Skymaster, page 22
part #3 of The Guildmaster Saga Series
On the captain's deck, Nasira roared suddenly, an excess of sound that was coupled with a tremendous surge of river water. She was powerful, of course. Everyone who made captain in the guild was. Now she brought her strength to bear.
What she was doing started farther away than Rasim expected, far up-river, where it began to gather speed. When it boiled around the seawall-lined bends toward them, Rasim understood. The momentum of her enormous effort would wipe out the smaller magic being worked by the uncoordinated enslaved witches.
And it did, crashing into their power with the relentlessness of the tide. The Waifia's own witches, caught in the surge, surfaced with splutters of astonishment and raced to board the ship again. Kisia swung over the railing, soaking wet and unable to decide if she was offended or delighted. Sesin came aboard dragging a miserable-looking, chained Ilyaran with her, as did two or three of the others. Hassin arrived with two non-Ilyaran slaves, one of whom flung himself into Hassin's arms and kissed him as he realized his freedom was at hand. Hassin blinked, startled, and then gave him a quick embrace.
Nasira's witchery faded as quickly as it had come, but the ship had surged well ahead, and the crew kept it going. The captain's intent gaze gauged the upcoming shore, where the river's walls gradually changed to earth, and then, the distance they'd traveled. Rasim could all but see her gathering breath to announce they were safe. Pride flooded Rasim's chest. They had succeeded, and everyone had been careful to cause as little loss as life as possible. It was as good an outcome as he could have hoped for. He gathered his own breath to lead the cheers after Nasira spoke—
—and found himself holding that breath in surprise as, behind them, the thick river walls began to crumble.
For a few seconds it seemed as if an earthquake had caught the city, but only the eastern bank began to fall, at first. The walls disintegrated in chunks, breaking along mortar lines and then coming in bigger blocks that cast dust into the air. It happened almost impossibly fast, with a rumble that shook the city.
No: it did far more than shake the city. The eastern half of Moran began to slide toward the water, without the river walls to shore it up. Rasim gaped in horror as soldiers and slaves alike sank into stone-filled water and didn't rise again, and as houses began to chase after them. Huge swaths of land slipped and fell, until on the eastern side of the river there were houses hanging half off the ground, dangling above the water. A woman in one of the houses pulled a man to safety before they both stood at the edge of broken brick and wood, looking down in disbelief.
The Waifia's crew went into the water without orders, trying to save the bystanders who were being pulled down. They deposited dozens of people on shore with their witchery, and some, they brought to the Waifia, just because it was closer. Sesin, already frantically trying to save the sailor who had been stabbed earlier, sobbed with her inability to help everyone.
Another rumble sounded, signalling disaster elsewhere. Rasim turned to see the western shore starting to collapse with equal speed and devastation. Only a few feet away from him, Cindu, the stone witch, leaned on the hold door with his injured shoulder, with a terrible smile of triumph etched across his features. He held his free arm outstretched, clutching and tearing with each gesture, and with each one, more of the city fell into the river. He sweated from effort, but his incredible power tore at Moran without remorse.
Rasim howled and tackled him, almost glad that Cindu landed on his injured shoulder. The stonemaster's witchery cut off, but his smile didn't fade. "I've waited twenty-seven years for the chance to do that. The river walls, so badly constructed, riddled with sewer holes...I always thought, if I had the chance, if I had my freedom—! And you softened the city up with your escape…" Even lying down, he stretched his uninjured arm out, clearly ready to call witchery again.
Rasim made a fist and clobbered him with all the strength he could muster. Cindu's eyes crossed and Rasim lurched to his feet, choking on sobs as he turned to Nasira. "He killed people, Captain. He killed all those people!"
"What would you have me do, journeyman?" The captain's voice was strangely clear in the uproar. "Will I turn the ship back so we can help? Will I hand him over to the Moranese Council to do with as they please, not knowing if he might regain consciousness and finish the job before they're able to constrain him? Will I take him with us, and hope we aren't condemned by his actions?"
Rasim stared at her, disbelief pushing through his horror. "You can't...I can't decide that!"
