***
Zook paced back and forth, under the amused eyes of the miniature Oracle.
“Anything else I can help you with?” she asked pleasantly.
“Yes,” Zook growled, “I want these 'privileges' you're talking about back.”
“I'm sorry, but Syrus’ command was rather vague. Your status has been reduced to Peon to reduce complications.”
“Why do I not like the way you pronounced that?” Zook asked.
“Sorry?”
“It sounded like you just called me a 'pee-on'.”
“I did.”
Zook threw himself into a swivel chair, hands clamped on either side of his head as though trying to hold down the frustration that boiled within. He did not pay any heed to his throbbing knuckles, nor the repeating images of him striking Sye.
“Then what is a 'pee-on'?”
“A Peon has a limited access to my data banks and no subroutine privileges.”
“Meaning?”
“Either you're going to hear me answering your questions, me saying 'Access Denied', or 'Must be of civilian class or higher'.”
“Fantastic,” muttered Zook, turning to the panels.
They were nearly at Benji, probably arriving in the morning. Benji Bridge imported and exported nearly all of Eretia's goods. Benji was originally a small, wide island near the Lermur Sea’s coast. A massive bridge was built, connecting the island to the mainland. Much to the rest of Adrala's amusement and surprise, the people of Benji expanded their city onto the bridge. A good portion of their city was in the Lermur Sea, buildings anchored to the sea floor. That section had no roads, just thin walkways and canals.
Zook was looking forward to the visit. The city handled a lot of Eretian medicine, so there were many qualified Healers and Doctors directing the cargo's distribution.
His thoughts were interrupted by the Oracle's prodding voice, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No!” said Zook, “Especially not with you!”
“I'm not a cold, feelingless computer I hope you know,” the Oracle sniffed.
“Computer?” asked Zook, confused.
“Access denied,” the Oracle corrected hurriedly. Her eyes suddenly glazed over, going to that familiar far away place.
“Sonar came back a bit funny, cross scanning.”
“Sonar?” asked Zook, growing even more baffled.
The Oracle pointedly ignored him, “Deploying cameras.”
Zook heard a series of light thuds. 'Camera one' appeared in the corner of a blank panel before him. Several other panels hummed to life, just as aptly named.
“Lights,” the Oracle announced. Images sprang up on the panels, showing coral and the calm swirling of sea particles.
“What am I looking at?” asked Zook.
“The extra eyes of technology that I dropped behind us. Trying to get a visual on whatever is following us.”
“There's something following us?”
“Just watch.”
Zook scanned the panels. Nothing moved. All they showed were the dim outlines of coral and rocky outcroppings and the never ending dark blue of the sea.
“I think you're being paranoid,” Zook said grumpily, sitting lower in his chair.
“I think you're being belligerent,” the Oracle snapped back. “It should be passing the cameras in approximately four seconds.”
Zook returned his attention to the images. What he saw made him bend closer. The outcroppings the camera panel showed were bulging and shrinking, twisting and rippling. It was like looking through a bobbing glass of water in a fish tank. He heard the Oracle give a small gasp.
He turned to her, “What is it?”
“Victus fontis, or 'living water'. Commonly found in-”
Zook staved off her lecture with a raised hand, “Spare me.”
The Oracle wrinkled her transparent nose at him, “It's a water elemental. We don't understand many of the energies the Rifts release and sometimes they combine with the environment in strange ways. Sometimes they even give a halfway semblance of life.”
“Why is it following us?”
“Elementals are like amorphous Talads, they're living elemental energy. We manufacture Talads and other orbs in Saranoda and Krakrenenor, infusing them with a skeletal structure and programmed intelligence. Elementals, on the other hand, are commonly formless and command a twisted, primitive set of charged nerves that could be considered a 'mind'. Unlike Talads, they are born with instinct. Animalistic really, but still instinct. They can’t sustain themselves long after breaking from the Rifts unless they find a source of manipulative energies.” The Oracle gave the panels a cursory glance, “But they are not supposed to get this big. The largest one ever recorded is about your size.”
