Mist, Metal, and Ash

by Gwendolyn Clare

  “We’re ready to help,” Revan announced. “Do you have a plan yet?”

  The embarrassment seemed to vanish from Elsa. “You need to rest,” she protested. “There could be side effects, after what Aris did to you.”

  “What I need to do is stop him from hurting anyone else,” Revan argued.

  “No,” said Elsa. “I refuse to take you straight back into the path of danger.”

  “It’s not up to you to decide!”

  As Revan began to wear Elsa down toward a grudging agreement, Porzia was distracted by the blue-black smudge across Leo’s cheek.

  “What are you smirking about?” Leo muttered to her.

  Porzia leaned closer. “You’ve got ink on your face, and I simply can’t imagine how it got there, Casanova.”

  He flushed red and scrubbed at his cheek with his sleeve. And Porzia felt like it might just be possible to settle into her old self again.

  Faraz arrived, having heard his name called, and they filled in the details for Porzia and Revan—how the eruption of Mount Vesuvius fulfilled half of a prophecy, so they knew what to prepare for next, just not where.

  Porzia chewed the inside of her cheek. “That gives me an idea. If we can get to the Oracle worldbook, we might be able to squeeze some more details out of it with the right questions.” She’d have to be very careful to avoid giving the Oracle any openings for self-fulfilling prophesies, but at this point they were desperate enough to risk it.

  Revan asked, “Where’s the book?”

  “Therein lies the problem,” Porzia answered. “For safekeeping, my mother locked it under glass in the library at Casa della Pazzia.”

  “About that…,” Faraz said, looking sheepish. “I may have borrowed it without permission to study it, and so it may have been in my room when Casa started misbehaving…”

  Porzia glared.

  Faraz finished quickly, “It’s here, it’s in my bag.”

  Leo laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “My mission to corrupt you into a rule breaker is complete!”

  Elsa smiled. “And just in time, too.”

  Faraz left to fetch the worldbook and returned with the old tome in his hands, and Porzia fell into the familiar role of delegating. “Elsa, you have a project to finish, right? Faraz, it looks like we’ll need your disgusting tentacle monster after all, so it’s time to pull Skandar out of hiding. Revan, would you tell Olivia to watch Sante?”

  Leo grinned at her. “Someone’s back in fine form, ordering us all about. And what shall I do, signorina, while you talk circles around an oracle?”

  Porzia snorted. “Don’t you have some knives to sharpen or something?”

  There was a part of her that didn’t want to admit it, but having Leo back … it felt right. Their circle was broken without him. She wouldn’t know who she was without the people in her life, and Leo was one of those people.

  Now they were all united again, and Porzia could do this. She opened a portal to the Oracle world.

  Porzia stepped through into a cool, windowless chamber with a domed ceiling and four narrow alcoves arranged in the four directions. The atmosphere held some intangible, ancient quality; it felt like standing inside an undiscovered Egyptian tomb. There was light without any obvious light source, and standing in that diffused glow, Porzia cast no shadow. But these were hardly the strangest features she had ever experienced in a scribed world, and it would take more than a bit of ambiance to disquiet her.

  As the alcoves appeared identical, Porzia selected one at random and walked inside. On the back wall of the alcove was a hamsa symbol, a carved stone hand with a blue glass eye in the center of the palm. The eye twitched and then focused on her with otherworldly intelligence.

  “Here’s the deal, Oracle,” Porzia said. “I want you to refrain from speaking except to answer my direct questions. If you violate this rule, I will bury your worldbook beneath a poetic choice of ornamental—perhaps a fig tree—and you will degrade and slowly die in what I can only imagine would be a most unpleasant fashion. Do you understand?”

  The resonant voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “I do, Heiress of the House of Madness.”

  Porzia narrowed her eyes, unsure whether the Oracle was being deliberately impertinent. “Very well, let’s begin: a cloud of ash ten thousand meters high did indeed block out the sun in Napoli, and now I need to know where exactly the seas are going to be writhing. So—”

  “With eldritch horrors,” the Oracle corrected.

