The Voices swelled, growing louder with each turn of the boiler's wheels until they were almost unbearable. Silas gritted his teeth against the chaos hammering his eardrums. No words could be discerned—only feelings. The Unspoken's emotions crashed over Silas. He felt their anger and fear, frustration and urgency. Silas had thought the Unspoken were arguing with each other. He was wrong. Collectively, they were distressed. But at what, he could not tell.
Silas stiffened, his fingers digging into his seat. He really needed to learn how to filter the Voices out when he was in a region densely populated with Unspoken. But now was not the time to try, not with his aether like it was. Even when he was whole, trying to sift through the sea of sound had taken a toll on him. An attempt in his current state would be suicide.
"Are you alright, lad?" Dr. Veyl frowned at him.
Silas didn't respond right away. He barely heard Dr. Veyl over the clamor. When he could, he nodded slightly. The movement made his head ache.
"Do you hear the Unspoken?"
Dr. Veyl's question got everyone's attention. All eyes focused on Silas. Even Vera turned around in her seat briefly, facing forward again when the boiler veered off the road. Once the vehicle was straightened, her gaze found the rearview mirror and locked on.
Silas nodded—a single bob of his head up and down.
"What are they saying?" Dr. Veyl inched closer, intruding on the boy's personal space in his eagerness.
Silas squeezed his eyes shut and shied away. He had no patience for the physick and his antics right now.
"Leave him alone, physick," Vera said, her grip tight on the steering disc. "Whatever those creatures are babbling about, it clearly demands his full attention."
Silas cracked his eyes open, searching for Vera. She was still watching him. He signed a single word: "loud."
"What was that?" Dr. Veyl's gaze darted between Silas and Vera, who passed along the message.
"Oh!" Dr. Veyl exclaimed, procuring a small notepad from somewhere in his coat. "Yes, yes," he said, jotting notes. "General Curne mentioned you had this issue in the Western Quadrant. She said the Voices got so loud you couldn't hear anything outside your head. It seems like you can still hear now, though. Does the volume increase with proximity?"
Silas ignored the question. The Unspoken were unsettled, their contagious unease infecting his heart. Some of their Voices even sounded like cries—wails of distress and anxiety. Silas began to shake, holding his head. Something was drawing near. Whatever it was had the Unspoken terrified.
Heart thumping, Silas swiveled his head, searching out the window. Danger was approaching. The Unspoken were screaming out a warning, alerting their fellows. Silas didn't understand how he knew this. Still, the Unspoken's words were too jumbled together to decipher. Yet their message was clear to him now. A force powerful enough to stir up an entire colony of Unspoken was coming on fast, and Vera's boiler was heading straight toward it.
Silas inhaled deeply. When he let the breath go, he closed his eyes and dove inward. Just a little bit. All he needed was a tiny bit of aether. If he didn't ask the Unspoken what had them in such a tizzy, he wouldn't be able to warn the others of the danger. Something is coming was too vague. He needed specifics. Surely he could manage one small projection?
His aether was a tiny, pathetic little puddle in the center of his mind. But it was enough. It had to be. Silas reached for it. A drop was all he needed. He gave it a little tug—and cried out.
Gasping, Silas snapped his eyes open, blinking away thick, goopy tears. Pressure built behind his eyes until it felt like they would burst from their sockets. Silas buried his face in his hands. Blood, not tears. He looked down, watching scarlet drip off his face, pooling in his palms.
Vera slammed on the brakes, her profane exclamation muted by the boiler's shrieking halt. "Silas!" she said, frantic. "W-wha—"
The bleeding was slowing, the pain fading away. "I'm okay," he signed with sticky fingers. Vera swallowed down whatever she was about to say.
"I'm okay," Silas signed again.
Nobody was convinced, all watching him with concern. Dr. Veyl opened the apothecary box he'd pushed under his seat and handed Silas a pad of gauze doused in disinfectant to wash his hands and face. Silas dabbed and wiped until his humors had transferred from his skin to the pad. He tucked the soiled thing into a pocket to dispose of later. When his hands were clean, Silas took out his notepad and began to explain.
"A warning, you say?" Dr. Veyl looked out the window, squinting at sand dunes. "I see nothing amiss."
"Would you prefer to risk it?" Oscar asked. "This is Unspoken territory. They know their own land. Silas, there was nothing at all you could hear about the nature of the… force they're afraid of?"
Silas shook his head. "There's too many of them," he wrote. Ravelin read aloud for Vera and Oscar's benefit. "It's like trying to pick out a single shout in an angry mob. It's just a wall of noise."
"Now what?" Oscar asked.
