His axe next found a shambling giant, and stuck him in the forehead.

Turon continued to panic. ‘I don’t understand,’ he stammered. ‘I know all the sagas. I know where to put my ships. I didn’t expect it to be like this.’

‘We don’t have time for this,’ told him, curtly. ‘Look, that ship’s breaking away from the others.’ My first dove forgotten, I cast a second, and sent her gliding into the air. The updraught behind her caught us two mages and tugged us skyward, our robes whipping around our ankles. We spun towards the deck of the ship Eiron had mounted, where the crew were now decimated. A hurricane intensified, we caught him too, and sent ourselves spinning onto the deck of the furthest back druid ship, a leaky, low-lying boat with lumps of mould plastered to its sides and no flag of allegiance. This, I was sure, was the mother ship. In its wake, the water ran blood-red with spores.

The deck we landed on was unstable– though she was light, Hackley instantly put her foot through a rotting board, and had to be pulled free. The ship, we soon found, was made almost entirely of fungus, clumps of the purplish stuff coming away from the sides when we touched them. As far as we could tell, it had now crew.

‘What is this?’ I asked the others.

I had no chance of a reply. Evidently, the fungus ship reached the patch of ocean that was its destination, and began to break apart. Huge handfuls of reddish mass and chunks of wood were dumped into the ocean. As that happened, infected fish-men, some of them shouting for Menaus, emerged and clawed the clumps of fungus into the water.

‘Oh no,’ said Eiron, savagely. ‘I know what’s down there.’

‘What?’ I demanded to know.

‘Aais showed me one of his elders. One of his gods. They live beneath the ocean.’

‘Was it some kind of spirit?’

‘No. It has a body. It has a physical form.’

I felt the blood drain from my face, at the same rate that the sea seemed to be acquiring blood. I knew, now, what was going on. It was as though I had been saving my sight for this very moment. ‘They’re going to infect it,’ I shouted, desperately. ‘How dangerous is this thing?’

Eiron shrugged massively. ‘The god Aais showed me, the one the size of your tower?’ he grunted. ‘It was a small god.’

‘Get everyone out of here, now!’

Hackley dashed to my side, and, wordlessly, our fingers wove together, casting an intricate spell. Turon flew up into the air, suspended in the storm. Other Seafarers followed him, many still shouting that they had been denied the right to kill. Eiron rose slowly and magnificently. As the lot flew off, I felt a gust of wind blast me in the face. The tides were changing. A small island seemed to be rising in the centre of the druid fleet, pushing boats aside as easily as if they were made of paper. The sea boiled, bubbling up like trouble in a cauldron. Then, I saw, the island was not an island after all– it was the angry, red head of a monster.

Tentacles rose up like hooks, dripping seawater and uprooted forests of kelp. From the churning water, the rest of the kraken emerged, pouring waterfalls. It had ridges on its back that could have been mountains. Its gaping maw, which sucked in the sea like a whirlpool, might have been a safe cove.

‘Look at that thing,’ Hackley swore. ‘It’s incredible.’

‘It is,’ I admitted. ‘But it’s warping the world around it. Can you feel that? The wind just changed.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Eiron yelled.

‘I don’t know.’