The Cradle of Eld floated in the middle of them.
The passengers shook themselves off and scrambled to the edge to watch. They were bruised and battered from the rough ride in, but those wounds were forgotten now. They invoked all gods and goddesses native to their homelands as they approached.
Argus grabbed the railing, speechless.
His childhood imagination ran deep, but this lay well beyond it. On top stretched lush fields and orchards. Though the sea and rocks were desolate, this land was verdant. Argus spotted golden apples from Calladon, blackberry bushes from Harlock, and a wild herd of Pellmerean horses. Prized bounties from every corner of the world had been collected here. Despite the chill, this land blossomed in eternal spring.
A thud vibrated on deck as the sailboat collided gently with the edge of the platform. Argus hardly felt it. He watched himself help tie up the vessel on one of the numerous docks that sprouted from the Cradle like spokes from a wheel.
Before he knew it, they'd stepped onto that perfect oval. They shuffled off the dock away from the water's edge. They stepped lightly, careful not to disturb a single blade of grass without Willow's permission.
“Go on,” she said, pointing toward the center of the platform. “We'll never get warm if we linger so close to the water.”
No one moved. They were too busy feasting their eyes on the surroundings. It was just like Argus had heard when he was a child. The pathways flecked with Eldish glintstone, silvery in the sun. The terraced gardens and bubbling brooks. All the life he'd encountered felt like a cheap imitation compared to what thrived here.
“I suppose I'll lead,” Willow said, hiking up her dress and striding down one of the silver paths.
The others followed, too dumbfounded for words. A war broke out in Argus's mind. On one side was the ecstasy of knowing such a place existed—even in a world with so much death. On the other was the unquenchable envy of not having seen it sooner.
“I'm sorry about the ride in,” she said, gathering her hair into a thick auburn rope. “Though the Cradle would've already been destroyed if it weren't for a little secrecy.”
Argus stumbled forward, still wobbling with the waves. He was vaguely aware they were only phantoms now. Somehow the Cradle floated like a dagger point on a finger, perfectly balanced.
“By the eternal flame…” said Nasira.
“I'd ask that you refrain from talking to those gods while you're on the Cradle,” Willow said. “In this place, the only gods are over there.” They followed her finger over to a cluster of bronze at the center of the oval. They were still too far away to make out the details, but Argus studied the outlines of the giant bronze statues. The pantheon of the old gods. Edea and Ogoz with his giant hammer. Malin the silver-tongued. And others—those whose names he had forgotten.
They stood as high as the tallest lighthouses he'd seen off the Glass Coast.
Argus gasped.
What stood around those statues was just as breathtaking. Buildings of onyx and marble and gold, sometimes all three at once. They surrounded the bronze gods, fronted by grand entryways and shimmering columns which rose into the clouds and disappeared.
Argus's heart raced. If the legends were true, there was a spire somewhere among the ancient stones. A spiraling library—inside of which was collected all the knowledge of men.
“There will be plenty of time to gawk later,” Willow said. They looked at her, eyes clouded in amazement, and she offered them a smile. “I suppose this must be strange for you. Where are my manners? I apologize; you’re the first outsiders to step foot onto the Cradle.”
She stuck two fingers into her mouth and whistled. Moments later, Argus whirled at the sound of approaching hooves. Four horses trotted down the path from places unknown. They were gray, dappled with white spots, and larger than any steeds Argus had ever seen.
They pulled a carriage behind them.
Argus and the others stepped off the path to make way. The horses slowed, and the carriage rolled to a stop just in front of Willow, who let the horses lick her hand.
“Lyselle and Javen, Ancilla and Bron. Hello, old friends.”
They whisked their tails at her, and in their eyes sparked deep intelligence. Argus wondered how smart those horses truly were—how old they were and what they'd seen. His musings were cut short when he climbed into the open carriage with the others.
“It's farther than it looks to the center,” Willow said. “It'll be faster this way.”