“And this one?” asked Zook, not wanting the answer.
“Larger than this ship.”
Zook's heart was beginning to beat faster at the image of a mammoth mindless ball of energy chasing them, “Some of our tradeships have ballistae and the like, what kind of weapons is this ship armed with?”
The Oracle rolled her eyes, “This is a luxury submersible, fire boy.”
Zook stared at her, panic growing in his veins with dawning realization, “Wait...you don't mean...oh Dark...This thing doesn't have any weapons?”
“I can tell you what it does have,” she offered helpfully.
Zook dashed out of the panel room. When he came to the ship's back, the dining room, he whirled on the floating Oracle.
“What does this boat have?” Zook asked frantically.
The Oracle gave him a disapproving look, “It is not a boat it is a-”
“Good Judge spare me! What do we have?”
She sighed, “We are equipped with an assortment of viewing cameras, exploration suits, retrieval drones, hydro-flares-”
“Flares?” Zook interrupted, “How do they work?”
The Oracle made her ruffled look at the interruption, “They use a brilliant method that combusts water, creating a bright red-”
“Combusts? So there’s fire?”
“That’s what ‘combusts’ naturally implies.”
“What's going on Zook?” asked Eris, getting up from the couch.
“Yes, Zook,” Sye said calmly, almost scathingly, “What's the emergency?”
The emergency is going to be my fist meeting your… Zook raged in his head. He took a long, shuddering breath. “We're being followed by a water elemental,” He finally answered.
“Water elem-?” asked Pird.
“That one,” Zook said, jerking a thumb to the Oracle, “says it's a carnivorous spawn of the energy Saranoda conducts. “
“If it's just energy, how can it be carnivorous?” Eris asked.
“Something must sustain energy,” The Oracle said matter-of-factly, “They are attracted to dense pockets of manipulative energies. Your Obruos’ are good examples.”
“Oracle,” said Zook, “I want you to deploy a flare.”
The Oracle bit her watery lip, “Ah, remember that conversation we just had about the Peons...?”
Zook turned to Sye, who was watching him with a guarded anger that Zook had never seen his friend wear. A thousand things floated through his mind that wanted to pass out of his mouth, but less than half were pleasant. After a long hesitation, Zook simply asked, “Please?”
Sye examined him with an angry brow for what seemed like ages, each passing minute making Zook increasingly fearful. Then, Sye gave a slight nod.
A low thump resounded through the floor and they saw a small silver canister whip by them outside. It quickly vanished into the black sea behind their ship.
“Fire,” said the Oracle.
Light suddenly blossomed behind them, a sharp red glow piercing the darkness. Illuminated by this glare was a near invisible mass of mosterous proportions. Ripples appeared at the nose of its ovoid shape, ripples that stretched and
ran down its surface, propelling it through the water. It was utterly silent, a behemoth many times the size of their ship that slowly ate the distance between them.
“Good gods,” said Sye.
“Is it going to attack us?” asked Eris nervously.
“Elementals have never been recorded to be passive,” the Oracle answered.
Zook felt out the ball that had nestled itself in his mind. His hopes faded a bit when he found the power was just as slippery as before. He focused on the flare and willed the ball forward, but even as it darted from his grip he felt the shot was wide. The invisible force missed and the flare disappeared within the elemental, the mass becoming enveloped in darkness again.
“Hold on!” the Oracle shouted.
“What-?” began Zook before a weight pressed him roughly to the floor as the submersible rolled to the side. He looked up just in time to see a semi-transparent tendril the size of a tree-trunk miss the ship by mere centimeters. He watched it snap back and saw how dearly the Oracle's maneuver had cost them. The elemental was close enough to be seen by the ship's lights.
