City of Thirst

by Carrie Ryan

  A shudder rumbled up through the stone beneath them. “We’d best be going,” the wizard added. Ardent’s voice trailed off as he looked past her, down into the gaping hole in the Wall. Even from where they stood, Marrill could hear the soft crackle of stone turning to metal, the trickle of water rising. Spreading. Threatening to spill out across the Stream.

  “What in Falmore’s feathers happened down there?” the wizard asked.

  “Um… yeah, we broke the Syphon and started the Iron Tide,” Marrill blurted. “It’s coming. Fast!”

  Ardent’s face turned ashen. “Oh dear,” he said. His eyes darted from the hole in the Wall out toward the Stream. “Oh… oh dear.”

  They stood on a tilted gear, not far above the Grovel. All around, chaos reigned. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. A massive crack ran up the Wall, splitting it clear in half. Beetles clambered through from the other side, joining the teeming horde of Monervans dropping down from above. The city was falling apart.

  Every dock groaned under the weight of escapees jostling for a spot on one of the waiting ships. The air was thick with shouts and the rumbling of the still-shaking Wall. “Shanks,” Fin breathed.

  “Yes, well, it seems like the tide has turned, if you will pardon the expression.” Ardent pointed to the flotilla of ships already headed out toward a giant whirlpool waiting on the horizon. One reached the edge of it, and then just… disappeared.

  “Wait, what just happened to that boat?” Marrill asked.

  “Annalessa calls it the Boundary,” the wizard explained. “The point where the bubble of Monerva ends and the way back to the Stream begins. Before, it was only one way—in—thanks to the pull of the Syphon. Now, it seems to have reversed itself. It appears all we have to do is sail out, and we should be returned right back to the Stream.”

  “Then we should go,” Fin suggested. “Like everyone. We should all go. Now.”

  Ardent nodded. “Your new friend has a point.” Without another word, he stepped onto a sinking beam and let it carry him to the docks, where he plunged into the crowd, pushing his way toward the Kraken. “Hurry, everyone, hurry!” he shouted as he went. “No good reason, nothing to be alarmed about, but seriously, hurry!”

  Marrill chased after him, jostling through the mob. The creatures of Monerva packed the docks, clambering to abandon the doomed city. Ships cast off all around, striking out for the Boundary. She bit her lip, glancing over her shoulder. Was it iron or shadow that now darkened the hole she and Fin had escaped through?

  “Look, the Wall!” a loud voice cried.

  Sure enough, the darkness was growing. It spread out in all directions: climbing, creeping down; stretching fingers out across dullwood beams and tracing the teeth of gears. “The Iron Tide,” Marrill breathed.

  “The Iron Tide?” Another voice picked up the words, then another, carrying them around the crowd. Soon, they were on everyone’s lips. A moment ago, no one here had ever heard of the Iron Tide. Now, with it moving like a sickness over the face of the Wall, none of them would ever forget it.

  “The Iron Tide is coming!” a woman shouted. “You must stop it!” Marrill jerked her head up, swallowed in déjà vu. She knew that voice! She pushed through the chaos after it, running smack into a tall Monervan with a frog clutched in one hand and a long, rather pathetic flag on a pole in the other.

  “Stop the Iron Tide before it spreads beyond the docks and—oof,” Talaba grunted as Marrill collided with her. “Hey, watch where you’re—” The frog squirmed from her hands. “Oh, wait, my frog! Get back here, you little—” The Monervan scrambled away after it.

  Marrill blinked. “No time to engage the locals,” Ardent said, pulling her onward. The Kraken’s gangplank lay just ahead, and he ushered her quickly up it.

  “Marrill! Plus One!” Remy launched herself toward them, pulling Marrill in with one hand and Fin in with the other for a fierce hug. “I was so worried about you guys! I’m totally hitting up your parents for hazard pay after all this.” She herded them eagerly onboard.

  Ardent stalked across the main deck with fierce determination. “Coll, make sail,” he commanded. His voice was cold and flat. “No more waiting. Go, now.”

  The captain hunched over the wheel, expression fierce. Sweat beaded on his brow. “Finally,” he rasped, rubbing at his throat. Above, the pirats scampered across the yards, untying knots and raising sails.

