Silence - Chapter 39

The last batch of chapters! Enjoy!
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Stone island whizzed by them, faster than they ever had, faster than was wise if he were being honest. The cutter was twice the ship his sloop was, and if it didn't have quite the heft of a galleon it also didn't need as much energy from him, mental or Mana. At the speeds they travelled, they were riding the bleeding edge of his Willpower, Agility, and Dexterity, each last-moment dodge and weave taking everything from him to manage. Even so, Felix didn't consider slowing down. The simple thought of the Whalemaw coming out of the dark—from above, below, or behind—instilled enough terror to be reckless.

The Maw didn't care for his speed, fast or slow, but cared very much for the course he was setting.

You head to Desolation, fool. Do you intend to dive into it instead of being eaten by the beast?

"No," Felix growled back. "But answer me this: do Temples to the gods have sheathes over them? Like a Domain might?"

The Maw hesitated, clearly thrown by his change in topics. It didn't even snark as it answered him. Yes. If it is a true Temple, dedicated and consecrated by a divinity. Why?

"Wonderment said they gathered objects from the hole to the Ethereal. Said it passed through a darkened part of the Void before dropping rubbish into the black." Felix dipped the cutter under another island, the mast just barely clearing its bottom. He grunted with the strain.

You're saying there's a Temple there. In the Void. The Maw's voice was deadpan, as if it were talking to a simpleton. Its persistence in the Void would be impossible. The Void would have rotted it away, long since!

"Which is how Mungle knew about it, I'm guessing," Felix said. "He was a Sage of Vellus. Isn't that like a priest or something?"

Pfah! Sages are to priests as a Grandmaster is to you, Felix Nevarre. That man was not a Sage. A Sage would not be trapped here!

Felix knew what he saw, what his Eye showed him. "He said there was a Temple here, near the Desolation. And within the Temple, Mungle mentioned a gate. He said it like it was an exit, I just didn't believe him."

What sort of gate? No mere Threshold could jump the divide between Realms.

Felix shrugged, but there was iron in his voice. "That's the gamble."

You will roll the dice with your Companion's life?

He didn't even get a chance to answer. Pit simply growled at the Maw and fluffed his feathers and fur. I follow Felix, Enemy!

The Maw looked between them and growled too. Fie on the both of you, then! Lead us into disaster!

Abruptly, there was a buzzing hum in the air, a dark reverberation in his skin and blood and mind. A bugle sounded, a million voices raised as one, screaming into the night. A terrible, horrendous bellow that was both too soft and entirely too loud, almost piercing Felix's eardrums. Felix jerked, nearly colliding with an island bigger than his ship. He scanned the dark desperately, but couldn't see anything.

Flesh and fury, it comes! Faster! The Desolation is too close to die here!

Felix did just that, pushing the cutter as hard as he could, but he couldn't help glancing backward. He regretted it as he nearly collided with another island, but then the darkness split behind them and it was all he could do to not gape astern.

Three ships—galleons all—emerged from the dark of the Void, each one partly consumed by green flames and harried by the angular forms of Harrowings. Their prows were beacons of flame and smoke, whirling off behind them like streamers, all but ignored by the men and women writhing on the decks. A stentorian bellow, the same as before, shook them all. The Whalemaw was yet hidden.

"What the hell is this?" Felix asked. "Are they running from the Whalemaw?" Bolts of fire shot after him, falling far short, but the galleons were accelerating far faster than he expected. "And they're firing on us?"

They are changed.

Felix noted the sharp note in the Maw's voice. "What're you talking about?"

As if answer, a cloud of Harrowings detached from the lead ship, their bodies clear to see in the Void because they weren't black any longer. Instead, they were covered in a crimson sheen that trailed from them, like thickened gel, and glowed like a bloody sunset.

They've been corrupted by the flesh!

Like lightning, they came at his ship far faster than he expected, reaching the stern within seconds. Felix hurled a Reign of Vellus backward, narrowing the cone of its force, and managed to knock a few into the rocks around them. It was not enough.

