Rosaliy

Rosaliy dreamed of children drowning in a vast ocean. Precariously balanced on a flimsy raft with endless water stretching in every direction, she pulled child after floundering child from the water. Each time one broke the surface gasping for air, another dipped below. When she tried to save that one, another slipped under, repeating over and over in a dizzying, frantic cycle. The children started as faceless innocents, but soon they were Lillya, Tansy, and Taurin, then her parents and Cade, then Cliff, Drake, and Jadelynn. She never saved anyone. When a giant, lemon-yellow fish snapped her up to drag her underwater, Rosaliy’s mind had finally had enough. Who needed sleep, anyway?

“Bad dream?” asked Drake.

If she had to be suddenly awake, finding herself mostly dry and nestled in Drake’s arms was not the worst trade-off.

She yawned. “My mind is taunting me with my upcoming failure.”

“Been there,” said Drake, “although my mind usually taunts me with past actual failures, not future uncertain ones.”

Bubbles frothed on one side of the dome. Beautiful green and blue light filtered through the choppy, rushing water.

“Where is the light coming from?”

“You’re much better educated than I am, Rose, but I’m going to say the sun.”

That sounded dangerously like a joke. He did add, “Granpulpo must be staying close to the surface for Quita’s sake.”

She felt like she had barely closed her eyes, yet hours had passed. She would have apologized for sleeping so long and leaving Drake to keep watch by himself, but he had not wanted to talk anyway. Hopefully she had refrained from drooling or talking in her sleep.

“You’re in a good mood for someone who hasn’t slept in a while,” she noted.

“I’m not sure I’m in a good mood as much as I’m surprised to be alive. The octopus travel plan is working.”

Rosaliy pressed her fingers to the curved side of the dome and leaned her face close to the frosted surface. The view was distorted, but Rosaliy could see long, purple tentacles stretching wide, then gathering together, propelling Granpulpo through the water. For now, it was ignoring them. All things considered, she felt bad for pestering the poor creature. Rosaliy would be cranky if something called her up and wedged itself in her mouth.

“Any idea where we are?” asked Rosaliy.

“Best guess? Flifary waters.”

“How can you tell?”

“Water and I have a special bond,” he said.

She had a special bond with cows and artichokes, but those hardly seemed relevant or worth mentioning.

“Special enough to get us out of this octopus?” she asked, hopeful.

“No,” he mused. “That will take timing.”

Whatever he said, he was in a good mood. Smashed up next to him due to the angled sides of the tipped dome, Rosaliy couldn’t get a good look at him, really, but despite his clothes showing every step of a brutal trip through the desert, he seemed to be unharmed.

“What kind?” She stretched her arms and legs to the best of her ability, trying not to elbow Drake in the face.

He explained. Twice. Rosaliy had been sure she misheard the first time.

“Well?” he prodded when she sat in stunned silence.

“That’s the best you could come up with? After an entire night?”

“How long did it take you to come up with the travel by octopus plan?”

He had a point.

“Is it possible?” he asked.

“Jadelynn was the expert on this dome, but based on what we saw before…maybe.” Her wishy-washy response was not brimming with confidence.

“How’s your reaction time?”

Pretty good. Issabeth was a big proponent of training reflex by dropping things unexpectedly and forcing her trainee victims to catch the items before they hit the floor. Honestly, Rosaliy needed to be careful about how she filled in Issabeth about the demands of this trip. If Issabeth knew how useful her bizarre training regimens really were in real life situations, she would be intolerable.

Assuming Issabeth was alive. That was a chilling thought. Rosaliy needed to be on that island.

As if reading her thoughts and deciding to humor them, the churning bubbles outside increased and the tentacles whirled—a different motion than before. Drake’s body tensed in expectation. “Granpulpo’s slowing.”

Rosaliy held up her palm, unclenching her fingers from the metal ball.

“Hold up, there,” Drake warned. “It could be stopping for any reason. Wait for shallow water.”

Since she would need a primer on the signs of shallow water, she just said, “Tell me when.”

Drake propped his hands against the side of the dome and twisted to get a better view. Rosaliy stared straight ahead, fully realizing the massiveness of the two halves of the sharp beak clamping down around her, just a few lengths away. She decided to close her eyes. Not seeing what was coming might help.

“When,” said Drake, and without giving one more moment of thought to what was coming, she let the metal ball drop from her hand. Not waiting to feel the water on her skin, she grasped the ball once more.

The dome lurched, and her eyes shot open just in time to see the sharp edges of the beak sliding through the dome. When she had dropped the dome, the beak had clamped down just far enough to be inside the dome’s radius. The dome was free to move once more, and Granpulpo noticed the change immediately.

