City of Thirst

by Carrie Ryan

  “Roseberg’s. I used to shop here as a kid,” Remy added. “Before it closed.” She craned her neck. “How is it”—she waved her hands around—“here?”

  Marrill shook her head. She had no idea how a convenience store from the middle of the Arizona desert could end up as part of a timeless city on the Pirate Stream.

  Coll sighed and rubbed the base of his throat. “Seems like most of this city floated in on the tide. Half the buildings on the Wall are made from ship parts jammed into place. That balcony we were just on was a crow’s nest plated in marble. And I’d wager a lot of the nicest things here were once some poor sailor’s cargo.”

  Remy tugged on her ponytail. “So?”

  “So,” he said, “if that whirlpool can swallow ships from all across time, who’s to say it can’t suck in parts of a whole other world?”

  Marrill pondered the idea with a sinking stomach. “I think he might be right. We were in the Roseberg’s parking lot when the wave washed us onto the Stream.” She remembered the wild current that swirled all around them. The way the car-creature had struggled and dived to escape it. “It must have taken the store along with it.”

  “Okay,” Remy said, glancing from Marrill to Coll, her expression alarmed. “But what does that mean?”

  Marrill thought for a long, long moment, her sense of unease growing into something more. Coll stood and pushed away from the Wall. “It means the Stream’s touching your world. Which we already knew.” He clapped a hand on Remy’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” he reassured her. The babysitter let out a long breath and gave him a tentative smile.

  “I wish I believed that,” Marrill mumbled.

  “Hey, speaking of wishes,” came a voice beside her. Marrill, startled, turned to find Fin holding out a hand to her. She hadn’t realized he’d been standing so close. He helped her to her feet. “Aren’t we looking for a machine that can grant those?” Marrill nodded. “And isn’t it supposed to be at the top of this Wall?” She nodded again.

  Fin tugged her toward the door and threw it open with a flourish. “Looks like we’re here!”

  CHAPTER 16

  Emberfall

  Welcome to the Emberfall!” Monervans cried, greeting them as they piled out of the store. Fin blinked and took the place in.

  They weren’t at the top of the Wall exactly. But they were close. The cranes had maneuvered Roseberg’s into place amidst a series of balconies and terraces, all teeming with folks still partying from the night before. Nearby, a dozen workmen were busy jacking up several tall, rickety spires so they could slide the new structure underneath them.

  “So that’s how they do it,” Fin mused. “They lift the top buildings and add in beneath them, so the real tip-tops never fall.” He had to admit it was pretty clever.

  “Do they not realize that adding so much weight up here is probably making the city sink even faster,” Remy pointed out. “I mean, shouldn’t they be reinforcing the foundation instead?” They all stared at her. “What?” she said. “I did a project on engineering for extra credit last year.”

  “So now that we’re here,” Coll cut in, “how do we get up there?” He pointed past all the balconies and terraces, past the tips of the spindly spires that reached up toward the top of the Wall, past the wide band of smooth stone that marked that top, to the crooked tower that looked down on it all. The Tower of the Wiverwanes.

  No staircases or ladders led up to it. There was nothing at all to bridge the gap between the highest spire of the city and the top of the Wall. Fin’s fingertips tingled—there was nothing like a good climb to get the heart pumping. But what was there to climb?

  Remy shivered. “That’s where we’re going? It looks… pretty creepy.”

  Coll shrugged. “I’ve seen creepier.”

  Even as he said the words, a flash of orange light burst over the top of the Wall, casting the Tower in dark shadow. Bright sparks showered down, pouring over the partygoers, who shrieked merrily. Fin saw now why they called this place the Emberfall.

  “I take that back,” Coll said.

  Fin laughed. As far as he was concerned, this was just another challenge between them and the Wish Machine. They’d come this far—nothing would stop them. “Only thing to do is keep on going,” he called to the rest of the crew. “Onward!”

  As he plunged into the crowd, he heard Coll grumble, “Who’s that kid?”

  He pushed forward, not waiting—not wanting—to hear the answer. Instead, Fin did what he did best: got lost in the shuffle. He slipped between legs and darted behind backs, enjoying the bustle of it all.

