Asha was silent as she processed what Erran was saying. “You mean you didn’t take us to the right spot?”
Erran hesitated, then slowly shook his head.
“No,” he said softly. “I mean that I think it’s gone.”
Erran and Asha walked in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
Asha occasionally cast a glance to her left at the Boundary, wondering again whether Davian had somehow found himself stuck behind it. Erran had repeatedly insisted that Davian and the other two would be all right, but he’d had no real reasoning to back up his confidence. Davian had last been heading for the Boundary. There had been a door, and now there wasn’t one, and Davian and the others were missing.
Even if it was coincidence, it was too big a one for Asha to simply ignore.
“The Administrators have given up,” Erran observed suddenly, breaking her from her reverie.
Asha looked over her shoulder, seeing only an empty, lifeless expanse behind them. For a while the Administrators had done their best to catch up to them, but Erran had continued using occasional bursts of speed to put more distance between them. Evidently it had been enough to convince Galadra’s lackeys of the pointlessness of their pursuit.
“That’s something, at least.” The Administrators had hardly been a threat, but Asha hadn’t wanted to lead them to where she and Erran were heading now, either.
She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating, shivering a little at the sensation of so much power being so easily within reach. It had been a little like that ever since Deilannis, but after last night, everything … tingled whenever she focused, so much Essence now available that it was almost harder in any single moment not to use it. She wasn’t even tired, despite not sleeping—instead she felt sharper, able to see farther, sense more than she ever had before.
She had no doubt that Caeden had managed to bind the Lyth to the Siphon. Which also, much to her discomfort, meant that there was no longer anything stopping her from activating the Tributary.
They’d been walking for a couple of hours now, following Asha’s sense of where the Shadows were, angling very slightly away from the Boundary but still in the flat, desolate valley that lay between it and the towering cliffs to their right. Erran had insisted on coming with her after she had decided that it was time to find the Tributary, and Asha was grateful for the company.
Besides, she could hardly blame him. She’d never asked specifics about Erran’s time Controlling Elocien—how much had been entirely Erran, how much had been merely his influence—but she couldn’t imagine that his relationship with Geladra was anything but awkward.
Asha suddenly paused, inhaling deeply through her nose.
“Salt,” said Erran absently. “I think we’re near the ocean.”
Asha glanced at him in surprise. Her geography was rough at best, but she’d thought that they were farther away from the coast than that.
“We’re nearly to wherever the Shadows are hiding, anyway,” she observed.
The air continued to cool despite the heat of the late afternoon sun, and soon Asha could easily identify the westerly sea breeze. She drew in a few deep breaths, closing her eyes for a moment as she walked. She hadn’t breathed air like this since Caladel.
Before long she realized that the cliffs to her right were gradually sloping away. In the distance there was the shimmer of blue and she could hear the call of gulls, even spot the small black dots gliding in circles. After a few more minutes there was the gentle sound of waves crashing against the shore and the hard-packed dirt underfoot turned to shale, then gradually gave way to soft white sand.
They were at the ocean.
Asha stared at the Boundary in fascination as it continued seamlessly from shore to sea, plunging into the water. It didn’t seem to form a physical barrier to the waves, though, which passed through it rather than crashing against its side. The low thrum that Asha had grown accustomed to was even louder here, and there were periodic blue-green flashes of energy from deep beneath the water, made more obvious by the sun sinking below the horizon behind them.
As they trudged through the sand toward the waterline, Asha felt her brow furrow. The Shadows were closer than ever … she could all but see them … and yet, her sense of them said that they were still eastward.
Somewhere out to sea.
“So …?” Erran had slowed, realizing that their path was leading directly toward the water. There were the ruins of what appeared to be a dock ahead, the pier itself gone but two stone pillars still jutting out of the sand. No boats, though, and nothing else of note.
Asha shook her head, squinting, trying to see if there were any signs of land a little farther out. She couldn’t see anything, though. The Boundary pulsed and crackled as it cut through the water, concealing Talan Gol beyond but presumably following the coastline as it stretched away. To the right there was an empty expanse of beach, and off to the southeast, Asha could see the distant shape of land on the horizon where the coast curved back around. But the Shadows weren’t in that direction.
She scowled as she reached the water’s edge, pulling off her boots as Erran watched in bemusement. Then she took a few steps into the ice-cold water, peering eastward.
Nothing. Despite dusk quickly turning to night, visibility was all but perfect—and all it showed her was a blue, flat horizon.
“They’re here,” she said in frustration, gesturing out at the waves. “I can feel them, Erran. We should be able to see them.”
“Oh.” The uncertainty in Erran’s voice was clear—it was irritating, but Asha could hardly blame him. “How … how sure are you?”
Asha closed her eyes and pointed. “There. A group of Shadows, the biggest that I can sense by far.” There was another group to the southwest—the ones still in Ilin Illan, she suspected—and others scattered around the country. But this, this, was where Nethgalla had intended her to go. She was sure of it.
She opened her eyes again, trying to gauge the distance. It was perhaps a thousand feet from where they were standing, not too far from the Boundary itself, though clearly on this side of it.