Argus nodded. He collapsed into a comfortable divan strewn with velvet cushions and watched the fields pass by.
“They don't get to work as much as they'd like these days,” said Willow. “We used to be many.” Her eyes darkened.
Argus rested his battered body. The forests and fields flew by. Their horses were fast, sometimes breaking into a gallop until Willow whispered for them to slow down. They followed the path by heart, needing no further instruction.
He tried to imagine men hunting in these woods, setting traps and carrying bows. Women drawing water from the wells which dotted the gentle hills. Children laughing as they darted through the orchards.
Except all those people were gone, now. Those hearty folk—the ones whose civilization made all those that followed it feel like lost progress—had disappeared into the history books themselves.
“I fear we've waited too long,” Willow said, as if reading his thoughts. Is she? “Without family at my side, it'll be that much harder to turn back the Blight.”
They crossed a bridge, and Argus stared at the stream running beneath it. Tears welled in his eyes. They refused to stop no matter how hard he tried to contain them. The Cradle was hauntingly beautiful, not for what it was, but for what it might have been.
He kept watching the stream, tracing its path through farmland and forest. He felt Willow's eyes on him, though he couldn't face them.
She whispered to the horses, who diverted from the path and into the open country. They carried them between rows of apple trees and stopped, neighing and whinnying as if frustrated by the interruption. At Willow's urging, they climbed down from the carriage and picked as many apples as their hearts desired.
Once they'd filled their hands and pockets, they continued their journey to the city. Argus devoured three golden apples on the way. The flesh was crisp, the fruit juicy, and they left a sweet nectar on his lips.
“I'll need to run into the library,” Willow said, her hair windswept and wild. “There I can find the spell to determine where Eamon will go next. I learned it long ago, though with everything that has happened this past year I've forgotten it—along with many others.”
As they drew closer to the center of the Cradle, she told them about many of the relatives she'd lost. Their gravestones, once confined to a corner of the city, now crept all the way into a nearby forest. Willow spoke like a woman a lifetime older than she looked, and only then did Argus remember she was.
She'd told them she was one hundred and seven, though she didn't look a day older than twenty-five.
The path climbed gradually, with plenty of switchbacks in the hillside, and Willow wiped away tears and laughed when the horses rounded the sharp turns.
Argus looked away. The woman was a mystery he was desperate to unravel, though he doubted he would ever be able to do it.
A flock of geese flew overhead, honking. When Argus looked up to watch them, he found a clear morning… save for a single giant cloud blanketing the city.
“Are you doing that?” he asked.
Willow shook her head. “I don't have to. The whole city—every piece of earth and air on the Cradle—is more powerful than I'll ever be. This place is imbued with magic. It knows when it's best to hide from prying eyes.”
The carriage fell silent. It stayed that way until the horses crested the final hill before the heart of Eld They drove on and stopped at the bronze statues, clopping their hooves with lowered heads.
“Thank you, old friends,” Willow said. Sh
e hopped out of the carriage onto the tiled square, nuzzling the horses after she dismounted.
The others followed her lead. Siggi was the last one down. The moment he touched the ground, the horses galloped off down the hill and disappeared.
“Welcome to the heart of Eld,” Willow said.
The view was stunning. The highest point on the platform, it offered sweeping vistas of streams and ravines, forests and farmland. The earth sloped downward in every direction, making Argus feel like someone had flipped a giant soup bowl upside down and placed them in the center.
He certainly didn't feel welcome there.
The air was heavy, and as he studied the ancient city he couldn't shake the sensation that they were being watched. It was impossible to believe this city had been part of an even larger one once. Before it was uprooted by a few hundred sorcerers and sorceresses to preserve civilization as their kingdom fell.
Nasira shivered beside him. “This place leaves me unsettled.”
He nodded. How could one not be, when surrounded by stones older than time itself?
“They've protected my people for all this time,” said Willow. “They'll keep you safe until I get back.”
