by Jaymin Eve
“What about Cyrus and Emmy?”
For a brief click I was afraid something might have happened to them, but then Siret said, “I sent Cyrus a message. They’re going to meet us at the banishment cave. They were in his secret lair already, so they’re pretty close.” He chuckled, and I was glad to see the sparkle back in his eyes.
Yael held out his hand for me and I stepped closer, placing my palm against his. “Let’s do this then,” I said, unsure if I was ready, but knowing we had no choice.
I closed my eyes when we stepped through the pocket, reopening them again when the pressure eased. We ended up in the same place I had last time, when I’d been pushed off the platform. That felt like a million life-cycles ago … before I knew that the Abcurses were gods … before I knew the truth of the worlds.
Before I knew who I truly was.
“It’s been a hell of a ride,” Rome said, catching my thoughts.
“It has,” I agreed. “I almost can’t believe how much has happened since I accidentally got myself sent to Blesswood.”
Aros shot me a smile. “Not sure there was any accident about that. For you to get sent there at the same time as us … sounds like fate.”
“Is there a god of that?” I asked, trying to recall if I’d ever heard one mentioned.
They shook their heads. “No, just like Fertility, that was one god Staviti has never been able to create.”
I wondered if Fate was just too big to be contained in any being. Maybe the God of Fate was Topia itself. Like the land was the one moving the pieces about, making everything fall into place.
A voice filtered through the darkness. “About time you all arrived, we’ve been in here for what feels like a rotation.”
Cyrus and Emmy stepped into view, and I rushed toward them. “Emmy, is everything okay? I’m sorry I wasn’t here for the server attack—”
She glared at me and I ground to a halt as I recognised her expression. “No, everything is not okay, Willa Knight. You disappeared on me again. No note. No goodbye.”
I lifted an eyebrow at her. “Uh, I was kidnapped. And the crazy god who took me wasn’t big on letting me say my goodbyes.”
Emmy huffed. “I know, and I know I shouldn’t be mad at you, and yet you have me so worried all the time that … it’s turning into mad.”
With a laugh, I stepped closer. “Don’t act like that’s something new. Worry and anger have always gone hand in hand with you. I really am so sorry though. If there was any other way …”
Her glare softened, and she relaxed her folded arms. “I forgive you. Please try to let me know the next time you’re going to get kidnapped.”
A snort-laugh escaped me. “I’ll do my best.”
She grinned and the tension between us eased. “So this cave,” she said, looking around. “Cyrus and I have been examining it, and I think I’ve figured out the location of the catchment you’re looking for.”
She turned to move along the pathway and we all hurried after her, easily able to see in the dimly lit cave. God sight was even better than god speed. The turns Emmy took were somewhat familiar, but it was hard to know for sure because everything felt different without the wraiths. Their energy had given this place a heavy air; it had been difficult to breathe around them. Not to mention the cold.
Right now, though, it just felt like a normal cave.
That was until we got closer to the catchment spot. The same wall that the souls had led me to. The one that was smooth and made of a non-rock material. The one with the unusual writing.
“Can you feel that?” Emmy asked. She hovered her hand across the wall but didn’t touch it. “It feels … unnatural.”
I followed her movements, and with my god senses unlocked, there was so much more I could read from the wall. “It feels like an enchantment of some kind,” I said. “Could this series of words be what’s blocking the flow of water? Redirecting the energy of Topia?”
Emmy stepped back, pressing against Cyrus, who wrapped an arm around her. It was still more than a little odd to see the softening of his face when she touched him. He almost looked like a different god.
“How do we break this?” Coen asked, leaning forward to examine the words closely. He lightly traced his palm across a few of them. “I’ve never seen this language before.”
“I haven’t either,” Cyrus admitted, sounding annoyed. “And I thought there were no languages I did not know.”
The longer I stared at the swirling symbols, the more sense they made to me. It was like my mind was adjusting, learning how to read and understand what was being said. “I think this is an ancient Minatsol dialect,” I murmured. “I’ve seen it before.”
“Where?” Cyrus demanded.
It hit me then, memories from that time flooding my mind. Memories replayed much clearer in my god mind.
“It was at the temple where they make the servers,” I said in a rush. “Images just like these were on the walls there. I didn’t pay any attention to them at the time, because I was a little busy trying not to get turned into a mindless server. But they were definitely etched into some of the panelling.”
Cyrus froze for a moment, then he stepped back from Emmy. When she spun toward him, he smiled. “I just thought of something. Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared out of sight before anyone could get in another word.
We all stood there in silence for a click, no doubt wondering what the hell Cyrus had figured out. After another click, Coen reached into his pocket and pulled out the note. A timepiece appeared from somewhere as well. I’d never been that organised in my entire life—he’d probably be keeping track of things for me for the rest of our sun-cycles.
“We have twelve clicks until the arranged time,” he said. “Cyrus better move his ass.”
I went back to the wall, my mind trying to piece it together. “The symbols … some of them are repeated,” I mumbled to myself. “Not in any sort of recognisable pattern though.”
