"Most of the sorcerers had died in the fighting. But we couldn't suffer them to live. Not after what they'd done to us. Not when there was any chance they'd do it again. We slaughtered the last of them, and from that day forth whenever another was born to us, we drowned them. Doing this left us trapped here on Attahire, where we've been ever since. But at least we've survived. And if we remain true to the gods, and commit no more blasphemies against them, they might one day allow us to prosper again."
Elis gazed out to the chop of the sea, his face hardened with anger.
"How long has it been since the island was overrun?" Dante said.
"Many hundreds of years."
"It was not the entity of Nolost that destroyed the city we came here from," Gladdic said. "It was the same calamity that befell Attahire."
"And who knows how much else of Snarjlend it destroyed as well." Dante's scalp tingled. "I'm suddenly very glad that's a big fat ocean between us and them."
The warriors rousted them to their next task: pruning branches from the shrubs. They had very demanding rules about how this was to be done, but considering how easy it was compared to hauling rocks into the ocean, Dante couldn't complain. At last, they were brought back to the settlement, fed more bad food, and delivered back to their pit. Dante fell asleep almost immediately.
He woke feeling heavy-headed, with no idea what time it was.
"Do not worry," Gladdic said, sounding no worse for wear despite the day's labor. "It is half an hour until we are to meet the boy."
Dante was glad for that, because he still wasn't fully awake when time came for them to head down the tunnel and open a way to the surface. Elis was waiting for them in the darkness.
"Follow right beside me," he said. "There will be otobi, like you killed on the beach. If they sight us, they will howl."
Dante nodded and brought the nether to hand. Elis stopped, gazing up into the night sky, then moved on. They climbed up from the quarry and entered a field of stunted grass. Heavy clouds blocked any moonlight or starlight and if Elis hadn't been leading the way they would have had to shuffle along to make sure they weren't about to trip over anything. The boy appeared to know the terrain well enough to traverse it blind, and soon brought them to the low row of white rock that bordered the Yerabs' land. They climbed over it to the dunes and fields beyond.
"Otobi over there," Elis whispered. "This way."
They hooked eastward. Dante tried to spot the marine creature but failed. "They're like guard dogs, right? Alert you to strangers and such? Why even have them when no one can get to this island?"
"To tell us when the crabs are coming."
"What, the ones the sorcerer made? They still attack you?"
"They're not as large as the ones that almost destroyed us. But when there's enough of them, they're still big enough to kill us."
"That's what you want to save your island from?"
"Partly."
"And the rest?"
The boy was quiet for a moment. "What's it like where you're from?"
"For half the year, it's frozen solid," Blays said. "For the other half, we actually have to come up with reasons to start drinking at noon."
"But what's it like? Do you have grand temples? Tall towers? Works of art?"
"Yes," Dante said. "But if you've been isolated here for centuries, how do you even know about such things?"
"Because we used to have them all, too. Before the ruin came." Elis stopped and gazed back in the direction of the settlement. "We should have been able to rebuild by now. Maybe we couldn't reach the same heights as before, but it should be much better than this. Instead, every generation, everything gets worse."
They had to dodge another otobi, but after that they got away from the periphery of the settlement, and the way was clear until the dunes flattened out into a marsh swollen from the recent rains. Elis warned them to walk right behind him and stepped into the waters. These turned out to be just a few inches deep, and stayed that shallow through to the other side.
"The ocean has no bottom or end," Elis said, unprompted. "A man can swim to the end of his strength and never catch sight of land."
"I'm sorry?" Dante said.
"I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to her." He resumed speaking, not quite chanting, not quite singing, almost too quiet for Dante to make out the words. But he understood now that it was a poem of some kind, or possibly a prayer. "In the first days, there were gods and there were titans and there were mortals. The gods and titans lived among the heavens, where everything drifted as it would, but the mortals lived on land, where it was firm and steady, unlike the swirling of the winds or the rocking of the seas.
"But the Astendi, being bravest of them all, set out to explore the waters where no others would go, sailing further and further into the unknown with each favorable season, returning with secrets and treasures as the reward for their courage."
The shadow of the tower grew larger. They crossed more dunes, and Elis slowed, picking a careful path through them. Rock jutted from the coarse soil. Something else, too: chunks of rotten wood. Looking more closely, Dante saw the rock wasn't natural, but shaped—though worn and broken by the course of many years. They were walking through ruins. Those of a city ripped apart by its own creations hundreds of years ago. Dante dropped his mind into the earth, but there were no structures of any kind to be found: whatever city had once existed here had been destroyed more thoroughly than the one on the coast of Snarjlend.
"There had always been peace in the heavens," Elis said, picking up where he'd left off, almost singing once again. "But one day there came war between the titans and the gods. The heavens shook and trembled, and the lands did the same, until it was the stormy seas that looked calm and steady by comparison. When cataclysm neared, and it felt as though all the earth was about to shake and rip itself apart, the lords of the Astendi gathered their people and struck out to sea on their great fleet, to see if the waters could save them even as the land crumbled."
Elis warned them to be silent. Dante peered into the surroundings, but the darkness was too thick for him to make out whatever they might be avoiding. They gained elevation, walking over bare hardpan that remained as hard as rock despite the recent rains. Knuckles of white stone jutted from the soil.
