I twisted about, brushing bits of glass from my face—fortunately, the cockpit appeared to be made out of something like Free Kingdoms safety glass. Though it had shattered into shards, the pieces were surprisingly dull, and I hadn’t been cut at all.
Australia—the one who had spoken—sat holding her head where it was still bleeding. She looked about, seeming dazed. The pathetic remains of Dragonaut lay broken around us, like the long-dead carcass of some mythical beast. The eyes had both shattered. One of the wings jutted up a short distance away, pointing into the air.
Bastille groaned beside me, her jacket now laced with a spiderweb of lines. It had absorbed some of the shock from the landing for her. My legs, unfortunately, didn’t have any such glass, and they ached from being yanked about.
There was a rustling a short distance away, up where the beach turned into trees. Suddenly, Kaz walked out of the forest, looking completely unbruised and unhurt.
“Well!” he said, surveying the beach. “That was certainly interesting. Anybody dead? Raise your hand if you are.”
“What if you feel like you’re dead?” Bastille asked, pulling herself free from her jacket.
“Raise a finger, then,” Kaz said, walking down the beach toward us.
I won’t say which one she raised.
“Wait,” I said, wobbling a bit as I stood. “You got thrown all that way, but you’re all right?”
“Of course I didn’t get thrown that far,” Kaz said with a laugh. “I got lost right about the time when we crashed, and I just found my way back. Sorry I missed the impact—but it didn’t look like a whole lot of fun.”
Smedry Talents. I shook my head, checking my pockets to make certain my Lenses had survived. Fortunately, the padding had protected them. But as I worked, I realized something. “Bastille! Your mother!”
At that moment, a sheet of glass rattled and was shoved over by something beneath it. Draulin stood up, and I heard a faint moan from inside her helmet. In one hand, she still held her Crystin blade. She reached up, sheathing it into a strap on her back, then pulled the helmet off. A pile of sweaty, silver hair fell around her face. She turned to regard the wreckage.
I was a little surprised to see her in such good shape. I should have realized that the armor she wore was silimatic technology. It had worked as an even better cushion than Bastille’s jacket.
“Where are we?” Bastille asked, picking her way across a field of broken glass, now wearing only a black T-shirt tucked into her militaristic trousers.
It was a good question. The forest looked vaguely junglelike. Waves quietly rolled up and down the starlit beach, grabbing bits of glass and towing them into the ocean.
“Egypt, I guess,” Australia said. She held a bandage to her head, but otherwise seemed to have come out all right. “I mean, that’s where we were heading, right? We were almost there when we crashed.”
“No,” Draulin said, stalking across the beach toward us. “Lord Kazan was required to take over control of the ship when you lost consciousness, which means…”
“My Talent came into play,” Kaz said. “In other words, we’re lost.”
“Not that lost,” Bastille said. “Isn’t that the Worldspire?”
She pointed out across the ocean. And, just vaguely in the distance, I could see what appeared to be a tower rising from the ocean. Considering the distance, it must have been enormous.
I was later to learn that enormous was a severe underestimate. The Worldspire is said by the Free Kingdomers to be the exact center of the world. It’s a massive glass spike running from the upper atmosphere directly into the core of the planet—which is, of course, made of glass. Isn’t everything?
“You’re right,” Draulin said. “That means we’re probably somewhere in the Kalmarian Wilds. Well outside the Hushlands.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Kaz said.
“You think you can get us to Nalhalla, my lord?” Draulin asked.
“Probably.”
I turned. “What about the Library of Alexandria?”
“You still want to go there?” Draulin asked.
“Of course.”
“I don’t know if—”
“Draulin,” I said, “don’t make me force you to hop on one foot again.”
She fell silent.
“I agree with Alcatraz,” Kaz said, walking over to pick through the rubble. “If my father’s in Alexandria, then he’s undoubtedly getting into trouble. If he’s in trouble, that means I’m missing out on some serious fun. Now, let’s see if we can salvage anything.…”
I watched him work, and soon Draulin joined him, picking through the pieces. Bastille walked up beside me.
“Thanks,” she said. “For saving me when I fell out of the side of the dragon, I mean.”
“Sure. I’ll kick you anytime you want.”
She snorted softly. “You’re a real friend.”
I smiled. Considering that we’d crashed so soundly, it was remarkable that nobody had been severely hurt. Actually, you may find this annoying. It would have been a better story if someone had died here. An early fatality can really make a book seem much more tense, as it lets people realize how dangerous things can be.
You have to remember, however, that this is not fiction, but a real-life account. I can’t help it if all of my friends were too selfish to do the narratively proper thing and get themselves killed off to hike up the tension of my memoirs.
I’ve spoken to them at length about this. If it makes you feel better, Bastille dies by the end of this book.
Oh, you didn’t want to hear that? I’m sorry. You’ll simply have to forget that I wrote it. There are several convenient ways to do that. I hear hitting yourself on the head with a blunt object can be very effective. You should try using one of Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy novels. They’re big enough, and goodness knows that’s really the only useful thing to do with them.
Bastille—completely unaware that she was condemned—glanced at the half-buried dragon’s head. Its broken eyes stared out toward the jungle, its maw open slightly, teeth cracked. “It seems such a sad end for Dragonaut,” she said. “So much powerful glass wasted.”
“Is there any way to … I don’t know, fix it?”
She shrugged. “The silimatic engine is gone, and that’s what gave the glass its power. I suppose if you could get a new engine, it would still work. But, cracked as the ship is, it would probably make more sense to smelt the whole thing down.”
The others came up with a couple of backpacks full of food and supplies. Kaz eventually let out a whoop of joy, then dug out a little bowler hat, which he put on. This was joined by a vest he wore under his jacket. It was an odd combination, since the jacket itself—along with his trousers—was made of heavyweight, rugged material. He came across looking like some cross between Indiana Jones and a British gentleman.
“We ready?” he asked.
“Almost,” I said, finally pulling off the boots with the Grappler’s Glass on them. “Any way to turn these off?” I held up the boot, critically eyeing the bottom, which was now stuck with shards of glass and—not surprisingly—sand.
“For most people there is no way,” Draulin said, sitting down on a piece of the wreckage, then taking off her armored boots. She pulled out a few pieces of specially shaped glass and slid them into place. “We simply cover them with plates like these, so the boots stick to those instead.”
I nodded. The plates in question had soles and heels on the bottom, and probably felt like normal shoes.