  “He’s not doing well,” Remy whispered. “He won’t tell me what’s going on, but I think he really needs to get out of here.”

  “I think we all do,” Fin said. He kept his eyes trained on the Wall. Black-stained water now trickled from the gap where they’d emerged. Anywhere it touched, the dull metal plague took root. And when it reached the waves of the Stream below, it spread faster than ever. A chill stole down his back.

  “Hey, look, it’s the Iron Tide,” the Naysayer snorted behind them, Karnelius tucked in the crook of an elbow. “And here I thought the literally thousands of stories documenting its existence would end up being a typo.”

  Marrill jumped at him, wrapping him in a huge hug. “Naysayer! You made it! You’re alive!”

  “Yeah, and now you’re making me regret that circumstance,” the cantankerous old creature grumbled. With two hands, he shoved her away. But if Marrill hadn’t known better, she would have sworn a third hand gave her a light, friendly pat.

  The moment didn’t last long. Shouts erupted across the Grovel, as beetles, Monervans, and various creatures of all kinds shoved their way onto already-filled ships, threatening to capsize them in the rush to escape the creeping onslaught of metal. The Kraken jolted, throwing Marrill off balance. Above, the sails snapped full. The ship eased away from the docks and the thronging horde.

  “Wait!” Marrill cried. Coll’s face remained grim as he guided the ship out toward the open water. She couldn’t believe he’d just abandon everyone like that. “What are you doing? We can’t just leave! We have to do something.”

  “You said make sail,” Coll croaked at Ardent. He drew a labored breath. His hand clawed at the tattoo knotted around his neck. The ink ropes twisted into a hangman’s noose.

  Annalessa snapped her fingers. The sails eased, flapping uselessly in the wind. Marrill hadn’t even noticed the wizard come up on deck. “She’s right, Coll. We can’t just abandon these people.”

  The sailor looked to Ardent. “Please,” he wheezed. “I can’t…” As Marrill watched, the ropes of his tattoo seemed to somehow squeeze even tighter. Coll stumbled back a step, then collapsed to his knees, gasping.

  “Coll!” Remy raced to his side, helping him to sit. Her hand rested on his back, supporting him as he struggled for air. “Do something!” she shouted at the wizards.

  Ardent’s expression was strained. “There’s nothing we can do. The ropes that bind him are powerful ones. If he stays in one place for too long, well… this happens. Being trapped here, outside of time, it’s even worse.” He knelt down by his friend and gripped Coll’s forearm tightly. “They’re right, Coll. We must stop the Iron Tide before we escape,” he said softly. “Can you hold on just a little longer?”

  Coll squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. “I will,” he gasped. “Whether I can or not.”

  Ardent cupped the back of Coll’s head. “Thank you, old friend,” he whispered. Then he was up, striding purposefully across the deck. “We need to get these people out of here, fast, before the Iron Tide reaches them. And then get ourselves out of here before the currents trap us.”

  He pointed to the metal now covering half the Wall. Black water splashed up onto the docks, the Tide swelling and growing with every moment. “Because if we don’t,” he finished, “I expect we may be stuck in here, with that, forever.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The Iron Tide

  As Fin watched, the Iron Tide swept across the Wall, turning everything it touched to metal. Nothing in its path was safe. It coated gardens and terraces, cranes and the buildings they’d been lifting.


  Beside him, Annalessa dragged her hands through the air. With each motion, another ship’s sails jumped to life. All across the Grovel, the last of the vessels launched, racing to stay ahead of the creeping plague.

  As the Kraken made its way through the marshes, the iron covered the end of the docks. A dull, dark sheen coated the wood and the waves, growing faster with every second.

  “It’s no use,” Annalessa murmured, as much to herself as to Fin. “So long as the ships can reach the Boundary, they can escape back to their own times. But the Tide will follow right on their heels.”

  A niggling thought grabbed at the back of Fin’s mind. An idea that was so close he could almost feel it breathing on him. “Back to their own times…” he muttered. “As long as they reach the Boundary…”

  Then it hit him. He jumped into the air with a clap. “Hey!” he said. “Aren’t we all forgetting something?” Annalessa raised an eyebrow with confusion. “I mean something other than me? In all those old stories, sailors were fleeing the Iron Tide. But it never actually showed up on the Stream, right?”

