Josiah hissed. There'll be only a moment between the cloud base and the ground. Can you pull out that fast?
Instead of responding, Peregrin redoubled the labor of his wings. Rider and mount approached the city. Individual lightning strikes stood out against the wreck of stone walls and roofless honeycombs. Peregrin let out a shriek of effort. The wind and the storm stole it away.
Not enough time. They'll hit before we reach them, Josiah sent.
There's time, came the griffon's terse reply. The air's still icy and thin. It doesn't smell like steel yet.
You know you can't trust those cues, Josiah replied, not inside a thunder cloud.
The griffon gave a feline shrug and flapped again. A breath of hope filled him. Look, they're pulling away. That's two squadrons, at least. Gold flecks of catflesh were lifting off, flying clear. A score of them… two score… Each bore some wriggling resident of the falling city.
Hope lent new strength. Peregrin flung himself down the roaring chimney of air above the city. The clouds thinned. Two more wing strokes, and he broke through the smoky turbulence. A street soared up to crunch-ingly meet them. Peregrin swooped from his dive and roared out along it, heading for an old woman who was crawling from ruins ahead.
Pull up! advised Josiah.
Peregrin did not.
The clouds drew away. Rainy light flashed over the city.
She's too far away, the rider sent. Pull up.
The griffon's wings tore through a pillar of smoke. Beyond the city's horizon, the green fields of Netheril rose. The enclave was listing over…
With lion limbs outstretched, Peregrin snagged the crone. His tawny arms flexed, and the woman was embraced against his chest.
"Pull up!" Josiah cried.
Peregrin did, and just in time. The city dropped suddenly away.
It plunged, tumbling. The embattled ruins showed one last time before the enclave rolled entirely over. The rock broke free of the rain and glared for a moment in the slanting sun. Lighting followed it down, as though the cloud sent skeletal fingers to draw the city back. Stray charges leapt in three places to the surging forests below. The enclave spun once with slow grace. Its shadow blinked upon a dense woodland. Then it struck ground.
The monolith fractured into a hundred thousand jag-edged boulders, which bounded up from the point of impact and rushed outward, felling whole forests. The wet outside of the stone had cracked open to reveal a dry inside. Dust and stone shards rolled in the center of the crater. Smoke rose from trees ignited by the thousand lightnings of the pulverized city.
Then, the sound of the impact reached them, a boom so profound that it knocked a few riders from their hovering mounts, and slew one griffon by shattering its breastbone. The riders were caught by already-overburdened griffons. The dead griffon dropped from the sky like a battered maple leaf, whirling.
For a few moments, the cavalry circled in the air above the rolling dust clouds. The debris soon settled enough to show a massive impact crater and a field of rubble in which no one could have survived.
Still, the griffons lingered, vultures above a new corpse.
By silent mutual agreement, conquerors and crow-riders alike one by one turned westward, toward Tith Tilendrothael. In time, Peregrin banked to follow the others.
It was a weary and burdened crew. Their wings had been nearly spent before they began rescuing Lhao-dagms. One hope moved them, that everything would be sorted out at Tith Tilendrothael.
A deep longing swept through Josiah. I can't wait to see those ivory towers and streets of gold… to be warm and safe again… Atrocity and massacre and death… His thoughts ceased above the toil of wings. At last, in despairing tones, he wondered, How many of us are left?
Peregrin quickly counted the griffons before him. The numbers were not promising. Not quite half of the four hundred had won free of the plunging city and its powerful down drafts. Those who had escaped looked ragged, their fury spent. They jittered like a swarm of deer flies.
Too few, he answered.
Josiah leaned forward in the saddle and gazed down at the old woman.
She hung supine, her withered hands clutched up to her chest and her eyes closed as though in sleep. Her long gray hair played gently in the wind. If not for the craggy lines of her face, she would have seemed a little girl.
"What happened to Lhaoda?" he blurted.
The old woman opened her eyes. "It fell, Dear. Don't worry, I'm all right." She seemed to want one of her arms loose so she could pat his cheek.
"No," he said, "before that. Why was the city in the storm?"
"The storm caught us," she said simply. "We've been adrift for three days. Couldn't rise. Couldn't steer."
"Adrift? What do you mean? Your levitation council was still alive. Why didn't you call for help?"
"It would have been the same as calling for plunder."
"But, how did you lose control?"
"The Phaerimm," she replied.
"The Phaerimm?" echoed Josiah. "The Ones Below? They're just myths. And even if they were real, how could they bring down a flying city?"
She shrugged. "The Phaerimm brought down Lhaoda. They will bring down all the others. We must join forces. No more hiding in the clouds. Nowhere is safe now."
"Don't worry, we're safe enough," Josiah said. "We're on our way to Tith Tilendrothael."
"No," she replied. Her eyes were suddenly bleakly desperate, almost angry. "Nowhere is safe now."
"But Tith Tilendrothael is-" His words were cut off by a pang of terror and dread.
Peregrin voiced a raw-throated shriek.
Josiah glimpsed what the griffon already saw: an empty skyline ahead, only plains and stormy skies. There was no gleaming city. There were no ivory towers, no streets of gold…
Gone, sent Peregrin, gone.
The griffon riders and Lhaodagms ahead were descending to land. Many had already gathered beside the impact crater and rubble field-what once had been Tith Tilendrothael. Nothing was left-less than nothing: a deep pit instead of a floating heaven.
The survivors-that's what they were now, not Lhaodagms or Tith Tilendrotheans, but simply survivors- gathered on the verge of that pit. Fletching, Evensong, Glazreth, and the rest of Tith TilendrothaeFs cavalry stood wing and wing with the crow-riders and alley cats of Lhaodagm.
Both cities had fallen. Each had been brought down by-what? Old animosities? Older myths?
Whatever had once separated them now seemed inconsequential. Only the vast chasm mattered.
Peregrin approached. He gently landed, releasing the old crone from his grip.
The woman got to her feet and turned toward the pit. She stared, like all the others.
At first, no one spoke. They only stood in shocked silence, one people-survivors.
The air was so still in that heartbeat that everyone heard the crone murmur:
"We must join forces. When even sky cities fall, nowhere is safe… No more sky cities. No more floating above it all. We must join forces and start over. We must fight to live, not live to fight. We must live like every other creature, dirty and afraid, like crows and beetles and worms. "When even sky cities fall, nowhere is safe."
The Grotto of Dreams
Mark Anthony
It all started the day that I died.
I know. That doesn't seem like a terribly good way to begin a story. But it's the truth. The fact is, dying was the first really interesting thing that ever happened to me.
Not that it was an enjoyable experience. On the contrary, I can't think of anything more unpleasant. There's nothing more degrading than watching one's own body… well, degrade. Let's just say it's not an activity I would recommend to someone looking for a good time. There was only one consolation in dying-knowing I would never have to do it again.