Shattering the Ley (13 page)

“Leave that to the city guard! What about the Kormanley?”

“I lost sight of him in the chaos! He was swallowed up by the crowd when it began to panic!”

Hagger’s jaw tightened, teeth clenched. The panicked people pressed up against them, shoving them back into the pedestal. Overhead, the ship passed by, its shadow falling across them both. Hagger looked up, then focused on the pillar of smoke that billowed up from the first cart.

“Gods-damned lords and their parties,” he muttered, then grabbed Allan’s shoulder and shoved him away from the pedestal. “Make for the cart! We’ll help whoever we can and try to bring this gods-cursed mob under control from there. Snag any of the Dogs and city patrol you see along the way. If you see any of the Kormanley, take them! I don’t care what you have to do!”

Allan nodded and thrust himself into the press of people, elbowing men, women, and children out of his way as he roared for them to make room. Hagger did the same a few steps away. But he already knew that what the Kormanley had intended to do here had been accomplished. There would be no men in white robes to hunt down. Not today.

The Kormanley had changed. They were no longer content with words alone, no longer content with harming only themselves.

They’d declared war on Baron Arent and all of Erenthrall.

Kara moaned and blinked up into blurred sunlight and sky marred by black billowing streaks. Smoke. Its scent burned her nose, harsh and acidic. She raised a hand to her face, rubbed at her foggy eyes to get them clear. Her head pounded and her ears hurt. Her entire body hurt. Aches riddled her arms and legs as she shifted. Whistles pierced the air and people shouted, but the sound came from a long distance, muted, as if her ears had been stuffed with cloth.

“What happened?” she croaked. She could barely hear her own words.

Acrid smoke skated across her face and she choked and coughed and rolled to one side, tears squeezed through her eyelids. She levered herself onto her hip, grass prickling her hands, and suddenly she remembered.

The new tower, the park, the rising of the boats, Cory’s excitement, her parents’ unease, and then—

She twisted in the grass. She could see the gleaming tower, suffused with light, the beacon pulsing at its top in a slow, steady rhythm that matched her own heartbeat. As soon as the activation had begun, she’d felt it through the grass of the park, the working so powerful that it had thrummed in her chest. But unlike the sowing of the tower earlier, when she felt the energy pulling at her, drawing upon her strength through her feet, she’d unconsciously blocked it off. She hadn’t felt faint or dizzy.

But when the boats had risen, a sense of awe had filled her. She’d met Cory’s gaze, seen the same excitement there, and then the two of them had surged forward, away from the wagon where they’d halted to watch the tower. Her father had called out to her, his voice harsh, threaded with fear. Her mother had barked, “Kara!” The same panic that tinged her voice wove through the crowd around her and Cory, but they’d simply wanted to get a better view. She’d heard Ischua, the Tender, attempting to calm them.

Then a man nearby had bellowed something about abominations, about paying a price—

And something had exploded. The wash of heat had thrust Kara forward, as if she’d been shoved hard from behind. The air had been sucked from her lungs as she was flung to the ground. For a moment, the world had blacked out.

Now clouds of smoke streamed into the sky from the base of the tower. The ships floated a short distance away, now out over the city, but her attention wasn’t held by the awe-inspiring spectacle anymore. It was fixed on the park.

People lay everywhere, bloody and torn, some screaming as they staggered to their feet clutching arms or legs, or holding hands to gashes on their faces. A wagon lay in splinters at their center, burning with a fierce heat, those closest not moving at all. Kara’s breath choked off and she leaped to her feet.

“Da!” she shrieked, the word tearing in her throat. She coughed and lurched toward the wagon, sound solidifying even as she moved. The city guard and a few Dogs barked orders, but Kara ignored them. Someone reached for her, but she thrust the blood-streaked woman aside, crawled over a man who was missing an arm, the stump blackened, still smoldering. Her eyes latched onto a body wearing a blue shirt—her father’s shirt—and she scrambled toward his side.

“Da,” she gasped, then rolled her father onto his back.

Half of his face had been charred, cooked to gristly meat and bone. His remaining good eye stared sightlessly up at the sky.

Kara screamed, the sound emerging from deep in her chest. It filled her head, drowned out the chaos around her. It tore at her lungs and throat.

She heaved backward, away from her father, away from the remains of his face, even though she couldn’t look away from it. She collided with someone behind her and arms enveloped her, held her tight. A soothing voice—Ischua’s voice—muttered into her ear, words she didn’t comprehend. Her voice broke and she heaved in another breath, screamed again as she tore her gaze away from her father only to see her mother lying two paces farther on, body also twisted and blackened. Ischua picked her up and hauled her away from the heat of the burning wagon, away from the destruction. She was vaguely aware that guardsmen were swarming the area, hustling the wounded away, that one of them carried Cory’s limp body in his arms beside them.