"No," Nasira said, almost gently. "The decision isn't yours, in the end. But what would you have me do, Rasim? What would you have me do?"
Rasim turned a bleak gaze onto the flooding, debris-littered river. No one was fighting anymore. Everybody, Ilyarans and Moranese alike, were trying to get people to safety. But the Waifia was pulling away from the city's center. A few moments longer and they would be safe.
Safe, not just from whatever condemnation Cindu had earned for them, but what they'd earned for themselves with their rebellion at the arena, and in the streets. They wouldn't be enslaved, if they went back. They would be put to death, all of them. Everything they had done would be for nothing. No one would have gained their freedom. Agnet would have died for no reason at all. Rasim's heart hurt at the idea.
But if they simply left, Moran would absolutely bring war to Ilyara. They might not—they might not—if they were given vengeance for the destruction of their city. If Nasira gave them Cindu. If she condemned him, and him alone, to certain death for what they had all done, and for the singular damage he specifically had wrought. Cindu's death might save the rest of them.
Uncertainty clutched Rasim. What Cindu had done was wrong, but...what had been done to him was wrong, too. He stared helplessly at the captain, paralyzed by uncertainty.
"Lorens." Nasira's voice was still overwhelmingly clear and soft, as if she and Rasim were the only two people in the world, but somehow the Northern prince heard her and came to her side. "Have you any of the heartbreak, Lorens?"
"I do." The prince's answer was no louder, but every bit as clear as Nasira's own.
The captain nodded. "Administer it to Cindu."
"Captain—" Rasim's voice broke and he fell silent, not even knowing what he wanted to say. Lorens took a small black leather pouch from a pocket, knelt beside Cindu, flipped him on his back, and tipped his head to pour a dusty drug between his lips. The half-conscious man swallowed, coughed, then turned onto his belly again, coughing harder and trying to spit the stuff out. Lorens caught him with a quick, fluid motion, and poured more of the drug into his palm. Then he clapped his hand over Cindu's open mouth, throwing the drug down his throat, and forced his jaw shut.
"This will go easier on you if you comply," Lorens growled. "Swallow."
Cindu, wild with fury, struggled, but eventually had to swallow the mouthful that Lorens had given him. Lorens studied him momentarily, then pulled him up with one fist and hit him much, much harder than Rasim could ever have hoped to. Cindu's eyes rolled back and he sagged into a more profound unconsciousness than before.
"Captain," Rasim said again, and this time Nasira looked at him. "Someone on board should take a dose of that heartbreak," Rasim whispered. "I'd do it, but it doesn't work on me. Or it didn't, until I took three doses…."
A glimmer of hurt resignation slid through Lorens's gaze. He stood, dusting himself off, then dangled the pouch from one hand. "You still don't quite trust me?"
Rasim responded with a tight, unhappy smile. "I want to. You keep helping. But you also keep being the one who is going to get away free and clear even if the rest of us don't."
"Kisia!" Nasira's voice cracked through the air, and suddenly Rasim realized that the ship was all but standing still in the raging, debris-filled river. Wind howled around them, terribly loud as it carried thick dust from the broken city, but all of that had disappeared from Rasim's awareness as he'd spoken with the captain. Now that he noticed it again, the sound was overwhelming, and the fact that the ship wasn't moving through the current told him how much power Nasira was expending to keep them in place.
Kisia appeared from belowdecks, her brown skin as pale as it could be, from tiredness. "Captain?"
"I have an unpleasant favor to ask, journeyman. We need a volunteer to test Prince Lorens's heartbreak."
Kisia's gaze flickered to Rasim, and at his faint nod, returned to Nasira. "I volunteer, Captain."
Lorens sighed and offered Kisia the little black bag. She opened it, taking a pinch of the drug, and glanced between the adults. "Is this enough?"
"That much won't last long," Lorens said, "but then, it doesn't need to, does it?"
