The Chaos Crystal (55 page)

'What do you think?' Cayal asked.

She had been going to say so much. And Arkady had a lot to say to this man. She had been going to tell him how much she'd needed him last night. But how much she loved Declan. And, despite his unique gift for comforting her when she needed him most, how callous he was. How uncaring of anything but his own pathetic, cowardly wish to die. But it was pointless, she realised. Nothing she said would make a difference. Nothing she could do would alter what was about to happen.

'I was just going to tell you to be careful,' she said, taking the easy way out. 'If I leave first, and Elyssa doesn't see you coming out of here, she need never know you didn't spend the night in your own bunk.'

Before Cayal could say anything more, she turned, grabbed her fur coat off the bed and then her fur hat from the dresser near the washbowl. Pushing her arms through the sleeves, she jammed the hat onto her head, turned for the door and, without another word, Arkady slipped out into the dim companionway, leaving the Immortal Prince and everything she wanted to say to him behind her.

Pulling the fur tightly closed and the hat down over her ears, Arkady made her way on deck to discover there was more than a distant smudge of coast on the horizon. Icebergs littered the surrounding sea that dawn gilded with a magical golden light. She'd heard that at the height of summer here, the sun never set, and last night had definitely seemed uncommonly short. That might have had more to do with how she'd been occupied, she then realised, than the actual length of time that had passed.

The crew were dashing about frantically, shouting at each other and doing whatever it was that sailors do on ships sailing through waters riddled with icebergs. Arkady had to stop and dodge and apologise quite a bit as she carefully moved forward on the slippery deck, finding the whole process of ocean sailing rather daunting and very fraught. Although she had grown up in a city near a lake, for her, sailing was something she'd come to later in life, after she married Stellan. Then it involved leisurely trips on calm water on a very large and well- provisioned barge, with lots of servants and even a small orchestra to entertain the guests. Her only ocean-going experiences, on the other hand, had been the short hop across the Sanorna Sea from Glaeba to Torlenia when they'd been exiled by the king, and across the ocean as a slave on the trip to Senestra — a journey she never wanted to relive, for any number of reasons, few of them related to sailing.

She spied Elyssa ahead, talking to the captain. Or rather, being talked
at
by the captain, who was gesticulating and pointing, making no bones about the fact that he was upset about something. Not far from them, some of the sailors were winching a longboat down to the water. The Immortal Maiden looked up and caught sight of her. She motioned Arkady forward with her arm as the captain fell silent.

'We can't take the ship in any further,' she said, her breath frosting in the icy air. 'Captain Spineless the Magnificent here is afraid of scraping his precious hull on an iceberg. We're going to have to go the rest of the way by longboat.'

Arkady nodded, not sure if she was being asked her opinion, or being told what she must do. 'Very well.'

'You need to fetch your things,' Elyssa informed her. 'And make sure the crystal is safe.'

'Of course.'

'Have you seen Cayal?'

'Not since yesterday,' Arkady lied, finding it interesting how unsettled the immortals were by not being able to feel each other's proximity on the Tide. The dampening effect of the Chaos Crystal was fascinating. The scientist in Arkady would have loved to have had the opportunity to study it — if studying a magical artefact could even be called
science.
'I could go look for him, if you want.'

'You just get packed and make sure the Chaos Crystal is safe,' Elyssa said. 'I don't need your help to find Cayal.'

'As you wish, your highness,' she said with in inelegant curtsy, made even more difficult by the rise and fall of the deck. 'Will we have to walk the rest of the way to the palace once we make land?'

'Hopefully there will be someone waiting for us with a sled.'

'But how will they know to be waiting for us?' Arkady asked, looking over the side at the drop to the icy water below with concern. If she missed a single step climbing down to the longboat, that water down there would kill her in minutes.

'Lukys would have mounted a magical barrier around the continent,' Elyssa said. 'We probably sailed through it days ago, alerting him to our presence.'

'Unless the Chaos Crystal killed it,' Cayal suggested, coming up behind Arkady. She jumped at his sudden appearance. He'd obviously been back to his own cabin and changed out of the clothes he was wearing yesterday. Elyssa didn't seem suspicious. Perhaps the argument with the captain had distracted her. 'Either way, they'll know we're coming.'

'Does Kentravyon know we're leaving?'

'He's talking of swimming ashore.'

'That's crazy.'

'Well
...
yes.'

Elyssa rolled her eyes, but made no further comment about Kentravyon. She turned back to

Arkady. 'Fetch the Chaos Crystal,' she said. 'It's time for us to leave.'

Bowing respectfully to Elyssa again and not even glancing in Cayal's direction, Arkady did as she was ordered, figuring that, for now at least, doing as she was told — even if it meant suffering Elyssa doing the telling — was the safest course of action and probably the best way to stay alive.

CHAPTER 50

Located in a sheltered bay on the northern coast of Chelae, Denrah was a large village that enjoyed the unique advantage of being the northernmost deep-water anchorage of substance in Chelae. Strangers were not uncommon here and, as a rule, went unremarked. Declan could have set the rendezvous somewhere more remote, he supposed, but he didn't know the islands that well, and at least here in Denrah he could guarantee that all the immortals would know where he was. 'They're coming.'

Declan squinted in the direction the Scard was pointing. Warlock was looking out to sea through the long brass tube of a Torlenian telescope he'd acquired on his visit to Ramahn. The telescope allowed the Scard to spot the approaching immortals even before Declan was able to feel them on the Tide.

The morning was bright, the sky a cloudless cobalt vault over the island. Declan had been tempted to leave Warlock behind for this initial meeting, figuring the inclusion of a Scard in their party was something he could broach later, once he found out how many Tide Lords he had on his side. But the big canine would have none of it.

