Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles (55 page)

“We’re running out of time!” Ryberts argued.

“I must admit, I concur with Ryberts,” Jennat insisted.

“She says wait, so we wait,” Dev’in said, picking at his skin.

All the other Kabal leaders prickled at the notion.

“Do we take orders from her now?”

* * *

Inside the Intrepid, Kyba furtively crept up the ladder and looked around. The crew quarters were completely vacant. Empty hammocks swung lazily as the ship rocked in the skies. Foot lockers stood open and empty. The galley sat beyond, barren and unstocked.

“Ishi’s hammer!” he swore, pulling himself up.

He moved faster now. Looking out the porthole, he could see the shores of Wysteria disappearing behind them. The ship was moving at a good clip, but was eerily devoid of life and crew. He took a chance, poking his head out. The guns were gone, having been replaced with lengths of wood painted to look black. From a distance it would be quite convincing, but up close they were most obviously fake. The stacks of cannonballs beside them were painted coconuts. Around him was a huge formation of ships, but he could see no crew on any of them. In fact, those close by appeared to have fake guns as well.

Now panicking, he ran to the bridge, and found no guard there. He kicked in the door, and found the wheel under the control of a clockwork mannequin.

“By the chains…what is this?”

* * *

Inside the royal tree, Athel and Privet looked on as Elisa Hackenvaughn stood there, connected to a room full of generators. On her arms, she wore her clockwork gauntlets, the vacuum tubes humming with energy as she reached out, as if gripping an invisible ship’s wheel. On her head she wore multi-lensed goggles that let her see out from the mannequin’s eyes.

Athel glanced out the window at the airship fleet, moving in perfect formation.

Nikki stood there, watching them carefully with her spyglass. “They’ve cleared our airspace,” she reported.

“Have the fleet turn south by southwest,” Athel commanded.

“Aye,” Elisa said excitedly. Carefully, she moved her hands as if spinning a ship’s wheel, and all the airships turned in perfect unison, now heading directly for Boeth.

“Maintain this altitude,” Captain Sykes ordered into the mounted crystal, his voice carrying through to each vessel.

Elisa giggled delightfully. “Who says Almany magic is only good for making clocks? He he he!”

* * *

The crystal array went wild as Kyba yelled back into it, huffing and puffing so hard he was barely audible.

“Be quiet, everyone!” Queen Sotol said, holding up her hand to the floating orbs.

“My Queen, there’s no one on the ships,” Kyba said again.

Queen Sotol stood up. “What?”

“There’s no sailors. They’re all empty. All of them. They’re being piloted by some sort of machine puppets.”

Alarm passed over her face. She turned back to Rybert’s orb, but no image was there.

“Where’s Ryberts?” she asked.

“He’s left his post,” Blair noted.

“Someone stop him! NOW!”

* * *

Ryberts ducked under a dripping stalactite, and entered a room of carved obsidian, ghostly faces trailing along the walls and gathering at the center of the ceiling, where it dripped down onto the dark crystal floating there.

Grabbing the pair of tongs, he reached in and snatched the crystal. The stream resisted him, voices and faces wailing in ghastly voices. He pulled with all his strength, and the crystal broke free. The stream evaporated, and the faces leapt away, circling in the air before boiling away into fume. Slowly, the whole room went dark.

* * *

Five thousand feet above the west sea, Kyba ran along the deck towards the lifeboats, when he suddenly lifted up off the deck. It was such a strange sensation of being weightless. He was floating. His chubby legs kicked helplessly as he lazily spun in the air, and a part of him almost enjoyed it, until he saw a cloud whip past him. And then another.

He wasn’t flying, he was falling.

Six thousand airships were falling in unison down towards the thirsting oceans below. He managed to grip onto the gunwhale and pull himself over, just in time to see the broiling seas rushing up towards him.

“Well, this is crap.”

The Intrepid slapped into the water, its frame compressing and buckling, the shockwave pushing the seas out like a bowl. For one agonizing heartbeat, it sat there, the displaced water rising up around it, then the waters snapped back into place. The ocean squealed in delight, tearing away armor plates, reaching inside portholes, wrapping long transparent tentacles around it in a deadly embrace. Everywhere the water touched, the materials sizzled and boiled.

