The Map to Everywhere, and its Key.
Dread filled her heart. In Monerva, the Master had shown himself to be Serth’s lieutenant. Which meant he was likely there to finish Serth’s quest to destroy the Stream. Which meant…
“He’s going to open the Gate!” she shouted. Without thinking, she lunged, hoping to snatch the items before the Master could. But it was like there was some sort of force field around them. A jolt of something hot and tingly zapped her fingers, throwing her back.
The Master looked at her. His metal mask was a sheer wall, blank and pitiless. Through the narrow slit, his ice-blue eyes were as cold as the metal surrounding them.
Every muscle in her body quivered. “Who are you?” she whispered.
As always, he remained silent. He raised one hand back toward the entrance, just in time to catch a blast of energy that surged in at him.
“You’re good, I’ll give you that,” Ardent said. Ropebone’s lines untwined from around his ankles and retreated. “Thought I had the jump on you there.” He strode in casually, flames burning around his knuckles. “You can remove the mask now, Margaham. I’ll admit to being surprised you’re the Master, though I guess the discovery was inevitable. You must have spent the past century training quite diligently in order to match my skills.”
Marrill cleared her throat. “Um, Ardent?” She pointed toward the metal statue in the corner. His eyes shifted, taking in his iron-coated friend. A look of regret crossed his features, and he sighed.
He turned back to the Master. “Ah. Not Margaham. Well, that does at least explain the skill level.” He squinted as he considered his opponent. “Very well, keep your secrets, then. We’re narrowing it down, aren’t we? Serth, Annalessa, Forthorn, Calixto, and now Margaham crossed off.… That only leaves two Wizards of Meres to choose from.”
Marrill’s eyes darted back and forth between them. Slowly, they circled each other. At any moment, a wizard’s duel would break out. She was pretty sure this little castle wouldn’t be enough to contain the devastation.
“Tanea Hollow-Blood?” Ardent mused. He studied the other wizard thoughtfully. “I admit, you’re not really built like a woman. But then, Tanea did have a magnificent beard.”
He snapped his fingers. “Alexter Strate! Of course!” The Master stopped. Ardent stopped with him, a smug smile on his face. They’d rotated 180 degrees so that Ardent was now closest to the Map. “I should have known. You always were the third most powerful of us. Behind myself and Serth, of course. Close tie with Annalessa.” A sly smile played on Ardent’s features. “How does that rhyme go?”
Out of nowhere, Margaham’s voice spoke again, coming from the speakfrog in the corner.
The eight, cursed eight, who spat at fate,
First was Serth, and the rest came late.
Ardent the Cold was the right hand so bold,
He gathered the Stream with Alexter Strate.
Calixto and Margaham and Tanea filled them up,
The font formed by Forthorn, by Annalessa, the cup.
Marrill shook her head. Ardent the Cold? It was the same thing Margaham—or his frog—had called Ardent before the game had even begun. Clearly, they hadn’t known Ardent too well. Cold was the last way she would describe him.
All of a sudden, the Master lunged. Ardent dodged easily, sending back a volley of energy. The Master staggered, but he hadn’t been after Ardent. He’d been after a young girl reaching for the Map.
With a swipe of the Master’s arm, she flew through the air, smashing against the wall. “Fig!” Fin cried. But before he could move, before Marrill could ask how he even knew the girl, before anyone could stop him, the Master snatched the Map and Key from the pedestal.
He held them aloft in his gauntlet-clad hands.
“No!” Marrill screamed.
“Alexter, Tanea, whoever you are, listen to reason!” Ardent begged. “You must not open the Gate!”
But the Master didn’t hesitate. He moved the Key toward the Map. Magic crackled through the chamber.
The hairs on the back of Marrill’s neck danced. Through the windows and the door, dark clouds choked the sky. Red lightning played through them like the energy of a Tesla coil. The energy of the end of the world.
It was too late. They’d failed.
After everything they’d been through.
After all the times they’d defeated Serth.
It didn’t matter.
The Master had won.
