I didn’t stop and headed to my little corner to sling up my hammock. But from there, I could hear his stories, and they carried me off to sleep, where I dreamed of monsters and harpiar, sailsquids and wyrmaids. I even dreamed of a Priestlord and didn’t want to wake.
It was morning when we first spied the Dreadwall.
It was sunny and the wind was strong, and I squinted in the bright-yellow light as I stepped on to the main. When I looked over the rail, my will melted like an icicle in the suns.
The Dreadwall.
It was like nothing I could have conjured in my wildest nightmares. It first reminded me of a dam or a waterfall a good half league tall. But the furious water rushed upward, not down, from ocean to sky, with sea spilling from it like steam from a kettle. It sparkled with the same “shattered glass” look as the air in the Silence, but this glass would easily shred a ship in a heartbeat with its force and its rune.
It was impossible to imagine that this massive construct of elemental magik stretched all around the equatorus, circulating ocean water into the skies above and back across the Silence to rain down without ceasing in the Sheets. High above, the Dreadsky streaked with thick, heavy black-and-green clouds across the Silence. It was terrifying to think that magik had created this, even more terrifying to think of what might happen if the spell ever failed.
Even so far away, the roar deafened, and from the quarterdeck, Fahr needed a bullhorn to be heard.
“Spinners,” he called. “Both crews on deck, and at the ready.”
“Have Ensign Renn join me on the pup,” called Thanavar. “Her chimeric will be helpful.”
My heart leaped into my throat as I scrambled to the pup and took my place next to the captain. How fantastical my life had become to find me casting spells with aRhi’Ahrcaptain to restore a tear in the Dread, but it felt good, strong. I had apurpose here by his side. I was needed.
“Like Hodgetown?” I asked boldly. “Thrum, Call, and Torrent?”
“Thrum, Call, and Bind, Ensign. We are knitting a frayed wall. A rain spell would be counterproductive.”
Fog. I hated being wrong, but I steeled my jaw. I would not be too proud for the Ship of Spells. I could not.
“This is anAuctorus Circulaia,” he went on, “which is why you needed to learn it. But I am hesitant to ask you to try again.”
“Well,” I said. “I guess you’re here to attend in case I go over the side.”
He grunted, and I wondered if it was a laugh.
“I will be binding inRhi’Ahr.Repeat after me.Thryh’siahr tryo’visseth.”
“Thryh’siahr tryo’visseth.”
Our hands crackled, and I wondered at the power of theRhi’Ahr, when their very words could trigger rune.
“Good. Augment if you can. The Dreadwall was cast with chimeric, so any you can send its way will assist the bind.”
I nodded, rolling the words over on my tongue as I tucked my gloves into my sash.
“Hard to port, Mr. Neale,” Thanavar called. “Bring us about.”
As the ship’s nose swung away, I got a clearer view of the Dreadwall from the pup, unimpeded by masts, sails, or rigging. We were less than a quarter league away, but I will forever remember that moment. It was the very first time I laid my eyes on the Nethersea, the land of the enemy.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting. Bergs. Ice. Crystal mountains. Wyrmaids the size of leviathans, whales to swallow us whole. Fleets of Dreadships or an armada of cruisers. But there was none of that. Beyond the watery jambs of the breach, there was just a narrow blue stretch of open sea.
“Thrum and Call,” said Fahr over the horn. “Both crews, if youplease.”
Two crews. It was fascinating to watch them work, and much like in the Bay of Hodges, theTouchstonebegan to rock as the waters gathered beneath her. I saw ripples racing toward the breach as the ocean marshalled herself before it, bubbling in frothy white waves at the edges of the Dreadwall. The sea boiled with pattern. The waters roared with zeal.
Bring it down and bring it home, said theTouchstone.
“Auctorusin ten,” called Fahr. “Second crew, make ready.”
Thanavar looked down at me and arched a brow.
“Ready, Aro’el?”
