Anusha took a deep breath, wondering if it was time to test Seren’s handiwork. The only problem was if Seren was off her game, Anusha’s mind would be swept up by the Eldest’s dream-catching aura. Cold fingers brushed Anusha’s spine.
Yeva climbed up from the hold, one arm hugging a small crate piled with various objects. The first mate followed Yeva up from the hold. She yelled at the handful of loitering crew who watched to see what would happen next. The captain glanced over, then returned to his contemplation of the stormscape.
The metal woman pulled a ceramic bowl out of the crate and placed it on the deck. She dropped a couple of chunks of coal into it, then pointed. A spark jumped from her finger to the coal, setting it all right.
Yeva watched the coal burn for a moment, then sifted together a couple of different powders into a tankard.
“Incense?” asked Anusha.
Yeva nodded. “Green Siren has some premium cargos still secured in the hold,” she said. “Thoster must’ve lost a small fortune to abandon his patrons to run off after Xxiphu.”
“I suppose you’re right …,” Anusha said, not correcting Yeva. Thoster was a privateer. He claimed he only plied his trade on Amnian craft, whose cargos were themselves likely the product of piracy and corruption. Not that such a distinction made Thoster’s trade legitimate by any stretch of the imagination, but it did make dealing with the jovial captain much easier if she took him at his word.
Yeva continued, “I’m a little concerned about the incense, actually-though it doesn’t really matter what sort I use. It helps center my thoughts when I breathe it in.”
“But you don’t breathe … anymore,” said Anusha.
“Exactly,” replied Yeva. “I’m hoping going through all the steps of the ritual will be enough.”
The coal burned down to a red ember.
“It’s time,” Yeva said. “Let’s see what happens.” She dusted the glowing coal with incense dust from the tankard as she fanned it with her free hand.
Despite being present only in dreamform, Anusha smelled the earthy, slightly sharp odor … Or so it seemed. How was it that she could smell the incense when she didn’t have a body present to breathe in the fumes, while Yeva, physically present though devoid of lungs and a nose, remained unable to sense the odor? There was much about her ability she didn’t comprehend.
Yeva fanned the rising lines of smoke into her face. She clicked her metallic eyes closed. A halo of electric yellow light flared out from her temples and faded again.
Nothing else happened for a long time. Anusha waited, shifting her attention between Yeva, the captain, and the distant black speck hovering in the sky.
Finally the ember died into a pile of white ash.
The metallic woman’s eyes slid open. “I asked my ancestors what goes on in Xxiphu,” she said. “I was rewarded with a vision of the Eldest, still half-caught in stony sleep, straining to wake. I saw a kaleidoscope of images: miles of briny halls pulsing with aboleths, empty gulfs of space, and egg chambers quivering with new sacs. All waiting.”
“For the Key of Stars?” Anusha asked.
“Yes,” Yeva said.
“Did you see Malyanna?”
“No.”
“Anything we can we do from here to, I don’t know … distract them?”
“I don’t think so,” Yeva said. The woman collected the bowl, incense jars, and tankard, and handed them off to Mharsan.
Anusha moved to stand with Thoster. Yeva followed. “Having any luck with those monsters?” Anusha asked the captain.
Thoster started, then blinked rapidly.
“ ’Fraid not,” he replied. “Not even a hint of connection. Whatever power I got, it ain’t for kraken.”
“Did you hear what Yeva just said?” Anusha asked.
“Ah …,” said the captain.
“Nothing’s going on up there-the city’s just waiting for someone to bring it the Key.”
“Huh. Well, if Raidon and Japheth are successful, perhaps Xxiphu can wait forever and rot.”
Quiet fell over the group.
Anxiety fluttered in Anusha’s stomach. The captain and Yeva had both tried their talents, such as they were, to divine more of Xxiphu. Which left her, the only one potentially capable of visiting the place, a mere bystander.
She finally said, in answer to Thoster, “If only. Japheth and Raidon are capable … But so is Malyanna and the Lord of Bats. I should try to see with my own eyes what’s going on up there.”
The captain nodded. “Can you cast your dream that far?” he asked.
She let out her breath and said, “I can try.”
“Even with that wizard’s charm, your mind is at risk of being caught,” Yeva said.
Anusha nodded. “Monitor my sleeping body, Yeva,” she said. “Try to pull me back if you notice anything odd. With your psychic gifts, you can be my safeguard.”
“I can try,” the metal woman said.
Anusha allowed her dream to lapse into invisibility. She climbed into Green Siren’s rigging until she was standing high above the deck. Thoster had moved the ship so it floated directly beneath the hovering citadel. Thankfully, the sentry krakens hadn’t taken notice. The scarred foundation of Xxiphu hung unsupported at least a couple of miles overhead.
Of course, she wasn’t actually “standing” on anything-she was a mental projection, a lucid dream. Which meant that despite the gulf of air separating her from Xxiphu, she should be able to cross the distance. She’d pulled off similar feats before, just never so far.
As long as she avoided the idea that she was “flying” up to the aboleth city, she should be all right.
Instead, she imagined a gleaming length of elven rope extending up into the clouds. And it was so.
She took hold of the rope and climbed.
Anusha started slow, but quickly increased her pace. She had no weight, or muscles to become weary. Soon enough, she was nearly sprinting straight up, hand over hand.
Green Siren dropped away beneath her boots, until it was a toy bobbing on a wide plain of storm-shadowed water. Shimmering carpets, where the sun broke through the cloud rents, stretched to the western horizon, as if promising lanes of escape. Anusha forced her gaze upward.
The clouds drew closer, resolving as tufted, slowly curling masses of downy gray. Lightning stuttered through them, accompanied by a continuous growl of thunder.
And there hung Xxiphu. The floating obelisk was wider than several city blocks, and ten times as tall. Rookeries, balconies, inscriptions, runes, and enigmatic structures gaped like hungry mouths across its face. Some of the runes writhed into new configurations as her eyes danced across them. She’d learned last time it was better not to examine them too closely.
A feathery contact startled her. Xxiphu’s tide! She stopped climbing, and considered abandoning her dream. The Eldest’s mind-catching pull was still active. She’d known it would be, but the reality of its touch was nearly more than she could bear.
Then again, it didn’t have the punch she feared.
While the tide was undeniably present, its strength was feeble, as if hardly catching at her heels. Not like last time. Of course, then her mind had been caught in Xxiphu already, trapped outside her body. On the rope her focus remained safely in the slumbering flesh on the tiny ship far below. And there it would stay, thanks to the aid of the abjuration charm Seren had provided. She either had to trust the charm, or turn around immediately. Which would be giving up. She would fail in her self-given quest to foil the Sovereignty’s agenda.
Anusha started climbing again.
The tide’s pressure climbed too, pulling her upward. That was counterbalanced by a stretched feeling, one that tried to yank her back down. She was approaching the limits of her dreamwalking range. Anusha took comfort in the evidence that her spirit’s focus remained rooted in the ship.