The Chaos Crystal

by Jennifer Fallon

  She sounded a lot like the spymaster, but then that was hardly surprising. She'd been his pet for years before Arryl took her on. Cayal guessed something must have happened to her mate while they were gone, and that Arryl — even if she'd not actually been complicit in his demise — had done nothing to prevent it.

  'Very well,' he told the little Scard with a shrug. 'If you think refusing to help us leave this world is the best way for you to get revenge for your mate, so be it. Off you go.'

  The lizard stared at him, full of grief, pain and rage — but not so angry that she'd lost all reason. In truth, he'd offered her a terrible choice. Stay and aid the immortals responsible for the death of her mate to be gone — one way or another — or leave, and risk the chance she would never be free of them. Cayal could almost see the war she waged within herself, but he was careful not to let her know it worried him.

  Nothing must be allowed to go wrong. Not now.

  Finally, the need for vengeance won out over pride. She threw her hands up. 'Fine! If it means Amyrantha

  will be rid of you, then the least I can do is make sure you all kill yourselves ... or ... or whatever it is you're planning. I don't really care, just so long as you're gone.'

  Cayal breathed a sigh of relief that was as heartfelt as it was short-lived. Walking toward them across the chamber was Elyssa.

  'Tides,' Cayal muttered. 'Here we go.'

  Maralyce glanced at him, looked past him and noticed that Elyssa was approaching, and then smiled. 'Don't panic, Cayal. You're off the hook.'

  'Off the hook how?' he asked suspiciously.

  'Lukys and Maralyce took us aside last night,' Arryl said. 'Me and Elyssa. They told us he'd been lying to you all along — that you weren't going to die today at all, and that Elyssa would be much better off waiting until after the transfer and we've arrived on the next world before we hold the wedding, so she can get married in her new body instead of the old one.'

  'And she believed him?'

  'Drank up every word like it was the elixir of life,' Maralyce assured him. 'Lukys can be very convincing, you know.'

  Cayal couldn't argue with that, but still, it worried him a little. Suppose Lukys — just this once — had been telling the truth? He stared at Maralyce, trying to gauge if she knew what was really going on, but she was no more help than Arryl.

  He hardly had the chance to worry about it, in any case, because Elyssa arrived at that moment, filled with an air of barely contained excitement.

  'Pellys says the Tide is peaking. It's time to seal the chamber,' Elyssa said, smiling adoringly at Cayal. He knew the reason for that look. She truly believed he wasn't going to die.

  'Where's Pellys now?' Arryl asked. The little Scard had retreated behind her and was sulking in the background, her skin — what Cayal could see of it —

  taking on the coloured pattern of the lining of her fur coat.

  'Lukys sent him back up the spire to watch for the Tide.'

  'Didn't you just say it had peaked?'

  'Pellys said it would peak any moment now,' Elyssa said. She rolled her eyes dismissively. 'That could mean days, in his head.'

  'How will we know when it peaks down here?' Cayal asked. 'I can't feel a damn thing with that crystal in the room.'

  'The Chaos Crystal will let us know,' Maralyce assured them. 'Trust me, you won't need to be told.'

  Cayal worried that it all seemed too calm, too easy. And why were they sealing the chamber with Pellys on the outside? For that matter, if the crystal was going to start reacting to the High Tide, why had Lukys sent him out there as a lookout in the first place? Surely he deserved a ticket to the new world, even if Lukys was happily planning to leave the others behind.

  That thought made Cayal think of Declan. Was Lukys really going to leave without his son? Admittedly, there wasn't much love lost between the two men, and Lukys had taken the news about Declan Hawkes's defection remarkably well, all things considered. Now he was behaving as if Hawkes didn't exist, which worried Cayal even more, because he thought he knew Lukys pretty well, and yet nothing in Lukys's demeanour at this critical time was what he expected.

  Is he hoping the Rodent will still turn up in time?

  His unanswered questions left Cayal with a lingering uneasiness that refused to go away. Cayal glanced at the crystal skull sitting on the altar between the deathly pale bodies of Oritha and Arkady. It pulsed with a red light — with so many Tide Lords nearby — that flickered and surged, making the skull's dead eyes seem malevolently aware. Not being able to sense

  much on the Tide was disconcerting. For a moment, Cayal envied Pellys, sitting high above them, drinking in the rising Tide.

