Chapter 5: Winter's Hunger

Gisla's hands were clamped tightly shut. The sea breeze teased the parchment with threats of tearing it open like a weak sail, but she held on.

Despite the waving, her eyes precisely tracked each line of text written across it. The captain and first mate waited expectantly in Gisla's shadow, meanwhile Mikey attempted to anticipate the degree of difficulty her challenge held from beside her.

Gisla looked up from the scroll, then back down shortly after. She'd given a brief survey of confirmation.

"You'll want to hold onto something," she suggested as she rolled up the scroll and handed it to her father behind her.

Stretching both of her hands forward, she enveloped each of them in a cold, blue aura. With every second that passed the aura grew more intense, soon emitting miniscule white particles like the formation of a blizzard.

An exhale from Gisla was suddenly visible as cold vapour drifted from the crack in her lips.

"Charge!" she suddenly yelled. The command awakened a droning from within the aura, its low pitch gradually rising towards a climax.

The droning summoned forth a glittering white globe just beyond Gisla's reach, collecting the particles that fell from her hands.

The drone was the warning that the other three had heeded, taking caution of her previous words, and dispersing somewhat from her. Diana had moved to the mast, ready to grip on to it; the captain shuffled further down the railing, giving Gisla space to cast; and Mikey took a few steps back and dropped to the floor. Mikey's hands were over his ears but his eyes locked on the globe.

As her heels were scuffing the floorboards below her, Gisla was unavoidably repulsed from the very force she was summoning.

She gritted her teeth alongside a sudden strain in every fibre of her body.

"Release!" Gisla declared over the resonant drone.

Zzzeeeeooop!

In a sudden rapid compression, the globe that had grown larger than Gisla's body suddenly shrunk to the size of a pear.

BWOOOVVV!

As it reached its minimum mass the once object burst from before her, warping into the shape of a teardrop from the sheer velocity.

The eruption from her hands sent a counter force that launched Gisla backwards in the shockwave, leaving Diana desperately leaping into a roll to catch her from behind.

Captain Tornstar braced against the railing whilst turning his back to shield it.

Mikey, who had covered his ears, was sent barreling backwards towards the opposite side of the ship, splintering the railing behind him on impact.

The dynamic teardrop of ungodly power blasted off towards the horizon. Every so often it passed through a rising wave, promptly dissipating it.

And then it happened.

BOOOOOOM!

A cataclysmic geyser of sea water detonated in the distance. One steep wave erupted from the explosion as it was sent rolling in all directions.

Captain Tornstar, who turned to view it, lost all colour from his face.

"All hands on deck! All hands on deck! We've been dealt a black hand!" Captain Tornstar launched down the deck towards the helm, immediately beginning to turn the ship away from the approaching wave.

The crew rushed up from below deck to save their ship from its impending doom. Most of them had been watching the event from the stairs or portholes below, so immediately caught on to the situation.

Amidst the scrambling for survival from the sailors, Diana had worked her way back onto her feet and held a shivering Gisla in her arms. Gisla's skin was frigidly pale.

Frozen drops of water littered her skin and formed a pseudo set of icy scales, burning into her skin.

"Well that was a bit much wasn't it Gigi?! You couldn't pick a more sensible spell? Leave it to you to convince your dad of a magic ban aboard the Blackjack," Diana disheartenedly chuckled to try and provoke a response in Gisla.

However, Gisla's eyes had begun to frost over from the tears that would not shed. She could not muster a reply and seemed to be falling unconscious.

Diana had rushed her into the captain's quarters and on to Gisla's bed, wrapping her in layers of blankets and fur to try and keep her warm.

Meanwhile, back on the deck, Mikey had found his face sitting in a puddle of vomit. Mikey's existing injuries left him rattled inside his skull; his brain felt like a melting dome of ice cream.

Mikey mumbled unintelligibly as he pushed himself up, though initially slipping back into the puddle below.

Looking around, the world spun, rocked and waded with every crew member zooming into a blur.

Stumbling forth into the unsavoury upheaval, Mikey did his best to step carefully - but to no avail. Being bumped around and shoved, Mikey was bouncing between objects and people like a pinball.

Losing his footing and just about slamming into a wall, the claw of a behemoth scooped him up around his belly; he was left hanging like clothes to dry.

"Ya' lookin' like me ol' stew boy. No' a look ta be handlin' chow," the old, cavernous voice of Chef Lumpy commented from above Mikey.

The pair of them headed for the stairs, as Mikey was then dropped onto his old hammock and sunk into the cotton.

The Blackjack's sails had immediately caught the hurricane of wind stampeding over the waves. The wind heaved the ship in sudden acceleration, though the great wave continued its march - it followed shortly after.

The wave chased after the ship from behind, quickly closing in. Soon jawing at the stern, the ship rapidly lifted up along the wave's trough.

"She's tipping Captain!" a stray crew member yelled in panic, fearing the ship would be engulfed in the waves power.

