Tress of the Emerald Sea (The Cosmere)(106)

If the Crow’s Song had arrived and tried to sail up to the island, it would have surely ripped its hull to pieces and died upon the spores. Her mission here had been doomed all along.

Eventually their little boat—a lone speck of color skimming the top of the void—navigated to shore. Here Tress could make out the legion of golden metal men standing in ranks around the Sorceress’s tower. Outfitted with spears and shields, Tress could almost imagine them as men in armor with lowered faceplates. If only they hadn’t stood so unnaturally still.

Other than the lonely trees and the hundred metal men, the island’s only feature was the tower itself. This, in contrast to the size of the island, was much larger than Tress had anticipated. Wide and tall, with a peaked top, Tress was too modest to say out loud what it resembled. I, of course, don’t know what modesty feels like—so when I mentioned what it looked like, the Sorceress asked me if I’d like a large yonic symbol splitting my forehead.

Tress had hoped for a way to escape once the boat landed, but the creature kept her wrapped tightly, lifting her and carrying her before itself as Huck hopped off the boat. On the stone ground, he looked toward Tress. The first time he had looked directly at her since they’d gotten on the little boat.

She glared back at him. He wilted visibly, like a vine without enough water. Then, however, he perked up—as if deciding something. “Yes. Yes, that’s it,” he said. “Not doing what she asked at all.”

He eyed the monster, then scampered forward before Tress could berate him again. They crossed the ground to the tower itself, the metal men letting them pass. The things seemed to be asleep at the moment, in Tress’s estimation. Merely statues.

The tower soon took her attention. It was an awe-inspiring sight, more silver in one place than she’d ever seen before. There was so much of it, in fact, that it would destroy spores at an incredible rate. Protection against enemy sprouters.

A door was built into the side of the tower, apparently also made of silver. Huck stood up in front of it, and in a loud voice, spoke. “As I was commanded, I’ve returned to the tower with a captive to present to the Sorceress. Magic door, please open! Uh, I was told—”

The door swung open on its own.

“Right,” he said. “Good.” He scurried in, then looked down at himself, then back at Tress. Uncertain what would happen next.

The midnight monster—now looking like a large centipede with tentacles for feet—let Tress go and shoved her through the door into the tower. It couldn’t follow, because of the silver. Instead it tossed her something. Her cups. The pewter one and the one with the butterfly. It had brought them—because it had found them in the boat and didn’t know if they were important or not.

As Tress fumbled to catch her cups, the door slid shut. Locking her inside and leaving her with only one choice.

To proceed. And meet her destiny.





THE SORCERESS





Tress took a moment to reorient herself, taking a deep breath, rubbing her arms—and trying to brush free the touch of the strange midnight creature. She thought of grabbing Huck, but he was quickly vanishing up a set of steps—using the running board alongside them as a ramp.

Tress stayed still for the moment. She’d entered an all-metal corridor, decorated only by a red carpet down the middle like a tongue. It was inlaid with symbols that a well-traveled person would recognize as Aonic, but that Tress saw as some kind of arcane rune. Which wasn’t too far off.

The walls—instead of being lined with pictures or tapestries—bore several panels that reminded Tress of Fort’s writing board. Now, many storytellers would describe such a hallway with words like cold and sterile. That’s mostly due to past association. The calm, pure white lights in the ceiling—diffused through a plastic filter—might remind you of an office building, while the unadorned metallic finish might remind you of a hospital operating room.

To Tress, the room wasn’t cold. It wasn’t stoic, or bleak, or stern—or any words that might describe a politician at his trial after he escapes the dumpster.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “So clean and so radiant. Like I imagine the afterlife.”

Her words echoed in the corridor. Finally, she took a long breath. She was here. She wasn’t dead. Perhaps…perhaps she could find a way to rescue Charlie. Despite everything. This was where she’d been pointed her entire voyage, after all.

So, scraping together what was left of her determination, she strode forward and up the steps. At the top, a door opened on its own, sliding to the side. Because the Sorceress had very particular ideas about what the interior of this kind of vessel should be like.

Beyond the door, Tress entered a large, circular room with doors at the sides. The chamber had a lived-in look, decorated with the kinds of things that would make a mess if the Sorceress had to leave in haste. Furniture, bookshelves. The floor was still metal—inscribed with a map of the planet—and the lights were still industrial, but she made it look cozy.

The woman herself sat at her desk near the bookshelves, holding a fluffy white cat and idly doing something on her laptop. Or, I mean, her “magical seeing board” that let her watch events outside, as well as occasionally play a mystical card game to pass the time.

Her skin glowed, and she had a silvery effervescence to her. She was maybe in her fifties—rather, that was how old she’d been when she’d stopped aging—and she’d come a long way from the withered husk she’d once been. Short, a little plump, she liked keeping her hair in a bun for convenience and abhorred makeup. I mean, I would too, if I literally glowed. Her kind tended to prefer clothing and other accents that didn’t distract from their luminous nature.