Amid Wind and Stone

by Nicole Luiken

  “There’s gold inside them.” Jasper turned in a circle, still holding Marta’s limp form. “It’s in all of the machines.”

  “Can you extract it?”

  “Maybe.” His gaze roamed the room, then focused on one corner. “There’s a greater concentration over there.” Walking over, they found a dozen spools of gold wire, probably spun by Martin.

  Jasper laid Marta down gently, then looked to Dorotea for instruction.

  With water as a medium instead of ice, a standing mirror would be impossible. “Make four indentations in the floor, like shallow trays, each a foot square,” Dorotea said.

  He reached out his hand and shaped the solid stone floor as requested.

  “Melt the gold into the bottom left square.” Dorotea prudently pointed to the same corner the gold occupied in Qeturah’s Four Worlds mirror. She poured half her pail of river water into the top right corner.

  Two down, two to go.

  “There!” a voice shouted.

  A man and a woman approached at a run. Dorotea’s heart sank as she recognized Elect Harmon and the blonde with the gun from the power station repair party.

  “Shoot him, Trudi!” Elect Harmon urged.

  Elect Trudi flipped up one eye-shield, then closed her other eye and aimed.

  “No!” Panic crashed through Dorotea. She wanted to jump in five different directions at once and froze in indecision.

  Elect Trudi lowered the gun with a grimace. “Can’t,” she said tersely. “He’s too close to the little girl. Ricochet might hit her.”

  Elect Harmon ground his teeth. “I order you to—”

  “Elect Harmon!” A white-haired woman huffed up from behind. The silver trim on her green robes marked her as a High Councillor. “What’s going on?”

  “We mean no harm,” Dorotea said, holding her hands out. “We’re just trying to save my sister.”

  “You have much bigger problems than us,” Jasper rasped. “The time has come to pay for your sins. The gargoyles have awakened and are driving you humans Above. You’ve incurred the wrath of the Goddess.”

  Elect Harmon spluttered, but the white-haired woman swayed, her face ashen. “It’s come, then. I’ve feared this day for a long time.”

  Her regret gave Dorotea hope. “The Goddess isn’t fully awake. There’s still time to return the gold, the blood of the Goddess’s children. If you do, maybe She’ll relent.”

  The High Councillor looked at her with pity. “We need the gold—”

  “No, you don’t. It’s just jewelry,” Dorotea interrupted, angry.

  “No.” The High Councilor shook her head. “We’re not that foolish. Only the smallest fraction of gold is fashioned into jewelry. Gold is the only highly conductive metal within miles of the cave system. We need gold wire for our machines.”

  “Machines?”

  Elect Harmon answered her impatiently. “The weaving looms that make such fine cloth, the lights on the walls that hold back the dark, the full-spectrum lights in the greenhouses. Everywhere there is electricity, there is gold. Without it, humanity is doomed to fall back into the dark ages, to live in caves as savages or become extinct.” He shook his head. “The machines must be preserved, no matter the cost.”

  “The Elect often behave as if they were the elite clan,” the High Councilor said softly, “but in fact, Elect is short for Electricians. Preserving the machines and the electricity that keeps on the lights is the task of our clan. It is why the other clans agreed to tithe us. Though I fear we have grown arrogant over the years, our task remains vital to our survival here Below.”

  Dorotea hadn’t known that. Her mouth tasted like ashes. “Even if the cost is being forced back Above? We’ll die there.”

  Harmon shook his head. “It won’t come to that.” He shot Jasper a flat, unfriendly look. “We have ways to defend ourselves against the gargoyles.” He stared at the High Councilor. “It’s time to open the armories.”

  She nodded agreement, her expression sad.

  Jasper hissed.

  “Maybe you can defeat the gargoyles,” Dorotea said with a calm she didn’t feel, “but can you defend yourself against the Goddess?”

  Suddenly, Elect Trudi pointed up. “Look at the monitors!”

  A dozen large flat boxes hung from the ceiling. Though covered in glass, they weren’t transparent. Instead they showed colored pictures or moving scenes of real things. Labels above each screen identified places.

