39. Advanced Tides and Currents #3
The rock island was perfectly circular, stretching about fifty yards in diameter.
Its interior was hollow, like a giant bowl, and full of swirling Skal.
The Skal shifted, stirred by invisible currents.
The narrow walkway that rimmed the pool was only three feet wide, and a strange, rambling line carved deep into the rock.
Orla ventured out on a man-made spit of cobbled stone that reached into the center of the pool. The end of the spit sat directly under the roof’s apex. Orla looked up at the spot of sky above her, and then frowned at the Skal at her feet.
“Iseult,” she said, “please tell us this isn’t the way.”
Iseult shook water off of Mom’s notebook. “We knew it would be dangerous.”
“Is it that much more dangerous than water?” I asked.
“Skal is impossible to swim in,” Ciarán explained. “When we jump in, it will either take us to Keldori, or we will drown. We’re betting our lives on Lyria’s journal.”
“Oh.” Another explosion rocked the cage, this one closer than the last. “Then who’s first?”
Orla held a foot out over the water, but Iseult called for her to wait.
“There should be a sword somewhere,” she said, scanning the rounded walkway. “There!”
She hurried around the circumference of the island until she came to a rusted longsword where it stuck from the rock. It looked similar to the one Lysanor had kept in Lyria’s collection, though the salt water air had corroded the metal significantly.
“What’s that do?” Tiernan asked.
“Lyria wrote that she used her sword to navigate the doorway,” Iseult explained. “The door doesn’t let out into the same place in Keldori every time. We can adjust the exit with this.”
“But how?” Tiernan asked.
“I—I don’t know,” Iseult admitted.
“No time,” Tiernan said. “Caitria will be here soon.”
“And the tide is still rising,” Iseult sighed.
When I looked back at the stairs I’d just climbed, the water had indeed climbed halfway up behind me.
“We have to make time,” I said. “Lyria would visit Europe. That’s half a world away from where we’re going. How do we adjust it?”
“Europe, whatever Europe is, will have to do,” Iseult shot back. “Orla, wait for me.”
“Is it this line?” I stepped back from the edge of the pool, noting the line carved into the stone at our feet.
It traced a haphazard path through the rock, too deep to be accidental, and too random in its shape to be inconsequential. Another explosion shook the cavern, and Ciarán held me steady.
“Wren, we’re going!” Iseult said. “We’ll figure it out when we get to Keldori!”
“We won’t have time! We won’t have passports, and we’ll probably get arrested!” I shot back, still trying to make sense of the line. There were slits every five feet or so where the sword would fit. “What does the notebook say about this line?”
“It doesn’t. Which means it wasn’t important enough for Lyria, so it definitely doesn’t matter now.”
“It absolutely matters! This will all have been for nothing if we don’t land close enough to Keel Watch!”
There.
The distinct shape of a boot, etched plain as day in stone.
Italy’s coast line.
Another explosion shook the chamber, and Orla dropped to her knees to keep from falling into the Skal.
“Wren!” Ciarán barked.
“Wait!” I scoured the stone for recognizable features, but so few coast lines were as distinguishable as Italy’s. The strange deconstruction of the world’s coast lines made it all the more difficult.
I ran around the edge of the rock, searching.
Another explosion.
Sea water gushed into the basin around us as the tunnel walls gave way to Caitria’s magick.
Iseult and Fana rushed to Orla on the spit, Una chasing after them.
The electric hum of Skal weapons echoed off the chamber walls as Tiernan and Ciarán took up defensive positions on the steps that still remained above the rising tide.
“Let’s go, Wren!” Ciarán commanded again.
And then—
“I found somewhere!” I marked the spot with my backpack, then ran to where the sword rested. It sat in one of the line’s notches, marking the exit’s current location on some distant coast.
I drew it from its resting place, and rusted metal grated against stone. The sword was heavier than it looked, but I ran it around the perimeter to where I’d left my backpack.
It wasn’t perfect. It was still more than a day from home by car, but we’d be in the right country, on the right coast, and there was a notch for the sword right there.
And we didn’t have the time to find something better, because golden light burst and rocks and barnacles ricocheted through the chamber.
Caitria stood with sea water gushing past her boots.
“Hello, brother!” she called as her soldiers rushed past her to jump into the basin.
I slid the sword into place.
The island shook, but not from an explosion this time. It was like something deep within the pool had moved, heavy and grating. The Skal swirled in a new current.
