The Tide of Ages (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 2)

by Robert J. Crane

  I took another glance at my wristwatch. 4:32. The swim had taken less time than I thought. Plus, I still had fifteen minutes before Heidi and I needed to activate … whatever.

  The flipside was, I was still being trailed. Worse, out here on the edge, they’d closed the gap between us to some fifteen meters, and dropped. Getting ready to close in now that I was so far from my companion, I figured.

  Could I spin around and take them out now?

  I pursed my lips. The spear was too slow and unwieldy in the water, the marachti too flexible and mobile. I’d never win.

  Which meant I needed another plan. And I kind of needed it now.

  Think, Mira, think.

  The last battle for the Chalice Gloria came back to me. So outnumbered, we’d managed to win despite the intense odds against us, and while I was fighting on two fronts: orcs and the Order of Apdau.

  But we’d had gravity, or the lack of it, on our side there. Not to mention that the orcs were lumbering great things with little grace. (Sorry, Bub.) Our flexibility won out over numbers, just the same as the marachtis’ dexterity and agility here would win out over mine. I mean, the things had gills—if I had doubted it up to now, seeing those made it perfectly clear that these things were made for water.

  Then another flash: Carson tearing opening the gateways, one that first terrified the orcs into fleeing, and the other that sent the Order of Apdau flying out into the path of a hurricane. That had ultimately been what cinched our victory.

  The ghost of a smile flickered over my face. Maybe this’d be two-for-two, as far as final battles went.

  I put on a burst of speed, swimming down. My intentions were clear, I hoped: this was the building I was heading into, and this—the marachti would think, at least—would be the place where they took me out of the game at last. I just hoped that they didn’t try to outpace me; I needed to get in, have just a few moments of prep …

  I swam through the open doorway, not looking behind me.

  A light glimmered on inside a bubble by the ceiling. The familiar pop sound was muffled and distorted under the water, and came out sounding like a pleasant chime.

  I didn’t have time to take in my surroundings. For now, all I did was spy two coral sconces built into the walls at the near corner. Tugging the elvish rope from my shoulder, I looped it round one as fast as I could, then the other. A brief check of the compass revealed empty steppes with mountains in the background. Hoping the sconce would hold my weight, I entangled myself behind it—

  My two marachti followers appeared through the gap.

  Their slitted eyes widened like a cat’s on seeing me. One opened its mouth in a silent roar—

  Sayonara, buddy, I thought.

  And, clutching my pendant, I swiped my hand. A gateway opened in the floor right below them, edges shimmering with warbling white light. It widened in an instant—

  Water began to flood through the gap.

  I braced against the roar of the current as it pulled at my legs. The elvish rope went taut as I was sucked toward the hole—

  But it held.

  The marachti didn’t. A momentary look of panicked confusion crossed their faces as they were tugged down. For one entire second, they fought, arms and legs scrabbling frantically. Then, moments later, they were through.

  I closed the gate.

  The dragging of water stopped. The rope keeping me in place relaxed—and so did I.

  I gave myself a moment to breathe—if filling my lungs with water instead of air could still be called breathing—and then unhooked the elvish rope. I’d coil it back up momentarily; for now it could snake around, silvery and shimmering against the coral.

  Now I could take in the building.

  It wasn’t overlarge: a square almost, just slightly longer in one direction than the other. Except for the sconces, the walls were bare: the coral, carved into walls that, up close, I saw were not quite perfect; they were textured according to the surface of each sponge or collection of polyps. Had the city, then, been stone once, and was now colonized by these tiny creatures? Or had, by some magic, this living reef been grown into such a shape?

  The room’s floor was mostly empty too. Only one thing pocked it. Dead-center, a column rose from floor to ceiling. It was ringed in pastel bands: soft pinks, blues, purples, all growing together. Halfway, a series of gears interlocked around the structure. Easily as big as my torso, they formed almost a three-dimensional puzzle with the beam as its core. The very lowest gears disappeared into holes cut in the floor.