The ironclad warship Intrepid imploded in on itself, its various components dissolving away. All around it, the same process was being repeated, six thousand times over, as the largest naval fleet in the world was shredded to pieces in a matter of seconds.

The shrieks of joy could be heard for hundreds of leagues in every direction.

* * *

In the cave, Queen Sotol slammed her fist down into the stone arm of her throne. “Ryberts, you bug-licker! Now we can’t send our own ships to or from Boeth either! You’ve trapped us here!”

King Koriar couldn’t believe what he had just seen. “You…you traitors! You just murdered six thousand of my people!”

The Queen flicked her finger over to Rybert’s orb. “No, he did. I’ll leave it to you to take it up with him once he gets back.”

“But…”

With a wave of her fingers, his orb lost its shape and splashed back into the lake. She sat down, clawing her fingers into the arm of the throne angrily.

“Ii’ilaikara! Athel got us. She tricked us into powering down the web.”

* * *

In the royal tree, Nikki lowered her spyglass sadly. “The entire fleet has fallen into the sea.”

Queen Forsythia turned to Odger as he poured over his marked-up charts. “Well?”

He nodded, bits of dirt breaking free from his neck. “It’s perfect, with that section of the web disabled, no airship will be able to fly between here and Boeth. They won’t even be able to send in reinforcements.”

He looked up. “The invasion route is cleared, the target is completely cut off.”

“That means there’s no escape for them,” Talliun added.

The Queen walked over and placed a sympathetic hand on Nikki’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Nikki shook her head. “It’s all right,” she said trying to convince herself. “We agreed to this weeks ago. I thought I was prepared, it just…hit me harder than I thought it would.” She sniffed. “They were only ships, after all.”

The Queen did the same to Odger, dirtying her glove. “And to you as well.”

Odger shrugged. “I’ve been an engineer my whole adult life. I’ve lived listening to the screams of the children killed to power that evil flight web. Believe me, we did them a favor.”

She squeezed his shoulder. “But even still.”

Odger patted her hand and wiped a muddy spot on his cheek. “Thanks anyway, but after what we’ve done, my people are already damned.”

“You and me both,” the Queen whispered sadly.

She turned to the rest of the room, her wrists and ankles still raw from the shackles she had worn, a red ring around her neck from the collar that had been placed on her, her auburn hair tussled from where her crown had been torn off, the sounds of battle raging in the plaza below as her people fought, her forest thrashing and shrieking about in every direction. But she kept her head held high. “We’ve got our chance, everyone. For the Alliance, for Aetria, for our homelands, for our families, for everything we hold dear in this good green world, launch the invasion!”

The delegates cheered.

She placed her hand over her heart.
And for Alder.

All over Wysteria, the illusion of rocks and hills faded away, revealing massive black tarps that were thrown back, revealing Eriia, enormous sky whales, each of them carrying a saddle-shaped defensive building on their back, a howdah, studded with guns and filled with soldiers.

One Beastmaster stepped up atop each of the beast’s heads, and they rose aloft. Thousands of them, entire herds, rising up to the sky above the writhing trees like flocks of birds. Majestically, they swam through the air, their bright colors glistening as they turned east, heading towards Boeth, and the monolith.

The Royal tree rocked to one side, and everyone had to fight to keep their footing.

“The women have breached the main gate,” Talliun warned, looking over the balcony for confirmation. They are coming!”

“We don’t have much time, the Queen warned. “Everyone to your Eriia. I’ll see you in the air. We don’t stop until we destroy the monolith!”

The delegates cheered once more and dispersed.

* * *

Inside the library, Sir Justeen Albashire sat back and admired his work for a second. The finished bound book lay before him. It was his best effort ever. Feeling a sense of pride he’d thought lost long ago, he dipped his quill into ink, then set down the final words.

The En….”

The room around him rocked to one side, causing his hand to slip, the final letter dragging across the page in a big ugly line.

“By Estus’ teeth!”

He threw down his quill and stomped petulantly towards the door. “Just what is going on out there?”

