“We’re both going to feel kind of tingly, but that’s how we’re going to wake from this dream.”
“Like Dorothy Gale did.”
“That’s right,” Caitlin said, smiling.
“That’s better than being attacked by a giant squid like Captain Nemo did,” Jacob said.
“I would think they both present problems,” Caitlin replied. She took his hand and pointed. “Just hold your hand like this, no matter what you feel. And don’t get itchy like you do before you talk in front of class, because you can’t say, ‘Hold everything!’ and scratch.”
“I won’t,” he said. “This isn’t my body. Maybe it won’t even happen.”
“True enough,” Caitlin said, letting go and scooching closer on the hammock. This time she took his hand for real, holding tight to his precious life itself.
As she did, she heard yelling outside, on deck.
“Something is wrong!” someone was crying. “Steam is covering Falkhaan!”
“Stay here!” Caitlin told Jacob as she flung herself from the hammock.
“What about going home?”
“I have to see what’s happening, baby,” she replied. “Promise me you won’t move!”
He crossed his heart. But as Caitlin made her way through the cabin she already knew what was wrong: the tiles were losing power, which meant that something had breached the tower. Pumped outward by the overzealous Source, magma must have broken through under the shallow shoreline and boiled the sea.
Stepping onto the deck she saw Standor Qala aft, ordering maximum speed from the flipperlike wings as, beyond, the water surged onto the shore and around the tower. It wasn’t a tsunami: water was bubbling hotly, violently around a red maelstrom just off the coast, sending waves slamming into every vessel and structure on that side of the harbor. The simu-varkas was cracking from bottom to top and literally sinking into the ground below. The topmost section broke as the tower sank, sending workers to their deaths, destroying the ancestral road beyond, kicking up clouds of sand where structural stones struck the beach. The glowing tiles within fell in arclike pieces, like a shattered ring; they were quickly submerged beneath a wave of silt and water, magma and stone, as well as homes and shops to which people were desperately clinging as they swirled out to sea.
The Standor turned and hurried forward.
“All speed to Aankhaan!” she shouted to a crew member on an open platform outside the control room.
“All speed!” a femora-sita shouted back.
His eyes settled briefly on Caitlin. “We have to warn them about the Source!”
CHAPTER 23
Mikel Jasso got back in the cab of the dead truck. Sunlight scintillated brightly but evanescently on the liquefying surface of the ice sheet. It sparked, then died, flashed somewhere else, then vanished. Thousands and thousands of beads of light appeared as the thin coating of water spread.
“What is going on?” Dr. Cummins asked thickly. “Is it still that portal you opened?”
Mikel watched through the windshield. “Possibly,” he admitted. “The ice should have muted it.”
Dr. Cummins looked out at the nearest column of light. “Maybe this is what it looks like muted. These tiles—is that what’s causing this?”
“I assume they are, but—”
“But what?” Dr. Cummins hugged herself as she waited for his answer. Without power, the car was cooling very quickly.
Mikel did not seem to notice. “You’re right, I think,” he told her.
“God, if only that warmed me! What am I right about?”
“The intensity of the light is the same in all the locations, and the other tiles are still buried,” Mikel said. “This is what the muted light looks like. The question is, will it stay muted for long? The surface of the ice is melting.”
“So the tiles are burning through?” Dr. Cummins asked.
“Perhaps.”
Dr. Cummins made a sour face behind her muffler. “‘Possibly,’ ‘Perhaps,’” she said. “Is there anything we can pin down?”
“If you’ll allow me one more qualified answer, Dr. Cummins, I believe this is true: we are being held here in order to witness this.”
That caused her to pause. “Held here by whom?”
“What I witnessed in the pit was brilliance to smoke, luminescence to death,” Mikel said. “What we’re seeing on the surface is the reverse—smoke to light.”
“Which is scientifically impossible,” she said.
“As far as we know.”
“No,” Dr. Cummins insisted. “Smoke does not unburn. There has to be another explanation. I’m guessing that wasn’t smoke.”
Mikel considered the possibility. “You may be right. It could be that we’re thinking too small, too local.”
“You lost me,” Dr. Cummins said as she tried the engine again.
“It will start later, I’m sure of it,” he said.
“Glad you’re so confident. But we only have about twenty minutes until we start to lose fingers and toes.”
Mikel opened the door.
“What are you doing?” Dr. Cummins yelled.
He hopped down, splattering the truck with water. “There’s warmth out here,” he said. “Actually, it’s more than that—the air is soothing, almost comforting.”
The glaciologist eased from the truck more gingerly than her companion and turned around. “Holy crap. You’re right. Dr. Jasso, what is this?”
“If I had to guess? Rebirth,” he said.
“Of what? Of Galderkhaan? Of its people?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” His eyes slowly followed the column of light into the fair blue sky. “I think it’s a lot bigger than that.”
Mikel began walking forward.
“Dr. Jasso, I wouldn’t!” Dr. Cummins said.
Mikel half turned and smiled. “It’s what I do,” he replied. “I have to know what’s there.” As he moved closer he said, “I have a connection with something on the other side. Something I have felt before.”
Less than a minute later he was inside the dome of light, invisible to Dr. Cummins, with nothing but static on the radio.
CHAPTER 24
Impulsively, Standor Qala put her arm around Caitlin to steady her as the airship surged forward. Her embrace also had the effect of comforting her at a time when she suddenly felt more helpless and afraid than at any time in her life.
“You will need the tiles of the motu-varkas to return home, yes?” the officer asked.
“If they still exist,” Caitlin said. The wind felt good on her face, though it bore a frightening hint of eternity: the abyss in which they would find themselves when they reached Aankhaan. Either they would likely perish in the blast or be stranded in a dead world.
“What caused this to happen?” the Standor asked.
“Deceit, mistrust, arrogance,” she said. “I cannot tell you more.”
“Because you’re afraid I’ll interfere,” Qala said.
“It’s too late for that,” she said. “The process has already begun. I felt it before. I feel it now.”
“How is that possible? To have felt it before.”
She regarded the officer. Qala looked proud, tall, majestic in her uniform, in her command. “Where I come from, I am like a physician,” she said. “Galderkhaani tried to burn and cazh with souls in my time in order to transcend. To stop them, I had to come here… in spirit.”
“Using the tiles?”
“I believe so,” Caitlin said. She smiled. “The motu-varkas seems to like me. To want me.”