Chapter Thirty-Five: On the Northern Bay

 

Galveston had obviously won whatever argument she’d been having with Galeon: her soldiers pushed the Wizards apart and attempted to take Kyosti away.

Kayla wouldn’t let him go. “You’ll take him now? I need him to banish this monster!”

This was a lie; she could banish it on her own, but Galveston didn’t know this. The soldiers hesitated. “How do I know you won’t make it even worse?” Galveston snapped. “I certainly don’t trust a Wizard. And I thought I could trust Romalidan, but apparently I was wrong even about that.”

“If you can trust one thing from an Innis,” Kyosti told her, “you can trust that we’ll save a fish from unnecessary death. We don’t want these soldiers to hurt it any more than you do.”

“What supplies do you need?” Galeon asked before Galveston could speak again.

Anglorae gave a short laugh.

“No supplies are necessary,” Kyosti said. “But you’ll have to get us close.”

“Really close,” Kayla added.

“Then you’ll come on my boat,” Galveston said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

It was a fight to get out to the boat, and an even worse fight to get it out on the water: the inhabitants of the northern bay were streaming into the city in droves, clogging both the docks and the water around it. Wreckage from the storm floated dangerously on top of the water, but eventually they managed to get out past the refugees. The queen’s ship was only a large fishing boat, since that was the only boat available at this dock, but the sailors skillfully maneuvered around the floating houses and other boats.

“Tell me your plan,” Galveston commanded. The boat had no cabin, but they--the queen, her chief captain, Galeon, Kyosti, Kayla, Anglorae, and now Galeon’s daughter Minny---huddled in the small hold to escape from the wind. 

Anglorae was still clinging to Kyosti’s side, but her voice didn’t waver as she answered. “They already said, the plan is to banish the sea monster.”

“Young lady, don’t think just because I invited you into this city that means you can talk back to me,” Galveston said through gritted teeth. “What is the process?”

Kyosti and Kayla didn’t answer for a moment, each hoping the other one would take the lead. “Well, banishing a sea monster is actually a very simple process,” Kyosti said finally. “First, you have to find out what it wants. Then you have to give it what it wants. Finally, you lead it back into the open ocean, and it’ll leave.”

Galveston was silent for a moment, but it was the silence of a growing storm. “It seems to me that what it wants is to completely destroy my city,” she said finally. “Are we going to give it that?”

“Usually a sea monster attacks because there is an uncompleted ritual, an unfinished prayer. If we can figure out what has been left incomplete, then it will be simple to stop it,” Kayla said. “Rituals and prayers don’t generally include destruction of entire cities, so I think we can rule that out.”

“‘Generally’??”

“What if we don’t know the ritual?” Galeon asked. “Many Innis rituals have been lost and forgotten.”

“It’s possible,” Kyosti admitted. “But chances are Kayla or I were the ones who left the ritual unfinished. That’s why the sea monster has come here instead of somewhere else.”

“It must have been you,” Kayla said. “I don’t do Innis rituals anymore.”

Kyosti shook his head. “Probably the ritual was started unintentionally. We’ll have to find out which one.”

The waves grew stronger and higher as they approached the sea monster. The wind whipped around the boat, throwing it even higher in the air.

“We’re not going to get much closer than this!” one of the sailors yelled to the queen over the wind. “You may have to get off and walk through the houses to get closer!”

Fish had no vocal cords, so the sea monster didn’t vocalize, but Kyosti could hear houses smashing in front of them as it struggled closer through the bay. The water was becoming shallower; he wondered how close it could get before it became impossible.

“Your Majesty, you should stay here!” Galeon insisted, but Galveston pushed him away.

“And let you work some trick to destroy this country more than you already have?” she snapped. “I’m going to watch what happens.”

The sailors steered the boat close to the rickety boardwalk between the houses, and they leapt over the side. Kyosti’s grip on Kayla’s arm was so tight he was sure it was hurting her. Their group rushed down the boards and through abandoned houses and across boats. The sleet and wind whipped over them, and the ground rocked violently under their feet.

“Do you know where Sanji and John are?” Anglorae asked as they ran. Kyosti’s footsteps stumbled.

Kayla said, “We got them out of the palace. The queen still doesn’t know they were working for us, otherwise they would probably be dead by now. As to where they went---I don’t know.”

“Well good riddance to them,” Anglorae muttered. “I hope they stay far away.”

Kyosti said nothing.

Finally, they came within clear sighting of the sea monster. Without planning it or thinking how dangerous it was, their group came to a halt to look at it.

