Chapter 22

Glasstrand, the Shining Lands

Her blood felt like fire, like lead. Her eyes burned. Every breath was an effort. And yet, there was Hult, shaking her, yelling something about having to take back the spell. Take it back, when she lacked the strength even to cast the simplest of cantrips. The moon power surged around her like the rapids of a great and rushing river, a river that, if she set foot in it again, could easily pull her under and drown her.

Drown her. Drown.

Shedara looked down. She was sinking, up to her shins in the sea now, the wicked edges of the glass shards jutting beneath its surface. Her feet were only inches above one fragment’s point, sharper than any spear. If she slid down much farther, it would pierce her. She would slide down its length, awash in pain as the waters closed over her head.

Astar, Hult was right. She needed to take the spell back.

Shedara didn’t know what had happened to Roshambur, only that the dwarf no longer had a firm grip on the magic, the weft of which was fraying with each breath. She could see the glowing threads, waving around her. It was a miracle he’d held on to it that long; it ought to have been in tatters by then, pouring away into the air. Whatever had become of Roshambur, it had to be bad, but at least he wasn’t dead… not yet.

She reached out, though it hurt terribly. Spidery words tore her tongue as she spoke them. The power of Lunis and Solis poured into her, hot as boiling oil. She kept her focus on that single glass blade beneath her, watching her feet creep down toward its tip.

The threads snarled in her hands. She wove them together, her fingers working so fast they became a blur. Someone was screaming, and a distant realization told her the voice belonged to her. It felt like the moons’ power might burst forth from her nose, her mouth, her eyes, red-silver light annihilating all that she was, but it held, just at the cusp of rupturing. She wove on.

And she and her companions began to rise.

It was unbearably slow, but together they moved up through the water, only ankle-deep, their feet breaking the surface again. Thunder cracked, and lightning flashed above, a green bolt blasting another shard into molten fragments. They hissed as they splashed down into the sea. She jerked, nearly losing the spell threads, then got hold of them again and pulled taut. The water grew solid beneath her feet.

“Go!” she shouted through teeth clenched so tight, she feared they might shatter. “I can’t hold it long!”

They ran, Nakhil bearing Roshambur, who lay motionless on the centaur’s back. Hult and Azar bore Shedara up, half-carrying her as they sprinted for the fallen shelf. She felt the spell start to pull apart as she staggered along and clenched her fists about the threads as hard as she could. Her nails pierced her palms, drawing blood. Stars exploded in her eyes, crimson and white. She smelled roasting meat, and had the awful feeling it was her own flesh burning. A hot, iron taste flooded her mouth.

Hult lifted her up at the end, stumbling beneath her weight, and hurled her onto the glassy shelf. She hit it hard, the breath bursting from her with a guttural bark, and had to scrabble to keep from sliding back into the water. The spell unraveled in an instant, flaring away in scraps that faded like mist into the air.

Azar yelled something, and Hult was screaming too. She heard splashing. Shedara looked down toward the water, fighting to get her eyes to focus through the rain and weariness. Azar was sprawled on the edge of the shelf, legs splayed wide to anchor himself as he leaned out, one hand stretching as far as it could toward the Uigan. Hult, meanwhile, was two paces from shore, down in the water and thrashing, his eyes wide with panic as he tried to keep his head up. The water was pink, darkening to red: below the surface, the shards were slicing him to pieces.

“No!” Shedara shouted, heaving herself up.

The glass was smooth, made slick by surf and rain, and she immediately slid toward the water, fumbling to stop herself before she could plunge in. She ended up lying headfirst, just at the edge, staring down into the deep, where needles of death jutted every which way. Hult’s legs were impaled on several of those, and he was sinking farther down them the more he struggled. Waves crested over his head, and he came up sputtering, choking. Then he sank again and didn’t come up at all.

“Grab my legs!” Azar said and threw himself forward.

Shedara obeyed, though in her haze she didn’t really understand the words. She threw her arms around Azar’s knees as he lunged, holding on as tight as she could. He splashed into the water, a sword of glass missing his face by a hand’s breadth, and caught hold of Hult’s wrists.

“Pull!” he yelled, then coughed as a wave slapped him in the mouth. “Get us up!”

Shedara tried. She pulled with all her might, even as tired as she was. But Hult wouldn’t budge, and she knew why. The spikes had him anchored, held him fast. It would take more might than she could muster to pull him loose or break them off.

And she was starting to slide again.

“Nakhil!” she screamed, watching the thicket of glass beneath the water creep closer. She shut her eyes. “Help us! For all the gods’ love!”

