Page 148 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

Æsubrand stared at them for a second with the same shock that was probably on my face. Then, he turned on me again. “What is he doing?”

I stared uncomprehendingly. “What? Who?”

“The demon!”

“Which one?”

“Your one!”

I looked for Pritkin, but at that moment, the whole world shivered again, although that is a wholly inadequate description. It wasn’t like the faux earthquake in the mud pit; it wasn’t like the previous quake down here; it wasn’t like anything I’d ever experienced. The world convulsed and sent the whole sea churning with wild fluctuations that ripped me away from the silver prince and sent me into a maelstrom of teeth, claws, and jumbled-up bodies.

That would have been the end, except our enemies were freaked out about what was happening, too. The battle paused momentarily as we all realized that we had bigger problems. And I felt a surge of hope because was that it? Was Faerie’s dying convulsion going to buy us one last chance?

And then one of the biggest creatures roared, a stuttering, mind-ripping challenge that reverberated through the water and into my very soul.

And it was on.

Enid appeared at my side, somehow fighting her way through the carnage and cursing multiple creatures on all sides. Including one I hadn’t noticed that had been about to eat my head. And then Æsubrand, who was nothing if not single-minded, grabbed me again. Right before we were all thrown almost back to where we’d started by another convulsion, one bad enough to cause great stones from above to break off their foundations and come speeding down at us.

But since they were in the sea, they weren’t speeding as fast as they could have been, leaving me watching huge black boulders, pillars as big as skyscrapers, and small rocks the size of cars tumbling through the battlefield. Where they were dodged by the combatants who kept right on slaughtering each other. It was weirdly beautiful, with the dim light cascading down from above, spearing the dark blue water like the rays through the windows of a cathedral.

Appropriate, I thought, as this was the funeral for a dying world. . .

And then somebody grabbed me hard enough that it jolted me out of my shock. I looked up to see Æsubrand screaming in my face. “What is he doing?”

I followed his gaze to see Pritkin inside a shield, probably to keep anything from killing him for a minute while he tried one last Hail Mary, moving his arm in circles as he had in front of the great throne while trying to summon the tunnel.

“He’s using elemental magic, isn’t he?” Æsubrand demanded, shaking me.

I nodded. “He’s trying to summon a spell to get us out of here, but he doesn’t have the power—”

“I have power!”

“Yes, but it isn’t just about energy. It takes a command of all four elements—”

The shaking recommenced wildly, leaving me feeling a bit like a bobblehead doll, one whose neck was about to snap and probably already would have, except for the water cushioning it. But then he said something that made me forget about that, that made me forget everything. “I have all four elements!”

I blinked at him. “That’s not possible. Nobody has all four except Pritkin—”

“Why do you think my father married my mother?” he asked me hysterically. “For love? He wanted a son who could command all four, to help bring back his precious gods, but that didn’t work out as he’d planned and—”

He cut off because I screamed my head off into the translator link between Pritkin and me. “Æsubrand has all four elements!”

Pritkin turned, his eyes flooding a brilliant, blistering green. And a moment after that, something blazed bright blue among the carnage, a small compass-shaped something that abruptly spiraled out into the mouth of a black stone tunnel where it had no business being. Only no, it wasn’t a tunnel anymore, I thought as Pritkin flung me down its maw.

It was a tomb because guess who was crowding in behind us?

I wasn’t sure if the Ancient Horrors were chasing us or just trying to escape from the earthquake or the slaughter or the collapse of the world, but it didn’t matter. We were engulfed by them, along with a ton of water that abhorred a vacuum and was doing its best to fill it as fast as possible. And it was doing a good job.

I suddenly couldn’t see anything but crashing waves as they poured in behind us. And thousands of bubbles as we all went spilling down the stone tube at an absurd speed. Something raked claws down my armor, but I wasn’t sure it knew that because there was no follow-up. Something else grabbed hold of me, but it was less an I’m-going-to-savage-you moment than a please-help-me!

But I couldn’t help even myself. Like when we dropped out of the tunnel as abruptly as we’d entered it and fell at least a dozen yards into a rapidly flooding room that was supposed to be already underwater. Hadn’t that been what Faerie had said, that the palace was flooded?

Tell that to my ass, I thought, as it hit stone and didn’t break, but only because of the tons of water spilling out all around me. And trying to drown me as I turned over and half crawled, half dragged myself forward, trying to get out of the way of the things crashing down all around me. And then started swimming as the large space began filling up with liquid and things in the liquid that did not appear happy to be there.

That was particularly true when the ceiling cracked like a gunshot, the room shivered all around us, and the braced doors on several sides, which I guessed had kept out the flood until now, burst open.

I went under in the sudden deluge and came up spluttering because my air bubble had just collapsed. And looked up to see the tunnel spewing out dozens, if not hundreds, of the smaller Horrors before Pritkin slashed a hand through the air and sent it away again. And chopped one of the bigger specimens in two in the process, half of which left with the tunnel and the rest—

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