Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  The bottom fell out from under their gondola and Marielle screamed.

  Her scream seemed to go on forever and then the boat struck the water below and she thought they were going to capsize as they rolled completely underwater, and then all the way back into the air again.

  She choked on water and then gasped fresh air. They were still moving - quickly. She could feel the air as it dried her face. She was soaking wet, the boat was filled with water at least four inches deep from what she was feeling, and they were still in the dark.

  “Marielle?” Jhinn called.

  She was trying to scent for anything she could find but a sudden blast of magic scent hit her, driving all scents of minerals or water from her mind. Magic – rich and pure and powerful smelling of lilac filling her vision with turquoise and gold sparks – was everywhere. The scent, as addictive as ever, blinded her to everything else as she drew it in, in, in.

  “Marielle!” he sounded panicked.

  “Here. I’m here,” she gasped, barely able to get the words out before another blast of the potent scent hit her again. She didn’t have a scarf to wind around her face and she didn’t think she could take anymore. It was too much. Too much. And she wanted more.

  “Try to bail with your hands if you can, Marielle. I think the ceiling is higher. I can’t feel it.”

  “Yes,” she agreed breathlessly. A task. She needed to do this task.

  She began to bail – feeling useless as her hands barely held enough water with every scoop to do anything at all but better this than simply sinking into senselessness at the overwhelming scent of that magic.

  “I wonder where we are.”

  “I wonder when we’ll stop,” Jhinn said more dryly.

  Rajit moaned and Marielle remembered that he was unconscious.

  “Can he breathe?”

  “I have him propped above the water. But I can’t tell if there is a hole in the boat. We need to bail, or he will certainly drown and us with him.”

  She agreed, working faster to try to help, though it didn’t seem to lower the water level at all.

  Long minutes passed and then Jhinn asked, “Do you see a faint light?”

  “Yes.” But it wasn’t bright enough to be more than a trick of her imagination and she couldn’t smell anything but magic here. Nothing at all. It was like being doubly blind. She could barely smell Jhinn’s desperation and he was right beside her.

  And then words flooded the cavern, echoing slightly but still there.

  “It says, ‘Read this.’”

  “Tamerlan?” she gasped.

  But there was no response. He couldn’t hear her.

  “I think he’s out there somewhere but the sound must be echoing through the cavern,” Jhinn said. They were slowing down. There was less of a tug on her hands when she accidentally hit the water as she bailed.

  “These are the Chronicles of the Dragonblooded in their city of Vale Hylinthia in the mountains of Meridew. I am the last of the living in Vale Hylinthia. I grow weak. And so, it befalls me to tell the tale of the Dragonblooded and how we lost our lives and cities to the dragons of the stars. I tell this tale for those who may come after. I tell this tale to warn you. May you choose wisely when the dragons wake again. May you choose life and not death, freedom and not captivity, sacrifice and not selfishness.”

  “He’s reading it,” Marielle gasped.

  “There’s something different about the water, Marielle,” Jhinn whispered hurriedly as Tamerlan paused for breath.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m struggling to explain.”

  “Is it still water?”

  “Yes, yes of course but it’s like the difference between saltwater and freshwater, only more so. More intense. Can you smell it?”

  “All I smell is magic,” Marielle replied. And it was true. She tried to pick out the water, but that was only magic, too. “Maybe don’t drink it.”

  She tried to fill her hands, absently, but the water at the bottom of the boat was all but gone now. They weren’t going to sink. Not yet.

  “I’m just going to wet a cloth with it to soothe Rajit. He’s burning up.”

  She didn’t get a chance to reply because Tamerlan was speaking again, his voice filling the space.

  “It was in the reign of King Ixtathres that we became most enchanted with magic,” Tamerlan read. “Always a tool, it now became an obsession. We created great things. Beautiful things of art and power. Gardens of flowers sung to life. Music that made things flourish. Art that came alive and lived with us. Jewelry with great power – the power to take sight – or give it back. The power to bind a soul – or loose it. We reveled in our creativity. There was no end to what we could make, what we could enjoy, what we could love.”