She heard the centaur coming, his metal shoes ringing against the glass, then scraping as he came to a halt. She heard him grunt as his hands wrapped around her ankles, and again as he pulled with all his might. Hult howled with agony, then gurgled and fell silent. Azar made no sound at all. Shedara sobbed, broken. Somewhere, she heard glass break.

Then, like someone snuffing out a candle, it all went dark.

Images came to her through clouds of fog, coalescing out of the blackness and vanishing again like smoke. She knew she was on the edge of death. She felt cold, felt the void clawing at her. It was exhilarating, in a way. Each new thing she saw could be the last thing her eyes ever beheld in this world:

… great black ships gliding toward her—three of them, running over fields of glass on great metal blades. The air shrieked as shards of glass blew up from those scimitar runners…

… figures approaching, bound head to foot in cloth and leather, their faces covered by masks of white bone, painted red and green and black… hooked spears held at the ready, chattering in a language full of pops and clicks…

… the sea sliding away beneath her as someone carried her away from it… blood on the glass, great dark clots of it…

… the sky racing by above, dark and storm-torn… glassy pinnacles scudding past to either side… voices shouting, and rigging creaking as a sail billowed and bellied above her…

… Roshambur lying still upon a stone table on the far side of a dim room that stank of incense… a long shard of glass lodged in his chest, covered in blood… his face pale, his breast still… weeping, Nakhil covering him with a leather blanket…

… Hult and Azar, battered and bloody, looking down on her with stricken faces… Hult leaning on a crutch, Azar with fresh scars on both cheeks and his forehead… glancing at one another, then over their shoulders and nodding…

… a cloth-wrapped figure gazing at her, wearing a headdress of white, bone barbs arrayed around its mask like a peacock’s feathers… silently the figure raising its hands, slender and fine-boned—either a woman’s fingers or an elf’s—chanting in a voice made hollow and strange by the mask, more of a rasping howl than a song… somewhere beyond Shedara’s sight, someone rapping on a drum, a complicated pattern of five beats, then four, then three, over and over… the delicate fingers spreading over her, trailing the faintest strands of blue light…

Warmth suffused her, and it all flowed away.

She awoke from a dreamless sleep, what seemed like a hundred years later, to the sight of Hult looking down at her. His hand was on her head, stroking her hair, and for a moment he looked like he might pull it back, but she reached up and placed her own fingers over his.

“It’s all right. I like it,” she said, her voice dry and scratchy. “I’m thirsty.”

He held a flask to her lips. She took a careful sip: water. She’d never tasted anything so sweet, and shut her eyes as it slid down her throat.

“Roshambur,” she croaked.

The Uigan shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together.

She sighed.

“We burned his body three days ago,” Hult said. “The tchakkir tried to save him, but he was too far gone. The glass cut one of the veins near his heart. There was nothing anyone could do.”

Yet he had held on to the spell, Shedara marveled, held on to it though he must have known he was dying. Would I have done such a thing?

She thought on that a moment, then decided yes. For her friends, she would.

“Nakhil’s still grieving,” Hult went on. “I think Roshambur was the last thing he had left to tie him to his… to his home.”

He looked away, blinking, thinking, no doubt, of his own beloved steppes and all he’d left behind. Shedara remembered Quivris, her brother, still alive but no longer a friend, and knew in that moment that Armach was lost to her as well.

And Azar had never had a home.

All of us, outcasts, she thought. If we die out here, who will mourn us? Essana, perhaps, but no one else. We are alone.

Something occurred to her. “Three days ago?” she asked. “How many was I out?”

“Four,” Hult said. “You nearly died, Shedara. You hurt yourself very badly, using your magic like that. The tchakkir said you burned your insides. It would have killed you, if not for her.”

“I… see,” she said, feeling suddenly queasy. “And this tchakkir is the woman I saw? The one with the spikes on her head? She’s a Mislaxan?”

Hult nodded. “She prayed over you for a whole day. It took all her power to mend you.”

“And now? Is it safe for me to get out of this”—she glanced left and right to see what she was lying on—“hammock?”

“The tchakkir said it is, but you will be weak for another day or so. Have some more water first, so you don’t faint.”

Shedara took another sip, running it around her mouth to wash out the stale, sour taste that four days of unconsciousness had left, then tried to push herself up. The hammock lurched, making it difficult to get purchase, but Hult helped her, taking her hand and bracing her so she could get her feet on the floor. She rose, blood rushing to her head so fast that she thought she was going to black out again, and fought through the dizziness to stay standing. Her knees wobbled, and she trembled as she looked around.

She was in the cabin of a ship whose walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of the same dark wood. A few lanterns, dull red flames behind volcanic glass, shed a dim glow, just enough to see by. Bundles of dried grasses and medallions of some sort of beetle shell hung from the rafters, and strange, white runes were painted on the door.

