Down in chains she goes
And wrapped in shrouds she goes
And never then we’ll see her again
’Cause Down. She. Goes!
The Kraken hit a particularly rough wave, and the boards of the deck flexed and groaned in protest. With a curse, Coll gripped the wheel, fighting to keep the ship steady, and Marrill struggled to stay standing.
A great ripping noise sounded from overhead. One of the sails had torn free and flapped madly in the wind. Amidships, Ardent spun, fingers flying as he worked to fix it. No sooner was that sail repaired than another tore.
Marrill stood by his side, calling distances to Coll as the Dragon bore down on them through the storm. Every member of the crew had a task except for Fin.
He was tired of feeling useless. Fin raced aft, feet slipping across the wet deck as the ship crashed through a series of waves. In a lull between gusts of rain, he caught sight of the Dragon.
She was even closer than he’d realized. Fin’s eyes met the Oracle’s, separated by no more than a ship’s length of water.
“Go faster!” he screamed to Coll. “Go!”
Serth stepped toward the bow. Behind him, thieves Fin had known for years readied their boarding lines. Their faces were crumpled in sadness, but Fin didn’t believe for a second it had anything to do with him. Serth seemed to have such complete control over them that none of them even noticed the rain.
Overhead, red lightning flashed, furious and bright. Serth cringed looking up at it. It was that moment of weakness that bolstered Fin’s courage.
“Hey, Serth—the Iron Ship’s coming!” he shouted across the water. “Think you can make it cry? Or is it time to ‘steer clear the Iron Ship’?”
The Oracle wrapped his arms around himself, shuddering. His mouth moved, but Fin could scarcely make out the words. “Fear… steer clear… iron slays dragons… who comes first, who comes first…”
“Fin!” Marrill yelled. She staggered over to him, awkward and unsteady as the ship rolled in the heavy seas. “Be careful! He’s a wizard, remember? He can… wizard you, or whatever!”
“Not if I wizard him first,” Ardent said from above. The old man stood, feet firmly planted on the mizzenmast top, the platform halfway up the Kraken’s aftmost mast. Bright energy crackled along his fingertips. He looked more wizardly than ever before.
“Are you ready for this, old friend?” he shouted.
“This is not how it happens!” the Oracle called back. “Not like this. The order, we must keep the order!” Serth held up one hand, palm toward them. The pirate shanty died.
For a few beats, Serth and Ardent squared off. Neither saying or doing anything. Just staring at each other.
And then the Black Dragon changed tack, turning away from the storm. “The scenes will come in order!” Serth called to them as the distance between the ships grew. “There will come another storm!” Then he was gone, the ship vanishing behind the churning clouds and gusting rain.
Coll let out the highest noise Fin had ever heard come from him. “Oh, bless the west wind,” he said. “I was just getting ready to turn us out of the storm!” He yanked on the wheel, and the Kraken swung to port, away from the heart of the dark clouds.
“We did it!” Marrill squealed, beaming. She grabbed Fin’s arm and bounced from side to side. “Your strategy paid off!”
Fin shuffled his feet. “You were the one to convince Coll,” he pointed out.
“Well, you were the one who knew it’d work.” She grinned.
Fin’s gut twisted with guilt. She’d trusted him without hesitation, and he hadn’t told her the entire truth. “He’ll come back. After all,” he said, “he followed me this far already.”
“Huh?” Marrill asked. Thick raindrops splattered the deck around them, the edge of the storm petering out.
Fin reached into his thief’s bag and pulled out the ruby key. “This belongs to him,” he told her. “The Oracle hired me to steal it from the Meressian Temple Ship. But when he showed up for it, I ran.”
Marrill frowned. Fin didn’t know whether she felt confused or betrayed. She’d thought they’d been partners. But he’d kept this from her.
Fin swallowed. “That’s the reason.…” He paused, steeling himself. He’d never had to take the blame for anything before. No one had ever remembered him long enough to make him. And he was discovering just how difficult it was to do. “I’m the reason he followed us to begin with. That’s why I snuck aboard the Kraken when the docks were burning. I was trying to escape from Serth.”