When the hills ended, and they dropped down to low ground, the Spire was less than a mile away, and Elis began to speak again.
"The Astendi were much safer out on the waters, which they knew as well by then as their own homeland. But even the bravest and greatest sailors can't stay on the seas forever, and as the war grew worse and worse, the storms and waves grew worse with it. Some Astendi were thrown overboard, lost to the depths. Food dwindled, and the oldest of the people drowned themselves so the sailors would have enough to eat to keep up their strength to steer through the storms. That was when the sorcerers cried out for salvation.
"And that was when you came."
Elis gazed up at the heights of the Spire. With so little else around it for reference, it was hard to say just how tall it was, but it looked to be on par with Barden, several hundred feet high and at least sixty in diameter at the base. It looked much more like a tower shell than a nautilus, but perhaps that was some quirk of translation.
It was surrounded by a round lake of still water. The lake's surface was broken in many spots by little islands just a few inches high. Elis hummed to himself and stepped into the water. He didn't sink at all, even after he'd taken several more steps forward. He motioned for them to follow.
Cautiously, Dante reached a toe into the water. He couldn't see any path beneath the surface, but his boot seemed to scrape something, and as he pressed down more firmly, something pressed equally firmly against him. He shook his head and tried to follow in Elis' footsteps.
A faint blue-green glow filtered from the tower and into the air around it. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Dante to see the water to both left and right of him stir with fins.
"You
were the Great Shell," Elis went on. "You were too mighty for the storms to sink, and you took us on your back. Then you delivered us to this island, and you pledged to protect us—if we would also know that there could come a day when you would need us to do the same for you."
He continued forward in a straight line, not so much as glancing down at his footing. Nor at the hungry fish that followed them on both sides. The Spire seemed to swing closer with each step. The boy sometimes changed his direction, yet no matter where he set his feet, he found solid ground just beneath the surface.
He stepped forth from the water and onto the solid ground that surrounded the Spire. It was silent, yet Dante imagined he could hear murmurs on the wind. Elis advanced until he stood before the enormous spiral shell.
"You saved our lives," the boy said. "And that's why the titans came for you. They did what the ocean couldn't: they killed you. But you and those like you found a way to have your revenge on the titans. The waters smoothed, and so did the land, and finally the heavens did, too.
"The war ended, and both gods and titans left the lands, leaving the mortals behind—and you with us. From then on, it was the Astendi who looked over the great one."
The wind kicked up, scraping grit across the ground. In front of the tower, the blue-green light was as bright as a full moon. More than enough to see a door-shaped portion of the shell swing inward.
"Would she allow us entry if you weren't with us?" Dante said. "Or will she only speak to the Astendi?"
"Only she knows that for sure," Elis said. "But I don't think any words could have convinced her if you'd come alone."
He entered, the others at his heels. The glow was brighter within, gleaming from smooth, damp walls and a pool of water that took up most of the floor.
Dante tipped back his head. "How do you know the story you just told, Elis?"
"Why?"
"Because I think it might be true."
"Of course it's true," the boy said, not quite able to hide his sudden anger. "Now it's not the story the Lineage believes. I'd be carved for my meat if they heard me tell it. But it's the story the sorcerers always told, while they were still alive. And that a few of us still keep alive, even though if Master Lidenda found out, it would mean the end of our lives."
Dante had a moment of vertigo: if Elis' story was true, or close to it, that meant the Astendi were descendants of the very first days of Rale. Then again, they all were, weren't they? The gods had only made them once. Every man and woman now alive was the distant children of those few people who had survived through the prior times such as these. Still, the Astendi were the direct descendants, those who kept the ways and lore of their most ancient ancestors alive to this day. It was strange to think that, if that was true, they had been reduced to living in off-kilter shacks, completely unknown to the outside world.
"This place looks a little tall." Blays motioned to the bare blank walls. "Don't suppose you can walk up them the way you walked across the water?"
"We're not climbing anywhere," Elis said, confused. "We're going into the water."
The pool was black, but unlike the lake outside, it was placid, seemingly free of creatures. The water outside had been fresh, too, while this and the chamber smelled like a clean beach.
The boy shucked off the woven grass jacket he'd worn against the cold. "We'll have to swim further than you'll think possible."
"Don't be so sure," Blays said. "I once won a swimming contest. And I wasn't even conscious for most of it."
"Don't fear, though. Trust in her. Trust in the Great One."
Elis slipped off his shoes, if the grassy wrappers on his feet could be called that, and waded into the pool. Dante shed his cloak, pack, and boots. The water was much warmer than he expected, enough that he almost couldn't feel it as it folded over his skin. Elis dropped to chest-deep, took three long breaths, then pushed forward and dived.
Dante imitated him. The water was dim but clear and he had no trouble keeping sight of Elis as he angled downward. He descended twenty feet to the bottom of the pool and entered a tunnel there. The walls glowed more strongly, casting wavering shadows.
