The Land of Storms

  The weather of Mani can be unpredictable at times, but never harsh enough to create an emergency, save for the tampering of wind and lightning magi. This is why scholars are puzzled at the mention of great and terrible storms that have destroyed cities in centuries past, for no records of such events exist. Of course, if the theory is true that there are other landmasses out there besides the continent of Argent and the Sky Islands, then who could say what type of weather may exist there?

  — From Secrets of Mani, by Sor the Lark

  (Quoi 14, 997—Night Season)

  The land of Storms was a wide, flat expanse, rocky and devoid of life as far as I could see. According to the map, it was approximately twelve miles across and roughly circular, barring entry to the very center of the continent, which none were said to have seen. We passed into thick cloud cover before reaching the actual storms. They were supposed to be patchy at first and then increase in intensity the farther in one went. No one was foolhardy enough to brave the storm all the way to the center.

  Rhidea activated one of the Archlord’s crystal spheres once we reached the first storm: the sphere that was supposed to suck in energy, magical or otherwise. We had been saving it for just such an occasion as this. She held the sphere aloft as she rode with one hand, and the rest of us followed behind. The hooves of the horses made a clattering on the rocks that would have been loud had it not been for the violent wind that whipped at us, blowing our hair around, and the crackling thunder—both near and distant. I had my hair tied back in my usual ponytail, of course. It wouldn’t do to have it whipping all over my face. Mydia and Rhidea wore matching buns pinned up to keep their hair stable.

  Lightning flared across the sky, branching and crisscrossing and then disappearing just in time for two more to sprout from other spots. The stars and even Gaea were completely obscured by this point, and so the lightning was all we had to see by. Unreliable and transient though it was, the lightning lit up the sky like daylight. Our horses neighed and whinnied, tossing their heads this way and that and testing our control. Mydia in particular had trouble with hers, since Oliver was clutching onto her for dear life most of the time.

  “Hang in there, Mydia,” I called to her from her left. “Just till Rhidea says that we can let them go, then we’re walking, remember?”

  She nodded, teeth gritted. Oliver’s eyes were shut tight in a comical display of fear, his arms clinging around the queen’s midsection. It was pretty terrifying, so I didn’t blame him.

  I spurred on my mount, coming up closer to Rhidea’s black gelding.

  “We’re just over two miles in!” Kaen called from on my right.

  “We’ve got to get farther before we release the horses!” Rhidea shouted back. “Keep riding!” The end of her words was drowned out by the biggest thunderclap yet, which came from a hundred yards to our right. And then came a lightning bolt, sparking from the ground, which arced through the air toward Rhidea’s orb. Mydia gasped from behind me, ducking her head. The crystal must be sucking in the energy like it’s supposed to, I thought with relief.

  The storm around us grew more intense, the lightning flashes growing nearly constant all throughout the sky. Rain began to fall, slickening the stone underfoot and dampening our cloaks. I shivered. Great. Just what we needed, although in a storm it was to be expected. That was why we’d donned our overcloaks. I pulled up the hood on mine before my whole head got soaked.

  Watching the lightning on the black horizon, riding against the rain over uneven, desolate terrain, I realized I’d never been so terrified since the day I’d crashed into the cliffs of Argent. We all depended upon one little trinket right now, bestowed upon us by the person I trusted least in the whole world. My stomach felt like it would cramp up from anxiety, abdominal muscles twitching rapidly.

  We urged our horses faster. Rhidea, our lighthouse and beacon of hope, sat high in her saddle, crouched over against the rain, holding the orb high. I had never known her to back down, and certainly not now when the time was at hand to finally learn what we came all this way for.

  “How much farther!?” Mydia shrieked from behind us.

  “A couple more miles!” Kaen yelled back. “We’ve got to keep going a little longer!”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “The horses can’t take much more—” I began. I cut off as a blinding flash lit up the ground around us for hundreds of feet and then vanished just as quickly, leaving behind afterimages. My poor horse bucked and snorted frantically. The following thunderclap was deafening. Immediately after, another bright bolt flashed in the sky a mile in front of us, and I saw it as a faint silhouette through the rain—our goal, rising high in the sky: A great tower. It was no longer directly ahead, as we seemed to have gotten a bit off-course.

  “There it is!” Rhidea shouted. “The tower!” She corrected our course toward the distant landmark, now obscured once more. We slowed the horses a bit, giving them the chance to breathe. I could smell the sweat of my mount mixing with the rain.

