City of Thirst

by Carrie Ryan

  Remy stumbled, grabbing onto Coll’s arm to steady herself. “Okay, now I’m really sorry I asked.”

  Fin touched down next to them. “I hate to step on your tails when they’re already drooping, but is anyone else worried about what the Master might be wishing for?”

  Marrill dropped her head into her hands. Things just kept getting worse. “The Iron Tide,” she muttered.

  “That’s my guess,” Fin agreed.

  “Okay.” Remy clapped her hands. “New plan. First, we stop the Wish Machine from pulling our world onto the Stream. Second, we stop the iron dude from making his evil wish. Third, we get the Salt Sand King’s wish granted so everyone can leave, fourth we all go home and never look back. Everyone on board?”

  Marrill nodded. A weak smile played across her lips. Remy was right. They had to find a way. “So how do we do any of this?”

  “I vote we use the Map to figure out the quickest way up to the Wiverwanes’ Tower,” Fin suggested. “We find the Syphon ourselves, and put this all to rest before it gets any worse.”

  Coll laughed, but there was no humor in it. “And just hope the evil wizard ghost-captain is fine with that? Listen, kid, I don’t know you, but you don’t look like a wizard to me. I know I’m not. We wouldn’t last two seconds against the Master. We need to find Ardent and Annalessa before we do anything else. They’re the only ones who can stand up to him.”

  Marrill nodded. She’d been thinking the same thing: They needed to call in the big guns for this one. “Coll’s right. We’ve got to get Ardent. He’ll be able to stop the Syphon in time.”

  “That’s great and all, but we don’t exactly know where Ardent and Annalessa are,” Remy interjected. “They went off this morning to follow some lead on the Iron Tide and they didn’t say where.”

  “Then we’ll just use the Map to Everywhere to find them,” Marrill said, holding out her hand toward Fin.

  Fin clutched at his thief’s bag, taking a step back. “No need to be hasty, bloods,” he protested. “Let’s think through all the options here.”

  “Our only option is to stop the Syphon from powering up all the way,” Marrill said firmly. “And we need Ardent and Annalessa to do that.”

  “No, we don’t.” Fin pointed toward the Wiverwanes’ Tower. “Look, we’re almost there!” He pulled the Map from his jacket. “We just need to use the Map to figure out how to get up the rest of the way.”

  Marrill shook her head. Frustration bloomed hot in her chest. This had to be the third time today they’d fought over how to do things. “Look, we can’t do this on our own. There’s too much at stake.” She reached for the Map, but he danced backward, holding it out of reach.

  “We can’t stop now,” he urged. He glanced toward Remy and Coll. “Right?”

  “I vote we do whatever gets us out of Monerva fastest,” Coll suggested, his voice raspier than usual.

  Marrill couldn’t believe Fin was being so difficult. “Fin, this is my world we’re talking about. My home.” Her voice cracked as she took a trembling breath. “This isn’t just about the Iron Tide anymore. We have to stop the Wish Machine before my world ends up like the Shattered Archipelago.”

  “And if we get to the Wish Machine, we can fix all of that,” he argued. “We can wish everything back into place.”

  “What if we fail? What if the Master’s already there? We can’t risk it.” She started to move around him, but he grabbed her hand.

  “We can,” he said. “We stopped an evil wizard. We sank the Master of the Iron Ship. We can do this. Together.”

  Marrill searched his eyes, her throat tight. All she knew was that she’d been sent back to the Stream to save her world. That’s exactly what she planned to do. No matter what it took.

  With a sour taste in her mouth, she nodded. “You’re right. We’ll use the Map to find a way up to the Tower.”

  The lopsided grin Fin gave her made her heart squeeze tight, but she forced a smile. She watched as he flicked open the Map, the move more grandiose than necessary. But that was Fin, ever the showman.

  He pulled the Key from his thief’s bag and knelt. Holding it just above the surface of the Map, he began, “Show us how—”

  Marrill lunged for the sun-shaped crystal. Her hand fell on top of his, tugging it between them. “Show us how to find Ardent,” she quickly spouted.

  “What are you doing?” Fin yelped. He tried wrenching the Key away from her, but she held tight.