  The wizard cocked her head, running one long finger down the strong line of her chin. “You’re right. Perhaps because the Iron Tide would also go back to where it came in. Which I assume would be where, or rather when, the Master and his Iron Ship came in.”

  Fin snapped his fingers, trying to hold her attention. “Right, we assume that. But what if it isn’t true? I mean, the Iron Tide began in Monerva, with the Master and the Stream water, and even the Lost Sun all coming together. It could seep out any… when. But what if it doesn’t? Because it doesn’t ever reach the Boundary?”

  Annalessa snapped her fingers, just as he had. “Of course!” She laughed. “Monerva was always connected to the Stream by the flow of water coming in. Right now, that flow has reversed, but soon it will die off entirely, and the link between Moneva and the rest of the Stream will be severed. If we can keep the Iron Tide from escaping before that happens, it will be stuck here!”

  She paced frantically from one side of the Kraken to the other. Fin struggled to keep up with her. “But how, but how…” she muttered.

  A tall Monervan ship sailed by. Fin was pretty sure he could see Talaba on its crow’s nest, hoisting up her rag canopy. “Still building to the end,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Now, there’s a thought,” Annalessa said. “Building! We could build something, to stop the Iron Tide…”

  “A wall!” Fin and Annalessa cried at once.

  With one finger, the wizard tapped the end of Fin’s nose. “My goodness, you’re not memorable,” she said suddenly. “I’m so sorry for all the times I must have forgotten you. Not to mention all the times I will. Now let’s go stop this Iron Tide.”

  Fin raced up to the front of the ship, calling for Marrill and Ardent. The wizard looked at him with unfamiliarity. “Man, Annalessa is so much more on the ball than you,” he muttered. Quickly, he explained what they’d figured out about slowing the Tide.

  “So if we can get the Monervans to work with us…” Marrill said.

  “Then we can build a barrier to hold back the Tide!” Fin shouted.

  Marrill beamed at him and his chest puffed up. “Fin, that’s perfect! And I know just who to ask.” She scanned the nearby ships and cupped her hands around her mouth shouting, “Elle!”

  The snail was perched on the stern of a squat barge, which tilted precariously under her weight. At Marrill’s call, she shot out a snail tail, wrapping it around the Kraken’s mast to pull the ships together.

  “Well, won’t you look at that?” a familiar voice said as the ships drew closer. Slandy leaned over the railing, waving. “See, Brendel dear, it’s that girl I told you about, the one from the party. Girl from the party, meet Brendel, the missus!”

  Marrill nodded hello to Brendel before turning to Slandy. “We need your help,” she explained. “We need to use the levator snails to build a barricade and stop the Iron Tide.”

  Brendel’s mouth opened in an O. “Oooh, building again? Maybe we can snag the highest after all, huh, Slandy?” she said.

  “I’m not sure that’s what they meant, Brendel, my love,” Slandy said, “but I think I’ve got the clue of it. Sure thing, young lady. If it’ll help the situation, just tell me what you want and where you want it and we’ll get it done. Won’t we, girl?” she added, running a hand across Elle’s shell.

  Between them, Slandy, and Brendel, word spread quickly to the other ships. But Brendel wasn’t alone in her reaction; apparently, the idea of building brought out the competitive nature of the Monervans. A number of snail-bearing ships volunteered immediately, each insisting they’d definitely be able to gather more junk, and better, than the others. In moments, what seemed like a surefire solution was falling apart to bickering and petty rivalries.

  “This isn’t about height,” Fin tried to remind them. But already, the Monervans were piling debris into floating columns, leaving massive gaps between them as the Iron Tide washed closer. The Tide spread through the water faster even than it had across the Wall. Fin’s shoulders pulled tight with frustration.

  “Ugh,” Marrill groaned, “how do we get them to stop wanting to be Highest so badly and just work together?”

  “Perhaps I can be of assistance?” a voice buzzed from the side of the Kraken. Fin leaned over the rail. A curious sight awaited him at the waterline: a big brass bowl bobbed on ostrich legs, its large feet strapped tightly into makeshift skis. A black beetle stood inside of it, arms akimbo, the reins held loosely in one clawed hand.