  The box for the Cavern of Traitors was black, and Artisan Cavern showed only blank stone. The mill, however, showed the bridge choked with refugees. In the Cathedral, the Goddess still slept, but the veil of water over Her face had been increased to a torrent. Stone Heart Cavern showed heavy fighting, miners with picks slugging it out toe-to-toe with gargoyles. Dorotea winced as Rose Granite lost a fist-sized chip from her shoulder.

  In Unskilled Cavern, refugees spilled into the fields, trampling the precious crops. Nausea twisted in Dorotea’s stomach—they would need that food later.

  She frantically searched the refugees’ faces, recognizing many of her clan. There! Her mother leaned on Martin. In the filtered, murky light, their faces appeared gray.

  Then, suddenly, a row of lights snapped on. In the dazzling glare, a line of gargoyles appeared at the edge of the field.

  As one, they thrust their hands down—and the stone floor of the cavern beneath the thin layer of soil began to rise.

  “What are they doing?” she asked Jasper.

  He shook his head, perplexed. “I do not know.”

  The floor continued to rise until it neared the ceiling. The lights shone onto the mirrors lining the chimneys that led to the skylights, and something odd happened. Within the mirrors, Dorotea could see gray sky and sunlight. Strange ships sailing the air. A spired city. Air World.

  Sigrun stepped onto a gargoyle-crafted dais and shouted: “This world is closed to you, but I offer you a chance to escape to a new one! Wet the mirror with your tears. Those who can pass through, pull your loved ones after you!”

  At first, no one moved, but then the earth shook again. A chunk of stone fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing a child. “Anywhere is better than here!” the mother cried. She wiped her child’s wet fingers and then her own on the mirror and stepped through, vanishing into the other world.

  As more debris fell, many others followed suit.

  A satisfied smile played on Sigrun’s lips. Qeturah had smiled just like that.

  Sudden realization struck Dorotea like a fist to the gut: Sigrun was cooperating with her otherself, implementing Qeturah’s plan.

  The offered refuge was a trap.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Dissonance—

  In Which Audrey Reaches the End of Her Rope

  Air World

  The brass surface of the Mirror Device quivered. Audrey gasped as a hand shot out, reaching toward Billy. The boyo recoiled, but a moment later, a man stumbled out of the mirror.

  Billy gave a low cry of horror and backed away. The mirror man was his otherself, a twin clad in dirty trousers and a loose tunic. Except his nose was straight, and he had a U tattooed on his cheek.

  Audrey’s ears rang. A high chime vibrated in the air.

  On the deck above them, someone yelled, “Who the ’ell are you?” More shouting followed: “What’s happening?” “Go away.” The noise led Audrey to suspect the appearance of Billy’s otherself wasn’t a singular incident but was happening all over the ship.

  The hairs rose on the back of her neck. With every shocked outcry, the chiming grew closer together and more strident. This is wrong. Instinctively, she knew that two otherselves should not be on the same world at the same time. It was as if the very universe rebelled.

  Billy’s otherself pulled a woman and two children through after him. No, three. In addition to the two dirty toddlers, the woman was clutching a sleeping baby.

  “Janet?” Billy exclaimed. “You can’t be here. You’re dead!”

/>   Audrey’s ears continued to ring. Chime, chime, chimechimechime…

  “What’s that noise?” Audrey demanded.

  A self-satisfied smile curled around Qeturah’s lips. “That’s the sound of two worlds shattering. Two with one blow. Efficient, isn’t it?”

  Audrey felt like screaming. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s really quite simple,” Qeturah condescended to answer. “The imbalance of two otherselves on one world creates dissonance on both. Air and Stone are vibrating. Every otherself who flees Stone and comes through to Air adds to the dissonance. Soon the worlds will break apart. Shatter.” Her green eyes lit as if the prospect was delightful. “And all their magic will flow into the channels I’ve prepared. The True World will no longer be able to shut me out. My teacher, Malachi, and I will have grown too powerful for the True World Council and that hag, First Councillor Ellona.”

  (we must stop Qeturah,) Leah said.

  Audrey didn’t disagree, but it was easier said than done. While Billy was distracted by his lost love, Piers had ghosted into position behind Qeturah. He flung an arm around her neck and squeezed. “Audrey, turn off the Mirror Device!”

