Poseidon's Scar by Matthew Phillion

Author:Matthew Phillion [Phillion, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780997916591
Publisher: Lost Continuity Press
Published: 2019-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34: You stole from who?

The journey back to the Endless was relatively incident-free, which, Barnabas noted, was becoming an increasingly infrequent occurrence.

The yacuruna had been shockingly generous. They surrendered the Eye to Echo’s group easily and without argument, when Barnabas had expected a fight. They even explained a bit about its magic, which Yuri and Artem visibly tuned out while Echo strained to understand. Barnabas had exchanged a knowing nod to Muireann, who clearly understood everything the yacuruna had said about the orb, the words and gestures that would need to be performed to awaken it, to “open” the Eye, so to speak.

We’ll have to compare notes, Barnabas thought, still not quite sure what to make of the ondine’s abilities. She seemed to be entirely instinctual in her magic—everything she did stemmed from the innate abilities that came from being an ondine, where Barnabas, though possessing a natural inclination toward magic because of his mother’s heritage, had to bungle his way through spell books, old scrolls, and dangerous practice attempts to get it right. He was almost jealous of her, and at the same time proud of what he’d accomplished with so little worthwhile instruction.

The serpent had taught him a bit, he thought, back on the Island of Unwanted Things. I can’t take all the credit. I did have a malevolent, almost-immortal snake handing me spell books since I was a kid. Still, it was hard to understand things like the somatic gestures many spells required when your teacher didn’t have limbs.

He and Artem rowed the dinghy out to the Endless together, Muireann sitting at the end of the little boat quietly, looking back at the river wistfully. Both Yuri and Echo had chosen to swim back on their own, and Barnabas could make out the streak in the water where Echo darted ahead, leaping onto the deck without missing a beat. Yuri, moving less like a rocket and more like the shark he resembled, left almost no trail in the water, which Barnabas found unsettling. For someone who, in human form, was a walking disaster of clumsiness, it felt exceedingly unnatural to watch the boy move like a true predator in the water. It caused a level of dissonance Barnabas didn’t particularly like.

They reached the ship and found Echo staring off into the distance, her arms folded defensively. Barnabas left Artem and Yuri to haul the dinghy back onboard and joined Echo on the deck.

“What are we looking… oh, that’s interesting,” Barnabas said.

“They’re headed right for us,” Echo said.

The path the new ship took left little question where it was headed, its prow aimed directly at the Endless. It was a gorgeous vessel, Barnabas thought, though a little too modern for his tastes, a massive yacht, state of the art, stark white in all the right places, chrome in the others, though it had clearly seen better days. There was visible damage, possibly from a storm or rough seas, that he could make out even from a distance.

A man stood on the prow, his body language imperious, defiant.

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