Words of agreement were no sooner on Lucindur’s lips than Whitney drew a dagger, and sliced one of the ropes tied to the docks. It splashed into the icy river, and he hurried to the next one to do the same.
It happened so fast, Gentry didn’t realize until Whitney reached the ramp. “Mr. Fierstown, wait!” he shouted. He spun away from Talwyn, but she wrapped her arms around his chest and held tight.
Whitney kicked the ramp off, letting it plunge with the ropes. Then, he continued on his path along the port side rails, slicing the ropes. They had spare enough to dock anywhere, though, where they were going, he doubted there'd be harbors.
“Forgive me,” Whitney said softly to himself.
“No, Mr. Fierstown, you promised!” Gentry yelled.
He squirmed and kicked, but couldn’t break free. Talwyn was thin, but she had the strength of a dancer. It wasn’t until Aquira sprang into action that she lost her grip. The wyvern flapped up and screeched. She didn’t blow fire, but even as small as she was, she painted an intimidating figure at full wingspan. Talwyn stumbled back.
Gentry sprinted and ran for the last rope still attached to the bow. By then, the wind had caught the unfurled sail, and a single boy wouldn’t be able to stop it. But the force would pull him into the icy river.
“Whitney, I’m coming!” he shouted, through a mess of tears. “I need to help!”
Whitney climbed up the sterncastle as fast as he could. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, but he’d gotten Lucindur and Tum Tum in on the plan right after leaving Gentry’s room. It was the right thing to do, even if it made him the bad guy.
He nearly reached the last rope, when Aquira slammed down on the railing. She roared at him, a deep, buffering bellow made louder by the empty wind. Whitney stopped in his tracks. He’d seen a city burn to cinders with the wyvern’s help, seen her blaze through soldiers like wheat. And he’d seen her angry, just as she was now.
“Aquira, please,” Whitney begged. “This is probably a suicide mission. He should be far away from it. He deserves to live.”
Aquira continued to glare, her nostrils fuming and pushing out smoke.
“Aquira, Sora needs us,” he went on. “Him being there will only distract us… distract me. And then we’ll have Sora again. Forever this time.”
The wyvern glared a moment more, then spread her wings wider. The skin under her throat inflated, filling with flame. She reared back, and Whitney winced, expecting to feel the burn. He closed his eyes, but he only felt heat.
When he looked again, Aquira had turned the last rope to ashes, leaving Gentry standing at the edge of the dock holding the other end of the line. Whitney had never seen a boy so heartbroken; maybe only his younger self in Elsewhere. Talwyn stood at his side and pulled him into an embrace.
Screeching, Aquira soared over Whitney’s shoulder, and then landed on the Reba’s prow where she could continue her job of melting ice to ease the journey. Streaks of orange painted their path ahead through the fog.
“He’ll never forgive you for this,” Lucindur said, waiting for Whitney on the deck.
“I’m okay with that,” Whitney said. I hope, he didn’t add. “At least he’ll survive what’s to come.” He went to step by, but Lucindur lay a hand upon his shoulder.
“You’re a good man, Whitney Fierstown. He is lucky to have you, and so is your Sora.”
Whitney patted her hand but kept his head turned slightly so she wouldn’t see the tears welling in the corners of his eyes. Words didn’t come, so he merely nodded and continued along.
The ship started to drift faster upstream. Tum Tum stood by the mast and offered Whitney a single nod of approval.
“We’ll be better off not worryin,” he said. Then he gave Whitney a slap on the side and made his way to lower the front sail, pointing and barking commands at Aquira.
Whitney found a seat on a barrel near the Captain’s cabin. “Why does anyone live up here?” he said to Kazimir or Sigrid through the crack in their door. Either or neither, depending on who was listening. “It’s freezing.”
Kazimir pushed the door open halfway and pointed toward the gray sky. Light hit his finger, but it only steamed rather than flaking away, burning. “Where is the sun?” he asked.
“I—behind the clouds?” Whitney stammered. “I don’t know… am I an astronomer?”