Erran peered in the direction that she’d indicated, still looking dubious. Then he grunted.
“Wait. You’re right. There is something out there,” he said slowly. “I think … I think it’s been hidden by kan. I wouldn’t ever have noticed it if you hadn’t told me where to look; it’s close enough to the Boundary that it just looks like part of it. But … it is different from everything else around it.” His frown deepened. “It’s a long way out, though.”
Asha hesitated, then unfastened her cloak.
Erran blinked. “Um …” He quickly turned away as Asha began unbuttoning her shirt. “What are you doing?”
“Swimming.” Asha was a strong swimmer, and had spent plenty of time in the sea at Caladel. She grinned at Erran. “Don’t worry. I’m not taking it all off.” She hesitated. “Are you coming?”
Erran barked a laugh. “No. Nooo. Not my thing.” He shook his head firmly, looking mistrustfully at the waves. Then he frowned, stepping up to one of the pillars nearby and squinting at it. “Just … wait for a moment though. You may not need to swim.”
Asha paused. “What do you mean?”
“There’s something here. A kan mechanism. Something that can be activated.”
Asha swallowed. “Maybe just make sure that you know what it does before—”
A line of cobalt light bloomed in the water, accompanied by a sharp whining sound that made both Asha and Erran immediately cover their ears. Gulls from the distant cliffs took flight in the opposite direction and Erran staggered back, eyes refracting the cold, shimmering blue in the encroaching darkness.
The sound stopped and for a moment there was nothing but silence.
Then there was a crash as a torrent of water spouted into the air along the line of luminescence, flicking highlighted spray high into the atmosphere. Asha danced backward as waves crashed against the shore, dr
enching her to her waist and nearly knocking her off her feet. She barely managed to avoid being dragged off-balance by the undertow.
When she finally regained her footing enough to take in what had happened, she drew a sharp breath.
In the weak light of dusk, a glimmering pathway of smooth steel now jutted from the beach, stretching out as far as she could see over the water. It appeared to be made up of multiple plates joined together, each one faintly outlined by the glowing blue Essence that held it in place, though Asha had no idea how the path as a whole maintained its position. Despite it appearing to be solid and secure, it was connected only to the first pair of pillars; otherwise, it hovered a good couple of feet above the level of the water.
“Fates,” muttered Erran, stunned. He turned to Asha, shrugging sheepishly.
Asha didn’t respond, squinting at the glimmering pathway for a moment longer. It was clearly made of metal, yet it had emerged from underwater. It should be rusted, or at least discolored. Instead, it shone like a newly forged blade.
She approached it cautiously as she refastened the buttons on her shirt, then hesitantly put a foot onto the first plate.
It gave slightly beneath her weight and she flinched back, half expecting the bridge to collapse violently back into the water. The plate didn’t fall, though; she exhaled and tried again, trusting her full weight to it this time. There was a strange, springy give to the metal, as if it were resting on a cloud of air—but it held.
She turned to issue a small, relieved smile at Erran. “It doesn’t look like we’ll have to swim after all,” she observed cheerfully.
Erran eyed the bridge mistrustfully. “Maybe.”
Asha rolled her eyes at him. “If that happens, I’ll save you,” she said drily. “I promise.”
Erran snorted, but he eventually sighed and nodded. “I suppose we’ve come this far.”
He cautiously stepped up beside her—grimacing in anticipation as he took his first step, though nothing untoward happened—and then they slowly started walking along the suspended metallic platform.
They made the journey in nervous silence, proceeding away from the beach for perhaps ten minutes, though it would have taken much less time had Erran not been so intent on keeping his balance. Asha couldn’t blame him too much, though. As soon as they were away from the shore the wind picked up, whipping spray into their faces and causing the waves below to swell dangerously high. The white-tipped crests threatened to seep over the edges of the pathway at times, but thankfully the water appeared to evaporate just before it struck steel. The ground underfoot, Asha was pleased to find, was also surprisingly firm, with none of the expected slipperiness that she had been worried about.
Just as Asha was beginning to wonder if the bridge actually had an end, something up ahead began to shimmer.
“Erran.” When the young man behind her didn’t respond, eyes still firmly fixed on the path underfoot, she sighed. “Erran.”
“What?”
“Do you see that?” Asha wiped spray from her face, wind whipping her hair, the thrum of the Boundary still unsettlingly loud in her ears. Where there had been open space a minute ago, now there was … something. A dark shape, a shadow.
“I see it.” Erran’s tone was troubled. “We’re headed straight for it.”
They pressed on. The dark blobs up ahead gradually became solid, turning into rocks and beyond them, scattered trees.
A shore.
After another minute they were cautiously, disbelievingly stepping off the metal plates—between two pillars that looked identical to the ones on the mainland—and onto sand.
“There’s an entire island here.” Erran’s tone was awed. “Hidden by kan.”
He wasn’t exaggerating, Asha realized as she looked around. This wasn’t simply a small sand dune with a few trees. The beach stretched on, level with the Boundary, for as far as she could see. The forest was thick, and in the distance she spotted what looked very much like a mountain rising out of the late evening skyline.
