Buildings begin to slowly, majestically emerge from the lake. Grinding, roaring, glistening into the half-light.
Hundreds upon hundreds of them.
I just stand there, damp and shivering and tensing at each new wave pushing against my waist. Watching miles upon miles of structures sprout into existence. Stone slick and shining. Not just buildings but towers, fountains, temples, statues. A great city, hidden beneath the glassy surface.
And it all feels unsettlingly familiar. I’m too shocked to register it at first, but as archways and columns and friezes burst into view it becomes impossible to miss.
It’s not Caten, but it gods-damned feels like it.
“How?” I whisper it, rhetorical, the words lost to water crashing on water for miles and miles. It is deafening. Overpowering. The swells continue to shove at us but there are no great waves, as if the majority of the water’s displacement is somehow being contained. Buildings rise for thirty seconds. A minute. Streets emerge, water rushing off cobbled stone that sits a hair’s breadth above the level of the lake itself. Stairs appear in front of us through the archway. Everything glimmers in the dying light.
And then it stops. Water still sloshes and pours and slurps, echoing everywhere, a dying cacophony across the valley.
“How?” Just loud enough for Lir to hear, this time. I don’t know what else to ask. Clearly this has been achieved through Will, but even in Caten I have never seen anything of its like.
“Your answers lie on the other side of Fornax, Deaglán.” Lir doesn’t take his eyes from the silhouetted stone marvel in front of us. “Travel to its centre. You will see a building there, much larger than the others. Enter it, and do as you are asked. Then proceed to the far shore.”
“What will be asked?”
“It is different for everyone. I can say no more than that,” he adds firmly. “But you must do it, and leave, before dawn.”
I nod slowly. “And if I’m too slow?”
“Then Fornax will take you when it sinks again.”
I stare at the short set of stairs through the archway, mostly submersed beneath the still-disquieted waters. Fornax’s streets are virtually level with the water line. “No weapons,” I reconfirm.
Lir nods, though I think I see a hint of amusement in the motion. “No weapons, Deaglán.”
“Fun.” I mutter the word beneath my breath, then look across at the druid. “I’ll see you on the other side, Lir.”
I step forward through the archway. Soaked, freezing, uneasy. Slowly climb.
As I take the final step and my bare feet touch the glistening, cobbled stones of the floating city, there is a faint pulse. The sense of a ripple of energy racing away through the stone ahead that makes me stop dead and glance around uncertainly.
Lir is still watching. Impassive. Around the white of his form, only the undulating lake and gathering murk of dusk greet my gaze.
I shiver, and head into Fornax.
LXIII
THE DRIPPING, SILHOUETTED FAÇADES AND SLICKstreets of Fornax are menacing and silent and cold. I jog, numb soles slapping against wet stone. Hurrying but cautious. No lights here to fight the steadily deepening dusk, but a sliver of moon has already started to rise and I don’t think I’ll be left completely blind tonight. Even so, I keep to the main road, the widest and straightest of the ways. Water still trickles. Dead shadows and empty structures yawn everywhere. I feel as though I am treading the spine of a corpse.
Stranger still is the increasing feeling of familiarity with each passing landmark. Even in the gathering gloom, I see Caten. Nothing directly recognisable, but the Republic shouts from every line and though I haven’t seen any great cities since coming to this world, if there are any, the people I’ve come to know would not build them like this. This is too grand, beautiful but far too proud of the fact. Some common remnant from the distant past, perhaps? It’s too similar to be coincidence. The statue on my right that could almost pass for Vorcian. Friezes on the walls to my left that could have been ripped straight from some Catenan myth, though I don’t recognise any of the characters or situations. A man holding a glowing ball. An eagle fighting a wolf. I do not pause to study them more closely. Cannot. The last of the bloodied light is bleeding from the west now and all that paints the way ahead is silver and black, glistening rivulets and shining drops flowing everywhere.
My father’s presence on the hill far behind grows fainter. And fainter. And then is gone.
And then the statues begin.
These are not like the ones carved atop the pedestals; in fact when I first see them I freeze, certain in the dim that I have met enemies, and only willingly push on after almost a minute of crouching warily behind a column. They kneel at the edges of the road, lining it for as far as I can see. Darker shadows, their wet forms glinting dully in the wan moonlight.
As I focus on them, they pulse softly in my mind. My father confirmed last night that I’ve been sensing the Will imbued in him that’s keeping him alive.Which means I was right about why I could sense a weaker version of the same thing from my spear.
And also means that all these statues are imbued, too.
Finally, I pluck up the courage to creep closer. There are hundreds of them. Androgynous bodies with what look like flat, wide discs for their bowed heads. All the same height, the same build, the same pose. I crouch beside one. It is exquisitely made. Entirely constructed of what looks like obsidian, polished completely smooth. Though not one piece, I realise after a moment. Each limb looks separately made and articulated. Down to the joints in the fingers.
I peer closer. Where a face should be, the symbol of the Hierarchy is precisely etched.
