by Ember Lane
“Mezzerain is beholden to me now,” I told him.
“To you?” He screwed up his face. “I’m a god. What are you?”
“She’s Alexa Drey.” Pog strode over. “So what are you going to do?”
“Do?” Taric shrieked.
“We’ve won your country back—she’s won your country back, and Ruse is now turning its tail and running. Your choice: what do you want to do?”
He fell to his knees. “Valkyrie—you’ve got Valkyrie back?”
Taric’s expression glossed over, suddenly serene, a deliciously twisted grin gracing his lips, quickly covered, concealed by his hand, fingers drumming on his cheeks.
“It might work,” he said out loud. “Might work. There’s one way out of here—one way alone. I shall show it to you in return for Valkyrie.”
“What about the rest of you?” Pog asked.
“That, well, we can add that to the price. You must search out the other wedge and release me.” He slapped the table. “There, that’s my price.”
“Deal,” said Pog, and he thrust his hand out.
Taric took it and shook. “So, Keymaster, get the keymaster to figure it all out, and we shall be on our way.”
“I thought you were going to show us?” I grabbed the scruff of his cloak, but my fingers gripped thin air.
He waltzed away, circling the table. “But if I do that, I would break my word to my brother, Belved, and he holds the true key to my future. I could hint, though,” he said, reaching out and letting his finger trail upon the table’s edge.
Faulk glanced around the circular cell. “We can discount the door and the windows. So the only anomaly is the table.
Taric snapped his hand away. “Keymaster indeed,” he said, backing against a wall.
Faulk picked up the wedge-shaped box and set it aside, placing his palms on the table and feeling around. He prodded at the table’s rim, testing it with an upward tug and grunting when it lifted. He pulled it away and revealed the floor’s center.
The floor’s stone spiral tightened, eventually ending in a circular hole about a foot wide. All around, the vibrant, golden lattice lay where the grout lines should have been. Faulk traced the circle with his finger and then brought out a chisel and mallet. He crouched close, studying the hole’s rim, before taking the chisel and carefully chipping at the grouting on its lowest edge.
Painstaking and slow, Faulk chipped away. Pog crouched by him.
“What?” he asked.
Faulk withdrew the chisel. “Feel under.”
Pog thrust his arm in. “The pipe’s bigger under,” he said and withdrew his arm.
Faulk resumed his chiseling. “Nearly there,” he muttered under his breath. “Now, twist your arm in, hand up and try to catch the stone as it falls.”
“What about the lattice?” I asked, trying not to encroach, but leaning over, my curiosity overwhelming.
“I have a feeling it can’t attach to air,” Faulk said, resuming his chiseling.
Taric clapped his hands with glee. “Oh, he’s good, very good.”
“Got it,” Pog said as the first cobble fell.
At first, the lattice held in place, and for a moment I thought Faulk had gotten it wrong, but it cracked and sparked and eventually shrank back to the closest edge.
“Just another twenty or so more, and we should be able to slide down to wherever this goes.” Faulk bent low, chiseling away. Pog stacked the first cobble behind him.
I slumped against the wall, sliding down it and sitting next to a very bored-looking Taric. “How long have you been trapped here?” I asked.
“Since he tricked me. Crazy, really, should have seen it coming.” He grimaced. “I’ve said all along, never do a deal with Scholl or Belved. Both are consumed by levels of self-importance even a god shouldn’t covet.”
“Self-importance?”
“Indeed. Belved believes his way is the only way. Dominate, kill the unknown, become master of all.”
A shiver ran up my spine. “And Scholl?”
“Scholl pretends to be harmony, balance, and progress through peace, but the trouble is, he’ll use any methods at his disposal to get there.”
“What about you?” I asked.
Taric threw back his head, laughing. “What about me? We can’t all win. I must protect my lands at any cost, and I chose the path that I thought would guarantee that. I was wrong, but as soon as I let Ruse in, they took over, shoving me away, trapping me, and making me redundant.”
“You could’ve all just worked together.”
Pog pulled another cobble out. Taric threw his head back, staring up at the ceiling.
