The Never Tilting World

by Rin Chupeco

  I had finally gotten it down to a point where one hard push against the wood would send the post toppling over, and my shackle to come away, when Eye Patch returned, carrying my meal. He tsk-tsked, then set my plate down beside another wooden post, this one closer to their tents. To my shock, he reached over and gave the post I’d been working on a firm tap. It fell over without further delay.

  “Don’t even think about it, girl.” He grabbed the shackle attached to my leg and used it to drag me to the other post, while I shrieked and scrabbled at the ground in a poor effort to resist, sand digging into my skin. The others watched us with amusement, but eventually turned back to their own food, talk and laughter resuming among them.

  Once I was properly leashed again, he untied my hands, prodded the plate at me with his boot. “Eat. There is much to discuss later, Your Holiness.”

  “You can understand me.” He had a strange accent. “And you know who I am. Why pretend?”

  His eye closed, then opened again, his version of a wink. “Mainly to mess with you.” Then he walked back to his clan mates, me gaping after him.

  This wooden post was thicker than the previous one, but knowing I could still gate, even if it was just the barest of patterns, gave me hope. I dutifully ate, one of Eye Patch’s men coming to collect my plate and giving a satisfied nod when he saw I’d finished everything. I waited until they had settled back into their own tents or sprawled out on the ground for their naps. A few men continued to patrol the area, and I had to pause in my work, pretending to sleep, every time one of them drew too close.

  After what felt like hours, I had sawn my way through the wood, enough to attempt a second escape. I closed my eyes and held my breath when one of the patrolling pirates passed me and disappeared around a corner, and gated as much as I could before pushing the column over. It fell, was buffeted up by a spinning cushion of air before it floated noiselessly to the ground. That caused a few minutes of retching as I doubled over from the nausea, trying to keep my groans down to a minimum.

  I still wasn’t strong enough to rid myself of the shackle, so I gathered the end of the chain with my hand, hoping it wouldn’t clank much while I was on the move. I snuck off quietly to where the body of Parrick remained. Whatever happened, I couldn’t stand the thought of the pirates eating him.

  The nomads had constructed many small wooden sheds along the Sand Sea’s edge, but they didn’t have a lot of people patrolling the area. If I was quiet enough not to attract attention—

  —but I’d never been that fortunate, as I stepped into a sudden patch of air that quickly rendered me immobile. I floundered, my body rising up unwanted as Eye Patch strolled closer.

  He was a Skyrider. That explained his acrobatics back on the Sand Sea, his ability to avoid my sandstorm despite his size.

  “I wouldn’t have thought someone of your bulk would possess a gate that allowed you to defy gravity,” I said evenly, trying not to sound agitated.

  He winked again. “I be a man of many talents. I could walk on air again, if you wish.”

  “I’d rather you let me go.”

  “You are going to be dying out there,” he said, his accent even more prominent now. “There will be the endless walking on the sand, with the impassable Sand Sea at your back, and no other means of transport. You will die baked into the ground, and the sky rocs will peck at your bones.”

  “I don’t care,” I snarled, trying to right myself. “You killed my friend!”

  “Your friend is gone. Abandoned you—or taken by the Sand Sea, more like, and your transport be gone with him.”

  They hadn’t captured him, at least. “You killed Parrick!”

  He frowned. “Parrick—”

  “My dolugong!” I tried to spark enough Fire to at least slap his face with it, but he simply brushed away my meager attempt, looking perplexed.

  “You are friends with the meat?”

  I tried to burn him again.

  He waved that away, too. “Very well. I apologize for killing your . . . Parrick.”

  “Why keep me here? Why not let me go out into the desert and leave me to die?”

  “My soul will burn in all the eternities of hell if I allow a goddess to perish on my watch, Your Holiness.” He smiled. “This old warrior knew your mother, once. You are too young to be out alone. I know the legends of your ancestors intimately. I was there.” An odd note entered his voice, and he ignored the gasp I uttered. “Where are the goddesses now? Asteria?”

