Verna ran to the wooden ladder that had been mounted against the cliff wall, leading to handholds and ledges above the alcove mouth. She heard a dripping, rumbling sound, and the glorious buildings inside the grotto wavered. Their foundations liquefied, and the structures themselves toppled over like huge trees felled by a woodcutter. The bricks and stone blocks broke apart and spat out into the air like broken teeth, tumbling into one another. The outer cliff wall began to flow like wax as the hard rock became mud, slumping down in tears of stone. The vaulted alcove opening began to droop down like a swollen eyelid.
Verna scrambled up the ladder, climbing above the overhang. The wooden rungs were still solid, unaffected by the spreading spell, but the end of the ladder sank into the buttery stone, making the steps slanted and unstable. The change was happening faster than she expected. The already-ruined prophecy building vanished entirely, buried as the roof of the alcove flowed over the top of it.
She pulled herself higher, above the mouth of the alcove, and paused to watch the canyon wall slump down below her. A stone wave flowed onto the first enemy soldiers, and the triumphant roar of the invading army turned into howls of dismay. They tried to flee, but could not escape the liquid rock that washed over them.
Reaching the top rung of the ladder, Verna stretched her arm and pulled herself up with the stone handholds dug into the cliff. She found a stable place for her foot. As she climbed toward the top of the plateau and safety, the spell continued building, cascading throughout the cliff. Inside the mesa, the numerous vaults of magical lore had filled in, and all the tunnels inside were erased. The countless shelves of books were now like ancient fossil bones embedded in stone.
Verna laughed with relief as the sloughing sound rose to a deafening roar. She had succeeded! It was enough. The swelling magic rang throughout her body and she pulled on the gift to find the connected webs, ready to pull the Weeping Stone spell to a halt. The sorcerer’s sand anchored the key angles of the spell-form, but as the cliff collapsed, their positions shifted and swallowed the powerful grains, muffled by layers of stone. The precise pattern was disrupted.
The spell was like a monster that had broken loose.
Alarmed, Verna clenched her teeth and used her gift to strain against the unraveling webs like a rider trying to rein in a wild horse. In an odd displaced moment, she remembered how Richard Rahl had taught her to use a much kinder bit on her horse, which made the animal easier to control. Richard had cared about the horses as much as he cared about other people. She had learned so much from Richard.?.?.?.?But he wasn’t here to help her now.
The Weeping Stone spell expanded rather than diminishing, as it was supposed to. Verna had acted as a catalyst and released the power pent up inside the ancient archive, and now the destructive magic grew like a conflagration.
As she held on and wrestled with the uncontrollable spell, a shimmering image swooped up in the air next to her, the sickly green form of the sorceress Ava. “I see your spell!” her hollow voice cried, rising to a shriek. “You will not stop the general.”
Verna held on to the cliff handholds, knowing that the intangible spirit could do little to harm her directly. Ava hovered closer, intimidating, trying to terrify the prelate. “I cannot let you do this!”
But Verna was not easily terrified. As the spell continued to roar, bringing down the cliffside, she thrashed the air with her free hand, trying to drive the spirit away, but Ava filled her vision, disoriented her.
The Weeping Stone spell thrashed and writhed, and Verna’s attention slipped. Ava drew away her focus at a critical point.
Having climbed above the alcove to the stable rock, Verna thought she was safely away from the destruction, but to her dismay the cliffs above her began to collapse as well, far beyond what should have been the boundary of the spell. “No, this isn’t possible!”
The cliff poured down to bury the ranks of the enemy army. A flood of stone paved over thousands of soldiers who rode through the canyon below.
Ava made one last brash attack in the prelate’s face, a mirage with only a breath of tangible form. But as the walls collapsed in a wholesale disaster, the spirit cried out in dismay and vanished, swooping down toward General Utros.
Verna strained upward to reach a point where she could hold on and fight back, where she could stop the melting stone. She climbed several body lengths higher, but her foothold slipped away like a slurry of mud. The rocky knob in her hand became as soft as butter.
