Iron Tide Rising

  Remy made a big production of barely tapping the wheel with the tip of her finger, grumbling under her breath the whole time. Marrill couldn’t make out what she was saying but was pretty sure she caught the word “keelhaul.”

  The ship shifted again, or so Marrill assumed. To her there was no difference. Fin leaned toward her. “Is now a good time to go back to the whole should-we-be-trusting-the-evil-wizard conversation?”

  Before Marrill could answer, Serth froze and raised his hand, as though pausing for a sneeze.

  “Aaaaannnnnnnnnddddddd…” He held the word for a moment longer than it seemed like he should. “SWING TO PORT!”

  Remy reacted instantly, spinning the wheel hard. The ship tilted. All at once, the wind died, the sails falling empty and limp. The ship coasted a few yards more before momentum drew it to a dead stop.

  “Here we are,” Serth declared, holding his hands wide.

  Marrill looked around. They were in the middle of a big, empty ocean. Same as before. Except now they were at a complete standstill. She exchanged a glance with Fin, who seemed just as confused as she was. “But I don’t see anything.”

  Serth nodded, reaching into his robes. “Obviously not. I haven’t lit the candle yet.” He knelt, producing the candle they’d retrieved from Flight-of-Thorns.

  Remy snorted. Marrill caught the word “maroon” as the older girl stepped away from the wheel and leaned against one of the masts, arms crossed, waiting.

  Marrill moved closer, trying to see what was so special about the candle. It looked perfectly normal as far as she could tell. Seemingly regular wax, white and clearish. Shaped just like any other candle. Unexciting. There was only one thing about it that was unusual at all.

  “There’s no wick,” she pointed out.

  “Good point,” Fin said. “How are you going to light it?”

  With the very tips of his fingers, Serth carefully adjusted the candle to one side, then the other. “Technically,” he murmured, “it will light itself.”

  Marrill squinted at it again, wondering if she’d missed something. “But… it’s just wax.”

  The wizard shook his head. “It’s not the wax that’s important. It’s what’s in the wax that we want. Just have to find the right spot.…”

  “But—” she began again. Serth turned toward her, and Marrill felt the protest stick in her throat. Her body still automatically cringed at the sight of him, the black grooves down his face from centuries of crying inky tears still causing her heart to trip with fear.

  Then all of a sudden, the candle burst into flame. And the lights went out.

  Night dropped on them like a stage curtain. The bright light of day simply… stopped. No stars glimmered overhead, but a hundred thousand seemed to have gathered upon the surface of the Stream in the distance. They danced and shimmered in the sudden blackness.

  Marrill blinked. Not stars. Candles. A hundred thousand candle flames. Lit across the face of huge wax towers—candles themselves, Marrill realized. Some were tall, some were small, as if they’d burned at different speeds. But an intricate lattice of wax bridges and buttresses strung them together, connecting them into a single whole. Elegant but melty, like a drip-sand castle.

  Beside her, Fin let out a breath of wonder. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Tallowtrees,” announced Serth. He faltered, seemed almost to stumble. Instinctively, Marrill reached out to steady him, stopping herself just before grabbing his arm. Even if his skin no longer froze, she couldn’t bear to actually touch him.

  “Are you okay?” she asked instead.

  Serth nodded. “Yes. Yes, it’s just… not as I remembered.” He placed a steadying hand on the railing. “I am not used to things being different than I remember.” He shook his head, regaining himself. “See how there is a great clearing in the heart of it?”

  Marrill nodded. Even in the dark, she could tell that the candle towers formed a ring around a large open area.

  “That is the place where something old and awful clawed its way up from the dawn of time. When it emerged, it tore a hole through the Stream itself. A hole where the time currents flow fast and free and closer to the surface. That hole will give us access to those currents.” He waved the ship forward. “Incidentally, you may hear something calling to you in the voice of lost friends or dead family members. Just ignore it, and it won’t eat your emotions.”