“We need a key,” Emmy whispered from nearby, taking me by surprise as I jolted.
“A key?” I asked.
“With codes like this, you need to know at least a few letters or words. You need a key to work from.”
“Do you think that’s what Cyrus is fetching?” I asked, turning fully toward her.
She shrugged. “You know I hate guessing. Especially since Cyrus takes me by surprise a lot—he never does what I expect him to do.”
A concept which would usually have bothered her, but she seemed pretty relaxed about it now.
“To kill some time, tell us what happened after you were taken by Pica.” Aros’s voice was husky. “We have pieced some of it together, but there’s still a lot I’d like to know.”
“Same,” Yael added drily.
Knowing our time was limited, I launched straight into the kidnapping, her crazy power-sucking room, and the blade of Crowe she had designed for me. The Abcurses’ eyes darkened when I spoke briefly of the blade, and then again when I talked of my time in the imprisonment realm.
Emmy clutched my arm. “Willa!” she gasped.
I shook my head. “I had no other choice. I was pretty confident I’d be able to return like last time. And in the process get Pica out of our lives and free Jakan.”
“It was a good plan,” Rome said, surprising me. “But if you ever do anything so risky again …” He trailed off and I almost wanted him to finish that sentence.
Punishment from the Abcurses was not really a bad thing.
“I’m sorry that I worried you, I wish there was another way, but I had to rid us of Pica once and for all. She never would have given me up. Never. She lost her child and it broke her mind. She was not going to lose another child, and that was what I represented to her.”
“As much as I hate her,” Emmy said sadly, “I’m hoping that she has found her child and some peace in the imprisonment realm.”
I hoped for that too, because I couldn’t imagine my own grief at
a loss like that.
Coen glanced at the timepiece and his brow furrowed. “Eight clicks.”
Come on, Cyrus.
In a rush, I finished telling them everything. They were most fascinated to learn that the imprisonment realm was a reflection of the mortal glass, and then pissed off to learn how Crowe made his weapons to trap the gods’ souls there.
By the time I was done, Coen was staring quite resolutely at the timepiece, and I was nervously pacing, trying to figure out what I would do if we missed the deadline to open our channel. A small gasp was the only signal I had that Cyrus was back.
Emmy rushed toward him first, having sensed him or something. I hurried after her, blinking in the darkness as I realised that Cyrus held a squirming dweller in one hand—he had a firm grip on the female’s throat—and in the other hand was a thick tome. The leather-bound book had some age to it, the dark ochre cover cracked and peeling.
“Three and a half clicks,” Coen said shortly before Cyrus could speak.
“Who is that?” Emmy asked, reaching out to free the dweller from Cyrus.
He opened his hand, dropping the chick onto the ground where she promptly sprawled out, letting out a mechanical-sounding groan. “It’s one of the dwellers from the outer rings. The ones who create the servers.”
We all stared down at her waxy face, the expression there almost as blank as those of the servers on Topia. She blinked a few times before pushing herself half up. “Is she going to be able to translate these symbols?” I asked. “What’s with the book?”
Did Cyrus realise how little time we had left?
He opened the book then. “I have no idea if she can help us, but she was trying to stop me from taking the book, so I just took them both. No time to kill a dweller right now.”
Her arms starting to shake, her long robes covering the pale limbs. But there was no other reaction.
Cyrus strode closer to the wall, his eyes moving between the shimmering symbols and his book at a rate much faster than I could track.
“What made you think of this book?” Emmy asked.
Cyrus spoke quickly. “In the ancient sun-cycles, long before the kings and gods of this time, there was a culture that used images as their language. I’ve run across a few obscure texts about it, but never really explored it further.” He flipped a few pages. “When Willa mentioned the old temple, I wondered if maybe they would have something there. In their library.”
I wasn’t looking at Emmy, but I knew her eyes would be lit up right now with pure joy and excitement. “A library,” she whispered. “Of books that are from the old world? We have to go—”
She was cut off by Cyrus slamming the book shut. “Everyone stand back,” he bellowed. I found myself half-lifted by Rome as he used one hand to shift me quickly while his other reached for Emmy.
Cyrus shot him a dark look, but didn’t chew him out for godhandling his girl, because there wasn’t time. When we were all a few feet further away, the Neutral God turned back to the wall.
“One and a half clicks,” Coen said tersely.
Cyrus ignored him. “The text etched onto the wall simply speaks of binding the Great River,” he said, his voice brimming with energy. “It doesn’t give me any indication of how to free it, but … I’m almost certain that it’s not a spell. Which means that maybe it’s only sealed in a physical way—a burst of power might break that seal.” He slammed his free hand against the wall, his voice booming higher. “You have been bound for too long, Great River. It’s time to rejoin the flowing waters. Bless both lands with your life-giving power again.”
The ground shook as his power lit up the cave. His glow was almost blinding, but I forced myself to keep staring. “Great River,” he boomed once more. “Flow free.”
There was more shaking, and the symbols shimmered, almost swirling as Cyrus’s power lit them up, but there was no water.
No breaking of the seal.
