P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

Then it came to her: the Great Dance, which even now her mother had perverted, the one intended to direct the power of the temples, of their god itself. Trinity, how long it had been since she had first learned that fearsome variant of the Senetha in Perimal Darkling, taught by golden-eyed shadows. More recently, she had danced in the Tastigon temple after its priest Ishtier had lost control of it.

Child, you have perverted the Great Dance as your namesake did before you, the Arrin-ken Immilai had said in the Ebonbane afterward, passing judgment on her. You have also usurped a priest’s authority and misused a master rune. We conclude that you are indeed a darkling, in training if not in blood. On the whole, your intentions have been good, but your behavior has been reckless to the point of madness and your nascent powers barely under control.

Three days before, she had nearly destroyed Tai-tastigon.

Then there was Karkinaroth crumpling behind her, but that had been Tirandys’ fault for sealing its temple’s priests in until they died.

Darkling . . . No one had called her that in a long time. Tentir had almost made her forget. Nonetheless, she still was one, as the Arrin-ken had said, in training if not in blood.

The dust billowed closer. Lightning flashed within it from cloud to cloud and blue fire crept, crackling, up the boat’s rigging. Jame snapped her fingers, and smiled ruefully at the resulting spark.

Tai-tastigon had survived her.

Karkinaroth hadn’t been her fault.

“Your friend Marc warned me that I would probably find the Riverland reduced to rubble and you in the midst of it, looking apologetic.”

Tentir had only been slightly damaged.

Langadine was dying anyway. No one could blame her for that—could they?

G’ah, don’t think of it .

She might be both a darkling and a potential nemesis, but destruction had its role to play too, as Granny Sit-by-the-Fire had said. Her duty now lay with those still alive.

She could feel the power looming over her. Rather than the fierce torrent that she had experienced with other temples, it was thick and clogged with the debris that made it visible, as if the newly awakened edifice were expelling its own afterbirth. The moon and stars dimmed, then disappeared. Jame saluted the on-rolling darkness, turning the gesture into one of defiance. Time to dance.

Glide, dip, turn . . .

Each move summoned power and expelled it. Violet flames ran down her limbs and crackled at her fingertips. Freed of its cap, her braided hair cracked like whips as she spun. Blue lightning snapped from the ship’s rigging to be met by a blinding return stroke from the roiling clouds. As one, the moas flopped over to hide heads under wings. Jame barely noticed. Darkness arched over the boat and pressed down. The mast groaned, but the light flaring at its tip held the shadows at bay. Her dance was creating a space within the clouds, a partial haven from their crushing weight.

An oar shattered. Cadets hastily withdrew and shipped the rest, then went back to holding their ears against the relentless pressure.

Whomp!

Suddenly they were falling, but only a few feet. The sea had been driven back, leaving their keel on its salty bottom among flopping fish.

Just as abruptly, the weight lifted. Jame fell to her knees on the prow. Dark stars splashed between her shaking gloved hands: her nose and ears were bleeding.

“Mommy, is it over?” asked Lanek in a piping voice through a mask of tears and snot.

“Not quite,” said Gorbel, looking out to sea. “Hold on. Here it comes!”

The sea was returning in a towering wave, flinging whitecaps and fish off of its crest as it came. It rolled under the boat’s stern, pitching it upward and nearly flinging out its passengers. The moas screamed. So did Lady Kalan.

The wave rolled on, driving the clouds before it up through the broken tiers of the city. Then back it came, dragging the dead with it. Jame clung to the rail staring down into all of those blank, smashed faces. The ship bobbed in a sea of corpses. Over all, power still roiling about its base, loomed the black temple crowned by the gibbous moon.

The wind returned in a swirl of tattered gold, not quite landing on the deck beside her.

“You were right,” said the Old Man in a tone of wonder. “It didn’t hurt at all.”

“You think not? Look.”

The Tishooo stared down, his seamed face going slack with shock, then taut with outrage. “Oh, my poor people, my poor city! Who has done this terrible thing?”

That, thought Jame, was a good question. Hers was supposedly a sentient god, yet his actions seemed mindless. All of this destruction—to what end? A temple had come to life, and in the process had slaughtered an innocent population. Where was the justice in that? Never mind that he might be said to have saved his own people through her actions. But honor didn’t only apply within the Kencyrath, whatever some Kencyr like Caldane believed—did it? Not to her understanding. Was such an action any worse than what Perimal Darkling had done to the previous world, through the agency of the Master and the Dream-weaver? Were they also only tools, and if so, of whom? What difference was there, after all, between the Shadows and the Three-Faced God? Did her own people also worship a monster?

“There,” she said, dragging herself upright and pointing at the tower.

The Tishooo breathed deep, and the air flexed with him, in and out of her own lungs until her head spun.

Then he was gone.

Jame couldn’t see his progress directly, but the clouds around the base of the tower recoiled. Something buffeted them, then drove them back round and around the temple’s black shaft, higher and higher. The embedded dead seemed to rise with the blast as if they were storming their destroyer. The wind drew tighter and grew faster, dispersing the clouds of god-power. The tower cracked. Massive shards toppled off of it, plummeting into the chaos below. Then it shattered and fell.

“Good,” said Jame, and collapsed.

Jame woke to a still night, broken only by the dip and splash of oars. She still lay on the foredeck, but now under an assortment of cadet jackets with one rolled up under her head. Trinity, how long had she been asleep? The moon had set and the stars were obscured by haze. Glassy water stretched out on all sides of the boat to a featureless horizon.

Brier stood nearby, at the prow. At least they had managed to turn the vessel around. The Kendar gave her a stiff nod as Jame joined her, clutching a coat around her shoulders. It wasn’t cold, but she couldn’t stop shivering.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Somewhere in the Great Salt Sea, north of Langadine.”

“Oh. Helpful. Where’s our seeker?”

Brier glanced toward the waist. Kalan huddled at the mast’s foot between the rowers with Lanek clutched in her arms, having at last cried herself to sleep over her four lost sons.

“Don’t worry,” said Brier. “We’re on course.”

Following her gaze, Jame peered down into the water before the prow. Something pale swam there, the barest glimmer under the smooth water.

“Is that . . .”

“I think so.”

The boat’s side rose too far above the water to reach down into it, as Tori had done.

“Will you join her?”

“Should I leave you? Besides, you know that I can’t swim. Go back to sleep. You need it.”

Jame yawned, wide enough to hear her jaws crack. “You’re right. Wake me when we get there.”

“Yes, lady.”

Back in her nest of jackets, still shivering, she burrowed down to the wooden deck. Oars splashed. The boat glided forward. In the morning, she would think about what she had done, or not. Whatever.