Of Sea and Shadow (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 1) (45 page)

Meanwhile, he had a date to keep.

~~~

Jerri pushed her way back against the wall as the bone-clawed crab, one of Nakothi’s Children, snapped and slobbered through the bars of her cell. It strained its claw, reaching for her and falling well short.

It stood in a red mess—what was left of another prisoner, who had fled from deeper in the complex. Apparently there were more cells deeper within that Jerri had never seen, and some of their occupants had tried to make a break for it.

This one had run into an Elderspawn and been dismantled for his trouble.

Mindless minions. Useless.
What good was an Elder with no wisdom? Nakothi was the one Great Elder that Jerri wouldn’t mind staying asleep forever.

The bars squealed under the Child’s assault, and Jerri pressed herself further against the stone. She was distracting herself, she could admit that. She just didn’t want to confront the fact that in a few seconds, the bars would fold, and then she would end up just like the other prisoner: a puddle of red meat and cloth.

She shouted for help again, but of course anyone left alive in these tunnels would be locked in a cell, just like her.

If only she had her Vessel, she could protect herself. If only. But wishes hadn’t freed her during her incarceration, and they wouldn’t protect her now.

The crab raised up a spindly, misshapen leg that looked like it was made of nothing but skin stretched over bone. The leg wriggled in between the door, working at the twisted lock.

And the abused, weakened metal finally snapped. With a groan, the door to Jerri’s cell folded open.

She forced a crazy grin onto her face, raising her fists. Whenever she’d imagined her own death, she’d pictured herself going down fighting.

Well, this wouldn’t be much of a fight. But she’d take her best shot.

The corpse-crab hissed in glee, scrabbling over the stone to get closer. It moved with the eagerness of a dog, suddenly unleashed, bolting for its first meal in days.

You’re late, Calder,
Jerri thought.

Then the stone at her back grew much, much colder.

She almost staggered backwards as the wall behind her disappeared, but she managed to stop herself at the feeling of her heels moving out over empty air. She was standing at the very edge of a cliff.

A void transmission? Now?
Whatever the cabal was going to do, they had best do it quickly.

A single piece of jewelry tumbled through the air, gleaming green and gold.

She recognized it instantly, just as she felt her own limbs, as she recognized her own face in the mirror. This close, she didn’t even need to touch it to call on its powers—she’d been reaching for it mentally for days. But she caught it nonetheless.

The fury of her Vessel filled her, and she lashed out with a blade of emerald fire.

The crab’s body divided into two smoking halves, each sliding around her and vanishing into the void.

Jerri gripped the earring with so much force she was almost afraid she’d crush it, fist shivering with relief. After weeks of waiting and wondering, she was finally
whole.

The voice from the void, this time, was multi-layered and female, like three sisters trying to speak over one another. “We have made you wait. We apologize. The summoning did not go as we expected.”

“You’re here now,” Jerri said. She couldn’t help a surge of joy. Being separated from her Vessel was like losing her arms and legs. She stuck the earring through her right ear, sighing in satisfaction.

“Our plans have fallen apart,” the voices said. “Yet we have succeeded in unexpected ways. Now we must make new plans.”

Jerri started to walk toward the bars, slashing them into two red-hot halves. “Contact me when
The Testament
docks.”

“Negative. Your transportation is prepared.”

Jerri turned, surprised. The Sleepless cabal had never objected to her going where she wanted before.

In the swimming lights and endless black of the void, an Elderspawn floated. It looked like an octopus, tendrils swimming in unseen water, but its head was smooth and flat. Was she supposed to ride on that?

Jerri didn’t sense any hostility from it, or intelligence of any kind, but she still hesitated. She wasn’t so comfortable with the void that she wanted to ride into it on the back of an unknown creature.

The ceiling creaked above her, and she stepped to the side just in time to avoid a waterfall of rock dust.

“This structure is unstable,” the voices said. “This is the safest way out.”

Jerri still hesitated. “I want your word that you will release me. I have personal business to attend to.”

“If you leave any other way, you will die.”

“Give me your
word,
or I walk out of this cell right now.” She had no doubt they were telling the truth about the unstable structure, but they couldn’t predict the future. She would take her chances with the crumbling building if she had to.

“Our word is granted,” the mysterious voice said.

Hesitantly, Jerri walked up to the edge of the voice. She glanced down, and immediately wished she hadn’t: it was as though the world ended at the back of her prison cell. Colored lights and darkness swirled around at every angle.

The Elderspawn platform drifted closer, anchoring onto the stone edge of the cell with its suction cups.

“Time is short,” the disembodied voice whispered.

After one more instant of hesitation, Jerri stepped out onto the creature’s flattened head.
 

Wait for me, Calder. I’ll sort this out.

She’d left just in time. Behind her, through the shrinking void portal, she saw the roof of the prison crumble.

“We told you,” the voices said, smug.

