Page 9 of The Towers of Adrala - Book One, Part One: Saranoda

  ***

  They waited by the door for Sye to find his cloak while Magist fussed over Eris.

  “Really, I wish you would wear something more...” Magist's gestures dwindled off for a moment, “It would not hurt you to be ladylike on occasion, there will be dancing tonight.”

  Eris merely shrugged, not looking up from her book.

  “And Zook, if you are to have any girl ask you to dance you must not dress so dourly.  It would be nice if one did ask and you did not end up terrifying her.”

  Zook sighed and offered an arm, “Eris, darling?”

  “Yes dear,” Eris replied, standing and taking Zook’s arm.  Magist sighed, giving up.  Eris tucked her book away in Zook’s medicine bag.

  Pird was jealous.  If his hands were anywhere near Zook’s bag they’d soon need its contents.

  Sye came down the stairs, finishing buttoning down his dark blue suit.  Pird was about to make what he thought to be a very clever comment on Sye’s apparel when he caught a strange expression on his friend’s face.

  What, do Eris and Zook’s clothes clash or something? Pird thought, bemused.

  They went outside and Pird was once again struck by the absence of nightlife in the streets.  The masking noise gone, there was only the oddly loud rumble of Saranoda.  The five descended a short staircase nearby and piled into Magist's private gondola.  Pird and Eris found the driving poles in the long, thin vessel and used them to push it out to the waterway's currents.  It was unusual to see a lone barrel slowly drifting down the canal instead of there being boats of all sizes crammed together.  In a city renown for its canals, it was rare to actually see the water under the colorful ships and the patient shouts of their tenders.

  The sun had fallen behind the horizon and the twin moons, pale Serenade and amethyst Nocturne, shone down with all their brilliance, throwing the city into a pearly light.  The stars floated and bobbed on the water, disappearing as they brought the gondola under a low stone bridge.  Sye's quiet conversation with Zook died away, it was a tradition not to speak under bridges.  An old superstition that they indulged in for fun, dealing with demons and elementals of lore, but even Pird succumbed because of the harmony of warped, reverberating sounds of water twirling under their poles.

  As soon as they escaped the quiet twisting reflections a loud screech made them all jump, followed by a bang.  A blossom of red light appeared in the night sky, quickly fading away to black smoke.  Another waterway intersected them on their left, allowing them a clean view to one of the main canals.  An Eretian tradeship parted the artificial river's waters, a mammoth masterpiece of shipwright and engineering.  Its deck lit up with another firework, a purple flare this time, illuminating the dancing crew aboard.  A large, slanted building toward its back served as the cabins and bridge.  Sails were strung across its many masts, sometimes skimming over the side in their odd organization.  Pird knew that under the cargo holds were great spring-powered engines, if the wind was going the wrong way-

  “Pird!” Zook called from up front, “We're drifting!”

  Pird shook his head vigorously and pushed forward with his pole, righting their course.  I have been hanging around Eris for too long, Pird thought, First Saranoda, now this.  His mind seemed determined to stop and take in all of Eretia's splendor, the same splendor he had seen each and every minute of his life and, as far as he could tell, would continue seeing until they drew up a tomb boat for him.

  As the five floated north the quiet was slowly replaced by jubilant music and laughter.  Someone had replaced the glass of the lamps with tinted colors, spilling reds and purples across the canvas of the city’s white.  The number of people Pird saw in the streets and in the canals grew rapidly, as most of Eretia's nine million were out celebrating across the city's many squares.  The waterways rapidly filling up, the five found a place to tie Magist's boat on the outskirts and made their way through the crowd.  Pird felt slightly out of place in his every day attire amongst the extravagant robes and suits of the men and elegant flowing dresses of the women.  The white city was exploding in color.  People hung Eretian star and cloud banners from their windows and the same symbol was painted across their white stone walls.

  Won't last long when the cleaning fountains turn on in the morning, Pird thought, then caught himself from further exploring Eretia's water services in his head.  It was simply not like him, sitting back and picking things over.  The other three did their share of that for him.

  “My father has declared today a city holiday!” Sye yelled over the ring of shouts, music, and laughter, “He's calling it 'Yester Day!'”

  “Yester Day?” Pird shouted back, “As in the day before?”

  “It's a day for Eretian history, which of course always happened yesterday!”

  “So today is Yester Day?  Sye, your father is twisted!”

  Too bad the holiday isn’t because the good Mayor is a partier, Pird thought, He’s getting us all buttered up to tell us that we’re trading with bugs.

  Lectures on Flaar were amongst the few that captivated Pird.  Flaar was an insect lord, an ancient behemoth that commanded a vast horde of Flaarians in the Korlith desert, south of the Lermur Sea that Eretia floated on.  The Mayor had long tried to acquire trade with Flaar’s hive, but the difficulty laid more with human side of things.  Many regarded Flaar as a demon of sorts, which Pird knew wasn’t difficult to believe with the fearsome way the creature looked.  But as Magist always firmly taught, most chose to forget that Flaar’s hive was the only thing keeping the other insect lord, Threndre, in check.  Little was known about Threndre and his hive, as few survived any kind of encounter with it.

  Pird found a buffet and grabbed an armful of warm, seasoned buns.  He slipped through the dancing mass and quickly found Zook.  He was talking over the orchestra to someone whom Pird quickly recognized.

  “Hey Ladro,” said Pird, removing a large roll from his mouth, “How's the grin?”

  “Hi Pird,” said Zook, a rare smile disappearing.

  “'Ello my pickpocket!” Ladro replied in his enthusiastic manner, his wide and toothy smile painful to look at, “I'm told you had a whole 'toon of guards after ya.”

  Zook had once told Pird that Ladro had received too much of an uncommon painkiller in a hospital accident.  The medicine went straight to his head and effectively erased any ability of his to feel pain, gloom, or sadness to much degree.  Zook thought heavily of his friend's predicament and scowled at Pird when the thief said that a permanent smile wasn't such a bad thing.

  “Not quite a platoon,” Pird said modestly, “There was only three.”

  “Aye,” Ladro said, gesturing with his glass, “But only one of you.  I say you outdid yourself by three hundred percent.”

  “I had Sye handle that.”

  “Corruption in the government starts young,” laughed Ladro, “To our future criminal-housing Mayor, to Sye!”  Ladro and Zook raised their glasses, Pird raising his bread.  Ladro made his wine disappear with one deep tip of his head.  The grinning man's eyes widened as his gaze fell beyond Zook and Pird.

  “Would y’look at that,” said Ladro, “Saranoda celebrates too!”

  Pird followed the man's eyes to the tower, looking even larger in the night.  He then bolted through the crowd in search of Magist, Zook leaving his transfixed friend to follow.  Pird found that Eris had convinced their old teacher to dance with her and Sye, not far off, was talking to another familiar face.

  “Hi Marta,” said Pird, “How's Sarge doing?”

  The little brown haired and bright eyed woman turned from Sye, “Why speak of Ignorance, the Prince was just telling me how he saved you from a pack of guards!”

  “Three,” Sye corrected.

  “A pack all the same.  Old Sargie's out with the navy, they're touring the glaciers to the far north, y'know, they want to drag one all the way back here!  Ice for months!”

  Pird nodded and then went to Magist, whom Eris had released
.

  “Rainwall's coming,” Pird said to him.  Even though he hadn't raised his voice, the couple nearest to him gave shouts of joy and turned to Saranoda.  Throughout the crowd the dancers and the drinkers, one by one, turned to the tower.  Pird could tell a tourist by the few who looked around in bewilderment at the sudden halt in the party.  Even the orchestra put aside their instruments and the noise of the celebration died away.  To one not familiar with Eretia, it would be eerie to see so many people turn without much more than a carrying whisper in the same direction.

  Pird looked to Saranoda, the grand white rumbling falls visible even at this distance.  The descent of so much water looked deceivingly slow.  Cloaks of mists and threads of clouds circled the gargantuan tower, enhancing its dominating shape.  To the tower's right was what looked like a great, shimmering curtain, reflecting the pale light that filtered through Eretia's persistent clouds.  The giant curtain didn't look like it unfurled from the clouds, but rather like it fell from even higher, roiling the clouds it fell through.

  The crowd watched without a word, Saranoda's rumble the only thing heard.  The massive tower grew dark and bleary as the curtain passed in front of it.  Beneath the rumble there now was a gentle hiss.  Saranoda faded more and more as the shimmering cloak approached them.  The warm air cooled, feeling like it had grown lighter.  As the curtain neared, the wind picked up in a quiet gust.  Mist slipped over the crowd, tingling Pird's skin.  The hiss grew to a storm of heavy pattering.  Then, the curtain passed them.  The rainwall had come.

  Pird was instantly drenched under the deluge, the thick rain washing over him and obscuring his sight after less than a block.  His vision was limited to a small space in a cloud of hissing gray.  The rain was warm and pleasant, the swollen drops soon raising a shallow stream beneath his feet.

  The band started up again, more jubilant than before.  The dancing began with a renewed fervor, their world transformed by the Saranodian rain, the tower itself now a black outline, the falls more heard than seen.

  “Breathtaking, every time,” Magist said in quiet awe.  Visitors to Eretia were obvious by the way they stood, shocked at the sudden downpour. 

  Visit here long enough, Pird thought with a grin at their dumbfounded looks, and you get used to getting wet.

  “Dance with me!” Eris shouted over the rain and music, getting a hold on Pird's hand.  He gave one protest then let her swing him around in resignation.  He was too busy enjoying the rain.  The air was just warm, almost cool, and smelled clear and crisp.  Water rushed through his hair and over his face and body.  He never missed a chance to be outside when a rainwall passed.

  “How long until we get hypothermia?” Zook asked.

  “It's warm Zook,” said Pird, now released of Eris, “Give us a smile, you're going to make the rain cold and then we'll catch-”

  It happened so suddenly that it took a moment for anyone to realize anything had occurred.  All at once, the rain simply stopped.  The music cut off in surprise and the dancers slowly halted and looked around in confusion.  Pird, like everyone else, was searching for the retreating rainwall that had apparently overshot them.

  That was fast, thought Pird, squinting to see in the flickering light of the lamps.  He turned around several times, a full five minutes passing before a kernel of panic began to throb within him.  Where's the rainwall, it's fast but not that fast.  We should be able to see it, there's no reason why we can't-

  Whispers broke out around him and someone pointed.  Pird followed the shaking finger once again to Saranoda.

  No, he thought slowly in terror, cold writhing through his veins, That's...that's impossible.  It's the mists, you can't see right through the mists.  That has to be it, has to be!  Pird dashed off through the frozen crowd and scrambled up a fountain carved into a house's side.  His reeling mind did not notice the lack off water flowing from the fountain.  His ears strained for a noise, a noise that conquered everything but seemed just out of his reach to recognize.  He boosted off the fountain to a windowsill and climbed up on the rooftop.  There, above the mist that had fallen through the streets, was the undeniable sight illuminated by the moonlight.

  Pird felt dizzy, disoriented, like when one's mind tries to fill in the missing limbs of an amputee.  Seeing something so long, embracing it into reality, that when it's gone the mind tries to see it whole.  It was then Pird realized the nature of the sound he was trying to hear, the one that he strained so hard to catch.  It wasn't a sound, it was an absence of a sound.  The silence fell on him like the crash of a tsunami.  He looked up in horror at the distant tower Saranoda.

  Without sound there can be no rumble.  Without a rumble there can be no falls.  The might of Saranoda's grand fountains had been silenced. 

   

  End of the First Chapter

  The Awakening

   

  “And so everything begins.”

  “After everything ends.”

  -The Four under the Foundings

   

   

  Zook felt numb, the silence deafening in his ears.  It was eerie; the many people around him were frozen, listening hard for something that was no longer there.  He felt like he was teetering on a cliff, the fall below him endless into the terrifying unknown. 

  This cannot be happening, Zook thought, unable to tear his eyes away from Saranoda.

  Magist suddenly shook him, “I want you four to go back to my house.  Now.”

  “What?” Zook asked in a daze.

  “What's going on Magist?” Pird asked fearfully after he jumped down from his perch.

