City of Thirst

by Carrie Ryan

  She let out a relieved breath and set the cage on the desk. “So Karnelius has this thing about amphibians,” she started.

  “Who doesn’t?” Ardent said under his breath.

  “Right?” Fin agreed.

  The wizard shot him a confused glance. “Usually. Who are you again?”

  Marrill cleared her throat. “He’s a friend. Anyway. There was an accident at home and the frog was injured and I was hoping…” She bit her lip, remembering the way he’d once healed scratches on her hand. The way she hoped he could heal her mother someday. “Can you fix him?”

  Ardent bent and peered into the cage. “You didn’t mention it was a speakfrog!”

  “A speak… frog?” Marrill asked.

  “Quite so,” the wizard said, pulling the little guy out and holding him up into the light. “They’re rather good little messengers. You simply tell the frog what you want him to say, and he goes and says it.”

  “It’s a frog,” Marrill repeated. “That talks.”

  “Well, technically, it’s a salamander that only looks like a frog,” Ardent said. He cupped his other hand over the creature. For a moment the air warmed. Marrill tasted honey and thunder.

  The moment Ardent set the frog back on the desk, it began to screech. “The Iron Tide is coming. You must stop it! Stop the Iron Tide before it spreads beyond the docks and oof. Hey, watch where you’re—oh wait my frog get back here you little—” The voice stopped and the room was silent.

  Marrill stared at the frog. It crawled back into the cage, fluffed up a patch of grass, and settled in.

  “So yeah,” Marrill said. “That was the voice I heard. And that was pretty much the message.”

  “That dovetails nicely into what I wanted to show you,” Ardent said, grabbing the metal plates he’d pulled from the chest and slapping them down on the table next to the cage.

  Marrill leaned over them. The Colloquy of Pickled Pate, the first one read. Chiseled underneath the words was a portrait of a squat man with a jutting lower jaw and enormous nose. The metal gleamed like oil in the candlelight.

  “Spiff,” Fin said beside her. “What is it?”

  Ardent puffed himself up. “This, my young let’s-just-assume friend, is one of the most ancient stories I’ve seen on the Stream. It’s at least seven thousand years old, judging from the style of the engraving and the scent of the magic residue still lingering in the crevices.”

  Marrill squinted at a number scratched in the corner. “Also it’s got the date written on it,” she pointed out.

  Ardent snorted. “Notoriously unreliable. But yes, that is also a clue.” He waved his hands over the plates, and they dutifully spread themselves out in a neat row across the table. Marrill leaned over them and read the words aloud:

  The Colloquy of Pickled Pate

  Oh, Pickled Pate, ware hay ye been?

  I been ta tha place war tha water bend

  Oh, Pickled Pate, ware did ye goe?

  I went me to tha shattered archey-pelly-goe

  Oh, Pickled Pate, what hay ye seen?

  I seen tha city ware tha wall does stand

  War thay sing o’ tha king o’ salt an sand

  An I seen tha comin’ at creepin’ stride

  O’ tha doom whut fears me,

  O’ tha IRON TIDE

  Oh, Pickled Pate, yer good and sauced

  Ye’s pickled too much, yer brain be lost

  “Huh,” Fin said.

  “Huh,” Marrill agreed. It mentioned the Iron Tide, all right. But it just seemed like nonsense.

  Ardent folded his arms and nodded knowingly. “Indeed. Quite amazing. I’m sure you see the significance?”

  Marrill thought hard. “Ancient people didn’t know how to spell?” she offered.

  Ardent waved his hands dismissively, and the plates reassembled themselves into a neat pile. “Yes, well, you have to think about the bigger picture, obviously,” he said. “You see, our friend Pickled Pate may have been the first, but I’ve collected hundreds of stories just like this one, spread out across history, from all sorts of different places and people. And all essentially the same.”

  Fin nodded. “Used to hear that type of thing all the time at the Khaznot Quay. Some sailor gets lost on the Stream, vanishes, comes back all addled and babbling about crazy places and such.”

  “Indeed,” Ardent said. “That’s exactly why this escaped my notice until recently. ‘A bunch of swoggle sold by drunkards and madmen,’ as Coll would say. But all of these stories have a few important things in common.”

