Akrotia shuddered, then began to tilt.
Cape Storm
’s burning wreckage was dragged under as the entire near shore dipped below the surface. Cheers rang out, but Henkle had a more pragmatic response to the spectacle.
“Make all sail and flank speed on the sweeps! Get us the hells out of here, Lieutenant! I don’t want to be anywhere near if that bloody thing capsizes!”
Sails soared and cracked, and the sweeps thrashed the water as the ship turned its stern to the city and made speed away. All eyes not otherwise occupied stared aft as the vast shape of Akrotia continued to tilt, then stopped.
“What now, Commodore?” Donnely asked, joining Henkle on his quarterdeck.
“Now, Captain, we regroup with Admiral Joslan and await his orders.” He turned to Donnely with a wry smile. “You remember what orders are, don’t you, Captain, even if you don’t know how to
follow
them?”
≈
Damn
! Cynthia cursed. She was beyond exhaustion now, at the end of her string. She only had one more attack in her before she would have to rest. She felt the mer still pulling down on the cables, fighting to drag the flooded side of the city down. The ships were scattered now, but she assumed that they would form up for another attack, though their target was now deep underwater. They would have to open a new breach to do any good.
And Akrotia was moving toward shore.
She had to act now, but how? Breaking away one or two more spires wouldn’t cause the city to capsize. She needed to either lift the elevated end or push down on the sunken portion, and of those two actions, one was much easier.
Moving as swiftly as she could in her exhaustion, she surged along the underside of the city to where the mer were pulling on their ironweed cables. She located Tailwalker and signed her plan to him. He nodded, and sent his school scattering to safety. She reached out her senses and felt for the ships. Good! They were a safe distance away.
It was time.
Cynthia called once more for the sea to aid her. She felt for its natural rhythm and intensified it, pushing and pulling deftly until the swells began to pile atop one another. Her energy was waning quickly; if this last effort didn’t succeed, Akrotia would have time to run itself aground before she could muster the strength for another try.
Pushing and pulling, urging and pleading, her head throbbed with the strain. Using the ocean’s natural power to amplify the swells, she pushed until a mountain of water rose above her. Cynthia felt dizzy with her efforts, but the wave grew until it was a hundred feet high and as broad as Akrotia itself. She held it for a moment while she assessed Akrotia’s movement, then pushed with every ounce of energy left.
The towering wave crashed down onto the submerged edge of the floating city, shoving it even deeper. She heard a crack, then another; bulkheads and hatches were giving way under the pressure. Cynthia pushed herself to the surface and watched as Akrotia listed farther…forty degrees…forty five…fifty. It hung there for a moment, then, ever so slowly, the weight of the upper structures overbalanced the lower, and the great city of Akrotia capsized.
≈
This was not good.
The burning city had been a virtual heaven for Flicker, but now it was shaking all around, and the floor was tilting. The sounds of cracking stone and slamming doors worried her, too. If the burning city sank, she would drown.
Flicker flew to the crystal house as she had a thousand times before, and peered through at her imprisoned master. Edan stood there encased in a lattice of crystal shards, along with the stupid crazy girl. He hadn’t moved an inch, and probably wouldn’t ever again. She’d tried a hundred times to free him, but nothing she did even scratched that crystalline structure. She loved Edan and didn’t want to leave him, but she feared drowning even more. Besides, she couldn’t love anyone ever again if she drowned.
She kissed the impenetrable crystal separating them and flew for the tiny port in the ceiling, remembering how Mouse had shown her how to escape. She raced through the tiny vents to the outside and shot into the air, astonished to see a huge mountain of water rising over the city. She yelped in fear and soared higher, watching in horror as the wave fell. Water hissed against the hot stone, sending up clouds of steam, and the city tilted farther. It hesitated, hanging there for a moment, then flipped, throwing a wave even bigger than the one that had sent it over.
Steam bubbled up in torrents, and the great burning city that imprisoned her master slowly sank below the waves, quenched forever.
Flicker hovered, looking down at the bubbles rising to the surface. As they burst, she felt her heart breaking with them. She was lost and alone. What would happen now? She narrowed her eyes as she spied the warships. They had done this. They had killed Edan. Maybe she’d just fly on down and set them aflame for what they’d done. She stoked her fire and readied herself for revenge, then a flash of gossamer crystal caught her eye.
