Prologue: Leviathan

  In the crowning moment of his life, Royce Callaghan's thoughts were filled with spite.

  He stood atop the bowsprit of HMS Trailblaze, fighting to keep his balance as ocean sprays rushed past him. On the deck just behind him was a cadre of Aqua-attuned adventurers from the East India Company, expending all their energy on keeping the waves steady, better to support Royce's aim. The Trailblaze was flanked on either side by a fleet of naval ships, freely launching volley after volley of cannonballs in a suicidal attempt to distract their quarry while Royce waited for the perfect moment to strike. All of this extravagant display of military might was to support him. Royce Callaghan had been chosen to take down Leviathan.

  And yet, on the cusp of unprecedented glory, his thoughts turned to the schoolyard bully with a squashed nose who had tormented him for years. He thought of the tavern girl with the strange accent whose smile had turned to incredulous laughter as he presented her with a bouquet of roses that had cost a week's wages. He finally thought of his late mother, she of the rum-fuelled tantrums and nothing but cruel words for him and his brother.

  I showed all of you, didn't I? You thought I was nothing but I showed you.

  Royce had started from nothing, but he had what it took to make something of himself, to join the fight against the Maladies. This was the beauty of Magic. It didn't ask where you came from or who your parents were. It came to those who were willing to give something back. And now, Royce was willing to put everything on the line to help defeat Leviathan, the Wyrmlord, the Scourge of the Atlantic.

  The air around him suddenly grew still despite the speeding ship. The water that had sprayed up around him congealed into drops that stayed in the air, gathering and spinning into spiral patterns. Ahead, maelstroms formed in the sea and from their centres shot out pillars of water that towered to the sky. From their midst rose a gargantuan, serpentine figure, waterfalls flooding and cascading down its scaly body, the sea underneath collapsing into a vast cavity.

  Leviathan. A king among Maladies. How many souls had sunk to the depths of the Atlantic at its behest? For centuries, brave men and women of Brittania and beyond had gathered wits, arms, and Magic to open a passage through the Atlantic Ocean, all to no avail. That was about to change today. And Royce, armed with his blunderbuss and the Apparatus securely implanted within his core, led the charge.

  "Are you ready, boy?"

  Behind him yelled Paladin Rockford, straining to be heard over the tempest that raged just ahead of them. He was the commander of this expedition, and the one man Royce trusted with his own life. Rockford had been the one to see what Royce was capable of, even when he had been a lowly chimney sweep. Buoyed by the Paladin's tutelage and encouragement, Royce had managed to beat out all other candidates for the pole position of Dragoon, in what had been a call to arms for the greatest hunt in human history. Perhaps, when this was all over, Rockford would even stop calling him 'boy'.

  "Ready when you are, sir!"

  The Paladin walked up behind him, one foot on the bowsprit, and placed a gauntleted hand on the small of Royce's back. Shudders rippled through Royce from head to toe and he felt his muscles tighten, then enlarge. His heart beat like the thundering hooves of a charging Aurochs. The blunderbuss in his hand now felt all but weightless, and every movement of his body felt light yet powerful.

  "I'm going to stand back now. You have two minutes before the buff wears out. And boy," Royce felt another tap on his back and looked back over his shoulder. Paladin Rockford fixed him with clear blue eyes that had the weight of the world behind them, "good hunting."

  Royce was once again alone at the head of the Trailblaze, facing down the enormous dark figure that was fast approaching. He had been instructed to aim for the fleshy throat, but for now, Leviathan's head was far above them in the sky, out of range of the blunderbuss. He needed the fire support to do their job and lure the beast closer to the surface. Currently, balls of flame rained down on the exposed portion of Leviathan's body, but they seemed to do no more than turn to smoke.

  It will happen. Just wait.

  Royce had also been instructed to trust in the fire support, trust that the combined forces of Ignis-attuned adventurers and the Royal Navy would bring Leviathan within his range. He took that trust to heart and focused on his own preparations.

  He unhooked a pouch from his belt and untied it, releasing its contents. Hundreds of earthworms wriggled out en masse and began exploring the terrains of Royce's body. He felt their presence spread, summoned the image of a root growing into the soil, then activated Induction.

  Rain. Torrential rain on a spring afternoon. A boy in simple clothes, soaked through and no umbrella in hand, walks the deserted street with his head hung, dejected, alone. Suddenly, he hears pattering footsteps behind him, and turns to find a shaggy mutt, just as soaking wet, following him with tiny, hurried steps. The boy stops, and the mutt barks and jumps for joy, its tail splashing rain droplets in a wide arc. The boy kneels beside his new friend and a broad grin brightens his gloomy face. Royce Callaghan reaches out a hand...

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  He now felt everything within and around him with perfect clarity. The earthworms still crawled over his clothes and skin, but they were a part of him now, simultaneously feeding on him and offering themselves up for his use. He felt every drop of water in the air, and they all bounced off his impenetrable skin. The Apparatus that was buried within his trunk churned to life. He could feel it hungrily sucking in the Quintessences around him, tasting them, and spitting them back out. Not just Terra, to which he was naturally attuned, but also Ignis, Aqua, Aurum, Arbor—he felt them all.

