CHAPTER 17

The King of Molten Metal

Marrill slow-walked backward across the deck. Vell, the heartless Crest of the Rise, rose to his full height before her. Behind him, the waterfall of melted iron highlighted his sharp figure. Then the waterfall and the cliffs surrounding it fell away as the Kraken lifted into the open sky.

“So,” Vell said with a smirk. “You rabble have finally realized the superiority of the Rise and have come groveling for my mercy.”

Marrill looked to Fin for help. He and Vell were the same person, after all, in a way. Even if they couldn’t possibly have been more different.

But the smoldering anger in Fin’s eyes was far hotter than the melting metal below them. Whatever Fin might say, it would only get them in worse trouble.

So she looked to Serth for help instead. He stood rod straight as ever, his face a demon mask in the forge light, his expression almost as arrogant as Vell’s own. Marrill had a quick flashback to his parley with the Meressians at Flight-of-Thorns. Diplomacy, she reminded herself, was not the wizard’s strong suit.

Neither of them appeared willing to bend to the Crest in any way. But if that’s what it took to get his help, that’s what she would do. Swallowing, she stepped forward, clasping her hands together to hide her nerves. And to keep from taking a swing at Vell. He’d killed Fin’s mother, after all. Marrill didn’t take kindly to people who messed with her friends.

“Um, yeah,” she said. “Something like that?”

Vell nodded. “Good.” He turned, throwing his arms wide just as the Kraken burst through a haze of smoke that ringed the summit of the highest peak. “Then bow before the Salt Sand King!”

Before them, the mountain summit jutted into the air. Atop it, cold and silent, stood the statue the Rise had carried to the siege of Flight-of-Thorns Citadel.

For all his power and ambition, the Salt Sand King wasn’t a grandiose figure. He was small and hunched, his form wrapped in bandages so that the only things visible were his beak and glimpses of where his ember-like eyes would have been. Like his surroundings, every inch of him was covered in dark metal, utterly lifeless iron. But the ground beneath his statue glowed with a silent fire. Down below, somewhere deep inside the mountain, his heat must have been melting the metal, creating the burning rivers that poured into the valleys and lit the whole place like the inside of a forge.

Marrill had a bad feeling about this. “So… if we bow, you’ll help us?” she asked. On either side, Serth and Fin scoffed.

“I am not bowing,” they said simultaneously. Of course now would be the moment they took each other’s side.

Vell turned back to them sharply. “Then you’ll die,” he said. He held out a hand. “Behold, he awakes!”

As Marrill watched, the glow beneath the statue spread upward. Blue at first, then an orangish red. It infused the entire mountain peak, seeping into the statue itself. The metal around its beaked visage began to glimmer, a sheen glistening across its surface.

Vell crossed his arms. “Are you so sure you won’t bow?”

Marrill glanced toward Fin and Serth. Sure, it would be embarrassing. But if it got Vell to help them fight off the Master of the Iron Ship, what was a little embarrassment? “You will help, right?” she asked. “If we do?”

Vell laughed. “Of course not. I am the Crest of the Rise. I give the commands. And none but my king commands me.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Fin spat.

The mountain peak snapped and bubbled. A jet of flame shot out over them, its heat so fierce that it buffeted Marrill’s skin even from dozens of yards away. The Kraken was rising right into a full-blown inferno.

Fortunately, Marrill thought, dullwood was fireproof. Unfortunately, they weren’t. “Uh, Remy?” she called. “You might want to put on the brakes.”

“You know ships don’t have brakes, right?” Remy responded. “It’s called drift—we can’t just stop. Ropebone, quick, modify the rigging. We need to sail!”

The ship came alive with movement—sails dropping, pirats scrambling, Ropebone screeching as they changed course. Serth muttered, his hands tracing invisible lines in front of him. The air cooled, but only slightly.

“I am not… ready for this,” the wizard mumbled.

The captain glowered but said nothing as she spun the wheel hard. The Kraken began to bank. But it wasn’t fast enough. The heat around the statue was so intense that it shimmered like water, turning the air into waves of glistening light. It was like staring into the base of a flame, colorless, with hints of blue flashing, giving way to a flickering yellow.