  I paddled around, taking it in.

  Affixed to the topmost gear on the far side was a crank.

  Guess that’s what I was supposed to turn.

  I glanced at my wristwatch. 4:37. Still ten minutes to go.

  I was just about to gently test the mechanism, see that it still turned, when something changed in my head. It was like all this time there had been static, almost silent—and now it switched off, giving way to true quiet.

  From that quiet came: “Hello?”

  My eyebrows knitted. Carson?

  “Mira?”

  What the?

  Then another voice joined. “What’s going on?” Heidi.

  “It works, Bub! Oh man, this is crazy.”

  I would’ve opened my mouth to speak. But how would he ever hear? So the thought floated instead, unspoken: Carson? How am I hearing you right now?

  “Oh! Right,” he said. “Borrick got a new ring! Well, two, actually. Bub and I may have confiscated them from him. Well, mostly me since Bub can’t fight a former employer, but still...”

  Uh …

  “I’m getting to it, hold on!”

  How was he replying to what I was thinking?

  “Because one of these rings—it’s like a telepathy ring, or something. I think Borrick was using it to send commands to the marachti.”

  But … but …

  “I know. Lots of questions. And it’s weird. It’s like … I can hear you. But not with my ears. There’s something kind of ethereal about the whole thing, like non-solid. I mean, I know speech isn’t solid, but it feels, I don’t know, quantitative in a way that this doesn’t. Does that make sense?” Then: “I’m talking with them, Bub. It’s fine. I think. They’re—are you fine?”

  Uh … fine, I thought, feeling like it was the least natural thing in the world, right up there with breathing water. So many improbable things today.

  “Ditto,” Heidi added, slow. “You really stole that from him?”

  “Sure. Bub saw it and recognized it for what it is, of course, but I figured, hey, let’s do our part while we’re up here. For the team, and all that, y’know.”

  Heidi: “But how are we hearing you? And how are we hearing each other? We don’t have rings, or whatever you said it is.”

  A pause. And it was not a pause, too. Though no words came from Carson, I was suddenly aware that I seemed to be sharing a portion of his head with him. He locked up, brain computing some answer and coming up null.

  And because I was aware of this head-sharing thing, suddenly we all were.

  Heidi thought, loudly, “Don’t think about how much you hate Carson’s sweaters.”

  Carson: “Uh …”

  “Or that stupid manbag.”

  Another locked-up pause. “Wow,” Carson thought.

  “I’m sorry! It’s like Tourette’s!”

  At the same time, a guilty thought of my own appeared from the abyss. Uncalled, apparently my brain decided it was the perfect time to think about not thinking about it. And—

  “Mira!” Heidi thought. “You’ve been hiding a hottie from us?”

  I cringed. And there he was: Clayton, the Tortilla guy, with his mysterious warnings. Lock it down, brain, lock it down!

  “For shame,” Heidi said—thought. Uh. This was confusing.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” came Carson.

  I tried to force some order into this.

  Heidi, what’s happening where you are? Ar
e you okay?

  “I took out the marachti following me. But then another pair came a little while ago, so I had to, you know … deal with them too.” A flash of her dancing blade, and bright blue inking the waters, floated to all of us. I felt Carson cringe away from it. “I guess the telepathy explains how they knew their comrades were down.”

  But you’re clear now?

  “Yeah. You in?”

  I’m here, yeah. Dodged my followers.

  And, like Heidi’s flash, I conjured the echo of sending them through the opening to who-knew-where.

  “Taking tips from Carson, there,” Heidi thought. A begrudging sort of respect tinged her voice.

  A note of discomfort and pride came to us from Carson.

  Your building has a mechanism, right? I thought. With gears and a crank?

  “That’s the one.” A picture of it appeared. “You want to turn this now?”

  Absolutely. On three. One. Two. Three.

