An Ocean of Lies (AFOS II)

Chapter 27: Alaric

They held each other's hands, squeezed once, tight. Dante came into the cabin, his hair covered in frost, his nose and lips blue, his eyes wild. He paced, back and forth, shaking the ice from his clothes, leaving puddles all over the wood.

"Any chance we can outrun it?" Jo asked, snapping the revenant out of his dragon-induced panic.

"Someone could go downstairs, keep the firerocks shaking," Jo ran before he could finish talking. "I have a compass somewhere, Alaric, would you look for it? In that chest, under the desk. I don't know how to use a compass, by Ontur's dusty underpants. It's not magical, if everything fails, we should be alright. Alright, it should be—" the ship rocked hard, tilting to the right, almost all the way.

Alaric knew what compasses looked like: round, with a tiny arrow in the middle. The chest was filled with trinkets, some children's toys, even, a doll, the compass was nowhere to be found. He pulled himself together, controlled his breath, his heartbeat: focus. None ever found anything in a panic. The compass shone in the middle of a wooden box with a glass lid. He handed it to Dante, who went directly towards the box instead, taking the doll. Without a word, he shoved it in his jacket's inner pocket. There had to be a story there, but it wasn't the time.

"Jo's controlling it remarkably," the revenant said, grabbing the compass from his hands. "I looked at her aura, she's grabbing magic from the runes, but barely," he shook it. Alaric took it back, showed him the north.

"Could she take magic from the dragon, maybe?"

"Maybe. But she'd have to be next to it, magic becomes diffuse with the distance. That's why she draws mainly from the ship, it's readily available, lucky us," he grumbled. He knew that, he just needed some validation.

"I —" Alaric choked. No, it was a terrible idea. Or was it? He looked out the window, the fog turned into a blizzard. He had to. "I have an idea. It's a little crazy, but the situation is not exactly sane, is it? But I'm terrible at planning things, I'm sure it's a terrible idea, never mind."

"We're out of options, boy. Jo's doing a good job down there with the fire rocks, but the boiler is too cold, the engine is dying out. I'm all ears."

"I'll bait the dragon, lure it to come closer. I'm fast enough with my enhancements, I can dodge it if it attacks. The ship will sustain some damage, but as long as we have some runes left, the shape is irrelevant, isn't it? It's not like fog can actually flood us and sink us. Jo will draw as much magic as she can from the dragon, from the door here. The dragon will sink to the bottom, losing magic will exhaust it. It will have to go and replenish, it won't be physically able to spew ice at us, at least."

"I like it. She won't like it, though. You realize you'll be putting yourself in danger there, right?" he whispered. "You could," he made a motion across his neck.

"I'm confident in my abilities, I think, and I trust Jo. She'll focus and draw the magic from the dragon, we'll be fine. Do you have any, what do you call them? Light bombs? The ones they use to make other ships see you at night?"

"Fireworks? I have a few," Dante pointed at a box under the bed.

"You keep them under the bed? Sleeping over something that could blow you up to pieces, excellent hiding place if you ask me," he raised an eyebrow.

"I have to keep them somewhere," he shrugged.

"I'll only need one. If, you know, things go wrong, you can use one as a weapon. I've seen it, well, read of it in books, the warriors of Shonagon used them in their wars with Fonterra, to blind their troops, make some smoke, or so they say. Some books say they Fonterrans actually stole them and blew themselves up with the things, blinded themselves, but I guess we'll never know, will we? They work as bombs, see? not as powerful as alchemical bombs, but bombs all the same."