Serth had won.
Marrill’s mouth filled with the sharp taste of iron as red lightning crashed around them. Above his head the Master touched the Key against the Map.
The Lost Sun of Dzannin began to dawn.
CHAPTER 10
Not Who You Were Expecting
Fin felt like razor blades were slicing his stomach as the Master of the Iron Ship touched the Key to the Map. Behind his steel faceplate, the Master’s eyes were a still mask of hard-edged determination.
“Stop this!” Ardent boomed. The air erupted in shrieks of agony as he let loose an onslaught of magic. Fire, lightning, dark energies Fin couldn’t even name, ripped through the room. But they did nothing to slow or stop the Master.
And then Fin realized the shrieks weren’t coming from Ardent’s fingertips but from somewhere else. The pitch grew higher, almost painful. The surface of the Map buckled and strained as the Key pressed against it. It opened, folding around itself and stretching higher, wider, into the shape of a door, the Key now a knob stuck in its center.
Ink ran down the page like the bars of a cage. Fin could see the dark sketch of a figure behind them, and the furious flapping of a maddened bird.
Though the Map was still flat and two-dimensional, the figure reached out a hand. The surface of the parchment rippled and warped. The air around it seemed to hiss and burn. Long, sketched fingers broke through in three dimensions and gripped the knob, pulling at it from somewhere within.
The Gate to the Lost Sun of Dzannin burst open with a ferocious boom that sent shock waves rippling out from it. The blast hit Fin with a physical force, propelling him backward. Light seared out from the glowing doorway. Time seemed to slow as it grew somehow brighter, hotter. Fin had no choice but to close his eyes.
When he opened them again, a shadow stood against the blinding light. Fin’s insides went cold.
Beside him, Marrill stiffened. “Serth,” she choked.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Fig asked in a trembling voice.
The figure stepped forward, the glow continuing to pulse and coalesce around him and into him. His cloak began to take on color, its once dark cloth now a shining silver, the white starbursts now turned to black holes that seemed to devour light. His face was polished alabaster, inlaid with lines of sharp obsidian that had once been traces of his tears.
The shining figure held out his arms in a gesture of gracious offering. Energy didn’t so much emanate from him as it was him. It seemed like the very floor vibrated beneath his feet, the atoms of the stone spinning faster and with more force.
“I have arisen,” Serth said, in a voice that sounded nothing like him. Every time they’d met before, the Meressian Oracle had been stooped, his voice cracked and trembling. Now it was firm, commanding, and confident.
A screeching caw ripped through the room, defying the hum of power. A blur of scribbled feather tore free from the Gate. It burst past Serth’s shining form in a frenzy of inky wings and soared through the air, banking and swooping in the tight chamber.
“Rose?” Fin gasped as she shot past him. The Compass Rose of the Map to Everywhere soared high to the ceiling. Serth’s head turned slowly, watching her. He raised a hand, and cold light seared the air, slashing a gash through the castle walls.
“Rose!” Marrill shrieked. The bird dodged and weaved expertly, evading the bright death that followed her. She wheeled around the room once, let out a loud cry, and dove.
Fin stumbled back as the bird streaked past them, straight tow
ard the exit. Fig jumped aside. Ardent ducked. Rose reached the doorway, nothing between her and freedom.
Just then, the Master stepped into her path. An iron cage snapped shut in his hands. Rose beat her wings against the bars, screeching and cawing. The Master held her high, regarding her impassively through the blank metal mask. And then he turned and left.
Fin spun toward Ardent, expecting him to do something. But the wizard no longer seemed interested in the Master. Instead his gaze was focused on the figure that stood in the threshold of the Gate. “Serth!” he cried, stepping in front of the silver-robed figure. He held up his hands in a peace offering. “It’s Ardent. Your friend. Please, come to reason. It’s not too late.”
The radiant Oracle strode forward. Behind him, the light died away. The Map turned back to ink and paper, falling empty to the ground. Now the glow filling the room came only from the man himself.