  He appreciated a good mob. It was a lovely thing really; so alive and full of people, and you could be a part of it just by existing, no matter who knew you. In fact, the less anyone knew you, he felt, the more a part of it you became.

  He reached a great staircase and bounded up it, two steps at a time. As he neared the top, he felt a rumble under his feet, growing in intensity. All at once his stomach lifted into his throat as the entire city dropped several feet. From the terraces below, partygoers shrieked, as much in delight as in fear. Another wave had hit. Only the people up here thought it was fun to ride the chaos of it. Which, if he was honest, it was.

  He pushed onward, upward. Whereas the rest of Monerva was a mishmash of found and repurposed materials, the uppermost spires were constructed from slabs of unblemished stone. At their peak, a glass staircase twisted its way up to a high, circular platform. As they climbed it, Fin could see through it to the city falling away with each crash of the waves below.

  “I think I don’t like heights,” Remy said weakly. But she didn’t turn back. Probably because Coll was behind her and kept nudging her forward.

  As Fin crested the last step, three burly Monervans closed together, blocking the way. Nine eyes glared at him. “Ay, refugees,” one of them barked. “No admittance.”

  Coll stepped around Fin. One hand scratched at his tattoo. And then, in a flash, one of the guards tumbled down the stairs past them. Fin dodged out of the way. In the second before he glanced back up, the other two somehow ended up piled on top of the first.

  Coll looked at them sternly. “Violence is never the answer,” he said. “The gentlemen all tripped.”

  “Remind me to stay on Coll’s good side,” Marrill mumbled. Fin was about to agree, when he caught sight of what the guards had been blocking. Then everything else vanished from his mind.

  Perched in the middle of the wide marble platform, a triangle of jagged black iron jutted into the air. There was no question where it had come from. No mistaking the cruel edges, or the ruddy line where the water once struck it. It was salvage. The bowsprit of a ship.

  The Iron Ship.

  “This is bad,” Coll muttered. “This is very, very bad.”

  Marrill shook her head. “That’s not what I think it is, right? I mean, it can’t be, can it? The Iron Ship was behind us.”

  Fin’s heart dropped. He got it now. “Ardent called this one,” he said. “Who’s to say things happen in the same order here as they do outside? Remember? ‘For all we know, the Iron Ship’s already here’?”

  Beside him Marrill pressed her palm to her forehead. “Continuity is not guaranteed,” she groaned. “Just like the obelisk said.”

  Coll massaged the base of his neck. “Let’s keep moving.” He gestured to a ladder leading up the side of the prow. “Might as well see…” He paused, clearly struggling with the rest of the phrase. “What’s up,” he said at last, lips fighting back a grin. Remy smacked him on the arm.

  The joke, as lame as it was, made Fin smile. And the smile made him feel strong again. Like whatever awaited them, they could handle it. He bounded up the cold metal rungs of the rickety ladder toward a circle of glass balanced on the bowsprit.

  Coll and Marrill followed behind, while Remy flat refused to let go of the ladder and climb up. Fin could understand her hesitation. There were no railings of any sort, and the circle tilted slightly to one sid
e, so that he had to lean in the opposite direction to keep from slipping right off. Every now and then, a falling ember landed on his skin, stinging him for just a second before going out. But all he could do was wriggle and hope his hair didn’t catch fire.

  From overhead came the sound of arguing. “I’m clearly the highest! Have you seen this pedestal?” shouted one voice.

  “Pedestal, pah! My canopy towers over your pedestal!” snapped another.

  Fin looked up. At the very top of each pillar, a Monervan perched. One balanced on a strange collection of junk: books, bottles—anything really. Another, a tiny little man, swayed on a plaster pedestal nearly as tall as the column itself. The third, a tall woman who dwarfed the others, had a very dirty-looking rag flapping from a tiny pole over her seat.

  But as high as they all were, the Wiverwanes’ Tower was still out of reach.

  “Canopy?” scoffed the little man. He teetered on his pedestal dangerously. “Canopy? That’s barely a flag!”