“Another flare, Oracle!” Zook commanded, watching bulges form on the elemental's 'skin'. A red flare slipped by, twirling in the ship's turbulence. Zook winced as the ball of Magic swelled within his mind. He launched another invisible spray of power but his meager control proved not enough for such a small target.
“Third time’s the charm?” Pird asked helplessly.
“Flare!” Zook shouted as two of the elemental's bulges erupted into thrashing tendrils. Zook's feet momentarily left the ground as the Oracle dived. A tendril flashed by overhead but the second didn't come for them directly. It slung around and came in from the side, far too fast for the Oracle to dodge. Zook's fear drowned out the rushing rumble of the ship, hearing nothing but the pounding of his heart. The tendril grew rapidly, its round nose seeking to break the thin barrier between them and the deadly pressure of the sea.
Right before it struck, Zook 'felt' something flit by him. The tendril crashed against an unseen shield and snapped back as though struck by a bat. Sye suddenly collapsed and Zook realized the source of the protection.
“Flare away,” said the Oracle. Zook tracked the red glare, Magic recharging, until the flare was before the elemental. He gathered his remaining diminished power and raised his hand. It was a simple gesture, to point at his target, one shaking finger jabbing forward. So simple that Zook did not even know he was doing it, he did it instinctively.
When he released the throbbing ball it didn't disintegrate and spray away erratically. Instead he felt it course up his arm and burst from his finger. At once he felt the flare. It was different, he didn't just bounce off and make it explode like the torches, it was like he was actually holding the flare in his hands, molding it.
His surprised concentration was broken by the roiling surface of the elemental exploding into a frenzy of writhing tendrils. The connection snapped and the flare suddenly ripped through the water in a fiery sphere. A deep whump resounded and the elemental disappeared in the display.
“Yes!” Zook shouted victoriously. His excitement was erased when he was slammed into a couch as the Oracle dodged left. A pair of intertwining tendrils narrowly missed them. The Oracle shifted up, tendrils passing below. Five more flashed by and curled together, netting them in. The couch lifted slightly off the ground and fell sideways across the room as the ship turned on its side and slipped through the elemental’s web. The Oracle dived down into the stony reef, weaving in and out of the giant, living caverns. The elemental’s mindless assault crashed through the giant plants, causing the Oracle to dodge around both tendril and reef debris. They slipped by collapsing stone and coral, the crashing echoing dully through the ship.
“I can't stay ahead much longer!” The Oracle said frantically.
“Get us free of the coral!” Sye said weakly, shakily getting to his feet.
“But we're not fast enough-!” The Oracle objected.
“Just do it!” Sye shouted.
The Oracle dived lower, slipping into a long narrow cave. A tendril chased after them, its twisting surface flaying open the cavern’s walls. The tunnel's exit approached quickly, but the tendril neared faster. It lashed forward, tearing into the stone as the Oracle adjusted them out of the way. They shot from the cave like a dart from a blowpipe. The tendril wormed its way out but snapped short. It thrashed once, bulging slightly. For a moment Zook thought the entire amorphous thing would slip through the narrow cave, but the tendril instead withdrew.
“Decrease speed,” Sye ordered.
The quiet seemed wrong after the bone-jarring crashes that had pursued them. Zook felt so exposed in the wide-open water. The cliff behind them was a great wall; stony outcroppings and caves pockmarked its surface.
“What's your brilliant plan?” Zook asked, “That’s about to get us all killed?”
“This,” said Sye. He made a rough, slimy noise in his throat and spat on the floor.
“Are you insane?” asked Zook reproachfully.
“Ten points,” said Pird in approval.
They were interrupted as a network of cracks snaked across the cliff side, loose stone and dust tumbling though the water.
“Let's get out of here,” Pird said nervously.
“Just wait,” Sye said with a strange patience.
A dot of light flitted over the lugee Sye had spat.
The cliff side heaved, cracks widening.
“Get us moving Oracle!” Zook ordered.