Vera gnawed a thumbnail between her front teeth. "What say you, Silas?" she said, oblivious to the blood collecting under her cuticle. "Do we continue or turn back?"
Silas rested his stylus on his open notepad and stared at the page, thinking. Talking to the Unspoken wasn't an option. Silas wondered how he was going to find Echo at this rate, but he could deal with that issue when the time came. First things first, he had a choice to make.
He scanned the boiler, acknowledging everyone who had journeyed with him thus far. All of them were doing this for his sake, at the risk of their lives. They put their trust in him, hoping he knew which decision was right. On one hand, the threat could be something that only mattered to the Unspoken. Perhaps the military was attacking again. Silas grabbed his stylus, twirling it between his fingers. The military was a threat to him, too. Vera was strong, but she couldn't take on an army.
"How about this," Vera said before Silas could answer. "We can wait here, right on the outskirts of whatever this danger is. That way, if it comes, we can back out before it pulls us in."
"I like that idea," Oscar said.
Ravelin murmured her concurrence.
"Keep going," Silas signed.
Vera hummed. "He wishes to continue," she translated. "Is there a particular reason why?"
Silas shrugged. When Quirin was uncertain if the group should continue onward to the Arboretum after the bounty hunter attack, Silas trusted his gut. It didn't betray him. The mission itself was a failure, but Pa and the others at the Underhalo were safe. Silas felt like retreating was not the answer. He needed to get to Echo as soon as possible. And if he went deeper into the Western Quadrant, maybe her Voice would rise above the others, clarifying the danger. Before, when all Silas could hear was noise, Echo heard his call and answered. She was the only one who could.
"Keep going," Silas signed again, this time with conviction.
Vera grinned and pulled the boiler back onto the road.
Oscar started to argue, but Vera's sidelong glare sealed his lips. Dr. Veyl was happy so long as he could stare at Silas and mutter to himself, toiling away in his notepad.
Time stretched like the road, extending infinitely into the desert. Other boilers passed, coming back from the Western Quadrant. They didn't seem to be in any rush, bubbling along at a leisurely pace, in no hurry. Silas relaxed in his seat, tired. The effervescent gurgle of the boiler, combined with the white noise of Unspoken Voices, droned in Silas's head until his head tipped forward and his eyes closed. Soundly he slept, wholly unaware of the galvanic tang in the air.
Silas woke to silence. The Unspoken's sudden hush was louder than the wind roaring outside, battering against the windows. Groggy, Silas looked around, forgetting where he was in his half-asleep haze. He yawned and fluttered his eyes closed, ready to go back to sleep.
"Wait, lad," Dr. Veyl shouted. "You skipped your afternoon dose of Powder. Take double now."
Silas considered the offered drinking glass with a grimace. Wait. Why was Dr. Veyl shouting? In one swig, Silas imbibed the Powder, gagging at the bitterly concentrated double dose. Dr. Veyl traded the glass for a bottle of water, which Silas accepted gratefully. After clearing the awful taste from his tongue, Silas studied his surroundings.
Vera was hunched over the steering disc, straining to see beyond the impregnable darkness. Her starbloom headlights failed to penetrate the swirling murk. The steering disc jiggled in her white-knuckled grasp, resisting her attempt to control it. Silas looked closer. That's when he noticed what was happening, and what the Unspoken had been warning each other about.
Dust and sand beat against the boiler with enough force to strip paint and flay flesh. The fierce wind wailed, tossing the boiler side-to-side. Vera hung on desperately, but the steering disc jerked, the boiler's wheels turning sharply. Silas was flung against his harness, slamming into Dr. Veyl. The glass the physick had been holding slipped from his hand and hit the floor, shattering on impact.
A sandstorm! Silas braced himself for another jarring change in direction. I've led us straight into a sandstorm!
Lightning flashed ahead, so close heat seared the boiler's cabin. Blinded, Silas rubbed his eyes. Behind his lids, he still saw streaks of light.
Then came the thunder. The ground quaked, followed by a booming clap that rattled the windows. Silas shoved his fingers into his ears, wincing. He feared when he removed his fingers, the tips would come away dripping red.
"Stop the boiler!" Oscar screamed, his eyes bulging, fingers curled around the door handle. "You're going to tip us!"
"No!" Ravelin had never raised her voice to such heights. "That'll make us a stationary beacon for the lightning."
In a nauseating blast, the Voices returned, assaulting Silas's senses. He reeled, going cross-eyed. He couldn't tell what was making him dizzier—Vera's desperate fight to steer the boiler or the Unspoken's agitated keening. If something didn't change soon, the boiler cabin was going to get a lot less comfortable.