  “There will be much to discuss,” Magist said urgently, “But right now you four must go to the house.”

  “Why?” Sye asked.

  “Look around you, this city has become a living bomb.  All it needs is one scream to light the fuse.  In the face of the unknown there will be chaos.”

  “Magist,” Eris said distantly, “Saranoda...”

  “My poor children,” Magist said, reaching out to touch each of them, “Right now you cannot afford to be afraid.  Leave, I will catch up.  Hurry!”

  Unable to argue, the four left Magist.  Walking back to the house was like walking though a dream.  Everyone else was still, all looking up at Saranoda.  Their faces were either confused or terrified, marking them as tourist or citizen.  The fountains, the decorations on the houses and the streams carved into the walls spluttered with dying breaths, their dribbling a mockery of their former glory.

  Zook's legs moved, but his mind did not.  His ears strained for the rumble's return, his eyes for the city's spray of water.  It was like missing a step on the stairs, the feeling of falling coming late after the missing reassurance of ground.  When they reached Magist's house a sound pierced the silence, stilling them.  The noise was so soft, but in the terrible quiet Zook could have heard a feather floating down.

  “Are the falls back?” Pird asked, hope all too apparent in his voice.

  “No,” Sye said slowly, “But it is a rumble.”

  In the distance, they heard people screaming.  Zook felt a chill at the sound of so many's terror.  As a Healer, he had heard people scream before, but never in such numbers.

  “Magist was right,” said Eris quietly.

  “It doesn't sound right,” said Sye.

  “What do you mean?” Zook asked, taken aback by the strange remark, “Those people are terrified!  I'm terrified!”

  “I don't know, it just feels like something's wrong.”

  “The falls have stopped!” Zook shouted, familiar anger pleasantly driving out the numbing cold, “Of course something is wrong!”

  “Pird?” Sye asked, ignoring Zook.  Pird nodded and quickly scaled the nearest building.

  Monkey, Zook thought.  For some reason, he found his eyes drawn to the canal near them.  The still water seemed to swell for a moment before dipping back down.  It took Zook a second to realize that a slight wav
e had gone by.

  “What do you see?” Sye called up to Pird.

  “I...I don't know!” Pird called back.  He made motions like each of his hands were on a balance, “The houses are moving!”  He climbed back down, looking scared, “It's like a wave, they're going up and down in lines.  It's coming for us!”

  Pird was punctuated by the distant rumble growing louder.  They turned toward it, toward the direction of Saranoda.

  “What should we do?” Zook asked, surprised at how calm he sounded.  How detached he felt. 

  Is this real? Zook thought.

  “Nothing,” said Sye grimly, “If we go inside something could fall on us.  Get to the middle of the street, away from the buildings.”

  They obeyed and then they waited.  Zook's thoughts seemed to bounce around in his head, looking for something, anything, that they could do.  It tortured him to be doing nothing and grasp for calm at the same time.  Doing nothing while this 'wave' approached.

  The rumble grew louder and Zook's eyes were drawn to the wide building at the far end of the street, at the corner.  Suddenly, all of its windows blew out with a tinkling crash.  Cracks blossomed on the white stone and snaked down to the road.  The cracks widened and shot up the street to the four, slipping up walls of houses. 

  The street and the building with broken windows heaved.  The ground swelled beneath it, raising the building up higher than Zook was tall.  Its cracks widened further, some spraying splintered stone.  The swelling rolled forward toward the four with terrifying speed, the building dipping behind it.  Houses it passed rose and fell, their windows shattering like someone within was smashing them out.  The buildings groaned, the deceivingly slow pace of the wave broken when the columns of a house buckled and the entire building caved in.  It was then Zook tried to run away, as useless as it was, but it was already too late.  The wave rolled underneath him, the stone beneath their feet breaking into numberless facets.

  Zook stumbled to the ground, the road heaving underfoot too strange to stand on.  The ground slanted then fell, becoming flat once again.  The earthen wave rolled behind them, blowing out windows in its path.  It lifted another building at the streets other end, splitting the building in two with a gaping fissure, then disappeared from view.  The rumble gradually quieted until there was nothing but the odd shout in the distance.

  Zook held his hands out on either side of him, expecting the ground to move again.  The wave's sudden appearance and exit was fast, but it still made the calm seem out of place.  Minutes passed, it took the splintering crash of another house's foundations giving out and falling in on itself to make him talk.

  “What by low Ignorance was that?” Zook asked.  It was a while before anyone answered; they were too stunned to speak.  The dreamlike feel of everything was even stronger now.  Only in a dream could Saranoda’s falls choke into silence, could Eretia’s solid streets arch beneath their very feet.

  “An earthquake?” Pird asked.

  “We're not connected to any sort of land, Pird,” Sye answered, “We're a floating island, anchored to Saranoda.  The submarine crews need to be deployed under us; if any of our supports were damaged we could start breaking apart.”

  Another sound began to rise, beginning as a sweeping murmur.  Zook turned to see a multitude of people pour out from around the corner.  They were no longer individuals, but a mass that moved in the same direction.  From the sound of it, there were many more to come.

  “Magist's house,” said Sye, “Before we're run over.”

  They climbed the steps, being careful of the broken glass from the windows and the columns' casing.  The thick door, normally opening smoothly on fine bearings, now groaned.

  Zook took his steps slow, looking at the dark room.  The gas lamps on the walls hung askew, casting a pitiful light.  Glass was scattered across the tile, pools of water adding to the glimmering gloom.  The floor was split by a wide crack, one half higher than the other.  Wanting to deny what he was seeing, Zook walked into the dining room.  The chandelier had fallen, its twisted remains having broken through the long table.  The tapestries had come to rest on the flooded floor and the fireplace had gone out.  The moons' light fell through the thin broken windows onto the ruined room, making it look abandoned for years.  The only thing untouched was the painting of Saranoda, the pale wavering light of the water washing over it.

  This isn't my home, thought Zook, looking around him in twisted awe. 

  The four went upstairs, again mindful of the shards from the glass pipe that had once served as a handrail.  Magist's study was a lake of paper, the rigid mountains of parchment having collapsed into rolling hills.  His bookcases had fallen, spilling books everywhere.  Thankfully, Magist kept no decorations here so the room was dry.

  “The map,” said Eris in a hushed voice, as though they were in a tomb.  Zook's attention was turned to the stone replica.  The island part lay on the floor, shattered like a frail plate, but Saranoda still stood, unscathed by the quake.  Zook and Sye walked to Magist's glass wall, now shattered.  Zook looked below at the stream of people that were crammed shoulder to shoulder in the street.  They moved unanimously in one direction, their frightened voices not rising above whispers.  No one looked up at him.

  “Where are they all going?” Sye asked, “There's nothing but forest and sea outside of the city.”

  “They're just getting away from Saranoda,” Pird said quietly.

  “What, why?” asked Zook.

  “When I was up top and saw the buildings move, it was like a ripple.  A circle that grew across the city.  Saranoda-” Pird swallowed, “You could say that it was the drop.”

  “What in Judgment’s name is going on?” asked Sye.

  Zook looked over the slowly moving multitude, “I don't see Magist.”

  Eris joined him, “There's a lot of people, plus you know how he is.  Magist is probably at the very back, making sure no one is left behind.”

  “Look over there!” said Pird.  Magist's study had a view that stretched to the nearest main canal.  A tradeship had made emergency port at the canal's side, ropes and ramps tying it down.  In the distance they could see a mob trying to get on.  Zook heard Pird rummaging through a drawer in Magist's desk and the thief appeared beside him with a spyglass held up to his eye.

  “Would you look at that,” said Pird, using it to focus on the tradeship, “Old Roy is out there.”

  “Roy?” Zook asked.

  “Y'know, the baker?  He's shouting and turning red like he always does and he...good Idusces he just shoved someone into the canal!”

  “Hey!” came a shout from below.

  Zook looked down, “Ladro!”

  The grinning man stubbornly held his ground, but the crowd was gradually buffeting him with them, “You abandoned me back there, mate!”

  “Wha-?  But...I didn't mean...” Zook fumbled.

  “Just messin' with you,” Ladro called back up with a laugh, “All four of you ok?”

  “We are, have you seen Magist?”

  “Nah, if I had I would've stuck to him faster than glue.  Only codger around here who has any sense.”

  “An earthquake,” Sye said suddenly, “It still could have been just an earthquake, like you said Pird.  It started around Saranoda, right?  We're anchored there, a quake would have shook the tower then shook us and-”

  Whatever hopes of rational explanation Sye had were dashed when a soft blue light fell over them.

  Zook held up his hands to the glow.  It was as though the moons had abruptly become blue.  This train of thought led Zook's eyes to the sky.  The clouds around Saranoda glowed with the strange light.  One by one, the people below stopped and looked up, some of them pointing.  A frightened murmur bubbled up from below.  Zook couldn't help but stare himself.

  The blue strengthened, then the source came into view.  Light struck out from the dry veins and fountains of Saranoda, piercing the night.  It was like there
was a small blue sun descending within the tower, its rays finding every nook and cranny to escape.  As it lowered, the broken white city reflected the strange color.  Zook followed its slow fall, thought banished from his mind.  There was no sound of its descent, only a slight flicker of its light.  It was trancelike, the whispers from below silenced and the eyes of an entire city all gazing up.  Soon the light disappeared from view, vanishing underneath the distant buildings and the sole illumination belonged to the moons' once again.  Zook found himself imagining how the blue light would look under the dark Lermur Sea.

  “What in the world was that?” Pird asked.

  “Have you ever considered,” Sye began slowly, “That the Priests are involved with this?”

  “Impossible,” Zook immediately countered, “Those fools don't even 'believe' in Idusces, even though the deity shows up in Mirith every three years.”

  “Think about it Zook, they spend more time around the tower than anyone else.  Plus, Magist said he gave them some information they needed.  What if he accidentally gave them a piece that would play a part in...” Sye struggled to name what was happening, “In whatever's going on?”

  “A bunch of thick-skulled idiots in white robes wouldn't have a-” began Zook angrily when a thundering groan breathed across the city.  It sounded like a massive beast growling in pain, a creature distant and far beneath them.

  “What by Ignorance…?” Sye started when Pird pushed past and pointed.

  “Look!” he said fearfully.  Zook looked, then snatched the spyglass from Pird and focused on the distant Saranoda.  Near the tower's base there was an apartment building moving.  It was sinking and tilting away from them, toward the tower.  It was as though the ground beneath it was slowly being pulled down.  Zook swept the spyglass to the side and found that all the buildings around the tower were behaving the same way, bowing to Saranoda.

  What is this? Zook thought in confusion.

  It was then the rumble began.  Low, menacing, a massive cello winding up for its grim performance.  The very sound of it shook Zook to the bone; it felt like the sound was in him, inside his teeth, his flesh, his mind.  It was so low, barely audible, but there was no question of how large it was.

  “It's not over?” Eris asked fearfully.

  “Once wasn’t enough?” asked Sye in despair, “One shake that’s broken Eretia?  There has to be more?  The time, the money it will take to repair-”

  Whatever Sye was going to say, it was never heard.  The distant rumble exploded into an earthen roar.  Zook fumbled for the spyglass but found that he didn't need it.  The buildings that were sinking suddenly rose.

  Rose, and rose, and rose.

  The structures before those were lifted and then the buildings before them as the land seemed to come alive, arching its back in excruciating pain.  It swelled higher and higher, a mountain of earth and stone rising up before them.

  “Good gods,” Sye whispered. 

  A ripple had flitted across Eretia.  Now a tsunami was perched to rush them down.

  Because of the distance, it took Zook a moment to notice the mountain was moving.  Then he realized that it wasn't just moving, it was hurtling across the city at an impossible speed.  The buildings, so far away that the white seemed to mix together, churned on its curling surface.  The roar grew even louder, the cry of a twisting world's anger, but it still couldn't mask the screams from below.  Zook’s numbed astonishment only allowed him a moment's glance down, but a moment was all he needed.  Many were fleeing in terror from the sight, pushing each other down and trampling those unfortunate enough to fall, but even more simply stood there in disbelief.  He understood the hopeless reason why.

