Page 33 of Shardless

-Pasha

Late into the afternoon hours, the small band of travelers arrived at the northern edge of the forest. The trees began to thin, allowing rays of sunlight to peek through the branches, and the horses grew restless as the scent of sand and metal saturated the air.

Taly raised a hand, signaling for them to stop at the tree line. “Stay here. Something’s not right.” Without looking back, she pushed her horse forward and skirted silently along the border of the desert surrounding the Aion Gate.

No matter how many times he visited the Aion Gate, Skye was always shocked by the swift transition from lush forest to arid wasteland. The Aion Gate was by far the largest gate on the island, built directly on top of a tear in the veil between the worlds. It required a massive amount of aether to function, and after the Schism, it had started leeching the aether out of the surrounding area. As a result, the land around the gate was uninhabitable. No plants would grow, and the animals knew to steer clear. Only the magical beasts dared to venture out of the forest, drawn by the massive power of the gate when their thirst was at its worst.

Skye could just make out the smooth planes of the gate several miles in the distance. Mountains of junk and scrap metal surrounded the base of the monument, spreading, thinning and scattering out across the barren landscape.

“It’s dirtier than I thought it would be.” Aimee’s lips turned down into a frown. “What is allof that… stuff?”

“Since the Aion Gate leads to the mortal realm, most of what falls through the veil in this area is mortal tech,” Skye explained. “Sometimes, we’ll see a few items that look like they came from somewhere else, but not often.”

“Shards, I don’t know what half of that stuff is,” Aiden said, his eyes wide. “I suppose I’ll have to learn, though. I hear that Faro is quite progressive in the way that it’s chosen to incorporate mortal culture and technology into its infrastructure.”

Skye shrugged, his eyes trained on where he had last seen Taly. “I wouldn’t feel bad about it, Aiden. Mortal technology has been advancing very quickly in recent years. It’s hard to keep up.”

“What do you do with it all?” Aimee asked, a hint of genuine curiosity lacing her words.

“The Fire Guild will take most of it,” Skye replied. “Mortal salvage contains a lot of metal, so they’ll smelt it down.”

After a long moment, Taly returned. As she dismounted her horse, she said, “A fresh batch of scrap came through, so there’s not a straight path to the gate. That means we leave the horses here and go in on foot. Also, there’s a harpy about a league west of here, circling.”

“Is it safe to approach?” Skye asked, his shoulders tense beneath his armor. The harpies on Tempris were a special kind of nightmare, one of the few things the highborn fey had cause to fear.

“I believe so,” Taly replied with a decisive nod. “We’ll be in full view as we make our approach, but it’s still far enough away that we won’t draw its attention if we’re careful.”

Taly absentmindedly scratched at her horse’sneck as she gave them all a pointed stare. “Keep the talking to a minimum and watch where you’re going. Moveslowly. Some of this mortal tech is sharp, and if you get cut, that concealment charm won’t do shit to cover the smell of your magic. If something does happen, then run for the tree line and pray that the harpy doesn’t pursue. It’s female from what I can tell—which means it’s venomous. Just in case you all need a reminder, the venom of the Tempris harpy is one of the deadliest poisons known to the fey. One scratch, and youwilldie without a healer. And on Tempris when the aether is thin like this, you might die even with a healer. It’s a tossup. So, in conclusion, if the harpy comes for you, do not engage this thing. If you see it so much as twitch, run the fuck away, screaming if need be.”

“So vulgar,” Aimee grumbled. “Aiden, be a dear and come help me.”

Skye watched Taly closely as she tied off her horse and grabbed her pack. She was all business as she checked the pistols holstered around her waist and secured the new air dagger he had given her that morning in a sheath strapped to her thigh. Shaking himself, he followed suit, effortlessly swinging himself out of the saddle.

Skye felt inexplicably uneasy as he watched Taly start into the wasteland. She scanned the area around her carefully, a hand resting on one of the pistols at her waist. Even though Sarina had told him again and again that Taly had found her footing in the salvaging trade, he had never fully believed her. Until now, that is.

