The Cradle of Ice (Moonfall #2)

Chapter 87

87

R HAIF QUAKED AND shivered in the bone-numbing cold. The Sparrowhawk ’s hold was dark, lit by a handful of firepots that cast little light and only deepened the shadows—and hid the monsters down here.

All around him, wings flapped and brushed against one another, sounding like corpses rubbing their leathery hands together. Sudden hisses and sharper keens spat through the howl of the winds. Worst of all were the flashes of bright fangs reflecting the firelight. They flickered in the dark, poisonous and deadly.

I’ve had nightmares tamer than this.

So far, the raash’ke had kept to the depths of the hold as Rhaif and Graylin rolled the barrel toward the winds screaming across a rent in the hold. Perde followed them with his broken arm slung across his belly and a lantern raised in his other hand.

Rhaif truly wished he hadn’t suggested this plan.

Even Graylin rumbled under his breath, “This is madness.”

“I never said it weren’t,” Rhaif answered.

“Are you sure you mixed it right?”

“Taste it and find out.”

Rhaif stared down at the large barrel, strapped in iron, with a flitch -soaked twist of cloth sticking out of its corked bunghole. He had spent a half-bell mixing together the refined flitch, a full cask of cannon powder, and a bucket of their remaining flashburn. It was the same recipe he had used to make the bomb that had chased the Hálendiians out of Iskar’s lodestone chamber. Only this was on a far grander scale.

They finally reached the hole torn through the hull. The winds pelted them, the air felt like ice, even when sucked through the scarves wrapped around their faces. The thick gloves and fur-lined coats did little to hold back the cold, which cut to the bone. He swore his eyeballs would freeze solid before they were done with this task.

Graylin abandoned him with the barrel and slipped around it to the ragged hole in the hull and peeked out. He glanced for less than a breath. When he turned back, ice had crusted his scarf, turning it into a solid mask.

Graylin hurried back and yelled in Rhaif’s ears, “The door is right below us!”

Rhaif nodded, his teeth chattering—and not just from the cold.

Graylin crossed to Perde and collected the lantern. “Let Darant know we’re ready and to call down when the others are.”

Perde slipped into the darkness, his shape becoming a slightly blacker shadow. The big man crossed to a highhorn tube and pressed his lips to it. He called up its baffling to let the captain know they were in position.

Perde then returned.

By now, Graylin had the lantern open and protected its flame from the winds by crouching on the leeward side of the barrel, right next to the fuel-soaked twist of cloth.

Rhaif and Perde joined him.

“Maybe the bomb will blast open the door all by itself,” Perde suggested.

“I’ve seen the thickness of the smaller copper doors,” Rhaif answered. “This monster? It’ll be like a kitten swiping at a milk wagon and expecting it to tip over.”

“What if it were a really strong kitten?” Perde challenged him. “Or it were really hungry, say?”

Rhaif gave up. “You make solid points.”

Darant finally called down, his voice echoing through the highhorn. “On my mark!”

The captain counted down from five.

On three, Graylin lit the cloth, brightening the space with a flare of flames. Rhaif winced at the glare.

On two, they got the barrel rolling toward the hole; even Perde helped by kicking at it, maybe demonstrating how a kitten might knock over a milk wagon.

But that was not their goal.

While Rhaif was weak in bridle-song, he had noted the flashes of malevolent green fire burning away any of Nyx’s attempts to unlock the copper door. Even with Shiya’s and Daal’s support, the trio failed each time and were only exhausting their energy.

So Rhaif had suggested this plan.

On one, they tipped the barrel through the hole and watched it tumble through the air toward the curve of door under them—then ran.

On zero, the blast deafened. The Hawk jolted hard as a fiery sun exploded under them. Rhaif and the others got tossed off the floor planks and crashed down. A spate of flames washed through the hole behind them.

Raash’ke panicked, flying throughout the hold, beating at their group with their wings.

Rhaif covered his head.

I’ve rung its bell, Nyx—now it’s your turn.

E VEN THOUGH SHE was prepared for the blast, the concussion and hard shake of the ship nearly loosened the song trapped in Nyx’s throat, chest, and heart.

She clutched to Shiya for the anchor of her bronze and to Daal for his font of power. Before signaling Rhaif below, the three of them—all on their knees—had built a golden pyre of bridle-song. They stoked it and threw more fuel atop it, until Nyx could see its glow through her closed eyelids.

Only then had she nodded to Darant.