  Why flee?  They were on an island.

  There was nowhere to run.

  Something distant told him that he should try, to run, to hide.  Even with the earthen tidal wave growing ever higher and closer, Zook could not accept that this was actually happening.

  The wave was now close enough that it was no longer a curling white wave.  It was massive, the rumbling roar now heightened by a cataclysmic crashing.  It struck Zook cold to see what the cannonade came from.  Buildings were uprooted before the wave to tumble up the gray wall.  The buildings were crushed and ground into their neighbors, disintegrating into gravel.  What remained of the broken structures crested the wave and were flung high into the sky like massive toy blocks.  The crashing came from the impact of the houses, raining a deadly hail onto the city yet to be swept away.  Zook saw homes disappearing under other homes; rooftops and roads punched in by falling debris.  The wave's height was gigantic, making it look like they already stood in its shadow.

  Zook then realized someone was shaking him.

  “Move!” Sye shouted.  Zook assumed this wasn't Sye's first attempt to get his attention.

  “Zook, run!”

  “Why?” Zook, feeling out his own daze, “We can’t get away.”

  “The basement, Zook!” Sye yelled, “We need to try!”

  Zook didn't quite hear him, his eyes were only for the surge of stone that quickly neared.  He felt pain explode in his cheek and he stumbled.  It took him a moment to realize Sye had struck him.

  “Run!” Sye shouted.

  The next moments seemed to go by at a crawl, every step falling between hours.  Zook found himself fleeing down the hall and down the glass-strewn stairs, the same hall and stairs that had been part of their home as long as he could remember.  His home.  His only home.

  They ran through the ruined dining room and to the sitting room.  The basement door lay on the opposite wall.  They ran, but it already felt too slow to Zook.  Swimming against time.  They were halfway there when the crashing seemed to be over their heads.  The ceiling above the door disintegrated as what looked like a column fell through.  Eris screamed and they backed away from the rapidly growing pile of debris as the room above collapsed.  The cracks beneath their feet widened and the column sunk and then fell out of sight, disappearing into the chambers below.  There was another crash behind them, a great slab of stone smashing through a wall to roll in front of the door to the street.  A third crash sounded, but whatever fell landed in another part of the house.

  “What do we do?” Pird asked.  Zook didn't answer, looking frantically around him, trying to figure out a defense against the very island reaching up to smite them.

  Any moment, Zook thought, seeing smaller chunks of stone puncture the walls and ceiling, Any second, a rock could be flung from that wave.  My head could be in its path, or Sye's, or anyone's.  That would be a very odd way to go.

  “I don't want to die.”

  Zook didn't know who said it, or if he himself had said it, but these quiet words were what pulled him into the terrifying reality of it all.  The rumble, the roar, the thundering crashes, it was all too real.  It was no dream, no nightmare.  Standing here, terrified and helpless, they really were going to die.

  The roar grew to impossible new volumes.  The walls and floors shook with the tremendous noise.  Cracks lanced and jagged across the stone.  With an earth splitting heave and the shattering of the floor, the ground shifted.  An invisible hand forced Zook down as he felt what was supposed to be solid earth lift up under his chest.  The entire house slanted with a terrible groan.  Zook dug his fingers into the cracks to keep from sliding down the steepening floor.  A chair tumbled over his head, missing by centimeters, along with the broken frames of pictures and rubble.  Even though he could not see outside, he knew that they were already above the city, lifted by the great wave.

  Another large slab fell through the wall above him.  It struck the teetering boulder in front of the door, pushing it into the open air.  One boulder skimmed across the door and front wall, rending stone from the house.  They crashed into the wall below, their impact shattering the surface apart.

  Zook looked down and saw the slabs and broken wall plow their way into the houses below.  The cataclysm’s earth-
rending roar, in a way, made everything silent.  No other sound could match its volume, so no other sound was heard.  There was no sound when a house below peeled away from the road and crumbled.  There was no sound when a piece of wall broke away above and nicked the ground in front of Zook's fingers to flip narrowly over his head.  There was no sound as the dining table took care of what little wall was left and joined the falling debris that shot through the house.  There was nothing but the roar.

  The unseen weight pressing him into the ground grew stronger and the floor began to slant back up, evening out.  A sound finally broke its way through the roar, a great tearing crack.  The sagging ceiling, the broken walls, the furniture, the paintings, everything of Magist's home was simply torn away.  Zook blinked in the harsh moonlight that no longer filtered through the ruin, but glared down through the curling hurricane of broken buildings.  He looked up and saw the house fall apart into nameless debris.

  To Zook, his world had been taken along with the house.  What he now saw, what he was left with, was a tortured nightmare.  The inertia of the wave's arc stripped stone from the roads, water from the collapsed canals.  Gravity had no relevance here.  Rubble and broken buildings flew up, were smashed and churned into stone and mortar, then rained back down before the wave.  The land fell away in front of him, the city waiting to be crushed far below.  It was then that Zook found he was no longer lying on the floor.  The ground below him was descending, but he was not.  The force of the earth's arching was not discriminate between city and human.  He was going to join the rubble in its chaotic storm and plunge into the city below, to be picked up and thrown again, and again, and again.  Zook tried to reach toward the ground, but it was already out of his reach.  He had no control, tumbling head over heels, nothing to anchor him down.  He was gone.

  Zook suddenly slammed into the broken ground, letting out a gasp of pain and surprise.  Something had pushed him down.  The moonlight was blocked out for a moment and Zook turned his head to the sky, but there was nothing except the hail of debris above.  Zook felt himself getting lighter as his world began to descend.  The ground began to slope again, but now in the opposite direction.

  Zook tried to stand, but the feeling of falling and the stone under his feet found him landing hard on his hip.  He tumbled down the steeping slope, chunks of stone falling and crashing around him.  His hands scrabbled over what used to be a road for any purchase.  A chunk of debris landed quite neatly between his arms, peppering his face with flecks of stone, before bouncing back into infinity.  Zook stood again but fell again, the jagged rock biting into his skin.  He was rolling out of control when his foot found an outcropping.  Zook immediately pushed up and righted himself, clinging to the ground and standing on the outcropping. 

  A stony screech made him look up.  The largely intact remains of a building slid down the almost vertical slope, Zook right in its path.  Without a thought he threw himself to the side.  The crumbling structure passed him narrowly by, the outcropping disappearing within its turmoil of stone.

  Zook realized his mistake a moment later.  What used to be the ground was now a towering wall to his left, below him was open air.  If someone froze time and defied gravity by standing on the road, it would look like Zook was falling sideways. 

  Something grabbed his arm and brought him to a jerking stop.

  “Got you!” Eris shouted as she pulled Zook up onto a large outcropping.  He immediately saw Pird, watching above them for incoming rubble, but Sye was missing.

  “Where's Sye?” Zook shouted over the roar of everything falling around them.  His heart took a plunge as another dismembered building passed them by.

  “We don't-!”  began Eris.

  “He's up there!” Pird shouted.  Zook looked up and saw that Sye was indeed a ways above them.  Sye clung to the descending 'wall', his feet skittering back and forth on a narrow, crumbling ledge.  A gaping crack snaked in front of Sye and a plume of water shoved him into the sky.

  “Sye!” Eris screamed.  Pird scaled the wall webwork of cracks in the blink of an eye.  He got to another ledge, turned, then as Sye's flailing form was about to pass, he jumped.  Pird grabbed Sye by the ankles and fell with him.

  “Catch me!” Zook shouted.

  “What?” asked Eris.  Zook backed up to the outcropping's edge and did what he would have never done.  Could not have done.  To him, however, this was not him.  His life.  His world.

  This is all just nightmare, Zook thought.

  Zook didn't jump as Pird had done, he simply turned and leaned so far back he began to fall.  He saw Pird and Sye descend above him and he reached out to grab Pird’s ankles.  Zook didn't fall far, for Eris brought them all to a jarring stop by catching hold of Zook's legs.

  Zook's arms screamed at the pain of holding Pird and Sye's weight.  He knew he couldn't hang on long enough for Eris to pull them up.

  “Sye says to swing!” Pird shouted.

  There was no time for argument, so Zook looked down, what was really up, and yelled, “Swing, Eris!”

  She did, Zook's arms feeling as though they would rip from their sockets as they moved toward the wall, then back away again.  There was a whistle as an intact column slipped them by.  The strain on Zook abruptly lessened as Pird let go of Sye.

  “No!” Zook shouted.  Sye vainly tried to right himself in midair.  A flood of relief washed over Zook when Sye slammed on his side onto another outcropping.

  “Let go!” Pird yelled.

  Let go, How ironic it was worded.  Pird's life was, literally, in his hands.  This was not the first time Zook had felt this way.  He was a Healer after all, but this was the first time it was someone he knew.  Let go, meaning to open his hands, meaning to play the roulette and hope that the annoying little thief would find the outcropping as Sye had.  Meaning to take the chance that Pird might fall into the frothing maw of stone that waited below.  There were two reasons to Zook's next action.  His grip was slipping fast, he knew that if he didn't release Pird all three of them would die anyway. 

  Him or me, Zook thought.  It just wormed its way into his mind, as though it wasn't even his own thought.  But he embraced it.

  He let go.

  Pird fell away, for a moment looking like the stony hail around them.  He tucked his knees in, rolling in the air, and landed neatly on his feet beside Sye.  Zook curled and reached up to Eris to pull himself up.  The roar managed to pitch itself into a crescendo.  Zook looked down and saw that they were a moment's away from the wave's bottom, the 'wall' that carried them down descending at a breakneck speed.  Zook pulled Eris to him, holding fast onto her shoulder.  Beneath them, Sye did the same to Pird.

  Below, loose debris and rubble writhed, rolling in the dipping wake of the wave, great stone fish following a sailing mountain.  Zook bent his knees, expecting whatever kind of impact that waited for them.  Somewhere in the back of his mind Zook knew that the outcropping they stood on had not once moved horizontally, due to the nature of waves, but only vertically.  The sheer size of the rolling arch, however, created an illusion of forward movement that his reality clung to.  When the wall behind them suddenly curved back as ground beneath them and they seemed to slide forward, Zook fell over.  The crash of the falling city was all around him.  Broken houses, walls, chunks of roads and monuments pulverized the ground.  What he could see of the city disappeared as they dipped down into the wave's wake.

  Something slammed into Zook's chest as soon as he sat up.  He felt a stab of fear of being struck by a piece of rubble, but rubble didn't go “Oof!”  Eris caught Pird as he rolled by and Zook pushed Sye off of him.  The ground slanted again, but only slightly, as the wave began to move away and they came out of the dip.

  Zook tried to help Sye up but his friend was limp, his eyes unfocused and far away.  Before Zook could become afraid, Sye's eyes snapped back to life.

  “Eris!” Sye shouted, “Above us!”

  Eris didn't
question, she just looked.  A great, thick wooden beam landed next to them, standing at an angle.  Its velocity drove it deep into the ground, its side falling on the four.  Eris caught it in her hands and shoulder, its weight driving even her to her knees.

  “Help me!” she said through gritted teeth.  Her friends rushed to her, getting under the beam and adding their strength.

  Zook only had a second's warning.  He looked up and froze.  An almost completely unscathed house fell on them.  The first walls struck the beam the four held and buckled, the force of which would have shattered every bone below their shoulders if not for the broken pillar under the beam’s raised end.  The walls cracked in two, falling on either side like a book held with a stick under its spine.  The rest of the house pushed down, disintegrating.  The rest of the house, the walls, the broken floors, sagging stairs and ceiling, fell into so much dust and rubble.

  Zook saw none of this; he saw the house grow horrifyingly large and close.  There was a deafening crash that blocked out the descending roar, a force blasting through the beam and knocking him down.  The moons and stars disappeared and the world fell to the darkness.

   

  End of the Second Chapter

      

  Unlit

   

  Shadows are born when we block out the sun.  What do we become when we are sunless ourselves?

  -Excerpt from the Book of Idusces

   

   

  It was a long, cold time before Zook realized that he was awake.  His first clue was the scattered feeling of searing embers and coals nestled in his muscles and bones.  His first immediate thoughts were, in the detached way when assessing some sort of injury, that he was blind.