“Too many egos. Take Morlog, she plotted dominion early, hiding her intentions in Mandrake. Those are the levels of mistrust you’re dealing with. We each have our own idea, our own directive, on how we should best serve our land. There’s no changing it—it just isn’t in us.”
I despaired of him and his resigned attitude. Crawling over, I rejoined Pog and Faulk, choosing to pass the time by stacking the cobbles for Pog instead. The night had hold outside.
“Joss the Nine would have started by now,” I muttered.
“Then you can use your magic,” Pog replied, but his concentration was focused solely on the ever-widening hole. He grabbed the box and Faulk’s tool bag, stowing them away into his inventory.
“Where?” I asked, the lattice-like, golden chain mail surrounding us.
The stack of cobbles grew to a small pyramid. Faulk sat back on his haunches. “There, that should do it. Who’s first?”
For once, Pog didn’t dive in. “You,” he told me. “Alexa must go; she has the magic.”
“You can go invisible when you want,” I pointed out, but began to slither in, face-first, like I was some kind of snake going down a drainpipe.
The pipe itself was smooth and about two feet wide. It angled down but only a little and only lasted for barely ten feet before it ended in a circular hole with bars crossing it laterally. A gulley intersected it, an open sluice edged on the other side by smoothed rock. Fortunately, all looked unused.
“You need a saw?” Faulk asked, sliding down behind me.
“Let me see.” I called for my magic, focusing it on the metal bars, turning my usual bullets into a steady stream of power. To my relief, a thin beam of gray magic flowed out, superheating the metal, making it white hot and cutting a narrow path through it.
Faulk tossed me a cloth. “Use that to push the bar out.”
Wrapping it around, I cut the other side and shoved the hot metal away. As soon as I had them all out of the way, I doused their ends and eased myself through. Standing in the sluice, I took a long breath, looking up and down, and realizing I was midway up a cliff. The sluice ended a few feet to my right, and I edged over to it, seeing its sheer drop to a wave-lapped fissure below. Over in the bay, the black ship bobbed on the swell, now lit silver by the waning moon.
“Where to, now?” I asked Faulk and Pog as they emerged, but something reflecting in Pog’s wide eyes told me that choice was no longer mine.
I whipped around as a ruddy streak of magic hurtled toward us, arcing up from the ship like cannon fire. I pulled my shield up, its silver-blue shimmer immediately exploding with shattering red, hurling me backward against the splintering rock face. Faulk pitched over the edge, Pog too, and I shouted “No!” as another bolt came, larger than the first and too fast for me to bring my mana to bear.
Leaping out of the way, pulling my knees in and making myself as tight as possible, I plummeted, bouncing off the sharp rock, and in moments I crashed into the raging sea, tumbling under, tossed around like flotsam before rising in an explosion of white effervescence.
Surfacing, I trod water and looked desperately around for Pog or Faulk, but the waves pushed me back into the crease, slamming me against the vicious rocks before tearing me away again and pulling me out to sea.
“Alexa!” Pog’s voice called to me, but the moonlight barely penet
rated the fissure.
“Alexa! Get Faulk!”
I trod water as best I could, another swell sending me crashing onto sharp rocks. Conjuring a glowstone, I sent it up and let it spray its light about. Faulk’s body was wedged in between two jutting slabs. I waited for the swell to ebb and then launched myself toward him, grabbing at his feet, pulling myself onto him.
He was out for the count, limp. I crawled up his body, smacking his jaw, then feeding my mana into him, hoping to kickstart his heart. Another huge wave swept over us, trying to suck me out to sea. I clung on for all I was worth, still pouring my mana in. Faulk jerked rigid, like a huge electric shock had just blasted him. His eyes snapped open as his mouth spewed seawater all over me.
He gazed around, eyes wide with fear. “Pog?”
“Over here,” Pog shouted.
The swell retreated, revealing slippery shelves, deadly sharp angles and wedges. “We can’t stay here,” Faulk told me. “One slip and we’re cut to ribbons.”
“I know,” I said, but couldn’t think of a way.
The swell returned with vengeance, washing over us, pressing us against the razor-like rocks.