  “My mother, Latona, didn’t come with me. Asteria . . . died at the Breaking.”

  “Ah.” He stilled, and for a moment I thought he’d stopped breathing. And then he was smiling again, though this time it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes. She died, I heard. And so you are her twin’s daughter.”

  “Can you please let me down?” I whispered. He complied, and I massaged my temples once I felt the ground underneath me, flinching at the new rush of dizziness.

  “I recognized you immediately, back at the Sand Sea,” the hulking man said. “No one else has that hair. Some of my men wanted to kill you, goddess or not. We are of the Liangzhu clan, and we do not scare easily—but you are a force to be reckoned with, more dangerous than some of the beasts we hunt. You slew one of my men.”

  “You slew my friend,” I shot back.

  He inclined his head. “True, so we be nearly even. But the goddesses—once upon a time, they saved my life. And I saved theirs. It starts a bond that neither one of us could ever break. I swore to defend your aunt Asteria. Forces at work were more powerful than I, but I defended her till the end. And while our true homes have long been gone, we are still of the Liangzhu. Our word will not be broken for anything.”

  “What kind of person was Asteria?” I asked despite myself. I had been taught to view my aunt as the enemy, as the reason for Aeon’s destruction. It was strange to find someone who spoke of her with such reverence.

  He grinned. “Stubborn. Used to getting her way. The smartest person I’d ever met.” His smile faded. “Never one to settle for second best. I am sorry that you have never met her.”

  “And you were at the Breaking with her—with them,” I stumbled. “What happened there?” Here was someone who had actually survived the encounter, who might have the answers I sought. “Please tell me, Mr. Eye P—ah . . .”

  He smiled. “The name is Sonfei. And do you promise, then, not to wander off into the unknown again?”

  “I promise not to without ample protection.”

  His smile widened. “You are just as crafty as your aunt, never one to give herself away for anything.”

  “Or,” said a voice behind him, “maybe she’s someone more like her mother, who would burn down the rest of the desert and your little tribe besides if you crossed her wrong.”

  My knees buckled and I took in a shuddering intake of air, willing myself not to cry, because that would be one more thing for Arjun to poke fun at.

  His clothes were ripped, and I could tell from his cuts and bruises that he hadn’t come out of the Sand Sea unharmed. He must have hidden in one of the nearby sheds, biding his time. A thin blue flame was blazing at the end of his stump, and that same cobalt fire was now leveled against Eye Patch’s throat—far enough away to avoid burning the man, but close enough for him to feel the heat.

  “Arjun,” I choked out, nearly weeping in my relief. “I could kiss you!”

  He reddened but kept his grip. “And I see you’ve gotten yourself in more trouble. Whatever possessed you to whip up that damned storm? You caused more damage to the rig than they did!”

  “The rig’s still working?”

  “I don’t know, I’m not the mechanika. Wouldn’t start, though, so I had to keep walking until I came to this—”

  “They killed Parrick! What did you think I was going to do?”

  “Nothing irresponsible and impetuous, I was hoping, but obviously I’d forgotten who I was talking to!”

  “You’re an idiot! They w
ould have gotten more dolugongs if I hadn’t intervened!”

  “It sounds like you both be needing time to reconcile,” Eye Patch said amenably. “Should I leave you two alone?”

  Arjun’s presence hadn’t gone unnoticed at the camp. I spotted a couple of women idling along the side, though a faint twitch from Eye Patch indicated they should stand down and wait.

  “Don’t even think about it. Tell me why I shouldn’t gut you where you stand.”

  “Don’t!” I protested, and Arjun transferred his glare from the man to me. “He was there when the Breaking happened! He could give us more information!”

  “I bet he’d say his mother was a goddess and be convincing about it, too!”

  “Knew one other Firesmoker who could whip out the fires that were as blue as yours,” Eye Patch said conversationally. “Fearsome woman, she was. Called herself the leader of the Devoted, under Asteria’s command. I didn’t quite notice the resemblance between you before, though looking closer now, you look well enough alike.”

