Heretical Fishing

Book 4: Epilogue

On a shore far to the northeast of Tropica, a lone man tumbled from his wooden skiff, both body and spirit pushed to their very limits. He had dreamed of this moment for so, so long, yet now that he was here, he could barely move. His head spun.

He’d made that crossing dozens of times before, and never had it been so treacherous as that. The food had been meant for a voyage of weeks—not months. He’d been hit by a tsunami, struck at by malicious clouds, and swept off course by waves bigger than he thought possible.

He was drawn back to the present by the glint of sunlight on silver. His rings. He thumbed the one on his index finger, taking solace in the stone adorning it. He almost removed his jewelry a few times on the trip. Doing so presented unknowable risks, but probable harm was always preferable to the certain death of falling overboard.

He was getting distracted. He focused on the pearlescent stones on his fingers again, using them to ground him in the present. He felt the desire to rip them off and let the king’s chi flood into him, but he shook his head. Not yet—not within sight of the ocean.

There was no time to waste. He had to inform the king of his findings. The hobbyist merchant pushed himself from his prostrate position in the sand. A fresh wave of nausea hit him, stemming from his dizziness, his hunger, or both. He gritted his teeth and forged onward. He got to his feet, but he wobbled, almost falling back down.

It was like the storms he’d faced at sea were now contained in his head. Those damned storms . . . if he didn’t know better, he would have assumed an elemental was behind it. Those strikes of lightning had seemed borderline personal. They struck around his skiff, never quite hitting, yet always too close for comfort.

Not possible, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time. Elementals no longer inhabit this realm.

It didn’t help. Recalling those thunderbolts made him want to get farther from the ocean, so he stumbled for the tree line, only his suppressed yet potent core still keeping him upright. When his foot eventually found grass, he let out a sigh and glanced down at his rings once more. Not yet.

Using trees as handholds, he ambled onward, and minutes later, he could hear no waves. He went another few meters for good measure, then started slipping the rings off. Each one made his chi swell. When only two remained, his core could taste the kingdom’s essence. It begged for it.

Both hands shot to his chest. No matter how much they fumbled, his relic was gone. He’d lost it. “Poseidon’s blessed waters!” he swore, his voice sounding like someone else’s.

The man shook his head. He had been playing the merchant too long. With a deep breath, he set it all aside and closed his eyes, circulating chi to calm his weary soul. When he looked back out at the world, his mask was gone, replaced by duty.

There was fresh water only kilometers from here. He desperately wanted to go there, but that was weakness talking. Even those scant minutes couldn’t be wasted. He took off as fast as he could, his enhanced body dodging trees and chewing through the distance between him and his kingdom—his home.

He had countless things to report.

Gormona, that foreign powerhouse turned relic of the past, had fallen. Last he saw of the castle, there’d been a hole blown in the side of it large enough to span three floors. At the time, he’d assumed it the work of a cultivator rising. He now knew different.

The reason for Gormona’s fall was something far, far worse. On his way back to the ocean, a shadow had blocked out the moon, and thinking back, he could hardly believe it. A giant net carried by pelicans and filled with humans.

So shocked had he been that he’d paused out in the open, his training forgotten as he gazed up at something that shouldn’t be—just in time to see some kind of mammal, its fur brown and body lithe, zap one of the captives with electricity.

The spy shivered, almost losing his footing as he recalled that dreadful power coming from a beast. It was no wonder he’d been paranoid of the storms on the way home.

Not possible, he reminded himself again. There are no elementals. It still didn’t help. His nerves were frayed.

For all he knew, life had been extinguished on the entire continent by now. That actually might be the best option. Such was the result of letting spirit beasts live. They grew mad with time. Everyone with a brain knew that.

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Unfortunately for Gormona, its leaders had forgotten their history. They’d grown complacent, and their entire kingdom had paid the price.

Still running, the man gave a silent prayer toward the empty heavens, wishing strength for any humans, past or present, that came face-to-face with the evil that was a spirit beast.

Especially that damned lightning mammal, he added for good measure, shivering again.

“Everyone!” Ellis called softly as he strode for Tropica’s new jetty. “Fischer! Maria! The feast is read . . . y?”

