by Kyle West
I see you. His voice was taunting. I see it all.
I reached for Silence, making my mind a complete void.
I will know your secrets. I will know you better than you know yourself.
You will know nothing, Radaskim. You will know nothing but your own end!
There was a latency. Consideration. I felt his thoughts working.
Is that it, then? Is that what you want to do? There was a sense of knowing, of amusement. Do you know how long it takes to cross the dark void, Elekim?
You know nothing.
Don’t I? I know something of that, human. For four of your centuries I crossed the void with nothing but my thoughts. I know something of that madness. I felt his mirth regarding his last sentence. More than something. Askalon, though? That is far, far worse. When you come out of the other end, who do you think you’ll be?
I willed the dream to end, reaching for the Xenofold to help me. But even it seemed powerless against Odium. There was only the surrounding darkness, and the monsters closing in. The giant worm. The colossal spiders. The swarm of flesh-eating locusts, the dragons, the crawlers.
Perhaps madness will find you sooner, Odium said. This world is ours, Elekim. I don’t blame you for fighting; but the one thing you cannot fight is inevitability.
I knelt on the cracked landscape, closing my eyes, continuing to seek the solace of Silence. Even if it was impossible to find, it was my only hope in this place. I had to find it, or else . . .
At that moment, a door appeared about halfway between me and the approaching monsters, perhaps fifty feet away.
Run, came Fiona’s voice, entering my mind.
I ran.
The ground itself seemed to stretch before me, so that I barely gained ground on the exit. Everything in this dream, Odium’s world, worked against me. And yet I ran all the same, the monsters’ circle tightening around me like a noose.
The door was closer, but already, a couple of crawlers had slipped past it, blocking the way. I ran on nonetheless, reaching out with my mind to tether them. To my surprise, power flowed through me, coming through the door itself. The crawlers were repelled, scuttling backward while shrieking in pain.
The reprieve would not last long. More crawlers rushed forward, along with other nameless monsters. I tethered them all, forcing them to a standstill. As more of the monsters piled on, I weaved through them, at last diving through the bright, open archway.
A sharp pain shot up from my foot. Had one of them gotten me? But I was through the door, no longer a part of Odium’s world.
Chapter 55
When I awoke, I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t move. But I felt a sharp pain in my foot, where something had grabbed me right as I’d jumped through the gate.
I didn’t know how long I laid like that, heart pounding, but it must have been at least a full minute. Maybe even longer.
I reached for Silence, and only through it, started to regain control of my body.
And as soon as I did, I screamed at the top of my lungs.
It wasn’t long before everyone came running into the room. They all crowded around my bed, Fiona in the lead.
“It’s over,” she said, touching my arm. “The dream is over.”
At her touch, I sobbed uncontrollably. “My foot. Check my foot.”
Isa lifted the covers to look. “What about it? Both look fine to me.”
“It hurts,” I said. “They bit it.”
“They?” Isaru asked, confused. “They, who?”
“Odium trapped her in a dream,” Fiona said. “I was able to get her out.” Everyone looked to her for explanation. “I went to sleep connected to the Xenofold. To watch over Shanti. I wanted to guard her sleep tonight. I tried to stop him from breaking through, but I was just pushed aside. By the time I got my bearings, it was almost too late.”
“Thank you,” I said. “If not for you, it would have been much worse.”
“You may have never woken up,” Fiona said, candidly.
“What does this mean?” Isa asked. “How is he able to do that? If he could do this before, then why didn’t he?”
“He’s growing more powerful,” I said, realizing that was the answer. “As more of the Red Wild falls under his control, he can start using it to attack me directly. I guess he’s strong enough to attack my mind. When I sleep, I’m vulnerable.”
“Does that mean you can’t ever sleep again?” Isa asked.