“It is done.” The Oracle’s new voice was calm but powerful. Fin could feel it buzzing in his teeth, setting his very soul on edge. “I have taken a new vessel. I have arisen.”
Ardent stopped short, then let out a long, slow exhale. His shoulders stooped. He looked more frail than ever before.
“You’re not Serth,” he whispered.
The thing wearing Serth’s body barely looked at them. His face was an empty mask, devoid of sorrow, devoid of joy. Nor was there sympathy or anything that could be called human. It was like looking straight at the cruel sun, bright and heartless and bare.
“I am the last child given life and form by the first wizards,” he said. “I am the end of possibility, and the possibility of end. I am the prisoner of the Bintheyr Map to Everywhere, the horrible truth that the Stream was created to conceal.”
Fin swallowed, remembering when Ardent had first told them about the Meressian Prophecy and its awful origin. In the days before the Stream was made, back when everything was raw potential, the Dzane crafted new worlds with their whims, and everything was possible. Even the end of possibility.
A hundred thousand stars shone on a hundred thousand different creations. But only one star shone on destruction.
That star had been locked away in the Bintheyr Map to Everywhere, bound by the boundless power of the Pirate Stream. But now it had broken free and arisen once more.
“You’re the Lost Sun of Dzannin,” Marrill breathed.
Fin closed his eyes. Was it really possible? Could the man who was once Serth have become the Lost Sun?
“That is the name that the first wizards gave me, for I am the child that they called wayward,” Serth’s body spoke. Cracks grew out through the stone beneath his feet.
Ardent scowled, recovering some of his familiar defiance. “Call yourself what you will, be it man or star or both at once, for all I care. I will not let you destroy the Stream.”
The Lost Sun cocked his head to the side, eyes sweeping across the man who’d long ago been Serth’s closest friend. There was no compassion in his gaze, no evidence of their former bond. “You have no say in the matter.”
He then spread his hands wide. Power flexed and bowed within him. For a moment it seemed that perhaps his human form would be too weak to contain such energy. Tiny fissures erupted across his skin, letting through cracks of light.
He raised his arms to the side. “The end begins.”
“Serth!” Ardent called, lunging toward him.
But he was too late. The creature who had once been Serth dropped his hands. The ground below him began to buckle. Fin grabbed Marrill and stumbled back as the floor of the castle gave way.
Except there was something off about the way it crumbled. Fin had grown up in a ramshackle city on the steep slopes of Khaznot Mountain; he’d seen his fair share of buildings lose stability and collapse. Usually they fell in on themselves, crumbling into a pile of rubble.
That wasn’t what happened to Margaham’s castle. The floor didn’t just fall away; it disintegrated. Everything about it simply ceased to exist. And below it, there was nothing. Just a great, gaping chasm.
But that wasn’t right, either. Because a chasm had a bottom. It had walls. And this had none of those things. It had nothing.
It was nothing.
And as they watched, the void grew in diameter, pulling everything around it into that nothingness.
Ardent stood his ground, placing his hands together, palms facing the void. His face was a scowl of concentration as energy radiated around him. “The Stream is infinite!” Ardent called to his former friend. “You can never hope to destroy it all!”
The Lost Sun stepped slowly forward, the world falling away in the wake of each footstep. “I am not hope. I am certainty. And though I may walk across an endless river, I know the wellspring from which it flows. The pure headwaters of the Stream beckon. My essence will pour forth into them, touching all possibilities at once. And when it does, this chaos will end. These possibilities will end. All of them. Forever.”
Ardent shook his head fiercely. “We don’t have to be what we’re told,” he shot back. “You can choose to stop this. Your Prophecy is only one possibility in an endless sea of others.”
“You misunderstand,” the shining wizard told him. “I am the fulfillment of your Prophecy. I am that one possibility made real. I am the end of choice. I am finality. I cannot stop, and I cannot be stopped.” He continued his advance, the world dissolving into an ever-widening void behind him.
“This is not malice,” the Lost Sun said as he neared Ardent. “It is simply necessity. All must end. You, too, have a role to play in my design.”
