Aug 8, 1722. At the base of the Port Royal Arcane Gate. Righting a terrible wrong, only to face the storm…
A fetid burst of warm air, laced with the scent of rotten fish and seaweed, caressed my face in uneven bursts. It was like warm air spit from a ragged bellows. But this wasn’t the storm, a fire, or the Arcane Engine.
It was the Death Whisper I’d crafted from the Codex Luminari and my own blood.
Wind and sea spray beat against me mercilessly, almost tossing me off the rocks and into the waves. To my right, Sebastian snarled, hissing at the Death Whisper.
Seawater slicked the granite under my boots. The air around us felt fractured by the dying Arcane Gate, by all the recent events. My stomach clenched in rebellion, but this wasn’t the time to suffer that.
Barely five feet in front of me, the Death Whisper loomed over me. The golem stood at leas six and a half feet tall, maybe taller. Dressed in ragged clothes from some forgotten sailor, it loomed over me like a bad decision. Which, given the situation, wasn’t a terrible comparison.
It hunched slightly, clothes not quite dripping from seawater and drizzled rain. The golem’s eyes were bright orbs of literal fire, coiling out of hollow eye sockets. Withered, mummified hands dappled with tiny barnacles flexed like claws, even as its distorted mouth stretched wide like an obscene yawn.
I half-expected a blood-curdling shriek as it tried to rip out my throat. But it didn’t. Instead, it tilted its head to the left like an addled, eyeless, undead bird that inspected me.
The golem stepped toward me, dry breath rattling inside its empty ribcage.
I fought down nausea and stepped back, tense, ready for a fight. The strange ghostfire flared to life around my hand.
The instant it did, the fire inside the golem’s eye sockets coiled, guttered, then surged with the same green-white fire of the ghostfire on my hand.
It drew in a long, shuddering breath that was, at best, breath in name only.
“You called,” it said.
The words were barely that. They were a low, grating sound that left the taste of ash and salt on my tongue. Each word felt thick with memory, obligation, and something that felt like regret.
I drew the back of a sleeve across my mouth, watching the thing warily. This was a dangerous, undiscovered country that I was in a hurry to leave behind.
“Yes,” I replied, voice raw. “I did. You’re needed.”
Slowly, not taking my eyes off the golem, I knelt down and recovered the Codex. Its flaming eyes watched while I tucked it under my arm. Then the golem glanced at the Arcane Engine, and finally the dying Arcane Gate.
“You,” it said, drawing out the word until it snapped. “You want to fix the… mistake. Not finish the ritual.”
Every word vibrated through my battered bones. But understanding dawned in my exhausted mind. Lyra Valtor’s comments about a Death Whisper came back in full. Only now a new piece slid into place I didn’t know I’d missed.
They were wildly destructive, along with a dozen other lethal things. But they were made from ink, books, and the contents inside them. They were, literally, ideas made whole with a voice.
“You are correct, Señor.” My voice felt like cracked leather. “I do. With your help.”
The golem’s eyes cut to the Arcane Engine, then shook its head.
“The Engine is self-consuming now. Its music can’t be silenced.”
Next to me, Sebastian barked again at the golem, more perturbed than angry. I straightened my back, trying to ignore the pain of the petrification lancing through my left hand.
“No.” I said the word like a pistol shot. “But it can be tuned, Señor. Harmonized with another,” my eyes twitched while I searched for the right word, “song. Another song.”
The golem tilted its head to the right, looking again like some curious, predatory bird.
“Change the tune,” it said. “Rewrite its will? It still needs to end its song in a pure scream.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Somehow, given all that’s happened, I wasn’t surprised.
Pain flared in my left arm, and I grabbed it with my right. I could practically feel ribbons of wood spearing through my veins, muscles and tendons. The warmth from the ghostfire soothed the pain, but I could still feel the uneasy discomfort from the petrification infection.
I winced at the pain, took a deep breath, then stabbed a finger at Lysander.
“We need to harmonize the Engine with him, with the Gate.”
“The navigator? How?” It rasped, voice a dry echo.
I took a deep breath. It felt like I was dancing with a hungry shark. I hurried past the Death Whisper and over to the Arcane Engine.
“The jars.”
I pointed at the glowing jars, their fluid levels uneven, and leaned in as close as the searing heat allowed. Then I wiped rain from my face, and a little blood from my lips, while I looked back at the golem.
"Do you know what a ‘glass harp’ is? ‘Singing glasses?’ Each glass making a different musical note? You said ‘music’ so I trust you do?”
The Death Whisper nodded, then blinked in an oddly human gesture that made me shudder.
“We remember.”
I narrowed my eyes. That was something to think about later if I wasn’t dead.
The golem joined me at the Engine, then flexed a ragged, mummified hand toward the glowing glass jars. Each gnarled finger looked like woven rope wrapped around driftwood. Wind tugged at its countless ragged parts, like shredded skin, which made standing near it an effort of willpower.
