City of Thirst

by Carrie Ryan

  Fin was still trying to decide whether to take that as a compliment when an alarmed yelp came from above, along with a shouted “Watch out!”

  He looked up just as Coll came sliding down the steeply pitched roof, Remy not far behind. Fin didn’t have time to dodge out of the way. The captain crashed into the clearing, taking both Fin and Marrill down with him.

  Remy landed on top of the heap a second later with an “Oof!” For a moment, it was just a jumble of legs and arms as the four of them untangled themselves. And then Remy was free enough to scramble toward Marrill, grabbing her into a hug. “Marigold Mae, don’t you ever get abducted by strange hand thingies again! No way am I going to try to explain that one to your parents.”

  At the mention of her parents, Marrill bit her lip, eyes on the ground. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  Remy spun and, spotting Fin, pressed a hand to her chest, letting out what sounded suspiciously like a relieved breath. “Same goes for you, mister!”

  Heat infused Fin’s cheeks. Whether it was from the smoldering remains of the fire, being scolded, or just flat out being remembered, he wasn’t sure. And he wasn’t sure he cared. Because she’d remembered him. Or at least that there was a him. Again!

  “Uh, sorry,” he said after clearing his throat. Then he frowned. “I guess the Wiverwanes held you responsible for breaking the Wall, too, huh?”

  Coll jerked a thumb toward Remy. “Nope. As soon as Marrill got airborne, this one grabbed my knife and attacked the Wall with it until they came back for us.”

  Remy tapped a finger against her temple, leaving a smudge of ash behind. “Arizona’s best babysitter, remember? No one’s getting dragged over a massive magical wall without me while I’m in charge.” She then glanced around. “So… this place is rather… um… sooty.”

  Fin had to admit, there wasn’t much to look at. They seemed to have landed in the dead end of a back alley, surrounded by the remains of charred huts.

  “This would be the City of Burning Ladders,” a voice buzzed. “And you are not welcome here.”

  CHAPTER 19

  A New Ally (Flames Take His Name)

  In the space of a moment, the air around Marrill went from shouldn’t-have-worn-long-sleeves warm to opening-the-oven-on-an-Arizona-summer-afternoon hot. Her eyes stung from lingering wisps of smoke. At any moment, it seemed like flames might burst to life again, and then they’d really be toast.

  Unfortunately, a rather monstrous beetle seemed to be blocking their only exit.

  Marrill let out an audible gulp. Remy laid a hand on each of her charges’ shoulders, pushing them behind her.

  Coll stepped forward, drawing himself up straight. But even at his fullest height, the beetle-like creature towered over him by several feet. Its sleek black shell came together in an angular sort of beak, just below a single red compound eye. The edges of its razor-sharp wing casings clicked together.

  “You are wanted,” the beetle buzzed ominously. “And on the Burning Plain, being wanted is a dangerous thing.”

  “Wanted for what?” Coll demanded.

  The beetle’s wings clicked again. “I would not know. I know only that a wizard’s want is deeper than most, and flames will continue washing over the city until it is extinguished. And so that one’s want has become our want, too, further fueling the fire’s desire.”

  Remy leaned back. “Did that make any sense at all to you guys?” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

  Marrill shook her head. “Not one bit.”

  “Hold on,” Coll said, relaxing out of his fighter’s stance. “Did you say ‘wizard’?”

  “Indeed,” the beetle clicked.

  “Tall guy? Old? Kinda distracted sometimes?”

  “Maybe?” the beetle clicked. “I can’t tell any of you apart, if I’m honest.”

  “You need to take us to him,” Coll ordered.

  The beetle considered the young sailor for a long moment. Sweat dribbled down the back of Marrill’s neck, causing her damp shirt to stick to her back. “No,” the beetle finally said. “We do not need. The fire needs. It burns where it can. We are water, and we flow where we flow.”

  With that, the beetle headed calmly down the alley. Glowing embers, scattered along the ground, dimmed as he passed. But in their little clearing, flames had sprung up to lick at the melted structures around them. It wouldn’t be long until the entire area blazed anew.

