Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles (65 page)

“WHAT?!” Athel screamed.

She ran up, grabbing him by the collar and lifted him up. “That’s a lie! It has to be!”

“They’re all gone,” he whispered.

Her face pinched in agony. “NO! They can’t be! We came all this way, we fought too hard.”

She threw him aside.

“Everyone begin searching,” she commanded frantically. “This has to be a trick.”

The soldiers began fanning out in all directions.

Talliun cocked her pistol and leveled it at the broken Stonemaster. “So, where are they now?”

“You’ll never get to them,” he whispered.

“NO! They’re here!” Athel screamed, her eyes swimming. “They have to be. They just have to!”

“They moved the Rubric circle, their stores of black shakes…everything,” he said mournfully.

Athel’s heart screamed inside of her. “No, too many people died, too many good people!”

Tears falling down her cheeks, she fell to her knees. “These people are Stonemasters, they must have gone below ground, grab some shovels! Start digging, everyone!”

The soldiers looked at each other sadly, but did not follow her orders.

“COME ON!” Athel screamed, her voice growing hoarse. She leaned forward and began digging into the noxious dirt with her fingers. “They’re here, I tell you. THEY HAVE TO BE HERE!”

She coughed and cried, her tears falling down into the mud as she clawed away at it.

Talliun looked away, her own tears running down her cheeks.

“HURRY UP! Athel screamed again, her fingers growing bloody as she ripped her own fingernails off. “WE HAVE TO DIG!”

“Athel, please stop it,” Talliun whispered, wiping her face off.

“NO! THEY’RE HERE, THEY HAVE TO BE!”

Unable to bear it any longer, Talliun stepped behind Athel and grabbed her hands. “Stop it, Athel, they’re not here.”

“NO! LET ME GO!” Athel squealed, kicking and fighting against her. “WE HAVE TO SAVE ALDER, WE HAVE TO AVENGE PRIVET!”

Talliun wrapped her arms around her and held her tight, her own heart breaking. “Athel, stop…just…please stop.”

Athel arched her back in misery, her body in the throes of torment. She shook back and forth, her tears flung up into the air against the torchlight. “No…no it just can’t be. Mina, Nikki…so many people gave everything just so we could get here. It can’t be like this. They’ve got to be here! This cannot all be in vain. I refuse to believe it!”

Athel collapsed in Talliun’s embrace. “It has to be worth it…I promised them it would be. I promised!”

* * *

Privet weakly opened his eyes from troubled dreams. Outside, he could hear screams and fighting, but something was different about it in a way that made his blood run cold.

Lifting his head as best he could, he peered out a window and found a frozen face staring back at him.

The sight startled him so much he would have jumped back, but his legs lay there, inert and unresponsive. Carefully, he pulled the breathing tubes from his mouth and sat up fully to get a better look. The man beyond wasn’t dead, he was just motionless, like a living painting. Privet looked beyond and saw men and women fighting and screaming, Eriia darting about in all directions. Among the chaos, frozen Eriia hung motionless in the sky, whole groups of Alliance soldiers stood stagnant in mid-stride. Crossbow bolts hung in mid- air.

Privet watched as a Madaringian mage created a prismatic bubble, slowing down time inside of it to a glacial crawl, locking a panicked Eriia in place as her crew attempted to scamper off.

“Oh no.”

Privet threw himself over the side of the bed and came crashing to the floor.

Alder stirred wistfully as Privet pulled himself along the deck with his arms. Elbow over elbow, his limp legs dragging behind him. Pulling himself up on one arm, he grabbed the alarm bell and began ringing it as loud as he could.

“What’s going on?” Captain Evere bellowed, running up and throwing the door open from the nursery below. He took one look outside and saw what was happening.

“We’ve been betrayed!”

* * *

Talliun held Athel tightly, her face red with tears. The sound Athel made was the most horrible noise Talliun had ever heard. A long, moaning wail. It was like listening to someone having their living heart torn out of their chest. Talliun squeezed her even more tightly, desperate to do anything that would stop that terrible ghastly shriek.

But there was nothing that could be done. The once Queen of the forest wept so completely that she lost control of her limbs. They kicked and twitched, her entire frame quivering with grief.