  That's what I get for walking through those fumes at the hospital, he thought, his medical mind removing any panic he might have had.  He sat up and a large rock rolled off his chest onto his lap.  Zook then became very still.  Slowly, he picked the rock up, hearing the heavy dust fall off his clothes.

  A grinding roar made him jump to his feet.  Something hard struck his head and he promptly fell back down to the rubble.  He didn't move for a moment, realizing that no roar had sounded.  He had imagined it, scaring himself.  Why such a sound would terrify him dawned on him in a flurry of images.  He reached out blindly and touched the cracked angled walls that had shielded them from the falling debris.  He wasn't blind, it was just completely dark.

  Zook sat, calming his rapidly beating heart.  There was no roar, the ground was still.  The wave had long passed.  With cold realization Zook frantically reached out into the black, whispering, “Eris?  Sye?  Pird?”  His hands stirred only cool stones and dust.  He then came to touch what he thought was a shoe.  Slowly, dreading what he would find, he moved his hand up to the ankle.  Relief rushed over him when he found the flesh was warm.  He gently shook it.

  “Wha-?” he heard Eris’ cordial voice mumble in the darkness.

  “Don't move,” said Zook, Healer taking over, “We are..?”

  “Under Eretia,” Eris replied, a tone of disbelief in her voice.

  “Do you feel any pain?  Coldness?  Dizziness?  Can you move your fingers and toes?”

  No answer.

  “Eris?”

  “My head's sore.”

  “Do you remember Sye's father's name?”

  “His last name is Darvini, you know I can never pronounce his first.”

  Zook felt a thin blanket of worry peel off him.

  “No!”

  Zook had to stop himself from jumping at the frightened shout, “Sye?”

  “What?  Zook?” came Sye's disoriented voice.  It always struck Zook how commanding Sye sounded, even though he knew it was unintentional.  “Why can't I see?”

  “A house fell on us,” Zook answered, gambling that his bluntness would do the most to comfort his friend.  Sye was never one for dancing around the issue.

  “What do you-?” Sye began, then abruptly fell silent.  Zook closed his eyes, even though he couldn't tell if they were really open, knowing what was going through Sye's head.  The roar.  The wave.

  Eretia.

  “Wait, then...” Sye began, almost silently, “That means...everything is...that wasn't a dream?”

  “A nightmare,” Eris said softly.

  Zook let out a long, hissing sigh, “It was real.”

  Zook violently pushed that thought away, retreating to the cold silence of wherever he was.  It was not a thought of his, he believed, so he had no reason to dwell on it.

  “Where's Pird?” Eris asked.  There was a stirring of rubble and a barely audible whimper.

  “Pird?”

  “The walls...” Pird's voice trembled just above a whisper, “They're...they're too close.  On top of me.”

  “You know the drill Pird,” said Zook, his habitual worry taking before anything else, “Pain, dizziness, numbness, anything?”  He hadn't asked Sye those questions, the strength in his voice was evidence enough.  That, and he knew Sye would know if he was hurt.  Eris always is more concerned about us than herself, Zook thought, and Pird just doesn’t pay any damned attention.

  “Cold...” came Pird's weak answer, “I can't move my leg...it's...oh there's not enough room.”

  “Forget about the walls,” Zook said forcibly, “Your leg-”

  “Too small!” Pird suddenly managed to yell.

  It took only that interruption to tap into Zook's ever-present frustration.  Hysterics were not going to get between him and his job, “Pird I need you to listen-”

  “Too small too small too small too small too small-!”

  Zook slipped, but as usual, he didn't care, “Pird this is not the time!”

  “Zook!”

  Sye's tone was enough to cut off the rapidly rising anger.  The choking knot of frustration in Zook's chest fell apart in the silence, but his kernel of irritability still stood ready to pop.

  “There's no point in attacking his fear,” said Sye.

  “Right.  Claustrophobia.” Zook replied bitterly, “Irrational.”

  “Too small!”

  There was more rustling, then Sye's worried voice came, “His leg's cut.  Bad.”

  Anger was instantly banished by Healer.  Zook reached to his side but his hands only grabbed dirt.  Zook froze in confusion, but only for a moment.  His ragged medicine bag was missing, the pouch that he always wore.  It had all his vials, bottles, herbs, bandages, everything.  Zook frantically groped around in the dark.  A sharp stone cut his hand.  His mind registered this but didn't acknowledge.  Then his fingers brushed against the familiar aging leather.  Zook's deft hand slipped into the bag and felt out all the glass vials.  Satisfied that some miracle had prevented their breaking, especially since Eris’ book was still amongst them, Zook returned the reassuring weight around one shoulder to the opposite hip.  Ladro always referred to it as Zook's 'blankie', being the grinning psychologist he was.  Zook, however, simply felt like he had left a limb at home whenever he managed to walk five steps out the door without it.  He didn't care what Ladro called it as long as it did its job.

  Hope you're all right, Zook thought, thinking of Ladro, but immediately crushed any thoughts that had to do with why hope was needed

  “Zook?” Sye asked.

  “Where is he?” Zook asked of the darkness.

  Eris’ voice spoke up to his right, “Over here.”

  Zook crawled toward her and she guided him to Pird.  His hands found the short thief in a fetal position, shaking all over.  There was indeed a nasty gash that ran from his ankle nearly to his knee.  His fingers felt that it was beginning to coagulate, blood running sluggishly from the deep cut.

  Zook worked blindly but quickly, expunging all impurities from the gash with a dip of a very potent liquid.  Pird would definitely itch later, and not from the cut.  No longer hindered by dirt and scabbing, the wound began to bleed anew.  His fast moving mind then went over his next options.  He coul
dn't risk stitching it blind, nor did he have the necessary clean cloth for a satisfactory bandage or enough disinfectant to make one.

  His third and most viable option he liked even less.  He transferred a little of two bottles in the darkness to a pair of dose sized vials.  Raised carvings in the glasses side told him what they were, Zook sending out a silent thanks to whoever spent the extra silver taps at the hospital for the fancy engraving.  The first vial he filled to the brim with a mixture that would aggravate Pird's marrow and hasten his renewal of blood.  The second vial he only placed a few drops of a liquid he knew to be highly viscous and clear.

  “Get him to drink these,” Zook said to Eris.  Zook checked the rest of Pird out of habit, then retired against the broken wall of their prison.

  “Did you wrap his leg?” Sye asked.

  Zook shook his head, but remembered that Sye couldn't see, “No, there's no hope of finding anything clean in this hole.”

  “What if he bleeds out?”

  “I've handled that.”

  “What, with one of your blood potions?  It won't matter if it all goes out of his leg!”

  Zook carefully replaced his bottles in the darkness.  If it was anyone else besides Sye, they would have received an earful for that challenge on his practice.  Instead, annoyance came heavy on his reply, “No, in about ten minutes the only thing left of your worry will be a nice, clean scar.”

  Sye was quiet again, but soon Eris spoke up, “I thought you only used Fellasceince when it can be best controlled?”

  “That's with bones, if you're not careful the broken pieces will fuse together at whatever angle they happen to be at.  A few drops for a gash won't hurt, as long as it’s clean.  I'm sure he won't mind the resulting scar.”

  “Mm,” Sye sounded in agreement, “You're right, it'll be his trophy.”

  “He stopped trembling,” Eris said, sounding worried again.

  “Prosangui wasn't all that was in the fist vial,” Zook replied, “I gave him a few drops of sleep.  Hard to think with all the screaming.”

  “Zook!” Eris said sharply.

  “Naturally, his breathing has slowed with his sleep, doing us all a favor more than the absence of his misused wit.”

  “What do you mean?” Sye asked slowly.

  “How much air do you think we've trapped down here with us?” Zook asked.  The resulting silence was all the answer he needed.

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Eris asked in a small voice.

  Zook's answer was short, “We dig.”

  But Sye's response was even shorter, “No.”

  Zook blinked at the black in surprise, “Well, your highness, unless you've been sitting in front of a tunnel this whole time, I'm not really sure what your plan is.”

  “I hope I'm not the only one who saw an entire house fall on us,” said Sye, imitating Zook's sarcastic tone, “I can't even tell if my eyes are open or closed, you want to just scratch at the ceiling and hope the whole thing doesn't collapse on us?”

  “Again,” Zook said, gritting his teeth, “It's better than hoping that it'll just open up on its own.”

  “I propose to wait.”

  “Wait?” Zook gave a cold laugh, “Wait until we feel faint and everything seems hilarious and then we're suddenly before Idusces to be Judged?  I never did ask you if you feel any unpleasant lumps around your skull.”

  “I'm fine,” Sye said patiently, “And you can quit worrying about the air.  It's cold in here.”

  “I'm sorry if you're missing the sun,” said Zook, growing angrier by the second.

  “That's not what I mean.  A small space like this should take no time in warming up with us four in it.  Trust me, the little rooms they use for committees are cold until you shut the door.  We're not airtight.”

  “That's just one of a dozen reasons we shouldn't wait!”

  “The rest of which,” Sye countered calmly, “Won't be hurt by a little patience.”

  “And what exactly are we waiting for?” Zook challenged.

  “Anything other than your avalanche.  A rescue party, maybe.”

  Zook opened his mouth, ready to triple his volume, when he realized what words were about to leap nakedly forth.  His own unsaid answer effectively killed his anger.

  There's no one left!

  Again that feeling of unreality, those words he simply could not bring himself to say.  He took it that Sye found the sudden quiet for resignation, his friend saying no more.  A long silence followed, the time marked neither by the sun nor Zook's blank thoughts.  Zook sometimes couldn’t discern if he was thinking about nothing or simply not thinking.  Either way, he wasn’t about to think about what happened.  Or what was to come.

  “Eris?” Zook asked what easily could've been the inside of his eyelids.  When her pleasant, clear voice didn't answer, he immediately forgot his question, his hands finding her lying down.  Her pace of breath was all he needed to know that she had fallen asleep.  Zook propped her head up against his leg.  At least one part of her won't wake up sore, he thought.  Eris didn't stir, but that wasn't surprising.  She only woke up of her own accord.

  Zook idly stroked the dirt from Eris’ hair as his thoughts turned a little more constructed.  I should at least feel around and see what's holding the ceiling up.  We're going to have to dig in the end, Sye will see soon enough.  No one could have... Zook shook his head, interrupting the thought.  There was that support beam Eris caught...and that whole house...we have to find...a way...ways...we have to...dig...

  “Argh!”

  From the way his head jerked off his chest and the sluggish chaos of his thoughts, Zook realized that he had been asleep.  He heard a ragged breathing and then was startled by Pird's voice.

  “Who shut my bloody windows?”

  Zook was immediately bewildered.  He had given the thief enough Lentus to knock him out for a day, give or take a few hours due to Pird's unusually high metabolism.  This was further supported by the ache Zook found in his back, the hunger that twisted in his stomach, and the chill that had sunk into his flesh.

  A whole day?  Zook thought with despair, That can't be right, the Fellasceince must have burned the drought faster then I thought. 

  Reassured by the sound explanation, Zook asked, “Pird?”

  “Wha-?” Pird began, surprised, “What're you doing in my room?”

  “This isn't your room.”

  There was a long pause.

  “The quake?” Pird asked in a small voice.

  “It happened.”

  Another pause.

  “Zook...how big is this place?”

  “Pird-” Zook began.

  “Be precise,” Pird said in a strange voice, “How big.”

  Zook thought for a second before catching on.  He answered as truthfully as possible, “Thirty by thirty, a nice cozy hole in the ground.”

  “All right then,” said Pird, pleased, “Well, I'm gonna nod off again.  Hope you don't need me for anything.”

  “As much as I need a beard.”

  Soon, as he was unhindered by drugs this time, Pird began to snore.  The next amount of time went by in an odd manner, for Zook had no idea if that was seconds, minutes, hours, or more.  The cold, the weight of Eris’ head, his hunger and thirst, all seemed to fade in and out of perception.  Sometimes every feeling of cold and misery was etched in excruciating detail.  Sometimes they were a haze on the edge of his idle mind.  He must have fallen asleep once or more, as the absolute darkness seemed to stir with the unseen colors of Zook's mind.  The shadows seemed to have thickness and weight.  Zook had no idea how long this went on, time having no relevance in their hole, but if someone asked him Zook would answer, “Somewhere around forever.”