  Porzia rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes—writhing with eldritch horrors. Don’t interrupt me. Buried in the damp earth forever, remember?”

  The Oracle harrumphed.

  “Now, as I was saying, I want to know the precise current location of Ricciotti and Aristotele Garibaldi.” In one of Leo’s rare moments of openness, he’d once admitted to her that all his brothers were named after history’s great polymaths: Leonardo, Aristotele, Pasquale.

  Porzia waited. After a long pause, the Oracle said, “I await your query.”

  She took a measured breath to control her temper. “The query is, where are they?”

  “At this moment they reside in the Floating City, but they will not stay long.”

  The Floating City: Venezia. They had a location.

  “Thank you, that’s very helpful.”

  Porzia turned to go, but before she was out of earshot the Oracle spoke again. “The balance cannot hold—you will have to choose whom to keep faith with and whom to fail.”

  The words burrowed deep into Porzia’s heart, tapping into what she dreaded most—the choice she knew was coming, and wished desperately to avoid. But Porzia would be damned before she gave the Oracle the satisfaction of rattling her, so instead she glared at that implacable glass eye. “Don’t push your luck, Oracle. Or I’ll introduce you to my favorite fireplace.”

  “I have not prophesied my own demise, Heiress.”

  “Oh please, keep telling yourself that,” Porzia said. “I’m a scriptologist. Fate doesn’t apply to the writers of worlds.”

  23

  I DID WHAT HE COMMANDED ME. I WAS A MERE TOOL WHICH HE HAD THE TROUBLE OF SHARPENING.

  —Caroline Herschel

  Elsa and the others stepped through the portal into the central portico of the Rialto Bridge, perched above the wide green waters of Venezia’s Grand Canal. The bridge was shaped like a shallow triangle, two ramps rising up to meet in the middle, with a row of little covered shops built into the structure.

  Leo had described the bridge as a main thoroughfare bustling with commerce, but the walkway was empty and the shops stood abandoned. The sight gave Elsa a crawling sensation down her spine.

  Porzia peered into the closest shop, poking at the wares left behind for anyone to steal. “Well this can’t be a good sign,” she observed.

  “Look there,” Leo said, pointing to the northeast.

  They weren’t quite high enough to have a clear view over the rooflines, but a flock of very large birds wheeled in the sky like vultures over a carcass. Leo passed his spyglass to Elsa; the birds’ proportions looked all wrong, heads too large and tails too long. And there, just barely in sight above the red-tiled roofs—was that the curve of an airship’s gasbag?

  “Those … are not birds,” Leo told the rest of the group. “Apparently my brother has edited flying monsters into existence.”

  Revan squinted at the sky. “Are they hunting or guarding? I can’t tell.”

  Elsa said, “I think that’s Aris’s airship—docked on a roof, maybe?—so I’d hazard a guess they’re guarding.”

  “Wait,” Faraz began, “that’s not exactly seas writhing, though…”

  Porzia let out a shriek, and everyone spun around as she was knocked off her feet, a massive tentacle wrapped around one ankle. It was trying to drag her over the stone banister. Leo whipped out his rapier and stabbed the tentacle, and it let go and jerked away.

  Elsa rushed to the banister and dared a glance at the water below. The
beast’s body breached the surface, longer than the narrow boats tied along the sides of the canal. Its tentacles slapped angrily at the water.

  “Kraken,” Leo reported. “Well, Faraz, ask and you shall receive.”

  Porzia got to her feet and dusted herself off. “High time for a scriptological solution, I’d say. Elsa?”

  “Faraz, for this to work I’ll have to borrow Skandar for a bit,” Elsa said, “if that’s all right.”

  Faraz put a hand up to his shoulder, where the beast perched. “Borrow for what, exactly?”

  Skandar’s one enormous eye blinked at her, and Elsa felt a twinge of guilt at the thought of endangering the darling creature. But they were all in danger here already. “I’ve scribed a world designed to transform him into Skandar, Lord of Sea and Sky, whose siren call no beast can ignore, et cetera.”

  Porzia raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to turn that little thing into the king of the monsters. That’s your plan.”