“Consider the benefits for one such as me, living in a place where the sun is afraid to shine in its full power. Besides, this is warm compared to Brek,” Kazimir said. “The Motherland is for the strong and unbreakable.”
“I must be weak and brittle then.” Whitney shivered and pulled his cloak tight. “Are we there yet?”
“Have ye always been so useless?” Sigrid asked. She sat on the cartographer’s table beside the bar guai, fidgeting, unable to stay still. She’d been that way since the moment she’d tasted Kai’s blood. Whitney knew the signs. It’s how manaroot addicts got, and there were plenty of those in the shady places he’d once frequented.
“One of my more charming attributes.”
“The Citadel—Svay Sobor iz Nohzi—is a few days away,” Kazimir said.
“I still think we should have raised an army,” Whitney said. “I’ve seen what Nesilia can do. If we went to the Governor of Panping and dropped Torsten Unger’s name, he’d listen.”
“Your foolish people sent soldiers after us for their Queen, and they all died. The Citadel is the most secure place in all Pantego. Older than anything but the gods, and invisible to mortal eyes.”
“Invisible?” Whitney scoffed.
“Why does this peasant laugh?” Sigrid asked. She scratched at her neck and shifted her jaw. Whitney wished her master would put her back in her muzzle.
“Wow,” Whitney said. “Some manners. I am laughing because even with all I’ve seen, I’m not sure how anything you’ve described could be invisible.”
“Perhaps you’ve not seen all there is to see,” Kazimir offered. “This world is more than what can be felt by mortal hands. Nesilia may be strong… she is strong… but she’s been buried for longer than even I have been alive. She won't be at full strength, not yet. Especially not within Sora’s body. If she seeks to strike the Citadel out of vengeance against us, then let it be vengeance which undoes her. She won’t be the first.”
“I guess her going to the one place on Pantego filled with murderous immortals isn’t smart.”
“That is precisely why we must get there first to warn them. The Sanguine Lords will listen to reason. When they hear the old gods are coming, they will mount up on the backs of dragons.”
“What?” Whitney said. “You mean that metaphorically, right? Dragons are extinct—”
“Aquira, there!” Tum Tum shouted from the crow’s nest. A breath later, the Reba rumbled through a huge chunk of ice. “By Meungor and all the gods, what happened to havin a real crew?”
“They are extinct, right?” Whitney asked Kazimir, ignoring Tum Tum.
Kazimir smiled, his fangs protruding over his lower lip.
“Right?” Whitney asked again. He turned and squinted to just barely make out the distant mountains which blocked Brekliodad through the fog and the ever-darkening sky, expecting to see massive flying beasts over the peaks.
“If we make it there first,” Kazimir said, “we will stand a chance of burying Nesilia once more—this time, for good. Now, go and help the others, so we don’t sink before we arrive. My apprentice is in need of a lesson.”
The door nearly shut, then Kazimir said, “Oh, and Whitney. Well done with the boy. We can’t have distractions now.”
Then the door slammed, leaving Whitney to turn and look upon the deck. At least I have the approval of a murderous upyr, he thought. Oddly, it did make him feel one bit better.
What remained without Gentry was a motley crew: a one-and-a-half-eared thief, a dwarf, two upyr, a Lightmancer bard, and a wyvern. If Whitney weren’t a part of it, he’d have thought someone was setting up a particularly in-depth joke.
The truth of it was there was no joke in sight. Whitney had spent most of his years turning life into one big festival. From the time he’d left Troborough until this very day, Whitney had no place to call home, and he liked it that way. However, now, looking at these people he’d come to think of as friends—strange as they were—he imagined there could be no greater thrill than settling down and enjoying life with loved ones.
But first, he had to get Sora back.