  He, at least, would know what it was to be truly alive.

  The irony of envying Pellys for being truly alive while awaiting the right moment to kill himself, wasn't lost on Cayal, either.

  'Lukys asked me to tell you he needs you,' Elyssa said to Cayal, taking his arm possessively. 'He's going to have to seal the chamber the hard way, he said, and he'd like your help.'

  Cayal nodded and turned for the entrance, but Elyssa refused to let him go quite so easily. She smiled up at him. 'Kiss me before you leave me, lover.'

  Cayal didn't hesitate. Elyssa's cooperation in this venture was dependent on her believing she was doing this for selfish reasons. A new body. A chance to be rid of the curse of perpetual virginity. A chance to finally make him hers. She had to be convinced all her wishes would come true when they opened the rift. He couldn't risk her doubting for a moment that she wasn't going to get what she wanted. So he took her in his arms and kissed her until she was breathless, and then let her go. He turned away as if he couldn't bear the parting and strode across the ice chamber to the entrance, carefully keeping his back to Elyssa for fear that the look of revulsion on his face would betray him.

  'Nice touch,' Taryx said, as he approached. He was standing at the entrance with Kentravyon.

  The madman was holding a pickaxe. He nodded in agreement. 'Wouldn't kiss that mouth for a whole world of souls, myself, but then, you never were that picky, were you, son?'

  'Shut up, Kentravyon.'

  Taryx grinned at Cayal's irritation. 'Never understood what you see in her, myself.'

  'I don't see anything in her,' Cayal said, snatching the axe from him. 'Elyssa is a malicious, self-centred bitch. Wouldn't matter if she did look like Arkady. Wouldn't make her personality any more attractive.'

  'Hope you didn't let that little pearl of wisdom drop while you were whispering sweet nothings into her ear,' Lukys said, walking down the stairs carrying a crowbar and another axe. Coron was sitting on his shoulder. Cayal was still a little peeved that Lukys had lied to him about that. The dead rat he'd shown him back in Torlenia was nothing more than a ruse to enlist his cooperation in Lukys's plan to restore Coryna. Why Lukys felt the need to engage in such an elaborate subterfuge was beyond Cayal.

  Or maybe it wasn't. Cayal couldn't imagine being interested enough in Lukys's plans for anything, were it not for the promise of death at the end of it.

  Lukys tossed the crowbar to Taryx, and then he squatted down, lifting the rat from his shoulder and holding it in front of him so he could address it directly. 'Go to Maralyce. She'll look after you until I get there.' He kissed the rat's forehead. 'I won't be long now, my love. I promise.' The rat scampered away as soon as Lukys let it go, heading inside the chamber and running straight toward Maralyce and the altar, as Lukys had ordered.

  'You know, it's more than a little disturbing watching you talk with that rat,' Kentravyon remarked. 'Good thing I know who it really is in there, Lukys, or I'd be starting to worry about you.'

  'Well, I suppose if you have to lose sleep over something, Kentravyon, it might as well be me.' He looked up and examined the ice over the entrance. 'We'll need to bring down the ceiling to seal the break.'

  'Shouldn't be too difficult,' Taryx said, tilting his head back to look up. 'Be easier if we could use the Tide.'

/>   'Let's not,' Lukys said, hefting his axe.

  'Why are you leaving Pellys outside?'

  Lukys lowered his axe and turned to Cayal. 'Because he doesn't want to come with us,' he said. 'He likes it here.'

  'So Kentravyon was wrong?'

  'About what?'

  'About Amyrantha being destroyed when the rift closes?'

  '1 doubt there'll be anything left here in Jelidia,' Lukys agreed, with a brief but meaningful glance in Kentravyon's direction. 'But Pellys will survive. As for the rest of Amyrantha ... well, I can't imagine it'll fare too well when the icecap melts, but it's survived Cataclysms before. I'm sure it'll recover from this one. Eventually.'

  'Why do you even care, Cayal?' Taryx asked. 'You're going to be dead pretty soon, remember?'

  Cayal stared at them for a moment, with a sneaking suspicion he was being had, but then he shoved the feeling aside. The Tide was rising — here outside the chamber, even Cayal could sense the increase in power, muted though it was — and Taryx was right. In a very short time, he would be dead.

