Through gritted teeth I said, “Swing the Tooth around. We need to rescue Amandera.”
“I don’t think we can,” he said, swallowing visibly.
Below us Amandera’s Tooth bobbed on the foaming ocean, speeding towards the gaping mouth. Rusk leaned our Tooth towards hers, diving gently, but cautiously.
“I don’t like it any more than you do. I’d rather see her die. After Alsoon. Jakinda. But who else can fix this tear if I can’t?”
We were both looking at the roiling water rushing before us as our Tooth pushed forward. He caught my eye after a moment and nodded understanding.
“How big do you think it will get?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“And you really think she can close it?”
“We don’t have any other options.”
“Just to be very clear, you have decided to save Amandera —your worst enemy —from a fate she caused herself?”
I sighed. “The irony is plain even to me.”
“Then you’d better open the top hatch when we get close and hope you can reach her. We can’t afford to land in the water ourselves or we’ll be sucked right in.”
Reach her? I looked out the window as I clambered out of my seat. Sure enough, Amandera and two of her armsmen were halfway out of their Tooth surveying the situation. As I watched, one lost his balance and fell into the water, floating away in the swift current for a moment before his head plunged under and he was lost. The blood drained from my face. This was crazy. I’d rather see her dead and I was going to risk this on the tiny hope that she could fix the hole in the world?
I clenched my jaw hard, opened the hatch and pushed my head out. I could only get one arm and shoulder over the top of the hatch. The tether kept me from getting any further. At least I wouldn’t be sucked out. Unless I was sucked so hard by the current that my hand popped off my arm. Pretty thought.
“Try not to pull, I’m flying here!” Rusk called from inside.
Easy to say when the wind and spray weren’t whipping at your hair and face. I squinted and peered above the rim of the hatch. There was Amandera in the top of her own hatch. The Tooth spun and bobbed wildly but she looked like the mistress of her own fate, beautiful head held high and her pose commanding and powerful. What was I thinking bringing my enemy aboard? But if I didn’t how many would suffer? Innocents. Children.
“Amandera!” I called over the sound of the water and wind. Rusk was moving us closer, almost grazing the water in his attempt to get us near her.
She saw me, and reached out a hand. Our Tooth leaned towards her and I almost managed to reach her hand, but then a swirling eddy pulled her away and our Tooth skittered to the side.
“Hold us steady!” I called to Rusk.
I thought I heard a ‘you try’ in his grumbled response.
“Amandera,” I called, “we’re going to try again.”
She nodded, holding out her hand again, fighting for height. As Rusk flew us in close I reached as far as I could and our fingers brushed, but then the Tooth spun away.
“Tylira!” Amandera cried.
Through the chaos of our motion she lost her balance and tumbled from the Tooth to the furious waves below. She tried to swim against the pull, but her movements were useless as it swept her towards the yawning mouth. Horror filled my mouth with a sick flavor, and my stomach heaved. All was lost. Without her the hole would rend the earth in two. I’d had one chance and I’d blown it.
I had a sudden memory of Amandera appearing in Ra’shara and speaking to me. She had always been so relentless. Even now she refused to give in, battling against the frothing sea.
I bit my lip and then, as always, I leapt without thinking, diving mentally into Ra’shara. As soon as I was within the meditation world, I seized hold of its weavings and began to pull and rip at the threads of Ra’shara trying with all my might to bore a hole through it to where Amandera swam. Elderly voices yelled at me, and I felt hands and sticks hitting my back as I unwove—at first just a few and then dozens upon dozens, but I didn’t pause. I’d lost my one chance—but I wasn’t the kind of girl who relied on chances. I made my own chances.
With the sound of ripping cloth the last thread tore loose and I reached through, seizing Amandera by her wet sarette and heaving with all my strength until she tumbled into Ra’shara. She rolled across the ground and then pushed up to all fours, vomiting sea water and coughing violently. I swallowed hard to ignore it and the congregated ancestors shouting all around me, as I set to work punching a second hole through the fabric of the meditation. As soon as there was a gap I seized Amandera again and threw her through the hole, leaping back into the real world after her.
We landed in Rusk’s Tooth. Amandera, heaving still and shaking like a leaf, and me shivering like it was the dead of winter in my seat. What had I done? Had I just broken something else of infinite value in my desperate attempt to heal the cataclysm? I couldn’t think of that yet. There just wasn’t time.
“Rusk’s family. They go free. Promise me,” I said, leaving my seat to face her squarely.
“What?” Rusk asked, looking behind him at the two of us. His mouth fell open, but he whipped back to the controls, fighting now to pull us back up from the turbulent surface.
“What?” Amandera echoed.
“Promise me or I send you right back!” I said, my voice far too loud in the small space.
“I promise.” She coughed again, vomiting sea water across the floor.
“It’s getting bigger,” Rusk said from his seat at the flight controls. He was braced against his chair, but he relaxed as he spoke. “If you were planning on mending it ...”
“Amandera,” I said, wrapping my arms around my shaking body and trying not to chew my lip. “The cataclysm is growing. I can’t unweave it.”
“An’alepp is telling me,” Amandera said in a faraway voice.
