by J. M. Lee
Naia’s ears turned pink. She looked away and mumbled, “Not a bit.”
The cabin door creaked and Tae came in, the moonlight falling across her shoulders. She had changed out her Sifa sailing gear for a Vapra cloak, her wings peeking out from the slits in the back. A light dusting of snow clung to her red-gold hair.
“It’s time,” she said. “The Vapra are making their way to the citadel. The General and the Ritual Master have not shown themselves. Neither has Seladon. There may be other Skeksis in Ha’rar as well, but I can’t be sure. Even with the Waystar, it’s getting very dark.”
Amri let the cold air knock the sleep from his mind and body. He needed to be alert, awake. He could feel his eyes opening, blooming like night flowers in the dark.
“I’m ready,” he said. “Naia? Kylan?”
Kylan stood, tucking his firca in his jerkin front. “As ever.”
Naia was always ready. She clasped Onica’s hand.
“We’re counting on you in case of trouble,” she said.
“The sails will be unfurled, the lantern lit,” Onica said. “I will head for the bay below where the Waystar trees grow. Should anything happen, fly down to me and we will escape to fight another day. I believe in you.”
With no more than that, the five of them left Onica and her ship in the harbor and hurried along the wharf. Amri cast a look back onto the Silver Sea, hoping to catch a glimpse of the swimmer in the water, but if she really was out there, she did not show herself.
As Tae had said, the Vapra of Ha’rar were already gathering near the steps that led up to the citadel. Huddled in their silver cloaks, whispering quietly among themselves. Amri heard the consistent sound of fear, and apprehension. He heard Seladon’s name, and Tavra’s. The sibilant sounds of the Skeksis Lords’ names. skekUng, skekZok. skekSil, the Chamberlain. skekSo, the Emperor.
“Keep looking up,” he said, though none of the Vapra heard him. He and his friends retreated in the other direction, away from the gathering crowd. The only thing that crossed their paths were the flurries of snow blown by the wind, from the far end of the mountains and across the city.
Tavra told Amri the way to the place where Ha’rar met the mountain, and he led Naia, Kylan, and Tae through the streets and up the narrow winding stairway of ice and stone. Against the cliff, they were protected from the wind, but Amri could see the trees on the mountain higher up swaying. It was going to get colder.
They passed a few dwellings built right into the mountain, but before long the stairway eroded to a simple steep footpath. Then, after only a short moment more, the footpath dissolved and they trudged through knee-deep snow in the forest.
As soon as they left the dim lanterns of the street, the others slowed their pace. Even Naia’s steps were less confident as she picked her way over icy rocks and slippery, snow-coated slopes. Amri helped his friends along, cutting their path through the night, using Tavra’s voice from his shoulder like a compass to guide their direction.
“I can’t see a thing. Is this what it’s been like for you, traveling in the day?” Naia asked as they reached a rocky ledge too high to step over. He made short work of it and crouched on the top, grabbing Naia’s hand and pulling her up and over. She didn’t wait for him to say yes before she added, “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “Not everywhere in Thra is caves and rocks.” Though night and ice is close enough, he thought. Or at least he hoped it would be.
They paused to look down into Ha’rar. It was like looking into a picture, all painted in blue and black and white. The citadel, on the far end with its back to the sea, shone with the reflections of the stars and the moons.
“My directions are useless past this point,” Tavra said. “The winds change the snow and ice too frequently. Follow the light, but be cautious. There are crags hidden by the ice, and snow-shelves that would send us falling to our deaths.”
Tae brought up the rear. She seemed the least affected by the cold, perhaps from frequent visits to Ha’rar. She gave him a confident nod and added, “Our path is up to you now, Amri.”
Something he’d longed to hear, but now that he had, it felt heavy on his shoulders. It was up to him to guide them—and protect them from danger. He knelt and touched the freezing stones. Under the deep snow, the mountain path still existed. He could feel its sturdiness.
“This way,” he said, and the others followed without hesitation.
