She kissed the impenetrable crystal separating them and flew for the tiny port in the ceiling, remembering how Mouse had shown her how to escape. She raced through the tiny vents to the outside and shot into the air, astonished to see a huge mountain of water rising over the city. She yelped in fear and soared higher, watching in horror as the wave fell. Water hissed against the hot stone, sending up clouds of steam, and the city tilted farther. It hesitated, hanging there for a moment, then flipped, throwing a wave even bigger than the one that had sent it over.
Steam bubbled up in torrents, and the great burning city that imprisoned her master slowly sank below the waves, quenched forever.
Flicker hovered, looking down at the bubbles rising to the surface. As they burst, she felt her heart breaking with them. She was lost and alone. What would happen now? She narrowed her eyes as she spied the warships. They had done this. They had killed Edan. Maybe she’d just fly on down and set them aflame for what they’d done. She stoked her fire and readied herself for revenge, then a flash of gossamer crystal caught her eye.
≈
Explosions of steam and the thunder of collapsing doors and ruptured walls rattled Cynthia’s eardrums as Akrotia sank beneath the waves. Mer schooled around her in undulating waves of silvery scales, fins flared and weapons outthrust in triumph. As she felt the massive city sink slowly into the darkness, she found she could not share their elation.
Edan, she thought, remembering his carrot-red hair and hot temper, his dream of becoming a pyromage so clear in his face at their first meeting. So much like her own dream of becoming a seamage. Cynthia pictured him now, his fear of the sea, of the smothering cold embrace of the depths, of drowning. He was drowning now.
I can’t kill him like this.
She thrummed for attention, and the mer ceased their swirling celebration. Broadtail, Tailwalker and Chaser darted to the fore, joy bright in their motions and gestures.
*Victory!* Broadtail signed, thrusting his trident toward the surface. *We have won, Seamage Flaxal Brelak! You have destroyed Akrotia!*
*Yes, Broadtail, I have destroyed Akrotia, but I have also killed a friend.* She gestured into the depths as the cacophony of shattering stone, metal and thunder of steam faded. *I have to try to save him.*
*The firemage?* Broadtail signed, confusion blanching his colors. *I thought our goal was to kill him.*
*Our goal was to destroy Akrotia. We have done that. Now I must try to save the young man who helped me rescue my child. He saved my son’s life, Broadtail. I owe him more than to let him die like this.* She steeled her nerves and made a motion of finality. *Wait for me until nightfall. If he lives, he may need the attention of your priests.*
*I will come with you,* Tailwalker signed, darting forward.
*No,* she signed, backing away. *I cannot be responsible for your safety, Tailwalker. I don’t even know if Edan still lives, and I cannot risk more lives than my own to try to save him.*
*The school will wait, Seamage Flaxal Brelak,* Broadtail interjected, one hand on his son’s shoulder. *Odea go with you.*
*Thank you, Trident Holder,* she signed. She looked into the faces of her mer friends—so alien, yet so familiar—and smiled. She knew she still didn’t understand them fully, but there was one thing she did know: these three mer were as close to her as any friends she’d had in her life. With nothing left to say, she signaled farewell and descended into the darkness of the depths.
Chapter 33
Fire and Water
Horror engulfed Edan as he felt himself falling, rolling over into the chilling embrace of the sea. Cold…dark…wet…smothering seawater flooded through his chambers and corridors. The floating hatches that worked so well to hold back the water when he was upright now failed utterly. Chill water met with hot stone and metal, and steam exploded through his halls with such force that walls and even decks fractured under the impact. The pain…oh, the pain was unbearable.
His sight failed as the sea closed over him, darkness blinding him to the horrors of the deep. He began to sink, even colder water sapping the heat from his stone. The sea was deep here, but how deep? His tallest spires had soared hundreds of feet into the sky, and now thrust the same span into the depths. Maybe they would touch the seabed and arrest his descent before the pressure crushed the life out of him.
Maybe not.
