"Look out!" Zann yelled. One of the giant jellyfish was moving straight toward Perda, its huge mouth gaping open.
Rubbing his wet fingers together, Zann tried to send a Blast spell at the monster.
But he could barely manage a small sizzle of energy.
Still, he distracted the creature long enough for Perda to swim away from it.
Zing dive-bombed the creatures, trying to blast them with his fiery breath.
But he was too wet. Nothing but a small puff of steam came out.
"Sing, Zing!" Darb yelled.
Zing started whistling his hypnotic tune. Zann didn't know if it would work.
He'd already seen that at least some otherworldly creatures weren't affected by it.
These creatures didn't seem to be hypnotized by Zing's song either.
But at least they did appear curious.
They turned and swam after Zing, peering up at him with huge, watery eyes.
"Hey!" a voice shouted from the other direction. "Heads up!"
Zann turned and saw a long sailboat shooting toward them.
Seconds later the boat arrived, and hands reached out to drag the kids aboard.
"Hurry!" a man shouted in a gruff, urgent voice. "The gulpers are turning back."
Stiff winds lifted the sails and carried the boat swiftly over the waves, leaving the monsters far behind.
Moments later Zing caught up and landed beside Zann.
The dragon was out of breath, panting out little bursts of steam.
"Gulpers are always hungry, but luckily they're slow," someone said.
Zann turned and saw a boy around his own age smiling at him.
"Hi," Zann said. "Thanks for saving us. How did you know we needed help?"
"We were fishing when we saw your strange bird flying around."
The boy pointed at Zing. "We came to see what it was."
"His name is Zing," Zann said. "He's a dragon. Oh, and I'm Zann."
"My name's Ello," the other boy said. "Nice to meet you."
Zann introduced Ello to his friends.
"Where are you taking us?" Perda asked Ello.
"Our island." Ello pointed ahead. "We'll be there soon."
Zann squinted into the driving rain. He could barely see a small lump on the horizon.
"Is that the island? Where's the mainland?"
Ello shook his head sadly. "There is no mainland anymore. Not since the seas started rising."
"Ello!" someone shouted. "We need your help with the mainsail."
Ello hurried off to help the other fishermen.
Zann and his friends tried to stay out of the way, and soon the boat landed on the rough, rocky shore of the tiny island.
About a dozen people were waiting to help drag the sailboat onto the beach.
Ello and the others quickly explained the situation, and Zann and his friends were surrounded by welcoming faces.
"Come inside—you're soaked," a kind-faced woman said, gesturing toward a handful of humble wooden huts on stilts clustered nearby.
"Ello! Find our visitors some dry clothes and stoke the fire."
"Yes, Mother," Ello replied, running ahead up the beach.
Soon Zann and his friends were climbing a rough rope ladder into the largest hut.
It felt good to get out of the constant wind and rain, though it was still damp and chilly inside.
The fire sputtering in the center of the main room offered little light and even less heat.
Most of the people from the beach crowded into the hut.
Ello's mother poured warm drinks from a kettle resting in the embers and passed a mug to each visitor.
"Please make yourselves at home," she said.
"Thank you," Zann said. The drink tasted strange, but it made him feel warm.
"And thank you for rescuing us," Perda added.
"What were those creatures that attacked us?"
"You mean the gulpers?" One of the men looked surprised.
"How can you not know them? They're the most dangerous beasts in all of Skellia."
"Skellia? Is that the name of this land?" asked Gliss.
"We're not from here. We came through a wormhole."
Another man gasped. "From the vortex?"
Immediately the Skellians started whispering among themselves.
"Are you from a land of magic?" a woman asked, leaning forward.
"Yes," Zann said. "Isn't this a magical land too? Our magic seems to work here."
Perda nodded, rubbed her hands together, and pointed at the fire. "Increase!" she said.
The fire grew bigger and hotter. The Skellians gasped with amazement.
Perda smiled. "See?"
"That explains why the gulpers were after you," one of the fishermen said.
"What do you mean?" Zann was confused. "What is this place?"
Taking turns, their hosts finished explaining what Ello had started to tell them in the boat.
Over the past few generations, most of the land in Skellia had been swallowed up by rough, rising seas.
The people of Skellia had weak and limited magic.
They couldn't do much more than conjure food and fresh water.
Even working together, they were unable to stop the seas or create more land.
"That's why everyone is desperate to escape to other worlds before all the land is gone," Ello said.
"The trouble is the gulpers. They're attracted to magic energy—they feed on it.
And there's no stronger magic in Skellia than a wormhole."
A woman nodded. "Every time one pops into existence, the gulpers quickly gulp it down."
"You mean they eat the wormholes?" Gliss exclaimed.
"They swallow them whole." Ello shrugged. "Unless a wormhole happens to pop up on land, it's nearly impossible to reach one before a gulper finds it."
"For instance," a fisherman said, "those gulpers you saw have probably swallowed the wormhole you came through."
Zann stared at his friends as they all realized what this meant.
They were trapped in this world, just like the natives!