  “Jhinn?” Marielle whispered as Tamerlan paused for breath. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  In the distance, she thought she saw a glowing crescent moon.

  24: When Fate We Call

  Tamerlan

  “In the final year of the reign of King Ixtathres – the city of Vale Hylinthia touched the stars,” Tamerlan read. The lantern lit his pages, but he couldn’t help but feel cold as he read.

  Etienne climbed down the smooth lip of the dragon’s tail on which the platform was built. He was walking now on the edge of the city, inspecting the people who stood in rows.

  “They’re like statues!” he called when Tamerlan paused for breath. “Perfect, cleverly detailed statues! Their skin is stone. Their clothing like stalagmites.”

  Tamerlan kept reading. “And so, we sought a way to the stars ourselves, a way to touch the power of the heavens, to travel the waters between the planes. And we found life there. For life is water and water is life, and the life we found was magic so much greater than ours that ours was only an echo of it.

  “Our mages worked day and night, funded by the King, racing to find a way to carve out a path from the space between the worlds, the waters between the universes, and to navigate it. We would be Legends. Gods among men. We would bridge the gap between man and the heavens – no – we would sail it. We would be free to go where we wanted, floating on the water of life.”

  This sounded like something Jhinn would love – like something, perhaps, that his people would relate to.

  “There are tens of thousands of them!” Etienne called up. “I swear, I can almost feel them breathing.”

  Tamerlan shivered and turned the page.

  “And so, we found the rhythm of the universe and we echoed it with the shell instruments we had carved for ourselves. We filled them up to use for the generations to come. And the final, greatest one, we turned back on the waters of life and we carved a great portal for ourselves and rejoiced as the waters of life flooded the canals of our city and danced down the mountains like wine from an overflowing goblet.”

  Tamerlan looked up at the crescent moon, pouring water and shuddered again. That was it, wasn’t it? The portal they had carved. The way between worlds.

  “But we had not considered the dragons.”

  He turned another page.

  “I could spend all day here looking at these people,” Etienne marveled. “Their clothing! Their gems! Tamerlan, it’s right out of history!”

  What do you think my men filled their pockets with when we fled this place? Were they not full of necklaces, bracers, and crowns? Did they not trip and fall over their own riches? It took money to fund my hunt. It took money to bring down the last of their kind.

  Tamerlan swallowed down a burst of fear. He was standing in the largest tomb the world knew. The tomb of an entire city. Children had played here, and people had grown and lived and toiled and loved and then turned to stone forever here. Deep respect was owed to them, and deep fear. For whatever could turn this great city to stone and dust could turn all the world to the same.

  He cleared his throat and read more.

  “They came in a flood – the smallest of them the size of our city – poured into ou
r mountain range like fish from a barrel shipped up from the south. We did not know how to stop them or what to do. Our magic was the magic of blood. And blood was the only way. We gave ours to imprison them. First, just one person made a Legend forever – suspended in the time that is not time between the dimensions. But one was not enough. Her hold was only temporary. And then her death was nothing because the dragon rose again.”

  Below him, Etienne had grown silent, though Tamerlan saw him still walking down the long portal-lit street.

  “The dragons tried to turn us, invading our minds, twisting our thoughts. They turned those they touched mad with fear of the land and these clung to the water claiming it was life itself and none could move them from it. For they said that when the dragons left back through the portal, they would go with them. And we pled with them to take the dragons and go. To stop torching our farms and villages, stop feasting on our fleeing people. But as many of our people fled to the plains, the people of the water told us that they could not go. For the dragons could not open the portal wide enough again without our help and could not close the portal again unless all their kind left together. And already one of them had snuck away and could not be found.”

  “In fear, we acted in haste. I, Dystanler Quarenspear was Lord Mythos of the City and keeper of the Mage Houses at that time. And so, I gathered together every mage from great to small and together we spoke to the King and in great turmoil, he made his choice. We sent all those out of the city who could be made to go. But those of us who ruled. Those who had the great blood running pure in our veins – those who had called to fate and tempted chance and opened the portal and brought the dragons – it was we, and our children, who chose to atone for our sin.