  The flame wavered. “You knew my mother?”

  “I knew her sister better. Devika was suspicious of me, always. I was the outsider in their little circle, but Asteria stuck up for me, and your mother had no choice but to acquiesce. Didn’t mean she liked me. Took a while to get her on speaking terms, but in the end she knew I’d fight for Asteria even if it killed me.” He looked back at me. “So you’re little . . . Odessa? Or is it Haidee?”

  “Haidee,” I whispered, head spinning. He knew about my mother and my aunt and my sister. The letter was genuine; my father had called my sibling Odessa, too. It took effort not to cry. My mother had hidden all these from me.

  And surely Sonfei knew about other things too, like the prophecy and Brighthenge and my father—

  “If I let you go,” Arjun said, “and that’s a mighty big if—what’s stopping one of your men from putting buckshot through my chest for this?”

  “I ain’t be killing Devika’s son.” He snorted. “She’d rise back from wherever the dead goes and hunt me down. That’s how frightening your mother was, boy.”

  “You don’t know if she really was my mother,” Arjun said, but the tremor in his voice was stronger.

  “It seems you know enough about your mother to be giving credence to my words. As I said, the Liangzhu take our vows seriously.”

  Three heartbeats later, the blue fire flickered out and Arjun lowered his arm, a wary gaze still on the loitering women. Eye Patch sighed. “Could use good help around these parts, mind. Blue fire’s the hottest thing that burns around here save that blasted sun above, and you’d make a good addition to the camp, if you’re both willing.”

  “I’m afraid not,” I said, relaxing a little. “We have to keep moving west, to Brighthenge.”

  His eyes widened. “Brighthenge? What business have you got in that wasteland, girl? Nothing lives there anymore.”

  “I think there’s a chance we can heal the breach.”

  “I didn’t know your mother as well as I knew Asteria, but Latona would never be the type to send you two off alone for this mission.”

  I shifted my foot. “She didn’t.”

  A pause. “Ah,” Eye Patch said, and then exhaled. “Ah. I see where the land lies. Well, there’s some truth to what you say, but I had thought it impossible, believing both goddesses had perished. I remembered only chaos at the Abyss—I was barred from entering their temple and knew little of what happened until the ground shook and the monsters overran Brighthenge. I was convinced no one could have lived through that terrible Breaking. To find that Latona is still alive . . . I am glad, at least, that you have not grown up bereft of a mother. My first look at you, out in that Sand Sea—so certain I was that you be Asteria’s mirage. Gave me the shock of my life.”

  “Who told you that fixing the breach was possible?”

  “A few things your aunt told me. I was never smart enough to understand. But I keep a book she left behind still.”

  My pulse quickened. “A book?”

  “It’s survived the years. Your aunt wrote it. I’ll let you read, and we can accompany you to the edges of our territory if you still want to push on. But in exchange, there’s some chores I want done as payment.”

  That sounded like a reasonable deal, and Arjun’s reluctant nod sealed it for me. “Thank you,” I said. “But I would also like to make another request.”

  “And what would that be, Your Holiness?”

  We buried Parrick’s body along the edges of the Sand Sea. It wasn’t much, but it was the only thing left I could do for him. From farther out into the sand-water I could see curious heads poking out, watching us.

  “Haidee,” Arjun said, but I was already shedding my cloak to wade out into the thick sea, until the sand swirled around my waist. Madeline swam forward to meet me, and the other dolugongs followed suit.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, and wrapped my arms around her fin, hugging her tightly. She cawed soothingly, like she was the one offering me comfort. Dolugongs had rough lives out here in the desert. Hardship and death would have been no strangers to their little pod, but I felt like I should have done more. “I’m sorry,” I said again, sobbing, and was forgiven once more as the dolugongs encircled me, snouts pressed against my back and sides.

  “Ah, hell,” I heard from behind me. And then Arjun was there, and the dolugongs took turns pressing up against him, bidding him goodbye. “I’ll come back,” I whispered fiercely against Shepard’s hide. “And when I do, I’ll change the world for the better. I’ll make it up to you guys, I promise.”