Terror chilled him even more than the cold water. His worst nightmare had always been of drowning, of the sea smothering him, quenching his fire forever. Now, as he sank into the emptiness, the crushing pressure collapsing his doors, shattering his walls, that nightmare was coming true. In that desolation, the fleeting joys and lingering pains of his life revisited him; all of his failures and his one glowing triumph: the ecstasy of his ascension. Edan’s singular dream had been to become a pyromage. As the sea swirled into the Chamber of Life, hissing across the arched ceiling, filling the room until it splashed and roiled against the walls of his glowing crystalline prison, he wondered if the glory of fulfilling that dream would sustain him when all else faded to darkness.
≈
Darkness enveloped Cynthia as she plunged into the depths, until she had only her sea sense to discern her surroundings. Her ribs ached as the air in her lungs compressed to nothing, and she shivered with the biting cold. The same magic that allowed her to breathe through her skin also maintained her body temperature, but it didn’t keep her from feeling the cold. The chill would not kill her, but it would be uncomfortable. Descending into the utter blackness, blind, cold and alone, was unnerving for her. It must be hell for Edan.
Cynthia followed the death rattle of Akrotia down. Collapsing doors and bulkheads reverberated, fracturing stone cracked sharply, and escaping steam hissed and bubbled. More than once she had to avoid huge bubbles of rising gas discharged from the city or risk being cooked by the scalding steam.
She quested out with her senses and felt the city tilt crazily as it sank, like a leaf falling through air. It struck the seabed edge on with enough force to fracture the main hull, then settled like a child’s top that had ceased to spin, the spires of its superstructure thrust deep into the sediment. It tilted back, the broken section thrust up, stone crumbling away. The city was still far below her, deeper than she had ever gone, but not beyond her reach
As she neared, she noted that Akrotia was totally dark; not a rune glowed. She could feel the shattered rock of the broken section. It would provide an entrance, but she would have to be careful; if she was injured down here, she might never make it back to the surface. Slowly, she approached, sensing the maze of corridors and chambers inside…and felt a wave of rising panic. Even with teams of sailors working non-stop, it had taken more than a week to map out a fraction of the upper city. Searching for the Chamber of Life by herself would be like looking for a single pearl on a pebble-littered beach.
I should go back! she thought. Back to Feldrin and Kloe— Kloe, who wouldn’t be alive if not for Edan. No, she had to at least try.
Steeling her nerves, she sensed inside again, and realized that she now had one advantage; with the city inundated, she could feel ahead through the twisting labyrinth. The maze took form within her mind’s eye, and she remembered the confusing, but not totally random patterns of the maps that she, Feldrin and Ghelfan had drawn.
The chamber is big, she reminded herself, and in the exact center. I can do this. She urged the sea to take her in.
She ventured forward, pausing whenever she sensed an opening, feeling far ahead for dead-ends, trying to sense beyond the tangle of halls and chambers to the curving structure of the Chamber of Life. As she progressed, the water warmed. At first, the warmth felt good, banishing the chill of the deep ocean, but soon she felt like a lobster in a pot that was slowly coming to a boil. She closed her eyes to the sting of the hot water—she couldn’t see anyway—and wondered if she’d even be
able to survive in the Chamber of Life.
Claustrophobia closed in around her, the crushing weight of stone over her head, bringing back dark recollections of her brief but horrible incarceration in the dungeons beneath Plume Isle. Straining metal and stone groaned and cracked threateningly. Time and again, shockwaves shivered the water as a door or wall failed under the torturous pressure. She felt the sea surge into the void of a collapsing room, and the mixing of hot and cold water. She encountered hatches that had been crushed like a tin cup in a strong man’s grip, jammed closed and impassible, forcing her to backtrack. She stretched out her senses desperately as her frustration and fear mounted. There, far ahead, she felt the gentle curve of corridors; the outer wall of the chamber.
Now, she thought, to find the entrance.
As Cynthia considered which way to go, she felt something else, something searing hot and sweltering: Edan’s magic.
