Chapter 56
56
W RYTH POINTED TO the dark clouds sweeping under the keel of the Pywll . He held Skerren’s orb in his other hand. He had ordered the warship to sweep twice around the area. With the orb’s lodestones, he had been testing the winds blowing from down below.
“That’s definitely where the signal arises,” Wryth attested. “Here at the center of the Shrouds. Down below should be the Northern Henge.”
The commander scowled at the location. A storm raged under them, brightening the clouds in flashes. No thunder accompanied those crackling bolts, but the threat was plain to all. Worried glances spread across the forecastle.
Brask shook his head. “I can’t lower the Pywll through a storm that fierce, riven through with lightning. If the gasbag were struck enough times…”
Wryth pictured the balloon bursting into flame and crashing into the jungles. Still, he refused to be thwarted by bad weather.
Not when I’m this close.
Wryth turned to the commander. “The Pywll is tall. Can you lower the bulk of the boat through the clouds but still keep the balloon above the storm?”
Brask winced at such a thought.
“What about dropping just the keel of the Pywll through,” Wryth pressed. “Along with its lowermost levels.”
Brask plainly pictured what Wryth envisioned. “You want us to drop the ship enough to breach our keel-holds through the clouds?”
“That’s where the warship secures most of its rafts and skiffs. Those smaller crafts should be able to shoot out under the clouds, drop swiftly, and secure the entire area below.”
Brask rubbed his chin and slowly nodded. He glanced at his crew, his eyes brightening with the challenge. “We can do that.”
Wryth exhaled in relief.
Brask clapped him on the shoulder. “For a Shrive, you’re not a bad tactician.”
Wryth accepted the weak compliment. He turned away and headed across the forecastle.
“Where are you going?” Brask called over to him.
“Down,” Wryth said. “To join the forces heading to the Shrouds.”
Brask started to follow, as if to object, then simply waved Wryth off. De spite his praise a moment ago, the commander plainly wanted Wryth out of his forecastle and off his ship.
Wryth wouldn’t have let the man stop him anyway.
If the ancient bronze artifact was below, he intended to secure it himself. But he also remembered seeing Kanthe fleeing with the weapon back in Havensfayre.
Knowing that, Wryth intended to be prepared.
If the prince was down there…
So was another.
N YX DREW WITH the others around the glass table. The ruins of the Urth shimmered before them. She stared at the blasted landscape of broken lands, boiled seas, and a sky roiling with storms. No life could survive that.
Again, she heard the rising screams from the fiery mountaintop, the clash of war machines, then a moon crashing into the Urth. But what she remembered most from her dream was the resounding silence at the end, the stillness of an ancient grave.
“And you say we cannot stop this from happening?” Frell asked again.
Shiya motioned them all closer. “To understand, you must see.”
Her bronze hand swept over the cube glowing in her other palm. Before them, time started to run backward. As they watched, the world re-formed before them: seas returned, broken coastlines knit together, and the Crown forged itself anew. At the end, the moon rose from its crater and flew back into orbit, circling around them once again.
“I showed you the past. And the future sure to come.” Shiya nodded to the shining world. “Here is the present you know.”
“I don’t understand,” Nyx said. “Why are you showing us our world if we cannot save it?”
“Like I said, you cannot.”
Rhaif looked ill. “Then the Urth is doomed.”
Nyx clenched a fist, refusing to accept this fate.
Frell raised a palm. “If we cannot stop this from happening, can you ?”
Shiya’s eyes shone, clearly contemplating this, then shook her head. “Even I cannot. It will take all the world to do it.”
“What do you mean?” Nyx asked.
“I will show you.” Shiya lifted her cube and waved over it again. “This is the only hope.”
The Urth looked the same for several breaths. Nyx shared a worried glance with Frell. Had something gone wrong?
Then Rhaif flinched next to her, drawing back her attention. She didn’t understand what had startled him, then she saw it, too. The circlet of the Crown had shifted closer to her.
She gaped at the breadth of the world before her.
It’s turning…
As they all watched, the Crown continued its spin—at first slowly, then steadily faster.
Xan pointed off to the side. “The moon…”
Nyx glanced over and saw the ghostly silver globe drifting farther away, swinging its orbit wider. “It’s retreating,” she whispered.
“Look at the Crown,” Rhaif gasped out.