Dante could feel his heartbeat in his ears. Elis kicked along nimbly. Dante's lungs were already getting short; he bubbled a bit of spent air from his nostrils. The tunnel darkened, a little more with each moment. Just before it grew too dark to see anything at all, Elis swam upwards.
Blindly, Dante tried to match course. He thought he could feel himself leave the tunnel and enter a far more open space. He opened his mind to the ether, but just as it had done in Barden, it didn't provide so much as a single spark of light. He thought he could hear the stir of water caused by Elis' passage and tried to follow that.
He squeezed more air from his nose. He would have been fighting toward the surface if he could. Instead he swept the nether through his lungs and felt a little better. But this only bought him another few seconds before his lungs were hurting even worse than before.
He still couldn't see anything. He didn't know if he was still following Elis or even swimming in the right direction. Had this whole thing been a trap? Was Elis just a lure, a means of delivering victims to the Spire, the way that Sandrald disoriented and killed those who tried to enter Barden? If it was a trap, it was a devious one: get them to place their trust in a boy who claimed to need their help, ensuring they would let their guard down and fall victim to the resentful spirit trapped within the shell.
Dante reached upward and outward with his mind, hunting frantically for solid ground that might have air above it. He felt nothing but open water. He could try to go back to the tunnel, race back toward the pool they'd entered, but he knew he'd never make it. Only one way was open to him.
Forward.
He swam on into the skin-warm water. His heart thundered in his head. It took everything he had to stop himself from opening his mouth and breathing deep. He refused to let himself do that. For all he had to do was hang on for a little longer, and he would come through to the other side.
Somehow, he knew in his heart that this was true. As soon as he did, the pain in his lungs dropped away. He blinked. Was he dying? It didn't feel like he was dying. Either way, what could he do about it? So he swam some more.
A little later, the water around him seemed to lighten, but he couldn't make out anything around him, as if he was caught within an aquatic fog. He no longer felt any need to breathe, though, and he kicked himself forward almost leisurely, although his nerves were as tight as a cargo knot. His foot bumped something and he yanked it back. That something turned out to be the ground, which he settled upon.
The water cleared. Formations of rock and coral studded the ground. Strong columns of seaweed climbed toward the surface. Some instinct told him that if he could have seen it from a distance, it would have resembled a palace or temple. A few crabs, urchins, and snails lurked among cracks in the rocks and branches of the coral, but there weren't any fish to be seen.
If he wasn't mistaken, he appeared to be standing on the bottom of the ocean. This was impossible for several reasons, which made Dante think it probably wasn't real, and he was experiencing a vision of some kind. He decided it didn't matter.
"About time," Blays said, though no bubbles escaped his mouth, and his voice sounded like it was in the open air rather than underwater. "Suppose we're all dead again?"
"This could just be an illusion." Dante prodded a rock with his foot. It felt solid enough. "Because I didn't feel us passing through a portal, and this definitely isn't part of Rale."
"She was once a god," Gladdic said. "And she has had ages left to herself. Is it so inconceivable that she might have built out this space for herself?"
"Great One?" Elis cast his gaze across the water. "Are you there?"
Seaweed waved gently in the current.
"We were told your name is Farelin," Dante said. "Is that true?"
A shadow stirred in the distance. Dante almost drew the nether to him, then reconside
red. "Is that her?"
"It might be," Elis said. "Or it might be her guardian."
"Her guardian?"
"Be ready to swim."
Dante muttered a few choice oaths. The shadow enlarged, growing less fuzzy at the edges. Sand stirred ahead of them, little vortexes shooting off at angles as a current sped toward them and then washed over them, dragging them back by ten feet before it passed them by.
LAST-OF-YOUR-KIND. The voice appeared in Dante's mind like surf receding down the sand.
Elis dropped to one knee. "Great One! I have—"
DEFILE ME?
"I had to, Great One. These men must see you—and in return, they have agreed to help me restore Attahire."
"That's not exactly the deal," Dante said.
WHO LIES?
"No one!" Elis stood, sounding on the brink of tears, though it was hard to say under the water. "They've agreed to take me with them to the mainland. The rest will be up to me."
The shadow in the distance had been motionless for some time. It began to drift toward them again.
Elis leaned toward Dante. "She's not happy. Tell her what you have to say. And be fast."
"My lady," Dante bowed. The shadow grew closer yet, though he still couldn't tell what it was. "I will be brief. Taim is trying to destroy Rale—and to do it, he's allied with the very entities you fought and died against. We need you—"
TRUE?
"…uh, yes?"
LIES. YOU BROUGHT LIES TO MY HEART?
"Taim thinks the afterlife has been corrupted. And he's not wrong, exactly. But instead of letting it be, he wants to wipe it all out. And replace it with a new creation. If that happens, there could well be a new war for control of it. Everything you did will have been for n—"
DEFILED. ME!
"Can you ask Sandrald?" Blays said quickly, gesturing in a direction that might or might not be remotely close to where Barden was in relation to them.
NO!
"Well, he's already helped us. Are the four of you still connected to each other at all? Can you feel his power back in this world?"
The waters went silent. A single crab, hand-sized, emerged from a crevice and stared at them with unblinking stalks.
The Twelve Plagues (The Cycle of Galand Book 7) Page 26
