Chapter 6:
The Wreckage
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Amelia had always hated being underwater.
Even with so few memories as she had, even when she didn’t remember her parents’ faces. She knew this was an undeniable fact about herself.
She had nearly drowned once, she knew that. She had fallen backwards inside a lake while with her father. Water had filled her ears, her mouth, her lungs, the lake hadn’t even been that deep, but she had been a child and never once wanted to be near deep waters like that again.
Why did that memory pop into her head at that moment? Maybe because that one childhood experience paled in comparison to what was happening now, to how her lungs burned, how the water pushed her down and down as the bubbles with the last bit of oxygen that had remained in her lungs drifted up to the surface.
She had fallen first and sank like a rock thrown to the sea, unprepared, unable to fight. The weight of the water sank her as the waves dragged her away from the figures of her companions, who had fallen after her but not enough to catch her.
It hurt, trying to fight, against the water, against the weight of the sea. It felt like hours even when her mind knew that she had seconds left, her legs kicked, and her arms moved up but it was useless. She was sinking in the darkness and it was only the sheer terror that kept her conscious. But then, light shined in the growing darkness and she saw a shadow swimming towards her, but her hope went away with the last of her kicks. She was too far away; they wouldn’t reach her on time.
Something pushed her up, fast, until the sharpness of the very air she was longing for cut through her lungs. Amelia coughed a horrible, inhuman sound out of her throat. The coughing distracted her from the panic of sinking again and from the two pairs of arms that held her from her front and behind. Her body was tense, but wouldn’t that just mean that it was easier for her to sink again? Panic rose inside her, but somebody’s hand held her tight by the chin.
“Open your eyes,” a man’s voice said and she did. Had they been closed all this time? “You don’t know how to swim, don’t you? Don’t fight, we got you. Take a deep breath.”
Ector’s voice was barely audible above the water and the crush of the waves. One particularly big moved them and her arms circled his neck by instinct. Her chest hurt, and she turned around, the boy – whose name she hadn’t truly asked – was holding her too, his arms under her armpits.
Rain poured above them and it just made the cold and the waves worse, both Ector and the boy’s faces were pale and their lips blue from the cold. Amelia felt the guilt washing over her along with the paralysing freeze of the night. She had chosen that door, she had brought them here.
“Have you got her?” Briallen’s voice came from behind them, there was a blue light emanating from under her. Was that how they had found her?
“We got her!”
“Damn you, Ivor!” Ector shouted from over the rain, though his arm still held Amelia tight. “I told you to not give the key to her; she probably lost it when she fell.”
“If she dies, the bloody key will be the least of our problems!” Briallen shouted from the other side. “You have the other one, open a portal yourself! We need to find land!”
“There is no land here, princess!” The man’s shout made her ears ring. Briallen ignored him; she was now shooting coloured lights to the sky. Blue, yellow, red, orange, they were like fireworks that came from her palms.
Ector turned to Amelia as another wave nearly ripped them apart. “Can you reach inside my doublet? If I let you go you might take Ewen with you.”
“There is no door here!” she screamed and the next wave crashed against them, though this time she tried to keep her head over the water with all her non-existent strength. “How can I open something in the middle of the water?”
“Another will come soon!” Ewen said over the rain. “Princess, Master Ivor, you need to come here! We need to keep close!”
“You don’t need a door,” Ector said, his arm still firm around her waist, but Amelia could see that his lips had been slowly going pale and blue. “You are Weaver; these rules shouldn’t matter to you.”
Amelia wanted nothing but to scream that she didn’t know what the rules were, that she didn’t know how her supposed powers were but she held her tongue. This was her fault, she had picked the door, so sure of herself and now they had lost one of their ways out or both if the key hadn’t slipped from Ector’s clothes since when he had saved her.
Without another word, she stretched her arm under the water, feeling a little because of the cold but trying to take advantage of the light that Briallen was providing to reach inside his clothes. Then, daring, she took a deep breath and submerged her face in the water. Not full, because she couldn’t, but enough to see what she was looking for.
The chain was almost picking up from the pocket, only staying there by sheer luck. Amelia grabbed it like it was the thing that would keep them afloat and warm.