  As we approached, it became easier to see. In fact . . . was it just me or . . .

  “The rain!” Kaen called. “It’s letting up. I think the storm is growing less fierce.”

  Sure enough, the wind was beginning to die down around us and the rain was relenting. The clouds remained as thick and black, however, and the lightning only more frenzied than ever. “The rain is, anyway,” I said.

  Finally, we drew near to the great monstrosity of the tower, and I got my first clear look at it in the persistent lightning. Stone jutted from the earth for hundreds of feet around it in jagged spires, as though something had broken through the layers of rock long ago, tearing up layer after layer like a ridged hand. But there was a beauty to it, a wild and untamed majesty.

  A winding path led through the ripped-up strata of dark-grey rock to the base of the tower. The structure rose hundreds of feet into the air, made of a reflective silvery rock with strange patterns like crisscrossing webs running up and down the sides.

  We slowed our tired horses to a trot as we approached, and then Rhidea called the halt.

  “This is close enough,” she said in a clear voice. “We will unburden our steeds here and send them on their way. May they stay safe through the storm and find green pastures outside.”

  We removed the tack and saddles from the horses and sent them back on their way. Hopefully they would make it through the lightning without being burnt to cinders by a random bolt. We would have been struck on multiple occasions if not for Archlord Domon’s crystal of Dark Magic, so I had my doubts.

  I gazed up at the Tower of Mani. “And we’re going to climb this . . .” I whispered. I glanced at Mydia to see an expression of wonder and horror clear on her wide-eyed face. She mouthed the word, scary.

  “Yes,” said Kaen, putting a hand on my shoulder. I gave him a tight smile.

  Oliver took my hand, squinting up at my face in the flashing light. It lit his frightened features from a thousand angles. “Lyn,” he asked, unable to keep a tremble from his lower lip, “do you think we’re gonna die?”

  I shook my head, giving him a forced smile. “We’ll be all right. Rhidea hasn’t let us down yet.” I pulled him into a hug, looking up at Rhidea. She stood facing us, giving us a moment to catch our breath and gather our courage. Then she motioned us onward, through the path of rock and spikes that led to the tower. We followed, boots clopping on the black stone and kicking up mud. The smell of ozone was thick in the air.

  We wound past crags and spires of rock, looking down into holes that appeared to lead deep into the earth. “Ouch, better stay away from those,” Mydia murmured fearfully, clinging to my arm.

  I craned my neck to look into one of the holes. There was some kind of greenish light emanating from some of them, and I was trying to see what it was. As we got closer to the tower, the rocky landscape grew more dramatic, reaching higher with the spires and opening up off the side of the paths to reveal . . . nothing.

  “Oh, that . . . that is truly unsettling,” Mydia whispered.

  “There’s—it’s open space underneath,” I said. “What is this place?”

  The craggy earth opened up in pockets of increasing size, revealing a glowing interior under the surface. The light was blue-green of the faintest color, both eerie and mesmerizing. The ubiquitous lightning flaring every which way did not help with the uneasiness in my stomach.

  We tread upon what were essentially bridges of rock, misshapen and twisting, hanging down into the chasm like stalactites and stabbing upward from the surface like craggy spires. But the tower was unlike the rock, clearly built by hands . . . or by magic, at least.

  Rhidea walked with the orb still raised in her hand, keeping the lightning from striking us. The sky seemed almost angry at our defiance. “Prepare yourselves for the climb ahead,” she called over the storm. “We’re almost there. The Gate will be at the top of this tower.”

  I gazed up at the looming spire, lit ever-so-dimly by the giant moon above it. So tall . . . and we were going to climb it?

  We rounded the last jutting spike of earth, some thirty feet tall, and found ourselves at the base of the Tower of Mani. A stairway opened in front of us, circling up to the right around the wall of the tower. As I looked up, I could see that the spiral pattern continued up the wall, ever reaching toward the top. The stairs here were a good eight feet wide, and a three-foot railing of sorts ran up the side, so my worries of Oliver—or all of us—tumbling to his doom abated a bit.

  Rhidea sighed, lowering her hand slightly as she tilted backward, looking up at the heights of the tower hidden in the clouds, and the frightening stairway winding up to the heavens. “Oh, this is going to be a long trek up.” Breathing in deeply, she said, “Up we go.”

  “Up we go,” Kaen agreed.