Talliun’s own sorrow became anger, and she turned to Koriar. “Tell us where they are,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

The Stonemaster King wiped his nose woefully. “They used void magic to move everything to Arianis Kultur, the ancient capital of the water tribe.”

Athel stopped struggling, her face growing pale, her eyes growing wide. “The bottom of the ocean?”

Koriar placed his face in his hands. “Yes.”

Athel broke free and crawled over, her heart shattering within her.

“How are we supposed to get there?” she cried, grabbing his jacket and shaking him. “How are we supposed to get at them when there’s a hundred leagues of ocean between them and the surface?!”

“You…can’t.”

Urgent footsteps approached, and Captain Evere ran in, panic on his face.

“We’ve got to leave!” he yelled. “We’re under attack!”

Athel ran with the others, stumbling and blundering, her body staggering as she wept and wailed.

They reached the drawbridge, and met the horrible sight. The task force was being systematically trapped in time-bubbles by the mages from Madaringa. Most everyone else had been stripped of their own powers, leaving them all but helpless before the merciless magic.

Athel turned to King Dolan, whose eyes were cold and merciless.

“WHY?!” she screamed, her tears falling off her chin. “Your people suffered more than anyone at the hands of the Stone Council! You were the most energetic about participating in this invasion. Why would you betray us?!”

“I didn’t betray you,” he explained darkly. “The gods betrayed us. This world betrayed us. So, we have found a new god, one who will make a new world. A god who rewards those who serve him.”

“A new god?”

King Dolan held his hands out at the scene before them, terrified Eriia attempting to flee, only to be stilled in place. “Can you imagine how delighted Valpurgeiss will be when I deliver this entire task force to him as an offering?”

Athel shook her head, her eyes quavering. “But…why?”

“As if you need to ask. Watch someone come in and casually destroy everyone in your family, watch someone effortlessly annihilate half your population. Stand there feckless, unable to do anything to stop it, knowing that even the authorities are powerless to stop it, and then you’ll realize the truth.”

Athel cowered, her crumbling heart in her chest. “The truth?”

“That the only thing that really matters in this world is your own strength, your own power. If you had suffered like we had, you’d understand why I‘m doing this.”

King Dolan looked out proudly at his work. “Valpurgeiss is strong, and he will make us strong.”

Athel shrieked in grief. “You think I don’t understand suffering?”

Talliun grabbed the man in disgust and punched him in the gut, he folded in half and fell over, retching the contents of his stomach out into the bridge.

From the command platform, Privet shoved the ramp down as best he could.

“Come on everyone!” he screamed. “We’ve got to go!”

Athel staggered out, her legs giving way as she crumpled to the ground, watching helplessly as Eriia after Eriia were captured, along with their screaming crews.

“Useless,” she whispered. “This has all been useless!”

As she watched, her eyes became dead and lifeless.

“So many people, so many lives…all for nothing.”

Her limbs went limp, her skin grew pale. The black rain trickled down her face.

“We threw away everything for this one chance, and it was all for nothing!”

Her heart died inside of her.

Privet pulled the key off the chain from his neck and held it up. Ryin ran over to aid him. He placed the key into the keyhole for the cargo release, and the oversized doors shimmered, swinging open into a portal.

“Let’s go!”

When Athel saw him, his limp legs dragging behind him, she shrieked like a banshee. She grabbed the sides of her head, her eyes shaking wildly with grief.

“Privet saved me! He lost his legs so I could do this, and it changed nothing. NOTHING! It was all in vain! It’s all been for naught!”

Her soul was shattering. She could feel her very being cracking and breaking apart. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe. She looked out at the gruesome menagerie of frozen soldiers in the valley before them and screamed like a woman possessed.

“WE TRADED EVERYTHING WE HAD, AND WE GOT NOTHING IN RETURN!”

Captain Evere and Talliun ran up and began helping people through the portal. They scooped up Ash and Trillium and took them through, setting them down on Privet’s couch, then running back out to help the others.

They stopped when they saw red robes. A mage stood before them, ready to cast his spell.

“Goodbye,” he snickered.