Vera braked. Silas's harness barely survived; he felt the straps split with the power of his forward momentum. Massaging his bruised sternum, Silas shifted his attention to the front of the vehicle.
Vera scanned the darkness, her head whipping in every direction. Her hair stood on end, strands floating eerily above her crown. Silas reached for her—to warn her of the danger that in moments would hit. It wasn't just her. Oscar. Ravelin. Dr. Veyl. Everyone's hair was standing straight up, charged with static. The hand that had been reaching for Vera brushed the top of Silas's head. As Silas touched his own electrified locks, a rock hurled at the windshield. Its collision left a spidering crack. Wind squeezed through the fractured glass with a squeal. More rocks followed, chipping away at the boiler.
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Everybody get down! Silas wanted to yell.
A memory rudely surfaced, reminding Silas of his first journey into the Western Quadrant. A pack of carrion wolves circled Ilyra Curne's vehicle. The predators pounced, cracking glass beneath their strong claws. Silas wished it was carrion wolves this time. Animals could be tamed—if not with his mind, then with weapons. But nature would bow to nothing. They were at its mercy, totally defenseless. And it attacked with its full arsenal.
Everything went white. For an instant, nothing happened. No sound. No movement. Only that blazing fulguration that vanquished the darkness with a single strike. The moment ended with a thunderclap. Darkness returned—plummeting like a shroud. Sound bashed the boiler in waves. Windows exploded with the first impact. Wind rushed inside with the second. Silas unbuckled his harness and dove to the floor, under his seat. Glass became shrapnel in the tempest, slicing in a violent swirl of mayhem. The third impact brought sound so loud it was felt rather than heard. Silas covered his head with his arms. Glass ripped his coat to shreds and bit into his skin. His arms burned, warm despite the icy gale.
Vera said something, but her words were swept away before they could reach Silas's ears. Ravelin and Dr. Veyl were on the floor beside Silas now, copying his protective crouch. Vera and Oscar soon followed—unbuckling their harnesses, climbing over their seats into the back.
"Get under the blanket!"
This close, Silas could hear Vera's panicked call. Her head poked out from beneath a thick, tarp-like sheet of material. Silas was the only one not huddled below it. Careful to avoid flying glass and rocks, he edged closer until his body was completely covered.
They remained that way—crowded together on the boiler's carpeted floor, hiding beneath a blanket like it was a bulwark, hoping it would shield them from the brunt of the storm. Silas inspected the tarp with the pads of his fingers, suspecting it wasn't truly a blanket, but part of a tent. Where had Vera pulled it from? The glove compartment? The tarp buffeted against the wind, resisting his attempt to cling to it.
The storm surged all night, its fury tearing the boiler's doors off one by one. Silas snuck glimpses outside whenever he thought Vera wasn't looking. Each time, she flicked him on the head and yanked the tarp back down. Without its doors, the boiler was a hollow shell, offering no protection from airborne debris. Sand rubbed at the tarp until it was thin and flimsy. Ravelin's cheek—which was still raw from her recent injury—was carved moreover by an invading glass sliver. She pressed her face to the carpet after that, not looking up until Dysol shone brighter than the few remaining zaps of lightning.
Silas was the only one who slept. The howling wind and rumbling thunder didn't bother him at all. After a while, he found the constant burble of wind-tossed sand calming. Warm under the tarp, he snoozed while his comrades prayed for their lives.
Only his mind wasn't resting. Morning arrived at last, the sandstorm departing as Dysol rose high above the horizon. Silas didn't know his body was sleeping until Vera—satisfied they were no longer in danger—removed the tarp. Everyone sat up, blinking while their eyes adjusted to the glare. Silas sat up, too. At least, he thought he did. Yet when he looked down, he found himself floating above his body, which was lying face-down on the dust and sand-littered carpet.
Vera shook him. "Wake up, Silas."
He didn't respond.
She shook him harder. Silas didn't even feel it. Usually, a good shake merged his mind and body back together again. Not this time.
Trying to use my Voice yesterday had consequences.
If Silas was awake, his cheeks would have flared red in shame. He should have warned the others about his out-of-body experiences so they wouldn't worry for him when it happened. Now Vera was fretting. He'd apologize to her when he could.
With shaking hands, Vera rolled Silas's body over so he lay on his back. Gently, she tapped his cheek. When that did nothing, she slapped him. Hard.
"Was he injured in the storm?" Oscar asked, peering down, studying Silas's prone form.
Vera shook her head. "No," she said, voice warbling. "No. It's not that. Dr. Veyl—?"