He let out a long sigh.
Marrill bit her lip. “Oh, Fin…”
“Well, that all worked out, now, didn’t it?” Ardent said as he half climbed, half floated his way down from the mast, with a brief assist from the Ropebone Man.
Fin, grateful for the chance to change the subject, turned toward the wizard. “Hey—you called the Oracle ‘old friend’!”
Ardent raised his eyebrows. “Indeed I did,” he said. “Quite observant, whoever you are.”
Marrill wiped at her face as a raindrop smacked her nose. “Okay, now this is too much,” she said. “You and… Serth? Are friends?”
Ardent shrugged. “Were,” he corrected. He looked back and forth between them. “Why don’t you head down to my cabin and dry off,” he said. “You’re both quite damp. I’ll be there in a moment, and then we can have a nice long talk about the end of the world.”
CHAPTER 30
The Meressian Prophecy
Eyes wide, Marrill looked toward Fin. “I really don’t like the sound of that,” she mumbled. The wind shifted in the sails overhead, splattering her with cold raindrops. She crossed her arms, rubbing her hands over her exposed wet skin to warm up.
She’d expected maybe a smile, or at least some sort of response, but Fin just slipped the ruby key back in his thief’s bag and headed for the cabin without a word. It was so unlike him, it took her a moment to follow.
“Hey,” she said, catching up as he reached for the door.
His cheeks colored, his awkwardness in full swing. Just like the first time she’d met him, on the rooftop in the Khaznot Quay. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the Key earlier. I’m used to looking out for myself. I—” He paused, clearing his throat. “I don’t really know how to be a friend.”
Marrill grabbed his hand. She remembered the secret the rumor vines had whispered to her in the Gibbering Grove—that he’d never had a friend before.
“Fin,” she told him, “you’re a great friend. In fact, you’re my best friend.”
His eyes widened; his grin practically wrapped around his head. But she didn’t wait for him to say anything. She already knew how he felt. “Other than my mom and Karny, obviously,” she added with a smirk.
“Obviously.” He laughed. And with that settled, together they charged into Ardent’s cabin.
“Whoa,” Fin said, craning his neck to look around. “Look at all this stuff!”
Whoa is right, Marrill thought as she stepped in after him. A big desk dominated the middle of the room, a narrow bed pressed against one wall, and a few loose chairs sat by a dining table opposite it. Every other inch of the cabin was stuffed with shelves and cabinets containing almost everything imaginable, and a whole lot of things she’d never imagined at all.
On a pile of pillows tucked in an alcove under a porthole window, Karny sprawled, fat orange belly up. He seemed utterly unconcerned that they’d just barely avoided a massive storm and was already purring by the time she picked him up. “So this is where you’ve been hiding,” she said as he affectionately bonked his head against her chin. A handful of pirats dashed from a tiny door in the wall and set about fluffing the pillows behind him.
“You have no idea how much jink this stuff would fetch at the Quay,” Fin said as he strolled through the room. Marrill wondered if he even realized his fingers were twiddling. “Whoa, a Brother-Be-Gone sibling force field? That would go for enough that Mrs. Parsnickl
e could buy every single six-and-under a whole wardrobe!”
Marrill moved to the bed and examined the giant shield hanging over it. It was shaped like a fanged mouth waiting to consume someone whole. “He sleeps under this?”
“Sure,” Fin told her. “It’s a nightmare shield. Pretty elaborate one, too. Ardent must sleep pretty soundly.”
Marrill shuddered. Having that thing over her bed would have given her nightmares. She turned to find Fin standing by Ardent’s desk, staring at something. Marrill sidled up behind him and craned her neck to look over his shoulder. “What did you find?”
Fin held one of Ardent’s cards, like the ones she’d seen him playing with before they reached the Grove, a drawing so detailed it looked like a frozen moment of life. The wizard on it, a man, wore a brilliant white robe. Scrawled across the bottom in a looping hand was an inscription:
To my dear friend, on the day before
we reach our destiny.
