by J. M. Lee
Kylan helped one of the crew to the ground, pushing a cup of water at him as he coughed dust and sand. Erimon leaped down to meet them.
“Sandmaster Rek’yr! What happened! Where’s Maudra Seethi?”
The Dousan shook his head.
“We were caught by the storm wall. We backed off to the south, hoping it would break, but it never did. While we waited along the southern end, a windsifter came.”
“From Ha’rar?” Naia asked. She looked at Amri.
“Yes. Tragedy has struck. Maudra Seethi left us to heed its call.”
All the warmth drained from Amri’s body, replaced with a cold that he wasn’t sure could be warmed. Rek’yr coughed again and groaned, producing a scroll tied with a piece of silver twine. He passed it to Erimon as proof. Amri waited while he read it, though with a horrible dread, he felt he knew what words would come from the sandmaster’s mouth next.
“The maudra have been summoned to Ha’rar by Princess Seladon,” he said. “All-Maudra Mayrin is dead.”
CHAPTER 20
Amri felt like he must have misheard. Erimon passed the parchment to Kylan, who read it again. Amri didn’t need to read it. He didn’t want to. It wouldn’t explain how or why or who had done it. Just that it had happened. He reached up to see if Tavra was still on his shoulder. She was where she’d been since they’d leaped into the lake, but she said nothing. None of them did, until Amri couldn’t take it any longer.
“Do you think it’s because of what she said in the dream-space?” he whispered. “Because she vowed to resist the Skeksis?”
Kylan crossed his arms, quietly twisting his ears back. He didn’t show when he was upset like Naia did, but Amri was beginning to learn the Spriton boy’s body language, and right now upset was putting it mildly.
“She said she lit the fire,” the song teller said. “But when we lit the Dousan fire, we saw Ethri and Tae. The Sifa story was dream-etched onto the cloister wall . . . but we didn’t see anything about the Vapra of Ha’rar. If these fires of resistance have to do with uniting the Gelfling and sharing the song that we are all telling—and if All-Maudra Mayrin truly had lit the Vapra fire—we should have seen it. No, this is not right. Not right at all.”
“You think she didn’t light the fire after all?” Naia asked.
“Maybe she thought she had,” Onica said solemnly. “Maybe she died trying.”
They had no proof except the feeling in their hearts. Amri didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t deny it either: The Vapra fire had never been lit.
Amri shuddered. If the Vapra hadn’t been united, and the All-Maudra was no longer there to lead them—and not only that, but if she’d been killed for rising against the Skeksis—there was only one path before Amri and his friends. They were going to Ha’rar after all.
Erimon knew it, too.
“You can take Tappa,” he said. He turned and blew his horn, shouting orders for his crew to prepare the Skimmer. Despite nearly being obliterated in the storm, the Dousan heeded his call.
“How long will it take to reach Ha’rar by Crystal Skimmer?” Naia asked.
“Tappa’s the fastest in Erimon’s xeric. She could make it to the mountains in a couple days, if we leave before the sands rise,” Periss said. “Especially with Erimon in command.”
“I trust you’ll halve my time, then, my brother.”
Periss coughed when Erimon pushed the command horn into his arms.
“Wait, what?”
“I must stay here. With Maudra Seethi on her way to Ha’rar, it falls to the sandmasters to lead the Dousan and to orchestrate our . . . resistance.” Here he looked to Amri, Naia, and Kylan. “Now that the storm has broken, the xerics will continue to arrive. I will tell them the song of what has happened here. And when the time comes, we will heed the signal of the flames. We will join the fight against the Skeksis.”
“We still don’t know what that signal will be,” Naia said.
Erimon bowed. “We can never fully predict what form a sign will take. We only know it when we see it, or hear it, or sense it some other way. But I have faith in Thra, and in you. I will see to it the Dousan do not forsake the gifts we have been given. Not as we have in the past, nor ever again.”
The crew shouted their readies from Tappa’s back. Erimon wrapped his brother in a firm embrace.
“Deliver them to Ha’rar. Then return to us safely, brother.”