~~~

Calder reached the hidden door to the prisons just as the ground caved in, like a suddenly collapsing sinkhole.

No,
he thought.
No, it’s not possible.

He had agonized for so long about whether to save Jerri or not, and here he had arrived five seconds too late?

Calder jerked the door open, hobbling down the staircase on his wounded leg. The first part of the tunnel was surprisingly whole, giving him some hope. The whole island was apparently riddled with tunnels and underground chambers, after all. Maybe a different part of the network had collapsed.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he could see clearly that the end of the tunnel was choked with debris, but the cells on his left were surprisingly clear. Sure, Lucan’s cell was covered in rocks and dust, but the door had swung open. It was nothing that would pose a threat to anyone.

Cautiously, afraid to brush against the wall lest he cause another cave-in, he edged to the next cell.

A pile of blood, bars sliced in half, and a cell filled with rocks.

For a moment, Calder’s mind stopped working.

This didn’t make sense. Why didn’t Jerri’s cell look like Lucan’s? His was almost untouched; it was just a little dusty. This one was only next door. Why was it so much worse?

I was too late. After all that…too late.

The thought tore at his sanity, pulling at the stitching that held his mind together. But only a few seconds later, his reasoning reasserted itself.

He didn’t
know
anything. And someone had cut these bars—the collapsing tunnel hadn’t done that.

Calder reached out a hand, afraid to touch the blood and flesh. He didn’t want to conjure a vision of a violent death, but he had to know if it was Jerri.

The Reading was vague, as the death hadn’t occurred long ago. There was very little Intent clinging to the remains, and none in the surrounding rocks. But he sensed panic, and fear, and finally desperation.

Along with a familiar, mindless hunger. The Children of Nakothi had been here.

He reached his hand farther into the cell, seeking a vision, probing for Jerri’s presence.

Jerri looks at the Child trying to force its way into the cell…

Joy surges in her chest as she finally feels complete for the first time in weeks…

She needs to break open a hole between her cell and Lucan’s…

The transport doesn’t look reliable, but she’s determined to live…

He was getting brief flashes of Intent, a few fractured visions, but they were all broken. Weak. Out of sequence.

If he could only learn a little more…

A crack ran down the wall behind him, and he grimaced to himself. He was out of time. All he knew for sure was that Jerri had made it out of the cell.

One way or another.

He turned away from the rubble-filled hallway and almost lost his head.

A bronze blade flashed at his neck, and only years of training let him bend backwards, narrowly missing the edge on the skin of his throat.

The blond Consultant, Meia, panted as she leaned with one hand against the wall. “You…will not…escape,” she panted.

Her skin was pale, her face covered in scrapes and cuts, her body trembling. She looked worse than Urzaia had when he died.

At that thought, Calder steeled his resolve and drew his sword. “You should have checked behind you,” he said.

She didn’t even blink, her eyes hardening.

Then Shuffles flapped up behind the Consultant. “BEHIND YOU!” he declared, tentacles waving.

Meia spun on the Elderspawn, but she was too slow. Calder clubbed her on the back of the head with the hilt of his sword. She didn’t lose consciousness, not entirely, but she did collapse. That was good enough for him.

He confiscated her two obvious knives, the bronze ones she kept buckled to her back, and stuffed them into his belt next to Urzaia’s hatchets.

Meia struggled weakly as he tossed her over his shoulder, just as Andel had carried Naberius. The wound in his chest screamed in pain, but he was getting used to ignoring agonizing injuries. Just as he was getting used to holding captives. At this rate, he would soon have more prisoners on
The Testament
than crewmen.

Shera’s not the only one who can take prisoners.

Taking Meia hostage wasn’t the best idea he could have come up with, but he was more comfortable improvising. It was likely the years of practice.

But he couldn’t help thinking, as he carried Meia and Shuffles back to
The Testament,
that he may have possibly made a mistake.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-E
IGHT

Are all seven of the known Great Elders malicious? I do not think so. I think that most Elders think of themselves as benefactors. Their ways are simply so alien, so absolutely incompatible with humanity, that the kindness of the Great Elders will very likely kill us all.

Nakothi likely believes, in her way, that she is improving humans by warping their bodies into the monstrous Children.

Kthanikahr cares not for humanity, but he is interested in preserving this planet as a habitat for his worms.

Urg’naut works for peace, as he sees it: the true peace of nonexistence.

Tharlos prefers a world of constant, endless change.

Othaghor wants, above all, to preserve life.

Ach’magut seeks knowledge at all costs.

Kelarac could say that he grants wishes.

-Artur Belfry, Imperial Witness, concluding his confidential report to the Blackwatch

Eleven years ago

Bliss stood on the top branches of the leafless tree, peering out of her greenhouse. From a vantage point like this, she could see the Capital spreading out all around her: ancient spires and gleaming clock-towers rising like fresh shoots from the soil of shingled townhouses. With a view like this, she could almost forget that she was surrounded by walls of glass.

The Spear of Tharlos squirmed within her coat, knocking against the fabric like a fist against an oak door. It didn’t speak to her, not today, but she understood its pleas nonetheless. It thought those towers should be volcanoes, the clocks should be filled with muscle and skin instead of cogs and gears, and the townhouses should be solid blocks of ice.

Tharlos was getting far too predictable. He
always
wanted
everything
to change. So boring.

So what if he turned all shoes into ducks? If shoes were constantly turning into other things, then it wouldn’t be anything special when they eventually started quacking. No one would even notice.
 

Change was only interesting when everything normally stayed the same, and Tharlos could never understand that. That’s why he would never beat her.

The image struck her again, of people walking around with ducks strapped to their feet, and she almost giggled. She thought about giggling. She
imagined
herself letting loose a nice, girlish giggle, and that was just as good as the real thing.

A gust of wind picked up the end of her white-blond hair, drawing it behind her like a streamer, and it took her a few seconds to understand why that was odd.

There’s not supposed to be any wind in a greenhouse,
she reminded herself.
Wait. Is there?
No, definitely not.

She smacked the Spear of Tharlos through her coat. It must have been up to its tricks again, making her see things that weren’t actually happening, but for once the Spear felt quiet.

So she was sensing something herself, and this was her unconscious mind’s way of warning her consciousness. Or was it?

She didn’t know, but she hopped down into the tree nonetheless, swinging down from branch to branch until she could drop to the soil. Something was coming, and she’d rather face it up close. It might be interesting.

The doors swung open, and a pair of Watchmen walked in, escorting Alsa Grayweather.

They didn’t look happy about it, but neither of them appeared quite so miserable as Alsa. Her face was gray, her hands tied in front of her, and her eyes were red and puffy. That meant that she had been crying. Or that she hadn’t gotten much sleep. Or that someone had sprayed an irritant in her eyes. Or she had imbibed any number of alchemical substances, both harmful and recreational.