Journey Into Nyx (18 page)

“Heliod disagrees,” Thassa said. “With Nylea, they’re determined to humble mortals into submission.”

“And yet you are here, in your realm, and have not joined them,” Ajani pointed out.

“I have spent most of the Silence hidden in the depths of my ocean,” Thassa said. “It was not me that Kruphix needed to punish. And now a humble satyr has cracked the foundations of Nyx.”

“I will stop him,” Elspeth said

Thassa scanned the horizon. She cared nothing for Elspeth’s promises. “That triton thief has been searching endlessly for the
Monsoon
. She’s pretended to be Callaphe. She’s pretended even to be me. She intends to steal Arixmethes.”

“How does someone steal a city?” Elspeth asked.

“It’s not just a city, isn’t that right?” Ajani said. “It’s what’s it’s built on.”

“I just felt her touch the sea floor,” Thassa said. “As she rises up, she gathers the strength of my currents. I must stop her before she plunders my realm. I have little time, but I will tell you this: I don’t believe you are to blame, Elspeth. Heliod is arrogant and intends to make himself lord of the pantheon. That is why he is so offended by the Satyr-God. He believes the usurper has taken his personal throne.”

Thassa touched the mast, and the ship began to roll beneath them. Once again, the boards became like skin, the planks like bones, and black-slanted eyes blinked open on the prow of the ship.

“Your blade is the only thing that can destroy Xenagos and restore the true nature of the world,” Thassa said. “I will remove the obstacles on the rest of your journey to Nyx.”

“I will set things right,” Elspeth promised.

“Finding the way into Nyx isn’t the end of your journey,” Thassa said. “Once inside, you will find a shrine to the gods. You must choose one of us and ask for an ordeal. If you pass the ordeal, the god will open the gates of Nyx and grant you one request within his or her domain.”

“Can I request help in killing Xenagos?” Elspeth asked.

“A god cannot kill another god, but I can make it as easy for you as possible,” Thassa said. “Choose my altar, and your ordeal will be as kind as a summer breeze. Xenagos has protected himself by creating a void that lies just beyond the gates. Ask me for a bridge of aether so you can cross over to him.”

“What’s the void?” Ajani asked.

“It’s a gulf of nothingness around him,” Thassa said. “You’ve seen it in the night sky. Without my help, I fear you’ll never get close enough to kill him.”

Kiora emerged in the waves behind Thassa. She was perched on the back of a gargantuan sea serpent with a hornlike spire. The serpent undulated like a black snake but concealed its true size beneath the waves. The water churned with white froth as masses of writhing tentacles rose from the depths. Kiora had recruited monsters from the floor of Thassa’s ocean, and inky eyes that had never seen sunlight now gazed upon the surface world. Her legion included creatures native to this world but also others that hailed from oceans under far-flung skies.

“She steals my children,” Thassa said. Her fathomless eyes gleamed with fury.

Beside the ship, a squidlike creature larger than a whale burst up through the surface. Rings of choppy waves rippled in all directions, and the
Monsoon
jostled against the shore. The creature’s leathery black skin was covered with mossy barnacles. Rows of yellow eyes blinked from the scalloped edges of its tentacles, which emerged one after another from the waves. It had a gaping maw with boulderlike teeth, and eyeballs lined the bumpy surface of its forked tongue. The monster was large enough to devour their ship with one bite.

“That is not my child,” Thassa said.

Elspeth felt the ship pitch and roil beneath them, and the ruins of Arixmethes began to rumble back down into the sea. The ruins disappeared under an upwelling of water, leaving an unobstructed ocean in its wake. Elspeth marveled that an entire city could be swallowed by the ocean in mere seconds. No wonder Callaphe had such a hard time finding it. But there was no sign of the waterfall or Kruphix’s Tree. As if she’d read her mind, Thassa pointed to the horizon.

“My sea will carry you to Kruphix,” Thassa told Elspeth.

“Thank you,” Elspeth said.

“Choose my altar,” Thassa warned her again. “Or your journey will fail.”