  “And in that night, we made the entire population of our city a blood sacrifice and we banished the souls of our people to the neverlands where there is no Bridge back to this world. It was the price we paid to trap the dragons forever. Because if any of our people were to find the bridge and cross again the spell would be broken, and the dragons loosed, and all of this would be for naught.

  “One by one, my mages fell until it was only I, Dystanler Quarenspear, left blowing into the shell and echoing the magic that felled the dragons and sealed them around our great city. Their bodies formed greater mountains and deeper caverns. Their hardened scales blocked the sun from what had once been the city of the stars.

  “And I was the only one left to see what we had wrought in our haste.”

  Etienne was returning now, moving quickly through the street, a lantern in his hand. The lantern flickered with turquoise fire – as if lit by magic. Did Etienne have his magic back?

  Tamerlan turned back to the page. He could see why Ram knew from this that he must quell the dragons. And he could see a bit of how he knew what to do, but was there more? Because there weren’t any specifics on the exact way to make a person into a living avatar.

  “When I realized what we had done, I walked through the city. Not everyone had been used to bind the dragons. Only those on the land. Those on the water remained, but they would not speak to me, claiming I was a dead man and no longer living. They fled the city by means of the river but I carved my own way out to the mountains high above and I formed a bridge to cross a chasm and tuned it to the blood of my people. And while I made the bridge a horrible sight came to my eyes – a dragon, still flying, still alive. We had missed some. I know not how many.

  “And so, I returned to my city and I have penned this tome. To any who follows, I leave the tools we used to bind the dragons and this ledger to guide them. I will go from here and search for any I may stop, but my strength is weak and my magic fades when I cross the bridge into the mountains. I may not survive the journey.

  “I plead with you, if you are reading this. Stop the dragons. Bind them to the earth. Do not let them destroy the world. They killed us by the hundreds. They drank our magic until only the echoes were left. They destroyed our nation, our people, our children, our future.

  “And they will do it to you.

  “No amount of blood is too much to stop them. No sacrifice too great. You must be strong enough to stand against them. Mad enough to hope. Hard enough to take innocent lives to do what you must.

  “Do not fail. Do not betray your blood.”

  25: And Fate Replies

  Marielle

  “It’s the story,” Jhinn said, his breath held, his eyes so wide they were tearing up.

  “What story?” Marielle asked puzzled by his joy – so strong and powerful that it even cut through the overwhelming scent of magic as it ripped through him. The scent of cherries and bright wafting cerise bursts spurted from him as he grabbed her hands.

  “The story, Marielle. The story my people have been searching for since Queen Mer’s day. The story that was supposed to make sense of everything!” His excitement was impossible to contain. He leapt to his feet and began to free the motor to power his boat. “It was all true. All of it. The dead on the land. The water being life – but not the water I was raised on. This water!” he scooped up a handful, flicking it across the boat. Rajit moaned as it splashed across his face. “It’s life, Marielle. It always was. And we weren’t meant to be on land, we were meant to sail between the worlds, to sail between the stars.”

  Marielle froze. This was crazy. Worse than Tamerlan or Etienne. She opened her mouth to say so and then shut it with a click.

  She had no longing to sail in the blackness between stars. She’d choose earth over that any day of the week. She’d choose a dirty city and calling voices. If she was home right now – if her home still existed – it would be Winterfast. No one would be eating for a week, though everyone would drink fragrant teas. And they would think deeply about their history and their futures and give to the poor. And make vows. And they would remember the history of their people and how there was nothing to eat during the dragon famine when the descending dragons burned the farmlands. And they would honor the strength of their ancestors.

  So, was it crazy that Jhinn wanted to honor his? Was it crazy that he wanted his own remembrance of history and hope for the future?

  It wasn’t crazy at all, was it? It all finally made sense of what he’d believed on faith his entire life.

  “Are you going to sail through that crescent, then?” she asked.