  “The Iron Tide?” Marrill volunteered.

  Ardent nodded. “Just so. Stories centuries, even millennia apart, and every single one has the same three things: the city on the wall, the King of Salt and Sand, and escape from the Iron Tide. Often as though the Tide had been right on their heels! And every single person refused to return to the place where they’d seen it, for fear that the Iron Tide would destroy them.”

  “Now, I’m as excited about boring old legends as no one, obviously,” Fin said. “But how do we know this is real? I mean, no one’s ever seen this Iron Tide thing, right?”

  Ardent shook his head. “No, indeed not. And yet all the missing sailors seem quite insistent that the Iron Tide is coming, sometime in the future.” He tented his fingers together and looked very seriously down his nose at Marrill as if she, and not Fin, had spoken. “That leads me to conclude that the Iron Tide was a bit of the Prophecy yet to be fulfilled. And if the Stream is touching your world again, and the Map has warned you of it, well, that seems to confirm the idea.”

  “And I’m guessing there’s no way the Iron Tide could be something really cool and great like a flotilla of marshmallows sailing a river of whipped cream?” Marrill asked.

  “To be fair, no one quite knows exactly what it is,” Ardent offered. “But doom is a word often associated with it.”

  Marrill gulped. She stared down at the image of Pickled Pate. The big nose sagged over his puffed lower jaw, etched onto the shining surface of the story-plates. As if he were locked eternally in metal. In small script, she noticed something written along the bottom that she’d missed the first time:

  Bewayr yer folks and bewayr yer kin

  For tha TIDE be comin’

  tho I know not when

  Marrill shuddered. It gave her the willies.

  “Yes,” Ardent continued gravely. “Whatever the Iron Tide may be, it will almost certainly bring great destruction to the Pirate Stream… and anything in its path.” He stared off into the distance for a long moment. “So,” he said with a clap, “who wants to go looking for it?”

  CHAPTER 6

  Lost Key, Found

  Fin followed Marrill and Ardent onto the main deck, blinking in the sunlight. Around them, the Kraken sailed across golden seas once more. Big puffy globs of foam floated on the water, the only trace of their jaunt through the clouds. A salt wind whipped past, carrying the tingle of magic and the scent of raspberries.

  “Get me down!” a voice cried from the rigging. Fin looked up to see a blond-haired girl with a ponytail and an extremely unhappy expression dangling from the rigging by her heel. “Marrill, tell this jerk to get me down!”

  The jerk in question stood at the Kraken’s wheel, guiding her deftly through the swells. “Pirates are taken care of,” Coll offered as they approached. “They figured it was worth giving up the attack to get rid of that one.” He jabbed a finger at the dangling girl.

  Fin couldn’t help but laugh. Marrill looked less pleased. But he could still see the tips of a smile playing at the edges of her lips. “Mr. Ropebone Man, would you mind letting my babysitter down?” she politely called. “Remy’s a friend.”

  With a squeal of pulleys, the rope holding the girl lowered gently. A strange flash of jealousy shot through Fin. The living rigging actually listened to Marrill. The feeling caught him off guard; as much as he wished he were memorable, he had never felt so jealous of her before.

 
Then again, the last time they’d all been together, Marrill had been with the crew longer than he had. Now, he had been with the Kraken far longer than she had ever been. It didn’t seem fair that after all this time, he could still be forgotten so quickly, and she remembered so well.

  The moment Remy’s fingers brushed the deck, she scrabbled onto her hands and knees and lunged toward Coll. Unfortunately, the rope was still tightly wound around her ankle and the ship caught the eddy of a new current, the deck pitching steeply as the sails filled. Remy fell hard against Coll’s chest. He wrapped an arm tight around her, grabbing the wheel with the other to keep from falling.

  “Well, looky there. Cap’n Kid caught himself a cheerleader,” the Naysayer snarked as he lumbered by.

  “I’m not a cheerleader.” Remy stepped away from Coll, her face still bright red. “Um. Thanks.”

  Coll shrugged and mumbled, “No problem. Try keeping your knees soft. It helps with balancing.” He coughed and composed himself as he turned back to the wheel.

