Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Galvin, Aaron (classic fiction txt) 📖

little consequence or reality. Throughout their swim to the Cavern of Somnus, Kellen saw little of note and had less conversation with any in his party.

Twice he had attempted to speak with Black Keerie again over the lie he had told; that he had slain Garrett Weaver in his life before. Both times she had rejected his advances, swimming off with nothing more than a disgusted and doubting look of his intent.

Erebus too would not allow him to swim nearer to Hypnos either. For every time that Kellen approached the sickly Sancul, the gaze and outstretched tentacles of Erebus warned Kellen to keep his distance.

For all the others’ guardianship of Kellen, even Nyx and Kanaloa had turned silent as they swam with relentless pursuit to return Hypnos to his wife and children. For all their haste, the Sancul were slowed by seizing fits that overtook Hypnos all along the way. To Kellen’s mind, each seizure lasted longer than the last for every time they halted in wait for the fits to end.

For every time they were brought to a halt, the sickly Sancul racked back and forth.

What’s going on in there, Hypnos? Kellen wondered when the eyes of Hypnos widened and blazed with light, his mouth opening and closing in repeated and muted succession like one tormented yet unable to give voice to his screams. What is Moros doing to you?

For a panicked moment, Kellen considered divulging the truth to Erebus and Kanaloa – that he had met and spoken with both Moros and Hypnos in the dream-like world that one, or either, of the Sancul brothers had pulled him into several times over.

The fit overtaking Hypnos ended near as quickly as it had come about. The sickly Sancul’s body faltered and slumped back into his father’s grasp in further, unconscious exhaustion.

Erebus used his tentacles to better position his son. He’s getting worse. Erebus frowned at Kanaloa. We’re going too fast. My son needs to rest.

Aye, that he does, said Kanaloa. But not here. We are near enough to the Cavern of Somnus now. We must press on. And faster still.

Erebus glared at Kellen like one faulting another for the decisions chose. When Kellen said nothing and did not glance away, however, Erebus turned back to Kanaloa. And what if my son does not reach the cavern, or his lady wife? He demanded. All our haste will be for naught.

It will be for naught if Hypnos dies here in the open too, said Kanaloa. For here we can truly do little and less to aid his suffering.

Nyx swam over to join her husband and their withered son. What would you endure to reach my side, husband? To see me again? She asked of him, attempting to cheer him further with a smile. What lengths would you go?

The love I bear you, wife, is not the same as that once shared between Hypnos and his own.

True, said Nyx. And yet I hold no doubt that Pasithee will aid us and him all the same. She cheered Erebus somewhat with a light touch upon his cheek. Hypnos will fight on, husband. Though I ever favored Moros more, I never doubted that Hypnos was given more of your stubborn strength than mine.

Kellen swam by in careful watch as Nyx touched the brow of Hypnos then, her features softening, if only for an instant. To his mind, the lady of darkness hardened herself against such expression for Hypnos no sooner than her fingers brushed against his skin. She pulled away as quickly as she had reached for him, questions living in her eyes.

What just happened? Kellen wondered when Nyx turned her studious gaze on him next. Fear flooded through him, the warmth he often saw in her eyes turning to icy doubt. But, as she had done with Hypnos, Nyx suppressed such emotion quickly.

Kellen’s brow furrowed. What did you see, Nyx? Did Hypnos show you something too? Despite the Salt flowing through him, Kellen’s throat parched as another, darker thought occurred to him. Or did Moros speak to you?

For all of the questions and doubts plaguing him, each were stolen and replaced with still more when Nyx looked up and past him, over his shoulder to the water behind. Kellen spun to see what she did, then cowered at the sight swimming toward them.

Despite all the creatures and the Sancul wizardry he had witnessed beneath the Salt, Kellen had yet to meet anything like the monstrous side-winder that burst through the shadowed and Salted depths with blazing speed. Like an eel of gargantuan proportion, its face appeared more reptilian and with appendages tapered held tight against its either side to not create any drag in the water.

Like a deer frozen by oncoming headlights, Kellen found himself unable to move either. What is that thing? He wondered, even as his mind produced an answer from his youth.

Dragon, a memory of childhood whispered. An underwater dragon.

Like the snakes he had discovered hiding in the wood piles of his family farm and chased off thereafter, Kellen’s gaze tracked with the side-winding creature’s body and tail maneuvering back and forth in S-shaped movements to propel it onward. The Salt dragon also had a fork-shaped tongue and slitted, greenish eyes that glowed with bioluminescent light.

Unlike when he was a child, Kellen had no shovel to lop off the head of the oncoming serpent. Not that a shovel would do for the mammoth beast. Nor any sword or axe either. As the underwater dragon came within a hundred yards of them, Kellen imagined that even the strength and size of Erebus would be tested against the mythic creature.

Kellen remained frozen at Nyx’s side, but Black Keerie and Kanaloa swam out to meet the oncoming beast.

Kanaloa raised a hand in welcome just as the creature came upon him with its jaws opened wide. Hail, Phobetor!

Kellen winced then, expecting to see both Black Keerie and the eldest of Sancul swallowed whole. Yet no sooner than the beast reached them, the visage of