Chương 35: Sea Dragon

It was usually impossible to sneak up on Ultán. He was in touch with the air currents in a way that any perturbation of them in his general vicinity was a clear sign that something was amiss. He certainly could never be snuck up on by something the size of the sea dragon - that would have played merry hell on the wind around him. Unfortunately he had put his back to a storm - no, Eoin had put his back to the storm!

The wind was already a chaotic mess there and even something like the massive golem that flapped its way towards him could go unnoticed. For the first time, Ultán considered that perhaps this particular job might not be worth it. The sea dragon moved like a flipbook turned slowly with too few pages. The vast wings didn't actually move - they simply disappeared and reappeared in the position they would have been had they done so.

Whatever this thing was, it wasn't moving appendages - it was constantly reforming itself in a crass approximation of what a real sea dragon would be like. Even so, that made it all the more dangerous - because the claw racing toward him right now seemed to teleport closer to him every half second or so. Still, that shouldn't matter to his Paths. He exploded in a tangle of golden lines - ways to evade the massive claw sweeping up at him.

Even between "page flips" he could feel the wind of the claw moving as he dodged, trusting in his Adept skills to see him through. His dagger scratched harmlessly against the wood of the claw's forefinger as he tumbled towards the roaring mouth. It looked as every other sea dragon he'd ever seen did - perhaps a smaller example of one. He might have grown up in the desert, but he'd spent the last four hundred years of his life at sea. He knew what a sea dragon was like, and this clearly was not really one.

Besides the fact that it was wooden, there were small missed details. All sea dragons had a flexible dorsal fin right behind their skulls - this one lacked it. They had three rows of deadly teeth - this one had only one set of fangs. Was this a technique by someone who just didn't know that much about sea dragons? They would have to have been Life Nature and more powerful than anyone Ultán had ever met to achieve something like this.

He thought about Miriam, but for as many surprises she had shown him her fórsa was still First Ring. There was no way she'd have the skill for something like this. He looked also at his blade where it had lightly scored the wood - it was not another of Eoin's illusions. It was time to leave. Ultán bundled up all his Wind fórsa and funneled it behind him, mimicking what, unknown to him, Miriam was doing with water in the small boat below them.

He would push himself as far away as he could and if he tumbled into the drink at the end, bereft of power, he would still consider it a better outcome than what he faced here - so long as he was far enough away.

"Again, I'm sorry," Eoin said, true remorse in his voice. Ultán felt bands of water wrap around his arms and legs, lashings infinitely stronger than Miriam's had been.

"Five minutes ago I would have happily let you run away. But for all the crimes I am guilty of, they all arise under my one most unforgivable sin. Curiosity. Now that we have this opportunity…" Eoin looked at the dragon barreling after them.

"I just want to see what will happen." With that he hurled Ultán straight into the dragon's mouth. ✧✧✧ Soulless found being a sea dragon pleasurable. That wasn't a sensation he was used to - normally, satisfaction at carrying out its instructions well was the extent of this sort of feeling of which he was capable. His new Mind was a wide, labyrinthine thing, seeking after new feelings and thoughts like a trout in a sea of insects. Still, more than anything, it sought the power it needed to have.

The original food source was there as it pulled above the clouds, but the other one had much more fórsa. Also, it was of a nature that was new, and on top of its general overwhelming need, the desire to try new things was very big on Soulless's list of priorities. The original food source - Eoin Daithi, a thought bounced unbidden in his head - was giving the new one to Soulless. Soulless beat its mammoth wings, reaching out with open jaws.

He was alarmed at how much being a sea dragon was eating up the fórsa from the gem. There were sections on the back of its rear talons that were dripping mulch and rot as even the Blight was burned to make this brilliant new form happen. The new food source would replenish it, though, so Soulless wasn't worried. He closed his fangs around Ultán. Instantly, being a sea dragon wasn't the priority any more.

Soulless wrestled with the Pathfinder Adept in his mouth, drawing strength even as it expended it to keep him trapped. Ultán was strong - stronger than anyone Soulless had ever had on deck before. This time there was no iron cage to keep him docile the way it had Eoin - that cage had sunk to the bottom of the sea as the new fórsa hadn't been conditioned to withstand it the way the old materials had. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Ultán threw dozens of attacks at his wooden prison, but the fórsa drain was intense. Soulless was no longer trying to draw just enough to keep a prisoner controlled anymore. He wanted it all, needed it all. The Fifth Ring sailor's power should have torn the Second Ring wood to pieces - and it did. Soulless was constantly remaking itself, pulling material from other places in its body to keep Ultán contained.