Dr. Veyl's face was pinched in pain. His legs had been bent at an awkward angle all night. Wincing, he gingerly untucked his legs—eliciting a melody of snaps and pops from his knees. He then grabbed the handle of his apothecary box and slid it over.
An array of tools were removed and arranged beside Silas. He recognized most of them by name now: stethoscope, otoscope, ophthalmoscope, reflex hammer, and Dr. Veyl's favorite starbloom penlight.
"Well?" Vera asked impatiently when the physick had concluded his intrusive exam.
"It just seems like he's sleeping," Dr. Veyl replied with a hesitant shrug, repacking his tools.
"Sleeping?" Vera scoffed. "This isn't—"
Without warning, Ravelin pinched Silas's cheek so hard he felt it, even in his incorporeal form. Her long nails dug into his skin, leaving stinging dents behind. The tether between Silas's mind and body contracted, reeling him in. His eyes flickered beneath the lids.
"Elsbeth!" Vera postured herself between Ravelin and Silas.
"What?" Ravelin rolled her eyes. "You're supposed to pinch yourself when you're stuck in a dream, right? None of you had tried that yet. And look! It's working."
Tighter and tighter the tether pulled, coiling like a compressed spring. When it was so tense it couldn't coil any more, it released with a snap that forced Silas's mind and body to merge as one.
The shock was comparable to being doused in freezing water. Silas bolted upright, ramming his forehead into Dr. Veyl's chin. He knew where he was and what was happening, but he couldn't stop his head from turning left and right. Vera sighed, her shoulders falling away from her ears. Ravelin smirked. Silas gave credit where it was due. He nodded at her approvingly. Her smirk descended into a confused frown.
Oh. Right. He had some explaining to do.
But first, he needed to stretch his legs. They were numb from crouching for so long without movement. He shook them until they no longer pricked with pins and needles. Then, he extricated himself from the destroyed boiler, pursing his lips in an attempt to whistle. Perhaps Oscar could teach him how. The sight of the obliterated vehicle warranted a good trill.
Vera followed him out, stumbling over debris. "Wait, Silas," she said, hovering near his side. "Maybe you should lie back down?"
Silas turned to face her, holding up a hand while he searched his pockets for his notepad.
"I've got it," Oscar said, dropping to the sand. Walking backwards, he appraised the wreckage. Silas smiled at his whistle.
The boiler used to be coated in a slick white polish. The paint had been scraped away by the maelstrom of sand. Nothing but dull metal—pockmarked and sliced by rock and glass—remained. Its wheels were bent, caved in. All the windows had been shattered by that precise bolt of lightning. The rearview mirror was the last reflective surface standing, hanging by a thread, swaying gently in the soft breeze.
Oscar handed Silas his notepad and stylus, goggling at the ruined skeleton of their vehicle. Ravelin emerged last, helping Dr. Veyl find his footing before jumping to the sand below.
"I apologize," Silas began at the top of a new page. "These past few days, I've had these episodes where my mind separates from my body. It isn't painful or anything!" he emphasized, glancing up at Vera as he wrote this. "Just strange. I'm aware of everything that's happening. I exist as—well—basically a ghost. I kind of float around in the air, observing. I just can't move my body."
Finished, Silas handed his notepad off to Vera. She snatched it, her brows furrowing the farther her eyes darted down the page. The others craned their necks, trying to read over her shoulder.
"It's alright," Silas signed when she had finished reading. "It really is."
"How is this alright?" she demanded, gesticulating with Silas's notepad. Oscar swiped it before she smacked him in the face with it.
Silas huffed and crossed his arms.
Dr. Veyl made a sound partway between a laugh and a gasp. "Is this what happened when you found the group of Unspoken in that vessel deep within the Western Quadrant?"
Silas nodded. Dr. Veyl took out his own notepad and scribbled vigorously.
"Wait." Vera shut her eyes and pressed her first two fingers to her temples. "Explain. You do it, physick. You'll be faster. In the Emperor's name, man, put down that damn stylus and speak."
"I-I—" Dr. Veyl stammered, his notepad back in his pocket. "I believe the lad could articulate it better."
Vera leveled her testy expression on Silas, who looked away shyly. He fumbled for his notepad when she stomped a step in his direction.
Silas sat, crossing his legs, ignoring the sand trickling into his boots. In as much detail as he could, he described what happened after he fell into a hole in the desert during his game of hide and seek with Echo's aging Soldiers. Silas hadn't understood what they did to him at the time. Still didn't, really. All he knew was that something similar was happening again, with increasing frequency. And in the absence of an external stimulus.
"This is the first time it happened without me knowingly falling asleep," he concluded and stood.
