Chapter 54
54
N YX HEARD DISTANT thunder as she crouched under the crossed arches at the center of the dark plaza. Down on one knee with her back to the copper door, she faced Aamon’s panting countenance. While she remained weak, at least her sight was returning.
Silent lightning burst in jagged lines from one of the crystal-tipped pillars and splattered across the black clouds, as if those bolts were somehow feeding the dark skies.
The vargr ducked, casting his gaze all about, tucking his ears down.
“I’m spooked, too,” she whispered.
Especially with where I must go next.
Nyx lifted a palm toward the vargr’s nose. Aamon stopped his panting long enough to sniff, give a small lick, then nudge her hand, as if to say: What do you want?
She remembered the command Graylin had given Aamon. Mimicking it, she swept her arm to encompass the immediate space outside the copper door, then gripped her wrist with her other hand. “Protect,” she said firmly.
Aamon’s eyes gleamed, narrowing slightly—then he padded a few paces away and turned his gaze outward, his tail to the door. He growled his challenge out to the world.
“Good boy,” she whispered.
His tail wagged once in acknowledgment.
She stood up, though it took two tries with her weak legs.
Frell came forward. “Are you strong enough for those stairs?”
“I think so…” she muttered, then added more firmly as she stood, “Yes.”
Nyx glanced over to the copper door. Past its threshold, the scout’s lamp had revealed stone stairs spiraling down into the summit. They were all going down, with the exception of the Kethra’kai, who would guard their retreat if necessary, alongside Aamon.
Xan, though, would accompany them down. She stood with Rhaif and Shiya.
“Then we should get started,” Frell said.
With no one objecting, they set off past the door. Shiya led the way, with Rhaif behind her. Frell followed with the scout’s lamp in his hand, leaving Nyx and Xan to trail last.
The steps—carved out of the summit’s black rock—were wide enough for two to walk abreast. So, Nyx kept close to Xan, who was as exhausted as she was. The Kethra’kai elder carried herself heavily on her staff.
Around and around they went. The abysmal darkness seemed to consume their lamplight. Nyx imagined themselves winding down into the fiery core of the Urth. She swore she even caught a sulfurous waft of brimstan.
Ahead, Shiya’s bronze feet rang on the steps, sounding like the chiming of some mournful bell. Nyx did her best to keep up, but her legs began to tire. Xan also slowed, wheezing next to her. They soon lagged behind the others. Shiya disappeared around a turn of the stairs, so did Rhaif. Frell hung back, keeping the steps illuminated with his lamp.
How much longer?
The answer came as the ring of Shiya’s feet changed timbre, from bronze on stone to the sharper clang of metal on metal.
Light flared ahead.
Drawn by that brightness, Nyx hurried. Even Xan matched her steps. They rounded the turn of the stairs into a dazzling brilliance. She blinked against a sheen that was distinctly coppery.
Rhaif stood at the edge of that light, shading his eyes with a hand.
Past him, Shiya limped across a copper floor. Again, each of her steps glowed, but rather than the light fading, her trail grew ever brighter, washing out from her heels and rebounding off the walls.
Nyx drew up to Frell and Rhaif.
The copper chamber was circular, a quarter the size of the Cloistery’s ninth tier, but here there were no burning pyres. Instead, a large glass table centered the room. The walls curved up to form a rounded point overhead. Nyx noted that the lines of the roof matched the stone arches far above them.
Rhaif made his own comparison as he edged into the space. “Looks like an egg on end,” he whispered. “I found Shiya somewhere like this, only hers was a tenth this size. And it looks like someone tried to crack this egg.”
She saw he was right as she followed after him, careful of the chunky pieces of broken glass on the floor. All around, glowing shelves climbed the walls. Rather than holding dusty tomes, the shelves were lined with rectangular blocks of the clearest crystal. Thousands upon thousands of them. Unfortunately, half of them had been knocked from their shelves and lay shattered on the metal floor. Even the central table had a huge split across it.
Shiya slowed as she neared the table. A hand rose to her throat as she seemed to inspect the damage—then she limped past it.
As she did, the table burst forth with a column of light that shot to the arched roof. It shimmered and pulsed, as if warning them back.
Nyx shielded her eyes against the brightness.
