Delia twisted the valves that controlled the flows. “Now, Tylar!”
He grabbed the wheel with one hand and pushed the plunger with the other. Grace surged out into the fins and the ship jetted forward, flying down the dark chute and out into the bright sea.
Once free, he concentrated on using the foot pedals and wheel to control the craft. The Fin raced through the water, carving a path beneath the Reef above. Against the city’s glow, the patches of Gloom were easy to spot as steaming columns of blackness. Scintillations of lightning crackled through their hearts.
Tylar sped around the trunks of tangleweed, many now blackened and leafless from the touch of the naether.
“Once we’re clear of the Reef,” Rogger said, “we should angle both up and away, make for the open water beyond the weed. We don’t want to get snarled up in the surface tangle.”
Tylar nodded. They were almost at the city’s edge, where the central corona cast off spiraling arms leading to sea plantations and hatcheries. Tylar aimed between two such arms.
As they shot upward, water sloshed to the back of the cabin. The shift threw off Tylar’s balancing of the controls. The Fin spun in a fast spiral as he struggled to rein it in. They crashed through some branches of tangleweed, jarring their ship.
“Maybe you should slow,” Delia suggested.
“Watch your starboard!” Rogger yelled from the back.
Tylar spotted it too late. What had first appeared to be shadow was a smoking column of Gloom. He slammed the right rudder. It was too much. The Fin spun completely around, sweeping through the cloud of Gloom. All the mica tubes flared to a bright fire, protecting the ship. Then they were clear of the Gloom.
Tylar straightened the Fin, raised its nose toward the sky, and sped away. The glow of the Reef slowly faded below them, disappearing amid the thickening forest. Soon, only the luminescent globes that dotted the tangleweed’s branches lit their path. Somewhere far above, the sun waited for them.
“How are the reserves?” Tylar asked shakily.
Delia measured the tank with her palm. “That single brush cost us a good fifth of our alchemies.”
“Let’s not do that again,” Rogger suggested.
“I wasn’t planning-”
The miiodon attacked from above, dropping upon them like a fisherfolk’s net. Tentacles swallowed the Fin completely. The weight of the jelly shark rolled the ship. They were tossed about the cabin. Tylar sensed them dropping, tumbling back into the inky depths, to where the naether waited. The rolling stopped as the Fin stabilized, upside down in the clutches of the jelly shark. Tylar and the others lay sprawled upon the cabin’s roof, the controls overhead.
Delia spoke near the bow. She crouched with her face pressed to the crystalline dome. “There’s a space here between two tentacles. You can see through a bit.”
Tylar joined her. The Reef glowed nearby. They had fallen back to where they had started. He rested his forehead against the dome. A column of Gloom roiled off to the port side. Death lay all around.
“What about loosing your daemon?” Rogger asked. “Maybe it could slay the beastie before we’re crushed.”
Tylar shook his head. He remembered how back at Summer Mount the dred ghawl had turned the guard’s arrows to ash. He feared what it would do to their Fin if it tried to pass through the walls to the seas beyond.
“Then charm the miiodon again,” Rogger persisted. “With blood and piss like before.”
Delia leaned back. “We need to be able to touch it to charm it.”
“Maybe not…” Tylar had a sudden idea and swung around. “Delia, I need you to man the wheel and rudder. Hurry!”
She knit her brow, but climbed to her feet under the controls, arms raised in hesitation. “Someone has to push the rudder pedals by hand. I can’t man the wheel at the same time.”
“I’ll help,” Rogger said.
Tylar pressed his face to the dome, studying the landscape. “When I say now, I need you to burn as much alchemy as you can while pulling hard on the wheel and left rudder.”
“What are you-?”
“Get ready!” His target came into view. He held his breath. “Now!”
Rogger and Delia worked the controls. A vigorous trembling shook the ship. The mica tubes grew bright and hot as the craft fought the miiodon’s bulk. It proved too heavy. Nothing happened. They continued to drop into the depths, unimpeded.
“More power!” Tyler scolded.
“Hang on,” Delia gasped. “I’ll break the damper valve.”
Glass shattered with a small pop. The Fin jolted as if kicked by a loam-giant. The mica tubes flared with intense heat. Slowly the miiodon’s bulk, clasped around the Fin, began to slide horizontally through the water, dragged by the sputtering ship.
“A little farther…” Tylar begged.
As he held his breath, the edge of the jelly shark brushed into a neighboring column of Gloom. The reaction was immediate. Tentacles spasmed, fonts of venom spewed into the surrounding seas. Like the weed and the schools of fish, the miiodon was a creature of this world, not the naether. The Gloom ate through its bulk as it fell farther into the heart of the naether bloom, feeding its substance to the void.
The Fin was dragged with it.
Again the mica tubes blazed sun bright with protective alchemies. Tylar’s right hand brushed a cross tube, singeing his skin.
But they were free.
“Release the rudder!” he cried.
The Fin jumped forward, passing out of the Gloom and into clear waters. Shoving to his feet, Tylar took Delia’s place at the controls and rolled the ship back into proper position. They regained their seats, and he fought the Fin up at a steep angle.
“With the damper broken,” Delia said, “we can’t slow her down.”
They shot between the spiraling trunks of tangleweed, racing out of the depths, going faster and faster, cleaving through snarls and branches. No one spoke until the midnight waters lightened to twilight.
“The sun,” Rogger gasped.
High above, a pool of watery brightness promised fresh air and escape. As the waters brightened to aquamarine, they shot free of the tangleweed forest and into the clear seas. Tylar held white-knuckled to the controls, keeping the ship angled upward.
“Hold tight!” he called.
They breached the ocean, bursting forth from the waves like a monstrous fish leaping into the air. The Fin sailed high for an endless breath, then crashed back to the seas with a jarring splash. For a moment they sank again, but the Fin bobbed quickly back up, jostling and rolling in the swells.
The sunlight through the dome was blinding, even with the sun close to setting by now.
“We made it!” Rogger cheered. “Not that I didn’t think we would, mind you.” He clapped Tylar on the back.
Delia sighed, not as pleased. She pointed to the spherical tank of bloody alchemies. It was empty. “We ran dry a few fathoms ago. We were climbing on buoyancy alone.”
“Let’s worry about that later.” Rogger crossed to the stern, cracked the hatch, and threw it wide. A clean breeze swept into the cabin. “For the moment, at least we’re still breathing.” To demonstrate, he took a dramatic chestful of fresh air.
Tylar joined him, glad to face the sun. Still, a dark shadow remained around his heart. He considered what Fyla had given him, a name that revealed nothing but dread and mystery. “The Godsword,” he mumbled aloud to the setting sun.
Rogger grunted. “An ominous epitaph indeed.”
“Could it be real?” Tylar asked. “I’d thought the sword a fable.”
Rogger shrugged. “Maybe it is. But fables often have some seed of truth.”
Tylar still found it hard to believe. According to black myths told throughout the ages, the dreaded Godsword harkened back to the lost past of Myrillia, to the time of the Sundering itself, when the home of the gods was