  “Anyone awake?”

  Zook again found that he was unconscious, jerking awake at the sound of Sye's voice.

  “I am now,” Zook groaned, feeling every one of his joints crack as he sat up.  His stomach twisted in
protest, hunger filling him with a thin weakness.  Sand seemed to line his mouth and his tongue felt like a lump of ground meat dropped several times.

  “Thirsty?” Sye asked.

  “Yes,” Zook replied, surprised at the rasp he heard in his own voice.

  “There's a puddle to your left.  Clean as far as I can tell.”

  Zook found it and drank, reveling in the cool water as it ran across his parched mouth and throat.  It felt so good it hurt, making him splutter.  He then wiped his mouth and said, “We're going to have to dig soon.”

  “Zook...”

  “I'm done waiting,” Zook pressed, “It won't be too long before we're too weak to even stand.  We need to dig.”

  “Give it a little more time,” said Sye, “Please.”

  Zook filled his lungs, set to berate his friend, then let his breath out in a whistling sigh.  There simply wasn’t the energy.  He and Sye had already shook out the issue of digging out, Zook didn't feel like pursuing in his hungry weariness.  Now fully awake and having nothing better to do, Zook recounted what happened, thinking in the detached way he had as a Healer so he wouldn't automatically shut it out.  As he played the disaster over and over in his head, an oddity in the terrifying memory kept on coming into focus.

  “Sye?”

  “I'm awake.”

  “How did you know that beam was going to fall.  That it would save us from the house?”

  It was a little while before Sye answered, “I'm not sure how to describe it.  It was like it had happened before and I was remembering it as it occurred.  I was seeing it as it happened, knowing it before it was.”

  “That doesn't make any sense.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “In any case, you saved all of our lives.”

  Surprised silence was his reply, “You should really thank Eris.  If I had tried to catch that thing I would've been crushed.  Remind me to put Pird on my will, he jumped clear off the wave to catch me.  Then you caught him and Eris caught you.  Looks like the damsel was the only one not in distress.”

  Zook nodded, again forgetting his invisibility, “If you hadn't 'seen' the beam, she'd be in a tight spot too.”

  Sye whistled, “We make quite a team, eh?  Lucky that we were all together.”

  Zook couldn’t help but chuckle.  After a moment Sye asked, “Zook?”

  “Yes?”

  Sye didn’t reply right away, Zook sensing hesitation.

  “That, I don’t know, ‘knowing?  I can’t place it but I’ve had a similar feeling while we’ve been stuck down here.  It’s like I know to wait, or something is telling me-”

  A metallic, ear-splitting screech interrupted their conversation.  This time Zook did jump, smacking his head on the low ceiling.  A grinding groan rumbled through their little hole, causing dust to sift down from the rubble.

  “Another wave!” Sye said fearfully.

  “Whuzzat?” Pird asked, suddenly awake.  Eris mumbled something unintelligible.

  “The quake's happening again!”

  Zook didn't have time to even contemplate panicking.  There was a loud, but short, crunching noise and the ground shifted beneath them.  It was a curious feeling, getting heavier then lighter, meaning that they had been risen slightly up and down.  As though a great weight had suddenly let go.  Quiet reigned again.

  “What was that?” asked Eris.

  Zook ran his hands over the ceiling, checking if it had shifted at all.  It didn't.  “I have no idea.”

  “I'm just glad it wasn't another...”  Sye's voice trailed off.

  Zook let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, feeling every tendon slowly unknot in relief.  All it had taken was a rumble to make him feel poised on the brink of death.

  What could that have been if it wasn’t another quake? Zook wondered.  Zook felt like he should raise the topic of escaping again, or at least search around to make sure nothing had shifted, but the thought was sluggish...far away...

  “Zook?”

  For the third time that he was aware of, Zook found himself torn from the strange, murky clouds that passed for dreams.  An edge of panic was the first thing he was truly conscious of.  Hunger had bit deep into his strength and he felt thirsty again.  How long have I been asleep?

  Then he remembered his name had been called, “Eris?”

  “You awake?”

  Zook couldn’t help but smile, “No I'm talking in my sleep.  What’s on your mind?”

  It was a moment before Eris answered, “Do you think Magist made it?”

  Zook felt a twinge of cold that had nothing to do with the chill in the stone.  He didn't answer her.  He couldn't.  He didn't have to.

  “Do you think Sye's father made it?” Eris asked, her voice beginning to shake.

  Silence.  Nothing he thought of he could possibly say.

  Eris’ next question was spoken in a frightened whisper, “Did anyone make it?”

  Thud.

  “What was that?” Zook asked, startled.

  Eris didn't answer, they both listened intently for another sound.  They waited in the silence for a long moment.

  What an edge we're on, Zook thought with disappointment, leaning back.  He sighed, “Something must have fallen or collapsed up-”

  Thump thud.

  “Wake Sye and Pird,” Zook said quickly, straining his ears.

  Thump thump thud.

  “What's that noise?” Sye asked sleepily.

  “Just listen!” Zook hissed, heart thumping in his throat.

  Thump.

  Quiet.

  A sound.  Soft, rustling, faint through the stone.  It pitched up and down.  Zook stood and pressed his ear against the ceiling.  He held his breath.

  “...just try...”

  “Someone's up there!” Zook, joy exploding through his mind.  It was like lighting a match inside a powder keg.  All four of them began bellowing hysterically at once.  Between the 'Help’s and 'We're down here!', Zook felt an ecstatic trill of hope.  Dust sifted down as rocks were removed.  Then a shaft of light pierced the darkness.  Zook's blinded eyes were relieved when an Eretian guard, sporting a dented helmet and a dusty mustache, stuck his head through the hole.

  “Anyone hurt down there?”

  “Just get us out of here!” Pird yelled back, the small room's size now illuminated.

  “Sit tight, we'll get these rocks out of the way.”  The man's head disappeared back up.  Zook closed his eyes.  He had thought it unlikely, no, impossible that someone would happen to stumble across them. 

  We’re not alone, Zook thought, Oh thank Dilligence we’re not alone.

  “It's a wonder you didn't try to get out yourselves,” came a guard's voice above them, “Lucky too, this whole thing would've fallen in on you four.”

  “Don't!” Zook said quickly, holding up a hand, “Not a word Sye.”

  Sye almost hid his grin.

  The pair of guards removed the rest of the fallen rubble and then pulled the four from their prison.  The men didn't warn them, didn't give a word to soften the terrible blow.  It had been dancing on Zook's mind during the forever of the darkness, but his denial had given him a blind hope.  They stood in the full glare of the darkest horror without a thread of a lifeline to anchor them.

  For one, single, glorious moment, Zook saw the full splendor of Eretia as Eretia.  The ocean of proud white buildings, the storm of so much water being pushed into the air by numberless fountains.  The electric current of the great masses of people, their unchallenged happiness, their heedless laughter.  A city where every day was truly a new day, without strings of yesterday, where ideas flourished and dreams were coin of trade.

  A terrible conclusion found its way into Zook's mind.  This is not Eretia, this was Eretia.  The illusion faded, no matter how desperately he clung to it.  In its place came stark, cold reality.  Zook was distantly aware that he had fallen to his knees, his mind flayed open by the sight of so much des
truction.

  Eretia was simply gone.

   

  End of the Third Chapter

  Recollections

   

  “This will be forever burned into their minds.”

  “Our greatest weapon will be their revenge.”

  -The Four under the Foundings

   

   

  To Sye it was like he had crawled out into a cruel new world.  A world where the sky was a cold gray instead of the warm, cloud laden blue.  Jagged lightning lit the distant sea under the horizon, the thunder a thrumming rumble.  The warm mild air had been replaced by a chill that bit deep into the flesh.  Icy wind howled over the scarred landscape, curling the distant columns of smoke that slowly rose up like dozens of dark kites.  Where there once was a city, there were now only ruins from a forgotten people long past.  Broken walls that could still stand were far and few in between.  Everything else was swallowed in a cold expanse of gray, a stony snow fallen from once proud structures.  Where buildings had stood, now only rubble and dust prevailed.

  The crash of waves caught Sye's ears and he tore his eyes away from the incomprehensible emptiness to find that the sea opened up little more than a dozen meters away.  At first, he was confused, the nearest coastline from Magist's house, or what it used to be, was for kilometers.  Sye didn't think the quake had moved them that far when he saw the island supports thrusting out of the black water.  They were great, rib-like structures, their ends broken and twisted.  Eretia was not a true island, it was a mass of land anchored to Saranoda and held up by an elaborate, flexible complex of support beams that ran underneath the island.  They were designed to withstand the swellings of typhoons and terrible storms.  They were not designed to be folded nearly in two.

  That's what that noise was, Sye thought, distantly feeling horror through the numbness.  He could almost hear that ear-splitting screech that had woke them down in the darkness of the hole.  It was a piece of Eretia breaking off.  We're falling apart.

  Sye was unaware of how sore he was, how cold.  It was a twisted dream, the sight of everything he knew reduced to a gray desert of rubble.  It was Zook who drove Sye back into harsh reality.  It was his friend’s anger that tore his detached shelter from him and brought the weight of Eretia's death down with all its terrible force.

  “Who did this!” Zook shouted at the nearest soldier.  The man took a step back in surprise from the sudden flash of fury.

  Who?  Sye thought, What did this?  How?  Is this real, could this possibly have happened?

  Why is Eretia gone?

  Whatever did we do to deserve this?

  “Answer me!” Zook roared, grabbing the front of the soldier's tunic and pulling him so close that their noses touched, “You've been up here!  Searching!  Someone must have said something!  Anything!”

  Another soldier tried to break the grapple but Zook violently shoved him away.

  “What happened to my city!”

  “Zook!”

  Zook froze at the harshness in Sye's voice.  He seemed to contemplate whether to ignore Sye for a moment, but a moment was all it took to interrupt the swing of his anger.  He roughly let the soldier go. 

  “Syrus Darvini?” one soldier asked.

  “Yes?” Sye answered automatically.

  “Oh, what a boon for morale,” the soldier said, looking relieved, “If the Mayor's happy it will be like a sun through this dark storm.”

  “My father?” Sye asked, standing still, “He's..?”

  The guard laughed, “He can hardly be dead if he can be put into a good mood!  He's a hardy one, all right, said your name only once.  All determined smiles and encouragement, but...he's grieving.  His eyes, y'know, he puts on a show but-” The guard stopped in mid sentence, flushing slightly, “Well, you don't need me telling you, of all people…”

  Sye didn't answer; he was too busy trying not to shake under the rush of hot and cold.  His father.  Alive.  It was a question that had danced on the edge of his thoughts every moment down in the shadows.  Sye had refused to contemplate it.  He did not want to hear the answers that would have come from the darkness.

  “Can we leave?” Pird asked nervously, looking to the hole as though something might reach out and drag him back in.

  Sye wanted to disagree, to stay here at this strange anchor in a sea of unfamiliar.  He did not want to see any more of this island.  It wasn't his.  Against his better opinion, he remained silent and the guards led them away.

  Walking across the ruins was excruciating to Sye, feeling the once solid stone shift underfoot.  It was like treading on someone's half buried grave.  The gray, ruined plain rolled in deceivingly gentle rolling hills, great dunes in a white desert.  The wind blew dust into their eyes and cracked their lips, seeming to lash out with its own malice.

  The guards did not say where they were going, nor did Sye ask.  They probably would give the place a name, a name that would directly link Eretia with this corpse.  Their heading was aimed toward the closest pillar of smoke, one that was much larger than the rest.  As much as he tried to resist, Saranoda attracted Sye’s gaze.  The tower, stripped of its falls and swirling mists, stood bare over the wasteland.  It seemed to brood, looking to Sye like a great sword pinning a body to a battlefield.