“Now you need to think about a door, about leaving this world.” Her heart jolted in panic when his grip on her started to lose but it quickly calmed down when Ewen – had that been the name she heard for the boy? – also started to help her turn around. “In the air, not close to the water, it might not work like that.”
Amelia just nodded because she was sure that her teeth would break on their tattle if she dared to open her mouth. Her eyes went to the lights that Briallen kept shooting to the sky, as well as her calls for help. Ivor had huddled close to her, though whatever it was to help her with her magic or to keep her warm, she couldn’t say. She wanted to scream at them to get close, that there was nothing in this endless, stormy sea. Instead, she just took a deep breath and closed her eyes, stretching her arm to the air and imagining a door, a white door just like the one in that maddening white hall, a door to take them out of that world. The shape of the lock and the hardness of the wood conjured in her mind as she released her breath and turned her hand to open it.
The wave that came next finally separated them and Amelia gasped as she kicked her legs under the water and tried to keep her head up. There was nothing there, no door, no magical solution, only the light of Briallen’s lights and the faint sounds of the others trying to keep afloat.
She had failed again.
Was she really what they were looking for? Or had they gotten a random woman who had become aware that her world was so small? In any case, she was no hero, no sorceress. How could she help anyone when she had so stupidly guided them to their deaths?
“A ship!” Briallen’s broken voice came from afar as more lights shot to the sky. “There is a ship! Ewen, help her! All together, quick! Here! We are here! Help!”
“I got you, my lady,” Ewen said, his arm already under Amelia’s armpit. How hadn’t she noticed him? “Ector, quick! They need to see us.”
The man swam to them, his expression dark, already blueish – strangely more than the rest of them – but he said nothing as he approached their circle. Amelia avoided his cold gaze as she started to stir her arms and shout along with the others in the direction of that shadow that came from the distance.
It was indeed a ship, a relief washed her frozen body when she saw the lights blinking from it as they shouted for help. Her voice grew steadier even when it hurt her throat to scream. It was so close now, that they could see the white veils now lighted by Briallen and Ivor’s magic. Somebody aboard it shouted and something hard and round nearly fell over their faces.
Amelia could have cried with joy when she saw the barrel and her companions pushed her over it. The sudden prink on her stomach at being lifted was welcomed compared to the freezing water. Three pairs of hands helped her climb inside. She barely looked at their faces, just at the men who threw the barrel again and started to lift the others above one by one.
Briallen was the first to come up and she hovered over her and asked her if they had done something, Amelia could only look at her confused, shaking her head.
“Your friend here is in shock, lassie,” a man said and Amelia finally looked up to their saviours. All men, unsurprisingly, but as the rain had stopped she could see their faces in the moonlight, all of them pale, weathered, like they too had been awake for a long time. “Now, can you explain to us what you were doing with those lights?”
“What are you doing without lights?” Briallen shot back, eyeing them suspiciously. “It is for the rain or is it truly land so far you don’t bother?”
“You are strange ones, aren’t you?” The captain said – she gathered he had to be that, as he was better dressed than the rest – and turned around to see the last of their group dragged behind. “But you’re not mermaids unless these three men are your prey.”
“Mermaids?” Amelia muttered and looked at the man who arched an eyebrow at her.
“We saw no other ship close, are you telling me that the beast ate yours and left you five behind?”
“The beast?” Ivor asked, resting himself over his staff. “Is this the Red Sea?”
“The what?”
“We are not home,” Ector said, on his knees, still gasping for air. One of the men eyed him; they had seen his bow and quiver.
Amelia stared at the small crew and saw what he meant; these people didn’t look like they were from their world. Even if all her companions dressed differently, they all seemed to have at least some little thing in common, the time period. The men in that ship looked like they had jumped from an 18th-century painting.
“Where is your home, then?” One of them snarled. “Some place down in this cursed sea where girls go around dressed in undergarments like this one.” He pointed at Amelia. “Or one where people grow blue hair like this other lass here? Are you with the creature?”