≈
Explosions of steam and the thunder of collapsing doors and ruptured walls rattled Cynthia’s eardrums as Akrotia sank beneath the waves. Mer schooled around her in undulating waves of silvery scales, fins flared and weapons outthrust in triumph. As she felt the massive city sink slowly into the darkness, she found she could not share their elation.
Edan, she thought, remembering his carrot-red hair and hot temper, his dream of becoming a pyromage so clear in his face at their first meeting. So much like her own dream of becoming a seamage. Cynthia pictured him now, his fear of the sea, of the smothering cold embrace of the depths, of drowning. He was drowning now.
I can’t kill him like this.
She thrummed for attention, and the mer ceased their swirling celebration. Broadtail, Tailwalker and Chaser darted to the fore, joy bright in their motions and gestures.
*Victory!* Broadtail signed, thrusting his trident toward the surface. *We have won, Seamage Flaxal Brelak! You have destroyed Akrotia!*
*Yes, Broadtail, I have destroyed Akrotia, but I have also killed a friend.* She gestured into the depths as the cacophony of shattering stone, metal and thunder of steam faded. *I have to try to save him.*
*The firemage?* Broadtail signed, confusion blanching his colors. *I thought our
goal
was to kill him.*
*Our goal was to destroy Akrotia. We have done that. Now I must try to save the young man who helped me rescue my child. He saved my son’s life, Broadtail. I owe him more than to let him die like this.* She steeled her nerves and made a motion of finality. *Wait for me until nightfall. If he lives, he may need the attention of your priests.*
*I will come with you,* Tailwalker signed, darting forward.
*No,* she signed, backing away. *I cannot be responsible for your safety, Tailwalker. I don’t even know if Edan still lives, and I cannot risk more lives than my own to try to save him.*
*The school will wait, Seamage Flaxal Brelak,* Broadtail interjected, one hand on his son’s shoulder. *Odea go with you.*
*Thank you, Trident Holder,* she signed. She looked into the faces of her mer friends—so alien, yet so familiar—and smiled. She knew she still didn’t understand them fully, but there was one thing she did know: these three mer were as close to her as any friends she’d had in her life. With nothing left to say, she signaled farewell and descended into the darkness of the depths.
Chapter 33
Fire and Water
Horror engulfed Edan as he felt himself falling, rolling over into the chilling embrace of the sea. Cold…dark…wet…smothering seawater flooded through his chambers and corridors. The floating hatches that worked so well to hold back the water when he was upright now failed utterly. Chill water met with hot stone and metal, and steam exploded through his halls with such force that walls and even decks fractured under the impact. The pain…oh, the pain was unbearable.
His sight failed as the sea closed over him, darkness blinding him to the horrors of the deep. He began to sink, even colder water sapping the heat from his stone. The sea was deep here, but how deep? His tallest spires had soared hundreds of feet into the sky, and now thrust the same span into the depths. Maybe they would touch the seabed and arrest his descent before the pressure crushed the life out of him.
Maybe not.
Terror chilled him even more than the cold water. His worst nightmare had always been of drowning, of the sea smothering him, quenching his fire forever. Now, as he sank into the emptiness, the crushing pressure collapsing his doors, shattering his walls, that nightmare was coming true. In that desolation, the fleeting joys and lingering pains of his life revisited him; all of his failures and his one glowing triumph: the ecstasy of his ascension. Edan’s singular dream had been to become a pyromage. As the sea swirled into the Chamber of Life, hissing across the arched ceiling, filling the room until it splashed and roiled against the walls of his glowing crystalline prison, he wondered if the glory of fulfilling that dream would sustain him when all else faded to darkness.
≈
Darkness enveloped Cynthia as she plunged into the depths, until she had only her sea sense to discern her surroundings. Her ribs ached as the air in her lungs compressed to nothing, and she shivered with the biting cold. The same magic that allowed her to breathe through her skin also maintained her body temperature, but it didn’t keep her from feeling the cold. The chill would not kill her, but it would be uncomfortable. Descending into the utter blackness, blind, cold and alone, was unnerving for her. It must be hell for Edan.
