Crystal Doors #1 (19 page)

Gwen, Sharif, and Lyssandra went after the winged
predators with their new weapons. Soon stunned fish flopped and twitched on the deck. Kaisa dispatched any that showed signs of reviving.

By now the broad orange sails of the
Golden Walrus
were shredded. Ribbons of cloth dangled from the yardarms. At the water line, the fish had settled onto the treated hull planking, grasping the few remaining barnacles with sharp fin-spines so they could gnaw on the hull.

Captain Dimas bellowed, stomping fish with his boots, sweeping his leather-sleeved arm sideways to knock them off the deck rails and the masts.

To Sage Snigmythya’s dismay, the piranhas dove into the scroll baskets and tore the spell scrolls to shreds, making the magic useless. “Oh, they did that on purpose!” she moaned. “On purpose!”

Abakas raised his voice with a warning to be heard above the clamor. “Everyone, listen! Your protective spells will not last long!”

Captain Dimas said, “I have never known a swarm of flying piranhas to stay in one place for this long. They usually sweep in, rip everything to shreds, and then continue.”

Tiaret skewered two more fish with the point of her teaching staff. “Then these are not normal flying piranhas.”

“No,” Lyssandra said. “Not normal at all. They are being… guided.”

Sharif growled, “It must be merlon magic!”

“Thanks to our camouflage spell, the merlons could not see our ship from beneath the water,” said Abakas. “But if the
flying piranhas are indeed their spies, the merlons will soon know where we are.”

“Oh, my! Now we are doomed!” moaned Snigmythya. “Doomed.”

“In danger, perhaps,” Tiaret said, setting her jaw. “But not doomed yet.”

From out of the darkness, the flying piranhas kept coming, thousands of them swarming over the ship. They stripped the sailcloth down to shreds, and left teeth marks on the thick yardarms and masts.

One nipped Vic between the shoulder blades. He yelled, slapping with his hands, and Gwen knocked the creature away. “The spell must be wearing off. We’re not protected anymore.”

“Quick — everyone inside the cabins or get belowdecks!” The captain looked sickened, but still determined. “If we do not protect ourselves, we — along with this vessel — will become skeletons.” His face creased in a grim frown. “My beautiful vessel…”

While students jumped through the hatch covers into the hold and pulled the grates into place, Gwen, Vic, and their friends ran to the captain’s cabin. All of them crammed inside and Tiaret slammed the wooden door shut behind them. Captain Dimas threw the stout iron bolt, and they all crowded together, listening to the constant battering and chirping as the predators continued their relentless assault.

Gwen heard cracking and splintering sounds, and endless buzzing as the piranhas smashed against the walls, the deck.
One of the deadly fish crashed into the cabin’s small crystal window. Stunned, the creature fell aside, leaving a slimy smear on the glass. Then a second fish hit even harder, as if drawn to a new target. A crack split the crystal pane.

A third flying piranha hurtled headfirst into the window, finally shattering the glass. Its spiny fins caught on the jagged pane. Stuck halfway through the hole, it snapped its needle-like teeth, squirmed its scaly body, and pushed with its fins to propel itself toward the people huddled inside.

Vic went forward and pounded the fish’s thick body with his pan, driving it onto a sharp crystal splinter from the broken window. The skewered piranha squirmed, its mouth agape, its big-finned body filling most of the window.

As they all held their breath and listened, the sounds of skittering, flapping, and chirping seemed to be dying down. The deadly swarm was finally moving on. Two straggling fish fell upon the dead piranha carcass pinned in the broken window frame, chewing out mouthfuls of stringy meat. Leaving the half-eaten body behind and their dead strewn on what remained of the deck, the last piranhas flew away, flapping into the night.

When the humans heard nothing for a few moments, Captain Dimas creaked open the door of the mangled cabin so they could look at what remained of the
Golden Walrus.

Portions of the deck were splintered, the rails nicked, gouged, and chewed. The sails were completely gone. Only a few strands of gnawed rope lay curled about. In the distance, the colors of dawn began to tinge the horizon, but the ship was far from sight of land.