“It means we have less time than I initially thought. Obviously, it’s impossible for me to function without sleep.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to will the exhaustion away. Silence could sharpen my focus, infusing me with energy where I had none. But it was only a temporary solution that wouldn’t last forever. “I was wrong to let us stay here another night. We need to get moving now.”
Everyone looked at me as the realization dawned on them.
“More than that,” I continued, “Odium knows what our plan is. I tried to hide it from him, but he could read me all the same. That means we need to leave before his dragons can reach us. He knows the danger of letting us reach the Xenofold and will do everything he can to stop it. He’ll ignore the army entirely just to get at us.”
“I’ll fire up the engines,” Pallos said, immediately leaving the room.
I let him go. The sooner we were off the ground, the better.
“This is really happening, then,” Isaru said. “I say bring it on.”
“You might regret those words,” I said. “I have a feeling the journey to the Crater won’t be a straight shot.”
“You think there’ll be dragons on the way?”
I nodded. “I’d be surprised if there weren’t. I’ll see if I can call out to Tiamat and let him know we’re coming.” The phantom pain seared at my foot again. I winced, and then grasped Silence more deeply to better ignore it. “In the meantime, all of you are free to sleep some more, if you’d like. Eat another meal, drink some coffee. There’s only a few hours between now and setting down outside the Caverns of Creation.”
I hardly believed the words as they left my mouth, but I knew them to be true all the same. That was, if we even made it safely.
“Who could sleep at a time like this?” Shara asked. “I’ll be on the flight deck with everyone else.”
“Me, too,” Isa said. “I’ll put on another pot of coffee. And maybe scrounge up some breakfast for everyone.”
She left my cabin, leaving Isaru and Shara alone with me.
“There’s something else,” I said. “Odium said something to me in the dream . . . something I believe to be true. Both of you should know, along with Isa and Fiona.”
“Maybe this had better wait, then, when we’re all in the same place.”
That sounded like a good plan. It meant I didn’t have to tell them right now, which I didn’t exactly want to do.
But I pushed it from my mind. Already, the engine was thrumming and sending its powerful pulses though Odin’s hull. This would be the ship’s last time carrying me, if everything went according to plan. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It didn’t feel real, yet.
Pallos voice announced our departure. “Liftoff in one minute.”
All of us left the cabin to go the flight deck.
* * *
All of us took our positions on deck, watching the dark, snowy earth fall away beneath us. Isa was the last the join us, carrying with her warmed-up bowls of stew from last night, as well as a large thermos of coffee for us to share. We watched quietly as we rose ever higher, a bit more unsteadily than I remembered.
“The thrusters don’t burn evenly,” Pallos explained, at Shara’s look of alarm. “It’ll fly, though.”
Once well off the ground, Pallos gingerly eased the ship to port, giving us a view of the wide, snowy plain under the moonlight. Odin accelerated slowly, rising into a clear sky filled with thousands of stars. To the west, the snow-clad Red Mountains lined our field of view.
We ate our stew and drank from the
shared thermos as we watched the silent world pass beneath us at an altitude of ten thousand feet. The speed never topped out over two hundred and fifty miles per hour.
“This is as fast as it goes now, huh?” Shara asked.
Pallos nodded. “Any faster and the engine doesn’t sound right.”
“Skies look clear, at least,” Shara said. “If there are dragons, they aren’t here.”
“No place for them to hide out here,” Fiona said, after a sip of coffee. “They’d stick out against the snow if they’re on the ground, and the plains provide no shelter. There’s no real cover until the Ragnawall.”
“Do you think they could have gotten so far north?” I asked.
Fiona paused to consider. “Possibly. Odium would have had to sneak them there days ago, and outside the notice of the Elder Dragons.”
“They were at the battle two days ago,” Isa said. “If Tiamat brought enough of his dragons with him, that would have left the Crater mostly empty. Perhaps providing an opportunity.”
“But they would have found them on their return home,” Shara said. “Right?”