Tappa had been fast in the storm, but she was even faster in open air and relieved from all the supplies she had carried for Erimon’s crew. Unladen, she flew across the desert so quickly, Amri could barely see the glittering of the crystal sands; it was all a blur, a shine, and in some places, a wash of rainbows as the suns rose.
It was beautiful, but Amri struggled to enjoy it. While Kylan and Onica helped Periss maintain the auxiliary sails, Amri watched Naia pace.
“I really thought the All-Maudra had lit the fire,” he said after he’d watched her cross the deck at least ninety times. “After what she said in the dream-space. She sounded so sure.”
“How could this happen?” Naia asked. “How could she fail?”
“The Skeksis must have found out.” It was the first thing Tavra had said since they’d received the news. She stood on the rail of Tappa’s deck platform. “But there’s no point making guesses out here. We must go to Ha’rar and reach someone who can tell us what happened. No more Far-Dreams or riddles from Thra. I want answers.”
“How are you taking this?” Amri asked. Tried to keep it soft, to let her know he was asking her feelings and not her political opinion. She was hesitant in answering.
“I am worried for my sisters. I am worried for my people.”
“Do you think Brea and Seladon are in danger?” Amri had no idea how the All-Maudra’s death had come about, much less how the two Vapra princesses would react to the tragedy. After seeing them fighting in Onica’s Far-Dream, he could only guess.
“They may be,” Tavra said.
“Seladon will take care of Brea,” he told her. He wanted it to sound reassuring but didn’t actually know if that was true. He had no sisters himself, but older ones were supposed to look after younger ones, wasn’t that right? At least, that was what Tavra and Naia had proven to him.
Tavra was quiet a long time, unmoving. She curled one leg in.
“I don’t know that she will,” she said. “That is my greatest fear. My mother put her duties first and her daughters second. It was difficult to find ways to earn her love. Because of our station. But we tried. For me, that meant becoming a soldier. For Brea, becoming a scholar. For Seladon, it meant becoming All-Maudra one day . . . but the pressure was often too much. She is not ready, and I fear the Skeksis know that.”
“You should be All-Maudra,” Naia said suddenly.
The idea brought a strange fantasy to life. Tavra, in her Gelfling body. Sword in hand, draped in the silver cloaks with the living crown on her brow. She had traveled farther than any of them, knew more of the state of the world. Knew the Skeksis all by name, knew how the All-Maudra was expected to behave. Had the respect of her clan as a Vapra princess, but knew firsthand the hardships that had befallen the Gelfling who were so unlucky to find themselves in the Skeksis’ crushing grasp.
If there was ever a leader the Gelfling could look to, Amri realized, it was Tavra. Tavra, who was locked in the body of a spider, whose voice could barely be heard even by those who knew enough to listen.
“That is impossible,” Tavra said. She slipped below the rail and disappeared into Kylan’s traveling pack.
True to Erimon’s estimation, by the time evening descended, Tappa had taken them nearly all the way across the desert. Amri traced their path on one of Kylan’s maps, finding the place where they’d cut through the mountains on the sand river from Cera-Na. From the land formations he could see, he found their course cut
ting along the inner bowl of the mountains, heading northeast.
“Is there another sand river that leads to Ha’rar?” he asked Periss as the sky darkened.
“Yes. I think we’ll reach the snows by tomorrow at midnight. See the Waystar light?”
Periss pointed to the bright light peeking over the ridge of mountains. Amri remembered what Tavra had said about the light. That it was a grove of star trees, guiding travelers to Ha’rar as the seafarer’s lanterns did. As they sped over the sands, drawing closer every moment to the mountains, the light shined brighter, white with a halo of blue. As he gazed upon it, Amri felt a strange, but welcome, sense of direction. As if just having a guide made the journey less daunting. Perhaps that was why the Vapra looked to the Waystar in times of need.
He wondered if someone tended the Waystar grove as someone tended the lanterns. Maybe the same someone. Someone out there, making sure travelers found their way. Making sure they had hope.