  Sye shook this image from his mind and quickened his pace.  He tried to focus on the broken rubble before him, but a lifetime on Eretia betrayed him.  To an Eretian, Saranoda was better than any compass.  There was a game they played as children, one had to go somewhere in the city and sketch how far away the tower was and the angle of its arms.  The others raced to find the spot the first was standing when he or she drew it.  To a native, orienting oneself on the island was literally child's play.

  Dread slowly festered within Sye as he realized their direction.  The guards seemed to have come this way before, as they knitted a meandering path around unstable parts of the broken road.  They walked on and Sye became sure of the destination.  A hill was crested, Saranoda at an angle he knew all too well, and they came upon the most intact structure they had seen so far.

  Even in ruin the building had a ghost of grandeur.  The outer walls were unevenly broken, but still stood nearly to the third floor.  Only the second floor had scraps still clinging to the walls; the higher stories, the arching ceilings and proud cupolas had been stripped away.  The absence of a roof and gaping holes in the side let them see what was left of the ground level.  The shining floor of the ballroom had shattered, the sweeping stairs collapsed.  The many other rooms were crushed under debris, unrecognizable in death.

  It was the carcass of a grand beast not quite picked clean, the thick pillars rising up like broken ribs.  To Adrala, it had been Eretia's capital.  To Eretia, it had been the Mayor's mansion.  To Sye, it was home.

  As much as the scene brought despair to him, what lay within brought Sye even more hope.

  People.

  Survivors.

  Makeshift tents of dirtied cloth were anchored all over the ruin like sagging skin.  The column of smoke they had seen rose from a roaring bonfire a ways away from the tents.  Sye wondered where they had gotten the wood, as most of Eretia was of stone and the forests weren't for kilometers, when a group walked past with a gutted gondola held between them.

  “Doesn't look like much,” one guard said, “But it's more than we had a right to hope for after the first day.  Even then…we’re not hardy Bakaar miners.  These are writer and economists, people who think for a living.”  The guard gave a cold laugh, the humor of it all lost on Sye, “Bless Dilligence, I’m just a poet.  Signing up in the Eretian guard was for the bigger apartment.”

  “How many?” Zook asked quietly.

  No, Sye pleaded, Don’t ask that.  Please.

  “Eh?” said the other guard.

  “How...” Zook began, his voice shaking.  His fists were clenched so tight that his knuckles went white.  He wasn't looking at the two men,
but at the people below.

  “How many of us?” Zook asked coldly.

  The guards looked at each other, then one began to answer, “One step at a time-”

  “How many of us are left?” Zook asked once more with a dangerous tone in his voice.

  Now they looked wary, as they thought Zook might attack a second time.  Sye wanted to tell Zook off again, make him be quiet and silence the question.  The guards' reluctance was enough to tell him that he did not want to know the answer.  Sye only had to look around for a wisp of what lay in store.

  The answer, however, needed to be known.  These were his father's people, Sye needed to know all he could.  One of the guards caught Sye's eye.  After a long hesitation, Sye slowly nodded.

  “There's four thousand here,” the guard said quietly, “Another four thousand where the Great Hospital used to be and three more at the amphitheater.  There are eleven thousand of us, less than half of that are still standing.”

  Sye didn't hear Zook's reply, if there was a reply.  The chill felt like it had reached his heart, ice rushing through his veins.  It wasn't the eleven thousand that made it that echoed through his horrified mind.

  It was the millions that did not.

  Sye slowly sat down and closed his eyes.  Cold tears ran down his cheeks.  How could one imagine such a number?  Millions of names, faces, families, friends, futures, secrets, laughs, and sorrows.  Erased in one terrible night like they didn't exist.  Like they didn't deserve to exist.  Trying to envision so many was like trying to imagine the distance between stars.  It was simply too much.

  “How is this possible?” Sye whispered.  The guard's reply was a sweeping gesture, taking in the blanket of devastation around them.

  “That's the million cut question, isn't it?” Zook said, seemingly to no one.

  The guards led the four down into the dip in rubble the enormous mansion had crumbled in.  As soon as they came near at least thirty men and women rushed from the teeming crowd to surround them.  The desperation in their once collected voices was a blade through Sye's heart.

  “More survivors?”

  “Kolin, are you there?”

  “Rita?”

  “Say something Kolin!”

  “My wife, did you see her?  Her name's Kina and she's got-”

  “Kolin, please!  Anything!”

  “-about my height, blue eyes-”

  “Kolin, my son!”

  A woman threw herself onto the broken stone of Eretia’s tomb, grief stealing her will from her. Pained moans and sobs rose into the air.  For every one who fell apart under their own agony, there were two more who just returned back to their work.  People who had come to see them out of habit, not hope.  People who were defeated.  Sye could not look at them, they left a trail of people overcome by loss and despair on the outer edge of the milling crowd.  Seeing the people who were farther in twisted the dagger.  Here the survivors didn't look up, didn't seem to see each other.  They seemed so fragile, staring intently ahead, as though they might break if they saw what lay around them.

  Sye wanted to shout at them, tell them to panic, to drop what they were doing and run screaming in circles.  Anything besides this careful, meticulous work.  It felt like they were just building sandcastles at the shore, ignoring the rising tide.

  “It goes away after a while,” one of the guards said, as if reading his mind, “You'd be surprised how panicked these people were just a few days ago.”

  “A few days-?” Zook began when the guard pulled aside a curtain tied between two tiers on the outer wall.

  “Magist!” Eris and Pird said together.

  Their mentor lay propped up in a makeshift cot, leg hanging in a sling.  He held a pen frozen above a piece of paper, his mouth slightly agape as he stared at them.

  “My...” he began in a whisper, “M-my gods, you...you are alive!”

  Pird and Eris rushed to either side and threw their arms around Magist.  Sye settled for holding his hand, feeling it shake under a lifting burden of grief.  Tears silently rolled down Magist's cheeks as he pulled his godchildren closer.

  “Losing Eretia I could bear, but losing you four I could not,” Magist gave a weak chuckle, “What a terrible thing for me to say, but I cannot deny it.”

  Sye wanted to say something, but the alternating bursts of relief and horror so far left him without words.  He then noticed that Zook hadn't come with them, but stood awkwardly to the side.  Zook gave Magist's broken leg a cursory look, gave a nod of approval, then left with the guards without a word.

  “I think he left his cheerfulness back in the hole,” Pird muttered.

  “Let him be,” said Magist, voice still a bit weak, “He wants to be angry, it makes it easier for him to get over things.  He just does not know the who or the what to be angry at, because there is no who or what.  Until he realizes this he will not let any other emotions distract him.”

  “Or until he finds something to blame,” said Sye.

  “That would be a sight,” said Pird, “Zook yelling up at Saranoda.”

  “What makes you say that?” Magist asked.

  “C'mon Magist, you know he does a glorified tantrum-”

  “No, not that,” Magist interrupted patiently, “That he will blame Saranoda.”

  Pird gave him a funny look, “Awful suspicious that the water shuts off right before the quake, then the wave starts up right around its base.”

  “Oh,” Magist said simply, “That makes sense.”

  “Haven't you thought about this?”

  “No, I mean yes,” Magist suddenly seem flustered, “Never mind, I am sorry if the island falling apart and sitting here, thinking that you four were dead, has been a bit distracting.”

  Pird immediately looked abashed, “I didn't mean-”

  “No,” Magist interrupted again, seeming abashed himself, “No that was wrong of me to say.”

  “Really, I-”

  “My child, sitting in a sling for three days does not give an excuse to-”

  “Three?” Sye asked, suddenly feeling very weak, “It's been...three days?”

  “Three, long, terrible lifetimes,” Magist shook his head, “But now you are here, alive and-” Magist paused, “You sound like you did not know.”

  Sye shook his head, “We were caught under falling rubble, buried up until an hour ago.  If it wasn't for Eris we would all have been crushed.”

  “We saved each other,” Eris said modestly.

  “Gods forgive me,” Magist whispered, covering his eyes.

  That sounded odd coming from Magist, so Sye asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I told them...” Magist hesitated, “I told them not to go that way, we had combed it for survivors twice before.  But one of the guards, Karl I think his name is, insisted that he had this feeling that they had missed something.  I never even thought of anyone getting caught beneath all of this.  If Karl hadn't insisted...”

  “You couldn't have known,” Eris said gently.

  Magist didn't' respond, hand still over his eyes.

  “Three days,” Sye said, sitting down on a piece of rubble.  If a guard hadn't gotten a feeling...

  “Didn't seem that long,” said Eris.

  “Felt like forever,” said Pird.

  “Then it's already too late,” said Sye, “For anyone out there without water or with an injury it's been too long.  The most we can hope for is that there are other encampments like this that we haven't come across yet.”

  The most we can hope for, Sye thought, Whoever would have thought how ominous that sounds?  That we would one day sit and hope that a couple thousand weren't crushed or torn apart.  Like thousands are just worth the flip of a coin.

  It was quiet for a moment, then Magist picked up on the source of the heavy silence, “There is nothing wrong with you if you do not feel like you are going to explode with grief.  The human mind can only think in hundreds, the rest we pack away to feel horrible about later. 
All great catastrophes draw the same amount of blood, some just longer than others, until our scars let us bleed no more.”

  The feeble cloth that was Magist's door was drawn aside and the two guards stepped in, Zook behind them.  They bore a blanket filled with bread and apples between them.  At the sight of food Sye nearly collapsed as a weakness swept over him.  Between the three and Zook's reluctant hand the bread disappeared in moments.

  “Sorry we couldn't take any more,” one of the guards said, “But we don't have much and we're not sure how long we're stuck here.  The fountain in the courtyard didn't crack, so there's still clean water that anyone's welcome to.”

  The guards made to leave but Sye grabbed one of them by the arm.  The man had an incredible intensity in his dark green eyes, striking Sye with a strange feeling of familiarity.  Sye swallowed his mouthful of apple then asked, “Are you Karl?”

  The soldier nodded, “Aye.”

  “Thank you,” Sye said with all the sincerity he could muster, “And not just for the food.”

  The guard nodded, “Anything for the Prince,” then he grinned, “But I have the oddest feeling that I'll be thanking you.”

  With that, they left.  Zook lingered for a moment, as though he wanted to say something.

  “I understand, Zook,” Magist said softly, “You need not say anything at all.  Go use the gift your mother gave you, go Heal.”

  Zook hesitated, then nodded and left.  After a while Sye turned to Magist and asked, “Where is my father?”

  “Away,” Magist replied, “To the amphitheater.  Apparently one of the storerooms survived, filled with medicine.  Unfortunately that is also where the Priests have decided to set up.”

  “Don't tell me...”

  “They are sitting on the medicine and do not plan on budging,” Magist shook his head, “Something about it 'belonging to Saranoda'.  Your father went to negotiate; we cannot force them.  If we did then violence would break out everywhere.”

  “I bet they know that too,” said Pird.

  “If all were to go well, the Mayor said he would be here before dusk,” Magist gestured at the deepening gray of the light outside, “So I have a hunch he will not be back until tomorrow morning.”

  It was then the question first rose in Sye's mind, a terrible question.  It curled up at the edge of his tongue, its fangs irremovable no matter how he might ask it.  The mention of the Priests brought back a memory on a different island, a different world.  Before the quake, before the wave, before everything, Magist had gotten a favor from the pompous fools.  A very important favor, as it was a field trip into their most 'sacred' grounds, the sole sanctum of Saranoda.

  For that favor, Magist had given them some kind of information.

  Hours later Eretia was destroyed.

  What did you tell them?  Sye wanted, needed to ask.  But he couldn't. He could not even think of letting that viper from his mouth.  Not after the weight of so much despair had fell from Magist as soon as they walked into this room.  Not after Magist had become like a second father to him, the only father for his three friends.

  So Sye held his tongue, suffocating the question with his own answer.  It doesn't matter what Magist told the Priests, Sye thought, they can’t do anything with the tower.  Saranoda might not be a god like the Priests believe, but it might as well be for how much we understand it.  The towers of Adrala are not for human hands.

  Sye tried to stand, but his legs felt like they were filled with lead, dragging him back down to sit.