Cynthia followed the death rattle of Akrotia down. Collapsing doors and bulkheads reverberated, fracturing stone cracked sharply, and escaping steam hissed and bubbled. More than once she had to avoid huge bubbles of rising gas discharged from the city or risk being cooked by the scalding steam.
She quested out with her senses and felt the city tilt crazily as it sank, like a leaf falling through air. It struck the seabed edge on with enough force to fracture the main hull, then settled like a child’s top that had ceased to spin, the spires of its superstructure thrust deep into the sediment. It tilted back, the broken section thrust up, stone crumbling away. The city was still far below her, deeper than she had ever gone, but not beyond her reach
As she neared, she noted that Akrotia was totally dark; not a rune glowed. She could feel the shattered rock of the broken section. It would provide an entrance, but she would have to be careful; if she was injured down here, she might never make it back to the surface. Slowly, she approached, sensing the maze of corridors and chambers inside…and felt a wave of rising panic. Even with teams of sailors working non-stop, it had taken more than a week to map out a fraction of the upper city. Searching for the Chamber of Life by herself would be like looking for a single pearl on a pebble-littered beach.
I should go back
! she thought.
Back to Feldrin and Kloe
— Kloe, who wouldn’t be alive if not for Edan. No, she had to at least try.
Steeling her nerves, she sensed inside again, and realized that she now had one advantage; with the city inundated, she could feel ahead through the twisting labyrinth. The maze took form within her mind’s eye, and she remembered the confusing, but not totally random patterns of the maps that she, Feldrin and Ghelfan had drawn.
The chamber is big
, she reminded herself,
and in the exact center
.
I can do this
. She urged the sea to take her in.
She ventured forward, pausing whenever she sensed an opening, feeling far ahead for dead-ends, trying to sense beyond the tangle of halls and chambers to the curving structure of the Chamber of Life. As she progressed, the water warmed. At first, the warmth felt good, banishing the chill of the deep ocean, but soon she felt like a lobster in a pot that was slowly coming to a boil. She closed her eyes to the sting of the hot water—she couldn’t see anyway—and wondered if she’d even be able to survive in the Chamber of Life.
Claustrophobia closed in around her, the crushing weight of stone over her head, bringing back dark recollections of her brief but horrible incarceration in the dungeons beneath Plume Isle. Straining metal and stone groaned and cracked threateningly. Time and again, shockwaves shivered the water as a door or wall failed under the torturous pressure. She felt the sea surge into the void of a collapsing room, and the mixing of hot and cold water. She encountered hatches that had been crushed like a tin cup in a strong man’s grip, jammed closed and impassible, forcing her to backtrack. She stretched out her senses desperately as her frustration and fear mounted. There, far ahead, she felt the gentle curve of corridors; the outer wall of the chamber.
Now
, she thought,
to find the entrance
.
As Cynthia considered which way to go, she felt something else, something searing hot and sweltering: Edan’s magic.
He’s alive
, she realized, her heart hammering. Cynthia sought out the burning sensation like a lighthouse on a moonless night. She surged forward, and suddenly became aware of a glow seeping through her closed eyelids. She blinked, and in the flickering gloom gaped at the faint traceries of fire etching the rune-scribed walls. She could feel the magic in them, but it was waning, their light slowly dimming. Akrotia was dying…Edan was dying. With a shiver, she wondered what would happen when the magic failed completely. Girding herself, she hurried toward the Chamber of Life.
≈
Cold and darkness pressed upon the fragile eggshell of Edan’s mind as each crack, each collapsed door and shattered bulkhead, racked him with agony. The runes that empowered the city were broken, the light of their magic fading, and his vision fading with them. He could now see only within the Chamber of Life itself, and even that was dim. Eventually, even the magic that sustained him would fail.
Then he would drown, alone in the cold and dark…
Not alone
, the madness said in his mind, and he knew it spoke the truth.
He could see her in the chamber with him now…Samantha. Edan remembered the blood, the rising water, and her insistent grip on his arm. Then the pain, and the surge of power; the fear and confusion. Their anger, their longing for love, their fears. He was afraid of the sea, and she was afraid of herself.