  Ardent cleared his throat loudly to get the captain’s attention. Coll rolled one deep amber eye in their direction. Fin could just see the sailor’s tattoo, peeking out from beneath his collar, a coil of dark ropes that he knew from experience moved around Coll’s body depending on where they were.

  “What,” Coll said. It wasn’t a question.

  “We need to go somewhere,” Ardent announced.

  Coll shrugged. “We are going somewhere. We’re always going somewhere.”

  “Well, yes,” Ardent said. “But I mean somewhere specific. Specifically, the one place that every legend of the Iron Tide has in common.” He looked to Marrill knowingly. “The very place Pickled Pate, and all the other sailors like him, disappeared: the Shattered Archipelago.”

  “The Shattered Ark-i-pell-ah-what now?” Fin asked.

  “Archipelago,” Ardent repeated. “A series of islands next to one another. It’s mentioned by Pickled Pate as well as some of the more ambitious travel guides, and even then only rarely. It’s said that at the islands’ heart lies a great, all-consuming whirlpool, hungry to drag down any ship that ventures too near.”

  Coll pressed his lips together. “Great.” Unhappiness dripped off the word. “Will we be going there for some fool reason that’s likely to get us all killed?”

  “We’re hunting the Iron Tide, a mysterious force that may threaten all of the Stream,” Ardent explained.

  Coll nodded. Fin noticed his grip on the wheel growing ever tighter. “Sounds about right. And there’ll be no talking any of you out of it?” His gaze swept over them.

  Marrill and Ardent shook their heads furiously. Fin shrugged; he wasn’t exactly sure this was a great idea. But then again, Coll never really much noticed what he thought.

  “Fine,” the sailor sighed. “How do we get there?”

  Ardent looked away sheepishly. “Well, navigation is really more your specialty, to be honest.…”

  “Well, darn,” Coll drawled, “I guess the ship-eating whirlpool of death will just have to wait for our next vacation.” He placed one hand on the wheel and leaned back in his traditional sailing posture, scanning the horizon. “We’re three days out of the Cuttlefish Khanate,” he said. “We can ask about it there. I’m sure the cuttlefish have an excellent sense of direction.”

  “Three days?” Remy said. “We’re stuck here for three days?”

  “Oh, before we even get started!” Ardent said. “I fear it may be a lot longer before we’ve solved this mystery. Assuming, of course, we find a way back for you at all—”

  Coll tapped him softly on the arm, shooting his eyes toward Remy’s terrified expression. And Marrill’s heartbroken one. “Oh. I mean, I’m sure it will all work out again.…” the wizard added weakly.

  “I’m sorry,” Marrill said to Remy. Her voice was so low and sad, Fin could scarcely hear her. Tears welled in her eyes.

  Fin shuffled his feet awkwardly. At first blush, three days to hang out with Marrill making mischief on the Kraken sounded pretty awesome. But not with her and Remy this worried.

  Tentatively, he put his hand on Marrill’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” he told her. “You brought the Map to Everywhere.” He pointed to the rolled-up parchment sticking out of her waistband.

  “It’s blank,” she whispered. She pulled it out, showing off the empty canvas. “It’s been this way ever since we got back to the Stream.”

  The weight of the crystal sun hidden in Fin’s shirt pocket suddenly seemed to grow a thousand times heavier. He swallowed. “I guess if we had the Key, we could use it.”

  Marrill forced a watery smile. “It’s okay, Fin,” she said, mistaking the reason his voice sounded so strained. “You had to toss the Key in the Stream. You really did.” Her reassuring tone made him feel even worse. Especially when she gave him another hug. “At least I still have my best friend.”

  Fin winced at the words. He extracted himself from her and stepped back. “I hope you mean that,” he told her. And then, before he could talk himself out of it, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the secret he’d been hiding there ever since she left.

  At first, everyone just stared. The rays of the crystal sun gleamed in Fin’s palm. Instinctively, his fingers curled through the wavy arms.

  “Um, what is that?” Remy asked.

  “The Key!” Marrill gasped.

  The back of Fin’s throat wobbled. His hand shook. The last time anyone but him had seen the Key to the Bintheyr Map to Everywhere, they’d been facing off against Serth on the Black Dragon. Fin had pretended to throw the Key overboard, and Serth had scrambled after it, plunging to his death in the Pirate Stream.