He’d been so preoccupied with the recently acquired contents of his brain that he hadn’t even been inspecting the surrounding buildings. If those transformations couldn’t draw his attention, the sticky purple pile of something he’d just stepped in never had a chance.

It covered his shoes, and as its unmistakable scent drifted up to meet him, he only grew more perplexed.

How had a jar’s worth of passiona jam come to be discarded on the street? There was a blur of movement to his right. He whirled toward it. Something splatted behind him. He spun back . . . Another pile of passiona jam? Judging by its splatter, it had fallen directly down—but there was nothing above it. Just open sky.

He sent tendrils of chi out to find the apparitions haunting him, and when he found nobody, his fears were confirmed. There were two beings capable of hiding themselves from his enhanced senses, and only one of them was the familiar of a famed trickster.

“Corporal Claws,” Ellis said. “I would usually welcome this joust, but I am afraid the food is ready. Do you not wish your master to partake of the fish he cap—”

A white cloud exploded outward. No, he was forced to amend. Not yet, anyway.

He recognized the stick that flew in from above, its tip glowing red. He didn’t know where they’d managed to get one, but he did know the effect its introduction to the dispersed flour would have.

Boom!

Now there was the explosion. He was fine, of course. Such tricks were ineffective on him following his breakthrough. A round shape appeared in his peripheral vision, seen even through the smoke now filling the air. The raccoon’s ability to steal was troubling—he could rob his own aura from the world—but Ellis didn’t need his senses to dodge this attack. The degenerate mammal’s eyes glowed blue as he tumbled over and over, speeding in with violent intent.

The archivist ducked, and when what he’d thought was the raccoon sailed overhead, he realized his error. It wasn’t the familiar at all. It was a coconut. It had two little sparks of electricity stuck to its husk.

The next shape that came rocketing through the haze could not be mistaken. This time, the raccoon didn’t bother hiding his chi.

I may have made a mistake, Ellis thought, but you still underestimate me, child.

He leaped, jumping clear of the fuzzy missile—and right into the path of the master.

“So you finally show yourself,” Ellis said as Claws came into view, only their thoroughly enhanced senses allowing them to communicate. Lightning and smoke swirled in the otter’s wake.

Hiiii! she sang with a coo, waving her left forepaw in greeting.

Ellis didn’t expect to have to reveal his new power so soon, yet he couldn’t help but be a little excited as he reached for his essence. He had learned more than she could hope to comprehend, and even before absorbing all the tomes, his teachers on the isle had taught him exactly how to counter elementals.

He reached into his internal library, gathering reams and reams of paper. The pages may have been empty of words, but they were packed with his chi. He poured his will into them, opened up the door to his shelves, and—

Pain. He glanced down. The raccoon’s needle-sharp teeth were latched onto his ankle. Fuzzy little eyebrows waggled in delight, up until the very moment the creature stole Ellis’s power—then it was its whole body that waggled. The familiar’s form couldn’t handle the archivist’s chi. It rippled and shook like thin paper in a stiff breeze.

Ellis would have his essence back in moments, but the damage had been done. He smirked and looked toward Claws just in time to see her remove a cast-iron weapon from her right pouch.

“You win this round,” he said. “It was I who underestimated you. Well played.”

The elemental of lightning and chaos didn’t wrap the frying pan with any of her essence. She was no longer pretending to be evil, so she wouldn’t try to hurt him. That didn’t mean she was going to go easy on him, though.

She swung forward with all her strength, holding absolutely nothing back.

When Snips jumped into the ocean, it felt as though the frigid currents also washed over me. I took a sharp breath, then shook the sensation off as I bent to grab the fish my favorite crab flicked my way.

“It’s adorable!” Maria said.

“Right?” I didn’t need to inspect the shore fish to know it was a juvenile, so I unhooked it, stated my thanks, and returned it to the bay.

Snips leaped back up onto my head. Maria grabbed my hand and leaned against my shoulder, her soft hair blowing in an unseen breeze as we watched the little fishy swi—

Boom!

We spun toward Tropica.

“Well,” Maria said. “Sounds like someone’s having fun. Who do you think—”

Clangggg!

None of us spoke a word as we watched a warped and broken object sail high above the village. I cocked my head. “Is that half a pan?”

Snips blew affirmative bubbles.

“I think so,” Maria agreed.

I squinted. “Why is Ellis’s face molded into it?”