I flinched as more hot stones tumbled from the Arcane Gate. It felt like time was sifting through my fingers like sand.
Then, the jars rattled. This time not from the storm or the falling pieces of the Gate.
I pressed the back of my hand to my lips again. The taste of blood and brine hadn’t improved.
“How much of you remembers music?”
A pause. Its ribcage expanded. A wet, hollow inhalation.
“All of it. All of us.”
The Death Whisper’s jagged teeth were short, like the broken stones of a reef. Its jaw was inhuman and looked too wide, too imprecise.
“We lived as conscripts. We died at sea, and again in the books.”
Its right hand hovered near the Engine’s overheated edge, immune to the scalding air. My gut threatened to rebel again at the rolling smell of boiled sewage that assaulted my nose.
I coughed then peeled open the Codex. Wet pages stuck together or bled ink, but Tristam’s instructions made a perverse sense.
His notes listed frequencies, ratios of liquid to glass, along with more disturbing things like the ‘humble arithmetic of the departed’. I breathed out a bitter laugh.
“Nothing like having a sense of humor when you’re an evil bastard,” I murmured.
The more I read, the deeper I frowned in concern. I chanced a glance back at Lysander.
He was hunched on the deck of the ruined barge, surrounded by the golden sphere of light. He clutched at two glowing light sculptures of Arcane Gates, each as tall as he was, trying to shove them together.
It hadn’t worked, but the Gates hadn’t separated any more, either. His jaw worked, murmuring some sea chant I couldn’t hear. Sweat traced lines down his dark face.
“We’re running out of time, Señor,” I muttered to the Death Whisper. “If I guide you, can you tune the jars? Change the fluids?”
The Death Whisper tilted its head again, like it heard me through layers of thick fog, maybe even time.
"Tell us," it rasped.
I nodded as I thumbed the weathered page but also pulled down old memories of alchemical mixtures.
“All right. The jars, and their tones, correspond to intervals between notes as much as they amplify or bleed off Etherwave from the Gate. Ratio of potion to the vibrating glass is what matters. That’s the key.”
“Intervals,” the Death Whisper repeated, as if that word was a flavor it hadn’t tasted in centuries.
I used the Codex as a rough guide, then went off formula immediately. One by one, I pointed at the jars, directing the Death Whisper what to turn, how much to drain. Several times, I had to reach deeper into the Engine than my skin wanted. Blisters started to rise on my skin.
"First jar,” I grunted. “Drain it a quarter, twist left.”
The Death Whisper peered in close, then miraculously obeyed. Brown, sickly liquid sluiced into a crusted catch-basin when the golem tilted it. Then, it turned the jar as instructed once it set it upright.
Suddenly, I heard a sound shift. It was soft, under the wind and storm, but there. The jar glowed a faint sapphire blue.
Excited, I moved between the jars, spitting out numbers and measurements at a rapid pace.
“Next two? Half-drain, turn one-fifth. Leave the fourth.”
So on it went, sweat and light rain streaming down my face. i tried to ignore the mild groans of pain from Lysander on the barge. Skaldi and Ari were there, but they weren’t navigators, and couldn’t help.
Finally, a resonance gathered. A hum I felt inside my jaw quickly rattled my teeth. The jars, now realigned, vibrated on their own, playing out a song that seemed to harmonize with the storm.
“It’s working,” I murmured. “I think… it’s working.”
To my surprise, the Death Whisper hummed along. It was a hellish, ugly attempt at a baritone scraped over rough stone. In front of us, the Arcane Engine itself started to shake.
I glanced at the Codex to determine what, if anything, was next, then squeezed my eyes shut.
The scream. It needed to scream, and I realized what that meant.
An imbalance. It needed a sharp, unreliable imbalance.
My vision turned black at the edges, fraying like old cloth. The world tilted sideways as I felt lightheaded.
The Death Whisper caught me by the arm and pulled me upright. No words, just action. Waiting.
“Right. On my mark, crack the last jar in line,” I called out over the rising howl. “Not all the way, just a hairline split. Enough to let it shriek.”
I glanced at the Death Whisper, then at the last jar.
“Now!”
Sebastian let out a whining yelp, then yanked on my trouser leg with his teeth. Meanwhile, the Death Whisper’s rough hand seized the stained, yellowed jar and flexed.
A sharp crack split the glass, webbing it with fractures.
The Engine howled, its ‘song’ reaching a frantic crescendo, while I saw threads of golden Etherwave Arcana pour in from Lysander’s direction behind me.
Wind slammed at me, but I clutched the Codex and stood my ground. My heart stuttered, knowing damn well the warning words anyone learns when dealing with the Etherwave Arcana and what people call ‘magic’.
“Magic always comes with a price,” I wheezed.
The jar screamed as it shattered. A crack sliced through the Arcane Engine like a knife.
Then my world became nothing but the pure, blinding heart of a sun.
