The Chaos Crystal (65 page)

Warlock couldn't feel the Tide — not the magic of it, at least. But he could see it, or this hellish manifestation of it, filling the circular chamber with its sinister, swirling red light. And it terrified him.

Declan Hawkes reached the altar ahead of Warlock and pulled Arkady from it. That's when Warlock realised Elyssa was there too, lying on the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling as if she had no notion of what was going on around her.

At Lukys's feet lay another unconscious woman, next to the body of a rat. The Immortal Prince lay on his side on the floor by the altar, naked and apparently dead, but still holding on to the glowing red skull, which pulsed with a deep, crimson, malevolent light. Crouched in the shelter of the altar was Tiji, Hawkes's little pet chameleon, wearing a thick fur coat and a look of abject terror.

Lukys tried to stop Declan from rescuing Arkady. Warlock ignored that scuffle to concentrate on the source of the trouble — the Chaos Crystal.

He turned to Tiji, wondering what she was doing here; hoping she knew what was going on.

'How do I stop it?' he shouted, hoping she could

hear him over the howling wind that tore around and around the chamber.

'I don't know!' she shouted back. 'Just don't drop it! If you drop it, you'll kill everybody!'

That was good enough for Warlock. That's why he was here, after all. If Cayal was dead, then the others could die too. He glanced across at Hawkes, but he was too busy struggling with Arkady and Lukys to notice what Warlock was up to.

We have the will to do whatever it takes,
Boots's voice echoed in his mind,
to see as many immortals as
possible perish in that rift when they open it.

What
if
it really does destroy Amyrantha in the
process?

Warlock stared at the crystal skull, its red eyes glaring at him.
Tides, can one creature make such a
decision on behalf
of
an entire world?

The answer was there already, waiting for him to ask the question.
Think
of
a future where your own
children are destined to betray you to the suzerain, Warlock, and then tell me you wouldn't rather see an end to this world than wait for that to happen.

He needed no further urging. Determined and filled with a sense of complete
rightness,
Warlock snatched the crystal from Cayal's unresisting fingers and rose to his feet. The movement caught Lukys's eye.

He shoved Declan away and lunged for Warlock, screaming:
'Noooo!'

Warlock stepped back, out of his reach, and raised the burning crystal skull over his head and then, with every ounce of force he could muster, smashed it into the floor.

For a moment, nothing happened. The skull didn't shatter. It simply bounced a few times and then rolled to a stop at the base of the altar where it wedged under the lip of the plinth.

Warlock stared at it, more than a little disappointed. He glanced at Tiji, who seemed just as puzzled.

And then, above them, the swirling red vortex began to narrow, contracting to a point above the altar. Warlock stared at it in fear.

Was this the rift to another world the immortals
had been talking
off

Tides, have I opened it by mistake?

As if in answer to his silent question, the wind picked up, the sound of it howling through the chamber. Cracks appeared in the roof and on the polished permafrost beneath Warlock's feet. Warlock grabbed Tiji by the arm and dragged her away from the black maw that was growing in the centre of the red vortex, sucking everything to it.

Those nearest the vortex weren't so lucky; it swallowed them like a hungry monster. Lukys, Cayal's inert body, the woman lying at the base of the altar near where Lukys had been standing a moment ago. Then Hawkes lost his grip on Arkady and he vanished as well. Warlock shielded his eyes, turning away from the gluttonous whirlpool that was indiscriminately devouring everything in its path.

Averting their faces from the maelstrom, Warlock and Tiji tried to flee the sucking power of the rift, but the shaking ground was starting to split. Above them, the ceiling cracked even wider, exposing the chamber to daylight.

Breaking the chamber open did nothing to stop the vortex; nothing to halt the relentless forces dragging Amyrantha into ruin. Some of the immortals in the chamber ran toward it, some seemed frozen in place. But whichever direction Warlock looked, the world seemed to be breaking apart.

'Tides, you stupid dog,' Tiji shouted at him as the floor began to give way. 'What have you done?'

He never had a chance to answer her. The floor cracked open beside him and, without warning, the little lizard Scard was gone, swallowed by the yawning chasm that had opened beneath her.

Warlock stared after her in shock, the dawning realisation that this really
might
be the end of everything, suddenly settling on his shoulders like the weight of the world, as if it had decided to rest there for a moment on its way to complete annihilation.

Panic filled Warlock, temporarily paralysing him. He needed to close the rift, he realised, but had no idea how. He needed to put an end to that vortex; the sucking whirlpool was tearing Amyrantha apart.

He glanced at the pulsating Chaos Crystal, the engine driving the vortex. On his hands and knees, Warlock crawled back toward the altar, back toward the crystal skull that lay jammed beneath it, spewing out the rage of the universe and venting it on his world.

It took every bit of strength Warlock owned to reach the altar; more strength than he thought he possessed to free the crystal while resisting the pull of the rapidly expanding vortex that swirled overhead, swallowing everything within its reach.

Finally jerking the crystal skull free, Warlock held it up. With a final silent apology to Boots, he closed his eyes, certain that if he'd achieved nothing else here today, he was going to create the future Boots wanted from him — a future where no child of his would ever be subject to the whim or the orders of an immortal.

Then he opened his hand and let it go.

The vortex swallowed the Chaos Crystal whole.

Warlock felt nothing after that.

CHAPTER 61

Stellan felt the cavern go and staggered back across the ice to escape the collapsing ceiling of the underground chamber. He had no notion of what might be happening down there, only that it involved forces he couldn't begin to imagine.

