Meadowcity Page 18

  The idea was not to overwhelm the fifth city. They couldn’t begin by intimidating them with an army of Scouts, not if Sorin wanted to unite the five cities, bringing the last one back into the fold.

  He had already officially left the city, saying goodbye to Savannah and heading for the Den before he made out for the fifth city. The ring he had been planning on proposing with sat safely in a small box in his villa, waiting for the right time.

  He couldn’t propose now. The fifth city beckoned to him, and much would happen once he went there. Uniting the cities would take a lot of effort, and it wouldn’t be fair to Savannah to plan such an occasion amidst the commotion and celebrations bound to occur once the cities were united.

  She had noticed a change in him since the discovery, he could tell, but they were happy. Sorin found himself thinking of the days when they would be married, as he held Skycity, and more, since he was the one to discover the city on the water. Thoughts of Savannah smiling at him from across his villa as they talked of the future turned up his mouth in a smile as he turned down a corridor in the Den.

  All of the preparations had been made for an ambassadorial trip to Riftcity, just as planned. But Sorin would be making a detour on his way there, the perfect excuse to visit the fifth city to the south, and stopping in Riftcity on his way back for the formalities of the visit.

  His boots scuffing on the wood floor, he entered one of the newly added dormer rooms, his nose wrinkling at the sharp scent of pine. His pack lay on the cot, though he hadn’t slept on it—having only gotten here this morning, after walking out of the stone gates and around the mountain with Falx and Airic. The two men were readying their hunter beasts for the trail. Sorin had traded his fur lined cape for a trim leather jacket, thick enough to keep him warm now that Winter’s End was approaching.

  Sorin would be back in time to celebrate the festival with Savannah, and again he debated whether the festival would be a good time to announce the fifth city or not. He would just have to wait and see how the inaugural trip went.

  He looked up from securing his pack at the scuff of a boot by his door. Airic and his beast, a dark grey wolf named Wren stood ready, with Falx lurking in the background. Time to go.

  In the hall, the rest of the Scouts gathered, offering happy cheers and wistful glances to the two Scouts lucky enough to merit the journey. The three of them would be the first to visit another city in the many hundreds of years since the founding. Sorin was just ecstatic that it actually existed.

  In that warm gatehouse that night in the rain, Airic had told them about his journey to the end of the land, to the encompassing sea, and how he had rested for a bit before turning back. He had stared idly into the distant fog as he had his mid-day meal.

  The fog began to clear over the water as he ate, and he began to notice dark outlines of something on the water. Fingers fumbling, he retrieved his telescope from his pack and extended it, focusing it on the distance. For a long while he watched wide eyed as the fog revealed an impossible island in the enormous sea that encased Arcera.

  Could this be it? he thought over and over, until he finally spotted them—people, carrying a large wooden crate and settling it by the water.

  He had been torn between the burning curiosity of watching more, or returning as quickly as possible to Skycity. But he had been five days from home, and knew that Sorin had spent a lot of time and effort to find this place, and would want to know right away.

  And now Sorin was finally going. They reached the open doorframe of the Den, and Sorin turned, feeling the need to say something to these rowdy Scouts, who had spent half a year searching for this place. They quieted, and he looked over their weather-worn faces, some now scarred from their dangerous charges, but grinning nonetheless.

  “When we come back,” he said. “There will no longer be four Cities, but five. And we will be the ones to unite us all!”

  The men roared, so he went on.

  “All of us here and now are going to change Arcera, and a new era will begin.”

  Starling and Wren barked their appreciation, or more likely their irritation, as the three men left amidst the cheers into the sunny mountainside.

  The Den was nestled in a thick growth of trees on a mossy slope. As they wove through the trees, Airic loosed Wren from her tether and she went running ahead. Sorin felt free—he was going to the fifth city at last—where he could finally find answers to the questions that had circled his thoughts for half a year. But he already knew the answer to the most important one. It existed. And they were on their way.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Sylvia followed Flint’s footsteps along the stone path, heart sinking. They were going to get stuck in the mine.

  The Scouts shepherding their group were stationed in various places along the path. They were coming up on a junction, where two staircases intersected the path, one leading up, the other, down. The Scout standing there looked bored as he stared through the crowd, his short grey hair cropped close to his skull. Sylvia looked down when his dark eyes met hers.

  Still bumping next to Flint, Sylvia was desperately trying to come up with some sort of plan to find Ven—their mission was useless if Ven was left here, lost. Maybe she could think of something when they got to the mine.

  Suddenly the grey-haired Scout cried, “Stop!” and shot out a thick arm, holding the people at front.

  The procession halted, curious looks all around, and a rising whisper.

  But Sylvia could see.

  A boy, and a girl with flaming red hair were running towards them from the level above, two Scouts in hot pursuit.

  Sylvia turned to Flint, eyes wide. His eyes darted in every direction, but then he tugged on her sleeve and nodded his head over the rail of the path.

  Sylvia couldn’t have understood, was he thinking of jumping down onto the lower path?

  To their right, the rift opened up, but the stairs led to a path below, that, if she were out of her mind, she might be able to jump down on. Her eyes pleaded with Flint, but she could think of no other way.

