Tundra

Was it a forest, or wasn’t it? Lurid pinks, oranges and purples branched and blossomed around us, in between fossilised brains and lumps of porous, bluish rock. Everything was wet to touch, as though we stood in an alien version of the southern rainforest. Strangest of all was the ground we walked on, which seemed much too solid and cohesive to be packed earth, but at the same time too squishy too be bedrock. I guessed then that it was the exposed, tender flesh of the elder that differed from the exoskeleton that guarded the creature’s sides closer to where the waves lapped at its mass. Multi-coloured barnacles, the largest like a small volcano on the horizon, dotted the skyline, which so far away, even from a great height, as to show the curvature of the earth.

‘So this beast was under the ocean the whole time?’ Hackley asked, in awe. ‘How were we not aware of this?’

‘I don’t think we should call it a beast,’ I said, more cautiously. ‘From what Aais tells me, it’s self-aware, and probably a lot more intelligent than us. There’s a lot down there that we don’t know about. If we survive this, maybe one of us should make some real study of the ocean.’

’Why?’ Hackley posed. ‘We’re cast out, remember?’

‘Some school will have us,’ I muttered, more to myself than to her. ‘Maybe not the nameless school, but I’m sure we can find somewhere to go. These people respect results.’

‘They also respect tradition.’

‘True.’

Hackley cocked her head to the side and squatted down, wiping some film away from the monster’s skin with her little fingers. I wondered how far down the blubber or whatever it was ran before the elder’s skin ended and its innards began. My Apprentice, however, was thinking something else. ‘Do you think we can communicate with it?’ she asked.

‘Maybe,’ I supplied. ‘Think of it this way, though– if an ant tried to talk to you, would you notice? If you did, would you care?’

‘I would, actually.’

‘Is that because you’re a mage, though?’

‘Probably, yes.’

‘Regardless,’ I said, I’d like to wait for Aais to return. I’d hate to get this elder offside by saying the wrong thing.’

‘Warding circle?’ Hackley suggested.

I nodded a stiff assent. ‘Yes.’

Spreading ourselves into as much of a circle as could be formed by two human bodies, we started to prepare the spell that would ward us against spirits, so that Eiron and Aais could go somewhere safe. Shaking a pouch from my pocket, I sprinkled the circumference of the imaginary circle with a generous garnish of purified salt, which began to seethe immediately as the skin beneath it blistered. With the mass of a world, the elder gave an earthquake shudder.

‘Alright. We can’t do that, then,’ I told Hackley not without bitterness. ‘We’re going to have to do this on the fly. Can you keep those rocks airborne, so that we can leave quickly?’

‘Alright.’ There was something to be said at least, I thought to myself, for Hackley’s brevity. At my command, she began the chants that coaxed the rocks into the air, where they hovered dangerously.

‘Ready?’ I asked her.

‘Ready,’ she replied.

With my right arm raised and a corner of paper in my hand, I sent up the flare. The parchment on which the rune had been etched ahead of time ignited, sending furious flames along my fingers, bursting from their tips. A second later, Eiron came bolting through the coral trees, hung as they were with strands of dredged seaweed like miserable mistletoe. Over his shoulder was a very bedraggled fish-man. I was about to shout our success when I saw what was coming behind them.

Lumbering more than rushing, and awkward on the land, the dead things, misty-eyed like a fisherman’s soulless catch, moved with a speed born of pure malice in spite of incapacity. Bits of their fins tore as they ran without care for their bodies. Webbed fingers and toes dropped off as easily as if they were shed on purpose. Men brought up their rear, plodding with grave determination. I reached back into the folds of my robe, grasping for the scrap on which I knew I had written a rune of blasting fire. Finding it, I held it automatically aloft, and quickly found my hands deprived of it.

‘No!’ It was Aais, his eyes rounder with fear than I had ever seen with wonder or interest.

‘What?’ I stammered.

’They’re his family,’ Eiron answered in a fathomless voice, tinged with annoyance. ‘I don’t know.’

Meanwhile, the head dead fish-man clambered forward. ‘More of you?’ he said, sniffing the air with obvious relish. ‘Excellent! We have something to show you all.’

‘So be it.’

I closed my eyes, pushing out a bubble of force from between my hands. The bubble grew, stretching out until it encompassed all our foes, who struggled violently against the spell. At the same time, Hackley’s levitating rocks bowed closer to the ground, near enough for Eiron to climb up and haul Aais after him.

The head fish-creature let out a piteous wail. ‘We will have you,’ crooned the echoes of his hate, growing distant as our boulders soared away. ‘One way or another, you will join us.’

Where we had been moments prior, the earth or skin of the elder began to tremble, until the island was shaking all over. It shuddered forward just as we cleared the canopy, rolling away into the night.