That’s what the statue of the Salt Sand King was now, the heart of a flame that grew until its white tip snapped, whiplike, through the air. Two glowing embers appeared where his eyes would have been, piercing through the thin veneer of iron that still coated him.

His beak cracked, tearing a ragged slash in the metal. “And what have you brought me, oh Crest of my Rise?” he asked, voice raspy from disuse. He raised a hand, the fire around him answering his beckoning call.

Flames shot toward the Kraken, engulfing her in a burst of light. Fin threw his arms over his face. Remy was able to force the ship down, tilting them out of the worst of the attack, but the sails still caught the edges of it. Pirats scattered along the yards, using what they could to douse the small fires that broke out in the rigging.

“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?” the Salt Sand King bellowed. “My hunger growing, waiting for something to burn? Something to conquer?” He raised his arms, and the mountains around him almost seemed to bend at his command. Then Marrill realized they actually were softening, sinking, as if the molten valleys were swallowing them whole.

“Uh-oh,” Marrill said under her breath.

“What uh-oh?” Remy called from the wheel behind them, an edge of panic in her voice. “I can’t see anything from here. What uh-oh?”

Marrill pointed. “I think the mountains are… uh… melting.”

“What does that mean?” Remy asked.

Serth spun toward her. “It means we are leaving. Now!”

Behind them the Salt Sand King laughed, the sound echoing off the metal mountains. “Do you think you can escape my wrath???”

“Right. Leaving. Got it.” Remy’s cheeks glistened with sweat as she hauled at the wheel, turning them sharply.

Below them the liquid iron churned, forming waves that crashed against the dissolving hills, eating away at them like sand castles being swallowed by the sea.

As Marrill watched, the waves grew larger, more volatile, rising higher. Just ahead, one crashed into a mountain, sending a stream of molten metal spiraling upward. The tip of it splattered toward the Kraken, as if it were trying to bat the ship from the air.

Remy pushed them into a steep dive, just barely avoiding the volley. But this sent them even closer to the threatening tide.

“Where will you sail to, yunh? Where can you go? When all the Stream is metal, fire is the only life!”

The Kraken practically skated over the churning iron surface, bobbing and weaving as metal waves formed into hands, reaching for them.

Marrill screamed, wrapping her arms around the nearest mast to keep from being thrown overboard. Remy pulled back hard, slingshotting them into the air. But there seemed to be nowhere they could go to escape the roiling sea below. In a molten world, the Salt Sand King was more powerful than ever before.

Throughout it all, Vell remained remarkably calm. Exasperatingly so. Beside Marrill, Fin’s patience reached its limit. “Are you headsoft?” he shouted at Vell.

Marrill was having the same thought, but Vell didn’t seem particularly swayed. “What Fin is saying is, if the Salt Sand King sets fire to the Kraken, then we’ll all die.” She leveled a finger at the boy. “Including you.”

Fin growled under his breath. “Remember: I die, you die. So maybe you want to help out a little?”

Vell’s icy exterior suddenly cracked. “Why do you think I’m not helping him kill you?” he snapped. But then he leaned back, shaking his head. Clearly, thinking for himself was not something he was used to. “I can’t,” he said. “I exist to serve the Salt Sand King. No matter what. If it is his pleasure that I die, so be it.”

That’s when it hit Marrill—they’d been going about this all wrong. Vell was nothing but a servant. He would never turn on the Salt Sand King. And even if they got away, he would never abandon the King. He would never help on his own.

Vell wasn’t the one they had to convince. The Salt Sand King was.

Their only hope, she realized, was the one thing least likely to work. They had to talk the Salt Sand King into sparing them—and into helping them.

The burning figure at the heart of the maelstrom cackled as a massive iron fist formed nearby and swung toward them. The Kraken dodged, but the fist wound up for another shot.

“Nowhere left to hide, troublesome fly,” the Salt Sand King hissed. “All the Stream may be metal, but you will still burn!” The blazing fist shot toward them.

“Wait! Wait!” Marrill called. “We can save you! We can give you back your kingdom!”