They had one chance to make this work—if it worked at all.

Prior to this, their repeated attempts to reach the door were thwarted and blocked by the unnatural emerald energy from the hidden spider. As frustration grew and they became tired, Rhaif had wondered if the spider was suffering the same, spending all his energy concentrating on the door. Rhaif had suggested dropping a bomb atop it, ringing the dome below like a struck bell. If the spider was down there, the sound inside would be a thousandfold worse than outside, hopefully startling the spider and breaking its concentration long enough so they could do this.

Nyx released her flood of song, fueled by Daal and focused through Shiya. Nyx followed down with it. As it struck the dome, she continued into the door itself. Despite outward appearances, the copper—like all metals—was mostly empty space, just billions of motes of hard matter, each surrounded and held apart by twirls of energy. She easily slipped between those gaps and through the copper.

Within the metal, she read the map of the lock. Once the pattern shone in her mind’s eye, her bridle-song picked it open.

At the last moment, emerald fire lashed out from below, trying to burn away what she had done, but it was too late. A great rumble rose around the ship, trembling it. Below them, the seven petals of the door peeled open, sliding into the surrounding dome wall.

Warm air burst upward, instantly turning to mist in the cold and swamping around the Sparrowhawk. Blinded, Darant backed them out of that thermal chimney. The sudden warmth also challenged the lift of their balloon’s hot air. They momentarily dropped until they reached the frigid cold, then lifted higher again.

Jace and Krysh helped them stand. Shiya managed on her own.

“What if the spider closes it again?” Jace asked.

Nyx knew the answer, but Shiya voiced it.

“I locked it open,” the bronze woman intoned.

Nyx nodded. At that last moment, as the spider recovered from the deafening blast, Nyx had felt the shift in the copper. Those hard bits of matter had realigned, wrecking the pattern. Like jamming an iron bar into a forge.

“How did you know how to do that?” Nyx asked Shiya.

She gave a confused look. “I… I just did.”

Nyx remembered when she had flown her raash’ke for the first time. Certain buried reflexes had risen without thought, from memories instilled into her. Had Shiya experienced something like that? In the past, Shiya had demonstrated some knowledge of these doorways and their locks. Though Shiya’s memories were corrupted or missing, some deep corner of her awareness still reacted instinctively when the spider had lashed out, thwarting him.

Graylin and Rhaif came rushing in, looking frozen.

“Did it work?” Rhaif gasped out through chattering teeth.

As answer, Nyx pointed to the misty column of warm air rising out of the open dome.

“What now?” Jace asked. “Do we drop the Sparrowhawk through there?”

Darant spoke from the wheel. “That hot air will make it treacherous. And as it is, it’s a tight fit through that hole. We lose the Hawk, and none of us are leaving.”

“Then how’re we getting down?” Rhaif asked.

“You know as well as I do,” Nyx said, repeating Daal’s words from two days ago. “We’ve done it before.”

Jace closed his eyes and groaned.

A TOP N YFKA, D AAL swept a circle around the Sparrowhawk , waiting for the others. The cold was brutal. It felt as if the air had turned brittle, too hard to even inhale. He didn’t know if it was due to their flight deeper into the Wastes or some strange property of the massive copper Oshkapeer below, as if the structure were sucking heat from the air around it, maybe from the Urth itself.

He skimmed high above one of those fiery chasms that lined the copper’s edges. The rift glowed from molten rock hidden in its depths. But what wasn’t hidden, but still far down, was a massive tangle of heavy, twisted metal beams—not copper, maybe iron or steel, but clearly ancient, older than the complex above, marking the skeletal ruins of another age buried under this one.

Nyx had told Daal about the site they sought in the Brackenlands. She described it as a large village, what she called a city, but nothing lay out in these barren lands except the copper structure. Was the wreckage below the remains of a lost city? Was the copper Oshkapeer its grave marker?

He shuddered and turned away. He scanned the skies to the east, searching for any sign of the enemy who had attacked the Crèche. But the fires of the Sparrowhawk and the reflected fiery glow of the copper only made the surrounding Brackenlands darker. The warm mists still rising through the open door further hazed the view.

Still, he searched for several more breaths. With no danger in sight, he swung back to the ship and waggled his wingtips, letting the others know that all looked clear for now.

On his signal, Nyx took flight. She burst low under the ship’s balloon, then swept high. Behind the pair, more wings spread into the sky. Tiny figures dangled under them before being drawn closer to keep warm.