They climbed the mountain as the moons climbed the sky. The wind was so much stronger on the bluffs, casting sheets of snow off the trees. Amri’s eyelashes started to freeze with crystals, the wind so cold, not even his breath clouded in front of him. The Waystar’s light was powerful, shining from somewhere up ahead. They paused as they looked through the trees and rocks. The light seemed to come from everywhere, so bright that it obscured their path more than illuminated it.
He touched the stones and stopped when he heard a different kind of voice in the earth. He frowned. “There’s something strange up ahead . . . A building of some sort. Does someone live up here?” he asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Tavra said. “But these cliffs are ancient. Not many travel this far. If someone came up here and built something, I doubt anyone would know. Or care.”
“It would be a nice way to live if you wanted to be alone,” Naia remarked.
“And if you didn’t mind freezing,” Kylan added, teeth chattering.
Amri led the way. The dark of the night dissolved under the nearing radiance of the Waystar’s light, shining on a stone structure surrounded by trees. It was nothing special from the outside, just a tall mound of stones and ice with a simple wood door.
They knocked, but no one answered. No firelight flickered inside. It had all the appearance of abandonment, but the door opened easily when Naia gave it a strong tug. Inside was a single round room, barren except for a stone table and a fire well. A wood staircase wound up the wall in a spiral, toward a chamber at the very top of the tower. It looked like what the inside of a spiraling seashell must look like, if it were big enough to build a home inside.
“What is this place?” Amri asked aloud.
“This hearth has been lit recently,” Kylan said. He held his hand out over the coals as Tae brought a bundle of kindling from a pile of sticks and timber. “Within days.”
“I don’t know who’s to thank, but I’m grateful for a place to warm up before we head out to the Waystar grove,” Naia said.
“It shouldn’t be much farther,” Tavra agreed. “But we can’t stay too long. We must reach the Vapra while they are gathered before the citadel. Before the Skeksis cow them with whatever lies they are about to deliver.”
Amri nodded. “Warm up and then we’ll go.”
While Kylan started the fire, Amri touched the parchments that were strewn across the stone worktable. The soft, cold paper was thick and fibrous, covered in ink-drawn maps and charts. He recognized the coastline of the Silver Sea, from Kylan’s book, meticulous and fine-detailed, every landform and eddy and bay lovingly titled and detailed. Cera-Na and her fingerlike headlands, even the sand river they’d taken into the desert. The Caves of Grot, the Claw Mountains. The long tail of the Black River, the lifeline of the Skarith Basin.
There were other charts, too, but they were not of the land. Amri recognized stars and the Sisters, the patterns of the wind drawn across the sky where it intersected with the path of the Brothers. The pictures of the seasons and the ninets, how the phases of the moons changed course as Thra moved through time and space.
“They’re written in ink, not dream-etching,” he said, touching the black letters. Naia joined him, looking over his shoulder. She brightened, pointing.
“Look, this is Sog. See how the water crosses through the wetlands to the south and joins the sea? Great Smerth is here.” She pointed to a spot in the depth of the swamp. Am
ri paged through the other maps, arranging them on the big stone slab so the Black River lined up. The single line that drew them all together, until they had a map of the Skarith Land.
“Our world,” he said, feeling a chill. He touched the Dark Wood, the ink that drew the shape of the Castle of the Crystal. It was hard to believe how much of it they’d seen in only the past few days. And to arrive in Ha’rar, after how long they’d spent trying to reach it.
“You know what you’re going to say?” he asked Tavra.
“Yes,” the Silverling spider replied. “I don’t know if it will be enough, but it is all I have. I can only hope that my words can move the Vapra to believe that there is hope . . . even without my mother and Seladon to guide them.”
“They still have you,” Naia assured her. “Even if your voice is small. If Amri’s right, and if Kylan can do what he did with the Sanctuary Tree, then . . .”
They turned as Tae backed away from one of the small holes in the stones that served as a window, ears twisting forward.
“Someone’s coming!” she whispered.