Emmy turned toward me. “Willa, you might be the power needed to break the seal Staviti laid here. The power of a creator. See if you can help.”
I sprinted the few steps to the wall. My power swirled within me, waiting for the moment I let it loose. Mimicking Cyrus, I slammed both palms against the wall and let the full destructive force of my energy go free in a way I’d never done before, no control, no picturing what I wanted to happen. Just unadulterated power.
The ground we stood on was shaking so hard now that I could barely keep my balance. Cyrus ended up dropping the tome, reaching out with that hand to keep me steady. “Don’t stop,” he gritted out, his grip firm on my forearm.
I pushed more heat, and then I channelled it into a single thought. Free the Great River.
Thirteen
Cyrus’s light was brighter than I’d ever seen before, and I was pushing power like a true god. No restrictions; finally embracing the pure strength of my power. I kept waiting for the wall to crack, because there was so much shaking and rumbling and power.
But it remained whole.
“Half a click,” Coen bellowed, and I only just heard him.
We aren’t going to make it.
We had screwed up somehow. Maybe the images had nothing to do with the old times. Maybe we had been completely wrong.
I missed the first fissuring of the ground because I was stressed and focussed on the wall. If you’d asked me how I imagined this “freeing” going, I’d have said the wall would shatter, water would rush through, and all of us would be swept away.
I never in a million life-cycles thought that the ground would crumble beneath us, falling away in huge chunks. The wall might have followed soon after; I couldn’t know for sure because someone snatched me up, and in a click we’d stepped through a pocket.
When the pressure eased and I smelled the fresh air, I knew I’d been taken from the cave. My eyes shot open and I swung my head around to make sure everyone had made it to safety.
Five Abcurses were there—including Coen with an unconscious waxy-faced dweller over his shoulder. Cyrus and Emmy were also in the clearing with us. We’d landed in a place that was surrounded by tall trees. The grass was green as well, and lots of bushy plants littered the ground.
“If the souls had still been trapped in the cave,” Coen said, looking around, “we’d never have been able to take the pocket from there.”
A rumble rocked the ground around us.
“We need to move,” Cyrus added, his gaze darting toward the cave mouth.
In that moment, I recognised the place we’d landed. We were standing on the Minatsol side of the banishment cave. “This is part of the great river too?” Emmy clicked on faster than me to what Cyrus was saying.
Aros answered. “I’d say yes, judging by the valley we’re in. It’s been many life-cycles, so nature pushed itself into the place the river once stood, but—”
Another rumble cut him off, and a huge hand was pressed into my back, urging me to run. I wasn’t sure why we didn’t just take a pocket to higher ground, but I wasn’t about to argue. I was too busy running.
We weren’t the only ones; animals of all kinds were flying and dashing along with us. Their senses were as strong and developed as the gods’. Dwellers, on the other hand, would have been there right until the water washed them away.
As we moved under some low-lying branches, something with weight to it dropped on my head. I wrenched myself away from Yael—the one pushing me along.
I started slapping at my head and back, shrieking and dancing on the spot.
“What in gods’ name are you doing?” Cyrus had ground to a halt at my side, the others backtracking to us. “Have you finally lost your tiny mind?”
“She thinks there’s a sleeper on her,” Siret said, and it was clear he was trying to keep the amusement from his voice. “We’ve been through this before.”
He reached out then, rummaging through my hair before plucking something up from the strands near the base of my neck. “Only this time there actually was a bug on
her, so she kind of has an excuse.”
I stared at the weirdly shaped brown insect he held. It looked like a branch broken off from the trees above, but it had eyes, and the legs and arms moved. “I don’t have time to ask what that is,” I said breathlessly. “Just get rid of it so we can run again.”
With a smirk, Siret dropped it on a nearby branch, and it blended in almost instantly.
“Should we be running or taking another pocket?” Emmy suggested drily. “I mean, I know which one is faster.”
A few drops of water sprinkled my forehead, and when I turned to look between the trees, I let out a low gasp. A huge wall of water was heading for us, so insane in its torrent that it tore massive trees right up out of the ground. I wasn’t sure that even gods could survive that force.
“A pocket sounds good,” I agreed, already diving toward Rome.
“I don’t have the power for a pocket in Minatsol,” Rome bit out, but then he let out a low exclamation. “Actually, it looks like I can access the power again.”
“Take Willa now!” Coen demanded, rushing to add, “We’ll take the long way around and meet you at the top of Champion’s Peak.”
I opened my mouth to protest, because I was not cool with leaving them behind in the midst of the Great River release, but before I could say anything, Rome had pulled me through a pocket.
As soon as the pressure eased, I swung toward Rome. “Are they going to be okay? How come we managed to use a pocket but no one else could?”
He shook his head, worry creasing his brow. “I’m not totally sure. Normally there’s not enough power here for a lot of our god tricks, which is why we’ve always taken the ‘back ways’ into Topia. But this time it worked … easily. It’s possible that it was because of your power combined with mine. The moment I touched you …” He trailed off.
“And maybe, if the other gods released their channels at the same time … the power is spreading back to Minatsol.” A slight awe entered my voice.