Shadow Slave

This time, Nephis was the first to notice the anomaly. Sunny and she were resting after an exhausting spar - he was meditating with his eyes closed, while she was leaning her back on him, still catching her breath.

He sensed a sudden tensing of her muscles, and then the warm pressure was gone. Opening his eyes, Sunny glanced at Nephis and noticed that she was looking intently into the distance, where the endlessly flowing waters of the Great River were sparkling under the light of the seven suns.

The Azure Serpent was nowhere in sight, and the island was not trembling, which meant that it was circling the stone shell of the Black Turtle. The monstrous butterfly was a small black dot in the sky. What had caught her attention, then?

"What is it?"

Nephis lingered for a few moments, then pointed at a distant patch of water downstream of them.

"There. Can you see it?"

Following her gaze, Sunny studied the currents. After a while, a scowl appeared on his face, too.

"I can. But what are we looking at?"

There, still far away from the dark island, a span of the Great River seemed different from the rest of its vast expanse. From their position, it was no larger than a coin, which meant that the strange anomaly was thousands of meters wide.

It did not seem too threatening. The water surface was simply a bit rough there, as if rippling under a strong gale. The problem was that such a gale would probably affect a larger area, not just a relatively small and strangely distinct patch of water.

A much bigger problem was that this patch seemed to be moving purposefully in their direction. Sunny wasn't sure at first, but after observing the river for a dozen seconds, he grew certain that it was no mere coincidence.

In these dozen seconds, the rough patch had already drawn visibly closer.

His face darkened.

has to be

Nephis slowly nodded.

"I think so too."

Creature would appear sooner or later - they had already met three, each

horror was of the kind that could climb onto the shell

somber, though. Rather, the appearance of the fourth

no matter how much they had hoped that they would. It had seemed possible when there was only the Azure Serpent circling the island. The arrival of

three, there would be four, five,

corner of

can we

air, either, since it was just as dangerous. Even though the carcass of the Black Turtle was slowly starting to seem more and

He sighed.

now. If I know anything about the old snake... it won't let the

indeed, no sooner than he said it, the crimson water foamed, and a gargantuan head of the great river serpent rose above its surface. This time, the creature's long snout was turned away from the

think it

the question, Nephis lingered

It seems enormous, so... a whale? A cachalot? A

Sunny shook his head.

like that crawling mass of seaweed, bones, and rotten flesh that Cassie told us

moment, and then added

"Also... what's a cachalot?"

out a quiet

a whale, but with