Aaron gulped. The general’s breath was hot on his face. Shaking, Aaron pushed his chair back and rose slowly to his feet. It took him several seconds before he trusted himself to speak. “General Blair, what is it exactly that you’re asking me to do?”
The general straightened up, his face blotched red and purple. When he spoke, his voice was one of quiet anger. “I think you understand quite well what I am asking you, High Priest. I want you to take down that blasted wall.”
Shipwrecked
Spike Furious, the whale that Alex created in the Museum of Large, was an intuitive creature, so she was the first to sense danger. “Where is the Alex?” she asked from alongside the ship in the darkness.
Alex’s eyes flew open. “I’m here. At the back of the ship.” He scrambled to his feet and peered over the side, but he couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see much of anything. A troubled wind stopped and started. The stars were hidden, and only a hint of moon lit their way tonight.
“Something bad is coming,” Spike said. “It is not a waterfall.” She spoke simply and without fear, for she was a very new creature who was still learning the ways of the sea. Each experience the Artiméans went through gave Spike the information on which to build her predictions.
“How do you know it’s bad?” asked Alex. His eyes grazed the sky, where a faint glow from the moon revealed a thick layer of clouds. Clouds were a rare sight for the people of Artimé, and immediately Alex wondered if they had something to do with Spike’s premonition.
“I can feel the badness tugging at me. It’s like the waterfall, but different.”
The sky lit up with a flash, followed by a low rumbling. Alex thought he saw a mass of land in the distance. He trained his eyes on the spot and waited for lightning to come again. “It’s just a storm, Spike. You’re safe under water. I hope it doesn’t get too rough though, or we’re going to be in trouble.”
“It’s tugging at me.”
Alex frowned, not sure what the whale meant. Maybe there was an undertow churning below the surface. He glanced at Florence, who was watching him with concern as she listened to the conversation.
Lightning flashed again, and this time Alex clearly saw the outline of an island, closer than he ever expected. “Captain!” he shouted, waking up several others in the process.
Captain Ahab, whose rattling head was still missing an ear, hadn’t been the same since before the waterfall. He couldn’t hear well, his balance was off, and rumor aboard the ship was that his head must have hit the deck pretty hard . . . about a hundred times. He also dozed off occasionally, which actually gave the rest of them some peace and quiet.
Now, though, he jumped to attention. “Is she there? Do you see her?”
“Captain,” said Alex, “it’s land. We’ve reached the easternmost island. See?” Lightning lit up the sky again, and a light spattering of rain began to fall. The wind picked up. “Can you guide us there? A storm is coming.”
“What? What? Aye, how treacherous be the night storm,” muttered the captain, looking all around. “Rocks! Rocks! Everywhere! May as well toll the bell and surrender to death himself!”
The rain fell harder.
“Well, can you steer clear of the storm without picking up speed? I don’t want the glass patch to break again, so we’ve got to keep it slow.”
Florence, who had been aligning her gaze with the looming land whenever lighting lit the sky, spoke up. “Guide us in over there, Ahab. To the north side, see? When we get close enough for me to touch the sea floor, I’ll step out and try to guide the ship around the rocks from below.”
The captain mumbled something unintelligible as thunder exploded and the crew came to life, tying down their personal goods. The sea grew rough. Rain pelted down at a furious pace. The wind whipped about, and lightning played out more and more frequently.
At the next earsplitting crash of thunder, the Artiméans needed no instructions—they sprang into action. Samheed, Lani, and Octavia headed belowdecks to keep an eye on the leak. Sky, Copper, Crow, and the others secured the ship. Henry came up the stairs to the main deck to see if Alex needed him. The storm grew, and the wind began to sing around Alex’s ears.
“Stand by, will you?” Alex shouted to Henry, grateful for the extra set of eyes. “Look at the land when it’s lit up—we’re moving awfully fast. We’re heading straight toward it!”
Henry squinted and shielded his eyes from the rain. “The storm is centered right on top of the island; did you notice that?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, “and it isn’t moving. But we definitely are—right toward the rocks.” He looked at Florence as the rain poured down, sounding like a thousand drumbeats on the deck. She leaned over the side, making the boat shift with her weight and almost throwing Alex off balance.
“Florence!” he called. In a flash of lightning, Alex could tell the warrior was talking with Spike. He motioned to Henry to follow him, and the two maneuvered their way on the tilting vessel over to Florence. Waves roiling in all directions, seemingly undecided on their path, slapped at the ship, splashed up, and soaked them.
“We’re being pulled toward the island!” Florence shouted when the boys drew near. “Spike is having trouble hanging on to us!”
“I thought we were moving way too fast,” Alex muttered. “Why isn’t Captain Ahab doing anything?”