For a moment, Ardent refused to cede. Fin held his breath, waiting for what would happen next. Then the old man took a slow step back.
“What do we do?” Marrill squeaked in Fin’s ear.
Fin hung his head. He wanted to smile, to come up with something witty, to give her a hope to hold on to. But at this point, for once, he didn’t see a way out of their predicament. Serth had been powerful enough on his own. With the power of the Lost Sun—being the Lost Sun—he seemed unstoppable. If even Ardent couldn’t stand before him, Fin wasn’t sure what they had left to hope for, except maybe to survive the next few moments.
“Run?” he said at last.
Marrill nodded vigorously. “Agreed.” Together they raced for the door. Fin paused to yank Fig to her feet and shove her forward. Marrill made it out of the castle and sprinted across the game board, not even hesitating before leaping to the next level. Fig followed close behind.
Fin bolted after them, bringing up the rear. But he had barely made it a few steps onto the lower tier when a hand grabbed his wrist, yanking him to the side. It was Vell, his face a mask of anger.
Even with all that had happened, Fin couldn’t resist rubbing in the Rise’s loss. “So sorry you couldn’t join us on the winning square. You nearly missed the end of the world.”
“The orb,” Vell demanded. “Where is it?”
Fin patted his pockets with his free hand. “’Fraid I don’t have it on me.”
“Vell, bring your Fade and come!” their mother shouted over the roar. “We sail!”
From the opposite direction Marrill called, “Fin, hurry!”
“The Crest summons us.” Vell tugged Fin in the direction of the Rise warship. Fin glanced at his mother standing on the bow, waiting. So much about her was familiar. And at the same time, nothing about her was familiar at all.
At that moment, understanding hit so hard it left him light-headed. This woman looked like his mother in the same way that Vell looked like Fin. Because she was Rise. But the woman Fin remembered was like Fin. Fade.
The Crest wasn’t Fin’s mother. Her Fade was.
Fin dug in his heels and ripped free of Vell’s grasp. “I don’t think so, jog. Now’s not a good time for a family reunion. Especially when you’re not my family.”
He didn’t wait for Vell to respond. He sprinted across the game board, leaping to the next tier without hesitation.
Marrill
was waiting for him below, and she grabbed his hand. “We’ve got to get out of here!” Together they ran for the Kraken.
Fin risked one last glance over his shoulder. Ardent still faced the Lost Sun, bombarding him with energy and power that sizzled the air. But the old wizard was no match against the living star-made-human. The Lost Sun walked forward without slowing, forcing Ardent to retreat toward the Kraken.
Across the board, Vell had reached the Rise warship and stood by the bow, glaring at Fin. “The Rise can be delayed!” he shouted. “But never beaten. We will not stop until we have both you and the orb back in our control!”
Fin shook his head, wondering why the orb even mattered to them anymore. There were way more important things to worry about now that the Lost Sun had risen.
The Kraken jumped to life as the stone hand holding her shook and shattered. Fin braced for splashdown, while behind them, Margaham’s Game crumbled into nothing.
And still the Lost Sun strode forward, as though all the Stream awaited him.
CHAPTER 11
Game Over
As they fled Margaham’s Game, Marrill stood with the rest of the crew at the railing of the Kraken’s stern, watching the Lost Sun continue his slow march onward. When he reached the edge of the massive game board, he didn’t even pause before stepping onto the Stream, walking across its surface as though it were solid.
Destruction flowed in his wake, the world crumbling behind him with each step. Crumble wasn’t the right word, she told herself. It was more like the entire Stream was pouring into the void the Lost Sun had created in a torrent, a massive waterfall, straight into oblivion.
Even as she watched, the void grew larger, expanding outward in all directions, slowly devouring the Stream. This was their worst-case scenario. This is what the crew had been trying to prevent ever since they’d first run into Serth in the Gibbering Grove, so long ago. The rise of the Lost Sun. The destruction of the Pirate Stream. And it was even more terrible than she’d imagined it could be.