Whispering to her waves, Thassa ordered the sea to reach for Nyx. In response to her command, the water hastened for the sky. A monstrous wave carried the
Monsoon
hundreds of feet in the air. From the summit of the wave, they saw Thassa transform back into the Great Eye, which transfixed its hostile gaze upon her enemy, Kiora. Just before their vessel cascaded down the other side, a titanic kraken breached out of the water in the distance, answering the call to battle.
He
was the one they called Arixmethes, and he carried the ruins of the lost city affixed to the length of his spine.

“You’ll never claim Arixmethes!” Thassa’s warned Kiora, who laughed at the God of the Sea. The last thing Elspeth
saw was the two tritons locked in combat, surrounded by a legion of ancient sea monsters and furious, unbound waves.

As the massive wave descended back into the ocean, the ship accelerated dramatically until their surroundings were indistinct streaks of blue light. When they finally slowed to the tempo of the wind, Elspeth and Ajani were alone on the glassy blue ocean. A waterfall stretched endlessly along the horizon line. The water at the edge of the world was like a placid pond as if enjoying a last few seconds of existence before cascading over the edge in a raging torrent of white-capped water.

Directly in front of them was Kruphix’s Tree. Two enormous trunks were separate at the base, but they arched toward each other and joined at the top in a single leafy crown. Stars glittered beyond the waterfall, but the background was milky violet with tinges of deep blue instead of the matte black of Nyx. The seawater that plummeted over the edge disappeared into the abyss of the stars.

They had reached the edge of the world.

The
Monsoon
paused, almost as if it were treading water. The rhythm of its breathing rocked them back and forth on the calm water. Then a melodious sound rose up around them. It was reminiscent of both the song of a whale and the howl of a wolf. It was both plaintive and predatory, and shivers ran down Elspeth’s spine. But neither she nor Ajani spoke for fear of disturbing their vessel or interrupting its mesmerizing call. Their vessel raised itself higher out of the water, like a lion sitting back on its haunches. Finlike protrusions appeared along its flanks, and a crest of fins encircled the prow. Wisps of mist outlined the semitranslucent shoulders and powerful legs of this amphibious marvel.

“It’s asking Kruphix to let it come home,” Ajani said softly.

“Home to Nyx?” Elspeth wondered, and Ajani nodded.

The indigo sky beyond the tree began to shimmer like a
desert mirage. The vessel sprang forward and loped across the surface of the placid water. When it leaped toward the tree, the colossal form of Kruphix materialized on the horizon. The God of Horizons blocked out the sky like a dark nebula, as featureless as a shadow. The vessel bounded through the gap between the sacred trunks, and the God of Horizons opened like a window into Nyx, the realm of the gods. Beyond Kruphix, there was immeasurable depth and endless spirals and the sparkling cosmos.

As they vaulted over the edge of the waterfall, Elspeth looked down. Below them was a star-filled void, and instinctively Elspeth felt how it bled into the boundlessness of the Blind Eternities. The
Monsoon
surged forward, and Ajani grabbed her shoulders protectively as they were engulfed into the form of Kruphix. Unlike the pain of planeswalking, this transition felt like riding a raft down a lazy river. There was blackness and disorientation, but she felt Ajani’s hands steadying her, and soon her feet were on solid ground though her eyes could see little in the dimness. She was captivated by glimmering lines that surrounded her as the
Monsoon
transformed fully into a celestial creature of Nyx. With a flash of violet light, it bounded off into a kaleidoscope of stellar formations and disappeared. When the light faded, there was nothing but darkness around them.

“Kruphix is a portal to Nyx,” Ajani said. “Walk forward.”

“I see nothing!” Elspeth didn’t want to move in the darkness. She didn’t know if Nyx was a flat plain, a field of razor-sharp shards, or as insubstantial as mist hovering above a pond.

“Trust me,” Ajani said, taking her hand.

