All The Turns of Light (37 page)

The rail cracked, leaning out, weakened by the Gaunt’s final blow. Meralda searched the Sea for him, but saw only empty waves and a quickly clearing fog.

We did it,
she thought.
Nearly boiled the Sea, but we did it.

The remaining coil simply died, and the
Jenny
fell, tumbling bow over stern. The rail gave way, and Meralda was flung into the sky, spinning and tumbling like the
Jenny
. She caught one final glimpse of the launch as it fell, and she reached out toward it, and a black, oily bulk slammed into her back, wrapped her in a dozen boneless greasy limbs, and soared toward the sun.

* * *

It was the next morning before Meralda saw the wheel that crossed the bright blue sky.

She sat atop the black disc, which floated on the calm Great Sea. The flying thing snored as it slept, and the way some of the tubular limbs twitched and jerked made Meralda believe it dreamed.

She hadn’t recognized the flying thing as the one she saved aboard the
Intrepid
until one of the smaller whipping limbs pressed the scrap of paper Meralda had thrown from the ramp back into her hand.

Of the
Jenny
, Meralda could find no trace. The flying thing, eager to please, had proven easy to steer – a touch in any direction would send it hurtling that way. Meralda rather imagined it would bark and wag its tail, had it been able.

But search as she might, even flying a scant foot over the Sea, she found nothing to mark the
Jenny’s
fall.

So she cried, for a time. Cried and railed and cursed the unmagic, which was fled, leaving her alone and adrift on the face of the endless Great Sea.

Thirst finally sapped even her tears. Her mouth grew too dry to speak. The sun turned her skin red, and for a single awful moment she contemplated simply slipping off the flying disc’s back and sliding down into the cool blue water.

It was then that she opened her eyes and saw the silver-white arc hanging just above the cloud wall which marked the edge of the storm.

“Impossible,” she croaked. But there it was.

A great arc, glinting like new iron, spreading in a gentle arc from horizon to horizon.

She recalled the Gaunt’s expression of terror, that moment of hesitation that allowed her to call down the lightning upon it for that final awful blow.

“That’s what you saw,” she tried to say.

What is it?

For a moment, she forgot her heartbreak, forgot the relentless thirst. There is a monstrous metal wheel hanging there in the sky, she thought.
Is that what keeps the storm at bay in this place?

Is that the thing from which the Delighter drew such a volume of power?

Is that what the Gaunt truly feared?

The sun shone down. Meralda felt her heart begin to skip a beat, now and then, and she knew her lifetime was measured in hours, and not days.

“We might as well see,” she croaked. She woke the sleeping disc, which rose easily from the waves. Meralda pointed toward the silver arc in the sky, and the disc quivered beneath her, tubes wagging in simple delight.

“Fetch,” Meralda said. The disc leaped skyward, and Meralda hung on.

* * *

The great wheel was hollow, cold, and still.

The disc hovered nearby, slapping playfully at the puddles of fresh water that lay scattered about the interior of the structure. Meralda knelt and drank from her hands until she could simply drink no more.

The water, too, was cold, but clear and unpolluted. “Condensation,” Meralda said to the black disc. “The metal of this structure is cold. Moisture from the air condenses and pools here.”

The black disc waggled tubes at her and darted off, soaring playfully up and down the gentle curved walls of the gargantuan, dark wheel.

Meralda rose and followed. As far as she could see in either direction, the wheel curved off and away, lit at regular intervals by perfectly circular openings set in the outward-facing side. Each opening was large enough to fly a number of airships through, even abreast.

The scale of the empty structure was breathtaking, leaving Meralda feeling small and very much alone as she wandered inside it.

It bore no markings. The metal surfaces were smooth and polished. Meralda could find neither joint nor rivet nor any signs of seams or joinery.

When she called out for the black disc, after it strayed too far into the shadows, her voice echoed for what seemed like hours.

“What keeps it hanging here?” she asked when the black disc returned, darting about her, as if inviting her to play. “Who made it, and for what purpose?”

The disc waggled its tubes and spun.

Meralda walked on toward the nearest opening, with no idea of what to do once she reached it. Fly for home? Seek out the
Intrepid
, in that awful storm?

She saw the
Jenny
falling, spiraling out of control, plummeting down toward the deep, merciless sea, and she sank to her knees and cried until the black disc nudged her gently with its bulk and urged her once again toward the light.

* * *

She was sleeping, huddled on the disc’s oily back, when she dreamed she heard the flap of wings.

The disc started and jerked. She gripped the thing’s limbs and sat up, and shouted as she saw the silhouette of a ragged crow pass across a moonlit opening and sail inside the wheel.

Another crow followed, cawing and wheeling as both dropped beside her.

“Nameless? Faceless?”

Aye,
spoke a crow, its words barely intelligible.

You live,
said the other. It tried to hop on the black disc’s back and failed, falling back to the metal surface with a flurry of angry flapping and awkward hopping.

“I saw you die,” Meralda said. “I saw you both die.”

We will never be dragons again,
said the one who had fallen.
Or staves.