He’s alive, she realized, her heart hammering. Cynthia sought out the burning sensation like a lighthouse on a moonless night. She surged forward, and suddenly became aware of a glow seeping through her closed eyelids. She blinked, and in the flickering gloom gaped at the faint traceries of fire etching the rune-scribed walls. She could feel the magic in them, but it was waning, their light slowly dimming. Akrotia was dying…Edan was dying. With a shiver, she wondered what would happen when the magic failed completely. Girding herself, she hurried toward the Chamber of Life.
≈
Cold and darkness pressed upon the fragile eggshell of Edan’s mind as each crack, each collapsed door and shattered bulkhead, racked him with agony. The runes that empowered the city were broken, the light of their magic fading, and his vision fading with them. He could now see only within the Chamber of Life itself, and even that was dim. Eventually, even the magic that sustained him would fail.
Then he would drown, alone in the cold and dark…
Not alone, the madness said in his mind, and he knew it spoke the truth.
He could see her in the chamber with him now…Samantha. Edan remembered the blood, the rising water, and her insistent grip on his arm. Then the pain, and the surge of power; the fear and confusion. Their anger, their longing for love, their fears. He was afraid of the sea, and she was afraid of herself.
Another jolt of agony as more stone and metal succumbed to the pressure. The light of the chamber faded to a dull crimson, and he knew the end was coming. Soon the pressure of the sea would overcome the waning magic and crush the crystalline walls of his prison, killing him, killing her, killing them.
They would die together.
Then something moved outside the crystal walls, a pale shape swirling in the ruddy light. It fluttered like a ghost, moving too fast to be corporeal. The specter circled the crystalline chamber, and new fear gripped him. Was this some angel of death, the ghost of some long-drowned seafarer? Was it here for his soul?
Edan saw a glint outside the chamber, and a tone rang through him—beautiful, like a crystal bell. Something was striking the chamber. A second tone, then a third, this one off key.
It’s breaking in, he thought in a panic, even as he wondered how a ghost could break anything.
With a crack, the crystal fractured, and the last of Akrotia’s magic flared like a beacon. The dry heat of his fire was smothered as warm seawater surged over him. In one last glimpse through the magic’s eye, he saw the ghost in the stark light, and it wasn’t a ghost at all.
It was Cynthia!
The sea witch!
Then a million crystal knives stabbed through him. He screamed in agony and inhaled only water. He was drowning.
≈
Cynthia dropped the heavy head of the boarding axe that Feldrin had dropped what seemed a lifetime ago. She had used it to shatter the door to the crystal chamber, then gently eased the sea into the space beyond. She blinked against the last flare of magical light, but that instant of radiance revealed Edan and Samantha locked in a lattice of crystal shards, their bodies pressed together, lips touching.
And Cynthia suddenly understood.
Samantha loves him!
That explained so much: why the girl had followed them to the Sea of Lost Ships, her insistence that Edan leave with her, even her murder of Ghelfan, who had simply gotten in her way. Cynthia would never forgive that, but at least now she understood.
The lattice of crystal that held them immobile melted away, and they floated free in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs. The panic they must have felt urged her to act quickly. Cynthia cast the spell to allow them to breathe underwater, and saw their skin flush pink; the spell was working. Samantha floated calmly, seeming dazed, but Edan thrashed and coughed out bubbles as he struggled to breathe.
Akrotia shuddered, and rubble tumbled down through the water as great cracks shot through the stone walls of the outer chamber. There was no time for delay; they had to get out now. Cynthia urged the sea to grasp Edan and move him from the crystalline chamber into the open, but he fought against it, clawing at his throat and kicking wildly. If she tried to bring him through the corridors like this, he would beat himself to death on the jagged bits of stone. She tried to get his attention, but his eyes were blind with terror. There was only one thing to do.
Odea protect me, she thought as she reached out and grasped Edan’s wrist.