  They watched as Ven and Ember disappeared from view as they reached the downward stairs, the Scouts a few lengths behind them.

  Sylvia waited, straining her ears to hear their footfalls. Beside her Flint had placed one hand on the stone railing, and took her hand in the other.

  She took a sharp breath, and nodded firmly at Flint.

  They leapt—Sylvia had a sudden thought that the wind might pull them over the rift, but then they were bearing down fast on the Scouts. They pounded into the two of them, bringing all four of them to the ground in a loud crash.

  Ven and Ember turned back, incredulous looks on their faces.

  In a tangle of arms and legs, Sylvia and Flint quickly extracted themselves, the Scouts still in a daze.

  Sylvia looked at the others, and cried, “Go!”

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Sorin’s nerves were buzzing. They were almost there. He squinted his eyes at the dense morning fog, hoping the warmth of the rising sun would burn it off soon, giving them more visibility.

  They had passed Riftcity two days ago, making a wide circle around it so as not to attract notice. Since leaving Skycity, they had trudged on through either misty rain or heavy fog, and today was no different.

  Airic estimated that they would reach the sea around mid-day. Sorin desperately hoped the fog would lift when they arrived, so he could see it.

  Boots sinking slightly into the damp path, he kept his pace behind Airic, with Falx taking up the rear, the three men squelching through the forest. Airic’s wolf Wren was nowhere to be seen, but Sorin could feel the hair on the back of his neck prickling, and knew she must be somewhere close. He supposed the beast was guarding them from its wild cousins, but he couldn’t help his unease.

  Falx’s beast, Cirrus, was kept close on a tether. The animal seemed rather well trained, its eyes and ears always darting around, alert. Falx said it was safer to have one in the field,
and one on the trail, should anything happen.

  The unseen sun finally started bringing warmth to the forest, and the fog became less dense, though the air remained humid, heavy with moisture.

  A light breeze eventually picked up, and patches of fog began to waft away, revealing more of their path. They began to step in and out of the fog clouds; the come and go visibility making Cirrus whine.

  Up ahead in the distance they heard a short bark.

  “Wren,” Airic said. “She’s got something.”

  Sorin’s stomach flipped. This is it, he thought, picking up his pace, eyes searching ahead, straining to see through the fog.

  Sorin, Falx and Cirrus followed Airic until they met Wren, who stood still on the white stone shore before the sea. Her tail hung in place, frozen, and her ears pointed out at the fog, where they could clearly hear men calling to one another across the water.

  They crept to the edge of the shore, straining their ears towards the invisible islanders. The sound carried quite well across the water, and it sounded like the men were all trying to work together to do something. Then they heard a large splash and the voices dropped in volume, casual now. A woman laughed, her joy carried unbeknownst to her to the three foreigners across the sea.

  Sorin unclenched his fists and looked around at Airic and Falx, grinning. Unsure of how they were going to get across to the city, it seemed like they should wait until the fog lifted until they could understand what was going on across the water.

  During their journey, Airic had suggested attracting their attention and flagging them over to this side of the sea. Sorin didn’t know how they traveled across the water, but they must, being isolated out on the island for many hundreds of years, they would need to have a way.

  He paced back and forth a little, scuffing his dark boots on the bright stone. The fog was rolling in patches, with the light breeze from the sea shuffling it about.

  Sorin opened his mouth to ask Airic how far away the island had seemed, when an angular wooden frame silently pierced through the fog.

  “Look,” he whispered.

  They stared dumbfounded as it floated in their direction, gaining definition as it eased out of a patch of fog. Low sounds of conversation reached them intermittently. The forms of several people became evident, two of which seemed to be propelling the craft with large wooden staves that were flat on the end that dipped in to the water. They moved in tandem as the craft grew ever closer to them.

  Sorin stepped forward, knowing this was the right thing to do. He felt he had worked his whole life for this moment. A deep breath—

  “Hello!” he bellowed, cupping his hands by his mouth.

  They watched, riveted, for a sign that he had been heard.

  Ever so slowly, the wooden frame turned. It turned to face them, Sorin’s heart racing. What would he say to them? He had an errant thought, What if they didn’t speak the same language?

  As the frame came closer, they could see the people staring out at their shore, mouths agape. A woman stood at the front, holding a tall staff topped with a sharp curved blade.

  The craft cut through the water, the front very narrow, but the middle wide enough to hold a stack of crates, covered in a large net.

  Sorin brushed his damp palms on the back of his shirt as he looked at the woman staring back at them. Her dark hair was tied back and she wore a thick knit shirt, similar to the men who were propelling the craft. Her hand casually held the sharp staff at her side, but as they glided closer, Sorin could see her eyes were narrowed under her dark eyebrows.

  He bit his lip as the woman directed the craft close to their shore. Airic shuffled behind Sorin, and he could see out of the corner of his eye as the man put Wren back on her tether. The wolf scratched its ear with its hind leg, as if it couldn’t care less about the immeasurably important meeting that was about to take place.

  “Who are you?” the woman asked bluntly, her voice strangely accented. The two men had turned around, as their bench was facing the other direction, and locked their staves into slots in the frame.