“We survived the flying piranhas,” Sharif said, “but we cannot last long out here. We are stranded.”

“This ship can no longer sail.” Captain Dimas was grim. “If the merlons come now…” But he did not complete his thought.

WITHOUT THE HUNDREDS OF dead, slimy fish that stank up the deck, Vic would have considered it a beautiful daybreak. But the
Golden Walrus
had no sails, the masts were splintered, and even the steering oar was damaged. Their ship was adrift far from land out in a merlon-infested sea.

All of that spoiled the mood, regardless of the clear sky and colorful dawn.

Sharif’s expression was somber, as if he knew exactly what he had to do. The boy from Irrakesh stood out on the deck and faced the sages and the forlorn-looking Captain Dimas. “With my carpet, I can race back to Elantya for help.”

Captain Dimas said, “We will not last long in such a condition.”

“Then I will urge them to bring their swiftest rescue ships.” Sharif’s olive eyes were serious and intense.

Saga Abakas scowled. “Go, then, young man! No telling how soon the merlons will come.”

“Merlons? We barely survived the flying piranhas.” Sage Snigmythya wrung her hands. “Oh, my! Most of our spell scrolls were damaged or used up. And there may be much worse in store for us. Much worse.”

“Take someone with you,” the captain said, looking at the bedraggled survivors. “You may need an extra set of eyes and hands. You never know what trouble you might run into, even in the air.”

Though Sharif preferred to fly alone, he agreed. “I cannot concentrate on flying and solving problems at the same time.”

Tiaret rubbed a cut on her arm as if it were no more than a mosquito bite. “That way at least a second person will be rescued, if something goes wrong here.” Then, as if to make clear that she wasn’t volunteering to go, the girl from Afirik added,
“I
will stay behind to defend the ship.”

“Take Gwen,” Vic suggested. “She doesn’t weigh much, so she won’t slow you down, and she’s got pretty good reflexes.” Kaisa’s big pans lay where the fighters had dropped them, but Vic ruled them out as too heavy for Gwen to wield while seated. He grabbed one of the oars from the splintered deck. “Here, use this to whack anything that comes too close — you know, in case you get dive-bombed by pterodactyls or something. The handle will give you a bit of reach.” He smiled at his cousin’s surprised expression. “You
know
you want to go, Doc. Besides, you get seasick — no point in staying here and barfing on the merlons.”

“Eww.” Gwen wrinkled her nose. “Maybe I’ll just get airsick.”

Sharif retrieved his flying rug and his djinni sphere from the hold. Back on the debris-strewn deck, he unrolled his carpet and settled Pin’s glowing ball in her mesh sack around his neck. The nymph glowed green with anxiety and uncertainty to see all the damage. Sharif’s face was grim as he gestured brusquely to Gwen. “Make yourself comfortable behind me, but please do not fall off. That would cause complications.”

Vic wasn’t sure whether or not the boy from Irrakesh was joking. Gwen obviously didn’t think it was very funny. “Then I’ll do my best to keep things simple.” She crossed her long legs and tried to sit securely on the thin rug with the oar on her lap. “Ready to go,” she said. Clutching the gold tassels around the fringe, she fixed her gaze on Vic’s face, and her expression told her cousin that she was not at all ready to leave him behind. Were those actual tears brimming in her eyes?

Sharif traced the embroidered patterns with his fingertips, as if he were gunning a fast car’s engine, and the carpet lifted off the deck. Vic and the stranded students, crewmen, and sages waved up.

Gwen stared down at them, looking seasick again. “We’ll be back with help as soon as we can! Just stay safe until then.”

As the carpet streaked away, Tiaret stood solemnly next to Vic and Lyssandra, her teaching staff even more battered and stained than before. “I hope I have not used up all of my luck — I have already been rescued once.”

“Luck had nothing to do with that,” Vic answered. “It was our
skill
in finding you.”

The young woman turned her amber eyes toward him. “Then I hope Sharifas has not used up all of his… skill.”

Hundreds of dead flying piranhas lay in the sun as the day grew warmer. Wearing an expression of distaste, Vic and the other novs kicked them off the decks into the sea. The ocean around them was quiet… maybe too quiet.