  Audrey complied. First she pushed up the lever that Qeturah had pulled down. The hissing, pot-boiling-over steam noises subsided, but the chimes and exclamations continued. She tried the next lever, and the red beam of focused light went out, but again the sounds of otherselves arriving continued. “It’s not working!”

  “Make it stop!” Piers yelled at Qeturah. “Or I’ll break your neck!”

  Qeturah stayed calm. “Killing me won’t stop the process.”

  “Then how do we stop it?”

  Qeturah said nothing, but Audrey worked it out. “She pulled a lever and a burst of steam splashed the big mirror made up of all the sails. Then she Called out to her otherself on Stone World. That’s what opened the connection. The steam must have stood in for breath. To stop it, I think we need to break the mirror, disrupt the mirror formation.”

  Audrey watched Qeturah closely, but the other woman just smiled. “Listen to the dissonance. It’s already too late.”

  “Well, then, no point in letting you live.” Piers’s grip tightened, jerking Qeturah’s head back at an unnatural angle.

  “Don’t!” Audrey pleaded. Qeturah had murdered his mother, but she also was the spitting image of Queenie. If Piers killed her, her death would haunt him for the rest of his life. She shook Piers’s shoulder. “She needs to be questioned. Leave her to my father’s justice.”

  “I suppose,” Piers said grudgingly. His grip slackened enough for Qeturah to drag in a breath.

  The speaking tube crackled to life. “Bridge to Mirror Device. Fire weapon. Repeat: fire weapon immediately.”

  Audrey glanced at Billy, to see if he was a danger, but he’d fallen to his knees and was weeping into “Janet’s” skirt. The poor woman looked bewildered, and her husband, Billy’s Stone self, looked on the verge of punching his otherself.

  Audrey slipped and slid her way along the tilting deck to the speaking tube and pressed the button for the bridge. “Message for Admiral Harding from the Mirror Device. Please send reinforcements and break up the mirror formation. Qeturah is using the mirror to open passageways to Air World.” She paused.

  Her father would, of course, be too busy to answer himself. She just hoped he’d heard her call, because the message would just confuse any subordinates.

  “Stand by for reinforcements,” the speaking tube said. “Turn on the Device. I repeat: turn on the Device until the Sipar Fleet is routed.”

  She gaped, aghast, then found her tongue. She depressed the button. “The otherselves crossing over are creating a dissonance that can shatter our whole world! We have to break up the mirror formation.”

  “Negative,” the voice came again. “Destroy the enemy fleet first.”

  Despair seized Audrey. The Sipar Fleet had scattered, and the mirror formation was slow-moving. He couldn’t catch them all. She wanted to argue, but her father wouldn’t listen. She pulled the lever, but the beam of light didn’t form. A glance out the window told the tale: the mirror formation had drifted apart, and the sails no longer overlapped. The sudden addition of weight and the chaos caused by the refugees had begun to tell.

  And the zipships had noticed. They stopped fleeing and headed toward the vulnerable Fleet.

  “Can you do something?” Audrey asked Piers. “Anything?”

  “I’ll go out there and make sure none of those fireballs hits the ship,” Piers said. “But what about her?” He gave Qeturah a rough shake.

  “Make her lie down.” While Piers did so, Audrey removed the belt on Qeturah’s uniform. She knelt and tied Qeturah’s hands together behind her back, then sat on Qeturah, using her weight to pin the petite woman to the deck. “Go,” she told Piers. “The reinforcements will be here soon.”

  Piers hesitated. “We should stay together.” In his eyes, she read just in case the zeppelin goes down.

  Chimechimechimechime.

  Her fingertips were cold with terror, but she shook her head. “You keep us in the air; I’ll work on the otherself problem. Go!”

  He cursed but dived through the porthole. She waited tensely, afraid it was too late. The chiming had grown stronger so that it now felt like a bell was tolling inside her skull.

  She struggled to think. Stopping more people from coming through the mirrors was just the first step. The dissonance wouldn’t stop until they found some way to return the Stone selves.

  (I can help with that.)