  Marrill gulped. She liked her emotions. “But—”

  Serth didn’t wait for her to finish. “Take us in, Captain,” he ordered.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Space Among the Tallowtrees

  At first, it felt like bugs.

  A bug crawling on the back of his neck. He swatted at it.

  A bug behind his knees. He shook his leg violently.

  A bug on his ear—

  a bug inside his ear.

  Fin jumped and shouted, pawing at his head. He stopped, realizing the others were staring at him. The feeling was gone. Had it even been there in the first place?

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Ahead, Serth resumed their trek, Marrill and Fin trailing in his wake. Fin glanced back to where the Kraken lay moored, a beacon of safety growing farther away as they continued their journey on foot.

  Wax seemed to wrap around them, dull and white yellow in the candlelight, as they made their way through a tunnel toward the clearing in the middle of the Tallowtrees. Sound echoed oddly here, as if it were somehow unaccustomed to the place. If Fin listened just right, he swore he could hear someone crying.

  “So, what can we expect when we get to the middle?” Marrill asked.

  Fin tried to focus on her. But the walls around them appeared to have melted and re-formed; their surface was smooth and strangely ridged all at the same time. The shadows looked almost like faces. Almost.

  Serth ducked his head around a sagging arch that seemed to be reaching out to touch them. Even he stepped cautiously in this place. “A lake of crystal blue, floating on a sea of gold like a drop of water on a saucer of cooking oil. Through it, we can pass into the current of time.”

  A shiver stole down Fin’s back. Whether from their creepy surroundings or what Serth had said, he wasn’t sure. He quickened his pace to stay close to the wizard. “And that will take us back to where… er… to when we need to go?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Serth replied. In the flicker of candlelight, the wax ceiling bowed. “But combined with the Hearts of Yesterday, it should take us deep enough to catch the wake of the Iron Ship. And that will take us back to the time of the Dzane, the original wizards, where the Master first entered the Mirrorweb… and where we shall follow.”

  Marrill stopped dead in her tracks. “Mirrorweb? I thought we were going into the Pirate Stream?”

  Serth paused a few feet ahead of her and spun to face them. “The Mirrorweb is the heart of the Pirate Stream,” he explained. “The place inside the Map to Everywhere, where all possibilities come together at once. It is the Master’s destination. And, hopefully, it will become the prison of the Lost Sun of Dzannin once again.”

  Fin frowned. He’d never wondered what was actually inside the Pirate Stream. “So this… Mirrorweb… is that where you went when you walked through the Gate in the Map? It’s where you were trapped?”

  Serth nodded, face solemn. The wizard’s eyes took on a faraway look as though lost in a memory. “The Mirrorweb is a place where every possibility exists, each contained within its own mirror. An infinite sea of them, every single one a different reflection, a different choice, a path not taken. Or taken. Or taken later. Or earlier.”

  “Is it scary?” Fin asked. Marrill moved closer beside him, pressing her shoulder to his for comfort.

  A haunted expression passed over Serth’s face. “It is everything.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Fin murmured. He took a deep breath, trying to picture it. “Are there spiders in this web?”

  “Spiders are included in ‘e
verything.’ So yes.”

  Fin shuddered. “Another point in the scary column, then.”

  He glanced toward Marrill, but she didn’t laugh at his joke. Instead, furrows of concentration marred her forehead, as if she was trying to work something out. “Are the reflections in the mirrors real?”

  Serth shrugged. “As real as any possibility can be.”

  His answer left her silent, apparently deep in thought.

  Fin, meanwhile, focused on the important part. “Are we talking like giant spiders?”

  Serth stared at him. “All spiders. Literally all of them.”

  Fin thought he might have seen a twitch at the corner of Serth’s mouth as he spun and continued down the path. It wasn’t very reassuring at all.

  In the silence, the echo of Serth’s words twisted around, becoming something else entirely. All of a sudden, Marrill let out a shriek and spun into the air, as though someone had dropped a live eel down her shirt.

  “Sorry,” she whispered, hurrying to catch up with the quick-moving Serth.

  Fin snickered.