Daal leaned over his saddle and tucked his knees tighter, signaling Nyfka, but his mount seemed to know his intent and dove. He remembered a similar harmony whenever he rode Neffa, those moments when two became one. He knew now such a deep bond was due to his innate bridle-song. Though he couldn’t bridge to another heart as intimately as Nyx could, he still felt that gifted connection, that bond between rider and mount. In moments like this, he felt closer to Neffa, as if she rode these skies with him; his memories of hunting with her had helped forge his bond with Nyfka, as if the orkso had been preparing him for this all along.

Thank you, Neffa.

Daal swept down to the others and drew alongside Nyx, riding wingtip to wingtip. Hugging her saddle, she glanced across to him. She glowed with bridle-song, trailing wisps of golden fire in her wake. Her eyes shone with the same blaze.

The sight of her stole his breath—then they were into the warm mists.

After the frigid cold, the warm air scorched. He gasped at the sudden heat. But after a few breaths, the burn tempered to a steamy balminess. He dove steeper, taking the lead, protecting Nyx.

Once through the huge doorway, the air cleared. The shock of the sight below and around him bobbled his flight. He clutched harder to his saddle and urged his mount into a smoother arc across the interior of the dome. The vast space looked even bigger from the inside.

Nyx drew alongside again.

She nodded to him, broke away, and guided the others toward the copper floor.

He let her go, making a final sweep above them.

What wonders have we opened to the world?

N YX SPIRA LED TOWARD the dome’s floor, her gaze sweeping dizzily in all directions. The copper of the inner walls was coated by a dense labyrinth of crystalline tubing, steel joinery, and great windowed tanks bubbling with golden potions. It all glowed softly, with occasional brighter energies coursing over sections, like tamed lightning.

She had to blink away some of the sharper dazzles as she wound cautiously below. Seven huge tunnels led off down those tentacles. From them, giant rubbery cables—as tall as lumbering martoks—snaked out and dove under the copper floor, vanishing away. But Nyx knew where all seven were headed, what they were meant to power.

Before landing, she circled the wonder at the center of the dome.

Cradled in bronze and suspended by a rigging of archways was a perfect sphere of crystal. It was the size of a warship and felt as threatening. The upper hemisphere rose above the floor, while its lower half hung over a huge hole, wider by half than the orb itself.

The crystal’s surface was circumscribed by crisscrossing bands of bright copper, while smaller wires etched a complicated pattern between them, like the arcane scribblings of a mad alchymist.

Still, none of it hid what lay at the heart of the crystal.

A huge pool of golden fluid pulsed and writhed, churning and swirling.

Though awed and terrified, Nyx recognized its character, if not its massive scale. She tore her gaze away and stared at the shine of Shiya’s bronze form. When the miraculous woman had climbed out of the mines of Chalk, it took the power of the sun to keep her moving. She had to constantly draw energy from the fires of the Father Above. Only later, she had recovered a crystalline cube, swirling with the same golden elixir. Once implanted into her, it had granted her continual power thereafter and sustained her still.

Nyx turned back toward the golden sea shining at the center of the sphere and cowered at the thought of all that energy. She finally had to look away, shying from the enormity of it all.

As she turned and swept away from the sphere, she caught a glimpse down the massive hole along the orb’s edge. She expected to see molten fire glowing below, but the sight was worse. The shaft fell away into a darkness that felt bottomless. She imagined the shaft drilling to the core of the planet. What little could be seen of the upper reaches was a complex of ladders set amidst shelves of scaffolding, all descending into that eternal blackness.

She shivered at the sight of that abyss and continued around the sphere to descend to the floor. She landed first, her mount’s claws skidding with a bone-chilling screech across the copper. The others were lowered or dropped by the raash’ke.

Staying seated in her saddle, she surveyed her group. Their faces shone from a spectrum of wonder and awe to horror and disbelief.

Overwhelmed, Jace sank to his knees. Krysh stumbled over to his side, having to lean on his young friend. Nyx didn’t know if the alchymist was stunned by the flight down from the ship or from the astonishing sights around him—likely a combination of both.

Graylin stared back at her, focusing on her, ignoring the rest.

Past his shoulder, Shiya helped Rhaif to his feet. He hung on to her like a drowning man on a bit of floating flotsam.