  “Um, excuse us?” Marrill called up. “We’re trying to get up to the Wiverwanes’ Tower?”

  The tall woman with the flag crossed her arms. “Tell you what, Necarib, we’ll put it to a vote. Anyone who has a canopy gets a say. Wait, it’s just me? In that case, it’s a canopy if I say it is!”

  “Hey, high-ups?” Remy tried, climbing a little higher on her ladder. “A moment of your time?”

  “Only solid, stable structures count, Talaba!” shouted the woman balanced on her junk pile. “A canopy is not a solid, stable structure!”

  Coll waved his arms. “Where’d you get this bowsprit? Hey! Hello?”

  “Oh, and that trash heap of yours is?” Talaba scoffed back.

  Marrill threw up her hands. “Hold on, hold on. Are you seriously all bickering about who is higher than who?”

  The Monervan on the pillar peered down at her. “Of course. How else would we know who’s in charge?”

  Marrill frowned. “But what does height have to do with that?”

  The junk lady crossed her arms. “It matters because the highest is the Highest,” she said as though it were obvious. “That’s what makes them in charge.”

  “Which would be me, by the way,” interjected the little man on his pedestal. “I’m the Highest. You may bow. It’s fine.”

  The woman with her flag gasped. “Are you kidding? This is not settled, you little…”

  “How can that be all you care about?” Marrill demanded, her hands clenched in fists.

  The flag woman snorted. “Young lady, you will refrain from speaking up to us. We will talk down to you. We are the Highest of the High. Just look how far up we are!”

  “But the city’s in trouble down there,” Fin protested. “Don’t you care about your people?”

  The little Monervan man teetered on his pedestal. “Of course we care about those lower than us. We’re not heartless. But you have to see the big picture.”

  “Big picture?” Fin asked. “What big picture?”

  The little man tilted forward, talking to Marrill as if she had asked the question. “We serve a valuable purpose. We carry on the Salt Sand King’s decree, that the great city of Monerva should never fall.” He lifted his chins proudly. “That it should always rise up, up from the mire. That whatever may happen below, we, the Monervan people, should seek to be highest in all things!”

  The junk lady clutched a hand to her chest. Beneath her canopy, the tall Monervan wiped away a tear. “Oh, it is our charge,” she muttered. “Our solemn duty to be highest in all things.”

  “Seriously?” Remy shouted. “My mom says the same thing. She doesn’t mean it literally!”

  “Ahem,” said the Monervan from her junk pile. “This conversation is beneath us. As are you. Clamber on back down, lowlings. Your highers have loftier matters to discuss. Like which one of us is highest.” They immediately fell back to arguing.

  “Wait!” Marrill protested. “We need some answers!”

  The Monervans all scoffed as one. “We will let you know when we’re interested in hearing more from you,” the junk lady informed them. And from that moment on, they stopped responding to anyone other than themselves.

  Fin shook his head knowingly. Now Marrill was getting a taste of what it was really like to be him. To be ignored.

  “Give it up, kid,” Coll told her. “They won’t listen to us, because we’re lower than them. And there’s nowhere else to climb. We can’t get to their level.”

  Fin looked around. He was right. They were at the peak of the city. Even as new material was hauled up, it was added below them. There was nothing at all nearby, and no room to stack anything if there had been.

  They needed a way to get higher. Fin licked his thumb and held it out to the smoky air. Warm currents flowed around it. Updrafts, billowing over from the other side of the Wall. Drafts he could ride.

  “I know!” Marrill announced. “We’ll stack on each other’s shoulders. Like a cheerleading pyramid.”

  Remy was already shaking her head. “I wouldn’t know, because I’m not a cheerleader. But that sounds like a very bad idea.”

  “Well, what else is there?” Marrill asked.

  Fin puffed his chest. “I can fly up,” he proposed.

  Marrill glanced at him and blinked several times, a small frown pinching the skin between her eyes. Then she shook her head. “They won’t remember you long enough to have a conversat—”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Coll interrupted her. He helped the shaking Remy up from the ladder, then cupped his hands for her to climb onto. Remy turned so pale she was nearly see-through, but she stepped onto them nonetheless.