The elemental forces of fire and water clashed ferociously where their flesh met. Water vaporized in a cloud of steam, and pain lanced through Cynthia’s hand. Her head whipped back as the magic of the winds shared by both Cynthia and Edan blasted through her. A storm raged in her mind, a tempest of wind and water and fire. Above the shriek of the storm, Cynthia heard a jangle of keys and a peal of unearthly laughter. Odea’s laughter.
In that moment, she and Edan connected.
As if they were her own, Cynthia understood his hopes and dreams, his loves and fears. She felt Edan convulse and saw his eyes widen, no longer wild, but full of comprehension, and she knew that he, too, had felt it. Immediately, he stopped struggling.
Cynthia released Edan’s wrist, daring to look down at her hand. Bits of boiled skin peeled away from the cooked flesh to flutter in the water, pale and ghostly. She tried to flex her fingers, but the wave of agony almost made her retch, her mouth gaping in a silent scream. She clutched her wrist and waited until the searing pain ebbed.
Edan, she noticed, had no similar injury, his skin immune to the blistering steam. He looked at her hand and winced, his expression apologetic. Cynthia gestured with her uninjured hand, hoping he understood that she was going to use the sea to move them out of the chamber. As Akrotia’s magic drained away, the light dimmed further, and the walls around them groaned; they didn’t have much time. As she turned, a shape surged out of the gloom, an obsidian dagger thrusting toward her.
≈
Sam felt groggy, floating, as if still dreaming. She had had wonderful dreams of Edan; they were together forever in a sea of light, united body, mind, and soul. Then the dream had turned ugly as he tried to push her away, rejecting her. Now she was alone again, with only her madness to console her.
It wasn’t fair! She had rescued him from the sea witch. He was hers.
The sea witch! Every time Sam thought of the woman, her rage flared like an inferno. Cynthia Flaxal should have died, but somehow she had lived. Visions flashed in her mind: ships, mer, the sea witch…pain…
With a start, Sam realized she was floating in a sea of waning twilight, her body pained but free. She felt no need to breathe, as comfortable as an enwombed child. But she felt…alone. Where was Edan?
He was there, moving toward the shattered door of the crystal chamber. Sam started to pull herself toward him, then saw another figure. The sea witch was pulling Edan away from her! Sam’s fury rose.
Her obsidian dagger lay on the crystal below her feet. Snatching it
up, she lunged.
≈
Edan gazed at the sea around him, felt the comforting warmth of it against his skin, and wondered why he had feared it so. For a brief, shocking moment, he had known Cynthia’s mind, felt her deep love of the ocean…and shared it.
The seamage gestured, and he understood. Akrotia was dying, but he was no longer part of it. He wouldn’t die here at the bottom of the sea, in the cold and dark. Despite all the things he had done, Cynthia had rescued him from his worst nightmare.
A shadow flitted past him toward Cynthia. He had forgotten about Samantha. With a shock, he saw the black blade plunge toward the seamage’s chest. He grabbed at Samantha’s arm, jerking her aside. She whirled on him, and he saw once again her madness; eyes alight with fury, her lips pulled back, pointed teeth bared.
Pain…
Edan looked down. A dagger hilt protruded from his stomach. As he watched, streams of crimson drifted from his torn flesh and swirled in the eddies of water. Though the sea around him was warm, he suddenly felt cold. He looked up to see Cynthia’s wide eyes, and understood.
She had rescued him from Akrotia, but he was still going to die here.
≈
Cynthia saw the madness in Samantha’s eyes fade to disbelief, then shock. The girl’s hand fell away from the dagger she had thrust into the man she loved, and she stared down at the blood swirling in the water, then at her hands. Samantha floated, unmoving, paralyzed by the horror of what she had done.
Cynthia, however, was not paralyzed.
She flung the girl aside with a flick of the sea’s power, pinning her to the far wall of the crystalline chamber. Edan drifted, shock painting his features, his hands grasping at, then retreating from, the dagger that impaled him.
Scimitar War Page 41