Willow sparked a fire in a ring of charred stone, then bid them wait until she returned from the library. Without waiting for a reply, she dodged between the statues and into the city streets, ducking into a simple stone structure.
“I hope she comes back soon,” Siggi said. He examined his priest robes carefully. “Those statues are eying me.”
Harun scoffed. “Don't worry, old friend. Those gods—if they ever roamed the earth at all—are dead and gone.” He went over and reached for a bronze sandal and tapped it. “See? Nothing more than metal.”
Brenn lunged for the Rivannan and pulled him aside. “Don't do that!”
“Since when did you become so pious?”
The Nalavacian didn't answer. He shuffled in front of the statue of Setep, the god of war. He lost himself in that knee-length beard and chiseled jaw, the massive arms wielding two battle axes.
“He even looks like you,” Argus said.
Brenn fell to a knee and whispered a few words in his native tongue. He lingered there until the others grew impatient and huddled in front of the fire, where they finished the apples they'd picked. Not even a trio of deer wandering through the city streets was enough to shake him from his trance.
Nasira fingered the bow strapped on her back. “I haven't seen a deer that healthy-looking since I was a young girl.”
“Mm,” said Siggi, patting his belly. “Venison.”
“Don't,” Argus said. “We don't know if hunting runs afoul of the rules.”
“Rules,” said Siggi, with a look of amusement. “I know you, Argus of Leith, You're the last fellow to give a rat's arse about the rules.”
That was before the Cradle, he thought, shaking his head. “Just don't shoot.”
The deer wandered closer, curious at the new arrivals. Nasira reached out and almost touched a doe. A moment later they scampered down the hill.
A door creaked open, and Willow emerged from a building across the street.
Argus blinked. He looked back at the building where she'd gone in, which stood opposite the square where she joined them now. He glanced between the buildings, back and forth from one door to another until his mind was thoroughly tangled.
Willow saw him puzzling and smiled. “The path to the library is… fluid. It changes with the shadows and the tides. One moment it's this door; the next it's another.”
“Why?” asked Nasira.
“To hide it from those who shouldn't enter. Most of the doors you see lead nowhere. This place is littered with the bones of bold men who set out seeking the library's wisdom, only to fall into a maze beneath the earth and meet their demise.”
Argus's face twitched. Willow looked at Nasira while she spoke, but her words felt directed right at him. Your curiosity will be the death of you, boy. So his mother had said. You and your magic.
“Did you find what you're looking for?” he asked.
Willow thumped the old book in her hand. “It's in here.” She stood by the fire and opened it, hiding the cover with her hand. She thumbed through the gilded pages reverently until her finger landed on the passage she was looking for.
“Ah,” she said, “here's the one. It's been a long time since I've tried it, though. There might be… consequences if I don't get everything just right.”
“What do you mean consequences?” Siggi asked.
Willow clutched the book tighter and began to chant.
Argus and the others leaned in to hear her, unable to resist the melody of the Eldish tongue. It was a dead language now, save for a few words remembered by minstrels and learned men.
But Willow brought it back to life.
Over and over she chanted. Louder. “Dioris Shakorum! Dioris Shakorum!” Her pupils swallowed up the rest of her eyes until all the color had gone.
Argus watched Willow's lips move, drawn into a trance. He couldn't look away—even when the light surrounding the woman glowed so brilliantly it seared his eyes.
“Dioris Shakorum! Dioris Shakorum!”
Argus was vaguely aware of screams. Some came from his own throat. Yet no matter what he did he couldn't stop watching the sorceress and her book. Finally his eyes couldn't bear it any longer. Everything blended together and became a single blinding white light.
“Dioris Shakorum!”
Then came a thud. The book was shut, and Willow stopped chanting. The blinding white light remained.
“There,” she said. “It's finished.”
“I can't see!” Nasira said. “What did you do to my eyes?”