Please push us out and not in, she pleaded to either Granpulpo or the dome. Neither one was listening, so she kept the pleading in her head. A sharp smack from an errant tentacle sent the dome careening. No longer wedged at an unnatural angle, the dome tried to right itself. Somewhere in the middle of the spinning and twisting, Rosaliy was able to scramble to her feet—a wonderful feeling until another tentacle spun the dome like a top. Drake slammed into the side of the dome, and she slammed into Drake. Conveniently for her and less conveniently for him, he had broken her fall, but on the next jolt, the metal ball was ripped from her hands.

For an agonizingly slow moment of pure horror, she wondered how such a thing had happened. The chain must have caught on something—one of Drake’s knives, maybe the odd angle of her fall. The important thing was the bubble enchantment had been pulled from her hands, and she was suddenly in the churning water, in the middle of a purple mass of tentacles.

Rosaliy scrambled to swim up, but an unfurling tentacle did the work for her, shoving her to the surface. When it swung again, she saw the sharp barbs on the tips of Granpulpo’s tentacles coming at her. The tentacle smacked her full force, launching her out of the water. She must have flown fifty lengths before she landed with a smack back in the water, knocking the wind out of her. She struggled to the surface for what felt like the hundredth time in the last few hours. Was she poisoned? Hopefully the belt had done its job one last time.

The water churned. Tentacles flopped everywhere. What could she do?

Shore. She needed to reach shore.

A flailing mass of arms and legs, Rosaliy propelled herself away from Granpulpo and in the direction of the sandy shore. Since it assumed she was incapacitated, Granpulpo’s erratic attacks were no longer directed at her. That was something at least.

She yelled at herself for the thought. If Granpulpo was not attacking her, it was attacking Drake. She redoubled her efforts to reach shore and was rewarded with welcome, glorious sand. She scrambled out of the water on hands and knees, gasping for breath and grateful for land, possibly Flifary land at that. Rejoicing was short-lived. Just offshore, Granpulpo’s tentacles were arcing through the air, slapping the water in a fury. There was no way for Drake to outswim the creature, and he did not have the benefit of a magic belt against those poisonous barbs.

She picked up a rock from shore and hurled it at Granpulpo’s bulbous, purple head. She had no idea what she was thinking, probably something along the lines of “must distract monster.” She searched the beach for a more useful tool.

A dark-skinned girl ran out of the jungle, straight for her. If she had tried for an instant to take Rosaliy prisoner, she would have been no match for Rosaliy in her current state, but the girl stopped, dumbfounded, then stared slack jawed at the battle on the ocean.

“Help!” screamed Rosaliy. It was worth a try.

The scream unfroze the girl’s feet, but she dashed away, probably to go find someone to take Rosaliy prisoner.

Rosaliy grabbed a piece of driftwood from shore and tossed it at the angry octopus. A tentacle caught the pitiful projectile and crushed it. Maybe if there were eight of her flinging driftwood, she might be able to distract Granpulpo long enough to allow Drake to swim to shore, but one of her was no real distraction to the hulking sea beast. Rosaliy could not see Drake, so she would just have to assume he was still alive and not skewered by poison barbs based on the fact Granpulpo was still lashing out, trying to immobilize him.

A little ball of flame arced in Granpulpo’s direction. Rosaliy’s eyes followed the fire to its source; the girl had returned alone. On the ground in front of her, she had dropped a small pile of dark blue fruits resembling enormous blueberries. She had a lit torch in one hand and a stick in the other. What was happening?

The girl yelled something, dipped the torch to the ground to light one of the mystery fruits, then scooped the flaming fruit from the ground with a hooked stick before flinging it with whole-body force. She yelled again, this time clearly directing her words to Rosaliy before pointing toward the jungle.

Rosaliy watched dumbfounded as the flaming fruit sailed through the air, exploding with a splat on Granpulpo’s fleshy head. Where the fruit impacted, it kicked up a puff of brilliant white smoke, and that spot on Granpulpo’s head turned a mottled white. Tentacles thrashed at the disturbed spot, and Granpulpo swiveled, searching the beach with its fleshy eyes.

Rosaliy ran for the trees, understanding the girl’s orders now. Not far into the shade of lofty jungle trees wrapped with thick vines, she saw clusters of the blue fruit. Yanking them off, she used the remnants of her skirt as a basket. Despite their appearance, they were too large for berries and cold to the touch, but Rosaliy had no time to ponder the mystery fruit. Really, she did not care what it was if it could battle an octopus bent on Drake’s annihilation.