  “We are from Skycity, do you know the place?” Sorin said, drawing on years of public speaking to keep his voice steady. His stomach tightened as he took a shaky breath.

  The woman nodded slowly, several emotions passing her face at once, none Sorin could place.

  “Why are you here?”

  Sorin’s brow lowered, and he shifted his stance.

  “We’ve been searching—we only just recently found out you existed.”

  She didn’t seem very impressed, so he went on.

  “I’m the Governor of Skycity, Sorin Greyling, and these are my Scouts, Falx and Airic.”

  His men bowed their heads in acknowledgement, and the woman and her men nodded back. This wasn’t going at all how Sorin imagined. Why were they so cold?

  She signaled to her men and they got back in place, putting the staves back in the water.

  “Well, then, we’ll bring you to Seascape,” she said.

  *

  Sorin and Falx stood over Seascape’s crest inlaid in the smooth stone floor. Hands clasped behind his back to keep them from shaking, he and Falx awaited the city’s leader, Lady Naomi Blackwater. The people who brought them over the water had shown them the docks and explained their boating enterprise. They had been going out on the sea to catch fish in those huge nets.

  The woman, Val, had guided them off of the wooden dock, and let her companions go back on the sea without her. She didn’t take the staff with her, for which Sorin was grateful.

  As Sorin and Falx regained their footing on the dock, she led them down curiously paved streets. Through his boots he could feel a strange smoothness, though the dark tiles didn’t feel slippery. Something about them glinted a blueish black when the sun finally slipped out of the fog.

  The buildings themselves were not so different from Skycity’s: stone mostly, but they had black, sharply pitched roofs that rose up into a forest of dark angles.

  Turning his head left and right, he knew he probably looked young, impressionable. But the people of this city were not so interested in the foreigners—although surely they didn’t realize they were from another city.

  Val made no effort to point out any of the landmarks they passed. Sorin opened his mouth as they passed a school with children playing outside. He narrowed his eyes as he saw a group of kids crouched in the corner of the courtyard, seemingly drawing on the pavers. Looking closer, he noticed the boy drawing a colorful circular pattern—with his finger.

  Immediately Sorin looked down at the pavers, seeing only black. Turning back the way they came, the path was clear. He looked forward again, feeling sheepish.

  But Val pressed on. A moment later though, he couldn’t bite his tongue. A grinding, squealing noise blared out from the next block over, and Sorin and Falx turned to see a huge metal structure flying down the lane, below it, a set of tracks. Slowing down, the squealing eased as it stopped in front of a raised platform, loaded with people.

  Val let them watch as some people got on, and some got off, very politely. The machine was paneled with a formidable set of black panes, similar to those on the street, which ran down its entire length. The thing took up the whole lane, and reached almost the height of the villas.

  “What is that?” he said, dumbstruck. The boat had been one thing, but this…

  “Our train,” she said, and Sorin couldn’t help but think she had put a little more emphasis on ‘our’. He would have to ask someone else about it later. Maybe this woman was just particularly surly.

  A moment later, with no more people moving about, the train began to move forward again. They watched between the lanes as the panels became a continuous dark blur, finally disappearing as the end flew by, leaving nothing but an empty platform.

  She led them in continued silence down the lanes until they approached a massive stone structure, looming above all the others. Unlike the other buildings, this one had a flat roof, and as Sorin lo
oked, he thought he saw several figures moving idly at the corners of the roof.

  Clean white stone steps led the way up to a solid oak door, opened for them by a man with jet-black hair who turned back to staring out at the city as soon as he got the door for them.

  Val had had a few quick and intense words with the man inside who came to greet them, and with barely a goodbye, went back the way she came, leaving Sorin and Falx standing in the middle of the foyer surrounded by smooth stone, staring down at the crest. The man who spoke to Val was dressed just like the man at the door—sleek dark clothing, with a thick belt holding several covered tools Sorin couldn’t begin to guess what they were.

  The foyer was lit moderately—nothing compared to the bright, glass encased foyer of Skycity’s Hall— by several windows at the front of the building.

  The white stone, so common in Arcera, gleamed beautifully, like creamy glass. Identical sets of double doors graced each wall, the dark wood carved with simple lines, all shut. The rest of the foyer was bare, so Sorin’s eyes kept going to the crest.

  At the sound of footsteps, he turned on the spot to the doors opposite the entrance. Through one side came a thin blonde man who came up to stand by the crest, smiling. He looked about Sorin’s age, his bright blue eyes standing out in the monochromatic room.

  Extending a hand to Sorin, he said, “Oliver, sir, pleased to meet you,” grasping his hand solidly.

  Sorin let out a breath and smiled. At least someone here was pleased to see him. It felt as if they hadn’t wanted them here at all. Val was just an unusually unhappy person.

  “Sorin,” he said, looking in Oliver’s eyes, blue as the sky. “And this is Falx.”

  Oliver shook hands with Falx, who grunted a hello.

  “Right, well you can follow me through here,” he gestured politely to the door he came from. “Lady Blackwater is awaiting you in the receiving hall.”