Free Sennar's Mission by Licia Troisi

toward remote lands. Even the fish began to dwindle. Their daily catch grew lighter each day, until the sea became a complete desert. The boat drifted heavily over the water, engulfed in an unnatural silence. If not for the gentle lapping of the ocean against the sides of the keel, they might as well have been anchored in port.

    “Land ho! Land ho!”
    The shout came with the breaking dawn. The sea was calm. A wind picked up at their backs and sped the ship onward.
    Sennar rushed up on deck. The captain arrived a moment later, spyglass in hand. At the horizon there appeared to be a dark, unresolved line.
    “Can it be?” Sennar asked, breathless.
    Rool took a long look before drawing any conclusions. “I’m not sure,” he replied. He lifted the scope to his eye again. “There’s something strange about it.”
    All morning the crew stared anxiously at the strip of black, the tension rising.
    Sometime around mid-afternoon, the ship shook with a lateral blow, as if something had struck it, and tilted dangerously on its side. The crewmen lost their balance, but the ship was quick to right itself, tossed back in the other direction by a sudden gust of wind.
    Sennar and the captain fought their way down to the deck. In a single moment, a violent wind had taken hold of everything, as if meaning to sweep it all away. And yet, the sea remained calm and the sun went on shining. The wind was coming from nowhere.
    “Adjust the sails, quick!” Rool shouted as he made his way to the gunwale.
    Sennar managed to grab hold of the ship’s edge despite the harsh wind lashing his face. He looked up. He was speechless.
    An enormous black cloud moved threateningly across the sky—an endless dark mass, changing form as it rushed toward the ship. Sennar fell to the ground, unable to breathe. Two hands grabbed hold of him by the tunic.
    “What is it?” Rool asked, fixing his enflamed eyes on Sennar.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Is it magic? Answer me!”
    “It’s … it’s … probably, yes,” Sennar stammered.
    Rool let go his grip and began shouting orders, but the crew was frozen with terror.
    “Are there any men left on board or are you all a bunch of sissies?” the captain roared. “To your places, now, before I toss every one of you overboard!”
    No one had seen anything like it. Sennar looked out over the edge of the ship again, just in time to glimpse the dark cloud approaching with frightening speed. The wind stole his breath. He closed his eyes. When he reopened them, night had descended.
    Immense bolts of lightning flashed on the slate-black sky. Hard rain beat against the deck. And then catastrophe.
    Gigantic waves beat against the ship, tilting it onto its right side, then onto its left, nearly swallowing the vessel with every rocking swell. A forceful gust threw Sennar down on deck. Benares pulled him up by the collar.
    “You’ll only get in the way here. Go back down into the hold.”
    He didn’t have to ask twice.
    Sennar collapsed into the hold, ran to the nearest corner, and pulled his knees up to his chest. Around him the wooden planks creaked terribly. The ship tossed about in the shifting winds and towering waves.
    For a moment, Sennar was unable to move, paralyzed by fear, listening to the wild footsteps above, the thump of bodies thrown to the deck by the storm, the squeaking of rats that had taken refuge in secret hiding spots. Then he began to feel like a coward.
I can’t just sit here, I have to go up and help.
But his legs wouldn’t obey. He forced himself to think. After all, he was a councilor, he’d been in plenty of hopeless situations, and it was always logic that saved him in the end. He went through all the spells he knew, but nothing seemed right to combat the apocalyptic storm raging outside. Some sorcery was behind it, without a doubt. A completely new spell or, more likely, a seal.
Perfect
.
As long as it’s a spell, all I have to do is find a way to counteract it
, he said to himself