A shout drew her attention to the side, where Darant gathered Vikas and two more of his men, one of them with a broken arm in a sling. Darant stared up at the fiery glow of the Sparrowhawk through the chimney of mists. His face was pained but determined. He had hated to abandon the ship, but they needed as much force down here as possible and Glace had proven herself fully capable of defending the Hawk, though she had been left with only the barest skeleton of a crew.

The last member of their group still swept high, on patrol. Daal watched for any sign of that molten shape of the spider. But after being thwarted, the bronze spider must have scurried off down one of those seven tunnels, hiding in the shadows.

Daal was not alone up there. The flock of raash’ke, who had ferried the party down, now winged through the air, adding to the patrol, ready to defend them. Nyx reached up with a thrum of song, thanking them for their diligence and help. As she did, she felt a faint presence of the raash’ke horde-mind. It watched with the cold immensity of its ancient eye, still weakly linked by its brethren circling above.

Nyx finally slid from her saddle, running a glowing palm over Metyl’s damp flank, whispering her thanks to him. He stirred and reached back, rubbing a cheek against her chest, a rare sign of true affection. She scratched his small ear, earning a rumble back.

Rhaif called over, a note of panic in his voice. “Help me!”

Nyx hurried over with the others.

Rhaif stood before Shiya, his palms on her chest, his feet being pushed across the copper, unable to find a foothold on the seamless surface, not that it would’ve helped against Shiya’s immense strength.

“What’re you doing?” Darant asked.

“What does it look like?” Rhaif’s face purpled with the strain, hopping a bit on his bad leg. “Trying to stop her.”

They all crowded to his side, ready to help.

Rhaif explained. “She barely got her footing when she suddenly stiffened. Her eyes went dark. She started marching away without a word, deaf to my questions. Something’s got ahold of her.”

Nyx noted the copper under Shiya’s feet vaguely glowed, casting out ripples with each step, as if she were marching across a still pond.

“Let her go,” Nyx warned, moving closer.

Graylin tried to stop Nyx, but she shook off his arm.

She pushed Rhaif aside.

“We’ve all witnessed such dogged compulsion by Shiya,” Nyx explained. “Back when she led us to the Shrouds. Some buried part of her is reacting to this place. This is where she was meant to be. Trust her.”

Nyx remembered Shiya reflexively locking the dome open. Whatever was driving her must come from the same core of her being.

Rhaif backed away. They all followed in Shiya’s wake as she strode with swift steps, still rippling that glowing pond under her. She crossed around the circumference of the massive sphere that towered high, churning with its golden sea.

Shiya drew no closer to it, wending wider, heading to the dome’s wall.

Her goal came into view.

Imbedded deep into the crystalline web that bubbled and shone throughout the dome’s interior stood a tall shield of copper. It looked molded out of the back wall itself. Nyx stared up and around, sensing the vast spread of the glowing maze led here, to this one spot.

Shiya is meant to be here. She is the key to this place.

The bronze woman marched inexorably toward her destiny. Once close, she shed out of her shift, baring her nakedness. She mounted a short ramp up to the copper shield.

Rhaif no longer tried to stop her. Like Nyx, he had seen such a cocoon of metal and crystal. “It’s like back at the Shrouds,” he mumbled. “Or inside the egg where I first found her.”

Shiya turned her back to the shield and pressed herself against it. As contact was made, the floor jolted under them. The dome rang like a bell. The noise deafened and drove them to their knees.

Shiya stiffened, her head thrown back.

We have witnessed this before, too.

But not this powerful.

The crystal that cupped around the copper shield grew brighter and spread outward in dazzling waves of energy. The rhythmic sweeps of fire sailed outward, swirled wide, then rushed back, crashing like a wave against a cliff.

With each strike, Shiya’s back arched off the copper, her mouth open in a silent cry that looked rapturous.

Rhaif took a step forward, but Graylin held him back—not that Rhaif could have reached her.

Thick curves of glass swept out of the walls to either side and closed over Shiya, encapsulating her, becoming a true chrysalis.

Nyx knew this felt right, where Shiya’s long journey was meant to end.

She was wrong.

From the edges of the cocoon, jagged coruscations of green fire burst forth, wrapping around the crystal. More flames shot across the inside of the dome. The energies out there still swirled but only seemed to fuel the green fire with every crashing wave. The emerald flames became an inferno across the chrysalis.

Shiya vanished behind the blaze, but not before Nyx saw her bronze form thrashing and convulsing inside. Her silent scream was no longer rapturous—only tortured.

Nyx and the others backed away, recognizing the truth.

This wasn’t Shiya’s destiny.

It was a trap.