Mikaen smiled darkly.
And I always won.
54
NYX HEARD DISTANT thunder as she crouched under the crossed arches at the center of the dark plaza. Down on one knee with her back to the copper door, she faced Aamon’s panting countenance. While she remained weak, at least her sight was returning.
Silent lightning burst in jagged lines from one of the crystal-tipped pillars and splattered across the black clouds, as if those bolts were somehow feeding the dark skies.
The vargr ducked, casting his gaze all about, tucking his ears down.
“I’m spooked, too,” she whispered.
Especially with where I must go next.
Nyx lifted a palm toward the vargr’s nose. Aamon stopped his panting long enough to sniff, give a small lick, then nudge her hand, as if to say: What do you want?
She remembered the command Graylin had given Aamon. Mimicking it, she swept her arm to encompass the immediate space outside the copper door, then gripped her wrist with her other hand. “Protect,” she said firmly.
Aamon’s eyes gleamed, narrowing slightly—then he padded a few paces away and turned his gaze outward, his tail to the door. He growled his challenge out to the world.
“Good boy,” she whispered.
His tail wagged once in acknowledgment.
She stood up, though it took two tries with her weak legs.
Frell came forward. “Are you strong enough for those stairs?”
“I think so…” she muttered, then added more firmly as she stood, “Yes.”
Nyx glanced over to the copper door. Past its threshold, the scout’s lamp had revealed stone stairs spiraling down into the summit. They were all going down, with the exception of the Kethra’kai, who would guard their retreat if necessary, alongside Aamon.
Xan, though, would accompany them down. She stood with Rhaif and Shiya.
“Then we should get started,” Frell said.
With no one objecting, they set off past the door. Shiya led the way, with Rhaif behind her. Frell followed with the scout’s lamp in his hand, leaving Nyx and Xan to trail last.
The steps—carved out of the summit’s black rock—were wide enough for two to walk abreast. So, Nyx kept close to Xan, who was as exhausted as she was. The Kethra’kai elder carried herself heavily on her staff.
Around and around they went. The abysmal darkness seemed to consume their lamplight. Nyx imagined themselves winding down into the fiery core of the Urth. She swore she even caught a sulfurous waft of brimstan.
Ahead, Shiya’s bronze feet rang on the steps, sounding like the chiming of some mournful bell. Nyx did her best to keep up, but her legs began to tire. Xan also slowed, wheezing next to her. They soon lagged behind the others. Shiya disappeared around a turn of the stairs, so did Rhaif. Frell hung back, keeping the steps illuminated with his lamp.
How much longer?
The answer came as the ring of Shiya’s feet changed timbre, from bronze on stone to the sharper clang of metal on metal.
Light flared ahead.
Drawn by that brightness, Nyx hurried. Even Xan matched her steps. They rounded the turn of the stairs into a dazzling brilliance. She blinked against a sheen that was distinctly coppery.
Rhaif stood at the edge of that light, shading his eyes with a hand.
Past him, Shiya limped across a copper floor. Again, each of her steps glowed, but rather than the light fading, her trail grew ever brighter, washing out from her heels and rebounding off the walls.
Nyx drew up to Frell and Rhaif.
The copper chamber was circular, a quarter the size of the Cloistery’s ninth tier, but here there were no burning pyres. Instead, a large glass table centered the room. The walls curved up to form a rounded point overhead. Nyx noted that the lines of the roof matched the stone arches far above them.
Rhaif made his own comparison as he edged into the space. “Looks like an egg on end,” he whispered. “I found Shiya somewhere like this, only hers was a tenth this size. And it looks like someone tried to crack this egg.”
She saw he was right as she followed after him, careful of the chunky pieces of broken glass on the floor. All around, glowing shelves climbed the walls. Rather than holding dusty tomes, the shelves were lined with rectangular blocks of the clearest crystal. Thousands upon thousands of them. Unfortunately, half of them had been knocked from their shelves and lay shattered on the metal floor. Even the central table had a huge split across it.
Shiya slowed as she neared the table. A hand rose to her throat as she seemed to inspect the damage—then she limped past it.
As she did, the table burst forth with a column of light that shot to the arched roof. It shimmered and pulsed, as if warning them back.
Nyx shielded her eyes against the brightness.
The pillar flickered and shivered for several more breaths, before finally collapsing into a perfect globe of light shining above the cracked tabletop.
The sight reminded Nyx of the gaseous glow of a Liar’s Lure, a phenomenon occasionally spotted floating through the darker bowers of the swamp.
As they watched, colors infused into the sphere: emeralds and blues of every hue, streams of milky white, streaks of richer bronzes and browns.
As they all drew nearer, Shiya continued to limp across the room. Even Rhaif let her go alone, curiosity drawing him to the table’s edge. The colors swirled and spun across the sphere, then slowly began to coalesce into the globe of a world.
Lands rose, seas filled, and clouds skimmed the surface.
“What magick is this?” Frell asked, and reached a hand toward the glow.
“Don’t,” Rhaif warned, retreating back.
Frell ignored him and brazenly swept his arm through the world. As his fingers passed harmlessly across, they stirred the image, like wafting a hand across a fire’s smoke. In a breath, though, the mirage settled back to its former shape.
Nyx stared, mesmerized. Before her, the world slowly turned, revealing every coastline, mountain range, and sea. As those lands swept past her, she searched the surface.
“I don’t see anything that matches the Crown,” she whispered. “This can’t be our Urth.”
Frell nodded. “It must be the world of the old gods, where they came from.”
The image occasionally frazzled, as if the damage to the tabletop fought revealing this world. But so far, it continued to hold.
Rhaif looked across the room. “Shiya…”
Hearing his note of concern, Nyx circled to join him. The bronze woman had reached the room’s far side. There, a tall copper shield stood against the wall, cupped around by a rim of thick glass. A web of copper tubes and glass pipes wound through the glass and into the walls.
“Looks like the cocoon where I first laid eyes upon her,” Rhaif said.
Shiya reached to her shoulder and tore her shift loose. It fell and cascaded down around her ankles, baring her nakedness to all. She stepped out of it and mounted a short ramp that led up to the alcove.
“No.” Rhaif hurried over, clearly fearing the worst.
He drew them all, but they arrived too late. Shiya turned her back to the shield and pressed herself against it. As contact was made, the floor shook with a resounding ring. Shiya snapped straight, throwing her head back, clanging it against the copper.
In a breath, the glass brightened around her. The copper shield glowed. A golden elixir started to flow through the crystalline tubing. Underfoot, the floor thrummed. Nyx felt it in her bones, like the pumping of a great heart that was drawing strength from below. The very air grew fraught with energies.