  “You have not eaten in days,” Magist said, “Do not worry, you will be surprised at how fast your strength will return.  If it were not for my broken leg I would be out there lugging bits of boats.”

  Sye stilled his shaking hands, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I would not be the first to ask, but sitting seems to be the best-”

  “It's all gone Magist!” Sye shouted.  Sye startled himself with his own raised voice, not meaning to be so loud, “Everything is just...gone.”

  Eris made to say something but Magist held up a hand, watching Sye patiently.

  Sye's eyes fell to the broken stone, “The worst thing is that it's just like you said.  There's no 'who' or 'what' or anything.  It just happened.  An entire city can just up and disappear, and we're not even the first.  The only records of the Second City are all different ways of saying 'Dolwrath, humanity's second testament of civilization, the grandest of cities, disappeared in a plume of fire.'  That was centuries ago, Magist, and we still don't know what happened!  What will we do, move to Mirith?  Lose Eretia in Mirith’s shadow?  Then, hundreds of years from now, will the Reigning Peaks swallow Mirith for no apparent reason and the people will think, 'Hey, didn't another city crumble?  What was it called, there's an old song...oh yes.  Eretia.'” Sye covered his face, “What can we do when Adrala can take whatever it wants?”

  Magist watched him sadly, then spoke, “Do not blame the world.  Earth and stone cannot harbor malice.  Remember, the gods never intervene, but neither do they let us wander our paths blindly.”

  “What reason could they have?” It was now Eris who spoke, her voice much quieter then Sye's, “What can the deaths of so many gain?”

  “Understanding what Idusces does is like understanding how vast the universe is,” said Magist gently.

  “What are we to this kind of universe?” asked Sye bitterly.

  Magist did not answer right away, watching Sye sadly.  “Pird,” Magist said softly, “Find a guard and gather something for you three to sleep on.  You have a long day ahead of you.  We all do.”

   

  End of the Fourth Chapter

  Not for Human Hands

   

  “History is not measured by any divisible sections of time.  It is measured by moments, and by moments will the last days of Adrala be remembered.”

  -Excerpt from the Book of Idusces

   

  “One,” said Zook, taking hold of the man's foot.

  “Two,” said Ladro, gripping the shoulders.

  “Three!” they shouted together as Zook yanked the leg straight.  There was a sickening grinding noise as the broken bones slid over each other and fell back into place.  The man shouted in agony, but quickly fell into harsh gasping.

  “You make this look too easy, mate,” said Ladro, helping Zook put together a splint, “Very lucky the best Doctor on the island got out of that nastiness in one piece.”

  “Healer,” corrected Zook.

  “Healer, Doctor, the only ones who the difference matters to is the bloody Board, but they're pricks aren't they all?”

  Zook told the wounded man the standard don't-do-anything-that-involves-standing speech and then he and Ladro left.

  “Another smile,” Ladro said with a chuckle, “I really should keep count.”

  “I'm just-”

  “Glad to see me alive,” Ladro finished for him, “Same goes for you, mate.  Though it shouldn't take the world ending to make you smile more'n twice a day.  You should try laughing sometime, endorphins y'know.”

  “Cut me some slack-” Zook began when a metallic screech made them cover their ears.

  “What by Judgment was that?” asked Ladro, permanent cheeriness wavering.

  Why does this sound familiar? thought Zook, looking around.  A low vibrating groan rose from the ground, sounding eerily like a great wounded whale.  It quickly rose in volume and then the sound struck Zook.

  “The supports!” Zook shouted over the noise.

  “What?' Ladro shouted back.

  “The supports under the island, holding it up!  This is how they sound right before they-”

  Zook was interrupted by another shriek cutting off the groan, followed by a grinding, crunching snap.  The ground shifted and they stumbled.  Zook wheeled back to keep his balance and his heel caught on something, tripping him.  He looked at what made him fall and saw that a sharp ridge, about ten centimeters high, had r
isen from the ground.  Zook followed with his eyes and saw that it snaked away beneath the encampment, dividing it quite neatly in half.  There was another groan and the ground on the other side of ridge fell a few centimeters.

  Half of the camp was sinking.

  “Dark Ignorance...” Ladro whispered.  His grin was unfailing, but humorless.

  “We're sinking!”

  Hearing this terrified shout was like an electric shock, Zook was back on his feet before he knew it.

  “Get everyone out to safety,” he said to a bewildered Ladro, “Anyone who can walk should be carrying someone who can't.”

  “Right, yes, mate,” said Ladro, still looking at the slowly rising ridge, “Good plan, but, I mean right mate, but isn't it...wasn't it enough that we were nearly exterminated, now this is...”

  “Move, Ladro!” Zook shouted and the grinning man ran off.  Zook ran back to the tent they had just left and began helping the man with a broken leg limp to where the ground was still.  A guard was waiting for him, one of the ones that had dug him out, Karl.

  “What's going on?” he asked. 

  “The supports are breaking,” Zook explained, “We need to evacuate!”

  Without hesitation the guard turned around and belted out in a sailor's bellow, “Everybody up!”  Zook went tent to tent, hearing the man shout directions behind him.  Thanks to Karl's great volume, more and more people swarmed over the tents, carrying the injured to safety.  They swept aside their confusion, their fear, for nothing could stand before survival.  The moons lit the starry night, but not even their pale light could expose all the loose stone and uneven ground.  At one point Zook nearly spilled a man from the makeshift stretcher he helped carry.

  As Zook helped a woman get her children to safety, he found that they had to boost the children up.  The ridge was getting higher.  Faster.

  Zook turned to see Eris, Sye, and Pird help Magist get over the edge.  He hurried to lend a hand.

  “The supports!” said Sye, “They-!”

  “Broke, I was right on top of them,” Zook interrupted, “Are you all right Magist?”

  “I can make it from here,” said Magist, a full meter taller thanks to the sinking ground, “Save as many as you can.”

  Zook began to turn away when Magist called after him.

  “Zook!'

  Zook faced him again, seeing concern on his mentor's face, “Do not forget to also save yourself.”

  Zook wasn't sure how to reply, so he just nodded and left.

  All the while, the ridge was rising.

  “Look out!”

  Someone grabbed Zook by the arm and shoulder and yanked him hard to the side.  He heard a great crash behind him and the ground shook beneath his feet.  He looked and saw that a marble pillar had fallen where he had been standing moments before.  He turned to thank whoever had saved his life, but they were already gone within the roiling mob.  The shock of almost being crushed and likely killed never occurred to Zook.  He had more important things to do.

  A cry of pain over the turmoil brought Zook behind a broken wall.  A flat slab of stone had fallen in on a boy, pinning his leg.  Zook dug his fingers under the rock and tried to lift when a wave of weakness washed over him.  An apple had been his only nourishment for the past three days.

  Ignoring this, Zook tried again but it felt like he was lifting against the stone's weight and his own body.  A man materialized from the frenzied rush and lifted alongside Zook.  The slab began to rise, but then more of the wall crumbled and the stone fell back into place.  The boy screamed.

  For the first time, Zook realized that this was far from the only cry of pain or terror.  The night air reeled with them.  For a moment, Zook hesitated.  The fear, the anguish, it seemed to smother him.  The cruel reality of things became stark and undeniable.  Here he was, standing in the blasted ruin of a famed building, in the dark and cold, trying to lift a stone twice his size off a child's leg on a sinking bit of land.

  What am I doing? Zook thought, What am I trying to prove?

  Zook looked down at the boy, who was now unconscious.  Short brown hair and a torn, dirty shirt.  The boy’s peaceful closed eyes were at odds with the chaos around him.  Ambandon him? Zook thought, To save myself?

  Ambandon him like my father did to me?

  Zook fell to his knees and pushed his shoulder against the slab with all his might, his teeth clenched so tight they felt like they would break.  Eris appeared on his other side and lifted.  The stone came free and Zook dragged the boy out.  He ran back to the ridge and held him up with shaking arms, a dozen hands accepting the unconscious gift.

  The ridge was as tall as he was, and only getting higher.

  Thought had no place in Zook's mind as he ran between tents and the ridge.  It all seemed to mix in a nightmarish blur.  So many stretchers made haphazardly of broken beams and torn cloth, so many people that could not walk without him as a living crutch.  It became strangely methodical, almost like a twisted game.  Back and forth, between the bristling crowd of outstretched arms and ferrying out those already half dead.

  The strange lull of the flowing panic broke when Zook slipped and fell.  His body braced for the hard stone, but instead found a splash.  Zook froze for a moment, then hurriedly got to his feet.  It was a puddle, steadily getting deeper.

  “Zook!” Eris appeared beside him again, out of breath, “What are you-?” She began following his gaze.  She saw the slowly rising water and fell silent.

  Eris’ next words spilled ice into his veins, giving a voice to the realization he did not want to make.

  “We're out of time.”

  Zook stared at the puddle, a fragment of the lesser moon Nocturne shaking in its reflection.  Slowly, without the trappings of thought, Zook turned away.  Away from the ridge.  Toward the doomed tents.

  “No Zook!” Eris shouted, grabbing his arm.  For one second, Zook felt a flash of anger.  There were still people in there, people who needed help, his help.  What was Eris to argue against such a dire command?

  If it were anyone else, that flash would have ignited Zook’s rage.  Made him tear his arm away and dive back into the carnage.  But it was Eris.  She knew no rage.

  Eris rushed back to the ridge, Zook in tow.  The terrified screams behind him pierced his heart, each one seeming to call for him. 

  Help us.

  Save us.

  Every fiber of his being told him to obey, to trade his life away.  Eris’ hand was like a piece of driftwood in a terrible storm and Zook clung to it just as dearly.

  The ridge was so high now that they couldn't climb it on their own, they had to rely on the people above.  Someone helped them up and Zook saw how many were gathered, crowding perilously on the ridge's edge.  No one, however, brought themselves to jump down.  The ridge did not look like it would offer a return.

  “Eris, Zook!” came Sye's shout as he pushed his way to them, “Are you all right?”

  Eris nodded, “Where's Pird?”

  “Down here!”

  Zook looked down to find Pird and two other men trying to boost up a woman who looked heavy with child.  Eris, Zook and Sye immediately helped her up, then Zook reached down to grab Pird's outstretched hand.

  There was another metal screech and the sinking ground plummeted a short ways.  Pird fell with it.  Water tore its way out from under the rubble, spraying up in white jets.  Pird scrambled to his feet and tried to reach for Zook's hand, but his short stature betrayed him.  Zook bent down as far as he could and Pird jumped, nearly half a meter of air still between their hands.

  “Climb, Pird!” Zook shouted in desperation, feeling the growing groan of the supports in his bones.  Pird tried but the stone and soil of the ridge came away in his hands, offering no purchase.

  “Eris, I need you to lower me-” Zook began when another earthen groan interrupted him.  It was louder this time, something perilous in its tone making everyone grow quiet and still.  Whe
n it faded away, Zook carefully reached down, Eris’ hold on him letting him go lower.  Pird, just as carefully, reached up.  No one made a sound; it felt like they were standing on a thin, cracking pane of glass.  If anyone moved too fast something terrible would happen.  And it did.

  As soon as Zook grabbed Pird's hand there was an earth-rending crash.  The sinking ground disappeared and in its place rushed up the grasping sea.  Light and sound were blotted out and Zook suddenly found himself underwater.  The very sea seemed to wrap around him and its displaced weight sucked him down.  He couldn't breath, his instinct wouldn't let him breath.  He was lost in the watery void.

  Cold air struck his face and he gasped for breath as Eris hauled him out.  It took him a moment to realize that Sye was shaking him.

  “Where's Pird?” he was asking.  No, he was shouting.  Loud.  Panicked.

  Zook wanted to shout back, “He's here, I got him!” and he held out his hand.  His reeling mind took a second to understand that his hand was absent of Pird’s.  Sye released him and dove into the roiling water, leaving Zook to stare at his empty palm in mounting horror.  He just had Pird; he was just holding his hand.  Then the water tried to pull him down.  If it wasn't for Eris...

  “Pird!” Zook shouted, stumbling to his feet.  The world seemed to be moving too fast, blurring together.  He staggered toward the water but someone held him back.  It wasn't Eris, for she had already dived in.