“What does it look like?” Kyosti whispered to Kayla urgently.

“Kyosti…” she murmured. “That’s a toothfish!”

He gaped at her. “A toothfish?”

Toothfish were found only in the very south, under the Icefields. They were never found this far north.

“Are you sure that’s the same species we saw at the fort?” he whispered to Anglorae.

“I’m sure! It has the same freaky mouth and black scales!”

“Toothfish don’t have freaky mouths,” Kayla muttered.

Galveston yelled, “Move on! It’s too dangerous to stay still!”

As they came even closer, Kyosti could hear the water rushing in and out of the toothfish’s mouth as it opened and closed it, breaking houses and coming ever closer to the harbor.

Kayla pulled him to a stop. “This is as close as we can go!” she yelled. “We’ll have to do this here!”

Kyosti leaned onto her arm, struggling to keep his balance on the constantly shifting ground. “You sure you remember enough Innis to do this?”

“You’re the one who told me to stop speaking Innis!”

They unwrapped their faces against the cold, hair and skin unveiled to the sea monster’s gaze. Next to him, Kyosti could feel Anglorae also removing her scarves and head wrapper.

The wind bit into their exposed skin, and Anglorae groaned.

Kyosti raised his hands above his head. The crashing of houses falling apart faded away, and all that was left was the rush of the wind and the waves.

“With my voice I greet you,” Kyosti yelled, hoping the fish could hear him. “The leopard seal howls in the darkest night; who can tell its desires?”

Kayla spoke up after him, her voice louder than his. “A flower blooms in the north, but in the south only the lichen reigns.”

Both of them paused for a moment, waiting for the sea monster’s reply. There was none.

“Hmm, not that ritual then,” Kayla said. “Which one do you think?”

Kyosti tried again. “If there’s a start to any word, then you are the ending to that word.”

No response.

They went through a series of trigger phrases for several different rituals with no response. “Maybe it really is one we don’t know,” Kyosti muttered.

“At least it’s stopped attacking,” Kayla muttered. “But that won’t work for long.”

Galveston tapped her foot impatiently. “Can you send it away or not? The archers are coming. If you want to save it, you’ll have to stop it soon before I order them to kill it.”

“We need to get closer,” Kyosti decided. “I can’t tell what it’s thinking from this far away.”

“You can tell what it’s thinking?” Anglorae asked, but Kayla and Kyosti ignored her. They continued down the boardwalk and through the houses. This close to the fish, the houses were in shambles, leaving mountains of debris to walk across. Galveston stubbornly followed them, but Galeon grabbed Anglorae and refused to let her go any farther. “Your Majesty, it’s too dangerous to go on any more!” the captain of the guard yelled, but the queen ignored him.

“What kind of sorcery is this that you’re practicing?” she demanded, huffing and puffing as they clambered through the floating debris. “You’ll lead to the destruction of this city. I know it.”

Within minutes, they were closer to the monster than ever before. “I have never heard of a sea monster this big,” Kayla gasped. “Only a HitherBlissery would be bigger than this. What kind of prayer did you leave unfinished?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out!” Kyosti responded. He raised his voice. “With a cycle comes the snake; is the blood a moment for lizards?”

Kayla gasped. “It responded to that! It rolled so I could see its eye!”

“But I didn’t do that ritual!” Kyosti insisted. “There’s got to be something else…”

Galveston’s hand closed around his arm. “It’s coming closer.”

Indeed it was. Softly, slowly, much calmer than it had before, the fish wriggled closer in the water. Waves of water came before it, buffeting the boardwalk they stood on, barely attached to a still-standing house.

“Is this part of the plan?” Galveston demanded.

“Of course it is!” Kayla said, her voice almost joyful. “We know how to turn it back!”

Barely a boat-length away from them, the fish slapped its tail on the water, a resounding BOOM like a thunderclap. Kyosti groaned and held his ears. In this moment of distraction, the fish opened its mouth once more---

The sea poured into its mouth, and Kyosti lost his footing as the boardwalk they were standing on finally broke free and lurched toward the sea monster’s mouth. He, Kayla, and Galveston, screaming and clutching each other, streamed forward, neatly and without obstruction. Behind them, the other Wizards and soldiers yelled in alarm. Arrows flashed into the water around them, but it was too late.

The rushing water pulled them without any salvation into the toothfish’s mouth. With a creak, a groan, a resounding BANG, the fish’s mouth closed around them.

It had swallowed them.

___________

Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash