The Key to Creation (40 page)

Hannes lashed out, “And break the commandment of Ondun? Captain, we dare not!”

Mailes no longer looked forlorn, though. “I was going to ask you to take me from this cursed place, but now I will wait. I have endured centuries of punishment, but it’s at an end. When Ondun returns, he will forgive me.”

Criston was anxious to set sail and take the
Dyscovera
away from here. He had to reach Terravitae before the Urecari ship did, or Iyomelka, or even the Leviathan. “This man’s fate is not for us to determine. It’s a moot point now.”

“As your religion says, Captain Vora, may the Compass guide you,” Mailes said by way of benediction as he followed them down the stone stairs.

“Thank you, I believe it will. We have the actual Compass, and it’s brought us this far.”

The
Al-Orizin

Not long after the
Al-Orizin
left the iceberg sea behind, Iyomelka’s spell-driven ship caught up with them again. The island witch’s weed-stitched sails belled outward with a roar of cold winds, closing the distance in a flurry of storms. Saan knew that despite his best navigational prowess, Iyomelka would be upon them soon.

Angry winds came at them from all directions, and the desperate crew scurried to set and reset the sails. The
Al-Orizin
was forced to tack back and forth, while Iyomelka’s vessel came straight on toward them.

Overhead, the sky turned gray and bruised. As Grigovar winched down a rigging rope, he kept his gaze on the clouds. “That’s not a normal storm, Captain.”

“I wouldn’t expect it to be normal. We’ve seen how Iyomelka can use the weather. We have to try to outrun it.”

“There’s more to the storm.” Sen Sherufa pointed to an even darker set of thunderheads and a splash of intermittent lightning ahead to port, apart from what Iyomelka was driving ahead of her. “
That
doesn’t look like her doing.”

The ominous knots ahead comprised a separate rogue storm. With the fury of the island witch behind them and the strange tumultuous weather ahead, the
Al-Orizin
was being trapped between the prongs of hurricane pincers.

A burst of lightning illuminated the sky like a thousand Nunghal fireworks, accompanied by an explosion of thunder that rattled the masts. Behind them, Iyomelka’s ship closed in, and the serpent-skull figurehead stared at them as if regarding prey.

The whitecap waves became huge swells that heaved them up and pitched them back down again. Gale-force winds drove sheets of cold rain nearly horizontal to the deck. Sikara Fyiri locked herself in her cabin, vomiting into a basin or all over the floor, and Saan didn’t blame her.

He fought his way to the bow, and Sherufa staggered out to join him. Her thick Saedran robes were quickly drenched. He searched for any safe haven ahead, but could barely see through the downpour. Far away, an unexpected flash of light sliced through the sheeting rain and spray. The dazzling beacon brightened then faded, like the eye of a demon slowly opening and closing.

“Look there—a light!” The insistent light came again, and Saan made up his mind. “I don’t know what that is, but I don’t see much other chance out here.” He shouted into the gale, “Change course, two points to starboard! Head for the beacon!”

“Aye, Captain!” The helmsman wrestled with the rudder. The sailors staggering about on deck pulled on the ropes, trying to turn the sails, though the storm fought back.

Ystya came to him. The downpour had plastered her ivory hair to her head; even so, she looked achingly beautiful. Droplets streamed down her pale face, but she didn’t seem cold or frightened. “I’ve come to help you.”

Saan took her hand. Her fingers were cold, and he squeezed them, repeating his promise. “I’ll defend you against your mother if I can. She may well strike me dead within seconds, but I’ll do my best.”

Ystya gave a slight laugh that the wind snatched away. “No need for that—it’s time for me to teach her how much I’ve learned from being with you, how strong I’ve become. I’m no longer an infant she can tuck under her arm and carry away against my will.” As he gripped her, he felt Ystya’s skin tingle with static electricity. She released his hand and stepped to one side as she began to exude a faint glow. “Remember, I’m the Key to Creation.”

As Ystya’s power shielded them, the winds died, the rain stopped, and an eerie calm descended over the
Al-Orizin
, yet her silken sails remained stretched, filled by an unfelt breeze. Ystya looked at Saan with an enigmatic gaze. “My mother isn’t the only one who can control storms.”

The young woman gathered energy and struck her own blow. A spiderweb of lightning danced in the clouds, then lanced back toward the spectral ship. The whitecap waves surged back toward the witch’s patchwork vessel. Ystya clenched her hands, and a roar of thunder boomed out, one powerful force challenging another.

With her feet firmly planted on the moss-smeared deck, hands grasping the barnacle-encrusted rail, Iyomelka hung on. She called upon the magic that suffused her and also borrowed from the ever-increasing reservoir of power that emanated from her husband’s crystal-encased body.

Though Ondun had drowned long ago after an unfortunate set of circumstances, even in death he had not entirely lost his power. As she sailed nearer to the magical shores of Terravitae, Iyomelka sensed the spark brightening in the crystal coffin. Though she spent his power calling storms in pursuit of their daughter, Ondun seemed to be growing stronger. It would be just like her husband to reawaken and bother her again, precisely when he was least needed.

Her ship sliced through the water, helped along by the streaming waves. Not far ahead, she could see the
Al-Orizin
’s colored sails and sense her daughter’s presence aboard. Close…so close.

But Iyomelka felt other powerful storms approaching—a knotted, self-contained hurricane that was not of her making. That other unnatural storm pressed against her spells, an independent force. Though she was about to collide with it, she refused to alter course, intent upon Saan’s ship and her kidnapped child.

Iyomelka was taken aback, and gasped aloud as a bright white beacon stabbed through the whipping rain. She knew instantly what it was:
Mailes!
A place in her heart opened again, exposing memories she had buried under centuries of dust. She reeled.

So long ago, at the end of an era, Ondun had forced her to stand at that isolated rocky outcropping—sad and contrite—while he exiled Mailes to the Lighthouse at the End of the World. In her shame at betraying her husband, Iyomelka had turned away from her lover, unable to bid him farewell, leaving Mailes abandoned for all time on that lonely speck of land.

Ondun hadn’t loved Iyomelka for some time, though his pride wouldn’t let him admit it. Everything was falling apart in Terravitae, their people weakening, their race dwindling away. His severe punishment of Mailes had more to do with refusing to accept failure than wanting to win his wife’s heart again. For a while afterward, she and Ondun had tried to rekindle their love, but even he couldn’t just command such a thing, no matter how great his powers might be. It hadn’t worked, even though she had conceived his child—an extreme rarity among their long-lived race. If timing and circumstances had been different, Ystya could have been the child of Mailes, a daughter born out of real love.

Now, as she spotted the lighthouse beacon, Iyomelka realized that her own journey had come full circle—fleeing Terravitae, hiding on her island for so many centuries, and then sailing in pursuit of her daughter. She wondered what Mailes would think to see omnipotent Ondun sealed in a transparent box, drowned and helpless.

Iyomelka looked down at the old man’s placid face beneath the sparkling water. “We’ve come back here after all, husband, even though you never wished to return. It must be our destiny.”

She longed to see Mailes, but rescuing her daughter was the most important thing. The Key to Creation. The girl was already at risk of learning too much about herself.

The opposing storm buffeted her ship and actually pushed the vessel backward. The petrified masts creaked, and the wind blew in Iyomelka’s face with enough force to make her stagger on the deck. Startled at the strength, she realized that Ystya was doing this!

Impressed, but not deterred, she summoned more storms of her own and pressed on toward the
Al-Orizin
and the Lighthouse at the End of the World.

Ishalem Wall

The furious battle atop the Ishalem wall was everything Mateo needed, and he lost himself in the sheer unfettered violence, the unencumbered goal of attacking the enemy. As soon as he and his men scaled the ropes and surmounted the stone barricade, they ran along the top of the wall toward the nearest Uraban sentries who were just beginning to respond to the threat. Here, a mile from the Tierran army’s main camp, the sentries seemed less prepared for a fight.

Shenro ran ahead, breathless. “We’ll have to be quick. I thought we might have a little more time to search.”

The first Uraban they met let out a thin yelp as he died with a sword in his stomach. The next sentry shouted an alarm before Destrar Shenro slashed sideways so viciously that not only did he cut the man’s throat, he nearly decapitated him. Shenro looked down at the crumpling body with disgust. “I’d hoped one of these men could tell us where to find the soldan-shah.”

“Do you speak Uraban?” Mateo asked.

“I would have made my point, somehow.”

With clamoring alarms, more sentries rushed from the watchtowers. Urecari soldiers emerged from their barracks, still not sure what was happening. Mateo urged the Tierran fighters forward, and they raced in a group along the top of the wall. Destrar Shenro seemed enraptured, as if energized by the sight of blood on his blade.

Jenirod followed close behind them. “They’ll be mustering reinforcements from all across the city. Even if we do find the soldan-shah, how are we going to get out of here with him?”

“Maybe we should just kill him in his bed, then,” Shenro said, undaunted.

“That wouldn’t put an end to the war!”

Shenro shrugged. “Still…”

Instead of adding his own comment, Mateo swung his sword at a Uraban soldier in front of him. Jenirod shoulder-blocked another enemy fighter with enough force to knock him off the wall. The man plummeted to the ground with an audible snap of bone.

Uraban horses galloped through the streets below. Dark-haired men raced up the steps to the top of the wall, carrying naked scimitars.

The Tierran soldiers charged with enough enthusiasm to drive back the larger numbers of Urabans. They called Omra’s name, as if that would magically bring him to face them. Destrar Shenro threw himself into the fray without regard for his own safety, and Mateo understood exactly how the destrar felt. He drove back the nagging whisper in his head that Jenirod had warned them this was not a good plan. It was too late to change course now. Instead, he concentrated only on fighting the enemy—for Anjine.

Mateo fought hard enough that he didn’t have to pay attention to the odds rising against them. Anjine had already walled herself off from him, and he felt helpless to do anything else. Perhaps this way he could leave his mark and prove to her that she needed him, that he was valuable to her…and to Tierra.

Although he had a well-defined objective, he didn’t have a clear path to reach it, and that was a poor example for a military subcomdar to set. He
reacted
, driven by emotion and anger, pursuing an idea he had not considered logically. And now he was dragging these other men off the cliff with him. He shouted at the top of his lungs, “For the queen!” and pressed forward with greater vehemence.

Shenro leapt ahead like a dancer, striking down two Urecari and facing a group of armed men who surged up the stone steps. “For Aiden!”

“If we don’t retreat soon, Subcomdar, we’ll be overwhelmed!” Jenirod cried.

“We haven’t captured the soldan-shah yet.”

“We haven’t
found
the soldan-shah!”

Accompanying the rush of soldiers up the steps came a man dressed in fine clothes, wearing the scarlet olba and sash of a commander. Recognizing the man’s rank, Shenro threw himself forward, sliced open the arm of another Uraban who got in the way, and knocked him aside. “There he is—the soldan-shah! Seize him.” The Uraban in the red olba coolly brandished his scimitar, staring down the edge of the blade. Shenro lifted his sword and let out a yell. “Take him, and we can leave!”

Mateo was confused. “That’s not the soldan-shah.”

From behind, the man Shenro had knocked aside struck back, hitting him on the head with the flat of his scimitar. The destrar reeled from the blow, tried to hold up his sword.

The man with the scarlet olba thrust with his curved blade, and Shenro barely managed to squirm out of the way. Jenirod grabbed the destrar and pulled him to safety before he even realized his danger. When one of the Alamont soldiers engaged the enemy leader, the Uraban ran him through with his curved blade. The Tierran coughed in disbelief, held upright by the scimitar that skewered his chest. His own blade slipped from his fingers to clatter on the stone steps, and it slid, bumping on one step after the next, until it dropped off the edge to the ground. The man flailed with his empty hand, still trying to hit the Uraban commander, but the light faded from his eyes. The Ishalem commander yanked his bloody scimitar out of the body.

The Tierrans fought with increased vigor, and Shenro seemed disoriented. “That’s the soldan-shah! We have to take him.”

Mateo pulled him away. “I’ve
seen
Soldan-Shah Omra, and that isn’t him.”

Shenro was crestfallen. “Then we still need to find him in the city.”

More enemy soldiers ascended the access stairways. Though he had already known it at the back of his mind, Mateo finally realized the folly of their raid. “We can’t do it, Destrar.” He raised his voice to sound the retreat. “Back to the ropes!”