"I guess not." Kisia made a face as she swallowed the pinch, then stood there a few seconds. "How long should it take to work? Oh." Dismay shot over her face. "Oh, no. Oh, that's...it's how I felt before I joined the guild, I guess, except it was normal then, and now it's wrong. I can't feel the water." She extended a hand, obviously trying to use witchery to reach for the frothing river surrounding them, and her eyes widened. "Oh, this is awful."
Nasira met Rasim's gaze, her eyebrows elevated as if to ask if he was satisfied. At his nod, she gestured, and a spiral of water rushed on deck to lift Cindu. "Skymaster…Karluk? Is that your name?"
"It is, Captain." Karluk joined them from beyond the companionway, looking pale but sure of himself.
"Skymaster," Nasira said very formally, "I'm sorry to ask so much of you so soon, but will you carry my message to Moran, as I carry this criminal to them?"
"Aye, Captain."
Rasim's stomach clenched again as Nasira spun Cindu off the deck, propelling him at enormous speed back toward the half-fallen city's center. Her words, amplified by Karluk, filled the whole valley as she called, "The destruction of your sea walls and the ruin of your city was not sanctioned by the Ilyaran Guilds. We return the witch responsible to you, to do with as is found appropriate, and we offer our assistance in rebuilding your city." She gestured briefly at Karluk, and the strange quality in the air that said his magic was in play suddenly faded before she added, "Not, however, right now."
A thin smile pulled at the Skymaster's mouth. "No, not right now. We had better run, right now."
Nasira's nod was almost a waver. The Waifia shuddered, as if the immense power she used to both hold the ship in place and send Cindu back to the Moranese taxed her limits. She said, "Hassin," and the first mate was there, as everyone seemed to be there at no more than the murmur of their name. The whole crew was already helping Nasira hold the ship in place, but Hassin, now at Nasira's side, visibly took on more of the effort, while the captain used the last of her concentration to bring Cindu into the heart of the broken city.
The water wall she carried him with was nothing in comparison to the one they'd dragged over the side of the arena. It was narrow, wide enough only to carry one man, and tall enough to be seen over rooftops, so that the city's survivors would know that Ilyaran magic had, indeed, sent Cindu to Moranese justice.
He was awake by the time Nasira's witchery set him on the ground; Rasim could see, just barely, the shape of him standing in the rushing water, instead of lying in it. It didn't matter. There was nothing he could say, awake or not, that would change his fate.
There was nothing Rasim could say, either, and worse, he wasn't sure if he should have even tried. He pressed his hands over his face as the Waifia began to pick up speed as the crew urged it along the litter-filled river. Cindu should pay for what he'd done to the Moranese city, but then, someone should pay for what had happened to Cindu. And no one's death would make anything better, not really. Rasim didn't know what he should think or feel. It was too complicated, too big, and far more than he'd ever wanted to be mixed up in.
An unbelievable roll of thunder shook the air. Rasim looked through his fingers toward the sky, expecting clouds as dark as night. But aside from the rising dust from the city, the sky seemed clear enough. Thunder rumbled again, so violently it seemed even the rapidly-sailing Waifia rattled with it. Rasim lifted his face from his hands, then went cold.
The western shore of Moran was collapsing again. No, not the shore: the whole of the city. Dropping inward, falling at a terrible speed, as if the very stone below it had turned to water. The arena, which wasn't visible from the river, suddenly became visible, and as quickly, disappeared in a shattering explosion of dust and sound and power. The river poured into the increasing void, and sea witches yelled their concern as the water level dropped precipitously. Rasim felt the surge of their magic coming together, keeping the Waifia float and racing forward so quickly that its hull shuddered with the speed.
Lorens rushed to the ship's side, staggering with the Waifia's dip and sway as it raced away from the falling city. He clutched at the rail, trying to keep his balance as his cry of dismay brought others in his wake. Within a few seconds, half the crew was crowded along the railing, watching the utter destruction of Moran.
Wooden houses came apart in splinters, not just on the western side of the river, now, but on both sides, as if the land beneath them simply clenched itself inward, retreating from the surface. Rubble poured through the streets, changing color as river water rushed over it. Everywhere Rasim looked, something terrible was happening: the ground surged or caved away, leaving juts of bedrock that pierced buildings, or grinding walls of rock that turned other structures to paste. He covered his face, then forced himself to look again, as if a city's destruction deserved witness.
