Skybuilders (Sorcery and Science Book 4) (11 page)

Well, that’s just about enough of this nonsense,
Leonidas decided.

He drew his Boar Hunter and shot the nearest beast straight through the head. It dropped and didn’t get up. A few pairs of beastie red eyes glared at him, but they soon returned their attention to Silas. Leonidas shot the next dog dead. This time, the beasts turned in unison and trotted over to the ladder, surrounding the base.

As the first dog sniffed the metallic rungs, Silas bounded over the pack, kicking his foot off the sniffer’s head to launch himself onto the ladder. He landed above Ariella, paused only to pat Leonidas on the shoulder, then disappeared through a leaf ceiling. They followed, encouraged along by the wrathful song of the hellhound pack below.

Leonidas hoped the dogs were too stupid to find their way up. They probably were. He guessed they’d never seen a ladder before. A ladder. In the forest. He opened his mouth to ask the question he’d been too distracted to consider before.

“What is a metal ladder doing in the middle of an unending forest of magical beasties?”

Ariella managed to shrug without pausing in her climb. Her head disappeared into the canopy, then her torso, and finally her legs. Leonidas pushed through after her. As his head broke the treetops, he froze.

Below, the trees swished in the light breeze. Above, railed metal walkways crisscrossed against the blue sky. They stretched across the expanse like lines of a neatly divided pie, all connecting to the wider platform that encircled the top level.

Leonidas ascended the final three rungs and stepped onto the walkway. From below, the forest had seemed to continue on for an eternity, and so it was from above as well. But as he turned to look for his companions, his eyes panning across the odd scenery, his mind choked on the utter impossibility of what he saw.

Two hundred meters beyond the ladder, the unending forest came to an abrupt end. As he walked that way, a cloudless blue sky gave way to distant mountain peaks, which sloped down to other forests, then sand, and finally ocean. In the distance, waves lapped against a rocky beach. The decimated city of Hope, once the Rev capital, sat broken and forlorn atop the ridge above the shore.

Leonidas stood there at the edge of the walkway, his legs pressed against the glass fence before him. He peered straight down and watched the ocean toss and ripple beneath an enormous ominous shadow cast upon the water. His gaze jumped up a few hundred meters from the waves to the smooth walls that extended all the way up to the hip-high glass wall that fenced in the walkway.

They were atop a floating city, but as the local scenery told him, it was not Oasis. No, it was the Hellean city of Pallas, floating high above in the air that separated the Selpe and Avan empires.

CHAPTER TEN

~
Electrifying Waters ~

526AX August 22, Pallas

RUNNING AWAY FROM a pack of dogs with flesh-eating spit had wiped Ariella out. Especially after the long hike through the forest. She probably should have had something to eat before sprawling out on the metal walkway to sleep. She definitely should have had something to drink. But she was just too tired.

Dehydrated and famished as she was, it didn’t surprise her when the foresights invaded her sleep.

She saw Aaron Pall ascend the steps of the imperial ballroom in Orion. As always, everything was set into high contrast black and white.

The hundreds of vases filled with roses. The forty Selpe territory banners hanging from the walls. The tables overflowing with food. A hundred or more Selpe aristocrats in glamorous dresses and tuxedos. The two neat lines of Diamond Edges standing two per step on the central staircase.

As Lord Adrian set the spiked crown on Aaron’s head, its platinum body shimmered, and its blue diamonds shone out with vibrant sparkles, cutting through a world of black and white. The lords and ladies of the Selpe Empire broke out in roaring applause. Ariella watched them, hypnotized by the building rhythm of their clapping hands. She lifted her hands to her ears, but they only clapped louder. The noise pounded louder and louder in her ears.

And then they were silent.

All eyes turned on her. Except they were not looking at her. They were staring at Isis, who stood beside Ariella in a wedding gown, her hair and jewels shimmering pink in the desaturated room. Aaron looked down on her, his hand extended. Isis took a deep breath and walked forward. Silence drenched the room—except for the click of her heels against the floor as she walked toward him. She lifted the edge of her gown from the floor and took the steps slowly. And yet she reached the top far too soon.