“No, it attacked our ship.” Ector’s voice came firm and collected as he got up, they all stared at him, Briallen with her mouth half open, Ivor with a look of horror and Ewen full of confusion. “We’ve been at open sea for about an hour, just lucky that it didn’t come back for us.”
The captain scoffed, walking towards him the men turned their guns and swords. Ector kept his face inexpressive, his back straight as if he hadn’t been coughing just a moment ago.
“Must be fortunate that only you survived when none of the ships we’ve sent here have lived to tell the tale,” the captain circled him. “Curious how we saw that shooting light from her hands and suddenly the creature has let you go.”
“Maybe those same lights were what scared it away.”
“Lights attract the beast, boy, don’t play coy with me.”
Ector crooked an eyebrow. “If no men have survived, then how do you know about the creature?”
The captain let out a dry laugh and Amelia gripped Briallen’s arm when the men started to surround them. The heat that was coming from her hand warned her of her next move and she shook her head to the princess. They were too many, even with magic, there was no way they would get away in the middle of that ocean.
“Please.” Her voice cracked, her throat dry and salty. “Please, we just wanted to get out of the water. We’ll get off of your skin if you just let us in the next port.”
This time, more than one man laughed, their voices breaking through the sound of the water. Briallen gripped her arm harder as the captain stepped away from Ector and to them, while his men held him by the arms. His eyes buried on Amelia’s for a second and she shook her head, her hand gripping the key so tight it was surely leaving a mark.
“We are in open sea, lass.” The captain walked towards them but Amelia kept her eyes on her companions, the men were still holding Ector, Ivor and Ewen at gunpoint, though that meant little with the swords and guns also pointed at her and Briallen. “The only way you can get off my skin is if we throw you back in.”
Amelia sucked a breath, holding the man’s gaze, one hand gripping the key under her sleeve, the other Briallen’s hand.
“I promise you we are not a threat to you or your ship. But you— You can take me as your hostage if you want to make sure.” She felt the princess tense and her nails dug deeply into her skin. The captain’s eyes widened. “Or you can ask my companions here to help you and your crew; I am sure more hands will be needed for your hunt.”
“Hands to help or mouths to feed?” One of the men growled but his superior ignored him, turning around and staring at Ector, whose eyes never moved from Amelia’s face, then to Ivor, who looked horrified and Ewen, who looked both confused and furious.
Amelia shook her head to them and then to Briallen at her side as the captain to her arm, separating them. The man towered her by more than a head and in any other situation, her instinct would have probably just urged her to run. Maybe the cold had just numbed those instincts now, though.
“Are you their leader, woman?” The man asked and Amelia bit her cheek. Leader? She was barely a luggage, a precious one, in a sense, but a luggage nevertheless. “Did you command them to enter this ship and use the other one as a distraction?”
“Do I look like I can do that?” Amelia almost laughed; opening her frozen arms and making them fall on her sides. The captain smiled, slightly, looking at her up and down. Thank god she had buttoned up her coat before they left her house.
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“Appearances can be deceitful,” the captain said, still grabbing her wrist. “Most of all in the open sea, but I will take your word, lass. Just let the rest of your friends know that they are risking your neck if they don’t keep their part of this deal."
“I can’t see how this is a deal,” Ivor said, “when you are taking her hostage and we don’t get anything.”
“You get our arse on solid ground, content yourself with that,” the captain said as he dragged her off the bridge.
She kept shaking her head at her companions as the crew stripped them of any weapons they had. All of them seemed ready to jump at the old man but it would only get them killed. She made a sign in the air as if she were opening a door and showed the key still firmly grasped in her hand. She just needed a door, she was on solid ground this time, and even if she couldn’t, soon or later they would need to let Briallen close to her as the only other woman onboard.
They walked downstairs and down two corridors until they got to a door. “Here,” the captain said, “you stay here and don’t try anything funny. I will have something for you to do when I finish with your friends.”
“Yes, sir,” Amelia said, stepping inside and hugging herself. The cabin was quite big and there was a fire going on despite the storm, it would have been pleasant if she didn’t feel the man’s eyes on her back.