And she fell.
She dropped down the cliff face, clawing for a handhold in a mudslide. Her fingers caught in the soft stone, and she dug in up to her knuckles, but her weight dragged her down, and she gouged long furrows in the stone.
Verna attempted to use her gift to arrest her fall, still trying to dampen the overall spell. Despite all her reassurances to Nathan about being able to handle the power she unleashed, the connected webs and interlinked fields escaped her control. She sank and rolled in the liquefied rock.
With a last burst of magic, she deflected the fields and paused the spell so that the flowing rock hardened around her lower legs. But that did no good. She was trapped in a fist of stone, hanging upside down just above the canyon floor, where she watched more of the armored soldiers die.
She couldn’t break free, but the cliff kept melting. Stone sloshed around her until finally Verna was buried in a wave that petrified around her.
Her last thoughts were filled with hope that her spirit would at last be reunited with Warren’s beyond the veil, and they would have all eternity together.
CHAPTER 50
After the selka attack, the three battered serpent ships limped across the calm ocean toward the scattered Norukai islands. More than forty raiders had been killed by the selka before the serpent god arrived. Now the survivors licked their wounds, sewed up deep gashes, and admired their scars. Now they wanted to go home.
By now, only ten slaves remained alive on the main vessel. As a result, there were not enough captives to man the oars, and the Norukai were forced to work alongside the slaves, grumbling at having to row like the walking meat.
Devastated by the death of Chalk, though, King Grieve refused to tolerate complaints. He spoke little except to snarl orders, clearly in the mood to kill something. He slammed his iron-plated fist against the head of a man who objected too strenuously to the menial work, cracking his skull, and the other crew members quickly muted their complaints.
“Remember your king,” Grieve roared, then lowered his voice. “Remember Chalk. We all grieve.”
Bannon and Lila pulled to the sullen beat of oar master Bosko. Bannon muttered to Lila as they pulled the wooden oars, “We both could have died fighting that night. I hope the Norukai islands aren’t worse than death.”
Lila’s expression darkened. “I chose to keep you alive, boy. Now we have to decide how best to spend the rest of our days.” Her chains rattled as she strained against the oar. “I plan to make the Norukai pay a great debt of blood. We will have our chance.”
Bannon agreed with her.
The serpent ships sailed for two more days until the lookout sighted the first of the islands. Stark and ominous, the hummocks of rock looked like rotten teeth rising from the water. After the mourning king’s harsh discipline, the Norukai uttered a subdued cheer upon seeing their home again.
King Grieve stood at the prow, his large hand resting on the serpent god figurehead. He stared at the main island, a rough-edged black monstrosity with a narrow protected harbor. A looming fortress occupied the pinnacle of the main island, its sheer walls made of perfectly fitted black stone blocks, high above the crashing waves.
“The Bastion,” Grieve said in a hollow voice.
Water foamed along hazardous reefs, but the Norukai expertly guided their three vessels toward the narrow harbor. Dozens of serpent ships were anchored in the water of the archipelago, while others were under construction in dry docks. Lila responded to the sight with a grim frown. ?
??Nearly a hundred ships were destroyed at Ildakar, but he has at least as many more here.”
Some of the anchored serpent ships were old and weathered, but many had new wood and fresh blue sails. Bannon’s throat went dry. “They continued building their navy even after King Grieve and his fleet sailed off to conquer Ildakar.” He knew that General Utros was already leading his army overland, and now this huge Norukai fleet looked ready to ransack the cities of the coast. He wished Nicci and Nathan were there to help them. “How will the Old World survive this, Lila? What can we do to stop them?”
“We’ll find a way to break free,” Lila said, keeping her hard voice low. “We can defeat them all.”
On deck, Grieve stood in silence like a figure carved out of anger. He gripped his war axe and looked ready to cleave any person who gave him a reason to do so. The king’s dark mood could not diminish the excitement of the other Norukai, though, and they rallied when they saw the large gathering of ships.