  We turned: me, here, and Heidi, both in my mind and also on the opposite side of the city. The gears felt tight at first, not as though they were cut too close in size but as if instead the mechanism had just gently locked through time. But one half-turn and they smoothed, one full turn and they were completely happy to go.

  I spun the crank, watching the gears twist in their matrix, the ones in the floor turning, turning …

  The bubble light flickered from white to green, and then back.

  “Mine too,” thought Heidi.

  I guess that’s us ready to go.

  “Where do you think the Tide of Ages is actually hidden?”

  Not sure. Meet at the city center to find out?

  Heidi was already moving even before an affirmative thought came back. I did the same, paddling around to the entryway. The elvish rope had settled on the floor now, a silver sliver, one end of which trailed out and onto the steps. I picked it up, twisting into a coil as quickly as I could.

  “Good call,” thought Carson.

  This was going to take some getting used to.

  You’re telling me.

  As I swam back over the city, paddling high to get height so that a) I could avoid the marachti as long as possible, and b) the bird’s eye view—

  “Fish eye view,” Carson amended.

  —would hopefully help in assessing where exactly the Tide of Ages was hidden.

  “Shame the riddle only concerned gaining access,” thought Carson.

  Heidi’s thoughts seemed to lock for a moment. A note crept in, a sort of relief, building—

  “Is she peeing?” thought Carson.

  Now Heidi’s thoughts fully froze. Panic overtook.

  Oh God.

  “Nooo,” she whined. “How could I have done worse than Mira’s burrito boy?”

  That was so disgusting, I didn’t even know where to start.

  “I’m just, like … taking this thing off for a bit,” thought Carson.

  But he didn’t, and though he wanted to—I wanted to be cut out of this loop after that—I figured he thought that removing the ring would break our connection here in the city.

  I searched desperately for something to change the subject. Like, um … what Borrick was doing. Yeah, yeah, that.

  “He’s sulking,” Carson answered. “Bub’s blocking him from getting by. Apparently that he can do, now that I’ve, uh...knocked him around...just a little...”

  “Hah!” Heidi thought.

  I felt the same, given that Borrick had sicced orcs on Carson. It only seemed fair that he had gotten some payback.

  Heidi and I joined ranks again just above the city center, and looked down upon it. Though, not before I assessed whether or not Heidi was swallowed by a yellow cloud.

  “Laugh it up, Brand.” Rare embarrassment for Luo there. “Just you wait ‘til I see Tortilla man.”

  I tried not to think about how I’d seen him just before we’d started this stupid quest, but that leaked out...

  “‘Stupid’?” Heidi grumbled.

  Carson brought us back on track. “What’s going on down there? Any sign of the Tide of Ages?”

  We peered down.

  The remaining marachti—closing in on just a dozen of the things left now—had split. Groups dismantled by the loss of their telepathic connection between each other and Borrick, they darted in and out of buildings in ones and twos. There was a touch of panic to their movements, and for the first time I thought they were much too distracted to keep track of me and Heidi.

  It wouldn’t last.

  “Central,” Heidi thought.

  I followed her pointed finger to that main cathedral and squinted.

  Nothing seemed to have changed.

  “Pretty sure you’re right. But it’s so obvious.” Too obvious, surely.

  “Maybe. But it’s our best shot. And we have less than thirty minutes to go before these spells wear off. They’re not pleasant when they do, just FYI. Lots of hacking and whatnot, getting that water out.”

  Ugh.

  “Yeah.”

  “Whoever built these places, they were kind of showy,” Carson added. “They wouldn’t create a city like this, submerge it, and then hide the Tide of Ages in some tiny back alley place, would they?”

  Fair point. I mean, Decidian’s Spear had been atop a gigantic enchanted spine. Feruiduin’s Cutlass had been stowed in a chamber that was effectively open to the heavens. The makers of these little jaunts went big every time.

  So, the cathedral it was, then.

  “Let’s go,” said Heidi.

  I’ll lead, I thought back to her.

  “Why you?”