The captain hummed and closed the door behind her, the click of a key sealing her fate. Only then did Amelia let herself sigh and turn around, placing her ear over the wood to hear him leave. Then, after confirming that there wasn’t any sound other than the clashes of the waves and the screams of the crew outside, she took her silver key and placed it in the door’s lock.
Nothing happened when she tried to open it.
She tried again, tucking it in two times, and turning it, but the door kept being locked. With a groan of frustration, Amelia banged the door with her fist and then fell to the floor, sinking her hands in her hair.
How stupid was she? It hadn’t worked in the sea, why would it work now? Whatever magic she had it didn’t want to cooperate and anyway, who was to stay if she had it? Maybe they got the wrong person, maybe she was just another poor soul trapped in that loop and their real Weaver was laughing at them right now.
She took the key out and stared at it, then got up and started walking the cabin, searching for something that could serve as a weapon in case she needed to use one. The place had a wooden desk, still looking quite early 18th century, a wardrobe, a small dinner table and a single bed. Keeping her attention on the door for a moment, Amelia started searching inside the drawers of the desk, searching for anything that could serve to defend herself.
Nothing again, nothing but some quills – actual quills, from a bird – and paper. At least it could be said that this captain wasn’t a pirate. In stories and history, she would dare to say that someone dangerous would have weapons in his cabin.
“Dammit.”
She could break the window, but what good would that do? She could only end up in the sea and her body was already freezing as it was with her damp clothes clinging to her skin. She walked to it anyway, though there was only dark waters to see, the ship had no lights on and the moon had been covered by the cloud storms.
Sighing, she got close to the fire, trying to warm up her hands. The others were still outside, hopefully, alive if the captain hadn’t lied to her and decided to throw them overboard. There had to be a way to open the door, to leave this world.
Walking to the door again, Amelia warmed the silver key against her hand, as if that could bestow it with the supposed rule-breaking magic they said she possessed. “Please,” she said softly as she tugged the key inside again. “Please, just let us leave this place.”
The force of the impact hit her against the wall before she could even turn the key, knocking the air out of her so thoroughly she didn’t get to scream. Black spots twitched in front of her eyes as she tried to get up and look at what had hit her…
What had hit her had almost ripped the entire fourth wall of the captain’s cabin.
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When the beast hit the ship, Briallen couldn’t help but think that they would have been better off inside the water than in there, at least they would have died some minutes ago instead of what they were doing now: climbing and running in hopes to avoid being eaten.
The monster was a dark shadow even when she illuminated the deck to give the men some semblance of visibility. The sickening crack of the wood as it tried to drag the ship down to the ocean was what alerted them as she and Master Ivor posted themselves in the cleaning duties that the captain had so kindly assigned them in the condition of being an old fragile man and a woman. Ector and Ewen had been taken away to help with the sails and the cannons, but none of them had even begun when the beast had arrived.
Briallen’s hands trembled but she still tried to gather some calmness, some concentration to summon her spell and attack the beast from afar with one hand while the other kept the light in that sea of darkness. She hit one of the long tentacles that kept squeezing the ship and the screech the creature let out nearly made her fall to her knees.
“No!” she shouted when one of the men tried to attack the tentacle with a sword only to be slapped out of the ship by the force of its hit. She summoned some light again, shooting it to the sky to see where everyone was. Half of the crew was desperate to save the sails from being torn out of the ship, the other half was panicked, running down to the storages and screaming or picking the tentacles with swords and lances. “Light! We need more light!”
“Are you mad, woman?” Someone said as her spell vanished to leave them again in darkness. “The light just makes it more furious!”
“What does that matter?” Briallen said, blindly turning to the voice and then shooting another spell so she could see where to walk away. The movement of the ship made it difficult, she nearly fell again before grabbing a hanging rope. “It is already here! Isn’t this what you wanted? To kill the beast? You can’t do it if we are blind!”
“The captain wants to capture it alive!” One of the sailors said and as if comprehending the words, the creature’s tentacles closed even further around the ship, making the floor tremble and crack.
“Capture it?” she repeated, dumbfounded. “Are you mad?”
The creature had to be at least two times bigger than the ship, even if they were to injure it enough to stop them from crushing it to dust, how could they expect to capture it? They didn’t even know what kind of animal was, or what were its weaknesses. This mission was a madman’s quest.