Desimi was nearby suddenly, helping the crew keep the ship upright in the madness, and the old beggar woman came up from below and began to scream. The sound was almost lost in the cacophony of the dying city. Sesin was on her feet, tears pouring down her face as she cried, "What's happening? What's happening?"
"It's Cindu?" Rasim didn't know who he was asking. The gods, maybe, because there was no way any of his shipmates could answer. But neither could Rasim doubt that it was the stone witch, exercising his incredible power despite the heartbreak drug. Or—
Before he could finish the thought, the destruction stopped as quickly as it had started. Or, no: the active destruction came to an end. Rasim didn't know if he felt it, or only understood that it had changed, but suddenly there was no new stonewitchery being worked, no new devastation being wrought. There didn't need to be anything new: the city kept sliding into the river, into the pits that had opened beneath it, into chaos and devastation. The magnificent houses that had stood along the bank were dust and torn wood now, and fires were beginning to glow orange on both sides of the riverbank.
Rasim's stomach twisted so hard he would have thrown up, if there was anything left in his system to purge. "He's dead." He sounded hollow, even to himself. "Cindu is dead. Somebody killed him, to stop...that." He didn't think his voice carried beyond Nasira and Kisia and Karluk, who still stood near him. The rest of the crew remained pressed at the rails, or scrambled to keep the Waifia rushing forward as the river tried to fill the holes and crevasses that had been opened for it.
The sound of wreckage wouldn't stop. It still rumbled and tore and shattered and slammed the earth and the sky alike, as nature took over where witchery had stopped. It would be hours, maybe days, before Cindu's efforts stopped affecting Moran.
"By the gods," Nasira whispered in horror. "How did he...did the heartbreak not work on him?" She turned a bewildered, almost angry look on Rasim, who shook his head desperately beneath the crushing sound of the city's death.
"I don't know why it didn't work on me at first! I thought maybe it was Missio's drug, but then I thought maybe it's because I can use more than one kind of witchery, and then I thought maybe mindkiller and heartbreak cancel each other out, or maybe—" He faltered. "I don't know!"
"He was really strong, like you are, Rasim," Kisia whispered. "He pulled down half the seawalls as soon as he was free. Maybe heartbreak just doesn't work on incredibly strong witches without a huge dose. It's not like anybody's ever given Guildmaster Isidri any, have they? What do we do?"
Nasira's derisive bark answered the first question, and her nostrils flared, cords standing out in her throat as she met Karluk's eyes as if searching for an answer to the second question.
Or not quite like searching for one, maybe. It was, Rasim thought, like Kisia looking to him to make sure she should take the heartbreak. She had known what she planned to do, then. She had only wanted to be sure someone else agreed with her before acting. That seemed to be the kind of glance Nasira and Karluk shared now, before the captain gave one short, unhappy nod and looked at Rasim. "I want you and that quick-thinking mind of yours belowdecks before I have to be grateful for your wisdom in this particular case, journeyman. We have to get home," she added grimly. "Ilyara needs to be warned that Moran is coming for blood."
"I am sorry." Bayar, his golden skin still pale from the rough waters, appeared in the causeway door. He looked very small there, framed by the darkness below, but his expression was implacable as he spoke once more in flawless Ilyaran. "I understand the urgency of your return to Ilyara, but I strongly believe that it would be in all of our best interests if you brought me home, first."
Nasira's gaze landed on Rasim like this was his fault, but then she rolled her attention back to the Shenryalan boy. "And why is that, young man?"
"Because," Bayar replied calmly, "I am the crown prince of the largest Shenryalan tribe, and it appears that in the Moranese, your people and mine have a common enemy."
For a few seconds everyone stared at Bayar. Then Nasira spun toward Rasim, pointing accusingly at him. He threw his hands up in protest. "I didn't know! How could I know? This isn't my fault!"
