by Obert Skye
“Yes,” the water beneath his dangling feet replied.
Leven looked down to see the white, foamy face of the lead Wave bobbing on the surface of the water. Leven pulled his legs up and rolled onto his stomach so he could look straight down.
“Sorry,” Leven said. “About calling you out here.”
“There’s no need for sorrow on my behalf,” Garnock said. “We are yours to instruct.”
“That’s still really hard to believe,” Leven said.
“It is the order of things,” Garnock replied.
“The remains of Lith,” Leven said. “I know the Dearth’s moving the soil to the Gloam, but the bulk of Lith, has it been completely dragged apart?”
“It is all beneath the surface, but it will be many days before the Dearth possesses all the soil,” Garnock said. “Your concern is curious. Why care for the soil?”
“There’s someone who was held captive on Lith,” Leven explained. “I need to know if she’s still alive and if saving her is possible.”
“We can discover that,” Garnock gurgled. “But if she lives, the depth will be too great for us Waves to move stone to retrieve the buried.”
“We’ll come,” Leven said. “I’ll come with Geth and Winter.”
“For whom are we looking?”
“She’s a she,” Leven said. “A longing kept captive in a metal cage.”
“A longing?” Garnock babbled.
Leven nodded, his wet hair hanging down around his face.
“It’ll take us most of tomorrow to get there,” Leven said.
“If what you say is true,” Garnock bubbled, “I’d move with urgency. Longings are quite valuable.”
“We will be on our way as soon as I can find a boat.”
Leven looked down the dark shoreline. There wasn’t a single vessel in sight.
“We will help with that,” Garnock said. “A ship will be here at sunrise.”
“Thanks, Garnock,” Leven said.
“You’re most welcome,” he replied. “It is an honor to serve one so young.”
Hearing that from anyone else, it would have sounded sarcastic, but from Garnock the sincerity was as apparent as his presence.
Leven nodded.
Garnock disappeared beneath the water. Leven pushed himself up and looked out at the sea. His chest hurt and the compulsion to jump into the water and swim to the longing was very strong. Leven scooted back on the pier to prevent himself from diving in. He looked up at the sky and felt the wet mist from the sea move over him.
The mist that hovered over so much of the Veil Sea was like a blanket to the mind. It made things confusing, but it was a comfortable fog.
A soft bell sounded, signaling the coming surge. Leven looked around but saw no sign of the water rising.
“Leeeven,” the scene seemed to whisper.
Leven looked around, expecting to see someone right next to him. There was nobody.
“Leeven.”
He stood and slowly walked back to the start of the pier.
“Leeeven.”
“What?” Leven shouted to the darkness in frustration.
There was no response. Leven stepped off the pier and walked ten steps in the direction of the granite door.
“Leeeeven.”
Leven turned and stepped down the rocky shore. He could see the water receding as the surge grew closer. Mist washed over him and he walked towards the sea as more and more water pulled away.
“Leeven.”
Leven closed his eyes and breathed in deep. He took four more steps down towards the receding waterline. The ground was no longer stone but a sandy soil.
Leven stood still.
“Leven.”
It was a foolish decision. Leven could hear voices in his head rolling around like wet clothes in a hot dryer. His feet were heavy and dread filled his soul as he continued to watch the water recede.
“Leven,” he heard inside his head.
“Who are you?” Leven asked.
“You know,” the voice coaxed.
“The Dearth.”
“Smart boy.”
The second bell rang. Leven wanted to move. He wanted to step back onto the stone and retreat from the danger, but he just stood there.
“How do they die?” the Dearth questioned.
“What?” Leven mumbled.
“Sycophants. How do they die?”
Leven had to fight his own brain to keep from saying it aloud.
“Help me,” the Dearth urged.
Leven thought of Clover.
“I can’t,” Leven said weakly, wishing he hadn’t stepped off the pier.
“You already have.”
The voice was suddenly gone. Leven stood alone on the sea floor staring into the dark night as the arrival bells started to ring steadily. Leven couldn’t move. He grabbed his right leg and strained to pull it up. It broke from the sand with a loud pop.
Leven turned to run just as the water rushed to the shore. The surge had grown hundreds of feet high and was barreling like a locomotive straight toward the opening of the Devil’s Spiral.
Leven ran two steps before the water reached him from behind. It pounded his back and then he could feel himself being lifted up and pushed forward.
The water rolled over his head as if it were a great wet whale swallowing him. The force and the noise were so great Leven thought his head would simply thump into mush.
The water jammed into the opening of the Spiral. Fish of all sizes buffered Leven from the cliffs. The fish cycled and circled around Leven, wrapping him like scaly bubble wrap. Leven felt something tugging strongly on his right arm. He turned to see one of the Waves grabbing him by the wrist. Another Wave pushed him to the side, steering him clear of the high cliff walls and keeping him pocketed in the mass of fish.
The water spun through the Spiral at a tremendous speed. Leven became dizzy as they whipped through the concentric circles of the Spiral. One moment before he thought his lungs would burst, the water reached the end of the Spiral, squeezing him up and shooting him hundreds of feet into the sky.
