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

wiser brother, Morpheus, fled before you all attempted to riddle him with the same contempt as I see within you now.

Kellen cocked an eyebrow at the sight of Phobetor’s lip curling at the slight.

Erebus was no better, not bothering to hide the disdained look he showed his grandson in return.

Peace, Erebus, said Kanaloa. It has been too long since our family ties were ripped asunder and we were rejoined. Aye, much too long.

Not long enough, apparently, Kellen thought to himself when Black Keerie swam over to pull Phobetor away and out of striking distance of Erebus’s tentacles.

Kanaloa sighed. Hear me, my family, for all the circumstance and all that we have suffered, let us have peace between us now. He straightened as he motioned in Kellen’s direction. The wounds separating us and our kind must needs be healed over. With our favored one’s return, we have the chance to make all things new and right once more for our family and the world.

Phobetor cheered at that, his vocalness rewarded with another angered look from Erebus. Unlike before, Phobetor shook off the disapproval. Come, then. One and all. My mother awaits us and more. Even now, she labors at such a feast the like our folk have not seen since the last war. He nodded at Kellen. And all to celebrate your return, Uncle.

Kellen was about to thank him for the words when a flurried current shook him off balance; Nyx had whisked away from him. Kellen spread his tentacles wide to sustain him in the wake of her leaving, then turned his head to track her movement. He found the lady of darkness at her monstrous husband’s side, the pair of them tending to Hypnos again with their tentacles.

Thrashing and seizing against their combined strength, Hypnos’s mouth again opened and closed in what Kellen imagined as a muted show of the fit coursing through his withered frame. Hypnos vomited some smattered bits of white froth to float into the above. Still more clung to his lips as he trembled back and forth. Unlike the fits that Kellen had seen Hypnos endure before, the newest seizing lingered on with no signs of slowing.

Nyx’s head snapped toward Kanaloa. Father!

Phobetor too appeared riddled with questions. What is happening to my father?

The sickness, said Kanaloa. Whatever this affliction within him, I think it means to claim our Hypnos in full soon enough.

Donning the hood of his cloak, Phobetor swam forward to aid them. Grandfather! He shouted at Erebus. Come! Allow me carry my father and you all to my mother quickly. It may be that she has one of her potions to help soothe my father now, until we learn what further ailment weakens him.

Erebus looked to his sickly son, then to Nyx with concern living in his brow and gaze. After a moment’s deliberation, he nodded to his grandson, then gathered a still-convulsing Hypnos closer to him.

Phobetor drew the hood of his cloak then, the Sancul’s body morphing into that of the eel-like dragon once more. His form lengthened and widened in equal measure, stretching around the other Sancul like a constrictor with its prey. Where Kellen drew back at the surrounding wall of flesh, he witnessed the other Sancul latch onto the dragon with their tentacles.

Black Keerie shot him a disapproving look when Kellen hesitated to follow their example.

Do it. He told himself. Then, he reached out with his own tentacles to wrap around the water-dragon. Kellen stretched his tentacles to their limits as they encompassed Phobetor’s slippery form. For all of his attempts, Kellen could not maintain his grip without using the clawed tips of his tentacles.

The others held no such concerns, burying the ends of their tentacles deep in Phobetor’s flesh like someone driving sewing needles into a pin cushion.

Despite the Sancul travelers wounding him with their many claw-tipped touches, the dragon seemed not to notice the pain or his added burden. Its reptilian head snaked around in search of Kellen, its black eyes holding on him.

Phobetor’s voice filled Kellen’s mind. Latch on, Uncle. I will carry you . . .

I-I don’t want to hurt you though, said Kellen.

Phobetor chuckled in his mind. You could never harm me, Uncle. I should not be as I am now without you having aided in my shaping.

Though he did not understand the meaning of Phobetor’s words, Kellen latched on all the same when sighting the others waiting and watchful of him. As they had done, so too did Kellen bury the sharp points of his tentacles into the dragon’s flesh for the coming journey. The flesh seemed to absorb his claws, the dragon neither wincing nor offering up any wisp of blood for the wounding that Kellen gave. He understood then that their combined efforts pained the dragon no more than hatchets chipping at the near impenetrable, thick bark of a redwood tree.

The moment Kellen secured his grip, the dragon sped off through the darkened water in side-winding fashion. As Phobetor drove them against an underwater current, the sonic speed with which he carried them forced Kellen to duck his head like he remembered having done on roller coasters when g-forces pressed him against his seat.

And all the while, Phobetor drove them further in descent.

When Kellen dared to break his gaze away from staring at the dragon’s back, he saw them plunging toward the Abyssal plain – a shrouded and endless, bleak stretch of black rock. For a moment, he imagined the Salt dragon slamming them all into the mass like a nose-diving plane without the wherewithal to pull up at the last. Kellen fidgeted in attempting to pry his claws frees of Phobetor’s dragon flesh that he might fall away before the crash. Despite his attempts, the dragon flesh held him all the same, as if Phobetor were the one to truly hold claim over Kellen instead.

Wincing as the rocky face rushed to greet them, Kellen closed his eyes and braced for the impact. When the moment they should have hit came