No one answered her. Tiamat and whatever dragons he had brought to the battle should have been back in the Caverns of Creation by now. I had to assume as much because I hadn’t heard anything from him. There was no way the Elder Dragons could have not noticed Radaskim within their borders. The question was, would they have thought to warn us?
“I’ll try to reach for Tiamat,” I said.
I drew a few deep breaths and closed my eyes to center myself. I reached out as far as my mind would go, feeling for Tiamat in the night. I drew as much power as I safely could, channeling all that energy north, seeking him out. I held that for a long time. It should not have been this difficult to find him. Either he was preoccupied, or intentionally ignoring me.
I opened my eyes and let go of Silence. All that remained was an uneasy feeling.
“Nothing,” I said.
“He wasn’t there?” Fiona asked.
I shook my head. “Either he isn’t there, or he isn’t listening. Either way, looks like we might be on our own.”
“Well, if the skies remain as clear as this,” Pallos said, “we shouldn’t have to worry.”
“Look,” Isaru said, pointing toward the mountains.
All of us followed his finger, toward the cloud floating rather quickly from the slopes of the mountain. As we got closer, and as the cloud moved nearer to our path, it became clear that it wasn’t a cloud, but a swarm of black dragons.
“Spoke too soon,” Pallos said.
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” I said. “Just veer to starboard a bit.”
Pallos did so, and soon, the dragons were lost to view.
“We can drop on the Caverns from the eastern Ragnawall,” Pallos decided. “Those dragons are in no danger of catching us, even if they make a straight shot for the Caverns.
I nodded, but the uneasy feeling still wasn’t going away. Why would Odium make the approach of these dragons so obvious?
“Do that, then,” I said. “Make for the Ragnawall.”
Chapter 56
We lowered only when the eastern Ragnawall came into view, after a detour that had taken a couple of hours. Already, its eastern face was basking in the golden light of the rising sun. The outward slope of Ragnarok Crater’s eastern side was almost completely bare of xen, rising at a low gradient.
When we passed the rim of the Crater, the Ragnawall dropped below in a near vertical line.
That was when something slammed into the underside of Odin’s hull, rocking the entire ship. Emergency klaxons blared as the ship lurched again from another impact, which caused it to pitch forward into the fog filling the crater. All of us grabbed for something, despite the fact we were all strapped in by this point.
With each collision, Odin pitched further downward.
“Dragons,” Pallos breathed.
He engaged the auto-turret, and as soon as the gun opened fire, dragon screams intermixed with the thudding of bodies on Odin’s hull.
“Hold on to something,” Pallos said. “I have no choice.”
Before any of us could ask, the ship suddenly pitched upward, its entire hull protesting with a creak. I heard something snap aft, but I remained rooted to my seat. I checked everyone else to make sure they were fine. All were seated, strapped in, and properly terrified.
The dragon shrieks were coming from below Odin now, where several dragons, no doubt, were getting scorched by the thrusters burning on full. There were a few more bumps and shakes, but Odin was already up and away, the hull, for now, seeming to bear the strain of the sudden shift in trajectory. The computer readout showed the turret circling round but finding no available targets.
“Everyone okay?” I asked.
“Let’s hope something didn’t come loose in all that,” Pallos said. “For now, we’re in the air, and I can control things, so that’s something.”
“They’re following us,” Shara said, watching the display. “Can this thing go any faster?”
“Not if you want to stay airborne,” Pallos answered. “I could try to get higher and pitch downward for acceleration. That could help us break through quickly enough. But if this fog goes all the way to the crater bottom, it will be very dangerous. I might not be able to slow down in time.”
The fog would also cause the topographical readout to become unreliable.
“We were lucky to get out of that,” Pallos said.
“Do we know where the Caverns of Creation are relative to our position?” I asked.
“In this fog, we’re just guessing,” Pallos said.
“Aim for the middle of the Crater, then,” I said. “Go as fast as you safely can.”