The door exploded inward, knocking him back and dusting the room with shards of wood as an unconscious Treesinger was thrown inside, collapsing to the floor in her armored gown.

As the dust cleared, Talliun poked her head in. “What are you still doing here? We’re evacuating.”

He poked his head out from the pile of rubble. “I thought that was in a week.”

Privet stepped in and stripped away the Treesinger’s pistol and staff, flinging them out a window in case she woke up. “Come on, we’re leaving.”

“Okay, one second.”

Albashire grabbed his book and started to gather up stacks of paper.

“No, now.” Privet scooped the man up and hefted him over his shoulder.

“But…but my notes for the spinoff! Wait!”

They ran down the statuary corridor with the Queen, the sounds of battle drawing nearer every second.

“I didn’t think they’d get here this quickly,” Privet noted.

“It will be all right,” the Queen stated calmly. “Our Eriia is just up ahead.”

The floor of the corridor before them parted like an iris, and a layer of wood rose up, a group of black guard carried with it.”

“Or not.”

Talliun fired a trio of sonic blasts, scattering the guards before they could react and forcing them to take cover.

“We can’t afford to get bogged down in a fight,” she warned. “We’ll be surrounded.”

“Come on, we’ll have to go around.”

They ducked down a side passage, Talliun creating a barrier of hard-light to slow down their attackers. The living wood around them pulsated and twisted, the passages becoming wild and feral. The expensive rugs tore under the writhing, priceless works of art were shorn and crushed.

A pair of Treesingers rounded the corner ahead of them. “There they are!”

They fired their pistols, but Privet rushed them, slashing to ribbons the net of stranglevines as they exploded before them. Talliun set her tumbler to the Kwi caster stone and fired a shadowy blast at their feet. The floor become incorporeal, and the Treesingers fell down through it, crashing noisily to the level below.

“I have got to get me one of those,” Privet quipped.

“Sure, no problem, “Talliun teased.” “Just have your arm torn off by a pack of Iso hunting trogs while defending your forest.”

“Pass.”

The tubes running through her arm like veins began to dim.

“Twigs, I’m running low,” she cursed.

“The sound came from over here,” came some voices from behind them.

“They’re homing in on us,” the Queen warned. “This way.”

The Queen reached over and pushed on the edge of a portrait of Athel’s great grandmother Catflower Forsythia, and the picture opened within the frame like a door.

They stepped inside and closed the picture behind them. The Queen put her finger to her lips and they all stood silently, listening to the armored footsteps of the Treesingers moving through the hall on the other side.

“Ii’ilaikara! Where are they?” one of them swore. “Why can’t I sense them?”

“The royal tree is resisting us.”

“They must have doubled back! Come on.”

As the footsteps drew further away, the Queen and the others breathed a sigh of relief.

The Queen led them down the narrow dark passageway, the sounds of battle occasionally drawing near.

“What is this place?” Albashire wondered.

“Servant corridor.”

“Oh, like a secret passage.”

“Nothing so garish. These allow the men to move around the palace without being seen.”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want men to be seen, what a crime against the forest that would be,” Privet grumbled.

Athel thought sadly on the men of her household leaving her. “You were right, Privet.”

“Of course I was. About what?”

“You told me once that my mother may have been kind to our men, but she was no abolitionist. At the time I thought you were just being flippant. Now, I see that you were right. I didn’t even try to understand how the men felt.”

“Neither did I,” Talliun added. “Until I was treated like one of them.”

The sounds of battle and the squealing of the trees from below grew stronger.

“Yeah, well, none of that will matter if we don’t get you two out of here safely,” Privet said.

“It lets out right here.”

A fireplace in the grand foyer pivoted open like a door, and the four of them exited warily.

“It’s just over this way,” the Queen pointed. “Past the scullery.”

Privet closed the fireplace and the doors to the foyer opened on the opposite end. They all whipped their heads over and saw Calla Forsythia standing there in the doorway, wearing her grey uniform. From the look on her face, she was just as surprised to see them as they were her.

The Queen and Calla locked eyes. From the corridor beyond, a squad of black guard could be heard drawing near.