The pillar flickered and shivered for several more breaths, before finally collapsing into a perfect globe of light shining above the cracked tabletop.
The sight reminded Nyx of the gaseous glow of a Liar’s Lure, a phenomenon occasionally spotted floating through the darker bowers of the swamp.
As they watched, colors infused into the sphere: emeralds and blues of every hue, streams of milky white, streaks of richer bronzes and browns.
As they all drew nearer, Shiya continued to limp across the room. Even Rhaif let her go alone, curiosity drawing him to the table’s edge. The colors swirled and spun across the sphere, then slowly began to coalesce into the globe of a world.
Lands rose, seas filled, and clouds skimmed the surface.
“What magick is this?” Frell asked, and reached a hand toward the glow.
“Don’t,” Rhaif warned, retreating back.
Frell ignored him and brazenly swept his arm through the world. As his fingers passed harmlessly across, they stirred the image, like wafting a hand across a fire’s smoke. In a breath, though, the mirage settled back to its former shape.
Nyx stared, mesmerized. Before her, the world slowly turned, revealing every coastline, mountain range, and sea. As those lands swept past her, she searched the surface.
“I don’t see anything that matches the Crown,” she whispered. “This can’t be our Urth.”
Frell nodded. “It must be the world of the old gods, where they came from.”
The image occasionally frazzled, as if the damage to the tabletop fought revealing this world. But so far, it continued to hold.
Rhaif looked across the room. “Shiya…”
Hearing his note of concern, Nyx circled to join him. The bronze woman had reached the room’s far side. There, a tall copper shield stood against the wall, cupped around by a rim of thick glass. A web of copper tubes and glass pipes wound through the glass and into the walls.
“Looks like the cocoon where I first laid eyes upon her,” Rhaif said.
Shiya reached to her shoulder and tore her shift loose. It fell and cascaded down around her ankles, baring her nakedness to all. She stepped out of it and mounted a short ramp that led up to the alcove.
“No.” Rhaif hurried over, clearly fearing the worst.
He drew them all, but they arrived too late. Shiya turned her back to the shield and pressed herself against it. As contact was made, the floor shook with a resounding ring. Shiya snapped straight, throwing her head back, clanging it against the copper.
In a breath, the glass brightened around her. The copper shield glowed. A golden elixir started to flow through the crystalline tubing. Underfoot, the floor thrummed. Nyx felt it in her bones, like the pumping of a great heart that was drawing strength from below. The very air grew fraught with energies.
As they watched, all that brilliance—from crystalline glass, golden potions, and glowing copper—infused into Shiya. Her bronze began to shine as if freshly poured. Her form appeared to melt and flow. The scratches and dents warmed away. Even her crooked leg grew straighter.
Despite the miraculous healing, Shiya’s mouth gasped open. Her eyes now blazed with a light that could only be described as agonizing. Her fingers curled into crabs of pain.
Rhaif moved closer, but Frell held him back.
“Shiya,” Rhaif moaned.
Within a few breaths, the light began to fade. As it did, her bronze form grew stiffer. All expression faded from her features. Her hands flattened against the copper. Then her eyelids lowered, less like someone drifting into slumber and more like tiny hatches being winched closed. Shiya stood there as the surrounding brilliance dimmed to a low glow.
The heartbeat in the floor also faded.
They all stared, holding their breath.
“What happened?” Frell asked.
Nyx stared at the blankness before her. “I think… I think she’s left us.”
R HAIF PACED IN front of the glowing cocoon, his hands wringing together in consternation. He breathed heavier, but he still felt lightheaded. He heard the others whispering as he kept vigil.
He remembered finding Shiya in exactly this same posture, a glowing bronze statue in a golden web. He remembered the wonder and exquisite terror of that moment.
Now it was all gone, snuffed like a candle in the dark.
He stopped and pleaded to the bronze statue, Please don’t go.
Still, he recognized the selfishness of this request. He stared at her body, returned again to a bronze perfection. He remembered his earlier worry, when he had watched her hobble along the copper tunnel: Maybe you should have never left your egg. This world is too harsh for even a woman made of metal.
Perhaps his wish had been granted.
Ignoring the risk, he climbed up the ramp and stood in the glow of her grace. He lifted a hand and reached to her chest. He settled his palm against bronze that felt as warm as any flesh.