  “Say the word, and my brothers and I stand ready to help the Monervans focus. We beetles are, after all, experts in suppressing desire.” Though his shiny beak was literally expressionless, Fin couldn’t help but think that was self-satisfaction shining in his red, multifaceted eye.

  Fin flashed a relieved smile. “That’s perfect! Listen, everyone,” he shouted as beetles clambered to join their Monervan counterparts. “We have to all work together. Build out, not up! In fact, the ship that listens to their beetles’ instructions the best will become…” His mind scrambled. “Uh… Bestest. Which is better than highest. Trust me.”

  “We would know,” Marrill said. “We totally met the Salt Sand King.” The Monervans, impressed, fell into a chatter.

  “… And we killed him,” Fin quietly assured the now-chittering beetles. Sort of, he mentally added. Satisfied, the beetles, too, broke into conferring.

  With the beetles to soothe their insane rivalries, Fin was amazed with what the Monervans accomplished. Their outward-pointing faces could spot prime chunks of debris all around them for the snails to snatch and anchor into place. Before long, the last piece of the barricade fell into place, blocking off the marshes just before the Iron Tide reached it.

  A raucous cheer went up from the fleet. For a long moment, it seemed the Tide was contained. But then a dark spot appeared on the barricade. The iron was spreading, slowly petrifying its way through this new barrier just as it had the Wall. And when the line of creeping metal reached the water, darkness raced across the waves.

  The Iron Tide was on the move once more.

  Fin’s shoulders slumped. “We didn’t stop it,” he moaned, feeling deflated. A shudder ran across the fleet.

  But it seemed Marrill wasn’t ready to give up just yet. “Maybe we don’t have to,” she announced. “Look: The Iron Tide moves way faster when it’s in the water. If we can put up more barriers, we can slow it down long enough for the current to die and the Boundary to close. Keep building, everyone!”

  The Monervans and beetles fell back into place, crafting another barricade out of junk, then another after that. The bravest moved to the front, holding the lines so the others could escape. One at a time, ships broke for the Boundary. Annalessa and Ardent took turns boosting them toward the horizon; she pulling on the wind, he pushing with the waves.

  But as the fleet lost builders, the Tide came faster than they could stop it. I
t had already reached the second wall before they’d finished the third. In no time, the Iron Tide spread through the second barrier and onto the Stream. Fin held his breath as the wash of iron slapped against the third barrier.

  “More, more!” cried Brendel. “You, snail, snag that piece over there! You there, Necarib! I see you hoarding it—send that window out to the front lines. And yes, the stupid pedestal, too!”

  “Calm your ambitions,” Rysacg urged. “Focus on what you achieve, not what you wish.”

  “There’s little to grab, and no one left to do the grabbing,” Slandy pointed out.

  Fin looked around. Aside from Slandy’s and Rysacg’s boats, the Kraken was the only one left. All the others had made it to the Boundary and disappeared down the whirlpool. But as Fin watched the water spiraling into the whirlpool, the vortex seemed to wobble. At its mouth, the only exit out of Monerva flexed. It grew and shrank, like a hungry bird chirping for food. At the same time, the water swirling down it seemed to stutter and halt, just as it hit the rim.

  Fin’s pulse hammered loudly in his ears. The Boundary was collapsing. It was time to leave or be stuck here forever.

  Annalessa seemed to have come to the same realization. “Come on, Ardent,” she said. “Let’s hold this barricade together just a touch longer.” She planted her feet and held out her arms. A loose section of the final barrier stood suddenly firm.

  “Way ahead of you,” Ardent said, making little swatting motions with one hand. Each time he did, a new piece of flotsam jumped out of the water and onto the barricade, giving the Iron Tide another obstacle to spread through before it could reach the waves.

  “I’m afraid we’ve done what we can do for you,” Slandy shouted from the prow of her ship. “We’d best be on our way!”

  “Oh, it’s been such fun meeting you folks,” Brendel added.

  Marrill jumped and waved. “Bye, Brendel, bye, Slandy! Thanks for everything. Take good care of Elle!”