“Grown up, hasn’t she?” Aiden commented as he came to stand beside Skye. He too was watching Taly as she threw down some ashewa dust acrossthe trail to mask the scent of the horses. This close to the Aion Gate, the risk of encountering a non-magical predator that might attack the animals was minimal, but the dust was still a good precaution to take. The strong smell of the powdered ashewa bark would ward off pretty much anything with a nose.

Skye glared at Aiden from the corner of his eye. There was something about the way the earth mage’s eyes raked over Taly, top to bottom and back again, that rankled him. Clearing his throat, Skye said evenly, “Yeah. Took me by surprise too.”

They carefully picked their way through the debris, making their way towards the gate. Skye could just see the harpy in the distance. It was at least twice his height, grotesque and flea-bitten, and the skin on its bald head was almost the same color as the bronzed dust that collected around the gate. Great feathered wings protruded from its back, and its body was covered with rows of glassy scales. Lifting its head, it sniffed the wind with its strangely flat nose, its head cocking to the side when it caught sight of them. For one breathless moment, it considered them, trying to decide if their little party was tempting enough to pursue.

“Give it a minute,” Taly whispered when she saw Skye’s hand instinctively reach for his sword. “It’s just sizing us up. If those aether concealment charms are working like they’re supposed to, it’ll lose interest.”

Skye nodded in acknowledgment but still kept his hand on his sword as he continued to stare down the harpy. He let out a slow sigh of relief when the great beast eventually shook itself and turned away, just as Taly predicted.

It was a long trek across the field, made evenmore arduous as the layer of scrap littering the ground began to thicken and the mountains of metal grew taller and more menacing. Aimee would occasionally try to voice a complaint about a tear in her dress or how uncomfortable the ground felt underfoot, but halfway through each attempt, Aiden would promptly shush her. Taly eventually split off from the group, never taking her eyes off the harpy as it listlessly circled in the distance. Every so often, she would bend down and inspect something of interest, sometimes tossing it back into the piles of debris and other times stashing it away in her bag.

A salvager’s paradise, Skye thought with a low chuckle. While the fey had little use for most of the junk that tended to accumulate around the gates, every now and then, valuable gems and metals, even the occasional magical object, would fall through. That’s why salvagers like Taly were always rushing to the areas on the island where the veil was thin and digging through rubble and trash.

Finally, after what seemed like far longer than it should’ve taken, Skye found himself standing at the base of the monolith. The Aion Gate was a thing of frightening beauty. At thirty feet wide and at least a hundred feet tall, it was almost three times larger than any other gate on the island. It towered over him, shooting up into the sky and disappearing into the clouds.

The outer hyaline pillars practically glowed, deflecting the afternoon sun in a chaotic, rainbowed array of shattered light—silent crystalline sentinels surrounded by rolling hills of rust. Slotted inside the translucent obelisks stood two solid sheets of shadow crystal, sanded andpolished so that the glittering violet surfaces reflected the ruddy wasteland. The Gate Watchers had been tirelessly pouring aether into the crystals over the last few months, and they thrummed with a pulsating energy that seemed to vibrate the very air. Skye could feel the aether reach out to him as it swirled restlessly behind the smooth wall of crystal. He trailed a finger along the surface, watching the glowing eddies of whirling magic shadow his movements.

Between the massive amethyst panels rested a single strip of gold, about two fingers wide—time crystal. The Gate Watchers had just barely managed to preserve the time crystals in the gates after the Schism. The glittering, golden stones had all gone dark when the Time Queen died, and with no one left to wield the Time Shard, they would most likely remain that way.

“Feel free to look around,” Skye said to his companions as he ran a hand across the control panel. It was a small rectangular piece of shadow crystal set into one of the hyaline pillars, and a network of inscribed runes flashed and stuttered to life as he keyed in the proper commands. Though hardly spoken by anyone except scholars, the ancient Faera language, by its very nature, could channel and bind magic. Their technology, their magic, their crystals—the very foundations of the modern fey’s way-of-life depended on this ancient, arcane typography they’d inherited from a dead race that most had all but forgotten.

“Just be careful with the shadow crystal,” Skye added as an afterthought. “At this point in the charging cycle, it tends to spark.”

---