Elspeth inched forward. With each passing step, it was as if someone pulled a series of veils from her eyes. The light grew more and more distinct, until they found themselves inside an open-air shrine built on an expanse of glittering black marble. Monumental crystalline pillars stretched up
and disappeared in the brilliant colors of ionic clouds. In every direction there was an unobstructed view of luminous stars and billowing interstellar dust. The shrine was divided into distinct alcoves that were framed by glittering black pillars. Five alcoves lay directly in front of her. More alcoves, spaced farther apart, lay in the distance. But she couldn’t see how far the shrine extended or how many alcoves there were in all.

“I’ve seen the shrine of Nykthos in the mortal realm,” Ajani said. “It looks much like this but more ravaged by time.”

Elspeth inspected the five alcoves closest to her. Nearly identical, each alcove had a heavy stone altar with a glowing kylix. A divine artisan had carved different symbols into the black marble altars. She saw a flying horse, the symbol of Heliod, in the central alcove. Heliod’s kylix was lit with a circle of amber light—the termination point of the pillar of light from the mortal realm.

“Here’s Thassa’s altar,” Ajani called. Her kylix was sky blue, and the water rippled like ocean waves despite the stillness of the air around them. A symbol of a bident emitted pulses of blue light.

“Look at this,” Elspeth said. She’d wandered to the alcove on the far right and knelt down for a closer look at the whip carved into the altar. In Erebos’s altar the kylix overflowed with black ichor. Unlike the other alcoves, there was a melted bronze statue next to one of the pillars. She recognized it as a likeness of Xenagos, the satyr, but a mystical fire had melted it into a grotesque shape.

“The satyr trying to take his place in the pantheon,” Ajani said, staring at the deformed bronze. “It’s not working out the way he would have liked.”

“Is there an alcove for all the gods?” Elspeth asked.

“All the real gods,” Ajani said. “We need to hurry. We aren’t in Nyx yet. If Heliod or Nylea discover you’re here, they will kill you before you can confront Xenagos.”

“Can gods kill mortals in Nyx?” Elspeth asked. “Gods can’t kill each other.”

“Assume the answer is yes,” Ajani said.

“I need to choose an altar to ask for an ordeal?” Elspeth said. “And that god must grant me a favor if I succeed?”

“Yes, Thassa’s alcove is over here,” Ajani reminded her. There were shapes appearing on the horizon around them—black shadows against the darkness of Nyx. Yellow eyes blinked and were gone. Ajani could sense the gathering of magic, but Elspeth acted as if she were oblivious to the growing threat. A burst of red flashed in the distance, like a candle had been lit. Ajani knew they had been discovered, but by what, he wasn’t sure.

“Elspeth, you must choose,” Ajani said. “When the ordeal begins, you may be physically transported away. But if your body remains here, I will protect you until you’ve completed your task. But we must act now!”

He took her arm and steered her toward Thassa’s altar, but Elspeth resisted. She broke away from Ajani and threw herself down before Erebos’s altar. Ajani lunged at her, trying to pull her to her feet before she could speak. But he wasn’t fast enough.

“Erebos, I request an ordeal!” she shouted.

The God of the Dead obliged her request.

E
rebos tore Elspeth back from the shrine at the edge of Nyx. Her body remained, but her consciousness was snatched away. Elspeth found herself in what felt like a dream. She stood near the window of a stone cottage with a thatch roof. Outside there were grassy hills dotted with cherry trees. In the distance, the Angel’s Palace hovered in the summer sky surrounded by sun-kissed clouds. Even before she saw the Angel’s Palace, she knew that she was back on Bant. But this wasn’t a vision of the plane that had been destroyed by the Conflux. Instead, her mind conjured a restored plane in a reality that could exist at some time in the near future.

A broad-shouldered man was just heading out the door to work the fields. She could still feel his kiss on her cheek. It was her husband, but his back was turned as he walked out the door. She never saw his face. Out the window, a young man—her son—was tending to the horses in the paddock near a sturdy barn. He grinned and waved when he saw her looking at him from the open window. She felt a tug on her dress, and a chestnut-haired child looked earnestly up at her.

“Yes, Mina?” Elspeth said. This was her daughter, whose seventh birthday was just days away.