  Down a dark side passage, the wax turned his snickering into a slow, incessant drip…

  drip…

  drip…

  drip…

  Something with wings brushed against his cheek.

  Fin jumped, racing after the others. He caught up to them just as they neared the end of the passageway. Ahead, through the tangle of arches that wove the candle-towers together, he caught sight of a gaping emptiness, marked only by the guttering of the flames on the far side.

  Serth’s steps slowed slightly. When he spoke, he spoke almost reverently. “This is where the light of the Lost Sun of Dzannin once burst forth, a column like a burning spear aimed at the heart of heaven. It shone through the waxen walls, rendering this whole place nearly transparent.”

  The wizard peered at the paraffin walls around them. His pale features seemed disturbed—fearful, even. “There were shadows in the wax then,” he whispered, as if afraid the wax might hear him.

  Fin shivered, doing his best not to think of shadowed things. Of things with wings and long, many-jointed legs, sealed somewhere in the wax.

  They reached the end of the passageway. Serth had promised crystal-blue water floating on a sea of gold. Instead, Fin saw an unbroken expanse of wax, stretching from one side of the circle of towers to the other. With the tip of one toe, he poked at the smooth surface in front of him. It was firm, as he’d expected. Solid, slightly slick. Yellow-white in the glow of a thousand flickering candles.

  Yep, definitely wax.

  “So where’s the entrance you mentioned?” he asked, craning his neck.

  Serth frowned as he stood beside him. “This place has changed far more than I thought. When last I was here, this was a pool of Stream water, and the candles were even and unburnt.” He motioned to the great Tallowtrees. The one they’d just passed through was tall as a wizard’s tower, as they’d say in the Khaznot Quay.

  The next one over, however, was low and squat, barely half the height. As it had burned, its melting wax had oozed across the ground, covering the lake like ice in winter. Judging by the size of the other Tallowtrees around them, there were probably several solid feet of wax built up over the water.

  “Obviously we’ll have to find a way to clear all this away,” Serth said, tenting his fingers under his chin as he contemplated the situation.

  Marrill hugged herself, her hands rubbing against her upper arms. “Can’t you just magic it away?”

  Serth shook his head. “That would be very foolish. I am still re-forming my connection with the Stream, and I will need everything I have to preserve us once we enter the rift.”

  “Powerful magic,” Marrill mumbled. “Powerful…”

  Fin stared at her. Her eyes were unfocused. He reached over and poked her lightly. “Marrill? You’re not going wax crazy, are you?”

  Her head tilted to the side, ever so slightly. “Maybe…” Then she seemed to snap back. “No. No, this is real. Serth, you said there’s a pool of Stream water under here, right?”

  The wizard nodded. “Just as deadly as any, to the unprepared.”

  “So what if we push the wax down into it?” she suggested. “The Stream water will change it just like anything else. We would just need a way to cut it, but then the Stream would do all the work.”

  Fin laughed. She was right—even this stuff was likely no match for raw magic. He produced the bone-handled Evershear, carefully stored in its glass sheath so its infinitely sharp edge wouldn’t slip and slice a leg off. “Well, we do have something that can cut anything.…” he offered.

  Serth clapped, slowly. “Excellent work, children,” he said. “You two work well together.”

  Marrill beamed. Fin felt a surge of pride. But the feeling soured a bit when he remembered the source of the compliment. Once upon a time Serth had tried to destroy their friendship. Had tried to destroy them.

  Fin shook his head. It seemed impossible to reconcile those two things: the Serth who used to be and the Serth who was with them now. The madness may have passed, but even in Serth’s best moments, the old him was there—in the sweep of his cloak, in the iciness of his glances. Etched forever in the tearstains on his cheeks.

  Fin glanced at Marrill and saw the same complicated series of emotions flit through her eyes as well.

  But they didn’t have time to dwell on it. Serth, after all, had already moved on. “Fin, begin cutting,” he ordered. “Marrill and I will retrieve the Kraken. Make sure you cut a hole big enough for the ship to fit through.”

  Fin’s face dropped. “Wait, what?”