He felt no real pain, so it didn't bother him to constantly crack his own body apart and reform it in the shape he needed. Soulless tumbled from the sky, actively trying to digest its biggest meal ever. ✧✧✧ Miriam was beginning to run out of fórsa, but after the great wooden dragon had disappeared into the sky they had made good time. They could barely see, but Cormac seemed to think the First Gate to Cianán's Walk was nearby. Miriam saw no indication of it in the blackness around them.

She could only hope Cormac's luck was keeping them on the right track. Looking at her crewmates, Cormac was busily weaving threads. Maitiú was curled into a ball, chanting to himself. Róise seemed to be asleep. Miriam breathed a sigh, hoping the worst was behind them. That was the moment the dragon fell out of the clouds. It was not nearly as dragon-shaped as it had once been - its form seemed to fuzz in and out of reality as it spiraled out the sky, the raging wind catching its limp wings violently.

It never quite looked like a ship again, but it didn't look dragon-like anymore either. A sinister purple glow was emanating from its mouth, which consistently retained its shape. It was falling directly on top of them.

"That's your good luck?" Miriam shouted at Cormac, then poured the rest of what she had into her propulsion tunnel. The whole boat shuddered and cracked. Water chilled her feet as the hull began to lose its integrity, but she could do nothing but go as fast as possible. The dragon struck the water no more than thirty feet behind them, creating an enormous wave that shook the control away from Miriram and tossed the lifeboat forward into the chopping waves.

"Hold on!" Cormac shouted and he literally hummed with power, his threads strong enough to be visible - intricate golden webs of luck literally cocooning the little vessel.

"What's happening?" Róise shouted, waking up.

"We're all going to die!" Maitiú shouted. In the moment when the water overtook them, Miriam agreed. They were shoved roughly underwater, surfacing again roughly enough to slough out a majority of the seawater weighing the boat down. Miriam tried to re-establishing the lashing under the boat but it was moving too chaotically. Every time she tried to reach out with what fórsa she had the boat would jostle, knocking her against the sides and breaking her concentration.

If she could at least get one more lashing going she could make it self-sustaining; they wouldn't go nearly as fast, but it would no longer rely on her ability to focus. It was all they could do to hold on and ride in the tide. ✧✧✧ Thrashing in the freezing waters of the sea, Soulless was having trouble with his prey. He had won the duel of strength - Ultán lay limp against the dragon's wooden tongue. There was little of Soulless left now, just the head which imprisoned the sailor.

A strange current was pulling them along, but Soulless paid it no mind. He had been a ship, and in many ways was a ship still. Currents and eddies were home to him. The problem he was having was in completing his instructions. This new version of the gem, a combination of the Líadan crystal and Solas's Reel - it no longer had the means to expel the fórsa it collected. The Mind had forbidden it - they must keep it all! The problem was that Soulless had no way to keep it.

He was built with no storage mechanisms at all. He could fill up his own gem and that was it. Leaving so much left over… Rebuild … the Mind whispered. Soulless considered. Who was to say if a ship rebuilt of all new material would be the same ship? It wouldn't be, he decided. But that didn't matter. He was already completely different than he had been as the Líadan. It would seem that change was in his nature more than being a ship was.

Following the same process by which he integrated the Mind fórsa from the Reel, Soulless began to break Ultán apart and integrate him into his own being. This was far more painful than either party could have imagined. For Ultán, because he would never have imagined such a thing, and for Soulless, because he had never felt pain before. Still, he didn't stop.

✧✧✧ Still floating above the storm, Eoin watched both the lifeboat and the writhing mass of what had once been a ship get sucked into the current which would barrel them through the First Gate of Cianán's Walk, the pass swollen from the storm - luckily safer for them to cross than if the sea were low. There was a very real urge in him to follow. He hadn't even gotten to see the culmination of his latest experiment with Ultán and the sea dragon.

Plus, he really wanted to lord it over Miriam about her lie regarding Solas's Reel. He shook his head. Curiosity might be the death of him one day, but it would not be today. Eoin had already been in the thick of making plans of how he would leave the ship before crossing the boundary into Cianán's Walk, but Ultán had made it easy.

"I'm sorry, Miriam," he said into the wind.

"I meant every word I said to you, but after two thousand years of life in the Tír, goodbyes are an inevitability one learns to accept. As much as I would be fascinated to see the inside of Cianán's Walk, I don't want it to be the last thing I see. Regardless of the young captain's Drop of Intent -" Drat, he had meant to steal that before he left. Oh well.

"Eh, well, regardless. None of you will make it out of there. I will be forever grateful for your aid and your companionship. On Samhain I will remember your name in my chants." Eoin sighed softly and began to look around to get his bearings. He needed a bath, a haircut and a good meal, in that order. The closest place might be back to Arbrey. Few towns or villages survived long near Cianán's Walk. He again accepted the inevitable and instructed his cloud to fly back West.

"I need a new hat," he said wistfully.