But this was only the beginning, a taste, she reminded herself, just as the next opening revealed a glittering storm of electric eels, lighting the smooth water and pulsing as they took turns with her.
A hundred tiny shockwaves spread all over Gryshen’s fin, her torso, her arms, her throat. Mother, her throat. She began to spasm back and forth, feeling as though even her hair had current running through it. She held fast to her newfound weapon. She rocked jerkily in an off-beat rhythm.
Where’s the exit? Gryshen finally had a flash of coherent thought amid the torture. It loomed just ahead, stretching out much wider than the last one, and yet it seemed more out of reach. The giant squid was huge, deadly, encompassing the chamber, yes, but at least she could gather her brains a bit. And meeting his eye enabled a kind of creature connection.
But this? These serpents seemed to be completely mindless, performing their ancient duty. Electrocute. Electrocute the enemy until death.
Right now, she was their only perceived threat. One of these snakes getting you on a voyage or a hunt stung more than a nuisance. It was painful—but you could get away and move on. A healthy iloray could expect to heal completely by the next morning. She had heard of swarms attacking, but in open water, there were many more distractions for them.
Not here. So she’d try desperately to grab for a thought before it seemed to swim out of reach.
Maybe if I— Jolt.
Is there any space between these eels to— Zap. Zap. Zap.
A new fire was attacking her lungs now. External. The electric stabs pierced below Gryshen’s skin, just past, and she could feel the lightning trace the outside of her vocal chord, pressing against it in terrible spurts.
It was only getting worse. Exhaustion was beginning to take hold, but in the moment she realized this, the terror that propels survival came right up behind it. She couldn’t be tired. It could not be allowed.
If I can just move with the spasms, push them forward. Use them—Rip! A shock cracked through her silvery body, and she took it, riding it like a wave, thrusting ahead a space.
There we go. Now I need to—
The next wave seemed to torch through her more slowly, and she heard her screams blow through her ears. Had she been shouting this whole time? As each surge bolted its way through her, etching beneath her raw epidermis, Gryshen practiced rolling herself into it instead of bracing herself against it. She moved closer to the escape, but each thrust forward was more agonizing than the last.
She began to time her spasms, preparing. Jolt—electric ripple—push. Jolt—electric ripple—push. As if her progress tipped off the eels, the pauses between currents somehow became impossibly shorter. Gryshen closed her eyes, turning her wild shrieks into steady streams of moaning.
“Move!” she signaled aloud, in a low, pained tone. Another hundred switches turned on her.
“Move!” She insisted on working with all the swirling spears in spite of themselves. She ducked her head to try to get in front of the flock around her black hair, trying to beat them back with her braids. She didn’t have time to wonder if it helped before the next blast of lightning.
“Move.” It helped.
They were behind her now, poking at the rear of her skull, prodding her spine. They were no longer surrounding her; they were unwittingly helping her. Sort of. In their own nightmarish way.
“And MOVE!” She was there. The eels were circling the bottom of her fin, giving her crippling kisses goodbye as she swept into the next pace.
There was nothing visible ahead, but from behind, she still had some persistent eels chasing her, twitching and jabbing at her silken tail. Gryshen winced, shaking it from side to side to try and bat them away, although this just seemed to make the little monsters more determined to fight back.
Gryshen set her teeth, stretched her long arms out, and began to hit them backward. Her limbs felt like weak wings, but the movement helped take some of the pressure off the lower half of her body.
Was she in open space? A wall appeared before her, a sheet of rock covered in algae and sea sponges. Gryshen searched from side to side, spanning around the water.
What had appeared open was now closing in.
These chambers were always sealed off, kept safe for the next ceasid to make paces. The creatures might change at times, the battles get switched up, but she knew that there were some things that were constant. There was no changing the cavern walls. This was an inevitable path for everyone who passed through. The sides seemed to be squeezing closer, but she knew that had to just be her own anxiety as she kept whipping her tail, trying to slap away the last of the eels, while straining to see where the exit was as the sea slowly boxed her in.
Gryshen finally freed herself of the last stinging little wretch, and the wall before her was washed in a faint glow. Daylight. Now she could almost reach on either side of herself as she swam toward the sheet rock and bent her body upward in one fluid motion.
Relief. She was finally free of pain. She didn’t know how long it had been for her, how much time had passed since she’d started her paces. She only knew that this was the longest period free from attack since she’d begun. And this awareness, of course, only made her nervous.
It was such a narrow stretch, the slabs of stone that she had to swim up, up, and between, that Gryshen wondered how some of the larger ilorays managed it. She craned her neck upward, her painted face drawn to the sky. She could see it from here: muddy, gray, and white.
A web spread across the light as she drew closer. In a moment her fingers were clawing at the ropes and weeds. Gryshen thrust her fin back, trying to slide out the other way, but hands were tying the net closed.
Two, no, three ceasids, whom she couldn’t name because of the shell masks they wore, hoisted the sides of her trap and slid Gryshen up into the crook of a small cove. The ilorays wrapped ropes around a tall pointed rock while she howled and thrashed.
“Are you Rakor? We will come for you!” she rasped, trying to scratch them through the holes in the net.
“Ugh!” One iloray paused for a moment to touch his forearm. She had successfully ripped a thin flap of his skin. Gryshen took the movement, pressing her face against the thick cords.
“Who are you? Who are you? Are you trying to leave me here to die?”
The ceasids went back to tightening the net.
“Is this part of my paces? Answer me!” she commanded.
“We—” A stocky iloray with a mess of gray-brown curls began to speak when a leaner one with thin black stripes in his long white hair clapped a palm over his mouth.
Nothing more was said to her. She lay flailing, propped up at an angle against a black slab coated in dark green algae.
The three ceasids splashed into the open water and disappeared. Through the cords and twine, Gryshen stared at the vast sky overhead. The clouds hid it so that it was all the same ghostly shade.
Thankfully, the sun was hidden under full cover, so she didn’t have to worry about heat. But there was only so long she could stay in clear open air without a drink, a sip.
Gryshen tried to collect her thoughts, tried to hold the fragments together like a broken shell in her hands. She propped herself up on her elbow and craned her neck, pushing her skull against the net as far as it would allow. If she could see something she recognized, she could get her bearings.