  But Serth had already turned on his heel. “Come along, Marrill.”

  Fin’s insides squirmed. He glanced at the long expanse of wax, then back at Serth. He glanced at the tunnel through the Tallowtrees, then back at Serth. Neither of these things he liked. “You’re going to leave me here?”

  “Precisely,” Serth called over his shoulder, already walking away. “Good luck.”

  Marrill shuffled her feet. “Maybe I should stay with Fin?”

  Serth turned back, giving them an incredulous look. “What, and risk losing both of you to wax madness?” he scoffed.

  “Oh,” Fin said. That made sense. He guessed.

  “Don’t worry,” the wizard said with a wave. “The thing in the wax can’t hurt you.” He hesitated. “Well, it probably can. It can probably do far worse than hurt you. I imagine it can flay the very thoughts from your brain, and turn your body into, one assumes, more wax.” He paused again. “Anyway, don’t listen to it and I’m sure you’ll be fine. Come along, Marrill.”

  Fin gulped.

  Marrill gave Fin an apologetic look, and he gave her a halfhearted wave in return. Then she bolted after the wizard as he vanished into the paraffin tunnel.

  Smart girl.

  Fin sighed. He was alone. In a dark so deep he wondered if there was ever a sun, the candles barely cast enough light to guide him. The air was just warm enough to feel like it should be comfortable, but just cool enough to raise goose bumps with the slightest breeze.

  He produced the Evershear, checked the blade, and slashed down into the wax. A low, distant moan sounded, somewhere far away but also, somehow, close. He swallowed, wondering if he’d been too hasty in sending Marrill away. Too late now.

  Gripping the bone handle of the Evershear tightly, he started to draw the blade around the edge of the wax seal.

  “Hey there, Fin.”

  Fin jerked upright. “Fig?” he whispered. It was her voice, no question. So close to his ear she might as well have been breathing on him. But when he turned, no one was there.

  “Did you forget about me?”

  Fin spun. He’d heard her, he was sure of it. On the far side of the clearing tiny flames winked at him, one by one.

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. This wasn’t real. He knelt down again, tugging the Evershear farther around the perimeter. The wax made a
sound like ripping fabric.

  “Come inside where it’s warm, dear. I’ll look after you.”

  “Mrs. Parsnickle?” Fin shouted, twisting. He held his breath, waiting for the voice to speak again. He was met with silence. He shook himself. This is silly. Mrs. Parsnickle was gone, taken by the Iron Tide. So was Fig. Whatever was talking to him, it wasn’t them.

  He took another deep breath, ignoring the scent of burning hair that came in with it. He bent back down again.

  A face stared up at him from the wax.

  He fell backward, scooting across the slippery surface. The face opened its mouth, then seemed to melt in on itself. Flies buzzed behind his head.

  Fin’s heart pounded in his chest. His gut told his heart to be quiet, not to move, or the thing in the wax might hear it. Panic pumped through him. The tallow squirmed beneath his palms.

  “Let me eat your thoughts, dearie,” Mrs. Parsnickle said, from a place outside of everything. “You don’t want those nasty old thoughts anyway, do you?”

  “Slash all this,” Fin muttered. He needed to end this. Now.

  He thrust himself to his feet, snatched the Evershear, and started running. It was a loping run, bending down to drag the blade through the wax beside him. Ardent’s voice begged him to stop; then Annalessa’s asked him to come inside; then his own dead mother told him that he was a good boy and that if he would just lie down and take a big bite of the wax, she would love him and hold him forever.

  Fin ignored them all. He ignored the feeling of worms in his shoes, of fingernails rolling up his eyelids. He ran and ran, pulling the Evershear in a wide circle around the edge of the clearing, slashing through the wax.

  Finally, he completed the circuit, the Evershear coming to rest right before the spot where he’d begun. The whole wax seal held on by a single thin bridge, ready to break free.

  A face pushed forward in the dull light, frowned at him, then collapsed in on itself. The echo of his name whispered over him. “Have you given up on me so easily?”