“Don't listen to them,” Sye said distractedly, reaching into his pocket.
“What are you doing?” Zook screamed in frustration, “You’re going to kill us all!”
“Sye!” Eris yelled fearfully.
The cliff side erupted, giant slabs of stone slowly hurtling through the water as the elemental smashed through the dust and debris.
The tiny light exploded into a small puff of soapy foam. Sye opened his closed fist over the suds. Zook caught a glimpse of something blue dropping into the soap. The foam disappeared with a slight slurping noise and something small and round glinted by outside.
The elemental loomed, hundreds of tendrils sprouting from every centimeter of its surface. They curled and intertwined, closing the submersible in a weaving, shrinking sphere of elemental.
Zook watched the oncoming mass grimly, refusing to look away. Sye stood straight, arms crossed. A blue glint caught his eyes. Sye smiled.
He’s insane, Zook thought.
The elemental froze. Nothing moved. The ripples on its surface were still.
“This is my brilliant plan,” said Sye.
The elemental glowed with a subdued blue light. The tendrils relaxed and drew back, slowly forming the great mass once more. The light intensified, then dissipated into a giant cloud of shifting, tiny blue stars. Zook watched in utter bafflement as the underwater nebula sparkled in the dark of the sea. The lights swirled like a cyclone and were sucked into some small, invisible hole in the empty waters. The sea grew dark again as the last light disappeared. The only sound was the hum of the ship. The elemental was gone.
Pird climbed out from under an overturned chair. He walked over to the clear wall and asked Sye in a hoarse voice, “Might I be so bold to ask, in the name of all that is still sane, what just happened?”
“Oracle,” said Sye, ignoring him, “Can you retrieve the Glass for me?”
Pird stared at Sye, mouth agape, “You did...how...what...I don't understand. That pitiful thing saved our lives?”
“That 'pitiful thing',” Zook muttered darkly, “Is what Scorn destroyed our home for.”
“Oh will you stop that!” Pird shouted hysterically, “Oh high Idusces help me tolerate this irritating, stupid, raving idiot!”
Is this another stupid joke of his? Zook thought, confused. Pird had a crazed look in his eye
s, looking at Zook with an intensity he didn’t know the short boy was capable of.
Zook slowly began, “Pird, what in the world are you-?”
“Shut up!”
“Pird-!”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! We almost just died and you still just won’t shut up!” Pird yelled madly, practically dancing in place, “I am so sick of your constant whining! Shambling around like a lost soul, moaning about how 'you lost everything, there's nothing left. Oh the world is gonna end!' Zook we know there's nothing left for us, we know that Eretia's gone. It's dead, Zook, dead! Deader than a whole bag of doorknobs! Let it be dead! Every time you say something stupid, every time you remind us, you kill it over and over and over again! Just let it be dead.”
Zook stepped back as though Pird had just slapped him. He felt he should be angry, that he should be screaming at him for speaking so lightly of his obliterated home. But it had been Pird's home too; there was an undeniable wisdom in his words, wisdom that Zook refused to accept.
If it’s just dead, Zook thought angrily, Then what’s the point of any of this?
Zook turned to Sye, but even before he saw Sye's expression he knew he would find no help there. So, without thinking, he turned to his third friend, “Eris?”
He regretted his asking as soon as he had said it. It was cruel for him to put her between him and Pird, two of her only three friends.
Eris shifted uncomfortably, “Zook...” her eyes flickered to the fuming Pird and silent Sye. Zook knew he did not want to hear it. She took a slow, deep breath and said quietly, “You need to let Eretia go.”
Zook did not reply right away. For once his grief was sad, not angry. But only for one, brief second.
“I won’t just let it be dead,” Zook said quietly, feeling his whole body shake, “Not until the monster that klled it is dead too.” No one stopped him when he left the room.
Just let it be dead, Zook echoed in his head as he stormed down the hall.
Just let it be dead.