As the thrust his hands out, he was swatted away by an enormous tree branch. Evere and Talliun looked up as Deutzia charged, grabbing two more mages and flinging them across the valley.

“Well done, lass,” Evere praised.

Deutzia shimmered proudly, then folded up her branches, slipping in her top and squeezing her thick trunk through the cargo door portal. Halfway through, she was blocked. While the gate was large enough for her on this end, the exit on the other side was far too small for her thick trunk. She rammed herself over and over, the gate squealing and cracking. She let off more than a few sparkling curse words, then forced her way through.

Athel’s eyes darted about, watching the screaming soldiers as they were captured by the by the hundreds. Her grief-stricken body shivered at the thousands of dead laying in the muddied ground.

“I did this…I KILLED THEM,” she screamed. “I killed all of them. They trusted me, they followed me, and I led them into a trap!”

Athel saw King Issha lying dead, impaled by a glassy stone dagger.

No…

She saw Guru Inthanos’ smoldering remains.

NO!

She saw King Buni floating in a pool of his own blood.

NOOOO!

She saw Naanie and Nuutrik crying over the body of Chief Maaturro, crushed beneath a boulder.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Athel fell forward in a frenzy, scampering on all fours towards the edge of the drawbridge, her face filthy with mud and black rain.

“No, lass,” Evere yelled, running up and jumping on top of her.

“Stop it!” she screamed, fighting against him, “Let me go!”

Evere grabbed her hands, pinning her down with his weight.

“Release me!” she screamed, resisting with all her might. She kicked and bucked, fighting him so hard she tore open her stitches beneath her bandages. Her amber blood seeped out, dripping up her neck.

“It’s time to go, lass.”

Desperate, she bit into his hand as hard as she could.

Evere winced, but did not let go, even when she drew blood.

“I’m not going to let you jump, lass.”

“Please,” she screamed, reaching out over the edge towards the broiling waters below. “PLEASE, JUST LET ME GO!”

“No, lass.”

“Why not?!”

“Because people need you,” he said, holding her tight. “Your children, your friends. Alder. Privet. Mina. They need you.”

Her struggling paused and she looked up at him with broken eyes. The level of sorrow he saw inside of them was beyond description. The color had drained away. “I’ve got nothing to give them,” she whispered.

She ceased her struggling and her body went limp, her grey eyes vacant and hollow. “I’ve got nothing to give anyone…”

She lay there quietly, her blood trickling out onto the ground.

“Why won’t you just let me die?”

Privet and Ryin shoved Alder and Mina’s beds through the portal. “What are you waiting for?”

Captain Evere hefted Athel’s limp form over his shoulder and ran for the platform. The mages were drawing in closer now, the few members of the task force not already trapped running through the portal as fast as they could.

Ryin helped Andolf pass through and then realized someone was missing.

“Ellie!”

He scampered up over the top of the howdah, the last of the Eriia wailing and fleeing overhead. He jumped down into the gunnery nook and found Ellie struggling against her harness which had become jammed.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said.

“I can’t!”

Ryin grabbed the metal buckle and his tattoos glowed. The metal became soft, and he pulled it free. The pair of them ran up over the top as a time bubble was cast. It flowed over the platform, freezing everything inside of it as it gained on the pair.

Sensing there was no time, Ryin jumped up, holding her hand. His tattoos glowed as they came down, and the metal of the deck gave way. They collapsed to the second deck, right before the portal as Evere and Talliun pulled Privet through.

“We made it.”

Ryin stepped in, but something yanked back on him. He turned around just in time to see Ellie looking back at him, the time bubble passing over her, freezing her in place.

“No!”

As the surface passed over her face, her eyes became tender.

“I’m sorry.”

She shoved him through, and he fell backwards into Privet’s house.

The gateway and the temporal spell reacted with one another, and the portal shattered. The image of Ellie’s frozen face came apart like shards of glass, then fell away. The key in Privet’s hand dissolved into dust, running through his fingers as he lay in the entryway.

Ryin found himself fallen on his haunches, looking outside into the walkway that led up to Privet’s house back on Ronesia. The entire front of the house had been torn away by Deutzia, who was busy planting herself in the front yard, the broken doorframe around her trunk like a necklace.