The others voiced similar complaints. Swaying in the breeze, Argus felt wayward bodies crashing into him.
“The effects should pass soon,” Willow said. Her voice sounded far away. There wasn’t a note of empathy in it.
“How long will it last?”
“What did you do to us, woman?”
Their questions came in packs, through they fluttered away unanswered.
Argus closed his eyes and tried to settle his breathing. That white light surrounded him; it made no difference if he left his eyelids open or shut. He tried to think of more pleasant things—the first time he'd held a sword, his teenage friends from the Riven Mountains, the smile of that gray-eyed beauty who'd worked at the Rusty Flagon—but couldn't see anything but that dreadful woman and her golden book.
His path with Reaver had only led him here, to destruction. His Vogathi friends, if they still lived, probably wouldn't recognize him anymore. And the gray-eyed girl?
Dead and gone, he thought. Just another corpse on the pile after the empire invaded.
The others' voices buzzed about him. He couldn't pay attention to what they were saying. All he heard was Willow, losing patience as she tried to reassure them.
Argus closed his eyes again. The world became a shade darker than it had been before. He sighed as the white aura began to break apart and dissolve into little red spots.
Soon enough the light was gone, and when Argus opened his eyes again he found himself in the center of a huddling mass. One by one his companions crawled back to life, glaring at the woman who stood across the fire with her book in hand.
Harun scowled. “You could have blinded us!”
“Unlikely,” she said. “Farseeing is only moderately difficult for those such as myself. But like you saw, there's always the possibility for unintended consequences.”
“Bugger all that,” said Siggi. “Did you get what you wanted?”
Willow wiped a few hairs away from her face and said, “I know where Eamon is going next.” She looked around the square as if she expected the man and his soldiers to be upon them any second. “He's headed east. Making for Garvahn.”
“A surprise attack,” Argus said, calculating the time it would take to ready a navy, supply, and gather a larger force. “He mustn't be b
ringing a large army.”
“That's right.”
Nasira shook her head and said, “By the eternal—sorry. He must be planning to go it alone. Soldiers from the Comet Tail Isles won't have nearly enough time to reach Garvahn and offer support.”
“No,” Siggi said. “This emperor isn't afraid of getting his own hands dirty. If Garvahn folds—and the guilds are always divided—it'll shake anyone else thinking of opposing him.”
Argus nodded. “And force Rivanna to throw more dragons behind the eastern kingdoms—this time openly.”
“The politics don't matter,” Willow said. “If we don't stop him, the results will be the same.” She hugged herself and edged toward the fire. “Eamon won't rest until the world is in ruins.”
“I wish I knew what was happening in the Comet Tail,” Nasira said. Her eyes lit up, and she rushed over to Willow and grabbed her by the arm. “Tell me,” she said. “Use your magic to see if they'll hold another election.”
Willow wrenched away. “No.”
“Why not?”
“You must still be blind. Didn't you see what just happened with the last spell? I won't trifle with such powerful magic needlessly—”
“It isn't needlessly!”
“Yes it is. Even if there were a test, it's of little importance to you unless the emperor is dead.” Her eyes narrowed. “Remember whom you're addressing, child. I'm not some kitten or musty old tome who doesn't have a mind and will of her own. I'm a child of Eld.”
Nasira's face flushed, but her anger quickly turned to humiliation. “I just don't want to miss my opportunity.”
“You won't,” said Willow, her scowl fading. “If fate wills it, you shall be on the Comet Tail Isles during the election, and take your rightful place as ruler.”
There she is again, Argus thought. Like the old bird at the bar all sauced up on ale who refuses to get the hint until you tell her off directly. Fate.
“There's one thing you can do,” Willow told Nasira. “If you want your wish fulfilled, sail with me to Garvahn.” She whirled. “The same goes for the rest of you.”
“Aye,” said Harun. “Then to Garvahn I go.” Brenn grunted his assent.
Reaver's Wail Page 14