The Master’s last gift to us was immortality,
said the other.

We cannot die.

But we are much diminished.

Perhaps we should have died
.

Bugger off.

Meralda scooped them both up and, as they flapped and cawed, hugged them fiercely to her breast.

“Oh be quiet, both of you,” she said. “I am sorry I sent you against that awful thing.”

None of us had a choice
, said one, wriggling free.

You did not break the world,
said the other. It turned its black eyes up toward Meralda.

Well done, Mage.

Well done.

But we must quit this place.

Now,
added the other.

Meralda lowered the crow that remained and stroked its ragged black feathers.

“You know what this is, don’t you,” she said. “And I’ll wager you know what happened to me aboard the
Intrepid
. The unmagic.”

Speak not of that here,
chorused the crows.

All will be told.

But now we must fly!

Before Meralda could speak, the interior of the wheel was filled, not with the echoes of her words and those of the crows, but with a shrill metallic squeal, like the sound of seldom-used hinges being forced slowly but surely into motion.

Fly,
squawked the crows, flapping into the air.
Bid this beast to flee!

Meralda put her hands on her hips. The squeal lowered in pitch, becoming a rumbling that she could feel through the soles of her boots and the black disc’s misshapen body.

“I’m quite done with being protected from secrets,” she said. “I’ve lost Donchen and Mug and you will tell me what all this is about this very instant or you’ll wish the giant had baked you both into pies.”

We struck you with unmagic,
said a crow.
The Master crafted two workings before he died, thinking it was he who would face the Gaunt. We used the lesser one to latch unmagic to you.

Without it, the Gaunt would have surely slain you,
said the other.

But the Arc is waking. We must go, while we can!

“The Arc. I see,” Meralda said, shouting to make her words heard over the roar. “And just what is an Arc, and what will happen when it wakes?”

The crows circled Meralda.

The source of all magic,
said one.
The Master found it, long ago.

Found it and sealed it,
said the other.

But now it wakes! Flee!

“You said your Master crafted two workings,” shouted Meralda. “What of the other?”

Lost,
cried a crow.
Lost! We are immortal, Mage, but you will surely perish here!

The crows still spoke, but their words were lost to the rumbling of the wheel.

Meralda tugged at a limb and the disc obliged, rising and speeding off as Meralda guided it toward the source of the noise. The crows quickly fell behind, but Meralda urged the disc on, and it hurtled ahead, heedless of the endless thunder.

Finally, there shone a light. Meralda slowed the disc, and brought it to rest along the inner wall of the wheel. Directly opposite one of the huge circular openings that faced outward, a ring of bright blue light was forming, the same size as the one that opened out onto the night.

As she watched, the glow widened and intensified, as though light from somewhere else was leaking through the wheel’s polished metal.

A door, thought Meralda. A door is opening.

A door to something feared by Otrinvion the Black. Feared by the Vonats and the Gaunt.

The black disc wobbled beneath her, its limbs flailing and jerking as if nervous or afraid.

“It all makes sense now,” Meralda said. “Perhaps I wasn’t the one destined to unmake the world. Perhaps I simply opened the door for the creature that does.”

The crows approached, two tiny dots winging through shafts of sunlight in the distance. The blue circle widened and the thunder increased in volume, and without ever knowing precisely how she achieved it, Meralda simply reached inside herself and took hold of the vortex and hurled it at the noise and the light.

“I tell you to hold,” she said, waving her finger at the light. “There will be no final cosmic event today. I forbid you to open, do you hear! I have had enough!”

The sudden silence was somehow even louder than the awful, roaring noise.

The crows dropped at her feet. Neither spoke.

The circle of light faded, barely visible. It never quite winked out, but after a time Meralda had to put her face close to the surface to even see a hint of it.

Well I’ll be damned
, said a crow, before it fell over from exhaustion.

Meralda sat on the disc and said nothing at all.

* * *

The sun set, tinting each of the westward-facing openings a glorious crimson.

Meralda watched, hunched on the Arc’s cold floor, her chin resting on her hands.

The crows bathed in the pools of cold water. Each raised a spray with his wings, and it seemed to Meralda that they argued, so harsh were their croaks and caws. She did not ask the source of the contention, but she could guess well enough, and it was the same subject that occupied her own thoughts – what are we to do now?

I know nothing of the capabilities of this poor creature, she thought, stroking the ugly thing’s back. I haven’t even seen it drink, though I know it must. How far can it fly? Dare I take it aloft, knowing I could be plunged into the Sea at any moment, with no hope of rescue?

The sky went from red to purple to black, and soon a fat pale moon appeared in the nearest of the openings. Meralda watched it rise, and wondered if the crew of the
Intrepid
watched as well. Had the airship maintained flight? Had it weathered the storm? Or, like the
Jenny
, had it too hurtled down into the waves?

Meralda clenched her jaw and wiped the tear quickly away. “I don’t have the luxury of self-pity,” she whispered. “Not yet.”

The crows stopped their flapping and hopping and turned toward Meralda.

What is that?
asked one.