"Skreaaw!" Pit cried, freezing several in place with his Skill, before a flurry of Frost Spears shot into the dark. Each one took root in wings and center mass; it was impossible to miss, clustered as they all were. But it didn't stop—wouldn't—until they all died. Felix could almost feel the violence blooming from them, like a foul wind.

Wind? He felt it, his horror muted by alarm. The Void stirred with it, the rock islands moving laterally. They've never done that before.

Another ear-piercing bugle shook the air, and the Whalemaw finally appeared, it's open mouth wider across than all three ships combined. It was all of his nightmares rolled into one, and the vilest monster Felix had ever encountered. Worse, in some ways, than the Maw itself. The creature belched out clouds of horrid crimson. The thick fumes hit and spread among the ships, coating its people in the same gel-like substance. And not for the first time, either. The galleons were practically dripping with it, a substance that howled in his Manasight. It was sour and vile and tasted of violence and bottomless hunger. Felix gagged.

Primordial Essence! Its uses my very Essence to spread itself! The Maw raged at the Harrowings and the hidden but present Whalemaw. How dare it do so!

"Spread itself?" Felix said with a thrill of fear. He looked risked another look back, in time to see the pirates writhing on the deck, their bodies warping and snapping in ways that reminded him of Grimmar, the Frost Giant chieftain. Horrified, he glared at the thing. "That's what you did with me!"

No, what I did took skill and genius. This is the method of an idiot brute! How dare it abuse my power!

The Harrowings hadn't reached them yet, the now-definite rotation of the rocky islands keeping them at bay. Felix slipped between them all, his cutter taking more blows than he liked with every hard turn or close shave. Without warning, however, a weight crashed into the deck, sending them careening into another island. The cutter's bone-boards screeched and tore before Felix could right it, and when he looked up it was into the eyes of a bald Nixie.

Except he was covered in crimson Essence that burned like fire atop his skin. Already strange growths had started, his neck and face writhing with crimson scales and fanged teeth in the wrong places. His eyes burned, bright red, and he rasped a violent cough. "You did this, mage! You've killed me!"

He's infected too! the Maw shouted, perhaps in warning. Vile creature!

Nokk came at him, faster than he ever had before. Pit tried to fire a Wingblade at him, but that sword of his somehow spoiled the spell, deflecting it into the Void. Gasping in alarm, Felix banked the ship hard causing the boom to swing across deck. Yet Nokk dodged nimbly around it, his loping form possessed of more Agility than Felix had hoped.

Reign of Vellus!

Blue-white lightning burst forward, catching the pirate captain straight in the chest as he straightened from his dodge. Flung in the air, he somehow managed to slam his cutlass into the cutter's deck, puncturing it easily. Muscles bulged and grew along his one arm, ballooning from his deltoid to his wrist, until it looked like a giants arm had been given to a child. More Wingblades came at him, this time from the side, but that huge arm wasn't even scratched. With a surge of strength, the cutlass came up, and with it a long board of the deck, slapping into Felix's feet and sending him sprawling.

The ship twisted, his hand losing connection with the Control Node as Felix fought for balance. But Nokk hadn't waited and was already on top of him, cutlass free and slashing with abandon. It had taken all of his Agility to dodge the Nixie's attacks before, but now it was like he had become a monster. Faster and faster he moved, until it was all Felix could do to not get skewered. Pit danced in the back, trying and failing to line up a shot.

Shoot, Pit!

I can't! Hit you!

Instead, the cutlass hit him, over and over, glancing strikes on the wrists and forearms, thighs and calves, but they bled just the same. They jolted into rock islands, scraping their way along, and each bump and bash led to another stumble, another cut. Felix and Nokk danced, bare blade against his bare arms, and the pirate was winning.