And they were stuck in it.
“Princess!” There was a scream and she saw a tentacle throw another sailor overboard. “Princess, over here!”
Light broke against the darkness again, a shield of pale green light shielded Briallen and the rest of the crew members as the monster sought to attack again. She had lost the old man in the chaos of the first attack, but she couldn’t help but feel relief at seeing him well and alive. Stumbling by the moving ship and the freezing rain, Briallen finally got to him, reaching his hand as she lifted hers to keep his shield up.
“Where are the others?”
“The captain is down the deck, preparing the cannons,” Ivor shouted over the sound and they both hunched as the creature hit the shield once again. “He took Ewen with him, they want to hurt the beast but everyone here is panicking. You need to go now that they are distracted, find the lady before the creature crushes the ship.”
“Hey! You two! Get back to work! Take a sword! Take a harpoon!”
Briallen took one to not get stabbed by but she doubted anything but strong magic could even get to calm the beast, more less capture it alive. They were just making it angrier and they were angry themselves. Angry and scared for their lives, not a good combination for a crew of desperate men.
“I don’t think they will let us go,” she said and grabbed the harpoon with both hands, weakening the old man’s shield. She felt the men’s eyes over her as she launched herself over one of the long, black limbs of the creature.
The next screech nearly threw all of them out of the ship, more limps appeared and they found themselves cornered against a wall. Some of the men kept attacking, others were crying and saying prayers. More tentacles appeared. Was that beast infinite?
“Don’t you have your key?” she shouted at the sorcerer and he turned to her with wide eyes, one hand keeping another shield to protect them from the brutal trusts.
“I gave it to the lady, remember? She must have lost it when she fell and even if I had it, I am not strong enough to open one now.”
“Cover my back, I will find the Weaver and open a portal,” Briallen shouted, the bright blue of her own shield blending with his own white one.
“Find Ector too!” Ivor nodded as he raised both hands to keep his spell. “I lost sight of him when the beast arrived.”
Briallen nodded but she didn’t feel a lot of urge to find the man of the Moorlands, she feared him more around Lady Amelia than she feared the monster, it was luck that the Weaver had the key or he would probably abandon them to…
Oh, no.
The Weaver had the key, Briallen’s key, the one that she had stupidly given to that man after he had humiliated her for failing to capture the sorceress the first time.
Shit. Briallen gave Ivor a last apologetic look before lowering her hand and running towards the cabins.
She needed to get to Amelia Brown before it was too late.
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Amelia didn’t move a muscle for the minutes that seemed to pass like an eternity. She would be dead if she moved if the creature truly noticed as anything more than another piece of furniture in the captain’s cabin and kept busy with fighting the crew downstairs. It had seen her though, an enormous red eye had stared right at her when its tentacle had nearly torn the whole room in half before it had screeched so horribly that it nearly made her want to scream herself.
The tentacle was still there, inches from her leg, blocking her path and cornering her against the desk and the silver key was still in the door. Amelia kept looking back and front from one to the other. They needed the key to leave this place because Amelia had lost the other one when falling to this accursed sea so getting it was out of the question. But where would she go if it didn’t work? While the monster had broken most of the fourth wall of the cabin, everything past that hole was just it or the sea and the door itself was locked, so she had no way to escape to the hallway.
A copy? Could it be that the captain had a copy of his keys on the desk? Amelia turned her head slowly to her side, where the mess of papers, quills and ink had fallen with the force of the beast’s attack. Still seated, she moved at snail's pace to reach the drawers and opened one with a jolt, eyes in the tentacle that kept surprisingly still across the room.
Reaching for everything she could find, Amelia took out papers, trinkets and sailing instruments but there wasn’t a single key. The second drawer was locked and she swallowed a scream of frustration that nearly came out when the creature screeched again and the piercing sound made her fold into herself.
There was no other option, she had to open a portal like they told her or this ship would be everybody's grave. Eyes on the tentacle that twisted and hit inside the room, she slowly got up, keeping her back against the wall as she sled to the door. Her hands were leaving black marks on the wall because of the ink dipper that had broken when the creature had broken inside the cabin and made it look as if she was bleeding black blood.