  “Careful, mate,” came Ladro's voice, “Hardly can walk straight, wouldn't want you to get lost down there.”

  Zook tried to struggle past but Ladro's grip was strong.  He couldn't argue, his thoughts were too chaotic to pull into words.  All he could do was watch.

  Sye and Eris were far from the only ones in the quickly calming spot of sea.  Broken wood and pockets of air drifted up from the depths.  Zook saw his two friends disappear again and again into the black water.

  It was quiet except for the pain-filled voices calling out names, calling for those who had been so cruelly taken away after their second chance at life.  Zook's heart rose and fell with every person that was dragged out of the greedy sea.

  Minute after minute crawled by.  Eris and Sye dove, resurfaced, and dove again.

  No, Zook thought numbly, No.  Not one of us.  Zook couldn’t feel what he was supposed to feel.  It was too much.  Everything so far was too much, but this was finally too close.

  What will we tell Magist?

  What will I tell him?

  “Let...go,” Sye spluttered as someone pulled him from the water, Eris trailing behind, “I...need...to look...”

  “You're drowning yourself,” the man who had Sye said, “It's been too long.  Everyone...everyone down there is gone.”

  Again Zook felt an icy cold wash through his veins.  He watched as Eris fell to her knees, sobbing with merciless grief.  Sye kneeled and held her, his gray eyes wide and unfocused.  Zook himself wanted to collapse, but he couldn't move.  He felt so rigid that he thought he would shatter.  His mind spun faster and faster, trying to find his way around a part of his living life torn away.

  “I'm sorry, mate,” Ladro said quietly, choking on his words, “I really am.  He was a...a good sort.  He really was.”

  Zook didn't reply.  He couldn't.  His thoughts were frozen.  There was no way around the great wave of loss that crested over him.  He felt horribly stuck in its cold shadow.

  “Look and behold the vengeance visited upon those who would challenge the Second Pillar, the mighty Saranoda!”

  Zook's mind froze, his whirling thoughts banished.

  “This is the price of your cherished pride!”

  He slowly turned toward the source of the voice, a man swathed in white robes.  One of the infamous Priests.  His hands were outstretched, smiling over the grieving crowd.

  “We come from the dark, bearing the light of the almighty Pillars.”

  Zook took a step toward the man, then another.  He did not feel the bite of his nails within his fists, a single rivulet of crimson dripping from a knuckle.

  “Guiding is our word.  Follow is our request!”

  Zook's pace grew faster, carrying him swiftly closer.

  “A cleansing will be had for all of man to survive-”

  The Priest faltered in surprise when Zook jumped up to the large marble slab he stood upon, “One orator at a time, boy, wait your-”

  Zook didn't hear him, he only felt the flood of fury and loathing that was ripping through his mind.  Zook barely felt the man’s cheekbone as he crashed his fist against him.  The man twisted and fell from his platform, drawing a collective gasp from the surrounding crowd.

  Stunned, the Priest tried to get to his feet, but his attacker was already there.  Zook grabbed his robes and pulled him close.  From the Priest’s look of terror when he met his eyes, Zook knew that his own pupils had taken on a crimson shade; a loathsome trait inherited from his father.

  “What are you-?” the Priest shouted angrily, “Are you out of your-?”

  “What did you do?” Zook whispered, his voice shaking.

  “What by the-?” the man began in confusion.

  “What did you do?” Zook roared, the crimson in his eyes growing more prominent.  That, more than anything else, scared the Priest into raising his hands before his face, as if to ward him off.

  “You were always there!” Zook shook the Priest, “In the tower!  Doing your rituals, your experiments!  You found something, didn't you?  Didn’t you?”

  Zook violently pushed the man down.  None of the many onlookers made a move to intervene.  They seemed far more interested at the direction of the angry Healer's blame.  The blame itself.

  “We didn't...” the Priest whispered, trying again to stand, “...do...anything.”

  “Liar!” Zook shouted madly as he struck the man down a third time, “You're trying to say this,” he picked up a piece of rubble, “Happened of its own accord?  That these tents sank themselves?  That all these people lost their lives to chance?  Is that what this is to you, a game?  A game where you get to choose who lives or dies?  Who survives?  What did you choose, Priest?  What do you choose for yourself?”

  Slowly, Zook raised the rock over his head.

  Terrified, the Priest tried to crawl away but found a wall of people blocking his escape.  They, too, held rocks and rubble with a solemn look in their eyes.  At the edge of his senses, Zook could see Eris and Sye trying to fight through the crowd, shouting his name.  He simply didn't care.  Still blinded by fury, Zook took a step forward and the stone in his hand began to descend.

  “Torin Mursaan!” bellowed a great commanding voice.  Zook froze, he recognized the voice, but that wasn't what cut through his rage.  It was the name that the voice had shouted. 

  The name his mother had given to him.

  His father's name.

  The crowd parted before a man like water at the prow of a grand tradeship.  The makeshift weapons hastily disappeared and the small space around Zook and the Priest suddenly became a clearing.  The man was tall and lean, his dirty robes still evoking an air of respect.  The broken ground seemed to tremble under his stride of powerful authority.  Streaks of brown marked his stone-gray hair, thick and pulled back into a simple braid.  His short, ruffled beard hinted at once being carefully trimmed.  On any other day the man's bright gray eyes would be kind, understanding and benevolent, but now they were alight with a cold anger.

  “Is this how you repay Idusces for saving you?” the Mayor asked, coming between Zook and the Priest, “You make a scapegoat for a disaster?  I rush back here, hearing that Syrus and his closest friends survived, only to find you about the snap the thread of peace I've been weaving for the past three days?”

  “I...” Zook said, slowly lowering the stone, his mind once again not able to reach out with words, “I didn't...”

  “There is no excuse for this!” The Mayor accused, “What reason could you have to consider such a
thing?  Do you have no-?”

  “It should have been me!”  Zook suddenly exploded, causing even the Mayor to lose what he was going to say, “I was in the wrong place, I should have been there!  It was my fault!”

  “What are you talking about?” the Mayor asked, the command in his voice replaced with concern.

  “He's gone!” Zook felt the warmth of his own tears, the chill of his own blood, “Pird's gone, because he was where I was supposed to be.  It...it should have been me!”

  Zook abruptly turned and stumbled away.  His world swam before him.  His mind found a darkness and eagerly plunged into it.  He knew no more.

   

  End of the Fifth Chapter

  Maw of the Ancient

   

  “They are flimsy”

  “We must take greater care.”

  “It is much too early for any of them to die yet.”

  -The Four under the Foundings

   

   

  Sye caught Zook just as he collapsed, nearly falling himself underneath his friend's limp weight.  He quickly lowered Zook to the ground.  Sye stood over him, unsure what to do.

  The Healer collapsed, Sye thought, bemused.  Now what?

   A hand came to rest on Sye's shoulder.

  “He'll be all right,” said the Mayor, “There is only so much one can handle and I doubt our famed Healer could sleep earlier amidst all of this.”

  Sye could only nod.  The cold he felt seemed to clench his jaw shut and freeze his thoughts.  It was a small mercy, to have this pause before he dove into the hollow despair.

  “Is it true, then?” His father asked, much more quietly, “What he said?”

  That question Sye could not answer.  Saying it aloud would make it irrevocable.  Irreversible.  To answer would be to condone the crime fate had committed against his friend.  Against them all.

  The grip on his shoulder became firmer, “I am sorry, my son.  I am unsure whether to feel joy to see you alive, or sorrow to see you in the face of so much loss.” His father squeezed Sye's shoulder then let go.  For a moment the Mayor looked as though he had more to say to his son, but his eyes failed to rest on only Sye.  Eyes that felt more comfort upon cheering crowds.

  “I'm sorry,” the Mayor repeated, then left.

  Sorry, Sye thought, feeling sick to his stomach, What am I supposed to do with ‘sorry’?

  “Let's get this baggage out of here, mate,” said Ladro, coming beside him.  Even his trademark grin seemed strained.  He and Sye lifted an unconscious Zook and carried him to what remained of the tents.  They chose an empty lean-to that did not overlook the fresh sea-filled wound.  Sye could not bring himself to look at eerily still water.  Ladro lingered for a minute after they set the Healer down on a torn blanket, then left.  Sye stayed behind, looking down at his sleeping friend.  Zook's visage was peaceful, but Sye could see the excited flicker behind his eyelids.  Many things came to Sye's mind that wanted to be said, but his tongue refused to push them into reality.

  Struggling for a moment, Sye finally settled to whisper in a strained voice, “What will we do?”

  He hesitated, then stepped outside.  For some reason, Ladro was still there, standing rigid and his back to Sye.  It didn't take Sye long to find out why.

  Two people were carrying Eris toward them.  One was a woman Sye had not seen before, the other, shivering and sopping wet, was Pird.

  “Gods, I have finally cracked,” Ladro said hoarsely.

  Again, Sye found his mind blank.  No cognitive thought could rise while his dead friend approached him.  He felt so terribly confused he didn't know what to feel, how to feel.  So he simply stood there and waited.

  “She just fainted!” said a bewildered Pird as he neared, “I finally found my way out of that damned hole and she was just standing there, staring at the water.  She saw me and I waved, then she just fell over!  Where's Zook?”

  Sye didn't even try to reply, he was still trying to figure his way around this anomaly in his reality.  Fortunately Ladro picked up the slack.

  “Zook’s inside, but...but he's out of it too.  H-here, allow me.”  Almost hastily, the grinning man took Eris’ feet from Pird and disappeared inside the tent with Eris and the woman.

  “What's eating you?” Pird asked Sye, “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

  Sye swallowed, then managed to say, “I am.  Right now.”

  “What do you mean-?” Pird began, then faltered.  “Oh,” he said simply, eyes going wide, “Now this suddenly makes sense.  It felt like a long time...but I figured that it was just...you thought I was dead?”

  “Aren't you?” Sye asked weakly.

  Pird held his hand up and looked at his palm, as though checking if he was still there, “Sorry to disappoint.”

  Ass, Sye thought happily as he embraced his short friend, relief washing away the sorrow, “Good to have you back.”

  Pird gave Sye a clap on the back, “Didn't even know I was away, but missed you too.”

  Sye released him, then asked, “What happened down there?”

  Pird hesitated, “I heard the crash and then...and then it was...” he shook his head, “Dark.  And cold.  I could feel the sea sucking me down.  I couldn't see...” Sye watched as Pird struggled with the memory, “Anything.  At all.  It was like there was nothing there.  Except for the water.  I didn't know whether I was swimming up or down.  And then I felt...then I hit rock.  At first I thought it was below me, but there was a crevice.  I put my arm through it and found air.”

  “You were beneath the island?” Sye asked, amazed.

  Pird nodded, “I made little trips.  I couldn't see.  Felt my way out as far as I dared then scramble back to my bubble.  I eventually got back to that hole that had collapsed and then gave Eris a heart attack.”

  “You were down there for-” Sye began but Pird held up his hand.

  Pird shook his head again, “I don't want to know.”

  Sye paused, then nodded.

  Pird looked at Sye levelly, his expression growing confused, “Sye…I know this is going to sound crazy but when I was down there…I felt like something was down there with me.”

  “What do you mean?” Sye asked.

  Pird looked down at his hands, “I don’t know how to explain it but I just felt it.  I somehow knew I wasn’t alone…and I’m not sure if it was just a current or my imagination but it felt like something pushed me towards that air pocket.”

  “Maybe it was Idusces…or Diligence?” Sye offered, “Saying it wasn’t your time to be Judged yet?”

  “Maybe…” Pird said, sounding unconvinced, “But why me?  Why save just me instead of the island?”

  “That won’t be the last time that question is asked.”

  They watched as Ladro and the woman exited the tent and left, Ladro nodding towards Sye.

  Starting to sound like somebody, or something, is looking out for us, Sye thought, First me when we were buried, now Pird when he

  was supposed to drown.  Why would the Judge Idusces care about us while a whole city was left to perish?  We aren’t that special.

  “Anything interesting happen while I was out?” Pird asked.