  Elsa ignored her skepticism and held the worldbook out to Revan. “Here. We’ll return in a minute.”

  Revan accepted the book reluctantly, as if it might bite him. “What do I … do with it?”

  “Well don’t set fire to it or drop it in the canal if you ever want to see us again. Other than that, nothing—just keep ahold of it.”

  Elsa opened a portal and stepped through with Faraz and Porzia, and they emerged onto a flat-topped stone outcrop. On all sides, a dizzying drop led down to a black, churning sea, the froth-capped waves often broken by the rise of an enormous fin or tentacle. Other jagged brown peaks of rock projected out of the water, but they were all distant, accessible only by wing. The sky above was a mass of roiling clouds, lit from below with a sinister red light as if the sun were setting—except no sun was visible. The dark silhouettes of flying creatures circled over each of the rock islands; the three high above their own island glided like hawks riding an updraft.

  Mere seconds after they stepped through, Skandar launched himself from Faraz’s shoulder and arrowed off toward the largest island, his small profile disappearing against the constantly writhing backdrop of sea and sky.

  “Where’s Skandar going?” Faraz said, alarmed.

  “Off to fulfill a destiny,” said Elsa. “The monsters here have a myth that their true master will come to them from another world, and they will know him by his screech and rally to his call.”

  His brow drew together. “And that will help us?”

  Porzia said, “Properties gained in a worldbook transfer to the real world, even if the mechanism of action is obscure. That’s how Elsa and Revan can pick up new languages in a matter of hours.”

  “I was very careful,” Elsa reassured him. “It’s all subtext, so the script can’t textualize Skandar. If anything, our failure mode will be that the monster-commanding property doesn’t stick.”

  Faraz hugged his arms to his sides. “What do you think he’s doing now?”

  Elsa said, “He has to find the Throne of Aglarn-Shri and defeat the Tyrant in single combat.”

  This news did nothing to alleviate Faraz’s alarm. “Single combat? You didn’t say anything about monster duels.”

  “I’ve dealt the cards in Skandar’s favor, of course. The Tyrant’s weaknesses are sensitive hearing and no resistance to electricity.”

  Faraz sat down on the rock. “I can’t believe I agreed to this.”

  The wind howled. The waves crashed against the rocks below. They waited.

  Elsa chewed at her lip, anxiety starting to soak in as the minutes ticked by. “This is taking longer than I thought. I hope Leo and Revan are okay.”

  “What’s to worry about?” said Porzia with a dismissive wave of her hand. “They’re resourceful boys—I’m sure they’re doing just fine.”

  * * *

  “Watch out!” Revan yelled, and Leo ducked an enormous tentacle, avoiding the blow so narrowly he felt a brush of air against his face. He rolled and twisted and came up from his crouch with rapier extended to pierce the kraken once again.

  “Ugh, this is useless! I need a machete!” The beast’s tentacles leaked green ichor from a dozen holes, but the stab wounds weren’t slowing it down much.

  Revan wound up and released another rock, which splashed into the water with little effect. “If I could just hit the head we might get somewhere, but it keeps submerging!”

  There was a second kraken hanging out at the east end of the bridge, tentacles peeking through the stone banister rails, as if considering whether to join the fun. And when Leo looked up, he saw a third one swimming toward them, attracted by all the commotion.

  “Seriously?” he muttered, dodging another swipe of a tentacle.

  Revan saw it too. “You want to try running for cover again?”

  They were exposed on the bridge, but to get away from the canal they would first have to descend from the bridge’s apex and move closer to the water, which would make them easier for tentacles to reach. Leo said, “Our defensive position here is looking increasingly untenable. If we can just get an opening…”

  Motion in the corner of his eye, but before Leo could react a tentacle hit him like a battering ram to the ribs and knocked him off his feet. He went down hard, the back of his head slamming into the stone with a blast of black-and-stars across his vision. The wind was knocked out of him, his lungs burning for oxygen, and the hand that should be holding his rapier was empty.

  Leo rolled onto his elbows, trying to get his hands and feet under him, and gasped for air. Through his swimming vision he spotted Revan skidding to a stop at the west end of the bridge and turning to come back for Leo, his sling a blur at his side.