  “That sounds like something my yoga teacher would say,” Remy muttered.

  “Um, does that mean he’s taking us to Ardent?” Marrill asked.

  Coll rolled his shoulders. “I guess we’ll find out,” he said, leading the way after the creature.

  At the end of the alley, Marrill got her first real view of things on this side of the Wall. It was not, she had to admit, terribly impressive. Scorched structures slumped against the base of the Wall like marshmallows burned over a campfire, smashed together, then dropped into a lump on the ground. Charred ladders sprouted up here and there like forgotten hairs on an old man’s scalp.

  Most everything smoldered, at least the parts of the city not actively burning. And yet scores of the beetle-like creatures continued to scuttle about, as though the fire were nothing. “How does anything survive?”

  Coll paused, knocking a fist against one of the buildings. “Seems to be made out of dullwood.”

  “And dullwood doesn’t burn?” she asked.

  He lifted a shoulder. “Burning is interesting. Dullwood’s not.”

  They headed through open, fire-scarred streets, past so many identical lumps of buildings that Marrill couldn’t tell if they were making progress or going around in circles. Finally, the city didn’t so much end as melt, the ground dropping into canyons of black rock.

  At the lip of one canyon, two figures stood surveying the distance. The one on the left wore a purple robe, his white beard trailing behind him from the wind blowing up from the fires. The other was a bit shorter, her long hair flowing down her back. They were holding hands.

  Marrill grinned.

  She felt an enormous sense of relief at having found the two wizards. As much fun as she’d had exploring Monerva, the stakes were too high now. She needed them to save her world.

  As their bedraggled crew made their way over, streaks of fire burned up the canyons, crashing against the sides in great waves, as bright as Stream water and just as deadly.

  “Awesome,” Remy griped as they carefully made their way across the slick rock. “I just got used to being terrified of water and heights. Why not add fire to the list, too?”

  Coll shouted a greeting as they neared. Ardent turned. His expression morphed from surprise to delight to concern. “Well, isn’t this unexpected!” he cried. “What are you doing here?”

  Coll started to explain, but Marrill interrupted him. “It was an accident,” she said. The last thing she wanted was for Ardent to learn that not only had Fin stolen the Map, but also that they’d nearly unleashed the Lost Sun of Dzannin and destroyed the Pirate Stream. “We were trying to get to the Tower on top of the Wall and… let’s just say it didn’t go well.”

  “Why would you think the Wish Machine was in the Wiverwanes’ Tower?” Ardent asked. He looked at her intently.

  Marrill gulped. “Um… because…” There was no way she could admit the truth. She looked to Fin for help but he took a large step backward. She shot him a glare before turning back to Ardent. “It just, uh… we just guessed?” She chuckled nervously.

  Thankfully, Annalessa nodded. “The highest point in a city obsessed with height; not a bad deduction.”

  Marrill slowly let out her breath in relief. “It’s wrong, I’m afraid,” the wizard added. “But still quite logical.”

  Marrill sucked the breath right back in. Fin piped up next to her, giving voice to what she was already thinking. “Wait, what do you mean it’s wrong? The Wish Machine is there. We’re sure of that.”

  The skin around Ardent’s eyes crinkled as he laug
hed. “Oh, Marrill, where do you run into these characters? No, my mysteriously unremarkable lad, there’s no Wish Machine in the Wiverwanes’ Tower. Annalessa and I stopped by there on our own trip over the Wall, so I’m quite certain the place is empty.”

  “Also, we will not be invited back,” Annalessa added.

  Ardent coughed. “Yes, well, the less said about that the better,” he mumbled.

  A numbness stole over Marrill. She couldn’t believe it. The Map had been… wrong? Her heart dropped. The Map had acted strangely in the past. Betrayed them once, even. She swallowed, thinking about how she and Remy had planned to use it to find their way home. If it was totally unreliable, then what?

  “No,” Ardent continued. “Nothing in that tower but empty space, a weird smell, and a cloud of old memories.”