He thought about that while waiting for his companions to finish reading. It worried him that his mind was so loosely tied to his body that it could slip away in the middle of a violent sandstorm. The Unspoken were quiet again, their Voices a low whisper beneath Silas's feet. He vowed to withhold projecting his Voice until he was confident Echo would hear it. Any more, and he might remain a ghost forever.
"Well that's just splendid." Vera puffed out her cheeks, looking over her shoulder at the boiler's remains. Her brutal stare seemed to blame the vehicle for the current situation. Silas almost felt sympathetic toward the twisted hunk of metal.
"I wonder…" Dr. Veyl trailed off into nondescript muttering, holding his chin in contemplation.
While the physick hypothesized, Oscar returned to the boiler, navigating around sharp bits of detritus. The trunk was stuck—wedged shut by warped metal and a stone lodged in a perfectly obstructive position. With a great deal of grunting and leveraging—and Ravelin's assistance—Oscar popped it open.
"We must make our way to the next nearest hub of civilization." Oscar returned with a map. "Human civilization," he specified, shooting Silas a cursory glance.
"How's it looking?" Vera asked, studying the map that Oscar had set down in the sand, held in place by a few rock paperweights.
Oscar traced his finger along a winding line. "The closest village is about five miles from here," he said, tapping a marked location with his fingernail. "A small hamlet by the name of Grainhook."
Vera cursed. "Is there anything else? Perhaps a little farther down the road?"
Oscar circled Grainhook with the stylus Dr. Veyl extended to him and continued his search. "Here's something. Fifteen miles away—ten miles west beyond Grainhook. A larger city called Cinderfall Crossing."
"I've been there before," Ravelin said distractedly, gaze unfocused. "When I was a young girl."
"We should go there then," Vera said. "No more little backwater villages swarming with bounty hunters. It's not safe for Silas to be in places like that."
Silas finally stepped closer to say his piece. He'd been lingering at the fringe of the group, worrying about how they were going to get anywhere with no boiler. They'd be walking, of course. That much he could grasp. What he didn't know is how he'd manage.
"I can't," Silas signed so quickly Vera didn't catch it. She motioned for him to repeat, slower. Instead, he used his notepad to rephrase, writing, "I want to go to Grainhook."
Vera began formulating a retort when she noticed the way Silas's knees trembled. She pressed her lips together and looked away, drumming her fingers against her thighs.
"I agree with the lad," Dr. Veyl said. "Not only will a fifteen mile trek be… arduous, but the weather remains uncertain." His eyes drifted to the sky, which was partially obscured by thick, dusty clouds. A lance of light arched between two drifting smudges, gone before Silas could blink. "We need to get someplace with shelter as soon as possible. Another sandstorm out here would be a death sentence."
"But we'd probably have better luck finding a replacement boiler in Cinderfall Crossing," Ravelin protested. "It's a gateway city for people traveling between the Western and Northern Quadrants. I doubt Grainhook will have anything to offer in terms of transportation."
Vera hummed in agreement.
"Grainhook might have horses," Silas wrote and flipped his notepad around like a sign. He turned it back around and added, "If they do, we could ride the horses from there to Cinderfall Crossing."
"That's a big IF, Silas," Vera said. "And I have no experience riding such a beast. None of us do, I believe it is safe to presume. Without the proper training, we'd get thrown off and injured, possibly killed. No horses. I'd rather risk the sandstorm, personally."
"No horses I can agree with," Oscar said, raising his eyebrows at Vera's last remark. "But the pipsqueak does have a point. The village will have some supplies, at the minimum. And we don't all have to venture inside. We could do what we did in Farrow's End, Vera. Just you and me go in while Dr. Veyl and Elsbeth take Silas the long way around."
Vera grunted but said nothing.
It came down to a vote.
Three to two—Grainhook won. Ravelin wasn't too bothered by her loss. Vera, on the other hand, was downtrodden. She considered Silas with concern before trudging to the boiler to gather what remained of her belongings strewn about the wreckage.
They donned their disguises—most of which had been misplaced in the storm—and packed what they could carry. Silas was forced to abandon all but one of his many rucksacks. Powder of Neuroleptic was prioritized over personal effects. Silas said goodbye to his spare notebooks, ink bottles, and styluses. His extra changes of clothes were also left behind. With one last parting glance, Silas turned and followed the others as they marched down the lone road heading west.
The Unspoken's Voices were low, their whispers barely distinguishable. But their tone was still unsettled. Silas kept his eyes on the sky and his ears focused underfoot, constantly vigilant for shouts that only he could hear. He prayed to the stars above for a silent journey—one absent from another warning cry. For if one came, it would be their death knell.