  “I’m saving my home,” she told him through clenched teeth. “I’m doing what’s right.”

  “So am I,” Fin argued. He pushed the Key down to touch the Map. “How do we get to the Tower?” Ink swirled up to the surface, bubbling and shifting.

  “No, to Ardent!” Marrill corrected. The images on the Map fell away, then re-formed in a jumbled mass. She pulled one way. Fin pulled back. He slammed his free hand on top of hers, pushing the Key down again. She did the same, her hand covering his.

  They both opened their mouths at the same time, speaking over each other.

  Marrill saying, Fin saying,

  “We have to find a way “We have to figure out how

  to stop the Syphon!” to get to the Syphon!”

  The Map buckled beneath their hands. Marrill’s blood roared in her ears. They stared at each other, their breaths coming fast, their fingers still tangled around the Key.

  It was like he was a stranger to her. Like they had never been best friends. Had never cared about what was best for the other.

  The sound of squealing hinges rose up through the air. “Uh, guys,” Remy said.

  Marrill ignored her. “How could you?” she whispered to Fin. A familiar scent coated her tongue, like the moment before lightning strikes.

  “Seriously, guys?” Remy said again, this time more urgent.

  Fin’s eyes went wide. “Me? How could y—”

  And then Marrill was tossed backward. There was the loud bang of a giant door slamming, and a searing flash of light. Her head smacked into the base of one of the glass pedestals.

  She blinked to clear the pain. Coll and Remy had ducked down, covering themselves. Fin lay across from her, practically on the edge of the platform. The Key spun in loose circles beside him. The Map lay curled and blank on the ground.

  “What just happened?” Remy asked.

  Marrill swallowed, hard. The sound of the door, the searing light—she recognized that from the deck of the Black Dragon, when she and Fin had faced the evil Oracle, Serth. When he’d assembled the Map to Everywhere into a massive Gate and used the Key to open it, so the Lost Sun of Dzannin, the star of destruction, could shine its deadly light out to destroy the Pirate Stream.

  Dread pooled in her stomach. Somehow, she and Fin had opened that Gate again.

  Slowly, she turned around. A thin line sliced straight through the Wall behind them. In the middle of it, a gear wobbled unsteadily, one of its teeth sheared clean off.

  Fin pushed to his feet, holding out a hand to help Marrill. As they stood, the crack widened, pieces of the Wall falling away. “Shanks,” he whispered.

  There was quiet, the bustle of Monerva falling silent for once. And then a voice screamed:

  “They broke the Wall!”

  Everything dissolved into chaos. The three Monervans, who just moments before had been arguing over who was the highest, leapt from their spires and pushed their way down the ladder in a jumble.

  “You’re the highest,” the first said, pointing to the second. “You deal with it!”

  “Me?” the second said. “You’ve still got that fabulous canopy!”

  “They’re coming!” the third shouted, pointing. A dark smudge drifted from the Tower at the top of the Wall. Like smoke, but heavier. More substantial.

  The edges of the cloud writhed. The air filled with the sound of beating wings.

  Marrill’s heart tripped over itself, hammering against her chest. The darkness coalesced and crashed against the Wall, rushing down it like a m
elted shadow. Directly toward them.

  There was no time to run and no place to hide. Below, the Monervans flattened themselves to the ground. But the Wiverwanes weren’t coming for them.

  They were coming for Marrill and Fin. For the two who’d broken the Wall. Fin scooped up the Key. Marrill lunged for the Map, crumpling it into her pocket. And then she was swallowed by dark bodies.

  The tips of handless fingers danced across her skin, causing it to ripple. Memories seeped into her, through her.

  The King ran his hands across his prize, a raggedy length of black cloth, all covered in frayed ends of fabric from bottom to top, as if it had been worn to threads by wind and rain and vast expanses of time.

  The Dawn Wizard eased closer. One of his eyes, the King realized, was noticeably larger than the other. “The cloak you won from me, my lord, is far more than mere cloth. It is memories made real. The memories of the Dzane, my brothers and sisters, who went before and are no more. It’s very precious to me, and me only. But a wager’s a wager, I expect. So I come here looking for another wager, hoping to make myself whole again.”