  Memories. At the word, Marrill felt oddly faint. The memories the Wiverwanes had shown her flooded back, overwhelming her.…

  The Dawn Wizard stood high atop the barrier Wall, in a tower full of holes and rookeries. On one side, the last of what had once been the Endless City slid slowly into a dank and fetid marsh, bounded by glowing waters that led to nowhere. On the other, the kingdom burned, consumed by the raging fire.

  “You are the price I pay,” he said to the frayed ends of his cloak. No wind buffeted him, no breeze set the thousand fingers to moving. But move they did. They stretched and twitched, shuffled and squirmed. Then, as one, they took to the air.

  “I must leave now,” he said. “And someday, this Wall must fall. Until then, watch over it, and keep the fire at bay.”

  Dark shapes spiraled out in a cloud around him. Living memories that would never forget, that would guard the Wall eternally and without fail. They flapped and floated, and circled and whirled. For the first time, the Wiverwanes took flight.

  “Marrill?” Ardent laid a hand gently on her shoulder.

  She shook her head, clearing away the traces of the memory. She wondered how many others they’d given her, how many more she’d suppressed.

  Right now, though, she had bigger issues.

  “It’s nothing,” she told him. “Look, the Master of the Iron Ship is already here.” Quickly, she explained what they’d learned from the Highest: that the Master had actually appeared in Monerva years earlier, and was powering up the Syphon of Monerva.

  “It’s pulling my world onto the Pirate Stream!” A familiar pain twisted in her gut at the thought. “That’s how I was able to come back.”

  Ardent squeezed her shoulder. “It will be okay, Marrill.”

  Sniffling, she let out a watery smile. It was good to have a powerful wizard like Ardent on your side.

  “That is terrible news, however,” Annalessa said. “If the Master has, in fact, been increasing the intake of Stream water to power this Syphon of Monerva, and it is, in fact, reaching your world, then the Syphon has consumed a truly massive amount of magic. It must be nearly ready to grant his wish. And with that much power, he really could wish for just about anything. There’s no telling how much time we have left.”

  Ardent held up a hand. “It isn’t all bad news. We traversed the Wall for a reason. Whatever the Master may have told the Monervans, the Salt Sand King is real, and alive.”

  At the mention of the name, the beetle who’d brought them let out a hissing buzz and flicked his fingers in the air, but said nothing more.

  Marrill looked at the dusty ground. “So… what does that mean?”

  Ardent clasped his hands behind his back in his classic lecture stance. “Well, according to our research, the Salt Sand King appears to be responsible for building this Syphon of Monerva in the first place… with the help of the Dawn Wizard, of course. Assuming we cannot find the Dawn Wizard, and that is a safe assumption given the nature of the Dzane, one can conclude that the Salt Sand King is likely the only person, or thing, who knows where to find it or how to stop said machine. Not to mention the fact that he doubtless does not want to see someone else use it instead of him.”

  There was a moment of silence while everyone tried to work through the logic. “It means we may have an ally in the King,” Annalessa translated.

  Ardent grinned, but his voice was steady and stark. “Quite so.”

  “I hate to interrupt,” said someone beside her. Marrill jumped. It was Fin. For some reason, she hadn’t noticed him standing there earlier. “Perhaps we should have this discussion somewhere less… flamey?”

  He pointed behind them. On the plain, the fire-tides had grown in strength. They broke against the lip of the canyon, sparks filling the air like sea spray. It reminded Marrill of the time her parents took her out to the beaches of Vieques in Puerto Rico, to watch the glowing plankton light up the waves at night. Only, plankton wouldn’t burn you.

  “Perhaps we should go,” Ardent suggested.

  “I just said that,” Fin noted.

  Annalessa turned to the beetle, who was standing quietly off to the side. “Kind beetle—I don’t believe I caught your name?”

  “I am called Rysacg,” the beetle answered. The name started with a buzz, then a click and a pop, and ended with a sudden stop, not to mention a few sounds Marrill was pretty sure her mouth didn’t make. They all looked at one another nervously. Next to Marrill, Remy quietly popped her lips together, trying to imitate it.

  “Yes,” Annalessa continued. “Well, let’s stick with ‘sir,’ then. Kind sir, we have a need to converse with the Salt Sand King. How would we go about finding him?”