Really? An’alepp spoke to her directly? Why did that feel like even more of a betrayal? Had they plotted against me all along? I entered Ra’shara.
On either side of me the huge rips in the meditation world remained. Frantic ancestors swarmed around them, weaving the Common to repair and arguing loudly.
“You rang?” An’alepp asked coolly, a still pillar in the midst of a storm.
“You’re helping Amandera?”
“Is that the sky calling the sea blue?”
“I thought you were my ancestor,” I raged. “I thought you were on my side.”
“I am your ancestor,” An’alepp said, tossing her head. “But I’m on the side of all my descendants. I will protect them from the Cataclysm, and that goes beyond healing this small tear in Everturn.”
In the reality behind Ra’shara I could see Amandera weaving fast and furious as Rusk steered us over the ship. Her patching was ragged, far too small to do the job.
“She’ll need your power to mend the tear,” An’alepp said, almost disinterestedly.
“You sound like you don’t care!”
“I care about the rip. I care about the damage you have done to Ra’shara and the life you sucked out of me to do it. I don’t care about your petty prejudices.” She crossed her arms. “Think, Tylira. What made the tear worse?”
“My unweaving.”
“And what made all the anomalies worse? Have they been more intense since you were wrung?”
My eyes grew wide. “Are you suggesting ...”
“That you, in combination with your talent, are a catalyst for this disaster.”
My head felt like it was spinning. Me? This came from me?
“The more you unweave,” An’alepp continued, “the worse it will become. You aren’t the cause but you are a complicating factor. You have a genius level ability to think up ways to destroy things that no one else ever has.” She gestured at the chaos around us.
“Then...” I flushed, reaching for a solution.
“First, lend your power to Amandera so she can fix this rend in Everturn.”
“H
ow?”
“Reach through your heartstone to her.”
I hesitated.
“Or are you truly heartless? There are times, girl, when freedom requires sacrifice.”
I reached out, feeling my way to the stone, delving into it, and then I encountered something icy cold and sharp. I shrunk back.
“Reach!” An’alepp demanded. Before me, Amandera continued to weave, but her best weavings fell away as quickly as she wove them.
“It hurts.”
“Don’t be a coward. It’s just the feel of your friend’s soul. Now, reach.”
Well that explained a lot. And she wasn’t my friend. Far from it. But I reached through the stone, pressing into the painful icy sharpness.
Amandera’s weavings expanded in size and strength, swelling to fill the gash and wrapping around like a seam sewing up the earth. Her face was screwed up in concentration and sweat ran down her face as Rusk flew us over the boiling waters. I watched as her Tooth with her final armsman slipped into the gap a moment before it finally stopped bubbling, and then the sea stilled and Amandera collapsed on the ground.
I released my reach to the heartstone and sat down in the seat beside Rusk.
“She did it,” he breathed. “How did you know she could?”
“Because she makes new things and I unmake things.” I paused to catch my breath. “An’alepp says I’m a catalyst for all this.”
“Does that mean what I think it does?” he asked.
“That I’m going to destroy the world?”
He nodded.
“I think so. Unless ...”
“Unless?”
“When we were back in the ship she said those doors could take me to another world.”
Rusk soared upwards in the Tooth, circling around the nearest Rib. It was the very first one we’d been on. The one with the door on the top.
“And I’m tied to you.”
“Yes,” I said, letting the word hang in the air. I knew I should go see if Amandera was still alive. I knew I should check to see what An’alepp thought of it all, but this was more important.
He took my hand, smiling slightly. “I heard what you bargained with Amandera. Thank you.”
“You matter to me,” I said, looking down. My cheeks felt hot. “That means your family matters to me.”
He drew me into a hug, and the only place for me to sit was on his lap.
“Come here,” he said, kissing my hair gently, and then carefully cupping my face in his hands. His kiss was light and sweet. His strong arms moved to circle my waist and lend me strength. “You’re a difficult woman to keep up with, Wild Girl.”
“I only wanted to be free.”
“I know.”
“I think, now, that I might never be.”
“There’s a freedom that goes beyond doing what you want. It’s the freedom to give up what you want for something better.”
“Is that what you did for your family?”
He nodded, tears in his eyes.
“And is that what you are doing now for me?” I asked.
He twined his fingers through mine and kissed me long and slow.
“We’ll jump together,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Six: Tomorrow Awaits
“You’ll free Rusk’s family—all of them,” I said for the thousandth time.
Amandera gave me a long look. “I’ve agreed to that. I will free his family, and I will return them to their land and protect them from further repercussions. I make no other promises.”
Rusk stood as far away as the tether would allow, arms crossed over his chest. I knew he wished he was going back with her. He’d want to see their faces when they were freed. He’d want to be the one to make sure they were safe, but just like me he was bound to another fate. He’d said it was a greater kind of freedom—the freedom to give up your freedom. I wasn’t quite used to the idea.
We were standing beside Amandera’s Tooth—her new Tooth recently freed from the Event Alura. We’d had to surface the otherworldly ship to get a new Tooth out, but Amandera claimed she could fly it all the way to the capitol and all of us wanted her there as soon as it could be arranged. Rusk and I because we wanted his family freed, and Amandera because she would present her gift to the High Tazmin: the last Teeth of the Gods and the knowledge of how we had come here and what was in store if we couldn’t prevent it.
