“Halima? What is it?” He didn’t need to wait for an answer. On the far shore where they had come from, he saw a black shape standing, watching them. It moved toward the water and there was a splash. Halima turned.

“It’s coming for us…” Halima said, more to herself than Thaqib.

“We’ve got to get to the boat!” Thaqib yelled, rushing down the steps. “Halima!” he called, jumping into the boat and grabbing the oars. “Come on!” Halima snapped out of her paralyzed state, and jumped into the boat, as Thaqib pushed it from the jetty.

“Sol, do what you can to hold it off!” Halima yelled. Thaqib started rowing as hard as he could, Halima grabbed another oar and did the same.

Soon they were moving quickly through the water, splashing loudly. In the distance, Thaqib saw Sol skimming across the water’s surface in search of the creature. There was a sudden flash of light and that same horrific howl he had heard on the barge. It echoed throughout the cavern, growing in volume. Filling his ears and his insides with terror. He found new strength and flung it into the the oars, rowing as fast as he could.

They were almost at the lake’s edge when Sol elicited another flash of light and another howl erupted. Then Thaqib saw something strange, Sol seemed to be flying back toward them. He ducked quickly. Sol wasn’t flying, he was being thrown. Sol tumbled through the air overhead, landing with a plop into the water behind the boat. Thaqib looked back in the direction he’d come from. His eyes widened in alarm when he saw rippling water approaching.

“Halima, we’ve got to go faster. Come on!” He threw his hardest into the oar but he realized they were beginning to move in circles.

“Halima,” he said turning to her. She was frozen in fear. “Halima!” he tried to snap her out of it. Her eyes were locked on the shape approaching them.

“Damn!” Thaqib yelled, it was coming fast. He stood up, grabbed his staff, tapping the switch to extend it, electricity crackled along its surface. He jumped to the front of the boat. “Halima you’ve got to get out of here!” He didn’t know what to do but he had to do something. It felt ridiculous but there was nothing else, he held his staff out before him, bracing himself as the beast rose out of the water, a writing mass of tendrils, phasing erratically like vapor. Thaqib looked into it and saw the warped reflection of his own terror. He lifted the staff, yelling and swung it down. Halima suddenly snapped out of it

“Thaqib, No!” But it was too late Thaqib’s staff disappeared into the mass of tendrils as though they were nothing but air. Suddenly a tendril flew at him, wrapping itself around his arm. He screamed out. He felt the pain crawling up his arm toward his neck and over his shoulder.

A flash of light hit Thaqib, not outside of him—but inside like some kind of dream. He lost his sense of the external world and found himself in a whirling chaos of flashing memories and emotions. He saw the Veil again writing with black shadows. He saw that same woman he’d dreamed of back on the barge—but she was no longer smiling, instead tears streamed down her face. He felt overcome with waves of sadness and longing, wrenched from deep within him, from depths he didn’t realize were even there. He saw strange swaying plants, strange clouds and lights in the sky. He heard a cacophony of voices calling and yelling in a chaotic scramble. Soon it was all too much for him and he let go and fell into the darkness, watching the memories as though they played on a distant screen.

Halima looked up, an expression of shock upon her face. She saw the Shayateen probing Thaqib’s mind, seeking a way into him. She stood, her eyes widening, eliciting a glow like fire, all traces of the fear that had gripped her now gone. “No!” she boomed. “Sol return to me!”

Out of the water a light blasted, beaming like a shooting star. It flew to Halima and she caught it with both hands, Sol’s light stretched between them, turning into a blazing rod of light.

“Release him!” she yelled. The creature seemed to wince at the light. The tendril holding Thaqib’s arm let go. His unconscious body dropped and tumbled over the side of the boat, splashing into the water.

Halima moved forward with the rod burning with light. The mass of tendrils writhed as though being burned alive. tendrils flew toward her. She jumped into the the air whirling out of their grasp. She flew over the mass, hovering in the air for a moment. Halima held the staff above her head, ready to strike. In a flash like lightning, she plummeted down, directly into the mass of writhing tendrils. There was a sound of a thousand voices screaming out at once and then nothing but still water and the empty boat floating upon it.

Thaqib felt the cool pressure of water on his body. He drifted down, feeling somewhat peaceful, ready to let it all go, to drift into the dark, to be lost in it. But then behind his eyelids a warm glow began to appear. He felt its embrace and it lifting him from the murky depths, away from the dark abyss.

Halima pulled Thaqib onto the boat. “Thaqib,” she spoke, “wake up.” She rolled him onto his side. Hitting his back. Thaqib coughed up water. After a moment he realized where he was. Suddenly the feeling of burning pain returned to his arm, he rolled around, it stung. If his arm could be removed now, he would gladly do it, anything to remove that pain.

“It burns!” he yelled. Halima sat him up. He opened his eyes and saw that she too was soaked.

“I’m sorry Thaqib, I failed you again. I let it hurt you.” He held his arm tightly, squeezing it in an attempt to isolate the pain, but it wasn’t working.

Halima placed a gentle hand on him. “Thaqib,” she said softly. He writhed in agony. “Thaqib,” she repeated softly. Her words came to him, soothing him. “Open your eyes.”

“My arm, it burns,” he said.

“Open your eyes,” she repeated. With difficulty he did as she said. “Look at your arm.”

He looked down, expecting to see something terrible, to see his flesh seared to the bone. What he saw however shocked him.

“You see?” Halima said.

His arm was fine, his skin the same as ever, there was not a trace of any burn. “What?” he uttered, astonished. “Did you heal me?”

Halima shook her head. “No, your pain only existed inside you. Because you believed it to be there. The Shayateen manipulated your perception.”

“What—But I could swear it was burning, it grabbed me!”

“No, it didn’t. I told you, it’s merely a phantom in this world. Until it consumes me it cannot interact with the physical world, only the astral one.”

Thaqib rubbed his arm, a tingling sensation still remaining even though he could clearly see there was nothing wrong with his arm. “You mean it can influence my thoughts but, that’s it?”

Halima nodded. “But only if there is something inside you for it to wield, some pain.”

“Wait, what happened to it?” Thaqib said, suddenly realizing that it was gone.

“It won’t bother us anymore. It’s been destroyed.” Halima suddenly looked back to the bank, she saw the dark shape of the other Shayateen pacing along the water’s edge. Thaqib saw it too.

“Another one!? What are we gonna do?” Thaqib said panicking. Quick, we’ve gotta get to the boat!”

“No,” Halima said. “It’s seen what happened to its other. It knows the power I liberated from it. It won’t attack us now. It’s afraid of me.” Thaqib saw the shape slide into the shadows and disappear. “It will find another way to attack us. For now we are safe.” Halima sighed burying her head between her legs. “I’m sorry Thaqib, I put you in danger because I was afraid to face it. I let it hurt you. I’ve failed again…”

Thaqib sat up, “Halima, you did it though, you faced that thing. You destroyed it.”

She looked at him, “Thank you Thaqib. Without you, I don’t know if i could have dealt with this. I gave into my own fear but when I saw you get hurt—the real consequences of that fear, it woke me up.”

Thaqib rubbed his arm. “Well if it takes me getting attacked by a giant black squid, almost getting my arm ripped off and then just about drowning—I’d say it was worth it,” he said with a grin. Halima looked at him confused and then broke out laughing. Thaqib joined her. “Lets get that boat and get back to the others,” he said. Halima nodded. They picked up the oars and made their way to the Zionese ship.