Without you, this could never be possible.
“Who’s that?” she asked. It wasn’t one of the ones she’d seen Ardent using.
Fin moved a nearby candle so that its light fell across the picture. “Don’t you recognize him?” he asked.
Marrill studied the strong features, the sweeping chin and eyes. At first she didn’t. Then her breath caught. The deep bronze tan on his cheeks and the hint of a smile on his lips almost disguised him. If she hadn’t just seen him minutes ago, she might never have recognized him at all.
“The Oracle,” she gasped. “This must have been made right before he drank Stream water. And if he gave it to Ardent…”
“Then Ardent must have been there!” Fin finished.
“Indeed,” Ardent said from the doorway. Marrill jumped, and Karny let out a protesting squeak. Fin stepped back, crouching just a little as if ready to spring.
“Did you know there’s someone else in here?” Ardent asked, pointing at Fin.
Marrill nodded, but didn’t take her eyes off the wizard. “He’s a friend,” she said. “So you really were there?”
Ardent let out a sigh. “Oh yes.” He made an absent motion, and two chairs skidded across the room, stopping just behind each of them. A third somersaulted off the side table and landed across the desk. Ardent slid into it.
“I suppose you should both have a seat,” he said.
Marrill sat slowly, exchanging glances with Fin. Karnelius curled into a ball on her lap, his paws absently kneading her leg.
Ardent reached for the card, and it floated from Fin’s hand into his. Marrill couldn’t tell whether it was sorrow or anger in his eyes as he looked at the image. Whatever the wizard felt, it must have been complicated.
“We were like brothers then,” he said. “There were eight of us, all great wizards, and among us there was little we could not master. At least once a season, we met on the Isle of Meres to exchange knowledge and pursue great experiments. But Serth and I were closest.”
His lips twitched. “We worked well together. He was naturally gifted, and I inclined to great study. So when Serth proposed his grand plan to become one with the Stream, I supported him.” He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you it went poorly?”
“Right,” Marrill announced, proud to remember what Leferia had told them. “He drank the water, it showed him the future, and that’s where the Meressian Prophecy comes from.”
“Well, not ‘showed him the future’ so much as ‘crammed the future into his skull all at once,’ ” Ardent said. He tugged on his beard in thought. “Imagine someone ripping the pages out of a library full of books, mixing them all together, then shoving them onto a single bookshelf. That’s about what happened to poor Serth’s brain.”
Marrill’s mind reeled and she shivered, thinking of all the libraries she’d visited back home. No way any single mind could contain all of that—not all at once. “No wonder he’s crazy.”
“Oh yes,” Ardent said. “With all that future swirled around in his brain, any time he does anything he has to first figure out what moment he’s in and what happens next. Just deciding what to have for breakfast means grabbing pages at random off that shelf and hoping one has ‘toast’ written on it. And if you spend all your time sorting those pages, there’s no time left to decide between toast and omelet.”
“That sounds horrible,” Marrill said.
Ardent nodded. “Quite so. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn we parted ways shortly after.” Ardent considered the image of Serth again. “Turns out ingesting Pirate Stream water is a terrible way to strengthen a friendship.”
Marrill looked at Fin, thinking of their earlier conversation. Even if they hadn’t known each other for long, he really was her closest friend. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose him so suddenly.
“For years,” Ardent continued, “Serth could do nothing but recount what he’d seen, while a group of devoted followers—the first Meressians, as they became known—wrote it all down. And then one day he disappeared.” With a sigh, Ardent set the card aside. “Only recently, I learned from an old friend that Serth had resurfaced, intent on fulfilling his own prophecy.”
His glance fell back to the stack of cards on his desk. Marrill thought back to their talk after the kraken battle and guessed which one held his attention. “That was Annalessa, wasn’t it?”
A ghost of a smile crossed Ardent’s face, but the corners of his lips strained with sadness. “Quite so.”
Fin looked between them quizzically. Marrill filled him in. “She was a friend who asked for his help and then disappeared.”
