In the Darkness Visible - Elk Riders Volume One

Chapter 9: The Elawn

Omanuju and Adamantus were already freed from whatever spell they had been put under when Ghede came running into the chamber, Gabriella bouncing on his back.

"Ghede, there you are," Omanuju said.

"Test passed. We have a bigger problem," Ghede said, not breaking stride as he passed Omanuju and the elk and headed towards the largest ship, the Elawn.

"What is it?" Omanuju asked but before Ghede could answer, a startled Adamantus reared on his hind legs as the vapor Gabriella had released flooded up the stairwell and spilled out onto the chamber floor.

"By the stars!" Omanuju cried, and followed Ghede.

Gabriella was not sure what was going on. Was Ghede their ally or no? Omanuju showed no fear of him. But both were terrified of the substance that was now spreading across the floor, leading with long tentacles of shadow that whipped and twisted in the air. Ghede set Gabriella down in order to pull on the mooring line of the Elawn. The ship moved ponderously, like an ocean-going ship tied up at dock, but floating on air rather than water. Ghede's muscles rippled, his tendons cording in his limbs. The Elawn came in low enough that its hull just scraped the floor. Adamantus leapt the gunwale while Omanuju climbed a rope ladder dangling over the side. Gabriella looked left and right, up and down. She still didn't know what to do. Ghede provided an answer by tossing her up in an abrupt swing over the rail and onto the deck. He followed quickly after climbing up the tow rope and leaping onto the deck at a full run.

"The poles, the poles!" he shouted.

The Elawn was just like any other sailing ship Gabriella had been on before. It had a wide main deck with promenades to the port and starboard, a raised mid-deck covered in hatches, and a wheel well for steering. A set of double doors aft led to the cabins below. The poles Ghede spoke of hung just beneath the railings to port and starboard. Omanuju snapped one free, Ghede the other, and levering each against the cave walls, they began to shift the Elawn forward. It was painfully slow, however, and the inky substance had already overtaken more than half the room.

"Push!" Ghede cried.

The paneled sail scraped against the ceiling, and Ghede raised his pole to push the Elawn downward. The black vapor curled over the side, slithering across the boards until Adamantus leapt down from the main deck to the port walkway and slashed at the tendrils with his antlers, his branching crown glowing silver from within the cloud. The dark miasma parted.

The cave mouth opened around them, and Gabriella saw to her horror that they were hundreds of feet up the cliff side. She reeled and stumbled away from the rail, her stomach uncontrollable, her head spinning, and her body drenched with sweat. She could not scramble away from the edge quickly enough. She was so intent that she failed to notice the withered plank in the deck. It gave way under her in an explosion of soft, rotten wood. Her chin struck the deck hard, rocking back her head as she slipped through the planking and fell into the ship's hold. She rolled down the sloping walls onto the keel. The Elawn was anything but a sealed and watertight ship, and Gabriella could make out the rocky shore and the frothy surf through the gaps in the boards of the hull.

She felt as if she would wretch when something pulled at her belt. She wondered if she had snagged a nail or if Omanuju or Ghede had reached in to grab her, but the two of them were still topside. In the dim interior of the ship she discerned an incongruous sight: a great black stone, its sides jagged and shiny and covered by metal objects–buttons, nails, fishhooks, and even a dagger, each stuck to the stone as if glued to it. Gabriella wondered how the objects defied gravity in such a way when she realized her own belt buckle had swung around and was being tugged towards the stone as if pulled by an irresistible force. She felt her hips sliding across the boards. She struggled to escape the force, her thrashing knocking a second and then a third board free from beneath her. Fresh sea winds whipped through the gap, tousling her hair.