The ship was moving, judging by the faint vibration under her feet, but it felt strange. There was no rocking, no motion of waves, but rather the occasional small, stuttering jump. And though the timbers creaked, there was no noise of water from outside; only a shrill keening, like a knife scraping fine porcelain. She blinked, her mind going back to her fever dreams.

“This is a glass ship,” she said. “We’re with the Sailors.”

The Uigan nodded, turning toward the door. For the first time she noticed that he was still leaning on a crutch. Looking down, she saw his left leg was bandaged from foot to knee.

“You’re hurt too,” she said. “The shards under the water?”

“Yes,” he said, turning pale. The memory could not be pleasant, particularly for a man who had long feared the sea. “I nearly lost my foot. I’ll probably always have a limp now.”

Shedara felt a pang at the edge of bitterness that crept into Hult’s voice. His hand was already mutilated, now this; here he was, not yet twenty and twice maimed. He had every right to resentment.

She took a deep breath and let it out. It hurt, but there was a relief to it as well. In her training she’d heard many tales of mages who used too much magic at once. Most of those who lived ended up invalids, bedridden, their lungs always straining for air. Whatever the sailors’ healer had done, it had saved her from that fate.

“I think I’d like to go up on deck,” she said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Hult shook his head, putting his arm around her waist. He stumbled, losing his grip on his crutch and nearly taking them both down.

“Look at us,” he said. “Mighty heroes, off to save the world.”

They laughed together, then headed to the door.

On deck, the world was filled with light. The ship—it was what the sailors called a Xogat, about the size of a small warship, with a crew of perhaps twenty—glided across a vast flatland of glass that reflected the sunlight from above. It sparkled in Shedara’s eyes, dazzling her. That was the Shining Plain, the remains of what once had been Aurim’s deserts. It ran for mile upon mile, smooth and sheer, marred only by the occasional ripple where the glass had still been flowing when it cooled. Dark mountains rose far to the south, lit red from behind: the Cauldron, where Forlo must be. On the northern horizon were towering, jagged hunks of glass, the edge of that strangest of seas.

The glass ships—there were three of them, two Xogatai and a smaller, more agile skiff called a Churqa, all running west with full sails—had no keels on their hulls, but steel runners instead, one at the prow and two extending to either side of the stern, pivoting whichever way the helmsman pointed the tiller. Those were what made the shrieking sound, flinging bits of glass up in billowing showers as they went. The sailors all wore masks to keep those motes out of their faces, and Hult donned one as well. He handed another to Shedara, who slipped it over her head. It was confining, unpleasant, like a burial shroud, but it was better than two eyes full of glass.

The sailors worked in silence, drowned out by the runners’ scream, communicating with hand gestures rather than words. There was no way to tell with the masks, but she got the feeling they were watching her as she and Hult made their way to the stern, where Nakhil and Azar stood with the tchakkir. Probably none of them had ever seen an elf before, and like most nomads, they feared her a little.

The tchakkir was the first to approach her, holding out a hand to touch her shoulder. She wore black robes, edged with night-blue, over her wrappings. There were red tears painted on her mask, leaking from the corners of the eye holes. She looked hard at Shedara, and the air between them quivered. Mislaxa’s power hung thick in the air; then it faded again, and Shedara felt invigorated.

“You are well,” said the tchakkir in the tongue of the League, her accent so thick that even those small words were hard to understand. “You should take more rest, but now be with your friends.”

With that, the healer departed, her robes fluttering as she strode toward the ship’s bow. Shedara watched her go then turned to face the others.

“It’s good to see you awake,” Nakhil said, but there was pain in his voice, making it tight and brittle. In his hands was a vessel of translucent glass; inside it, she could just make out a fine powder: Roshambur’s ashes. “More than once, we feared we might lose you.”

“Yes,” she said. She nodded at the glass urn. “I’m sorry. He was my friend, and I’m sure he was more to you.”

The centaur nodded, his face inscrutable behind his mask. But his shoulders shook, just a little.

“He told me, before we left on this journey,” Nakhil said, “he hoped I would be proven wrong about Suluk. He wanted it to rise again. Now it will never happen. I will not go back, whatever happens… and neither will he.”

With that, he removed the lid of the urn and upended it. The ashes spilled out, caught on the wind, and wafted away, rising high above the Shining Plains. Shedara watched them go, thinking of Thalaniya and Eldako and all those she had known who had died because of Maladar. She thought of Forlo too, then glanced at the others. Hult and Azar and the grieving centaur—in her heart, she knew Roshambur would not be the last of them to die.

She sighed, watching the dwarf’s ashes drift away.