“Can Tappa travel in the cold?” he asked.
Tappa burbled with a high-pitched trill. Periss shook his head.
“I’ll leave you at the frost line,” he said. “But from there it will only be a short trek into the city . . . And anyway, if you enter on foot, you’re less likely to be seen or noticed by the Skeksis, if they really have taken the city.”
“How do you . . . Oh. Right. Thief.”
“Your girlfriend is really something else,” Periss said. He nodded at Naia, who was sitting up on Tappa’s head, where the prow would be if the Skimmer were a ship. Her wings caught the wind like sails, though the air was growing less dry as they began their distant approach into the mountain region. “You really think you can light a fire with the Vapra?”
“I don’t know if we can, but we have to try,” Amri said. He tried not to let Periss’s observation turn into doubt. Then he coughed, cheeks burning. “And she’s not my girlfriend . . .”
“Have you dreamfasted together?”
Amri’s ears went flat at the forward question. Of course he’d dreamfasted with Naia, but only to share memories that they’d needed to share, so the truth of the Skeksis and the message they carried would not be forgotten. But there were other memories, ones more secret and intimate. Private hopes and fears. Memories he had all to himself, beautiful things he’d seen when he’d been alone. Dreams he’d had, and nightmares.
Amri had always hoped one day to find someone to share those memories with. Someone he trusted enough and who trusted him to truly dreamfast. To share everything. It had never occurred to him that someone might be Naia. Until now, and only thanks to a wily Dousan thief. Periss grinned ear to ear, as if making Amri blush from embarrassment was his new favorite game.
“No. Not that way,” he mumbled.
“Do you want to?” Periss asked.
“I want to change the subject.”
The grin faded, and the Dousan looked north, toward the Waystar. The tattoos across his face shimmered under the moons and stars, growing serious as he contemplated the task ahead of Amri and his friends.
“Ha’rar is a big city,” he said.
Amri nodded and replied, “Then it will have to be a big fire.”
They slept and traveled another full day before reaching the edge of the mountains. Amri practiced his sword stances, parries and thrusts. Imagined striking down Skeksis after Skeksis as he charged into a citadel swarming with darkened beasts. It felt heroic in his mind, that part—the charge, the thought that he could single-handedly defeat the monsters that might have taken the shining city—but in the end, even in his fantasies, when he finally reached the throne, the All-Maudra was already dead.
No matter how quickly they arrived in Ha’rar, no matter how heroic they could be. No matter how much like a daylighter he became. No matter how many fires were lit and no matter how many Skeksis they might defeat, this one ending was already wrought. Their victories so far, and any that would come in the future, would always carry the weight of the tragedy.
They reached the mountains as the second night fell. Tappa had no night vision, but as she swam into the mountains, her trills turned soft and high-pitched, so high that even Amri could hardly hear them. The sounds bounced off the rock and mountains, even below the sand, guiding the Skimmer into a narrow pass. Her pace slowed as she found the sand river and glided against the current and upward. It would have been impossible to do it in a skiff, but the Skimmer’s fins hovered just above the sands, coasting on the hot air that rose as the cold air poured down from the mountains.
Periss blew on the horn when frost appeared on the trees and rocks. Tappa lifted off the sand river and grounded herself on a rock. Her skin had changed from a deep gold to a pale yellow, her hide trembling from the cold.
“This is where we part ways,” Periss said as they gathered on the deck, dressing in their cloaks and hoods as the cold air came down from the silver mountains. Naia clasped hands with the Dousan.
“Thank you,” she said. “Safe travels back to the Wellspring. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
“Be careful. With the All-Maudra dead . . .” He didn’t finish. Instead, he took a string of jewels, tangled with metal bangles, from his pouch and handed them over. “These are Sifa’s pretties. Now we’re even.”
They said the rest of their goodbyes, then stood on the frosted rocks and watched until Tappa’s silhouette was swallowed by the shadows. Amri took a big breath of the calm air, listened to the rushing of wind in the trees. Here, the land was untouched by the darkness that was spreading. Amri wondered if the trees and rocks and the river of sand knew or cared that the All-Maudra had been killed. He had no idea what could have transpired in the time between the All-Maudra’s death and now. He tried to absorb the last moments of peace, hoping they weren’t too late.