“Magic protection?” Faulk yelled.
“I can try,” I cried, clinging on to the rock as the seawater sucked at my feet.
“Pog! Weather the next swell, then jump in with us the moment it ebbs!” Faulk bellowed.
“What?” Pog cupped one ear, clinging on for dear life with his other hand.
Faulk made a couple of signs. I prayed Pog understood, and I raised my shield, hoping beyond hope it would somehow protect us. The swell came, like some deadly lunge, flattening us, its power overwhelming, and the minute its force peaked, I pulled Faulk out of his wedge with all my might, tumbling us both into the ocean.
We went under, rolling with the eddying water, surrounded by the surreal blue of my shield. I held on to Faulk, desperately feeling about for Pog with my free hand. A shock nearly forced me rigid as something clamped on to my ankle, but I had to carry on fighting and just hope it was Pog.
Surfacing with a splutter, I clawed at the freezing water, trying to power us out to sea with brute force alone. Faulk pushed me away, recoiling around. “Pog!” he screamed, grabbing behind me. Pog pulled himself between us as the sucking sea petered out, stilled, and then rose again. We all ducked under the swell, fighting it. I pulled at the water with all my might as the current tried to drag us back in.
Clawing upward, reaching for the silver diamonds of the sea’s surface, I burst free, Pog spluttering right by me. Faulk shook his head as he gasped a lungful of air. We trod water for a second and then began swimming away from the ragged coast. My heart sank as I saw a rowboat silhouetted in front of us. It sank more when I felt the black magic that surrounded it.
A figure stood, what looked like a fishing gaff in its hand. The boat closed in on us, the gaff falling, pulling at Pog. Pog yelped in agony, vanishing but then reappearing, then blinking in and out of existence.
“Are you going to drop that shield, Alexa?” The figure pushed back his hood, and his aura alone left me with no doubt he was the enemy. He gave a terrible tug on the gaff, and Pog’s desperate yelp made up my mind.
“No!” Pog screamed, but I dropped the shield anyway.
He pulled on the gaff, a couple of crew reaching over and pulling Pog’s limp body over the rowboat’s gunwale.
“Who’s next?” the priest asked.
I ground my teeth, pushing Faulk forward, offering him up.
“What do you want with us?” As soon as the question was out of my mouth, I regretted its futility, shrugging off helping hands and pulling myself into the boat, scrambling over to Pog and resting his head on my lap. I placed my hand on Pog’s ruined armpit, lighting it up with my mana and seeking out its terrible injuries.
“Want?” the priest asked, crouching by us.
“Forget it,” I said.
He cleared his throat. “Let me make one thing plain.” He shuffled aside, revealing Faulk, his head held back, a knife to his throat. “One little bullet of your magic, or if your little friend chooses to vanish, and we shall sever his head. Unlike some.” He rolled his eyes, “I doubt a simple trapmaster will be able to come back from the dead. How is the duplicitous Taric?” He pointed the gaff at my glowsphere. “If you don’t mind, I’d hate for it to suddenly shatter and take my own head off. It’s a matter of trust.”
I flicked a hand at it, and it vanished. “So what’s next?”
“Next?” The priest signaled to the rowers. “Next, we board my ship, and we discuss the handing over of the stones. The boy can touch them. It's just a matter of whether his hands need to be connected to his body for them to do it.”
I growled silently in frustration, looking over toward the coast, to the raging fires that now lit the city, and I understood that Joss the Nine’s forces were being met with resistance. Cursing the flamboyant god, I suddenly wondered where Taric was. We drew alongside the black ship, and the priest told me to climb its Jacob’s ladder. I wanted to kill him, to fry his limbs, but as I slung Pog over my shoulder, I heard him whisper, “Just play the game, Alexa.”
Hand over hand, Pog clinging on, I climbed up, eventually hauling myself over and onto its deck. Ruse’s pennant flew from every point, its flags lit up by the moonlight, and its sails now furled. We were going nowhere for now, and it made me wonder what the priest had in store for us.
Pog was pulled off me as I was bound, gagged, and blindfolded.
Things had taken a distinct turn for the worse.