Tears rose at his loss.
Still, he had to let her go. “Be at peace, my Shiya.”
He lowered his gaze, letting his arm drop away—only to have warm fingers catch his hand.
He stared up into eyes that shone a perfect azure blue; the glass was so lifelike that he defied anyone to say otherwise. She bowed her chin in thanks. Her palm rose and cupped his cheek. His mother’s lullaby echoed again in his head, only far stronger than before.
She let him go and stepped past him. She moved unabashedly in her nakedness. The others drew closer. She moved to a section of wall to the left of the cocoon. She waved a hand, dissolving open an alcove in the wall, the copper vanishing as if it were smoke.
From within, light blazed out. It rose from a crystalline cube veined in copper with a golden mass pulsing at its core.
She removed it with great care, then pressed it against her bare navel.
Rhaif flashed back to the mines of Chalk, to the Iflelen Wryth infusing his bloodbaerne elixir at that same spot. He remembered the poor girl’s life pouring into Shiya, waking her to this harsh world.
Only there was no horror here.
The crystalline cube glowed brighter—then sank into her bronze flesh and vanished. It was as if Shiya were instilling a new heart, one strong enough to withstand this world.
He glanced to the others, who looked on with equal wonder.
Shiya crossed around the cocoon to the other side and repeated the gesture, dissolving open another cubby. No glow greeted her. From inside, she removed a crystal cube resting atop a pedestal. Its facets were so clear it was difficult to discern it was even there. She lifted it free and turned. She then headed over to the glass table, where the shimmering world slowly turned.
Maybe her world.
They all followed.
She held the cube in both palms, and a soft light infused into it. She finally spoke. It was not the whispers of before, but a voice stronger and clearer. Still, it was evident she struggled.
“Much… is lost,” she warned. She glanced with misery across the expanse of broken glass. “I… am not hale… whole.”
Rhaif swallowed, remembering what Xan had told Pratik. Shiya carries the spirit of an old god inside her, one who has not yet fully settled. Maybe that was still true.
“I can only hope to do enough.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, but not from weakness, only confusion and fear. “I will show you what I can… share the little that was left to me by the missing Guardian.”
She glanced back to the cocoon.
Rhaif stared over with a frown. Had someone else once stood there and left? If so, he sensed that abandonment had happened long ago.
Shiya again looked sadly at the ruins of the room. Rhaif now wondered if the damage here had been deliberate or was simply due to some quake, perhaps when the Shrouds were uplifted in the ancient past.
Frell shifted closer. “Shiya, what can you show us?”
She returned her attention to her crystal cube and passed a palm over it. In front of her, the shimmering world suddenly cast off a blazing sun. It shot across the room and stopped high in the air, hanging like a bright lantern. Next, a silvery moon drifted free. It circled above their heads, passing around and around the spinning world.
Rhaif grew dizzy at the pageantry of it all.
“Thus, it began…” Shiya intoned, and waved her hand again. “Over three hundred millennia ago…”
The spin of the globe gradually slowed. As it did, lands sank, oceans boiled, and winds eroded mountains. Great quakes tore the world, uplifting new coastlines, tearing apart others. Finally, the turning stopped completely, leaving one side blazing under the sun, the other dark and shadowed.
Still, time continued to pass before their eyes. Ice piled up on the dark side, while the sun blasted the other to sand. Between those extremes, a twilight band circled the world, ruddy at one edge, shadowy on the other. Lands within that band shone with forests and rivers, or were striped with tall mountains, or rolled with green hills. Blue oceans swirled throughout all, ringing this new world.
But it wasn’t new.
Nyx leaned closer, staring wide-eyed and unblinking at a northern breadth of this twilight circlet. Her voice was pure dismay. “It’s… It’s our Crown.”
N YX STUMBLED BACK from the revelation, as if it could be dismissed by distance. She refused to believe it but knew it to be true.
“The Urth once turned, ” she gasped. She tried to hold this thought in her head, but it seemed too vast.
Frell faced Shiya. “I don’t understand. What stopped it from spinning?”
She stared at the frozen globe. “I cannot say. Much was lost…”
Nyx shifted another step back, grinding crystals under her heel. She sensed the enormity of knowledge shattered and destroyed across this space. Shiya winced at the grating noise, as if confirming this.
