If you enjoyed
THE MAP OF ALL THINGS,
look out for
THE KEY TO CREATION
Book Three of the Terra Incognita Trilogy
by Kevin J. Anderson
The Al-Orizin
The spectral resurrected ship hurtled after them, borne on storms and vengeance. The old island witch had her own powers and iron determination to seize her daughter back.
Captain Saan had already ordered all the sails set on the Al-Orizin, and the vessel fled before the wind, racing away from the wrath of Iyomelka. Beside him on deck, Ystya clenched Saan's hand. He tried to look brave and confident, not just for her but for his entire crew. They looked to him for answers, sure that he had some kind of plan to save them all.
In truth, he didn't have the slightest idea what he could do.
Ahead of them, growing ever closer, towered the immense scaly body of Bouras, a sea serpent so huge that it was said to girdle the entire world. The Al-Orizin had no way around.
“My mother is no match for Bouras,” Ystya said, her voice quiet, her words nearly snatched away by the increasing howl of the winds. “But she will not stop.”
“Well then, neither will we.” Saan managed a smile for her. “Don't you worry.”
Yal Dolicar, a man thoroughly familiar with half-truths and exaggerations, turned gray, easily seeing through Saan's façade.
Saan took the spyglass once more and looked aft toward Iyomelka's jagged gray ship. The old vessel had been sunken in the treacherous reefs around her isolated island, but the woman had used her restored sorcerous powers to raise it from the depths. Its sails were tattered, barely held together with strands of seaweed. The hull was encrusted with barnacles, starfish, and driftwood. A sharp, twisted bowsprit of coral antlers protruded forward like an ominous spear. Iyomelka stood on deck beside the crystal coffin containing the preserved body of her husband; her hair and garments whipped in the gale she had created to drive the ghost ship along.
Saan lowered the spyglass; he didn't need to see any more.
One of the Al-Orizin's sails came loose and flapped wildly. The painted Eye of Urec on the broad silk sheet folded, then stretched tight again, as if winking. The big reef diver Grigovar yelled and grabbed the rope, using all his weight and strength to pull it taut once more, wrapping the end about a stanchion until riggers could connect it properly.
From her unearthly ship, Iyomelka summoned knotted black thunderclouds and hurled them toward the Al-Orizin like giant missiles from an unseen catapult. The storms whorled around the Al-Orizin, squeezing it in a stranglehold, whipping the water into a froth. Then Iyomelka summoned two towering waterspouts, whirling columns of water and air that marched across the waves toward them.
Sen Sherufa, her brown and gray hair whipping loose around her, stood frightened. “Captain! The sea serpent is straight ahead!”
Saan snapped his head in the other direction and focused on the towering reptilian body of Bouras, the father of all serpents, arching through the water—condemned by Ondun to bite his own tail for millennia, until such time as he was released from his curse.
The titanic beast spun and spun with a speed so great that the scales—each one the size of the Al-Orizin's mainsail—were a blur. The spray and ripple of its passage tossed the Al-Orizin like one of the toy boats Saan's little brother Omirr played with in the ponds back at the Olabar palace. In minutes, they would ram the reptilian barrier, and Saan had to make a decision.
“Turn south!” he shouted. “Hard starboard!”
Grigovar took the captain's wheel and used his considerable strength to turn the rudder hard over. The riggers set the sails to catch the wind, and the Al-Orizin sharply heeled about until it began to cruise alongside the serpent, riding the swift currents generated by Bouras as he continued his unending circuit of the world.
Iyomelka's two waterspouts swept closer, but they were caught in the turbulence around the serpent's body. They struck and rode upward over the slick body, then dissipated. Even though the Al-Orizin sailed along as swiftly as possible, Saan watched the giant serpent speed past them.
And Iyomelka, too, gained ground behind the Al-Orizin. As the increasing storms continued to blast them, the island witch's voice boomed out, carried on the thunder, magnified by the gale, “You have stolen my daughter! Return Ystya to me!”
A tall wave crashed against the Al-Orizin's side, spraying water over the deck and throwing Yal Dolicar and Sen Sherufa to their knees.
Sikara Fyiri, looking terrified but pretending to be a bastion of strength in her red robes, came out of her cabin, brandishing her heavy unfurling-fern staff, though she wobbled back and forth as she attempted to stand firm. “Captain Saan! You must give the girl back! Return the demon's daughter and save us all!”
“I will do no such thing.” Saan gripped Ystya's arm. He knew that others of his crew were almost certainly thinking the same thing. “Iyomelka plans to destroy us either way.”
As the crewmen began to mutter and wail in terror, Yal Dolicar came to his rescue. “Don't be foolish, men—the only reason the witch hasn't sunk us yet is because she wants Ystya alive. That girl is our only bargaining chip!”
Saan replied in a low, sharp voice, just loud enough for the one-handed man to hear, “Ystya is not a bargaining chip.”
Though the young, ivory-haired girl looked fearful, she was no quaking flower. Rather, she squared her jaw, took deep breaths. “You will never outrun her, Saan. You can fight back, but she has powers you cannot imagine. And she has my father's body aboard. Who can stand against the power of Ondun? Only I might be strong enough to fight her.”
“It has been said that fighting is the last refuge of the unintelligent,” Sen Sherufa remarked; her voice shook, though she tried to cover it.
Saan held on as another wave rocked the ship from side to side. “If we don't have weapons or powers to match Iyomelka's, then we'll just have to be smarter than she is.”
Up in the lookout nest, one of the Al-Orizin crewmen had lashed himself to the mast so as not to be thrown overboard in the violent waters. “Captain! The serpent—it's changing! Something's coming our way!”
They all crowded to the side of the boat as lightning crackled around them. The scaly body seemed to be tapering off, until it abuptly changed to something much larger—a huge angular shape with ridges, scales, flared horns, and a pair of golden, glaring eyes. It plowed along, sending up high curtains of spray with its passage, roaring toward them.
Saan yelled, “We've reached the tail! This is the tail of Bouras—and that must be his head!”
The monster's dragonlike head bore down upon them, and as the reptilian eyes spotted them, the pupil slits widened to drink in this unexpected obstruction in his way. Scaled lips curled back to expose ivory fangs as long as mainmasts, pinned in the flesh of its tail.
The crewmen wailed and cried out for mercy; many dropped to their knees in prayer. Yal Dolicar managed a wry, quiet remark, “At least the thing can't open its mouth to swallow us.”
Nevertheless, the serpent's head—as big as a mountain—split the waves and spewed up high sheets of water twice as tall as the Al-Orizin. It came toward them like a battering ram.
“It doesn't need to,” Saan said.