At the mercy of the wave, the Blackjack only barely managed to keep up.

The planks shook in fear and parts of the hull were losing their integrity, but the Blackjack held on.

Riding out the wave until it returned to the oceans currents, the old wooden ship groaned from the stress on its stability.

"We made it!"

The crew all celebrated for their survival. Hats went flying and tears of joy sprayed in the air. However, a sudden call out for help came from the stairs below.

"She's flooding, captain!" they yelled out.

Surveying the Blackjack, Captain Tornstar had noticed the ship was beginning to capsize.

"All hands below deck! Quickly now!" the captain demanded as he sprinted down alongside them.

Shaky planks were nailed into every hole and compromise in the hull, a sudden encore of banging from the hammers.

Those that were not stopping the flooding hurled buckets of water out of the port holes, all attempting to lighten the galleon's load and retain its buoyancy.

"Quickly now! Quickly! We don't have much time!"

About an hour later, though the interior of the hull looked as if it was in shambles, the Blackjack had seemingly been saved from kissing the seabed. Captain Tornstar realised it's delicacy however, had they not been only a few days away from San Lenard, he feared that a storm would take them swiftly on their journey under.

The crew members all slumped over, each of them parched and worn out from the rush to save the ship from sinking. Even Chef Lumpy had almost completely sobered up from the work - almost.

The monkey Darzel had perhaps the most difficult job of all. Alongside Diana, the pair of them solely tended to the sails to keep the ship from running rampant into the high sea’s turbulence. Whilst Diana was solely responsible for the ropes on the ground, Darzel had to aid her and take care of the jungle above. It was more than a point of credit to the monkey’s talent.

Where the geyser had erupted from the surface of the sea, a boundless pillar of ice replaced it. The pillar was unwavering - steadfast; a monument to commemorate the introduction of annihilation.

At the right angle, the pillar of ice was tall enough to block out the sun close to noon, whilst it also seemed that it went deep enough to hold a stable structure embedded in the ocean floor.

Surrounding the pillar was frozen chucks of icy debris torn from the currents, drifting outwards into the wider expanse.

The misleading parchment that summoned the alien monstrosity had shattered into small shards of ice; it was lost to the wind and sea.

The next morning, after a great many rotations of swapping out the drenched blankets, Gisla had recovered from the frostbitten winter of the day before.

"Rise 'n' shine sweetie pie," Captain Tornstar jested, pinching Gisla's chin lightly to try and spark some more life into her.

Though the uncanny durability of the ice had finally melted, Gisla was exhausted.

"The scroll never said the spell was so strong," Gisla spoke out softly. "If I'd known I never would've -"

"I know. I know," her father reassured her, standing up from her side with assurance that she'd the strength to be okay on her own.

"It completely drained the mana from me - I can't even feel my connection with magical energy right now," she said, lifting her hand from under the blankets to inspect it, though quickly returning it to warm up underneath. "You can't let Mikey try and repeat the spell, make sure you keep an eye on him. He could kill us all if he feels vengeful enough."

"Don't worry about Mikhail, Gisla."

"What do you mean?" she replied, her expression growing a level of concern that was briefly only out of character.

"He's disappeared from the ship. Chef Lucienne said he carried him down - even has witnesses. But sometime during the night Mikhail disappeared. Whether he jumped ship or is hiding out somewhere, we have no clue," he replied with a genuine amount of both confusion and suspicion. "Wherever he is, I'm not sure we'll be finding him soon."

Mikey's mind sifted through the darkness, leaving only his most honest thoughts. A familiar voice began to speak, though Mikey could not recall where he'd heard it.

"You've found me. Oh how curious you are," a menacingly voice reverberated through the space around Mikey, enveloping him in its power.

Though Mikey thought to speak in reply, he was powerless to do so.

"Have you come to return me home Mikhail? Free me from my prison?"

Mikey could not use words, but part of his spirit reached out to the voice; he didn't understand.

"I was sealed here, deep within the reaches of the Blackjack - forever bound to lurk in its shadows. This… Tornstar, the worthless captain of Kyberia, he's abused my home - desecrated it while I've been forced to watch," it continued. It's voice trembled with an uncontainable wrath.

"The captain bears an amulet, Mikhail. Take it from him and throw it to the sea, let it swallow the cursed hex whole," the voice began to suggestively reach out to Mikhail. "Free me and I will be forever in your debt. Free me… and this ship will bend to your will," it echoed, as from within the darkness a hand with elongated fingers appeared. It seemed old and shriveled, but almost incorporeal in form. "Free me."

Mikey felt a sense of power from this offer. He'd a chance to deal a blow back tenfold to the arrogant captain that had him beaten. A sense of resolve beckoned under the calls of this ominous entity.

Willing to agree, Mikey noticed that from within the darkness his own hand had appeared before him, however only his hand. The soft glow from the 'X' which marked it had illuminated the surrounding skin. The two hands embraced one another, as Mikey's voice finally emerged from the darkness.

"I will."