Seconds later, but what felt like hours, Rosaliy ran back to the beach laden with the fruit. While Rosaliy had been harvesting, Granpulpo had pulled itself halfway onto the sand. Still, the island girl bravely flung exploding fruit at the octopus, already mottled with white spots. She had almost reached the end of her ammunition. They needed to buy enough time for Drake to reach shore, assuming he could. The girl certainly had all of Granpulpo’s attention now. Another flying fruit was batted away by a tentacle. An explosion of white left behind a white, cracked impact site.

An enraged Granpulpo pulled itself further onto shore. A useless scream stuck in Rosaliy’s throat as one of the striking tentacles swiped down, right above the girl’s head. The girl dove, but the tip of the tentacle smacked her thigh, depositing a few giant barbs. The girl dropped to the ground, torch flying backward. More tentacles stretched out on the sand, scooping up the girl’s body and dragging it toward the ocean.

Rosaliy ran forward, any kind of self-preservation or common sense giving way to her protection instinct. She scooped up the discarded torch and continued running straight for the angry octopus. Even her adrenaline-fueled sense of needing to save others was not quite sure what she was doing. Ignoring the pesky warnings of common sense and self-preservation, Rosaliy flung her skirtful of berries at Granpulpo’s bulbous head. A few pelted him and bounced off. Most plopped in a non-threatening pile right next to him. As tentacles rose up in an intimidating purple flurry, she flung the torch at the berries. They ignited, and Granpulpo redoubled its efforts to slide itself off the beach. Unfortunately for Granpulpo, dragging the girl was slowing it down.

In a cascade of explosions, the burning berries erupted, spewing pulp onto Granpulpo’s head while releasing cloud after cloud of white smoke. Rosaliy choked as the white haze billowed around her. When she breathed in, she felt like her lungs were frozen from the inside out, like she was inhaling frigid air. What kind of fruit responded to heat by creating some sort of freezing explosion?

Rosaliy felt the giant arms of the octopus whoosh by, and through the dissipating ice fog, she saw the mottled purple creature slide back in the water. Barely able to see, Rosaliy grabbed for the body sliding past her, tugging the girl’s arms free of the mountain of sand and shifting tentacles. Tentacles released and chose not to put up a fight for the body. Granpulpo was more interested in fleeing this disastrous battle. Hopefully it had an underground cave where it could rest and recuperate for a long, long while.

Still coughing through frozen lungs, Rosaliy dragged the girl out of the white haze and further onto the beach.

“What’s happening,” said a breathless voice behind her.

Dropping the girl’s arms, Rosaliy yelped and crushed a soaked Drake with a hug he probably did not need while he was trying to catch his breath.

“Are you ok? Are you hurt?” she asked.

“Yes. No. I think in that order.”

She thought that was the right order. He was standing and breathing, anyway. The Flifary girl was in worse shape. She moaned weakly and shuddered, still alive for now. She had three barbs the size of knitting needles protruding from her leg. Rosaliy dropped to the ground and pulled out the barbs. Purple ooze dripped from their tips and sizzled in the sand.

“Granpulpo poisoned…whoever this is,” Rosaliy explained.

“Good,” said Drake while shaking off water. “Maybe nobody knows we’re here.”

“No, not good,” Rosaliy disagreed vehemently. “She helped me.”

Drake did not take that as irrefutable evidence. “Why?”

“Well, we didn’t have time for an in depth discussion,” she snapped.

“Then how do you know—”

“The healing potion!” she exclaimed.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

His lack of urgency was not appreciated. She had spotted the glint of the top of the jar, however, and she was digging it out of Drake’s pocket already. Even if healing the girl was not a good idea, Rosaliy would not have been able to watch someone die in front of her and do nothing.

She flipped up the top of the jar and poured a little liquid into the girl’s mouth. The white-lipped girl coughed weakly and then gasped as the potion coursed through her. She gripped Rosaliy’s arm and bolted upright, exclaiming something unrecognizable.

“I know,” Rosaliy sympathized. “Take it easy. You’re going to be ok. I don’t speak Flifary.”

“Of course not,” said the girl with a thick accent, charming and exotic. “I forgot. Who are you?”

“Who are you?” Drake shot back.

“I’m Zaphia,” she answered, looking wildly from one to the other. “You’re Terrans. You got here on Imman’Oct. Did it carry you? No, no, that’s not important. You’re the Sorceress they brought here before. You made it!”

This girl Rosaliy did not know was strangely excited to see her. Maybe Drake was right about caution.

The girl plunged ahead. She had thick, shoulder-length fire red hair laced with dozens of tiny braids. Each braid had a feather stuck in it that wobbled when she talked. She looked like an overexcited bird. “You’re here. Good. You have until sun-sleep to do what you’re planning. What are you planning? You’re going to stop Iketa and Dalor, right? Destroy the divination stone? Rescue the Sorceress and the kids?”

Rosaliy threw a questioning glance at Drake.