'Are you sure it's them?'

The Scard nodded and returned the brass instrument to his eye. 'It's them. And they seem to be riding
...
some sort of
...
I don't know
...
This will sound like I've lost my mind, but it looks like a magic carpet.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Warlock,' Declan couldn't help himself from responding. 'There's no such thing as a magic carpet.'

Warlock lowered the 'scope and glared at him, his teeth bared, a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat.

Declan still wasn't entirely certain what had made Warlock abandon his family, yet again, to follow him into danger. He was certain the Scard wasn't loyal to him personally, and there didn't seem any other reasonable explanation. It had something to do with Warlock's pups. Declan had worked out that much. But exactly how the Scard thought he was helping them — or, more to the point, how his mate, Boots, thought he could help them by following Declan — remained something of a mystery.

There was no time to start questioning Warlock now, however, about his motives. He had to content himself with the thought that Warlock had undertaken every task Declan had asked of him since they'd left Hidden Valley and the icy winter of Glaeba behind — the most important of which was delivering the message to Ramahn, which had resulted in his meeting with Brynden.

Declan hadn't wasted the intervening time. To keep himself occupied while he waited for the immortals from Glaeba and Caelum to join them, he'd drawn detailed plans of Lukys's palace — or what he could remember of it. He'd sketched out the location of the ice chamber, the size of it, the upper levels; any detail he could recall that might aid them in their quest. There was no way of knowing what magical defences Lukys would have put in place around the palace, or even if he'd bothered with them. There was a good chance he wasn't aware anybody was even thinking of trying to stop him from opening the rift.

'They're using the Tide to move it,' Declan

explained to placate his growling companion. 'It's just a perfectly normal rug.'

'As if you didn't smell bad enough, you even sound like one of them when you try to make jokes,' the Scard said with an unhappy frown, turning back to watch the horizon.

'That's because apparently I
am
one of them,' Declan said, raising his arm to shade his eyes from the bright sun. He could make out a number of black dots on the horizon that might be the approaching immortals. However, but they were still too far away to see with the naked eye and certainly not close enough to affect the Tide sufficiently for Declan to guess at their numbers.

The specks on the horizon quickly grew larger, resolving into a group of people standing on a rug magically propelled by the Tide. Declan could feel them now, the lesser immortals' gentle ripples on the Tide almost swamped by Jaxyn and Tryan's more powerful presence.

'Nervous?'

Declan glanced at Warlock. 'Of course not. I do this sort of thing all the time.'

The Scard smiled — something he'd done rarely since leaving Hidden Valley — and collapsed the telescope in on itself. They were close enough now to see their visitors with the unaided eye. 'For an immortal, you're a terrible liar,' he said.

'I'm led to believe I'll get better with practice,' Declan said.

'Good thing your life doesn't depend on it, then,' the Scard remarked.

Declan chose not to respond to that. He had more immediate concerns than the caustic wit of his very reluctant canine companion.

It looked like Stellan had succeeded spectacularly. Using the Tide, the newcomers came in fast, settling on the sand near the clear water of the shallow lagoon

where Declan waited for them. It was midday; the sun was high in the sky, burning the black sand and making them squint in the bright light. Although they were already making plans to meet as he was leaving Glaeba, he'd never really believed that Stellan Desean would manage to even get these warring Tide Lords in the same room together, let alone force them to agree to anything.

He felt another ripple on the Tide behind him. Kinta and Brynden would also have felt the arrival of the other immortals. Brynden had arrived yesterday, having made arrangements for his absence from Ramahn. He'd probably appointed some trusted monk from the religious order devoted to his worship, to mind things in his absence.

They were not alone on the beach. It was a favourite place for the local children, who had paddled large, flat polished planks rounded to a point on one end out into the water. There they would sit and wait for a wave to send them hurtling back to shore, squealing with delight. Declan had been intrigued by the game since the first time he had seen it several years ago on his initial visit to the Chelae Islands. Although to him, the game seemed a little pointless, given that as soon as they landed on the beach, the children turned around and paddled out to sea to await the next wave.

Jaxyn, Syrolee and Tryan stepped forward, followed by four other men. Declan supposed Engarhod, Ranee and Krydence were three of the others. But he couldn't imagine who the fourth man might be, and they were still too far away for him to tell.

'So, this is our new Tide Lord,' Syrolee said, when she reached him, staring him up and down with disdain.

Declan met her gaze unflinchingly. She was dressed in an elaborate, crimson and pearl Caelish-style hooped skirt with long flowing sleeves and a beaded

velvet bodice. A lesser creature would be dead from heat exhaustion in such a gown in the tropics, if she were merely human.

Tryan, on the other hand, was dressed far more casually and proved to be every bit as handsome as legend held him to be. And just as charming.

He moved to offer Declan his hand as they approached. 'Welcome to our very diverse and somewhat
...
fractious family.'

Declan shook his hand cautiously, surprised by the warmth of his greeting. He was glad he'd been warned about him in advance, because there was nothing about Tryan that indicated that he was — of all the Tide Lords gathered here on this beach — the most callous and ruthless among them. Given he had arrived in the company of Jaxyn Aranville, that was really saying something.

'I have to say, I'm a little surprised you agreed to come.'

'You won't be,' Stellan Desean said, stepping up beside Tryan, 'when you hear what he has to say.' He was dressed for the Glaeban winter he must have so recently left behind, and already sweating in Denrah's tropical humidity.

Declan stared at the new King of Galeba in shock.
'Desean?'

'Declan.'

'What
...
what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at home? Ruling your new kingdom?'