“And you will actively seek a solution to our problem in the world of Axum with the help of An’alepp, and you will come back with a solution before a year is up,” Amandera said, once again reminding me of my side of this bargain.
“I promise to look for a solution and I promise to return in a year’s time. I can’t promise I’ll succeed,” I corrected. Not for the first time I was wishing I’d demanded some sort of fealty from her. I didn’t like that the balance of power had leaned back to Amandera. I felt like my skin was creeping whenever she had any kind of power.
“If the solution is anywhere it won’t be on this world,” An’alepp added from Ra’shara. She’d taken to stalking me in the sides of my consciousness, but I was studiously ignoring her since we mended the tear in the earth. She kept too many secrets, and I could feel the ancestor’s fury at how I chose to rescue Amandera.
“Find the solution,” Amandera said, leaning in close to me as if proximity could guarantee success.
“Step back, Amandera,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “I think I’ve proven that I can do the impossible. It wasn’t you who found the Teeth you’re so anxious to present to your Emperor. And it wasn’t you who punched holes through reality to drag your sorry behind from the brink of death. But it’s not me who will receive the laud and acclaim. I’ll be heading to a foreign world to find a way to save our home. I think a little respect is in order.”
Amandera’s expression turned sour, but she backed up. I would have bet everything I used to own that she wished it was her out to save the world. She had strange goals.
“I wish you’d tell me how you did that,” she said.
“I’ll be needing my heartstone back,” I said, holding out my palm. If there was one thing that I didn’t want to talk about with Amandera it was my unsettling ability to unweave reality.
Amandera hesitated. “I might need it to fly the Tooth.”
“You don’t.” Rusk’s baritone sounded out of place next to our soprano voices.
Still she hesitated.
“Don’t you think I might need everything I can get if I’m headed to a new world?”
With a sigh, she took the stone from her hair and handed it to me. I almost smiled as the crackling light within increased in intensity. It felt right to weave it into my hair.
“Don’t disappoint me,” Amandera said with a voice of iron as she left.
Rusk and I watched as she climbed into the Tooth and rather shakily took off and soared away.
“Well that’s a small relief,” Rusk said when her Tooth was nothing but a speck against the horizon. “I didn’t want to tell you before, but you’ll have something more than your san’lelion at your back after all. I noticed a little something while you two were bickering earlier.”
“And what was that?” I asked, with an arched eyebrow.
He took my hand and led me into our Tooth. It looked the same as it had during the battle, but Rusk placed a hand against the back wall, spread his fingers in a certain way and then part of the wall slid away and behind it were racks of clothing and strange, weapon-like items.
“Combat suits and PC-11s,” An’alepp said smugly. “Also, translator units, ration packs, implant devices and skin suit layers.”
“So, you’re saying we have everything we need as long as we can fly a Tooth through a door half the size of one,” I joked to Rusk.
“Well, I think I might have a solution to that, as well,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. “The thing is, one of my ancestors showed up in my dreams last night. You might not believe this, but he had a few things to
say.”
“Oh, trust me. I believe it.”
“I can calibrate that door to a different size and I can fit this Tooth through it.”
I smiled.
“And I can use any of the doors that are here on Everturn. So, I was thinking...”
“You were thinking?” I asked, stepping closer so I could feel his warmth in the air between us. In response, he drew me into his arms, resting his cheek on my hair.
“That maybe you’d like to spend our last night here camping on top of that Rib instead of inside a moldy old ship?”
“The Event Alura is not mouldy!” An’alepp protested.
I held up a hand to silence her and then exited Ra’shara completely. I didn’t want any ancestors here for this. I crossed the last few inches between us so that I was almost nose to nose with Rusk. He smelled good: masculine and entirely himself. I breathed in his scent and then took his waist in my hands. I felt his hands match the movement, encircling my waist, and my heart sped up.
“Now what would make you think a thing like that?” I asked, before I kissed him. We didn’t get around to going anywhere for quite a while.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK IT’S like through there?” I asked.
We’d made a fire near the door and I couldn’t help but look at the door to our destiny every so often. The view of the moon rising over the sea while the long shadows of the great trees clawed across the Rib was breathless, but it wasn’t quite enough to distract me from the looming future.
“Indescribable,” Rusk said lightly, as he traced a design on the back of my hand. I knew he was as worried as I was. There was a tension in his shoulders that hadn’t left all evening, but he was backing me up on this, unwavering in his courage.
“Do you wish you could stay here?” I asked, playing with the tether.
“Not if you’re going through that door,” he said, and as he wrapped me in his arms it felt like he meant it. “Remember, Wild Girl, I want to be daring right along with you. Don’t leap without me.”
Tomorrow we would go through the door. Tomorrow we might live or die. There’d be a whole new world to conquer. But tonight was just for us. I looked into his honey warm eyes, and let the fire I felt for him consume the fear. When he kissed me I believed—if only for that night—that everything would be alright.
Teeth of the Gods Page 24