Eli kicked a pebble with his shoe, his hands shoved into his pockets. The sun, so bright when we first arrived, was starting to slip behind the horizon. I leaned back on the steps. At least the dream had been calm and peaceful for once. That was a change.
Something in the distance caught my eye, a momentary flash. I sat up. “What was that?”
Eli turned and scanned the lawn behind us. “What?”
“I thought I saw a light. There it is again.” I stood, keeping my eyes fixed on the place where it had seemed to emanate—somewhere near the first pyre we’d examined. I started walking slowly toward it, Eli falling into step beside me. But by the time we came within reach of the pyre, I hadn’t seen it again.
I stopped. “Never mind, I guess I imagined it.”
Eli didn’t respond as he stared at the pyre, his eyes glazed over as he did that inward thinking thing of his. He came out of it a second later, and he walked up the pyre, seizing hold of one of the pieces of wood. “I have an idea.” He yanked the wood from the top and tossed it over his shoulder, grabbing another one at once.
“What are you doing?” I asked, stepping sideways to avoid one of the flying pieces.
“I have a hunch. Help me tear this thing apart.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, not that he could see it with his back to me. Then I shrugged and started helping. Several moments later, we’d dismantled the whole thing. At the very center, sticking out of the earth like a broken cemetery cross, stood a wooden rod. It was roughly the length of a baseball bat although not as thick in circumference. At first, I thought it must’ve been used to support the pyre, only it was too small to do that effectively.
“I can’t believe it,” Eli whispered, his eyes fixed on the rod.
“Believe what?”
He didn’t reply as he stepped forward, seized the rod with one hand, and yanked it out. He ran his gaze over its surface. I moved closer, examining it myself. Intricate symbols and markings covered its entire surface. So it wasn’t an ordinary stick at all, but a magical instrument.
“What is it?” I said, wishing this wasn’t a dream so that I could give Eli a poke to get his attention. He was completely absorbed in studying it. “Eli,” I said when he still didn’t respond.
He finally looked up. “It’s a Telluric Rod.”
“Say again?”
“A Telluric Rod, also known as an Atlantean Rod.”
A chill went through me at the connection. “Why?”
Eli turned it over in his hands, drawing a breath. “It was a handful of rods like this that sunk the island of Atlantis.”
* * *
Back in Eli’s dorm room, I slowly shook off the lingering effects of emerging from the dream and slid off a still slumbering Eli. I stood, then shook him awake. He blinked dazedly at me a couple of times before sitting up.
“So do you really think that Magistrate Kirkwood is going to try to sink Lyonshold?” I said, continuing our conversation from within the dream.
Eli shook his head as he clambered to his feet. “No, I don’t think he’s going to sink all of it, but a part of it, yeah. Assuming that the pyres we saw are the only ones with rods in them, and that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Eli strode past me to his desk and The Atlantean Chronicle. “That’s because you didn’t do as much reading in this as I did.”
I decided not to comment on the fact that it wasn’t like I’d had time to study the darn thing with so much going on. Instead I waited until he’d flipped to one of the pages in the back and waved me over.
“See, here it is.”
I examined the page, my eyes drawn immediately to a sketch labeled “Telluric Rod.” It looked almost exactly like the one we’d seen.
“That’s how they sunk Atlantis,” Eli was saying. “A bunch of merkind and naiads swam underneath all three rings of the island and planted these rods. Then they set them off with some kind of triggering spell and sunk each one. It’s all described in this section. Except, of course, how to make a Telluric Rod. According to this book, the knowledge was outlawed and lost forever.”
I folded my arms. “Gee, think I’ve heard that before.”
Eli grimaced. “No kidding.”
“But why would Magistrate Kirkwood want to sink part of Lyonshold?”
“Lots of reasons. I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a couple of senators and even Consul Vanholt are supposed to be present when those things are set off. They could easily die in the destruction or be assassinated during the chaos while no one is watching. All Kirkwood has to do is stay out of the way and somewhere safe.”
I shuddered. “But what about all the people present? They’ll be caught, too.”
Eli scoffed. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone in a position of power was willing to let innocents die to achieve their goal.”
I swallowed, knowing firsthand it was true. No wonder Titus Kirkwood was one of Marrow’s followers—they were a match made in hell.
“And there’s something even worse we haven’t considered yet,” said Eli.
“What could be worse than hundreds of innocent people dying?”
He ran a hand over his face, alarm in his eyes. “The Terra Tribe. Don’t you see? We know, or at least we think we know, that Britney tried to attack me because Kirkwood made her do it. So let’s assume that he knows what the Terra Tribe has been planning all along. That means he also knows that they’re all naturekinds.”