Nokk grinned as he struck a blow that made Felix stumble back into the stern railing. His teeth were bloody, while vestigial toothy maws opened and closed around his face and neck. "I can feel it, mage! I can feel what the beastie wants! You! More than anything! I'll bring you to it, dead or alive, and I'll be cured! It promised!" The Maw laughed, and Nokk twitched in surprise. "Who said that? Who's there!"

I did, you fool! Finally! Someone who can bask in my glory!

"Spirit!" Nokk cried, somehow able to see the Primordial.

Relentless Charge!

Taking advantage of his distraction, Felix flashed ahead, hand extended. Bracing as best he could, he bashed the cutlass out of Nokk's grip. Even that simple move however—when he contacted the sword's hilt—his entire body seized and shook, and Felix fell to his knees. The cutlass went skittering across the deck, and Nokk reared back in fury.

"No! My—I don't need a weapon to kill you, mage!" Nokk screamed incoherently and leaped atop Felix, bearing him down onto the Control Node. The plinth rammed into Felix's back, but it was nothing compared to the agony in his core space or the fresh nightmare of the corrupted Nixie jamming fresh claws into his chest.

Felix screamed.

"Yessss! Scream! Scream like my crew did as you butchered them! As you lined them up for slaughter by this vile beastie!" Nokk's own laugh was too high, too mad. "I'll end you! And-and eat you!"

Gasping for breath, Felix pulsed his Mana, pushing it through the ever-open Gate at the base of his skull. It slammed into the Control Node, and the cutter bucked once hurling everyone up. Felix was thrown from the Control Node almost to the main mast, while Nokk went to the tilting prow. Pit, at least, had taken to the air above, barely keeping up with the cutter's frantic, reckless speed.  Nokk clambered to his feet, the crimson corruption around him burning bright, sinking deeper into his channels and core. Felix could almost see it, but Nokk only laughed.

"I feel its power, now! I feel it!" The Nixie's other arm ballooned as well, but just the bicep and deltoid, leaving his forearm a malformed stick at the end of it all. "It is making me...so... s-so...hungry!"

He leaped, propelled by a monstrous, newfound Strength—so fast he would have been invisible to a normal Human. Felix, however, had a powerful Perception and noticed more than most. Afforded scant fractions of a second, Felix braced once last time and kicked, straight up. The cutlass at his feet, hooked by his toes, flashed along with it.

Directly into Nokk's heart.

In fact, it hit so hard that the pirate was hurled upward by the lodged hilt, until the sword sank deep into the bottom of a passing rock island. They streaked forward, uncontrolled, leaving the Nixie behind.

Felix! Pit cried, sending flashes of incoming doom.

Relentless Charge!

Felix jolted back to the Control Node, almost missing it in his haste, and slammed his hand and Mana back upon it. He pulled up, hard, and they just barely missed the huge stone island before them, though he felt more and more chunks of the hull shear away.

"We did it, holy shit, I thought I was gonna die," Felix rasped through heaving breathes. That fight had worn him out more than all the others combined.

So did I, said the Maw, and he had no idea if it was happy or not. It snarled, hate and hunger clear on its Nymean features. At least you could have eaten him! That beast took my power and I'll have you get it back. One bite at a time, if needs be!

"I'd rather let it eat me, Maw," Felix spat. He focused on piloting the Manaship. "The Whalemaw can have your power, so long as we can leave."

He could almost hear the creature grinding its teeth at him, but Felix was too tired, too angry, to care. He flared his Will, increasing their speed yet again among the shifting stones. They'd beaten the pirates, and now they'd beat the Whalemaw. They just had to—

Teeth surged from the black, each the size of his ship, and only his panicked burst of speed saved them. A huge maw slammed shut just behind them, the sheer force of it sending the cutter zooming forward. Pit and Felix screamed while they held on as tight as they could, but the Whalemaw flew up, its huge rocky body missing them as it swam from the depths beneath.

Shaking, Felix scratched the bottom of barrels he'd already thought tapped dry, and pushed. The cutter flitted forward, through the stone islands and away, angling toward Desolation...and salvation.

He hoped.