Nyx returned her attention. As the Urth continued to turn—now settled into a steady spin—the mountainous ice melted on one side. Seas rose and flooded across the Crown. Massive quakes shook the globe, lifting some lands, sinking others. The tops and bottoms of the world slowly frosted over with ice.
Nyx’s heart pounded.
Nothing looks the same.
Frell had more dire concerns. “Millions will die if this happens.”
Shiya lowered her palm atop the cube. “Yes. But not all. ”
Nyx felt little comforted by her statement.
Even Rhaif looked aghast at Shiya. “So to save the world, the Crown must be destroyed?”
Shiya didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
Frell still stared at the strange new landscape. “The only way to avoid moonfall is to get the Urth spinning again.” He turned to Shiya. “Is such a thing even possible?”
“Perhaps.” Shiya stared down at her crystal cube. “With help.”
“What help?” Rhaif asked. “From where?”
Shiya nodded in front of her, then lifted her palm off the cube.
Before them, the glowing globe shone brighter, blindingly so. Then as it faded again, their own world had returned. The Crown again shone in a twilight circlet between frozen ice and blasted sand. Only now, tiny blue and crimson dots bloomed around the map of the world, both in their lands and beyond.
Rhaif drew closer, craning around. “This red spot in the south of Guld’guhl. That’s where I found you.”
Shiya bowed her head. “ Red marks sites empty or destroyed.”
Nyx understood. “All these glowing spots. They mark sites where your kind were buried, who you called Sleepers.”
“It is so, but few remain. Those who do are locked in landscapes too formidable for them to wake.”
Nyx saw the crimson dots far outnumbered the others. The only blue one anywhere along the Crown lay far to the south, deep in the Klashe.
“But this is not what I wished to show you,” Shiya said.
She tapped her cube on either side. Two larger green spots appeared on the world. One far into the ice, the other deep into the blasted sands.
Xan leaned on her cane to peer closer. “What are these new areas you show us?”
Shiya’s expression grew forlorn. She glanced across the spread of broken glass on the floor. “I do not know. Such knowledge was shattered here.”
Nyx heard the worry in her voice. She remembered how the door had been locked against them.
Shiya continued, “I only know—with the Guardian gone from here—I must travel to this site.” She pointed to the patch within the dark ice. “I feel the drive to reach there, but I do not know the reason for that compunction. Something lies out there, and I must reach it if the world is to ever turn again.”
Rhaif stared at the frozen expanse west of the Ice Fangs. “Shiya, such a journey is impossible. Especially alone.”
Nyx knew this to be true—along with another certainty. “I must go with you.”
They all stared at her.
She faced them, letting them see her determination. “Something tried to block Shiya from entering this site in the Shrouds. Even if she could reach that other spot, it could happen again there, too. She may need my help.”
Nyx looked over to the bronze woman.
Before Shiya could reply, the pounding of feet drew their attention to the chamber’s door. Shiya whisked a hand, and the shining globe vanished off the table, hiding what she had revealed.
One of the Kethra’kai burst into the room. She skidded on the copper floor, her gaze casting about. The shock of the sight momentarily silenced her.
“What is it?” Xan asked, thumping more fully into view.
The woman focused on Xan and answered in a fast spatter of Kethra. Xan clutched her staff more firmly.
“What’s wrong?” Nyx asked.
Xan turned. “Someone comes. In a huge ship, descending through the clouds.”
Nyx knew who that must be, picturing the warship that had been plaguing them at Havensfayre.
“We must go,” Frell said. “Now. We can’t be trapped down here. We must make for the jungle.”
They all started rushing for the door.
Shiya headed the other way, moving with incredible swiftness. When she neared the cocoon back there, she raised her small cube and danced her fingers across its surface. When she finally turned around, a deep gong sounded from under the floor, shaking the entire place.
A couple of the glass tomes toppled off the shelves and shattered.
Shiya ignored the damage and rushed across the chamber. As she rejoined the group, she pushed the crystal cube into her chest. It melted through her bronze and vanished.
“What did you do over there?” Rhaif asked.
“No one else must learn what’s down here.” Shiya waved them onward. “Ever.”
They all fled upward, with Shiya all but carrying Xan.
As Nyx ran, another gong sounded behind her, striking louder, like a bell marking the passage of time. She glanced back, sensing they needed to be far from here when that chiming reached its end.