There was a sudden crash behind them. Asha turned to see the metallic bridge beginning to dismantle, then plunge back into the ocean with the same whining sound that had accompanied its emergence.
Erran watched the scene worriedly, then hurried over to the nearest pillar. After closing his eyes and placing his hand against it for a moment, he breathed out.
“It’s the same as the one on the other shore,” he said. “We should be able to get back.”
Asha gave him a relieved nod, then turned to examine the rest of the beach. There were no structures beyond those two pillars, no signs of life at all. Just the constant, eerie glow of the Boundary reflected in the swell of the waves.
She focused for a few moments, then gestured to Erran.
“The Shadows are this way,” she said, pointing inland.
Erran nodded and followed her without complaint. They picked their way through the thick-treed forest mostly in silence, the increasingly distant ocean and their breaking of the undergrowth the only sounds. Night had properly fallen now; though the near-full moon had been quick to rise, Asha still found herself tripping over branches and unearthed roots. She vacillated for a few minutes but eventually tapped Essence, sending a tiny ball of light ahead of them.
“Is that wise?” murmured Erran.
Asha shrugged. “Better than breaking an ankle.”
She frowned as they pushed on, noting strange patches of black-scarred foliage that had previously been hidden by the darkness. It was as if a fire had been lit among the trees in several different places, but had been extinguished again before it could do too much damage. She brushed her hand again a charred trunk, her fingers coming away dirty with soot.
She shook her head at the sight but moved on, toward what she suspected was the center of the island. The mountain that she had spotted from the beach was beginning to loom on the horizon, outlined by moonlight now. If they kept on in this direction, it wouldn’t be long before they reached its base.
“Buildings,” said Erran suddenly, voice low as he nodded toward moonlit stone rooftops visible through the trees up ahead. “Are we close?”
“Very.” Asha turned her head to the side slightly. “They seem to be—”
There was a flicker of light from close to one of the structures and on instinct Asha dove at Erran, tackling him to the ground.
A moment later a thin, searing blast of red fire ripped through the trees at head height, instantly turning the peaceful forest into a crashing, roaring inferno. Trees collapsed around them from where the blast had shorn through their trunks; Asha rolled to the side as a thick burning branch hit the ground where she’d been a moment before.
She tapped her Reserve, for the first time not trying to limit the Essence that she drew.
A startlingly thick dome of energy sprang into existence around them, disintegrating more burning branches as they fell on it, the cocoon instantly lessening the intense heat. Asha grimaced as she looked across at Erran, seeing minor burns on his face even as she realized that her own arms had blistered, too. She drew a little more Essence, quickly healing the both of them, relieved that the heart-pounding rush of reacting to the ambush had mitigated most of the pain.
She glanced down as the angry skin on her arms smoothed and paled once again, heart sinking as she registered the black symbol forming on her left wrist. She’d managed to avoid taking too much from her Reserve since Deilannis, but there was no point in holding back anymore. Her Mark had returned.
Erran groaned, shaking his head vigorously and then levering himself up onto one elbow, staring wide-eyed at the inferno surrounding them. “Thanks.” He gestured at some burning wood that had made it inside of Asha’s dome, and the flames vanished.
Bolts of pure Essence were raining down on Asha’s shield now. She scowled.
“It’s the Shadows. They’re using their Vessels,” she said in frustration.
Erran grunted, squinting uncomfortably out at the carnage o
f the burning, flashing forest. “Any way that we can maybe ask them to stop?”
Asha took a deep breath, ignoring the distraction of the explosions around her and focused. She could feel the Shadows nearby—in fact she could actually see the dark, vague outlines crouching behind cover as they tried to rain down fire and destruction upon Asha and Erran. Within those outlines she could sense Essence, individual and bright. Connected to her.
She concentrated, then drained them until each figure had only a tiny amount left.
The forest fell eerily silent.
With a quick warning nod to Erran, Asha dropped her shield. The Augur closed his eyes; a moment later the crackling of burning wood vanished, the fires around them extinguished, replaced only by drifting trails of smoke in the moonlight, and the occasional crash as a weakened branch finally made its way to the ground.
Asha held her sleeve to her mouth, coughing amid the thick smoke.
“I’m not here to harm you,” she yelled into the forest. She hesitated, then sighed. “The Shadraehin sent us.”
There was no response, so she and Erran walked cautiously forward, Erran careful to suck the heat from the scorched ground ahead.
Eventually, there was a flicker of movement amid the gray stone buildings.
“Stay where you are!”
Asha cocked her head to the side. The voice was vaguely familiar.
“Shana?” She’d met the woman what seemed like forever ago, when she had first visited the Sanctuary back in Ilin Illan.
There was a startled pause and then the brown-haired young woman emerged, holding what was evidently a Vessel in front of her threateningly. Asha wasn’t too concerned; Shana, along with the rest of the Shadows hiding nearby, no longer had enough Essence to attack them.
Shana frowned at Asha and Erran for a long few moments, and then her eyes widened.
“You?” She gazed at Asha’s face in confusion. “But … you’re …”
Asha gave her a weary smile.
“Stop trying to kill us for a moment, and I’ll explain everything,” she said tiredly.
An Echo of Things to Come Page 67