Heavy footsteps crunched through the snow, just outside the door. There was nowhere to run; whoever was coming would soon find them, and Amri could only hope the owner of the domed building was a hospitable type. Perhaps the swimming Mystic who had given Amri the wisdom to find his way up here.
The door slammed open. A monstrous black creature stood there, mountain wind tearing at her heavy coat. She doffed her plumed hat and shook the snow and ice from its feathers before fitting it back upon her brow.
“You,” skekSa the Mariner said in her deep, velvet voice. “What are you doing here? Who told you of this place—where is its keeper?”
Her menacing eyes fell upon Amri and his friends, then the star charts and sea maps. Amri found his hand on the hilt of Tavra’s sword. skekSa reached back and slammed the door, throwing the latch so there was no escape. She leveled the room with her gaze, hot breath steaming from her nostrils.
“Tell me, and I will let you live,” she growled. “Where is urSan the Swimmer?”
CHAPTER 24
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Naia said.
skekSa swept closer, filling the room. She tilted her head at Amri, counting the number of Gelfling before her, then leaned over the worktable and smoothed her claws along the paper and ink, touched the tomes and scrolls. Her gaze lingered on the maps they’d been looking at, then came back to the Gelfling before her.
“Maybe I believe you.”
“Why are you in Ha’rar?” Amri asked. “Weren’t you supposed to stay with the Sifa in Cera-Na?”
“Why would I? They abandoned me. Without their navigators and charts, I cannot escape this infernal mainland. Then Emperor skekSo called me to Ha’rar when things got, how shall we put it? Complicated. With All-Maudra Mayrin. And I remembered that there is someone with the charts I need, who keeps them in her tower near the Vapra Waystar grove.”
What is a compass without a ship? Amri remembered what the swimming Mystic, urSan, had said. As he watched skekSa tear through the scrolls and maps on the worktable, he realized the inverse was also true.
“What is a ship without a compass?” he murmured.
“What did you just say?”
skekSa glared at him, as if he’d said some secret word that had revealed a hidden weakness. She stepped away from the worktable and loomed over him, feathers on her neck rising so she looked twice her already intimidating size.
“Nothing,” he lied.
“Hm. You know, I met with my friend Lord skekZok earlier this night,” she purred, tongue sharp with a barely softened threat, “about the Stonewood traitor. Apparently, Lord Chamberlain skekSil ran afoul of a group of Gelfling south of Ha’rar. One in particular—a Vapra, to his memory, but I think he may be mistaken—threw Sifa fire dust in his eye. You wouldn’t know who that might have been, my little apothecary?”
Amri tried not to shrink back. “He was asking for it.”
“Oh, you can burn out both his weepy eyes for all I care. The part that fascinated me, my dears, was the Chamberlain’s description of the Drenchen of the group. A rough-and-tumble little thing with healing vliyaya, who’d broken into the Castle of the Crystal and lived to escape. Ritual Master skekZok is very keen in this aspect, you see. And since we are friends, he and I, then you can imagine I am keen as well.”
Naia stood tall, drawing her dagger. Amri pulled Tavra’s sword from his hip. skekSa barely noticed, circling the room until her back was to the door again, standing between them and the exit.
“Of course, I didn’t fully understand his interest in you when we met in Cera-Na,” skekSa continued. “But now that I do, and now that he’s offered me a reward for your capture, how fortunate it is that you are here before me, trapped in this tiny room.”
“I’m not going with you,” Naia said. “And I’m not going to the castle. And I’ll die before I let you drain me like you drained Mira and Tavra!”
skekSa held out her hands. It was meant to be pacifying, but all Amri saw were her claws.
“Hush, my dear. skekZok doesn’t plan to set you before the blasted reflector. We merely need you and your twin brother for . . . information. Your bodies may have the answers to a question many of us have been asking.”
Kylan spoke up, standing firm beside Naia. “Aughra said you’re wrong. She said it’s not going to help you understand how to drain your other halves.”
skekSa scoffed.
“Is that what they think? Unfortunate. Now listen. I’ve no more time for games, so here is my proposal. I will let the three of you”—she pointed at Amri, Kylan, and Tae—“escape. But you must leave this mountain immediately, and you must never get in my way again. And in exchange for your lives, I get to keep you, my Drenchen dear. To myself.”
