Chapter 4

An Eely Plan.

24,540 Mana Points.

The next day was terrifying. O’Kallan had lost concentration and his spell broke. Water rushed towards us from all sides. The mage had been able to recast his spell successfully, but it was smaller now. Much smaller. It caused many adventurers to panic. We worried about how much air we had left to breathe. When I held a hand out over the bow, I could almost touch the wall of the shield.

“It’s official,” Jack said. He smashed off a piece of a buttered potato and shoved the bit into his mouth. He gestured with the potato at the King Cyladon’s eye. “Hasn’t blinked since O’Kallan doomed us all. My gut says we’re done for.”

“Your gut could be wrong,” I said.

“If you look someone in the eyes—animal, beast, monster, or man—there are certain things you can see.”

“You see doom in the Cyladon’s eye?”

“Not doom. I see brutal resolve.”

“It’s going to attack?”

Jack shook his head and smashed off another piece of buttered potato. I let him eat. I knew he’d speak at his own pace.

The Cyladon’s eye had been completely still up to this point. The Iris of the eye was the size of six trading posts. It flicked toward our ship so fast, that we saw a rolling current eventually smack against our shield. Then it staggered from left to right faster than strikes of lightning. Almost as if scanning everything aboard the ship.

“It’s not going to attack,” Jack continued after swallowing his food. “It is attacking. It’s already resolved that it would attack.”

“It doesn’t look like it’s attacking.”

“It is. Most of my zombies have been marine life. I spent most of my life on an archipelago governed by whichever pirate was the meanest. I’ve gotten to know sea creatures quite well over the years.”

“Nothing even a hundredth of this size, I’m guessing.”

“Nothing even a thousandth of this size,” Jack said.

“How do you know it’s attacking right now? It doesn’t look like it. Enlighten me, please.”

“I don’t think we’re the first ship this monster has ever seen. Its behavior is similar to a python. I’m positive. Pythons will constrict their prey and suffocate them. This Cyladon is doing the same thing.”

“Even though it’s not touching us?”

“That’s right. Look at O’Kallan’s whale shield. It’s smaller now. The Cyladon knows we have magic. We’re in a defensive position. Our defense is costing us a ton of magic resources. The Cyladon knows this. Its waiting until we exhaust ourselves.”

“I’m not sure about that, Jack. We’re insignificant compared to it. Why would it spend all this time watching us lose energy and letting us drown when it could just as easily swallow us whole. Our ship would be like a seed between its teeth.”

“That’s the part I’m not sure about. I have no idea why. It could be the best way to save energy. It could be that it has a weakness to magic or something. I don’t know.”

“O’Kallan and the captain refuse to talk to us about our strategy,” I said.

“Can you blame them? We’re low leveled compared to them.”

“I just wish they’d hear us out. Especially with your powers.”

“We can never talk to them about my class.”

I looked into Jack’s eyes. Hard eyes. Sea faring eyes. Deep crow’s feet branched out from those eyes like black lines. Jack wasn’t an old man. Perhaps five or ten years older than me. It was simply the life he lived that had weathered him. I didn’t know what it was like to live among pirates in an archipelago, but I wasn’t naive to think it was all sunshine and butterflies. Perhaps that was why I had grown fond of him.

He was a secretive man. I would keep quiet about his class because it seemed there was more to it than met the eye. More to it than he let on.

“Promise me, Tosin,” Jack said. “Promise me that everything we say is safe between us.”

We shook on it.

“You have my word.”

“Let’s talk below deck. My cabin.”

I spent most of my time above deck, sometimes napping near the bow. The only time I spent below deck was for sleep. Jack’s cabin was the same as mine. One of the biggest differences was the smell. The smell was awful. When we entered, I was assaulted by the scent of decay. I wrinkled my nose and wafted the air before me.

“Sorry about the smell. It’s Boullerd. Boule for short. He’s my…”

Jack gestured to the bed. Atop the bed was a monkey. Its eyes were ringed with green, red, and orange. It stared dumbly into space. Drool fell from its mouth. Patches of fur were missing.

“Holy Felke,” I said.

“He’s my… zombie familiar,” Jack said. Then laughed and sat beside the monkey to pet him. Boullerd turned his neck to look up at Jack. I heard bones crack when he turned his head. Then Boule let out a soft growl.

“He’s a wee hungry at the moment,” Jack said.

“That’s why you’ve been fishing in the early mornings,” I said.

“It’s better if they have something live to eat, for sure.”

“Is he dead?”

“He was. I found him on the beach. Might sound strange, but I felt a connection the moment I saw his dead body.”

“Euhck,” I said.

“The Pathogenik class isn’t for everyone. That’s for sure.”

“Alright, so what are we doing down here?”

Jack stopped petting Boule and offered me a stool so that I would sit across the bed from him. He looked at me with one eye more than the other.

“If we do nothing, we’ve got no chance to survive the King Cyladon,” he said.

“You really think the captain and O’Kallan have nothing up their sleeve?”

“Pfft. However slim it is, I’m the only one who can… intercept our fate, at this point.”

“You’re going to go with your idea? You’re going to infect the monster? Do you think that’ll really work?”

“I don’t know, Tosin. With a monster that size, who knows how long it will take to infect it? I’m hoping for only a few days, but it could be a month. If it’s going to take a month to infect it, then I think we’re dead in the water. The second problem has to do with time as well. The longer it takes for someone or something to be infected and become a zombie, the higher the chance it has at surviving the effect. Nullifying the effect.”

“It’s not foolproof,” I said.

“It’s not foolproof,” Jack said, “but I need your help. I’m going to send as many zombie eels as I can to infect it. I was hoping you could keep them shielded, or alive, or stealthy or something while they travel to the Cyladon.”

“I’ve got a few things that can help. What other option do we have? The captain and O’Kallan are taking things into their own hands and doing nothing about it. People are getting increasingly rowdy, and it’s only time before someone else tries to do something on their own. I feel like we’re playing a waiting game, except we won’t last nearly as long as the monster.”

“Exactly,” Jack said. He chewed his lip and looked away.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“There’s a potential third problem,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“How about we cross over one bridge at a time for now? If we survive, we’ll deal with whatever comes next.”