  Fin snorted. It was like they thought he was useless. Well, he didn’t need them. He was used to doing things himself.

  He pulled the strings on his skysails and jumped off onto a rush of warm, rising air. Just as he’d predicted, it caught him and lifted him. He gave a whoop of triumph as he rose. It was nowhere near enough to get him up to the Wiverwanes’ Tower, but it was plenty to put him on same level as the Monervans.

  He wheeled around, dodging between the pillars. “Okay,” he said. “Now that we’re all equally high, let’s talk about how we get up to the top of this Wall.”

  The three Monervans eyed one another, then began tittering. “What’s so funny?” Fin asked. He lifted his arms, circling to make another pass through the pillars… and had to bank sharply around Marrill, who’d just climbed on top of Remy, who stood on top of Coll.

  “Where did that prow come from?” Marrill demanded. Fin huffed in frustration as he glided back around. She had completely stolen his conversation. Did she not even see him?

  “Oh, that?” the little Monervan said. “It was a gift to us. From the man in iron.”

  Fin’s frustration melted. Fear shot through him. Marrill gasped and wobbled on Remy’s shoulders. The Master of the Iron Ship had already come.

  Fin struggled to steady himself, to keep his arms from shaking. And when he heard what came next, he nearly dropped out of the sky.

  “Oh yes,” said the tall woman under the canopy. “That was years ago. Right before he set off to find the Syphon of Monerva. I’m sure he’ll get his wish any moment now.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Honestly, That Could Have Gone Better

  A sick feeling shot through Marrill, worse than Remy and Coll wobbling beneath her feet. It was true. Back on the Stream, the Iron Ship had entered the whirlpool after them. But in Monerva, it had come out years before the Kraken arrived.

  Continuity cannot be guaranteed.

  The Master of the Iron Ship was here, now. And he’d gone to the Wish Machine.

  “He must have found the Syphon and kicked it into high gear,” the tall lady, Talaba, added from under her rag canopy. “It really started pulling in the Stream water after he showed up. And then the gears really started turning. Which has been quite exciting, as you can imagine. Lots of fresh building material coming in on the tide.”

&n
bsp; The little man on his pedestal nodded enthusiastically. “Look at this great new stuff!” He pointed down to where several cranes struggled to lift an entire warehouse. “There hasn’t been a haul like this since the time of the Salt Sand King himself, when the Syphon sucked in some poor little backwater world and ripped it to pieces.”

  “The Shattered Archipelago,” Marrill whispered. Once again, Ardent had been right. It had been a world like hers, drawn onto the Stream and torn apart by its raw magic. Drawn in, she now knew, by the Syphon of Monerva.

  A world like hers.

  “Marrill?” Fin said, circling around her. “Are you okay?”

  Everything seemed to spin. Her eyes unfocused, sliding up the smooth surface of the Wall to the gnarled tower at its top, to the plumes of smoke and orange fire rising up from whatever lay on the other side.

  First, there’d been the flash flood back in Arizona, and the mysterious message on the stop sign. Then Roseberg’s. Now this warehouse.

  The Stream will touch your world again. But if it’s close enough for you to stumble upon, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh, oh no.”

  Remy clamped a hand on Marrill’s leg. “What? What ‘oh no’?”

  Marrill clutched her hands to her chest. A tear formed in her eye. “It’s our world this time, Remy,” she said. “The Stream is leaking into our world. Arizona, Boston—all of it!”

  “That’s it,” Remy ordered. “Put us down, Coll. Team meeting!”

  Coll grunted. “With pleasure,” he said as he lowered them to the ground. Fin landed on the platform next to them.

  “Explain,” Remy said. “Now.”

  Marrill swallowed, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “It’s the Syphon,” she said. “The Master of the Iron Ship is already here. He did something to make the Syphon suck in Stream water faster, and now it’s going so strong it’s sucking our world onto the Pirate Stream. The magic will tear it apart, just like it did to the world that became the Shattered Archipelago!”