The pit in Amri’s stomach, left from when he’d swallowed his fear and gone aboard skekSa’s ship, felt like a buried seed struggling to come to life. He’d tried to leave it in darkness to die, but skekSa’s words were like light to it, bringing it to sprout. He’d been right. The whole time.
Naia pointed her dagger at skekSa. Before Amri could stop her, she said, “I’ll take that deal, but I won’t go with you without a fight.”
“Naia, no—”
Kylan’s protest was cut off by skekSa’s grin. She knocked aside her coat, baring the glinting gold handle of a long blade slung at her waist, putting a hand on the grip and sliding it loose with a deadly, metallic scrape.
“I accept your challenge,” she said.
“Naia, you can’t. Don’t do this!”
Amri grabbed Naia’s arm, but Tae pushed him away toward the door.
“I’ll stay with her,” the Sifa said, brandishing her dagger. “Get out of here with Kylan. We came up here to do something, and we’re going to do it. I need you to make sure of it. All right?”
She looked at him, confident and determined. Amri tried to remember that she was Maudra Ethri’s first-wing, daring and courageous as any Sifa could be. Without Tavra, Tae was their best chance. He nodded, backing away. Kylan didn’t move, hand drifting like he was going to stay and fight. Naia glared at them with defiant spring-blue eyes.
“Go!” she said.
Amri grabbed Kylan and ran. Past skekSa as she stepped aside, shoving open the door and squeezing out onto the blustery cold mountain slope.
“We can’t just leave them in there with skekSa!” Kylan yelled, grabbing Amri by the collar.
“skekSa won’t kill Naia!” Amri shouted. “They want her alive. Remember? They kept Gurjin alive. So if they do the same for Naia, we still have time to think of something!”
Kylan wouldn’t give up. “Maybe not Naia, but what about Tae—”
“We have to trust her!”
The song teller shut his mouth and glared, eyes red from the
cold and anger. Amri tried not to care, turned away and fixed his sights on the cold light of the Waystar. A moment later, he heard Kylan following. He hated it, leaving Naia and Tae behind. Trudging through the cold snow as if his heart weren’t aching with worry.
He felt a gentle prick on his cheek.
“We will succeed,” Tavra said softly. Ardently. “We have to. Then we will return to Naia and Tae and make sure we all leave this place alive.”
They left Naia, Tae, and skekSa behind in the stone hovel, heading up a steep incline toward the Waystar. The slope was almost vertical in places, and Amri helped Kylan up and up, closer and closer to the glowing above. When they finally climbed over a ledge of icy rock, Amri gasped.
A grove of trees grew in a circle on a pointed bluff that stretched out over Ha’rar. They glowed blue and white with such radiance, it was as if six stars had fallen to earth and bloomed. They had reached the grove of star trees the Vapra called the Waystar.
“Quickly,” Tavra said, shaking them from their awe. “Look, below. The Vapra gather and the Skeksis will soon come.”
Below, the citadel was alight with little flames. Even Amri’s eyes found it difficult to see through the dark, against the Waystar’s light. But he could imagine the Vapra gathering on the front steps of the citadel. Huddling in the cold, feeling alone. Hoping that soon, All-Maudra Seladon would appear to them and tell them what their futures held. They hoped for reassurance, for strength in the face of uncertainty. And that was what they were about to get.
“All right,” Amri said, looking between the trees. “Let’s do this.”
He held out a hand and touched the faceted bark of the nearest tree. Its light came from its core, neither hot nor cold to the touch. He closed his eyes and listened to the tree’s song. Listened to how its roots burrowed down through the mountain, followed the water and ice that spread like veins through all of the city below.
But this tree’s reach was not complete. Its roots were still young. Amri moved to the next, and the next. Touching and listening, feeling the vibrations of life. Seeing in his mind’s eye how far the roots ran, which tree would bring Tavra’s message the farthest and widest.