“Go!” I screamed.
Caitria dove into the seawater and began swimming towards the island on the heels of her soldiers.
Iseult, Orla, and Fana clung to Una. Orla’s eyes met mine over Una’s back from where they stood on the center stone.
Ciarán had used magick to refashion Jonquil’s crab cage into a sealed box.
It shook in Orla’s free arm, but the cat would be more comfortable this way as long as someone survived to free her before she ran out of oxygen.
The first soldiers reached the steps, but the water was near level with the walkway at this point. Orange and gold Skal burst in Ciarán and Tiernan’s hands as they met the soldiers.
“Tiernan!” Fana called, but Iseult pulled her back when she tried to run back to Tiernan’s side.
“I’m right behind you, Fana!” Tiernan yelled back as he struck out at a soldier with dual swords of gold. “Go with Iseult. It’ll be okay.”
I nodded at Orla, and her knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip on Una.
The onchú leapt into the pool. The Skal slipped over their heads, hardly stirring in their wake, and the bright depths of the pool swallowed their shadows.
“Wren!” Ciarán waved at me to go faster, and I sprinted around the edge of the pool. He and Tiernan had dispatched the first wave of soldiers, but more were on their way.
“It’s too late, little Saergrim!” Caitria called as she reached the island. Her golden rope dart hummed in her hand, and she aimed for Ciarán but Tiernan intercepted its trajectory with his blade.
Magick itched in my palms, but I forced it to quiet. Any amount might set off the mountains.
“Take Wren, and go!” Tiernan yelled at Ciarán as he tangled with his sister. More soldiers climbed from the water, and Ciarán let loose one final burst of orange as he sprinted to meet me at the spit.
Blue light reached up for us like tendrils, and the metallic scent of Skal hung on the air to mix with that of torrid sea water.
“Hold your breath this time, got it?” Ciarán panted as we approached the center of the pool.
“Wait!” I skidded to a halt and looked back at Tiernan. “Tiernan!”
Caitria had Tiernan from behind with her rope of Skal around his throat. He grabbed at her wrists, trying to break her grip. Then his face relaxed, and he dropped his hands in front of him.
Golden light flickered between Tiernan’s palms and then expanded as he twisted and drew apart his hands. A golden orb, burning like a miniature sun, lit his face from below, and he smiled.
Cold dread clung to me like the ocean water that weighed on my hair and clothes as I realized what he was going to do.
“Stop!” I tried to run at Tiernan, but Ciarán grabbed me by my backpack to pull me back.
“We have to go, my Lady,” Ciarán’s murmur slipped through my head.
“Let go of me!” I screamed at Ciarán. “Tiernan, don’t!”
“We run and we run and we run. Remember that?” Tiernan, usually so taciturn, let a tear trace the curve of his dark cheek.
Caitria tried to bring him to his knees, but he was too strong for his sister.
She hissed something in his ear, but he didn’t pay her any attention.
“That’s what you said outside Willow’s Grave before you stayed back.
Caitria’s going to follow us. We’re going to have to keep running if I don’t do something about it.
And I would very much like to finally rest.”
“We’ll take care of her in Keldori!” I insisted. “Tiernan, come on! What about Fana?”
I strained against Ciarán, but he pulled me farther down the walkway.
“You are very easy to dislike,” Tiernan grunted, still struggling.
“And you are quick to return the sentiment. But as quick as you are to dislike the people you meet, you are just as quick to help them, even when you can’t stand them.
Even when they’ve given you good reason to hate them.
I know you aren’t a god, but that’s what makes you so much more spectacular.
I wish I could’ve realized that sooner. Maybe then we would’ve had time to be friends. ”
“Tiernan!” I elbowed Ciarán in the stomach. The air went out of him with a grunt, but he kept his hold. “Please!”
“My Lady Saergrim. It was an honor to serve you. Tell Fana she’ll do wonderfully in Keldori, and that I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve gone.”
Caitria abandoned her Skal-weapon, finally resorting to hooking her elbow around Tiernan’s neck, grinning, not yet realizing what he was about to do. The final wave of soldiers reached the island, weapons of emerald blazing.
“Tiernan!” I screamed.
Tiernan smiled at me one last time and closed his gold-flecked eyes as Caitria’s soldiers overtook him.
Light burst at his chest, and Ciarán and I fell back into the bright light of the Skal.