“Oh, now you want my opinion,” he grumped. “Zaphia, how do you know all this?”

Zaphia’s eyes darted between them. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “Oh. You think— Of course. I was helping with the revolution until I realized Iketa, Dalor, and Ocery were not being honest. Then I tried to figure out what they were doing—taking so many Terran prisoners, searching for the stone and some kids. It was all very weird. And then you showed up.” She jabbed a sandy finger in Rosaliy’s direction. “I mean, you didn’t show up so much as you were brought here, and nothing made sense. Iketa and Dalor and Ocery said they were returning power back to the people, not trying to take it from Terrans and the Naxturae. I thought we helped them keep the world safe.”

“You need to rest for a second, Zaphia,” insisted Rosaliy. She was getting the gist of the rambling introduction despite the girl’s thick accent making every fifth word unrecognizable. Rosaliy needed to think.

She pulled Drake aside.

“She’s either telling the truth or she’s an evil mastermind,” said Drake. “Either way, we should probably keep an eye on her.”

“Having an ally on this island is worth the risk,” Rosaliy said. “I don’t know where I’m going, and she seems to have a lot of information.”

“A lot of information,” Drake chuckled.

Zaphia was already on her feet and brushing off sand. The potion must have been kinder about flushing poison than healing a body full of broken bones. Rosaliy still felt wobbly on her feet now that she did not have adrenaline coursing through her body.

“We need somewhere to hide,” Rosaliy said.

“Hide?” Zaphia’s face scrunched up in confusion. Rosaliy tried not to stare at the funny contrast of bright red eyebrows against such a dark face. She had never met a Flifary before. “But this is the safest time to be out. Isn’t that why you came in the middle of the day?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Rosaliy admitted. “Won’t everybody see us?”

“Everybody’s sleeping,” Zaphia disagreed. “Don’t you notice how hot it is?”

Now that Zaphia mentioned it, Rosaliy did notice how hot she was. Just a second ago, she had been drenched, and now she was bone dry.

“You found us,” Drake pointed out.

“I was looking,” said Zaphia. “I got the first part of the day shift, and I saw a flash near the beach. I ran to investigate, and here you were. I’m surprised you were bold enough to arrive on the palace side of the island. Is bold the right word? You must have powerful magic to stop Iketa and Dalor. What do you want me to do?” She clapped her hands together, eager for instructions.

Bold was not the right word. Zaphia was giving Rosaliy far more credit than she deserved. “They’re tracking me?” Rosaliy asked. None of this seemed good.

Zaphia’s feathers whirled as she shook her head. “They think you’re dead, so they’re not looking very hard. What’s the plan?”

Good question. “Where are Iketa and Dalor?” Drake asked.

Zaphia’s wide eyes swiveled to fix on him. “Either in the temple trying to get the divination room working again or at the palace interrogating the prisoners.”

“Have they found the—” Rosaliy started to ask.

Drake shot Rosaliy a “you’re telling Zaphia too much” kind of look.

“The divination stone?” Zaphia finished for her. “Dalor’s been working on something else, mostly, but I don’t know what. He works out of the temple.”

What could be more important to him than finding that stone?

“Well,” reasoned Rosaliy, “magical supplies would be useful, and I’d like to see the progress on the divination room for myself.” Plus, look for the divination stone. Drake would be proud she kept that to herself. Or he might have been proud, had he not seemed so distracted.

Something screeched at her from above. Rosaliy decided to ignore the sound, and momentarily, she felt a painful thwap on her shoulder. A large green fruit bounced off.

The belt had stopped working altogether. For the first time, she noticed a barb protruding from the leather. She plucked it out, careful to avoid the sizzling poison. “I don’t think the belt’s working at all now,” she announced.

“On the plus side, we found Quita.” Drake pointed.

The little monkey scrambled down a tall tree. She paused and pulled a green ball from her puffed cheeks to chuck at Rosaliy.

“I can see why you’re mad, but I’m not sure why you’ve decided it’s my fault,” Rosaliy objected.

Drake scooped Quita’s projectiles from the ground and sliced one open with a knife. He handed Rosaliy a successfully shelled nut while he worked on the other. Quita watched the production with wide eyes, halting her attack. The instant Rosaliy was holding the nut, Quita leaped onto her shoulder. Rosaliy handed over the nut. Quita spat out her cheekful of inedible nuts and happily shoved the food in her mouth.

“I’m not sure what you’re so angry about, Quita. Your trip was much easier than ours,” insisted Drake, handing her another nut and popping one in his own mouth.

The sight of the troublesome little monkey raised Rosaliy’s spirits. They had succeeded. They made it to Flifary Island. For now, they were free. They had made an unexpected friend. Now came the hard part.