Though he didn’t know the exact distance to Elantya, Vic tried to calculate how long it might take for Sharif and Gwen to fly back to the island and for rescue ships to be sent out. “It’ll be at least half a day before the flying carpet gets to Elantya, right?”

Lyssandra stared out at the sun-dappled water, as if she were listening to quiet thoughts from deep in the ocean. “Yes, and after that the Pentumvirate will tell the captains of any fast ships in the harbor to prepare for departure — at least a few more hours.” She sighed. “Even with magical guidance and propulsion, and even if the rescue ships launch immediately, we cannot hope for any vessels to arrive sooner than two days from now.”

Vic swallowed hard. That sounded like an impossibly long time. “What about the gliders we saw over the city? Does Elantya have any big aircraft? Any extra flying carpets stowed away somewhere?”

“No carpets, and no aircraft that could come so far out to sea.” Her brow furrowed. “Maybe Sharifas will return with more spell scrolls — or he could carry a powerful sage to protect us.”

Kaisa brewed a strong batch of medicinal greenstepe and served the restorative to the injured. Snigmythya and Abakas sat together in the open sun, scratched and bruised from their fight against the predator fish. Their once-fine robes were
now stained and torn. The two sages bent over the few spells that had survived the piranha attack, salvaging tatters of paper and assessing how they could use the remaining magic for defense if—
when
— the merlons discovered the damaged ship. Lyssandra had also collected several simple spell scrolls that novs or apprentices had brought along.

Abakas held up a long scroll with dense and ornate writing. “Here’s a complicated one, called a ‘bubble of death.’” He pursed his lips.

“That sounds promising,” Tiaret said.

“And ominous,” Vic added. “What does it do?”

“Apparently, it steals all the air within a certain circumference, suffocating every living thing — including the spell-caster, I presume.”

“Oh my,” Snigmythya said. “We probably don’t want to use that. Not that.”

“Besides,” Captain Dimas added, “it wouldn’t help against undersea creatures that can breathe water.”

Several of the written incantations were mere fire-lighting spells, the sort that any child or unskilled worker could read repeatedly before the imprinted magic was used up. Merlons would not like fire, but a flickering spark offered little protection against them.

In the meantime, Tiaret worked with Vic, Lyssandra, and other bedraggled students to scrounge makeshift spears and clubs from the wreckage. They stashed these and other weapons around the deck where they could be grabbed instantly, as soon as an attack began.

Captain Dimas ordered his men to patch as many holes as possible on the hull to keep the
Golden Walrus
afloat for as long as might be necessary. Shadowy forms in the water — sharks, or merlons? — made them loath to dive over the side and work below the waterline. From inside the hold, however, the sailors managed to patch the leaks well enough to keep the merlons from breaking through weak spots.

By mid-afternoon, clouds had begun to gather, turning the sky gray and blocking out the sunlight. A lookout on the skeletal mast shouted a warning, and Tiaret directed her tawny gaze out to where shark fins cut the water, circling closer. She gripped her teaching staff, her mouth set in a determined line.

Standing near the stern, Vic looked down at the waves and saw murky forms deep below, shaped more like sleek humans than fish. “Forget the sharks! Come and look at this!”

The merlons had arrived.

As if responding to his voice, one of the figures poked its head above the waves. Fine green and gold scales covered its body. The creature’s face was flat, the nose little more than a nub to cover slits. Huge eyes flashed oily dark. Long flowing seaweed strands sprouted from the head where hair should have been. Gill slits like raw cuts ran down the side of the head, and a pair of circular membranes pulsed at the center of the forehead like a pair of flat, blind eyes.

“Ugly!” Vic said.

“Merlons,” Lyssandra corrected him.

More scaly humanoids swirled around the stranded ship,
blinking in the cloud-filtered sunlight. Nictitating membranes folded over to keep the eyes wet. Sharp teeth flashed when the merlons opened their wide mouths.

Captain Dimas rushed the youngest students belowdecks with three sailors to serve as guards. Then, as he and his crew crowded to the edge of the deck with their makeshift weapons, the merlons closed in around the helpless ship.