  “I can’t. Didn’t you hear what he said? The dragons are bound here, and they are the only ones who know how to ride those currents.”

  Which meant he wanted the dragons to wake.

  A voice broke into her mind – too loud and harsh for her. She flinched in pain, rocking to her knees.

  MARIELLE. JHINN.

  No, it wasn’t a voice. It was – a thought? A feeling?

  HELP US.

  Help who?

  The gondola turned a corner and now the light of the crescent above them filled the city as they floated into it. The corner had turned them into one of the city’s canals and as they floated up the canal Marielle saw the people – frozen stone statues of people in rows lining the canal. Their faces frozen in expressions of life – fear, sadness, joy, surprise – everything a real human face would look like. Only these people did not live. They only existed. Just like Jhinn thought her people did. She shuddered at the thought. Was it them calling to her?

  The current was pulling them toward the Crescent moon – which didn’t make any sense at all since water was pouring out of the crescent. It should be pushing them away from it. But with all the magic lingering in the air, anything was possible right now. Anything at all.

  THE BOOK DOES NOT TELL THE WHOLE STORY.

  She flinched from the voice in her mind.

  It felt like a thousand little knives slicing through her brain. Like a thousand thorns scraping her skin from her bones.

  She glanced at Jhinn through eyes watering with pain, but his eyes were gazing behind her at the crescent, a look of rapt attention on his face. Was he hearing the same thing?

  OUR PERSPECTIV
E IS DIFFERENT.

  “Whose perspective?”

  “Can’t you see them?” Jhinn asked, wonder in his voice.

  “See who?” She scanned the darkness, but all that she could see were the lines of staring stone people, dead and yet alive. They were so close here along the canal that she could pick out their cold, proud expressions. Every detail down to the eyelash was perfect as if these people only had to take a breath and they would be alive again.

  “The spirits of the dragons,” Jhinn said. “They’re so beautiful!”

  WE SWIM BETWEEN THE STARS – BETWEEN THE WORLDS – WITHIN THE WATER OF LIFE. WE CREATE BEAUTY AND PLACES FOR OTHER CREATURES TO LIVE WITH THE DARK ENERGY THAT HOLDS TIME TOGETHER. WE DID NOT COME TO HARM THIS WORLD. THE TEAR THESE CREATURES MADE IN REALITY SUCKED US IN. WE COULD NOT FIGHT THE PULL. AND THEN WE WERE HERE – HUNGRY, AFRAID, AND EVENTUALLY TRAPPED.

  But they’d eaten people and burned cities, so she’d have to take this information in context.

  WE ONLY WANT TO BE FREE – TO RETURN TO OUR PLACE IN THE SPACES BETWEEN THE STARS. THIS STRANGE WORLD MADE US INSANE. WE KNEW NOT WHAT WE DID, ONLY THAT WE WERE DESPERATE TO GO.

  “All of you?” Marielle asked aloud. “Will all of you go if you can?”

  IT IS ALL WE’VE WANTED FOR CENTURIES AS WE LAY HERE – CAGED WITHIN OUR FROZEN BODIES. ROCK THAT IS NOT ROCK.

  “Will you take us with you?” Jhinn asked, seeming to hold his breath as he waited for the answer.

  IF YOU COME, THERE IS NO LAND ON WHICH TO BUILD OR PLANT. ONLY WATER FOREVER.

  “Yes,” Jhinn said, excitement in his voice like Marielle had never seen before.

  YOU WOULD BE WELCOME LITTLE ONE. AND YOUR PEOPLE, TOO. BUT WE CANNOT CLOSE THE PORTAL UNLESS EVERY DRAGON IS FREED.

  Did that mean they were blackmailing Jhinn and Marielle into freeing the ones down on the plains? That would mean more cities destroyed, more homes gone, more people killed. Marielle gritted her teeth. But what did the Real Law think about creatures being trapped on a plane that wasn’t theirs and stuck for centuries at the whim of other creatures who killed their own to keep them trapped? That didn’t seem right or just, either.