  “I switched them,” he told them. He shrugged impishly. “Turns out a tentalo stuffed with hope crystals can look an awful lot like a glowing, sun-shaped crystal. I was going to tell you all back then, after I used it, but…”

  He paused mid-sentence. He was used to talking his way out of trouble. It was what he did. And yet, for once, the words didn’t come. He struggled to find a way to explain how he had to look out for himself, how no one else would. How even if Marrill had stayed, he couldn’t count on her. Everyone forgot him, eventually.

  But all of that just got jumbled in his mouth. Coming up with excuses was so easy. It didn’t make sense that telling the truth to someone he loved was so hard.

  “So… this strange kid found the Key?” Coll asked. “I don’t get it.”

  Fin smiled weakly. That was the upside to being forgettable: No one remembered him long enough to judge him.

  No one except Marrill, anyway. “Oh, Fin…” she sighed. It was the most painful sound he’d ever heard. Because it made him feel something he’d never had to feel before with her. Shame.

  Ardent stepped forward and lifted the Key from Fin’s palm. He examined it from all angles then bit one of its rays and winced. “Ith real,” he sputtered, rubbing his jaw. “Well, I daresay this will make things easier. If more troubling.” He gave Fin a once-over. “Where did you say you picked this up again, young man?”

  Fin shuffled his feet. “Um… the Khaznot Quay?” he offered. When in doubt, he figured, it was always a good call to blame thieves and pirates for things. His eyes cut over to Marrill, then darted away before she could catch them. In that glimpse of a second, she looked confused, heartbroken even.

  Ardent nodded sagely. “Well, they do say you can get anything there.” He snapped his fingers, and a table scooted across the deck toward them. With a flourish, Ardent plucked the Map from Marrill’s grip and unrolled it.

  “Now, how to use this,” the wizard muttered, staring back and forth between the Key and the Map.

  “Touch the Key to the Map and ask it what you want to find,” Fin mumbled. The wizard looked at him with a puzzled expression. “I mean, that’s, uh, what it said in the instructions. Which it totally had. Before I lost them.” He gave his most innocent shrug and smiled.

  “So… what’s this all about?�
�� Remy asked next to him.

  “That’s the Bintheyr Map to Everywhere,” Marrill whispered, gesturing at the parchment unfurled across the table. “It’s supposed to show you wherever you want to go, if you use it right. If you use it wrong, it’s a gateway to a lost sun that shoots laser beams and wants to destroy the universe.”

  “Great,” Remy said. “Glad I asked.”

  Ardent held the Key over the Map. And suddenly, the crystal began to glow like the sun it so closely resembled. Almost instantly, islands and continents and forests and cities bubbled up from the center of the parchment and slid across its face, bumping into one another and rearranging themselves into proper configuration.

  The inky lines on the Map swayed and flowed as Ardent waved the Key over it, following each movement like a school of minnows darting back and forth just below the surface of a pond. New continents sprang to the surface, then dropped away again.

  Then, with a deep breath, he dipped the Key toward the now-roiling parchment. “Okay then, Map. Show us the way to the Shattered Archipelago.”

  Across the face of the Map, the images whirled and flew so fast Fin couldn’t even follow them. It was as though he were falling into the Stream itself. He braced himself as a familiar nausea ran through him. “I forgot about this part,” he managed to gurgle.

  “Wuff,” Coll let out.

  “This is seasickness,” Remy groaned. “Is this seasickness?”

  “I see sickness,” Fin offered.

  The ink turned into a swirl, and the swirl turned into a spiral. At first Fin thought it was broken. But then the edges cleared, and misshapen lumps bubbled up, dotting the image. The spiral wasn’t just an effect of the Map, Fin realized. It was a place.

  Ardent glanced toward Coll. “Any clues?”

  Coll stepped forward, squinting. He scratched at the knotted tattoo that snaked up the back of his neck. “Hmm,” he said. “I don’t know where this is, exactly… but…” He scratched at the tattoo again. It moved, ever so slightly, beneath his fingers. “Yeah, I think I can get us there.”