Ardent nodded. “Annalessa was the first to realize what was happening. She confirmed what I’d feared: Serth seeks the Bintheyr Map to Everywhere to find the Lost Sun of Dzannin, as the Meressian Prophecy foretold. He intends to destroy the Pirate Stream.”
His pronouncement was met with silence. Marrill sat stunned; Fin’s eyes widened. The conversation had turned deadly serious.
Marrill wove Karnelius’s tail through her fingers, wrestling with the news. “So he’s after the same Map we are.”
“Indeed,” Ardent confirmed. “I’d hoped to find it long before he could, but he seems to have caught up quite quickly.”
“And what exactly does he need the Map to find?” Fin asked.
“An excellent question,” Ardent said. He stood, clasping his hands behind his back, his familiar storytelling stance, and started to pace. “To understand the answer, you need to know a bit more about the history of the Stream. You see, the Stream is full of legends—so many, even I’ve barely scratched the surface of them. But only one legend survives from the time before the Pirate Stream.”
He drew a hand through the air, and a ribbon of silver trailed from his fingers, just like when he’d first explained the Stream to Marrill. “For as long as anyone living can remember, the River of Creation has flowed slow, broad, and deep. But once, it flowed fast and furious, constantly birthing new worlds as it went.”
With a flick of Ardent’s fingers, tiny pinpricks of light glowed to life around the silver image, reminding Marrill of dust in a sunbeam.
“It is said that in those days, a hundred thousand stars shone on a hundred thousand different creations.” He paused and pointed at one of the tiny lights. It suddenly pulsed red, swelling larger and larger. “But only one star shone on destruction.”
Marrill stared at the light as it swallowed more and more of its surroundings, obliterating everything it touched. “ ‘Star of destruction’ doesn’t sound good.”
“That’s something that I think we—and most variations of the legend—can agree on.” Ardent dropped his hand and the red light disappeared, taking the silver stream with it. “The Dzane, the First Men who shaped those early worlds, wielded enormous power. They locked the star away behind some sort of gate, so that it would never again touch the River of Creation or the Pirate Stream. Ever since, that star has been known as the Lost Sun of Dzannin.
“
But according to the Meressian Prophecy, that gate will open again, and Serth intends to make that happen. Of course, since there’s no mention of where, or what, the Gate might be—thus the ‘Lost’ part of the name—he needs the Map to Everywhere to find it.”
“The Key to open the Gate,” Fin groaned. “The Map to show the way.” He shoved his hands through his hair, tugging at it in frustration. “It’s what the Oracle—Serth—kept saying when I ran into him.”
“That is indeed the Prophecy,” Ardent confirmed.
Goose bumps pricked along Marrill’s skin. She pulled Karnelius closer for comfort. He let out a small mrrp. “You mean, if he opens the Gate, all of the Stream will just… go away?” she asked.
Ardent spread out his hands. “Perhaps. I cannot say for sure what such an event would look like; fortunately, we haven’t had an apocalypse on quite that scale before.”
“But what about the worlds the Stream only touches? They’d be okay… right?” Marrill thought about her mom and dad sitting at the kitchen table.
“It’s a safe bet every world we’ve been to, everywhere we’ve seen, would be destroyed, all its people lost. Ourselves as well, I expect.”
Marrill slumped in her chair, trying to take it all in. Suddenly, finding the Map wasn’t just about her being able to get home anymore. It was making sure there’d be a home to go back to. And hadn’t Serth already proven that destruction meant nothing to him? She thought about the Gibbering Grove and Leferia. As scary as it had been, as odd as the Council was, it was a place of wonderful magic. A place unique even by the standards of a river of pure magic. And Serth would have destroyed it all without a second thought.
“But it would kill him, too, right? If he opened the Gate?” she asked. Ardent nodded. “Then why doesn’t he just not do it? Wouldn’t that solve everything? He could continue not dying, and the Pirate Stream could continue not being destroyed?”
“I doubt he’s ever really considered it,” Ardent said.
Fin let out a snort. “Seriously? Why not?”