With the ice shuddering beneath him, Stellan ran for the slight rise overlooking the palace, hoping it was far enough away to escape the worst of the damage. He wasn't sure if Declan and Warlock had succeeded in their attempt to stop Lukys opening the rift, but he was certain they'd done something dire. The palace itself seemed to be moving now, and for some reason, heavy dark clouds were gathering overhead, bellowing with thunder and streaked with jagged lightning.

Kinta managed to scramble free beside him and together they made a run for it. It was hard to tell, with the thunder above them and the screaming wind emanating from the underground chamber, if any of the others had managed to get clear.

'What's happening?' he shouted, doubting that even though he was screaming at the top of his lungs, Kinta would hear a word he said.

'They've opened the rift!' Kinta yelled back, her mouth as close to his ear as she could get it.

'Can they close it again?'

'I hope so!'

She grabbed Stellan's arm and pulled him further away as something cracked and shattered with the same deafening boom the ice had made when the Great Lakes

were broken up by the immortals during the war between Caelum and Glaeba. A moment later, in the distance, Stellan saw the first of the fabulous ice palace's spires toppling to the ground. There was a Tide Lord clinging to it, but he was too far away to tell which one it was.

'I have to go back!' Kinta shouted in his ear when they finally reached the relative safety of the rise overlooking the palace.

Before he could answer, another spire cracked and tumbled to the ice, taking another Tide Lord with it.

'But my lady!' Stellan objected. 'You'll be
...'
He stopped himself, realising how pointless his warning would be.

Kinta spared him a brief smile, as if she knew he was about to warn her she'd be killed if she returned to the palace. 'Don't worry about me, your majesty. Go home. Be a good king.'

Stellan nodded and watched her leave, not sure how he was supposed to fulfil such an order, given he'd been brought to Jelidia magically and the world appeared to be disintegrating around him.

'Stay safe, my lady,' he called after her, for want of anything more profound to say. It was unlikely Kinta heard him. She ran back down the slope, heading into the melee.

Standing on the rise, Stellan watched the palace collapse as one spire after another broke off and shattered on the ice. There were large cracks in the ground now, spreading out from the underground chamber. A thick red swirling cloud of mist hovered around the black maw that had once been a fabulous fire-lit chamber of ice. Stellan briefly regretted never seeing the chamber, only having it described to him by Declan Hawkes.

It had sounded like a true marvel, with its fabulous high-ribbed walls carved from the ice and its methane fires casting a hellish light
...

Stellan frowned, staring at the cracks in the ice as a terrible thought occurred to him. They were still spreading. The palace was collapsing before his very eyes. Six of the eight spires were gone now, and he could no longer see any of the Tide Lords who had been clinging to them, high above the dampening effect of the Chaos Crystal, in order to wield the Tide.

The underground chamber, according to Declan, had been lit by perpetual fires, fuelled by gas trapped under the ice. With the ice breaking apart so rapidly, would the gas escape? Would it explode? Would it leak into the air and suffocate any mortals in the vicinity? And if it did, how far would the effects of it extend?

Stellan found himself paralysed by uncertainty and fear. He'd faced down any number of catastrophes in his life, probably saved whole nations from the ravages of war with his skills as a diplomat. But this was too big to comprehend. It was too much for one mortal to deal with. Stellan found himself staring at a Cataclysm on an unimaginable scale and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

The cracks in the ground were widening. Flames billowed out of the collapsed cavern. The snow steamed and spat and the sky darkened even more. The lightning was unnaturally frequent, as if something in the chamber was calling it down; the thunder so loud he could barely hear his own thoughts.

Stellan could see nobody alive down there, but given a score of them were immortal, that didn't mean much.

Of Warlock's fate, he had no doubt. No mortal could survive the fiery hurricane swirling over the remains of the underground chamber. Behind it, the Palace of Impossible Dreams was all but gone. Stellan never managed to see the inside of that, either.

Another explosion boomed across the ice, another crack rent the ground in a cloud of steaming mist.

It began to rain, but the rain was falling sideways. Stellan wasn't sure if it was real rain or snowmelt driven outward from the fiery vortex at the centre of the storm.

And then, without warning, the vortex vanished.

A sudden and eerie silence descended over the scene. With the disappearance of the swirling red storm, the rain stopped and even the lightning held its breath for a moment.

Oblivious to the elements, Stellan pushed back the hood of his fur-lined jacket and wondered if it was over.

Is it done?
Had Declan and Warlock succeeded? Had they closed the rift? Had they prevented the Tide Lords from drawing so much power through the rift, it would endanger Amyrantha?

For a long moment, it seemed as if they
had
succeeded. Stellan peered into the distance, half expecting to see Hawkes climbing out of the deep hole that was the remains of the shattered chamber, leading Arkady and Warlock with him, and any other survivors he'd managed to save.

Hawkes was like that. He was the sort who always came through
...

But nobody emerged from the ice and just as Stellan was on the verge of risking a return to the chasm to see what had happened down there, the ground shuddered again.

A moment later, a massive column of fire shot up from the chasm, so hot that Stellan could feel the heat of it scalding his face even from this distance. He looked at it in awe, expecting it to subside, but it seemed to be growing rather than shrinking.

Stellan stared at the fire in wonder for a moment and then realised what it meant. He swore savagely under his breath and turned, running as fast as he could manage on the rapidly melting ice, knowing it was futile, but too mortal, too afraid of death, to do anything else.

The cracks multiplied apace as he tried to outrun the inevitable, many of the fissures exploding open in front of him.

Stellan lasted longer than he thought he would. He made quite a distance before the fire overtook him. His last thoughts were of Arkady, wondering if, instead of being consumed in the destruction caused by the immortals and their power-hungry rift, she'd managed to reach safety on the other side.