Shiya turned to Frell. “That is not the question you should be asking.”
“What is then?”
“To understand…” Shiya returned her attention to the shimmering image of the Urth. She waved a hand over the cube in her palm. “The past you’ve now seen. But this is what’s to be.”
As they watched, nothing seemed to happen. The Urth remained fixed and unmoving, one side blazing, the other side frozen. Then something sped past Nyx’s shoulder, a flash of silver. She ducked from it, startled, only to realize it was the glowing moon.
She cringed, knowing what was about to happen.
The moon swept around, passing ghostly through Frell and Rhaif. Xan lifted her staff against it, but it rushed through the wood, too. The moon circled the shimmering world, growing ever closer—at first slowly, then faster.
Finally, it made one final pass and slammed into the world. The impact shook the image above the table. Waves of destruction spread outward from the strike, wiping away all in its path: lands, oceans, ice, and sand. Nothing was spared. In a breath, the ruins of the Urth shone before all of their stunned faces.
“Moonfall…” Nyx whispered. “What I saw in my vision.”
“The portent of the jar’wren, ” Xan intoned.
Shiya cast her gaze around the room. “This is what woke me. We who are the Sleepers, buried deep in the world until we are needed. But we are not the only sentinels planted here as the world slowed. Those who came before—”
Shiya stopped and frowned, clearly struggling for the words to explain, or maybe she was simply trying to knit what she knew over the gaps of knowledge shattered on the floor. She started again. “Those who came before, they instilled gifts into others, seeded into their blood, creating vessels of memory. They were living sentinels who watched while we slept, who could change with the world, while we could not. They were created to sustain an eternal memory, one shared and preserved across their many numbered.”
Nyx breathed harder and closed her eyes.
I know those sentinels.
She remembered the attack in the swamps, when her mind was cast throughout the avenging horde descending on Brayk. She had shared their eyes, their lusts—but she also pictured the pair of fiery eyes gazing back at her. In those moments, she had sensed the greater mind behind that gaze, something ageless and dark, cold and unknowable. Its vastness had unnerved her.
She opened her eyes to find Shiya gazing upon her. Her bronze face shone with that same ancientness.
Nyx knew that the fiery intelligence in the swamps was equal to what lay here. That huge pair of eyes—staring out of the darkness at her—wasn’t just the shared minds of the bats living now. It was all their minds, past and present, the memories of every bat that had ever lived, stretching back into the ancient past, forged into one force.
Shiya seemed to read this dawning knowledge and nodded to her. She then glanced across at the others. “The gift given to these living sentinels… we Sleepers also share it.”
“You speak of bridle-song,” Xan said. “It is our gift, too.”
Shiya smiled sadly. “By mistake.”
Nyx flinched, but Xan looked aghast, wounded.
“I don’t malign you with these words,” Shiya consoled. “This gift drifted into your lineage long ago. Maybe infused by disease, maybe by a mix of venom and blood. But once there, that seed found fertile soil, a usefulness worth passing on, and so it rooted deep among certain blessed people.”
“The Kethra’kai,” Xan said.
“And maybe others.” Shiya’s bronze brow bunched with frustration. She again struggled, perhaps brushing against another frayed place in her memory. “Not only did that seed spread inadvertently, but the gift… it has changed while we slept, growing branches no one imagined.”
Her gaze again found Nyx.
Frell interrupted this discourse. He had been walking around the table, staring at the ruins of the Urth glowing there. “That is all fascinating, but it’s not what we should be focused on.” Worry lined his face. “Moonfall. When will this occur?”
Shiya’s lips thinned to a frown.
Rhaif pressed his palms together. “Please don’t say much was lost again.”
Shiya’s expression softened, and she reached to touch Rhaif’s arm. “Not that. But the variables are many. Even for me. I can only approximate an answer.”
“When will it happen?” Frell persisted.
Shiya spoke more softly. “No longer than five years. Maybe as short as three.”
Frell looked down, plainly absorbing this dire prediction. No one else spoke. With a sigh, the alchymist again raised his face to Shiya. “Then how do we stop it?”
Shiya turned to the ruins of the Urth. “You cannot.”