  The King shook his head. “No more wagers. But I can offer a trade. I need your help.”

  The Dawn Wizard smiled and bowed. His teeth were black, with just a touch of light blue around the edges. “What could a humble Dawn Wizard like me do to satisfy you, O King? You’ve united all the lands of the Boundless Plains, and here I can scarcely keep from gambling away my own clothes!”

  Marrill struggled to fight them, to stay conscious. But it was too much. She was dimly aware of her feet leaving the ground—of a sensation of weightlessness. And then she was lost in someone else’s memories.

  CHAPTER 18

  The City of Burning Ladders

  The Wiverwanes encircled them, blocking out the light. Before Fin’s eyes, Marrill was lost in the swirling darkness.

  “Hey!” Remy shouted, “Get your… hands… fingers… whatever—just let her go!” She lunged into the mass of writhing creatures. Coll grabbed after her. In a moment, they, too, vanished.

  Fin dove into the fray, struggling to pull them free. He slipped through the Wiverwanes easily; apparently they didn’t notice him any more than anyone else did. “Marrill!” he called. “Coll! Remy!” But no one answered. He pushed harder, swatting the creatures away from his face just in time to see Marrill being lifted into the air.

  Fin grabbed her hand, but she didn’t react. Her eyes stared blankly. Her lips moved softly, but no sound came out.

  Without hesitation, Fin threw his arms around Marrill’s waist, holding on for dear life as the Wiverwanes carried them both up and away.

  It wouldn’t have been the first time, or even the second, that Fin had hitched a ride out of a scrape. But it was definitely the first time he’d flown away on an unconscious girl being carried by a flock of hand-creatures. He just hoped everyone involved was stronger than they appeared.

  The spires of the Highest fell away. Seconds later, the Wiverwanes swooped and spiraled as they broke over the top of the Wall. Fin clutched Marrill tighter as the Tower of the Wiverwanes came into view. It was dark and sinister, twisted and crooked, filled with holes like a dovecote or a hive of wasps.

  And it was totally within reach. All he would have to do was let go. It was an easy enough drop; he probably wouldn’t even need to use his skysails. He could be there in seconds—right at the entrance to the Syphon, the way to the Wish Machine. The very place the Map had sent them.

  Everything he’d ever wanted was within reach. So close it made him physically ache.

  If he let go now, he could be memorable.

  His fingers twitched as he imagined it. Ardent greeting him with a cheerful “Fin, my boy!” when he came on deck. Coll clapping him on the back, telling stories about their latest adventure. The Ropebone Man would swing him aboard whenever he ran up a dock, and the pirats would never, ever set sail without him.

  But that would mean abandoning the others to deal with the Wiverwanes, and whatever lay across the Wall, alone.

  What was it Slandy had said?

  To get what you want, you must give what you have.

  His gut twisted. Could he give up Marrill to become memorable?

  Fin closed his eyes. What terrified him the most in that moment was that he was so unsure of the answer.

  And when he opened his eyes again, the opportunity had passed. The Wiverwanes had crossed over the Wall. Regret and relief mixed together inside him.

  His first glimpse of the other side, however, gave the edge to regret. The falling embers and the plumes of smoke should have been a clue. Because as far as Fin could see, the plain below was on fire.

  The flames stretched to the horizon and beyond. They raged through low, flat scrubland. They raged through sheer canyons of blackened glass that scoured the earth, as if a giant Karnelius had raked his claws across it. They raged over rolling hills and across stony wasteland, devouring trees and bushes and endless seas of grass, flowing and changing like the Stream itself.

  Here, the flames burst into showers of sparks like whitecaps of waves. There, they guttered and smoldered like the outflowing tide. All across the scorched land, the fire eternal burned everything it could touch, ever hungry for more.

  It burned, in fact, right up to the base of the Wall, licking at the squat structures crouched there. Devouring them hungrily.

  The city below wasn’t nearly as big as Monerva, nor as beautiful. Instead of marble spires and gleaming terraces, half-built stairs and ragged scaffolds thrust up from a mass of dark buildings hunkered at its base. From the air, Fin couldn’t tell one building from the next; they were all just a single long, fused lump.