Pallos gave a grim laugh. “As long as you realize that safely is a relative term.”
No one offered any protest as he pitched Odin downward and forged ahead full thrust. All of us were pushed back into our seats as the hull shook so violently that my teeth rattled. I was about to tell him to slow down when I saw the effect of this move; assuming we kept this pace, we would put them far behind us by the time we punched through the cloud layer.
The ship gave a violent lurch as we broke through the clouds, so much so that I was worried it was falling apart around us. All of us were lifted temporarily in our seats, and several of us screamed. Still, Pallos didn’t let up, his eyes staring resolutely ahead. The ground would be upon us in just moments. A wave of nausea passed through me, either from the G-forces or fear.
Pallos stopped accelerating when the ship began pitching left and right, like a vessel in stormy waters. He pulled the control stick back to flatten Odin’s trajectory. Slowly, the ship shook less violently. I let out a breath.
Pallos relaxed only a little. “We’ve put those dragons far behind us by now. I’m afraid that this fog might extend all the way to the surface.”
Ragnarok Crater was only two miles deep at its lowest point, and it wouldn’t take long at all for the ship to reach that. Though our descending angle was slight, after five more minutes and no break in the clouds, I was starting to sweat.
Just when I was about to order Pallos to cease the descent, the clouds suddenly broke, revealing gray forest only a few hundred feet below us. The sight of those trees rushing up made nearly all of us scream. But, gently, Pallos eased the ship upward, to not put too much strain on the ship. Once flying horizontal, we must have been no more than a hundred feet above the treetops.
The ship steadied, and as Pallos leaned back in his seat and heaved a sigh, the rest of us did so as well.
“That was some good flying, Pallos,” I said. “I don’t think I could have done it better.”
Pallos wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. “All those clouds must be from the snow evaporating recently. The Ragnawall keeps the moisture contained.”
“Where are the Caverns?” Shara asked.
“It’s northeast of the city,” Pallos said. “As long as we ca
n find that, finding the Caverns should be simple.”
But we didn’t have to rely on using Hyperborea as a landmark. I could feel our way there.
I closed my eyes and reached out.
“Right,” I said, my voice feeling as if it were coming from outside me. “It’s right.”
Pallos looked at me and nodded, easing the ship to starboard.
“That’s good,” I said, releasing my hold on Silence. “Just a straight shot now.”
All of us were quiet as the forest sped below us, with little deviation in scenery. The fog was still thick, making it hard to see far in any direction. Odin still flew shakily; it was sad to think that its best days might be long behind it. With luck, and a few more minutes, it would get us safely to our destination.
“The forest is coming to an end,” Isaru said.
I reached for the Xenofold and felt for the Sea again. Yes, this was it. Pallos lowered Odin almost as soon as we passed the last of the trees. I’d never gotten a good look at the entrance of the Caverns of Creation before. Even when we left after destroying the Hyperfold, I’d never thought to look back upon it, and when we had entered it last time, I was too injured to notice much. Now, I could take in its sheer size. The ground sloped downward to its vast, open maw, the inside of which was glittering with xen and twisted pink trees. Several streams, probably formed from snowmelt, joined before the entrance, and poured in crystalline waterfalls over the precipice. We could see a good distance into the cavern from up here; almost the entire interior was coated with xen, which radiated an ethereal glow.
Several dragons circled within the entrance, keeping guard. Pallos put Odin down on the flattest terrain he could find, a small cliff which overlooked the precipice, over which the waterfalls cascaded.
There wouldn’t be much time to say goodbye. The Radaskim that ambushed us could still be giving chase. Everyone followed me to the door. I didn’t spare the interior of the ship a glance as I walked down the boarding ramp to the xen below. The rush of water drowned out everything, the only exception being the thrum of Odin’s engines and the high shrieks of the Elekai dragons circling above. Two streams flowed on either side of Odin, each tumbling over the precipice of the cliff.