Leven watched the dark sky race up around him and saw three Waves still clinging to him. The Waves looked odd and out of place with no water around them. Their form was bulky and fluid.
Leven peaked and began to drop, his heart trying to push out through his nose. The spraying water caught the wind and began to blow in the direction of Cusp. Leven might very well have ended up dead on the rooftop of some unsuspecting Cuspinian’s house, if it had not been for the Waves grabbing him by the ankles and wrist and puffing up to let the wind steer them like a sail toward the sea.
They separated from the rest of the shooting water and glided softly back over the Veil Sea. Leven wanted to thank his rescuers, but he was still too busy screaming for his life.
They dropped quickly down over the cliffs of the Spiral and then, looking much like the sky had as Leven raced up, the sea now appeared as Leven came down. He and the Waves hit the surface and skimmed the top.
Leven rolled like a log for a hundred feet and then began to settle into the water. The Waves pushed up beneath him, keeping him from sinking too far.
The Waves gently slid Leven onto the shore, where tamer waves with far less personality rolled up and over him until he found the strength to stand.
Leven’s legs and arms were like jelly. His heart still had not settled down in his chest and water dripped from his ears and nose. He was relieved to have survived the Spiral, but still felt a nagging sense of dread in his soul.
“I was sad about something,” he said to himself.
He looked at the ground and remembered the whispering. Leven shuffled up onto the shore and back over to the pier.
“Thanks,” he shouted to the dark sea.
He walked back to the granite entrance. Harold was there wringing his hands.
“I thought you were in trouble.” Harold looked concerned. “You didn’t return to your room.”
“I’m fine.”
“You weren’t out there when the water was coming in?” Harold questioned.
“No,” Leven lied. “Of course not. I couldn’t find my way back so I was looking for you.”
Harold exhaled. “Well, I’ll see you to your room.”
When Leven got back to his room he found Winter sitting on his bed with Clover. The two of them were listing all the reasons why they thought trust was important to a friendship.
Leven halfway explained what had happened, leaving out the part about the longing and the dirt whispering to him. And in the end they halfway forgave him. Only Clover, quite jealous that Leven had gotten to ride the Spiral and live to brag about it, harbored any bad feelings.
Chapter Six
THE PLUD HAG
Leven looked out at the blue sky and blinked. He pulled his hood down and scanned the horizon as the temperature dropped. Something was wrong with the weather. One moment it felt like the first day of a welcomed summer, and the next moment cold air would brush across you like paint, wrapping around your body and chilling you to the core.
“What’s up with the weather?” Leven asked, rubbing his hands.
“I’m not sure,” Geth replied. “I don’t remember it being so temperamental.”
Leven and Geth were on a boat looking up at a light blue sky, airy as cotton candy. Leven breathed in and could almost taste the day. Every few moments wind would stir across the water, swirling around the sunshine on its surface like cream.
The mist in the distance was thin and almost vacant on the Veil Sea. And from where the old boat sat there were no immediate clouds to muck up the mind or impede the view. The water, however, was anything but beautiful.
“There’s still so much debris,” Leven said.
All over the surface of the water were pieces of bobbing foliage and wood—the last remnants of Lith.
“We’ll stop here,” Angus said, moving down from the bow.
Angus was a tall dark man with huge arms and short, frizzy hair. He wore a leather vest, and the top half of his right ear was missing. He had been the captain of the boat for over twenty years.
“You’re the captain,” Geth replied, bending to unlatch the stone anchor. “It’s amazing to look out and not see anything—a whole island gone.”
“The maps will need to be redrawn again,” Angus said. “How does a large rock like Lith just sink? Of course, how does a boat sailing in a completely different direction suddenly get pushed hundreds of miles off course and right up to a dock where three outcasts are in need of a ship?”
“Fate’s impressive,” Geth said.
“Fate, my hindquarters,” Angus said, walking away. “But, a fee is a fee and I’m happy to collect it.”
Angus went down below on the boat, grumbling.
“It was pretty fortunate to have a boat waiting for us this morning,” Geth said.
“I guess I might have had something to do with that,” Leven admitted.
“Winter said you all slept with your windows open.”
“They close?” Leven asked.
“Of course the stone shuts,” Geth laughed. “How else would a person get any sleep? Winter also said you met with Garnock last night.”
Leven nodded. Geth remained silent, so Leven began talking again.
“Aren’t you curious about what we’re doing?”
“If we were heading to Cusp this would be a very long and
out-of-the-way route,” Geth said. “But I’ve always been fond of
surprises. We could have rested up all day, but where’s the fun in that? And I’m assuming this will bring us closer to Azure?”
“Not really,” Leven said.
“You know the stakes,” Geth said, whistling. “I guess maybe you just wanted to see for yourself that Lith is really gone.”
“I witnessed that in person.”
“Still, it helps to see things in the light,” Geth said calmly.
“I heard the Dearth last night,” Leven said.
“While talking to Garnock about getting a boat?”
“After, actually,” Leven answered. “The Dearth talked to me.”