Bundled down some steps, my head forced low, the barks and shouts of frightened men cajoled me on. They had me, but they were scared of me, and that, at least, pleased me. They launched me into a room, and I tripped, my boot caught on its raised threshold, sending me sprawling, rolling, crashing to a halt.
“See you in Ruse. You’ll find your welcome there quite interesting.” The priest cackled on his way out.
A door shut behind, a sucking sound, like it stole the air as it barred our escape.
“Pog? Faulk?”
I heard muffled replies, shuffling, and then Pog spoke. “Here, hang on.”
Hands grabbed at my blindfold, roughly undoing it, tugging, pulling it off, and I opened my eyes, my heart sinking. All around, another golden lattice lined the small cell we were in and even though I tried, I knew my magic was useless here.
Pog slipped his ties, quickly releasing Faulk and then me. Our room was a mere eight feet by eight, the lattice following the planked sides of the ship, sitting between their joints, much like they’d clung to the grout lines. I shuffled back against them, feeling the magic’s revulsion at first, but noting how it soon calmed to a resigned murmur.
Faulk studied the door, seeing it was sealed with some form of rubberized tar. “We know how the lattice works,” he muttered, “but we can hardly dismantle the ship.”
As he said it, the keel groaned, and the thunderous drop of sails being unfurled and then catching the wind, sounded.
“Well,” I said. “I suppose we wanted to go to Ruse.”
“No!” Pog shuffled around, sitting beside me. “We have to get out.”
“Why?”
“You’re supposed to be given your next veil in Striker Bay. We can’t leave until that happens, and that means we have to escape.”
“Faulk?” I asked, more out of desperation that hope.
“This lattice, am I right in thinking it’s the magic of the gods?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me, do you sense a god on this ship?”
“I would have no clue what that would feel like.”
“Pog, my bag, please.” Faulk thrust his hand out. “So we know the lattice has to cling to the fabric of the room.”
“Yes…” I said, watching him feel all around the door.
“So it isn’t as all encompassing as these gods thought.”
“Taric hinted as much; he told us how to escape the
first cell.”
“That he also put us in,” Faulk pointed out. “So he wanted us here; it’s the only conclusion.”
“Then he must have set the lattice.” I shuffled over to the door. “Remove the door, and the lattice snaps away.”
Faulk turned, winking at me. “And I know a few things about doors.”
He fished into his tool bag, bringing out a small chisel and rubber mallet. Setting them aside, he took out a thin spike. “By my reckoning the latch should be here.” He stabbed the spike in, hitting metal, a satisfied grin adorning his lips. “Pog, start chipping around this part for me; expose the latch.”
Pog took the mallet and chisel up, but before he could strike it, Faulk held out a cautionary hand. “Softly, quietly, the wood on these old ships is held together by tar. Get used to teasing the splinters out.”
“What can I do?” I asked.
“You?” Faulk turned an inquiring eye to me. “Your magic won’t work in here even when the door falls in. I’d be getting ready to jump out if I were you.”
I stepped away and made ready to launch myself forward. Faulk took out a hammer and another chisel, locating the door’s hinges and setting to work on them. It was painstaking work, their soft taps falling in time with the creaks and groans of the ship, the slithers and chips forming tiny piles beside them.
The wood fell away in strips rather than splinters, like the ship was rotten, and I wondered at the state of Ruse. Variant’s stump had been rotten, eaten away by beetles and grubs, but Variant was no more. How close Ruse was to being riddled with rot? Was it teetering on the edge of its own destruction? I picked at the planks behind me, pulling sticky lumps out.
“Is Ruse dying?” I asked out loud—asked no one at all.
“Perhaps,” Pog replied. “Perhaps Ruse barely made it, limped to its destination like a ghost ship.”
Faulk grunted. “There you go again—talking mumbo jumbo.” He finished exposing the hinges and began work on the door’s jamb. “How can a land be a ghost ship?”
“It’s not the land,” Pog explained. “It’s what powers it. You saw Valkyrie—saw how miserable it was under the combinium. We think each land has its own power, and when that power’s gone, the land dies.”