Aaron took Isis’s hand and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. Soft chuckles rumbled from a few of the Diamond Edges on the stairs. Isis looked at Aaron, despair heavy in her eyes.

The ceremony was short—or maybe that was just the sped-up time of Ariella’s foresight. Looking into the future was about as precise as throwing paint at a wall; you never knew just what you would get.

Aaron slid a ring onto Isis’s finger and set a headband on her head. It was a smaller version of his own crown, and the blue diamonds burst through with the same vibrant color. He gave her a long kiss, then led her down the staircase.

Bright white light flooded the ballroom, flushing it out. A cold wind bit at Ariella’s skin, and she was standing on a hill overlooking a field. Overhead, the sky was cloudy and dark. Below, the ground was sown with hundreds of corpses. Elition corpses. She couldn’t see their distinctive hair through the colorless mask, but she did see enough Elition clothing and swords to recognize what they were.

And the Elitions hadn’t been killed by the humans’ bombs and blasts. They’d been killed by blades. Their bodies were torn and ripped and severed. The stench of death hung over the battlefield, seeping up into Ariella’s nose. She felt the acid rising in her throat. Unable to hold it down, she threw up all over the grass.

A hand gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. Ariella looked up into Davin’s face.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“No.” She stood up, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “You?”

He turned away from the field of corpses. “No. I’m really not.” He looked scared. More scared than Ariella had ever seen him.

A flicker of movement below caught her attention, and she stepped past Davin. Someone was still alive down there. Two bodies in black strode across the field. Their weapons were drawn and dripped blood, a shade of crimson that shone violent in a scene without color.

One of the two people was a human man. He had two empty gun holsters at his hips and two long knives in his hands. They looked like Selpe military knives. Ariella squinted. Diamond Edge knives. As the man turned to look back at his companion, Ariella saw his face. Aaron Pall.

One of the Elitions on the ground stirred and grabbed at Aaron’s boot. The woman with him spun around and stabbed the Elition through the chest with one of her two swords. And that was when Ariella saw her face too.

Isis. Her fuchsia hair shone out as brightly as the blood on her blade. She kicked the dead man off her sword, then stepped up to Aaron, so close that her chest pressed up against his. Then she leaned forward and kissed him. Four blades dropped from their hands as the two of them tore at each other with unabated passion.

Ariella looked away, turning toward Davin. Except he was no longer beside her. For a second time, a white light ate up everything around her, catapulting her into another foresight. She blinked and found herself in the private chamber of the Selpe emperor. She stood just inside the door. Past the sofa of the front lounge, Isis and Aaron were at it again, kissing each other as though their lives depended on it.

“Ow,” Aaron grumbled as she pushed him back, nipping his lip with her teeth. But his eyes stared at her like he wanted more.

“Ariella.” Isis turned toward her, extending her hand.

Ariella went to her, and they hugged until Aaron tugged Isis away.

“Ok, enough of that. I might just get jealous,” he said, stroking his hand up and down her arm.

“As will I,” Davin’s voice said from behind Ariella, his fingers slipping between hers.

She turned toward him. His lips touched down on her neck, trailing a line of searing kisses across her skin. Expelling a deep sigh, Ariella leaned back into him. He cupped his hand around her jaw, turning her face toward him. He brushed his lips past hers…

Ariella’s face hit something hard, and she jolted awake. She opened her eyes and stared through the crisscrossed metal grid at the treetops below. Slowly, she peeled herself off the walkway, rolling out her stiff neck.

“Sleep well?” Silas asked her. He was sitting next to Leonidas, a pile of steaming meat spread out on the plate-sized leaf between them.
 

She stretched out her fingers and they cracked. “Not really.”

“You should have something to eat.” He handed her a drink canister. “Or at the very least, something to drink.”

Ariella took the canister and sat down beside them. She gave the bird meat a wary stare. “Pigeon?”

“Seagull actually,” Leonidas told her, licking his lips.

Silas held up four fingers.

“After I shot them down, Silas did some weird trick where he touched them and they burst into flames.”

Ariella picked up a piece of the singed meat. Phantom Flames. Phantoms liked to use them in a fight to scare their opponents. She’d never heard of one using them to cook meat. It wasn’t even real fire.

“It’s a versatile ability,” Silas said.