“You were standing where you shouldn’t have,” Geth said kindly. “All of us have got to be careful what we say and what we think. Our thoughts may not be our own.”
“He felt familiar,” Leven admitted. “He asked about the sycophants and then just went away.”
“I’m not surprised,” Geth said. “They need access to Sycophant Run.”
“Why?”
“I’ll let that be a surprise for you.”
“Thanks,” Leven said. “I personally feel like I’ve had my share of surprises. My grandfather was the Want. That was a surprise—and now I’m the Want.”
“It’s pretty incredible,” Geth agreed.
“I just can’t believe that after everything he did I still miss him,” Leven lamented. “He betrayed me—he betrayed us—and I still miss him.”
“He was your grandfather,” Geth said. “And he was very sick.”
“That’s not exactly comforting,” Leven said. “I mean, is his illness going to be my fate?”
“I don’t believe so,” Geth said. “But if it is, make the space between now and then remarkable.”
“Where do you come up with things like that?”
“I probably read it in a book,” Geth smiled.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” Geth answered.
“Do you ever doubt what you believe? You know, about Foo and Reality being kept apart?”
“There are brief moments,” Geth said.
“That’s not the response I expected. You’re supposed to say something like, ‘Take a moment to be the best believer so those beliefs can count for something.’”
Geth stared at Leven. “Do I really sound like that?”
“Well, not exactly,” Leven smiled. “But if my father’s alive, I want to get to him, and the meshing of Foo is the only way to do that.”
“That makes sense,” Geth said. “But more than anyone I know you have been moved by fate to do extraordinary things. Don’t predict disappointment while hope is an option.”
“See,” Leven said. “That’s exactly what you sound like.”
Geth shifted the stone anchor to the edge and stood up. He glanced at Leven.
“You know, your eyes really are changing,” Geth said quietly. “I hadn’t notice how prominent it was until Durfin said something last night. It only reminds me that you should be hidden away. All those who held your position previously hid for at least the first year.”
“Only you and Winter know I’m the Want,” Leven whispered.
“It has to stay that way,” Geth insisted. “Keep the thought even from your own mind. We are safe out on the water. It is one of the reasons the Waves of the Lime Sea have stayed so faithful.”
Geth was taller this morning than he had been yesterday. Of course tomorrow he would probably be a couple of inches shorter. Ever since he had been restored in the flames of the turrets his body had been fluctuating. His eyes, however, were still blue and he wore the same expression he usually did, one of wonder and excitement, with no trace of fear. His long blond hair hung straight down and covered half of his face whenever he turned.
Geth released the stone anchor.
The long line of rope attached to the anchor slipped into the water like a noodle being lustily slurped under.
Leven stepped away from Geth. He walked across the deck and up to the bow of the ship. He was wearing a dark black cloak with the hood pulled back. His dark hair was long and the white streak in it was even whiter. His eyes burned a warm gold, like the hot embers in Midas’s campfire. Leven reached out and took hold of the rail as if to steady his heady life.
Something landed in his hair.
“Hey,” Clover said, materializing on top of Leven’s head. “Do you remember that stuff you used to drink in Reality?”
“W
ater?” Leven smiled.
“No, no,” Clover waved. “That jumpy stuff in those crinkly containers.”
“Soda.”
“Yes, soda,” Clover said affectionately. “I’d give up a spot in the Chamber of Stars for some strawberry-flavored soda.”
Leven reached up and petted Clover on the back of his head. Clover stretched and then twisted around and slid down Leven’s arm.
“Well, if you’re ever appointed to the Chamber of Stars I’ll know just how to tempt you.”
Debris knocked lightly against the side of the boat, mimicking the sound of Winter stepping up from down below.
Winter’s blonde hair was pulled behind her head and tied off with a green piece of soft twine. Long strands had snaked loose and were waving in front of her face like mischievous sprites. The green in her eyes was as pronounced as the depth of the Veil Sea. She had on a red cloak over her jeans. The color of her cloak made the pink of her lips seem electric.
“I’m surprised this boat even floats,” Winter said. “I just found another hole.”
The boat they were on was called the Plud Hag. It was named after a woman Angus had once been in love with but now had completely different feelings towards. It was a worn ship with a big cabin below and a large open deck up top. The hull was round and covered with a square canopy of weathered wood.
The Plud Hag creaked in the water as it sat tethered to its stone anchor. Leven and Winter looked off into the distance. Leven cleared his throat and glanced at Clover. Clover picked up on the hint perfectly.
“It’s the weirdest thing,” Clover said. “I suddenly feel—with no prompting from anyone else—like I want to go and see if Geth needs my help.”
Leven rubbed his forehead as Clover scurried along the rail toward the stern of the boat.
“Where are we, anyway?” Winter asked.
“Lith,” Leven answered. “Can’t you tell?”
After Lith had sunk, Leven and Geth had been taken by the Waves to the ninth stone, where they had met up with Winter. Leven had been so glad to find Winter alive and okay.
“Oh yeah, now I can see it,” Winter joked.
“Hey, remember that bridge we slept under in Oklahoma?” Leven asked.
“The one the avalands tore up?”