  “Janet, are you all right? Speak to me,” Billy said somewhere off to the side.

  “Leave the poor woman alone and help me!” Qeturah demanded.

  With a jolt, Audrey realized that with Piers gone, she was in danger.

  (let me stop her. just breathe on the mirror and give me your hand.)

  Bringing one more otherself over couldn’t do much harm at this point. Audrey approached the mirror, letting her humid breath fog the surface. She pushed her hand into the mirror—and felt another hand. Fingers closed around hers, a profoundly disturbing experience.

  Audrey yanked her otherself out of the mirror.

  The feral snarl on Leah’s face made her blink. But then Leah tackled Qeturah, and Audrey realized her otherself’s hatred was reserved for the True World woman.

  Zephyr swirled around her head like an impatient child. “Audrey, Audrey.”

  Audrey brushed at the wind. “What?”

  “The boy you asked us to watch over is in danger.”

  “Piers? Is he hurt?”

  “The Phantom can take care of himself. The other boy. Come. This way.”

  Who had she—? Audrey inhaled sharply. “Grady! Leah, I have to go.”

  Her otherself nodded. “Go. I can hear the reinforcements coming.”

  So could Audrey. With a grateful nod, she followed the air spirit’s tugging out of the room housing the Device. She pounded down the passageway, dodging confused Stone refugees, and sometimes injured crewmen, as she went.

  She emerged on an open deck where the sails were attached and paused in sheer horror. The sky was full of zipships, and at least five flaming hollow globes arced through the air. Most were heading toward the Queen Winifrid.

  “There.”

  Audrey wrenched her gaze away from the battle and looked around for her brother. Her heart jumped into her throat when she spotted him out at the vulnerable end of the windsail. The sail protruded from the ship’s gondola on a jointed strut that could be easily snapped into place or folded back against the side of the gondola for safe storage while sailing the Grand Current. But something must have gone wrong with the mechanism, forcing Grady to crawl out onto the end to fix it. From his wide stare and white-knuckled grip on the wooden strut, his fear of heights had frozen him in place.

  “Grady!” She beckoned to him.

  His head came up—and then she screamed as one of the hollow globes smacked ag
ainst the mast. Liquid fire sloshed out, instantly setting the weatherproof canvas alight.

  “Zephyr! Save him!”

  The breeze tried its best, but they were still within the lower reaches of the Grand Current, and her father was Calling upon Mistral to steer the zeppelin. Zephyr couldn’t smother the flames, only direct them away from Grady, back toward the gondola.

  Leaving him trapped out on the burning beam.

  Worse, the top of the flaming sail fluttered within five feet of the balloon envelope. If the treated silk of the 500-foot-long envelope caught fire, the whole zeppelin would go down in flames.

  “Zephyr, blow down. Keep the flames away from the balloon,” Audrey called urgently. That might save the zeppelin, if the strut burned and fell to the ground, but Grady would fall with it.

  She couldn’t get to him by the strut. Not only were the flames in the way, but her weight might well cause the weakened wood to crack.

  The zeppelin jigged in the sky, causing two more globes to sail harmlessly beneath it. A zipship roared closer. Rifle fire cracked out, then broke off amidst shouts of anger, and she glimpsed The Phantom flying alongside, disarming it.

  No help from him, then. No one to save Grady but her.

  Only one choice left: come from below. Audrey ran for the pole.

  Grady screamed her name behind her. Her heart clenched; he must think she was abandoning him. She barely touched the pole, sliding down, the friction burning her hands. Her landing jolted through her knees and spine, but she ignored the pain.

  She stripped off her cumbersome blanket skirt, exposing the trousers she wore underneath. The next step would be to put on the carabiner harness—but she didn’t have time. Her steel carabiner bracelets would have to do instead.

  Her hair blew around her face in the force of the wind as she struggled to open the heavy hatch. The deck tilted under her as the zeppelin suddenly dropped fifty feet, then jinked up again.

  The hatch flew open, and she almost slid into the hole. She stopped herself with one foot braced on the hatch, then rolled onto her hands and knees. She crawled uphill to the cupboard and grabbed the rope ladder. She threw it down the hatch without unsnarling it first. There wasn’t time.