Page 13 of Up in Smoke

Nobody moved, and I wondered if anyone dared to breathe. I waited, my chest tightening with the need for air.

Sandro sighed first. “Well, this isn’t good for my blood pressure. Tell me what you need of me, Ryleigh. If it’s within my power, I will do my best. But I will not throw away my life because my life may be needed to help your city and Tulsa. I can’t do anything from the grave, and neither can you.”

“You must be willing to step to death’s door, but if all goes well, none of us will cross it this night.”

Sandro shrugged. “As long as you’re not asking me to bend over an altar so you can rip my heart out, I’m all right with that. I’m a quadrant master. I risk death every time I cross the boundary.”

Eyeing Sandro, I asked, “Just how badly do you risk death every time you cross the boundary?”

“You know I can’t stay in the boundary for long before I pass out, Jade. I hurry my ass across or take a train or plane. That way, someone else worries about getting me across.”

“I’m leashing you to make sure you don’t try to cross the boundary without me,” I informed him.

Ryleigh laughed. “Leashes are useful for keeping the men from straying, this is true. I will take care to make sure you cross the boundary safely when you leave, however. As you’ve seen, New Orleans is sinking. The levees fail more and more each year, and there’s only so much we Voodoo queens can do. We have been, for many years, attempting to build something like Tulsa’s Asylum, but meant for all and not just the chosen few. We would duplicate our beloved city below, fashioning it of diamond and any crystal we can, for crystal sings here and is the most potent of our talismans. We also need to contain the bleeding magic before it destroys us all. New Orleans overflows with water and with magic, and if we do not stop it, we will all die. You helped to build Asylum. You understand what is needed far more than we do.”

Sandro’s eyes widened. “Ah. It’s not a matter of magic, but of engineering with magic.”

“Yes,” Ryleigh said. “We do not know how to meld these things. You do.”

“Child’s play,” Sandro announced, waving his hand. “Do you have a piece of quartz I might use and permission to sing a song for you?”

Ryleigh nodded, and she glanced at one of the Voodoo queens, who stood and left the room, returning several minutes later with a box full of crystals.

“I am Gardenia, named for my mother’s love of flowers, but it is not plants I grow. It is stone and jewels. The ground sings to me, although I was not blessed with your music.”

Sandro inclined his head. “I need a natural double-terminated crystal spear. Its clarity and color do not matter, but it should not be heavily cracked.”

Gardenia dug through the box and handed over a purple stone. “Amethyst, without flaw and terminated on both ends as you require.”

He held the stone, eyed it, and set its point against the table. “Do any of you care if this table is never quite the same?”

“If you need to destroy the table to show us what you need to do, by all means, destroy the table.” Ryleigh scooted back, and I grabbed Peace, following her lead.

The rest of the Voodoo queens did so as well.

“Asylum uses massive columns to support the roof of the complex and the city above, working with the natural geology of the area. You’re not going to be able to do that here. You’re going to have to build an entirely new foundation, one that reaches deep within the Earth and hits the true bedrock beneath New Orleans.” Sandro placed the tip of the stone to the table, and he hummed a single note, holding it.

The amethyst in his hand began to glow with a violet light before the tip dug into the table’s surface. Once it was embedded up to the start of the crystals shaft, he ceased his single-note song. “You will set pilons like this beneath your city made of the strongest crystal you have, with space between to allow the Earth to shift and move as it needs. But hundreds upon hundreds of these will be needed. Quartz might be the stone you want to use for this. It’s strong. It’s hard. It’s not all that brittle. It’s common and easy to acquire. It’s also easy to manipulate, as you’ve seen here.”

I poked at the amethyst, which maintained its position in the table. “You’d just drive all these spears into the ground, and then you’d build on top of them?”

“Precisely. It’s that simple. Single terminated quartz can be used to create platforms, or macro-quartz can be used to link the columns. It can be done in many ways. But it’s not difficult.” Sandro smiled. “Magic works well with quartz, and you can grow quartz with just a song. I could turn this amethyst into a pilon with little work. If I built a model with the entire structure, I could sing such a thing to life in a few hours. It would be setting up the model that’s the problem. It would have to be tested. Then you would need the magic or equipment to feed air and light into the sanctuary. It’s not a job I can finish in one night—but I think I can help you in another way until the sanctuary can be possibly built. I’ve already promised six months in exchange for helping Tulsa. I can definitely help you build a model and finalize it within six months. In the meantime, I think I have a good solution to buy you the six months you will need after Tulsa is saved. While you have a severe problem, Tulsa is at immediate risk. New Orleans can continue to survive, especially if I take a few steps.”

“How can you help?”

“I can drain the water from the city and plug the holes. I can build a levee of these crystals, so you have a dome surrounding your city with entries on elevated platforms, much like what you’re doing here. I can install the levees deep in addition to tall, and that will buy you the time to solve this problem permanently. Have you started this sanctuary?”

“We have, but the water is a problem. It pools wherever we do manage to work crystal. And we need our districts intact.”

“Of course, of course,” Sandro replied, eyeing the amethyst with interest. “Your complex problem has a simple solution, at least in the interim. Are there people living within the sanctuary yet?”

“Not yet,” Ryleigh admitted with a heavy sigh. “The water defeats us time and time again. Most songbirds simply cannot handle the work. New Orleans overwhelms them.”

“I knew Sandro was a quadrant master of the mage variety, but how strong is he?”

“He is your equal here,” Ryleigh replied. “A contact in Florida noticed his work, recorded it, and sent it to us, and we estimated he’d easily be the strongest songbird to have ever stepped foot in New Orleans—if he survived.”

“I did, in case that’s not obvious. I’ll admit, the first time here was a shock and a little overwhelming, but I learned control first, and that helped me to control the impulse.”