“Silas, you’re doing it again,” Ariella grumbled, putting up her mental wall. The foresight had stripped her of her defenses. She took a long gulp of water, then began to nibble on the meat.

“Sorry, I wasn’t digging. It was just hanging out there.” As Leonidas reached for another helping of roasted seagull, Silas slid the leaf out from under his hand, eliciting a frown from the spy. He pushed it over to Ariella. “You should eat the rest. You need your strength. Who knows what will try to kill us next.”

Isn’t that the truth
? Ariella thought as she took another bite.

* * *

526AX August 22, The Golden Canyon

The sun set and rose again while they waited on the walkway. Silas claimed he could smell the next vanishing portal coming. It finally arrived nearly one day later, right as Ariella was starting to think Silas had lost his mind. But he hadn’t. The portal appeared atop the walkway at the precise spot he’d pointed out. It folded into existence in clear sight, shining so brightly that it lit up the whole artificial forest below like a sun. It was as though someone wanted them to step through. Ariella checked the ridiculous notion. Portals couldn’t be controlled, brightened or dimmed at will. Such a portal did not exist.

Just as vanishing portals do not exist
, she reminded herself. Or so she had thought. Ariella’s head swam and her usually iron stomach lurched. Maybe she really didn’t know anything about anything. She pushed those thoughts into a tight ball and buried it deep within her mind. This was no time for despair.

As they stepped into the portal, its power pushed down on her shoulders, grinding her into the ground. The metal grid beneath her boots groaned. Just as she thought it would split open from the pressure, the walkway dissolved and was slowly replaced by indigo skies and golden cliffs.

Ariella’s sigh of relief was short lived. Traces of metal and the scent of trees still lingered in the air as she felt herself drop. She looked down just in time to brace herself to hit the lake.

Warm silky water enveloped her, not the harsh ice she’d expected. The lake was mostly clear with only the slightest tint of violet from the skies above. No fish swam below the surface, no plants grew from between the sparkling stones that coated the bottom. After her recent run-in with mythological critters, Ariella should have been glad. Instead, she was worried. There was nothing natural about that lake.

She pushed up, her head breaking the surface. The golden cliffs glittered under the sun, a perfect orb of light in a painted sky. There was nothing natural about any of that either.

“Ariella, are you all right?!” Leonidas called down.

She looked up to the top of the nearest cliff. Leonidas stood balanced against the upper lip. Silas was beside him, his eyes busily cataloging the scene, darting from one thing to the next, tallying up the threats. Typical bodyguard stuff. Ariella hoped he was at least searching for a path down to her.

“Fine!” she shouted back up.

A ripple formed along the water’s surface. Ariella couldn’t see anything, but she could hear the grinding scrape of metal on metal. Streams of air bubbles popped up all across the lake, fizzling like underwater geysers.

Ariella dunked her head under the surface and froze. Somewhere on the other side of the lake, something stirred. Shiny and iridescent indigo all over, it was the size of a large dog. But unlike a large dog, it had the front claws of a crab. Where legs should have been, a fish tail swayed to and fro with mechanical efficiency, propelling the creature forward faster than Ariella would have thought possible from such a flimsy appendage. It was then, watching eight glass eyes blink open, that she realized it was not a creature at all.

It was a machine.

The mechanical menace blew jets of bubbles out of its open mouth and rubbed its claws together with a steady sinister click. If Ariella hadn’t known better, she’d have thought the machine was trying to unnerve her. She popped up for a breath and a quick look around.

Against the nearest cliff, a low ledge loomed only a meter over the lake, low enough that she could climb up but hopefully high enough that the machine could not follow. Ariella kicked off toward the ledge, trying to comfort herself with the knowledge that legless finned creatures
—
mechanical or not
—
had to stick to water. And that they very likely possessed the intelligence of a garbage can.

The clicks intensified, ricocheting off the cliffs. It was like being trapped inside a drum. Ariella stole a glance backward and nearly bit her own tongue off. There were now six mechanical menaces, their eight-eyed heads bobbing atop the water as they closed in fast on her. She pushed herself to swim faster, but the nearest machine was almost upon her. In the water, legs were no match for fins. Especially motorized fins.