Page 149 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

Stayed here.

A torrent of blood and the stuff the blood was attached to hit me and sent me back under, pinning me to the floor and leaving me fighting with more weight than I could manage. Until Alphonse somehow found me in all that, pulled me out from under, and dragged me back up to the pandemonium that had overtaken what had been a large room covered in plaster and mosaics. And was now—

I didn’t have words for what it was now. Some Margygr had gotten through as well and were laying waste to the remaining Horrors, who they seemed to have a bigger hate-on than for than us. Maybe because those same creatures had ravaged their world and killed who knew how many of their people before they were forced to retreat and wall themselves off.

That did not appear to have been forgotten and would have been a slight relief—if I hadn’t been in a drowning room filled with a churning mass of waves and foam and flailing limbs, and then of bright yellow light that spiraled up out of nowhere on the far wall, showing through an image of—

Home.

My thoughts cut out, and all the sights, sounds, and insanity instantly receded. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears insanely fast, but it didn’t matter, either. My attention was wholly focused on that small, whirling yellow star and the glimpse of dark desert beyond it.

I had never realized it before, but Earth had a quality all its own. I didn’t have any way of knowing where the portal was tuned to, but I didn’t need it. I could smell it, taste it, sense it with every fiber of my being. I knew it as sure as I’d ever known anything, but I knew something else, too.

There was no way to reach it.

There was a war between us at the wall, which was the length of a football field away. The room was huge, I guessed to accommodate the trade that passed through the portal, some of the goods of which were still piled about the walls. And there was no way that we were getting over there, no way at all.

And that was before the room decided to fall apart. Cracks sped up the walls, causing them to crumble around us; water speared in from the two doors, threatening to drown us; and then the ceiling started following the walls, including a great chunk that would have killed us except that Alphonse caught it. And screamed in effort because something was above it, like a whole palace complex!

I crouched there, caught between a rock and a wet place, not sure whether to try to get out from under or not, as everything was coming down now. And burying people and things under the waves whenever chunks hit down. Including a battling duo who went to their graves with a trident through its stomach and its teeth buried in its opponent’s throat.

And we weren’t likely to be far behind because Alphonse was losing it. I looked up to see the veins in his neck standing out in full relief, the swarthy skin a red tone, and the normally impassive face anguished. We had seconds if that.

And then something hit me, but it wasn’t falling masonry.

The great city, golden bright even now, with its battle scars and charred domes, began to crumble. Aeslinn, black robes flying about him, bolted out of a disintegrating corridor and stood on the farthest point of the great square, a level section of golden stone used for festivals and days of thanksgiving, as it gave the best view of the city as a whole. And stared behind him as a black, jagged line tore its way upward from the mountaintop, ripping through buildings and sending pieces of stone flying into the pale blue sky.

Until the whole grand edifice cracked and crumbled like the mountain was doing underneath it, like the world. He turned around, looking outward over the great valley below, and saw the same thing happening there. The crack that had already sundered his city scrawled down the river, the waters of which disappeared instantly.

Similar cracks shivered through the surrounding mountain range. Colossal peaks that had been there for as long as the eldest could remember were now falling, crumbling to dust, and vanishing as he watched—like his city. Like his world. Like him.

As he fell into oblivion, the rocks giving way under his feet, his last thought was, “What have I done?”

But there was no answer.

There was no anything.

“Cassie—Cassie!” Someone was shaking me again; why were they always doing that? And what was that smell? What was—

I came back to myself to see that we’d somehow gotten out from under and were hugging what remained of a wall. I couldn’t see what was happening very well, as images were still crowding my mind, hazy diaphanous things obscuring my sight like sunglasses worn indoors. Everywhere I looked, people ran screaming, the sounds ringing in my ears even louder than the madness around me.

Faerie must still have her link to me, I thought dizzily. She was sending me images. Did she know it? Was it supposed to help?

Or was she too far gone to realize what she was doing and that she was threatening to take us with her? Because I could barely see, hear, or control the rest of my senses, which had been hijacked by a dying goddess. But I could smell.

What was that? It was divine, like the best meal ever, like— Like power, I realized, managing to focus on a nearby Margygr, surrounded by a cloud of magic that sparkled in the distant portal light.

I pulled some of it to me, and as soon as it sank into my veins, I could see again. Strange shadows still fluttered across my vision, but they were annoying, not debilitating. And then I drew more in and more, and with the hits of energy came information from a dozen minds.

The Margygr had tried a collective spell to keep the room from collapsing. But it had come too late, and many of them were now dead, crushed under the weight of stone or slashed to death by the Horrors that had soon thereafter perished themselves. But their magic—

Was still here. Much of it had never been used after being released, and I drank it in, calling it to me from all parts of the room. And it came, a virtual flood of it. But this flood I welcomed, this flood I needed, as I had to find—there.

My vision telescoped, showing me Pritkin battling one of the Horrors by the far wall, with the crazed spider-looking thing unable to understand what was happening or refusing to care. It would die, but it would take him with it, only it wouldn’t. Because I shifted him straight through the portal a second later.

I saw him fall into Bodil, who was also on the other side. I heard them screaming at each other but didn’t care. I only cared about one thing and—there.

Æsubrand was underwater, out of view of my eyes, but not of the power surging through my veins. He had been crushed under one of the stone slabs from the ceiling, and while it hadn’t killed him, he had been unable to get out. Until I shifted him, too, sending him through the raging yellow sun and into another world.

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