  'You're right. I don't care,' Cayal said, as much to remind himself as the others. And then he raised the pick, turned and slammed it into the ice above the entrance to the chamber, hoping the last of his lingering doubts would collapse with the ceiling, and he would finally be at peace.

  CHAPTER 57

  Pellys was thrilled to see Declan and the other immortals, assuming, Declan supposed, that they were here to help. He had no notion of the politics of immortality, it seemed or that the world was about to come to an end, and Lukys had left him out here to perish with it, instead of taking him inside.

  'You came!' he cried, waving at them gleefully as they made their way down the ridge to meet him. He did a quick headcount and beamed at them. 'You all came!'

  'Tides, you'd think we'd been invited,' Jaxyn muttered beside Declan.

  They slipped and slid the last few feet until Pellys reached them. He was grinning broadly. 'Look! Everyone is here! Did you come to help?'

  'We certainly came to see what we could do,' Declan agreed. 'Where are Lukys and the others?'

  'Inside already,' he said.

  'Did they have a mortal woman with them? Dark hair? Tall

  'Arkady, you mean?' Pellys said. 'She was very pretty. Did you know her?'

  Declan's heart sank at Pellys's use of the past tense when referring to her. 'Is she still in there?'

  Pellys shrugged. 'How would I know? Hello, Brynden, Kinta ... Ambria ... Tides, I can't believe you've all come! What brings you all the way down here?'

  'We have come to view Lukys's remarkable chamber,' Brynden said, in a tone that indicated he wasn't comfortable with subterfuge, even with a half-wit like Pellys. 'Hawkes tell us it's quite impressive.'

  'You'll have to wait until later. They've sealed the chamber.' Pellys spied Syrolee in the group and smiled at her coyly. 'You came to visit me too.'

  'Not by choice, I can assure you,' the Empress of the Five Realms grumbled. 'Stop looking at me like that.'

  'She's right,' Tryan said, stepping between his mother and Pellys. 'What do you mean — they've sealed the chamber?'

  'What I said,' Pellys replied, trying to look past him. 'They sealed it.'

  'Then we'll unseal it,' Declan announced, fearing what that meant for Arkady, but before he could take a step in the direction of the palace, Jaxyn stopped him by grabbing his arm. 'Wait a minute, spymaster.'

  'Why?'

  'Can't you feel it?'

  'Feel what?' Diala asked.

  'Feel it,' Jaxyn ordered.

  Declan closed his eyes for a moment. Through his feet, he could feel a slight vibration. He opened his eyes and looked to Jaxyn for an explanation. 'Am I the only one who thinks it odd that the Tide seems to have retreated in the past few minutes?'

  'It hasn't retreated,' Pellys said. 'It's the crystal.'

  'Then they've started,' Kinta said.

  'Show us the way into this legendary underground lair, Pellys,' Brynden commanded. 'We have business with Lukys.'

  'Can't it wait until after he's finished?' Pellys asked. 'I mean, if you're not here to help, he'd probably rather you waited.'

  Declan stared up at the palace while Pellys was talking, doing a quick calculation in his head. 'We may

  not need a way inside,' he said, stepping sideways a little. He wondered if it was his imagination, or he could feel a difference in the ground vibration? 'What do you mean?'

  'I mean I think we're right over the chamber here.' 'You mean we're standing on top of it?' Ranee asked.

  Declan nodded. 'We might be able to break through from here. Probably easier, too, than trying to get through a barricade.'

  Tryan was staring at the ground now, too, trying to sense the edges of the chamber. 'If we crack the ice, we might be able to get into the chamber from above.'

  'How big is it?' Ambria asked, staring at the ground. They were all examining the ground now, trying to feel out the chamber beneath them — even Warlock and Stellan and they probably couldn't feel a thing.

  'Big,' Declan said.

  'Huge,' Pellys confirmed with a grin. 'Are we really standing over it out here?'

  'We must be,' Jaxyn said. 'We're right on the edge of it, I reckon. There's a slight difference in the vibration here from back there where I was a moment ago.'

  'Then we should be able to feel the edges of it,' Tryan said, moving a little further to the right, to see if he could find the outer limits of the chamber. 'It's circular, you say?'