  They sang their agreement, slowly moved away. I watched them dive out of view until the rest of the sands swallowed them up, Shepard taking a second or so to stay behind and watch us before flicking his tail and plunging back down into the deep.

  “You idiot,” Arjun muttered hoarsely. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “I know,” I whispered. I wanted to touch him again, make sure he was really alive. I didn’t.

  “I thought you’d drowned with the buggy.”

  “I know.”

  “What am I going to do with you, Haidee?”

  My heart spiked at the rough emotion in his voice. He looked a mess, just like I did. He still had sand in his clothes and in what black hair was escaping from his hezabi, and more than a few scrapes on his arms and face, shallow cuts across his brown skin. He had every right to be mad at me, but he wasn’t. If anything, the expression on his face was . . . gentle.

  “I don’t know. I’m still too exhausted to gate. If those pirates had been anything like the cannibals chasing after you, I would have been dead by now.”

  “But you’re not,” he pointed out. “We made it this far. Let’s see it through. If Baldy’s got information, then let’s see what he has to say.”

  I risked his wrath and hugged him. He made a small sound of surprise but didn’t push me away. “Thank you,” I said softly. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  His arms dropped away, and he said nothing for a while, his dark eyes still on mine. “Yeah,” he said, voice gruffer than before, and an unexpected thrill went through me. “I’m glad I’m not dead, too.

  “Let’s go back and see what the old man wants, so we can get out of here.”

  I pressed my hand down against the sand, bidding Parrick one last goodbye, and stood. I’ll fix this, I vowed silently. I’ll fix this somehow.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lan Underwater

  CATHEI’S FORM HAUNTED THE OUTER limits of the camp while we packed up, always shimmying out of view whenever anyone thought to draw too close. Her presence troubled me; there was no indication that she would turn violent, but there was no evidence she wouldn’t, either. She was simply there, for no apparent reason other than to remind us that she was. Odessa had brought her back, but that didn’t mean she was alive.

  Nobody talked about sending the goddess back to Aranth anymore.

  “The patterns in the wildlands
are different in intensity from the ones in Aranth, and growing, we believe, the closer we get to the Abyss,” I overheard Jeenia, one of the clerks, say in a hurried, impromptu lecture to the others as they took down their tents. “That’s why Her Holiness Odessa can perform the spells she’s been doing. The rest of us can’t change our gates. I have an air-gate, for instance, and can only detect Water patterns, which makes me an Icewright. But Her Holiness can alter her gates whenever she needs to, so she can be an Icewright or a Skyrider or even a Firesmoker.”

  “But they said she’s never done them in Aranth before?” Andre asked.

  The Icewright sighed. “Because Aranth has a lot of Water and Air patterns, but not much of the rest. You can’t channel Fire patterns if there aren’t many of them to draw from. Starmaker Gracea is one of the rarer ones, able to manipulate Air even with a fire-gate. That’s why she’s got a lot of standing with Asteria.

  “But here in the wildlands there’s a lot more Earth, more Fire patterns. That’s how Her Holiness can make use of more gates and patterns than she had back home.”

  “But how can the goddesses keep using different gates even when they don’t got the practice for them?” Slyp wanted to know.

  “That’s what separates goddesses like Her Holiness Asteria from the rest of us. They’re tied to the land. As long as Aeon’s got Fire and Earth and everything else, so will they. Even after the world’s gone and broken itself. That good enough an explanation for you?”

  It was a good explanation, and it mollified the crew, but I remained disquieted. More patterns or not, these abilities didn’t come out from nowhere. There was something Odessa wasn’t telling us.

  We’d decided to circle the lakes and strike out for the Spirit Lands despite my fears. I was not hypocritical enough to deny that Odessa was a deciding factor here; if she could beat back any more of the shadows that prowled the area, then we had a fighting chance—more than I ever did with my rangers. But her safety remained my priority. We couldn’t risk any detours into the unknown.