  Rysacg again hiss-buzzed at the mention of the King. “The Salt Sand King, flames take his name, lives in the barren lands that way.” He held out a claw-tipped hand, pointing toward the boundless expanse of flat scrubland. Marrill squinted. All she could see was fire, smoke, and more fire. “But be warned: You clearly want much,” the beetle added. “I can feel it. The fire can feel it, too. You must suppress your desires if you wish to make it across the plain. As to what you will find out there, I cannot say.”

  “Weirdo,” Remy mumbled under her breath.

  Rysacg pivoted toward her. “Through unthinking desire, the Salt Sand King—flames take his name—set the plain alight. He trapped us behind the Wall. He split the people of the plains apart, even as he brought them together. We have learned to fear desire, and we have learned to hate the Salt Sand King. Flames take his name.”

  Ardent clapped his hands. “Well, on that ominous note, I guess we should be off.” He headed toward the tip of the plateau, where a steep set of steps had been carved into the black rock of the canyon.

  “Anything if it means finding a way back onto the Stream,” Coll murmured, following after. He rubbed at his tattoo. It was wound several times around his throat now. “I need out of this place.”

  The words had barely left his mouth when another wave of fire crashed over the lip of the canyon behind them. Hot air blasted them, hotter than Marrill had ever felt. She threw her arm over her face, but there was no escaping it.

  Glowing embers spotted the wind. “Memory-of-Rain,” Rysacg buzzed. “It’s coming.”

  Marrill didn’t even have time to ask. A wall of flames raced up the valley toward them. The fire was a hungry tongue, licking the sides of the canyon as if it were licking frosting from a giant bowl. Up one side, down the other, blazing in oranges and reds and blues.

  Marrill turned to retreat toward the city, but the fire reached the lip of the canyon and exploded upward, blocking the way. It swept in from two sides now, chewing at anything it could find as it came.

  Annalessa lunged forward and threw her arms wide. A wall of snow and ice billowed from her sleeves, only to disappear in a hiss of steam as it struck the conflagration before them. It did nothing to stem the tide.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes were pinched with worry. “These flames burn with the old magic of the Dzane,” she called to Ardent. “Only Dzane magic will put it out.”

  Ardent began searching through the pockets of his robe. He pulled out four corkscrews, half a
dozen rocks, and a measuring set. “No, no, no,” he said, tossing it all aside. The flames licked at the debris, growing closer.

  As Marrill watched, her anxiety grew. It seemed that with every thought, every beat of her heart, the strength of the fire increased. And then she remembered something Rysacg had said.

  She spun toward the beetle, who stood calmly behind them. “What did you mean about the fire feeling our want?”

  “The fire is drawn to need and want,” Rysacg said simply. “Only those who can suppress their desires can escape it.”

  Marrill swallowed. Her mouth tasted like ash. “So, if we just don’t want stuff, the fire can’t burn us?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s still a fire. It’s very hot.”

  “Then what do we do when it catches us?” Fin asked, stepping forward.

  The beetle chittered. “If you suppress all desires and focus on wanting for nothing, you can roll into a ball and your shell will be enough to protect you.”

  “But we don’t have shells!” Remy cried.

  Rysacg looked at each of them in turn. “Oh,” he said. “Then you should probably run.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Firefleers Fleeing the Fire Fleetly

  Aha!” Ardent finally cried. “Yes, you’ll do nicely.” He held out two bronze bowls. Fin looked at them dubiously. He wasn’t really sure how they were supposed to help.

  “Stand back,” Ardent warned. He tossed the bowls high in the air, sending a swirl of sand and sparks chasing after them. When they clattered back to the ground, they’d been completely transformed.

  They’d grown. And now had feet. Chicken feet, to be precise.

  “They look like ostrich legs,” Marrill pointed out.

  “I’m calling them Ardent’s Magnificent Firefleers,” Ardent announced proudly. He’d fused two pieces of glass together to form makeshift wind goggles. “AMFFs for short,” he added.

  “That’s a terrible name,” Coll interjected.