The fist paused in midair, barely a few feet from the bow of the ship. Slowly, it unclenched, iron fingers revealing the figure of the Salt Sand King standing in its palm. Flames flickered around him, sending waves of heat across the Kraken’s deck.

Marrill swallowed, painfully aware of how close he was to the bowsprit. How easy it would be for him to leap on board and send them plunging to the valley of molten iron below.

“What are you doing?” Fin hissed under his breath.

“Trying to bargain,” Marrill whispered.

“With what?”

Unfortunately, Marrill was still trying to figure that out. “Don’t break my flow.” She gulped. “But, you know, if you think of something, tell me.”

Fin regarded her skeptically for a moment. Then he gave her a big grin and a thumbs-up. “This is my kind of plan!”

Marrill didn’t feel terribly reassured by that. But it was all she had, so she decided to be encouraged by it. Slowly, she eased her grip from the mast and moved forward until she faced the molten avatar across from her.

“My kingdom, yunh?” the Salt Sand King asked when she approached. His voice, like his form, had shrunk. It squealed through the metal like a low whistle of steam. “I have my kingdom. Look around you. Everything you see belongs to me.”

“But what good is a land of iron?” Marrill countered.

The King’s flames dimmed, morphing from blazing blue to a dull yellow. “About as good as your empty promises.”

“They’re not empty promises,” Marrill argued.

“All promises are empty,” the King interrupted. “My existence is proof of that. The Dawn Wizard promised me three wishes and look what happened.” He threw his arms wide. “I am the ruler of nothing.”

And then his hands fell to his side. His chin dropped. “I am the ruler of nothing,” he said again, almost to himself.

Marrill felt a stab of pity for the creature. “Help us and you can have it all back: your land, your army, your dreams.”

“You would save the Stream only to unleash my destruction upon it once more?” the Salt Sand King snarled. He shook his head. “I find that difficult to believe. You’re just here to trick me like the Dawn Wizard.”

Fin stepped forward. “The Dawn Wizard didn’t trick you, King. He gave you what you wanted—he let you use your own ambition against yourself.”

The flames pouring from the Salt Sand King’s frame grew in intensity as his fists curled in rage.

But Fin pressed the point. “Desire and ambition were always your worst enemies. You cheated the Dawn Wizard in the first place because you wanted to rule everything. You fell for his trap because your desire blinded you to it. You destroyed your own kingdom in order to rule it. Now you have a chance to make up for that.”

Marrill felt the struggle shifting. The Salt Sand King was listening for once. “The Dawn Wizard gave you an option long ago,” she said. “Help someone else selflessly and be free. Help us now, and you live up to that.” She swallowed as the flames danced along the molten sea. “Or,” she said, “take our ship, complete your domination, and live eternally as the King of Molten Iron. Once we’re gone, Vell will be, too, and you’ll have zero subjects. Your choice.”

Marrill watched as the Salt Sand King flexed, sending flames streaming in every direction. She dropped to the deck, throwing her hands over her head as heat singed the hair along her arms. She waited to hear the sound of the sails catching fire, for acrid smoke to choke her lungs.

But there was only silence.

Marrill peeked open one eye. Beside her, Fin was frozen in a crouch; Remy stared wide eyed.

The temperature had dropped; the crashing molten waves ceased. And the iron hand where the Salt Sand King had stood only moments before was now empty. The hot metal had cooled and solidified into dull iron.

There was no evidence of the King or his fire anywhere.

Except there was one thing. One small memento, forged from the iron, resting in the palm of the hand he’d been standing on. Marrill shuddered as Vell leapt the railing to pick it up. He sauntered back, as if he owned the whole world himself.

From his fingers, a lantern swung casually. The flame inside it flickered. He strolled to the center of the forecastle and slowly held the lantern aloft. The Salt Sand King’s voice sizzled from the tiny fire within.

“Meet your new captain,” it said.

A cruel smile danced across Vell’s lips as his eyes swept over the ship.

Remy let out a low growl. Serth shook his head. Fin just looked away. Marrill gulped, praying they’d made the right decision.