XXV
The Daughter
Mahi tumbled and twisted, body torn this way and that by the current. Rock and coral scraped her everywhere. They called it the Boiling Waters only because the sea was so rough it looked like the inside of a stew pot over an open flame, but as Mahi’s body was punished, it felt scorching now too. Like her skin was bubbling with white-hot fire. The pain was so immeasurable she could hardly think. When she did, all she could picture was the face of the man who’d thrown her in here to die; the man who’d betrayed her, and that even if she survived this somehow, she could never have vengeance. She’d already seen his body broken on jagged rocks.
She had failed.
A dead Caleef, a betrayal by her father’s own ally in the Boiling Keep—they’d nearly exposed Babrak for the bastard he was, and now, it was for nothing. Her father would never be able to regain the confidence of the greater afhemdom. Not a soul would make a move until the next Caleef was scooped out of the sea, and sometimes, that took years.
No, it’s not too late, she told herself. Swinging her arms frantically to try and battle the ripping tide, kicking her legs, hoping to hit anything that might propel her upward, she strove for the surface. Though she wasn’t even sure what up was. The deeper she plunged, the more darkness engulfed her…
Until the water calmed in the far depths.
Her eyelids grew heavy as the last bit of air abandoned her.
Is this really how it ends? Mahi wondered if that was what every man or woman asked before their mortal body died and their soul was cast onto the Eternal Current.
The beating of her heart slowed. She knew that soon she’d be with Shavi and her mother, Farhan, and sweet Jumaat. It’d feel closer to home than she’d felt in far too long, at least. She could stop being afraid every single day, of the world she knew falling apart.
Her eyes closed.
Her heart stopped.
She felt it come to a halt—it didn’t seem possible, but she felt it. She couldn't explain the sensation. It was like breathing, and she only missed it when it left her.
Only, she didn’t die. She found herself standing at the bottom of deep water, surrounded by the ruins of some ancient civilization. Ruptured columns and domed buildings, all covered by coral and sea growth. She couldn’t see the ancient spirits around her, but she could feel them teeming about.
“Mahraveh.” She heard her name whispered all around her, each syllable drawn out like gentle waves washing ashore. “Mahraveh.”
“Who is that?” she asked, shocked to find herself able to speak as if she weren’t submerged. It was like she was a part of the water, and it, a part of her. She simply floated, weightless, maybe even bodiless.
“You know who I am,” came the answer.
Now, Mahi could tell the voice was deep and masculine. The water rippled in its wake. In front of her, she could almost see a face forming from the swirling wisps of black sand.
Mahi dared not speak the answer. However, she couldn’t deny the truth.
“Rarely is one so worthy the first to fall,” the God of Sand and Sea said.
“Is this real?” she asked.
“If you’re asking if you’re alive or dead, to me there is no such difference.”
“Then I’m in the Eternal Current?”
“You are in between, my child. It is not your time, and yet, here you are. None of this is foretold. Her influence spreads wide now. It has destroyed my chosen vessel, and now, the Shesaitju people face darkness as well.”
“I… What are you talking about?” Mahi asked, confused, and even a bit scared.
“There is no time to explain. In communing with you now, I have exposed myself to Her.”
“Who?”
“Me,” an equally deep, but sultry voice filled the water. It began to ripple stronger, more violent. Mahi wasn’t sure why she felt afraid, only that it overwhelmed her entire being.
“Sister, how did you find me so quickly?” the God of Sand and Sea questioned. His dread, too, was palpable.
“You know we’ve always been connected, Caliphar.”
Caliphar? It was a name for her God which Mahi had never heard before.
“I’ve been waiting for you to open yourself up to me,” the woman continued. “Curious that this is the frail, pathetic creature who let me in.” A pale woman walked by Mahi as if on land. Her head was covered in seaweed so none of her features could be seen, and as she turned, it was clear she too was formless. She was blackness that threatened to suck Mahi in.
An arm reached out and stroked her cheek like the delicate tendrils of a beautiful plant. The power—Mahi could almost taste it, if such a thing were possible.
“Not forgotten, are you?” the woman said. “No, not really. But underestimated? Yes. Yes. I could make something grand out of her.”