Another screech made her ears hurt and the ship tremble. Swallowing a scream, Amelia took a deep breath and made a little jump, landing without touching the horrible black limb just out of luck and letting all the air once her hands made contact with the door.
Her hand went quickly to the key, turning it again and again.
“Come on,” she hissed, her eyes darting to the creature with every failed turn. “Come on, open!”
Amelia forced the door back, twisting the key once again without results and let out a frustrated scream and banged her blackened hands against the door. “Dammit! You fucking piece of shit! Open now!” With a sob of frustration, she wrote open now with her fingers, like a child wanting a trick to become truth. How useless, even when Briallen had said that the key worked without magic, apparently Amelia was so hopeless that—
The clicking sound of the lock nearly made her heart stop. She stared down at the half-open door and the key, that had somehow finally taken turns and was out in her hand. “How—?”
A sickening crunch made the floor shake as the sound of the cannon and the screech of the beast nearly made her fall outside. The tentacle nearly caught her leg but Amelia slammed the door closed and ran through the hallway to get away from the captain’s quarters. Another cannon shot nearly made her fall and she sank her nails on the wood of the walls, checking on her travelling bag still close to the upper part of her coat. The silver key nearly hurt her skin with the way she was grabbing it and she picked at another door while crossing the hallway… No, she couldn’t open a portal yet, even if she had managed to somehow open the door, she couldn’t leave without the others.
And, as if summoned, she nearly fell back when her body clashed against Ector. His hand grabbed her arm, steadying her as quickly as she cried out by the force of his grip.
“You got out,” he said when she looked up to him and shook her arm free. “We don’t have much time, do you have the key?”
Amelia stared at him for a second, he was as soaked as she was but she immediately took notice of his quiver and bow being back even after the captain had disarmed every single one of them. He also had Ewen’s short sword and Briallen’s long one. Is that what he had been doing while the others were probably dying up in the deck? Collecting their weapons?
“Where are the others?” she said, taking a step back.
“Probably coming down if the captain didn’t drag them to fight the beast. I got away after it attacked and knocked out the guards, their aversion to lights made it easy.” He took a step forward and Amelia recoiled. “Give me the key, we have to get away from here before it sinks the entire ship.”
Amelia shook her head. “We have to find the others before we open anything and we don’t know if this monster—”
“The others could very well be dead and there is no time to—”
The scream got caught in her throat when the floor cracked and opened under her as the monster screeched once again. Ector caught her quickly by the arm, pulling her away from the hole and close to him.
“There is no time, we need to get out of here,” he said, “the others might be dead. If we go there—”
“Let her go!”
Amelia’s head snapped away from the man and relief filled her when she saw Princess Briallen, standing behind him, her hands bright with blue magic. Ector made a face and didn’t turn around.
“You are alive, then, princess.”
“Inconveniently for you.”
“Good, take your damn weapon and serve something then,” he released Amelia’s arm brusquely and turned around, taking the long sword from his waist and giving it to the princess.
Briallen stared at him with narrowed eyes but took back her weapon, then her eyes went to Amelia, her expression full of concern. “Are you all right, my lady?”
“Yes, we need to find the others and get out of here.”
“Ivor was just covering behind me, he will be here soon,” Briallen said as they started climbing the stairs out of the officials’ quarters. “And Ewen—”
“Your Highness! Ector!” The old wizard’s voice came in between the screams of the crew and the screeches of the monster. He and Ewen came leaning on each other, one with a bad leg and the other holding a bleeding side. “The lad barely escaped the crew and— We need to go, find a door. Now!”
There was another shot of the cannon and the floor sank under their feet… Or more accurately, the ship was sinking, breaking into blisters.
Amelia put the key in Briallen's hands, not trusting herself even though she had managed to open that door. The princess took charge quickly and soon they were all down the hallway again, in front of a door as she put the key in one of the closed doors, her skin glowing sky blue. White light came from the other side when she opened the door and all but fell back in the Hall.
Amelia caught her quickly as they all went inside, leaving the screams, the death and the horror of the sea behind.