  Because there’s a gentle current here, and I don’t want to be downstream of you after that last little revelation.

  Her cheeks colored, and another embarrassed flush filled her. Then I was swimming past, and angling toward the cathedral. Heidi followed.

  Midway, Heidi: “They’re following us.”

  Sure enough, below us the marachti were beginning to assemble. They hadn’t all seen us, or the direction we were headed, like two people on a mission—but enough had. They were regrouping, doing what they could to alert the others. It should have followed that creatures with gills had a way to communicate underwater, but I cursed the fact that we’d assumed they were dependent on Borrick and his ring.

  The first of them were already coming for us.

  I tracked them, looking below and just behind as we passed. How much speed could they put on? Would we be caught before even getting to the cathedral?

  Carson was worried; I could feel it.

  “We’ll be fine,” Heidi thought, determined. “We’ve taken enough of them on the past twenty-four hours that we’re pretty much pros at this point.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  Neither was Carson.

  And apparently neither was Heidi. After another little glance behind her, she thought, “You know, we are at a slight disadvantage here in terms of numbers.”

  I had an idea though.

  “And that is?”

  Getting us on solid ground, I thought. Unsnapping my compass from my belt, I looked at it. Right now, the face showed a stretch of mountains. No doubt it would change by the time we got to an opportune spot. And, quite frankly, I didn’t really care what it changed to; just that we were going to take a leaf from Carson’s book again, and send our new friends out on a nice little vacation.

  In the corner of my eye, Heidi slipped her bracelet down, clutching it in her fingers. “Say the word, Brand.”

  Inside, I thought.

  We put on a burst of speed, heading for the door. Like the mechanism building I’d taken, it had steps, although these were much wider; it was only natural that they would be. There were no doors, which was just fine with me, because with one last burst of speed we darted for it, the marachti close on our tails—

  Inside, I had maybe a second to appreciate that I was right, that this was a cathedral. The ceiling was arched, pillars erected at regular interva
ls, and benches were spaced in neat lines like ribs throughout the building. A pulpit rose at the far end of the grand expanse. An instrument like an organ was perched at the very rear, great pipes of coral towering to the ceiling en masse.

  A fragment of Heidi’s thoughts hit me: “No sign of the Tide of Ages.”

  Forget that for now. Here.

  I threw out the coil of rope to her. Swimming for a pillar, we looped it around, holding ourselves in place—

  Marachti burst through the open doorway.

  Damn it. Nowhere near as tight as I’d want.

  “No time to worry about that! Send ‘em!” Heidi sliced a line with her palm at the floor ahead of us. I followed, gripping the necklace in one hand, adding my own shimmering white glow to the more perfect edge of her gateway—

  They widened.

  Water began to pour out.

  For the second time, we were tugged toward it.

  I gripped the elvish rope as tight as I could, fingernails digging into my palms. It wouldn’t hold—

  “It’ll hold!” Heidi thought back fiercely, and she pivoted against the draining force, gripped for the pillar. One-handed, she tugged us as tight as could be.

  It didn’t feel nearly tight enough.

  “Since when is a Brand so damned defeatist?”

  I’m not defeatist! I just don’t want to end up in Siberia with a horde of marachti intent on killing me!

  The marachti fought hard. Arms and legs pistoning, they bared fangs in the sheer strain—but for most, the deluge of water flooding out beneath them was too much. They were sucked down one of the holes, disappearing in a flash of fireworks—

  A dull note began to chime from the organ. Like the song of a whale, it grew louder and louder, and I gritted my teeth—

  Then the doorway and windows began to seal. Not as though some great sheet of stone was being wheeled into place from an unseen cavity; no, instead we stared as the coral began to grow. Like ink drops spreading, it accelerated before our eyes, every opening shrinking—

  The marachti panicked. More surged in, only to fight not to be sucked away—but then others were darting through the windows, about to close on us and circumventing our trap entirely.

  Heidi! I thought in panic.