  'Like standing inside a pumpkin,' Pellys informed them cheerfully. 'If you took the seeds out. And it was made of ice.'

  'But I can barely feel the Tide,' Medwen said, looking very concerned. 'Up on the ridge it felt close to peaking. Down here, it's dwindled away to nothing. How is he doing that?'

  'The Chaos Crystal,' Pellys said. 'It makes everything feel soft.'

  That's not exactly how Declan would have expressed it, but it was an accurate enough description. Everything did feel soft around the edges, as if the crystal's power dulled the sharp edges of the Tide.

  'You can feel it up there,' Pellys told him, pointing to the palace's elegant spires. 'That's why Lukys sent me up there to keep watch. To tell him when the Tide peaks.'

  Jaxyn stopped staring at the ground long enough to clap Pellys on the shoulder. 'If he's sealed the chamber, how were you supposed to get back inside to tell him about it?'

  Pellys frowned. He hadn't thought that far ahead, apparently. 'I don't know ... you should ask Lukys.'

  'We intend to,' Brynden assured him ominously. 'What is it, Hawkes?'

  Declan was staring up at the spires thoughtfully. 'Could we channel the Tide from up there and direct it at the chamber?'

  'Provided we knew where the chamber was,' Brynden said with a nod. 'And provided some of us were prepared to climb those spires.'

  Kinta was considering the palace thoughtfully, 'Do you think, if we marked out the edges, you'd be able to focus on it?'

  Declan glanced up at the spires. 'We'd see it better from up there, that's for certain. It would be easier to focus —'

  'The fatal flaw in that plan,' Tryan cut in, 'being the words we and focus. You're not going anywhere, Hawkes. If you start trying to focus the Tide, who knows where it'll finish up. Jaxyn, Brynden and I will climb the spires. You can stay down here with the others and give us something to aim at.'

  Declan wanted to argue, but unfortunately Tryan was right. He knew in principle how to focus the Tide, but had no practical knowledge of how to do it.

  He did, however, have some notion regarding the size of the underground chamber, which meant he had some chance of figuring out exactly where it was. And if he were down here, once they cracked open the chamber it would be easier to get in to find Arkady.

  The others understood it immediately too. 'How long will it take us to reach the top?' Brynden asked, shielding his eyes against the rising sun as he stared up at the palace towers. Declan was wonde
ring the same thing, the sense of time slipping away from them becoming a very real feeling.

  'You don't have to go all the way to the top,' Pellys said cheerfully. 'About two-thirds of the way up you can feel the Tide again.'

  Brynden nodded and turned to Declan. 'That should give the rest of you time to find the centre of the chamber down here. If you mark the ice, we'll know where to focus the Tide, which should break us through the ice in no time at all.'

  Tides, we don't have time for this. 'Then what?'

  'Let's see what happens when the roof caves in,' Jaxyn said. 'The look on Lukys's face at that point will be something to behold. Cayal's too. Race you to the top, Bryn.'

  Without waiting for the others, Jaxyn turned and ran toward the palace. Tryan followed, as did Brynden a moment later. Pellys stared at the rest of the gathered immortals for a moment, and then he shrugged. 'Better view from up there.' He turned and bolted after the Tide Lords, waving his arms wildly, yelling, 'Hey! wait for me!'

  Kinta smiled as he left and then turned to Declan. 'We've a little while before they're in position,' she said. 'What are we searching for exactly?'

  'The centre of the chamber,' Declan told them, her words doing nothing to ease his sense of urgency. 'I think we're on the edge of it here.' He turned to the

  Warlock and Stellan, who'd been hanging back and watching them talking, hugging their arms around their bodies against the cold. 'Desean, can you stand here? Warlock, come with me. We'll try to pace out the rest of it. Can the rest of you feel anything?'

  Ambria nodded, frowning. 'Faintly. It's much stronger over there than near the canine.'

  'It's a circular chamber, remember, about fifty paces across. If Desean is standing on the edge of it, then it should go this way ... and that.'

  Syrolee nodded at the direction he was indicating. 'Let's do it then,' she said a little impatiently. 'Hopefully, before they reach the Tide, we'll have something for them to aim at and we can be done with this nonsense.'

  'Saving the world isn't nonsense, Syrolee,' Medwen said as she began to pace out the edge of the chamber under them.