The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(44)

“I see!” said Uri Mon Lil. “That sounds like a good idea.”

“Then we want to break the spell,” continued Eliza. “Put your hands over mine. We should be touching, aye, so our power works together instead of both of us just doing the spell at the same time.”

Eliza told him the words. They pressed their foreheads to the wall and spoke the spell in unison. Eliza poured herself into the cold marble and into the past. It was as if she was falling through the wall, plunging into a great chasm. She felt the wizard’s power envelop hers, steadying her, and the Library appeared before them, as if they were watching from inside the wall. They were behind Foss, who was chanting something in a loud and terrible voice. Bookcases were crashing against each other, books tumbling down in avalanches.

“It was you who designed the barriers, wasn’t it?” Nia was saying, flicking her wrist at another towering bookcase so that it toppled out of her way. “Very creative, for a Mancer. I ought to come up with a special punishment just for you but I haven’t time.”

Foss called up a barrier around himself. Nia pulled it down with her hand.

“Too slow, silly,” she said, almost affectionately. Then she pointed both hands at him, fingers stretched wide, and whispered, “Stone.” There was a flash of light. Foss flung up his arms instinctively to protect himself.

Eliza trembled and then spilled in a thousand directions at once, coming to on the floor, shaking. The wizard was fanning her with his book and looking very anxious.

“Did you see?” he asked.

Eliza nodded. What she had seen horrified her but she was glad to know that the wizard was more powerful than he looked.

“How do we break it?” she asked him. “What kind of spell was it?”

Uri Mon Lil stared at her incredulously. “I’ve no idea,” he said, and checked his watch. “Blast the Ancients! You’re going to have to remind me of what’s happened in just a minute...”

Eliza climbed to her feet. She felt a bit sick after the spell.

“Let’s see if there are any books Nia didnay drain,” she said. “We might be able to find something useful.”

“Ye-es,” the wizard looked around him in bewilderment. “Excuse me, but...”

“Read your book,” sighed Eliza, tapping it, and she began to search through the empty books on the Library floor.





Chapter


11

Ander Brady swept the black water with the helicopter’s searchlight. The sickle of bare volcanoes rearing up out of the ocean were half-lit by the moon. The searchlight illuminated a wedge of barren rock not a hundred feet from one of the tallest volcanoes.

“That one,” Nell said, pointing.

“You want me to land inside the volcano,” Ander repeated for the third or fourth time, still not quite believing it. “And then some fellow in a boat comes and takes us to Tian Xia.”

“Yes. And he’s horrible-looking, aye, so brace yourself.”

“I thought you didnay remember any of it.”

“I remember the journey. I just dinnay remember anything while I was there.”

Ander shook his head in bewilderment. Nell had never been like the other island children and she was indeed a close friend of Eliza Tok, who had been suddenly and dramatically taken from the island by Mancers a couple of years back. Still, it was hard to fathom that Onni and Gladd’s daughter had been to Tian Xia. It had been enough of a shock when she got a scholarship to that school in Kalla.

“But you know the way to this cave.”

“Aye, I can find it,” said Nell confidently. She had required Charlie and Eliza to tell the tale of their Tian Xia adventures many times over in minute detail.

Ander skillfully poised the helicopter over the crater and descended into it, landing gently at the bottom. Unlike most craters, which filled in with dirt and mud, this one offered a broad opening into a rocky cavern where steaming water ran off into innumerable dark tunnels. The helicopter lights beamed off bits of damp black rock and then shut off. Ander cut the engines and the rotary wings slowed and hummed to a halt.

“Charlie? We’re almost there. Can you hear me?” Nell scrambled into the back to check on the Shade. The cloudy substance was still pouring out from under the blanket she’d wrapped around his chest and she wished desperately that Eliza were here, or anybody who might know how to stop or slow a wound like this. Charlie’s eyelids flickered open for a moment and her blood ran cold. His eyes were nothing like a boy’s eyes anymore. They were clouded over, a cold, unsettling mix of mist and light.

“Just hang on a little longer, Charlie,” she whispered in his ear. She climbed out the side door over him and Ander lifted the boy from the helicopter. They did not have to wait long before the ghostly boat emerged from the dark. Nell felt Ander stiffen beside her.

“Should’ve brought my gun,” he muttered under his breath.

“I have been taking a great many beings from Tian Xia across to Di Shang these last days,” said the Boatman, and they both cringed at his harsh, grating voice. “But humans crossing into Tian Xia? It is unusual.” He pointed a single, pellucid finger at Nell. “I remember you.”

“We want passage,” said Nell. Much to her vexation, her knees seemed to have turned to water and were trembling so much she could barely stand straight. But she kept her voice as steady as she could. “We can pay.”