  Leo pushed himself up to hands and knees, painfully aware of the precious seconds that the blow to the head had cost him. But as he tried to stand he felt the damp, terrible suction of a tentacle around his wrist and he was sprawling on the stone again, dragged along by an impossible strength.

  “Shreeeee!” came a painfully high-pitched noise, and the tentacle grip vanished from his wrist.

  Leo looked up to see the kraken retreating from the bridge in the face of the return of Elsa, Porzia, Faraz … and Skandar.

  “Leo!” Elsa said, distress thick in her voice. “You’re bleeding!”

  Faraz crouched next to him, took a clean cloth from the small satchel of medical supplies he’d brought, and pressed it to the back of Leo’s head.

  “Remind me to buy a machete after this,” Leo grumbled.

  Porzia folded her arms, as if she suspected he’d injured himself just to inconvenience her. “How bad is it?”

  “Look at me,” said Faraz, examining his eyes. “Pupil response is normal. Any problems with your vision?”

  Leo blinked. “No, it’s clearing up.”

  “I think he’s fine,” Faraz said.

  Leo took over bandage-holding duty and got to his feet with Faraz’s help. At least his balance wasn’t off. “Fine or not, we need to steal the editbook back before Aris can undo whatever you just did to send away the krakens.”

  Beside him, Faraz went still. “I hadn’t thought of that. He could erase Skandar.”

  Porzia said, “Yes, so let’s press the advantage while we have it.”

  “How do we get over there?” Elsa asked, shading her eyes with one hand. “The buildings are packed so tight together … does this city even have roads?”

  “The canals are the roads,” said Leo. “Come on.”

  One thing could be said for filling the lagoon with krakens: it certainly made it easier to steal a gondola. Not a soul was around to protest when Leo waved everyone into the nearest boat.

  He stood at the rear and pushed off from the dock. He hadn’t rowed a gondola since he was ten, but after a few awkward strokes, his muscles remembered how to handle the long oar. A kraken swam close, raising its tentacles curiously, but Skandar emitted a harsh shree and it backed off.

  They rounded the bend in the Grand Canal, and Leo’s breath caught in his throat a
s a too-familiar palazzo came into view. It was his childhood home, the one that burned in the riot; Aris must have scribed it back into existence for Ricciotti and himself to use as their headquarters.

  The details looked a little off to Leo’s eye—the arches on the second-floor arcade weren’t pointed, and the windows were a smidge too narrow. How surreal to be here at all, and doubly so with their old home imperfectly revived from Aris’s memory.

  There was a guard posted by the canal entrance, standing on the small, private dock before the wrought-iron gate that would lead inside. Revan knocked him unconscious with a well-aimed pebble, and Leo maneuvered the gondola against the water-slick stone of the dock.

  “Quietly now,” Leo said, as everyone disembarked. He picked the lock on the gate and led them into an airy entrance hall with a marble staircase along one wall.

  A sudden panic pressed on his chest. The exposed wood-beam ceiling, the checkered marble floor tiles, the intricate plasterwork over the arched doorways: it was here, it happened here. This was where he saw the dead bodies of his family as a child. Never mind that it had been a ruse, the bodies alchemical fakes, his father and Aris still living—the memory of the trauma felt as fresh as the day it happened.

  Don’t think about it, don’t think about it.

  “Intruders!” someone shouted.

  Porzia muttered, “So much for stealth,” as half a dozen guards flooded into the hall from the other end.

  “Well, damn.” Leo unsheathed his rapier.

  Revan shifted to the front beside Leo, putting the unarmed members of their group behind him. “All this fighting other humans is just barbaric.”

  Leo laughed. “Thanks for stooping to our level.”

  But as the guards fell upon them, Skandar let out an ear-piercing “SHREEEEE!” and the hall was suddenly full of wings. The creatures from above the palazzo came streaming in through the open doorway, their toothy jaws wide and claws extended.

  Everyone on both sides ducked, but Leo quickly realized the not-birds—flying lizards?—were only attacking his father’s guards.