“She is not yours,” the God of Sand and Sea said with authority. The watery form of his face rushed forward and dispelled the darkness. Seaweed flaked away into nothingness.
“They will all be mine,” the woman answered, her voice almost an echo.
“Our time in this realm has come to an end, sister. You must let go.”
“Like you?” The seaweed creature reappeared to Mahi’s left. “You remained here, hiding in the waves, playing your little games with these people. Do you remember our first game?”
“You were always playing games.”
“Ah, but there was the one.”
Mahi couldn’t move now, but her eyes darted from side to side, trying to keep up with the ethereal voices which penetrated from all sides. The dark being formed again, swirling about within the water like a playful seal.
“Do you not recall the time when I hid for all those years, waiting for you to find me?” the woman went on.
“Yes, within the Webbed Woods,” the God of Sand and Sea said. “And this land starved in your absence. All but that overgrown place which fed on your power for so long even the boundaries of Elsewhere and Pantego blurred. How could I forget?”
“But I won, didn’t I?”
“You always did.”
“So, you know how patient I can be,” she said. “How long I’ve been waiting for my return.”
“And you’ve come for me? You could have, at least, had the decency to show up in your mortal body so I could show you what power I still wield.”
The blackness expanded, filling in features on the God of Sand and Sea’s amorphous form. The current shook it away, breaking him apart. Weeds filled in from every direction and coated the haven of light beneath the sea in total darkness.
“You stood against us in the feud,” the woman said. “Turned the seas into our enemy.”
“I stood for you, Sister!” the God of Sand and Sea bellowed. Mahi felt the seabed quake beneath her. “I stood against an old god using you to consolidate his power over this realm, like any good brother should.”
“No, you were being a coward! You could have broken through, unburied me, but here in your waves, you remained, more eager to watch your gray slaves slaughter themselves in your honor than free me.”
“That’s a lie,” his voice became soft. “I stopped feeling you in this realm. You passed on.”
“I went nowhere! I was trapped in between. Stuck, voiceless. I could feel time pass as the mortals do. Ticking away slowly—so slowly—with the rise and fall of light. Eternal Current… clever name… though, you have no idea what eternity feels like.”
“And where was Iam after you were sacrificed for his victory?” he asked.
“What do you want, Nesilia?”
Hearing that name struck Mahi’s heart. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew she’d heard it before. Maybe in stories and legends from the ancient days, the kind of stories only Glassmen tell because they refuse to move on from lore and legend. All she knew, was that a second wave of fear overcame her, more pungent than before. She was terrified.
“I breathed life into the hills and the forests of this world,” Nesilia said. “Without me, it would be rock and death. Dead. Yet, I was the one to be forgotten, locked in the heart of the world? I want what I deserve. Iam won because of me.”
“Yes, he won… alone,” the God of Sand and Sea said. “Like you said, I hid in the sand beneath the sea. Meungor in the mountains. Wherever the others you and Iam turned into those monstrous wianu couldn’t find us, until they, finally, stopped looking.”
“They’ll be removed from the equation soon enough,” Nesilia warned.
“The undying? You know they can’t be. You and Iam went too far.”
“We did what had to be done.”
“And you weren’t the only one forgotten because of it, Sister.”
“The only one on the winning side.”
“He used you.”
“He loved me!” Nesilia spat.
The darkness frayed across Mahi’s vision. Weeds were slung like knives. Mahi couldn’t move, but she wanted to hunch over and grasp her unbeating heart. It felt like she’d lost Shavi and Jumaat all over again. She could see him, standing in Tal’du Dromesh, the color sucked out of him until he was shriveled on the ground like dried fruit.
“Lie to yourself, Sister,” the God of Sand and Sea said. “Lie to me. But leave this world alone. The feud did enough damage. Every day, I feel myself growing weaker here. It’s time for us to move on.”
“No. You’ve had your time!” Nesilia declared. “Now it is mine.” With her every word, Mahi’s sense of terror augmented. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore, big brother. I was lost, but now I am found. You can join me. The seas and the land as one again.”
War of Men Page 33