“All right,” Naia said after a moment. “Let’s go.”
The hike up the mountain was familiar, a steep and snow-covered slope bordered on either side by sheer, straight, crystalline cliffs. It was harder going than the path they’d followed when they’d first trekked to the coast to meet Onica. Steeper and colder, growing brighter as they followed the Waystar’s distant light.
When they reached the top of the climb, their heads coming over the cliffs as if they were breaking the surface of a frozen pond, Amri stared.
A gateway rose from the gray and white rocks, like the entrance into the sky itself: two stone posts with magnificent open doors of swooping silver in the shape of wings. Amri touched the cold, shining metal. His fingers stuck for an instant where they rested, tickling with frost before it melted from the warmth of his hand.
They passed through the gates in silence, following the path as it changed from natural dirt to carved steps, and finally into a flat-stone path. They mounted the hill, and Amri beheld the crystalline, snow-coated city he had only seen in dreamfast.
They had finally made it to Ha’rar.
Like the crystals in a broken geode, the city of Ha’rar glittered in the protective shell of the mountains, covered in snow and glowing with moon- and starlight. At the far edge of the city, a majestic building stood with its back to the wide Silver Sea. It looked like an icicle, or one of the many crystal stalagmites in Domrak and the Caves of Grot. Every elaborately sculpted feature refracted the light of the moons and the Waystar, sending night rainbows across the city.
It was beautiful, but eerily silent and ominously dark.
“The lamps should be lit, shouldn’t they?” Kylan asked, whispering intuitively. The streets were so barren and silent that even a soft voice would have carried to dangerous ears. “Where is everyone?”
Without the lamps and seafarer’s lanterns lit, Ha’rar felt as cold as the wintry wood that waited in darkness beyond the gates. Amri’s reflection warped and rippled off the stone and ice buildings, and wind blew dry snow across the motherstone pathways. The ice crystals sounded like the ski
ttering of thousands of tiny feet.
“We cannot guess.” Tavra had returned to Amri’s shoulder, the air so still, they could all hear her foreboding words. “We must make our way to the citadel and find out what’s happened. And above all else, if we encounter Skeksis, we must not be caught.”
The path to the citadel was straightforward, though it seemed wrong to charge down the main road like an attacker on a castle. Instead, Tavra took them along the side paths, through alleys and under shadowy eaves drooping with snow. As they neared the citadel, Amri felt a trembling muffled by the soles of his sandals.
“Wait—”
The four of them ducked out of view just as heavy footsteps thundered down the street in wide, heavy strides.
“Oh no,” Amri whispered.
Skeksis. Two of them, passing by on the street just in front of them. One wore broad-shouldered, black-scaled armor, covering his spiny back like the carapace of an armalig. Gray hair—or was it fur?—grew across his blunt forehead and cheeks, casting a hazy shadow upon his scowling lips and piercing yellow eyes. The other stood straighter in his crimson and black robes, armored and adorned in shining gold chains. He seemed taller yet, thanks to the fleshy spike that protruded from the top of his head like a horn.
“skekUng and skekZok,” Tavra whispered. “The General and the Ritual Master.”
The General. The one whose name skekLi had invoked as he’d challenged them in the Grottan Sanctuary. Even as they’d defeated him, though he and his minions had left Domrak and the Grottan clan in ruins. And the Ritual Master, who had told skekSa about Naia and Gurjin.
Wait to see what skekUng is making, he’d said. The spiders were only a prologue.
The two Skeksis paused, and Amri held his breath. Had they been heard?
“Did you hear something?” skekUng asked, squinting into the alley but seeing nothing. For once, the darkness was on their side.
“Probably just some stupid Vapra childling,” rumbled Lord skekZok. “Ignore it. Focus on finishing our task and getting out of this stinking Silverling nest.”