  “At least we’re not down there, eh?” he asked Marrill.

  Before the words had even left his mouth, the swarm of Wiverwanes dipped, moving stomach-flippingly fast. Their fingerlike wings fluttered, letting go.

  Marrill and Fin were falling. They plunged into the smoke. Not since his earliest days at the Khaznot Quay had Fin found himself unexpectedly tumbling through the air. But a kid only had to plummet toward certain death once to hone his reaction time.

  Quick as lightning, he wrapped his legs around Marrill’s waist, flung out his arms, and pulled at the strings in the sleeves of his coat. His skysails fluttered, just barely catching against the wind before the two of them collided with the pitched spire of the tallest building.

  It was enough to knock the air from Fin’s lungs, but not enough to break bones. Together, he and Marrill slid down the slick surface toward the raging fire below.

  Smoke choked him. Flames licked at the edge of the roof, waiting for them. The heat of it washed over Fin, causing sweat to drip down his cheeks.

  There was no way to slow or halt their slide. All he could do was hold on to Marrill and hope. He squeezed his eyes closed, waiting for the end.

  And then the angle of the roof lessened, the speed of their slide slowed, and they tumbled, fairly unceremoniously, off the side and onto a patch of smoldering ground.

  Fin threw his arms over his face, bracing for the inferno. When it didn’t come, he cracked open an eye. Just moments before, this entire area had been engulfed in flames. Now, it was as though the fire had somehow passed it over, leaving nothing but smoke and a pulsing heat.

  Beside him Marrill sat up with a stretch and a yawn. “Careful, those pipes are flammable,” she muttered.

  “Marrill!” He crawled toward her. “You okay?”

  She stared at him blankly for a moment, as though still lost in the trance that had overtaken her. She shook her head, frowning in confusion. “Yeah. I mean, I think so.”

  Fin stood, offering a hand to help her up. She reached for it, then hesitated. Suddenly, she snatched her hand away and pushed to her feet. “This is your fault!”

  “My fault?” Fin took an involuntary step back. His surprise at her accusation turned quickly to indignation. “How is this my fault?”

  “You opened
the Gate!” she spat. “You almost let out the Lost Sun of Dzannin!”

  Fin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What? That was your fault! You’re the one who tried to yank the Key from me while I was using it.”

  Marrill lifted her chin. “I wouldn’t have had to if you’d just listened to reason and used it right.”

  Fin’s cheeks burned. “Are you ribbing me? I was trying to get us to the Wish Machine. You know, where we both want to go?”

  Marrill’s eyes narrowed. “And where I’ll be totally helpless if we don’t have some magical backup, while you just waltz in undetected and get your wish.”

  Fin clenched his hands into fists against the anger boiling in him. “I could sneak in and make all of our wishes,” he pointed out.

  “My world is on the line, Fin,” Marrill snapped. “I can’t just hope you’re somehow able to bluff your way past the Master of the Iron Ship and wish for me. We don’t even know how the stupid machine works!”

  Fin wanted to spin on his heel and leave. Let Marrill forget him. He’d be better off without her anyway. Not have to explain himself. Not have to justify his actions, or change his plans. He could do what he wanted, go where he wanted, make whatever wishes he wanted.

  He couldn’t believe how quickly having a friend turned into a burden.

  But where was he going to go? All around, the ground was burnt and smoking, right up to the dusty buildings themselves. He didn’t even know where he was. Which was also Marrill’s fault. “I should have just let the Wiverwanes take you on your own,” he grumbled.

  Her eyes went wide, two bright spots of red blazing on her cheeks. She opened her mouth, then paused, forehead crinkling. “Wait. Last time the Wiverwanes totally ignored you. Why did they take you this time?”

  Fin shuffled his feet and shrugged. “Nothing. I… er… hitched a ride on your legs.”

  “So you chose to come here?” She seemed surprised.

  “It’s not like I had a ton of time to think through the consequences.”

  A smile twitched Marrill’s lips and then she let out a giggle. “Let’s face it, that’s not really your strong suit anyway.”