  He could feel the shifts in the air around him and—even without looking up—knew the fire support had finally succeeded in drawing Leviathan's attention. The giant wyrm twisted, its head with its thousand billowing fins and dozens of vertical slits for eyes bearing down on their fleet. He did not need to turn his head to know that one of the ships beside the Trailblaze broke apart into smithereens, blasted by a spitball nearly half its size. Soon, the serpentine body would twist again and expose its fleshy underside. And that would be Royce's chance to strike. He readied his blunderbuss, finger on the trigger.

  Suddenly, he became aware of noise and movement just behind him. Pattering feet, wagging tail, the bark of a dog. Codie! His mutt that had followed him everywhere since one rainy afternoon years ago had somehow broken free from the cabins and now ran toward him. Codie stopped short at the front edge of the deck and barked several more times, oblivious to the unfolding carnage. Royce didn't turn around. He couldn't. He couldn't stop now when the throat was so close, within range of his weapon.

  Leviathan reared its head, readying another attack and in the process exposing its underside. This was Royce's one and only chance to do his job. He shut off everything else and focused on two things: his Apparatus and Leviathan's throat. He engaged Reduction.

  Hunger. Days since their last meal, two boys in tattered, unwashed clothes walk hand in hand. Grown-ups in suits and dresses pass them by with wrinkled noses and averted eyes. None of them is their mother. Days since the last time they saw their mother, two boys walk hand in hand until the smaller one stops, unable to go on. He falls to the ground, crying. The older boy looks around, panic rising. He sees a stall not two feet away, shelves filled with apples, pears, peaches. The vendor sits reading a newspaper. His starving brother cries on the dirty street. Heart pounding, Royce Callaghan reaches out a hand...

  His muscles grew tense again, and for one fleeting moment, they felt as though they would rip themselves off the bones. The renewed burst of strength fed into the Apparatus, mixing with the swirl of Quintessences and channelling a tremendous amount of pure energy into the barrel of the blunderbuss. With the utmost concentration, he willed the energy to undergo one final transformation, into a cluster of Terrene destruction; this was imbued with Rockford's Aquatic buff and augmented a hundred-fold by the Apparatus. He pulled the trigger.

  The cluster exploded into myriad rays of energy upon contact. Parts of it broke through the skin, and enormous streams of tarry liquid gushed forth from Leviathan's neck. A haunting roar filled the air over the Atlantic as the giant body writhed in agony, creating more towering waves in its wake.

  With his senses still heightened by Induction, Royce could feel the rays of his Terrene energy burrowing into Leviathan's throat and spreading, invaginating every muscle fibre, nerve, and blood vessel they passed, and desiccating everything in their paths. With its insides and vital organs drying up, the Malady could no longer stay upright, and began to sink slowly, its cries of pain dying along with itself. He had done it. Royce the chimney sweep had become Dragoon Callaghan, Slayer of Leviathan.

  Suddenly, his legs gave out, and Royce felt himself losing his footing. It was all he could do to throw himself back onto the deck, lest he fall into the water. He dropped with a thud, and the blunderbuss clattered next to him. He was surprised to find that he didn't feel much pain. In fact, he could no longer feel much of anything.

  He raised an arm, expecting to see his earthworm friends crawling. Instead, he saw dried up, stringy carcasses fall away. The last bit of clarity offered by Induction told him that nothing alive still clung to his body. Then his Magic shut itself off with nothing left to feed on. He was left feeling nothing at all. The Apparatus lay somewhere in his body, inert and forgotten.

  He could still hear, however. First, he heard an unfamiliar rumbling mixed with the rushing of waves. It was like a murmur emanating from the sea even as its largest creature sank gradually into its bosom. Royce felt strangely serene as he pondered this unknown sound. Was it Leviathan's death rattle, cursing its vanquishers with its dying breath? Was it a cry from the Atlantic herself, lamenting the end of an ancient life-form and heralding the dawn of a new era?

  Next, he heard celebration. Men and women of the Trailblaze let out whoops of triumph and cries of relief. They did it. They had opened the transatlantic passage. Many lives today and countless more in all the days before were lost in the attempt, but man had finally conquered the last, insurmountable Maladous threat of the open sea. Frenzied footsteps hammered near Royce's head as comrades rushed to each other for cheer and embrace.

  There was something he couldn't hear. There was no bark. No impatient huffs of stinking breath as Codie lapped at his cheeks. With a strained effort, Royce turned his head. Beside him lay the blunderbuss, the end of the barrel still leaking fading remnants of the blast that had killed Leviathan. Just beyond the weapon, on the floor next to it, lay the shrivelled remains of his mutt, an unrecognizable face turned toward him.

  Royce felt his own face scrunch up to cry, but no tears wet his eyes. With his last remaining strength, he reached out for Codie, and saw with no particular emotion that his own arm had the same shrivelled appearance as his dog—skin, muscles, and veins twisted into a grotesque sculpture. The arm, no longer a part of him, fell limply on top of the barrel of the blunderbuss.

  He thought again of his mother, that cruel and rum-addled woman whom he once hated with every fibre of his being. It occurred to him now that, for all her meanness and violence, he and his brother had never gone hungry until the day she disappeared. His thoughts then turned to Codie Callaghan, his baby brother and the only other light in his short, miserable life. He recalled how they wandered the streets together, relying on the scarce kindness of strangers, living morsel to morsel. He reflected on how he had failed him, and now they were both gone, his only family.

  A final teardrop squeezed out of his disintegrating eye socket and evaporated before it even hit the deck. In the crowning moment of his life, Royce Callaghan's thoughts were filled with regret.