Her second scream cracked and rattled down into heaving sobs. Tears scoured her face. Her chest ached, tight and hot and fluid. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, her mind scattered, her gaze darting everywhere.

Ischua glanced down at her, his face streaked with soot, twisted in a rictus of pain and grief. His hair had been burned away on one side, the exposed skin raw and angry.

“You’re safe,” he said. “We’ll get you out of here.”

Kara didn’t react. Numbness began to enfold her, starting in the center of her chest and flowing outward. The world retreated—the sounds, the smells; Ischua’s harsh breath and the jarring of her body as he carried her.

All that remained was her father’s face, eaten by fire, and an empty hollow in the pit of her stomach.

K
ARA SPRINTED TO
the Wielders’ Hall the moment she was summoned, arriving out of breath and flushed. The seven Master Wielders in their black robes waited for her at the end of the empty hall, seated at a long, heavy oaken table, their hands clasped and resting on its surface. Despair washed over her when she didn’t see a purple jacket folded neatly before her adviser. Had she failed the examination? She tried to read the Wielders’ faces, but they were all studiously blank or stern and creased with wrinkles.

She halted at the end of the hall, then swallowed and forced herself to walk the length of the rich purple-and-green carpet that ran down the center to the table. As she approached, the head of the Wielders’ college stood, but he did not speak until she’d reached the end of the carpet and halted.

“Kara Tremain,” he intoned, his deep voice filling the expanse of the hall, “it is the opinion of this gathering that you have mastered the skills required of an apprentice. We now present you with the purple jacket of a true Wielder. We expect that you will fulfill your duties at the Eld District’s node with the attention and respect that you have shown during your studies here, and that you continue in your efforts to master the ley. The robes of a Master Wielder await you.”

Her heart stuttered in her chest at the words—not all Wielders were invited to wear the robes of a master, some were simply given duties within one of the nodes—but before she could recover, her adviser stood, rounded the table, and presented her with her purple jacket. He did so with the rigid solemnity that all of the masters possessed, although she thought she caught a quick smile when he pulled the jacket from where he’d hidden it from sight beneath the table.

She reached out to touch it, her hand trembling, and then her adviser said softly, “Allow me.”

He held it open before her as she slipped it on, then tugged it into place. He looked into her eyes, and for the first time she saw the man behind the robes. He’d guided her studies for the last two years, but she suddenly realized she barely knew him. She’d seen him only at the college, in his office, or in the classroom, spoken to him only about the ley, about her courses. She’d hated him for the last six months as he drove her harder and harder in preparation for the exam.

And now, suddenly, she could relax.

“Wear it well, Kara Tremain,” he said. “Make the Wielders proud.”

Kara nodded, her chest too tight for words, her struggle to hold back tears too intense. She walked from the hall slowly, speeding up as she reached the doors and pushed out into the sunlight before realizing she had nowhere to go. Not close. She thought of Cory—realizing that she’d barely seen him in the last two years, as her studies grew steadily more intense, even though they’d met on a regular basis before that—but he was three districts away, in Confluence, and besides, he’d recently tested into the University, a surprise for them all. Her heart was beating so fast and hard she couldn’t simply return to her rooms, but she’d made few friends at the college, too reclusive after her parents’ deaths, not to mention the two years’ difference in age between her and the other students when Ischua first brought her here. Yet she still wanted to leap in joy, shout in triumph, laugh until her throat was raw.

Instead, she retreated to the nearest shadows, beneath a portico, where she knew few of the students or instructors passed. She trembled in awe, too ecstatic to move. Even breathing was difficult. She ran her hands down the fine fabric of her Wielder’s jacket and tried to suppress the laughter that threatened to burst forth. After four grueling years under the hands of the Wielders, studying the ley, the stones like those within Halliel’s Park, and the nodes in the city, she had finally been granted her purple jacket. Apprentices wore green jackets, to signify they were training to be Wielders and to make certain they were given the respect they deserved, but only after passing the week-long, grueling tests—both academic and practical—were apprentices granted the purple jackets of a true Wielder.

Kara had completed her exams five days before, had been hovering in alternating dread, despair, and excitement since. She knew she’d handled the practical aspects of the exam without issue. Ever since she’d been shoved into the well of ley in one of the nodes after her first month of training, she’d been connected to the ley in a way that she and the other Wielders barely understood. But the academic portions had nearly killed her. Mathematics and the underlying structures of the ley and how it was manipulated were easy; learning all of the rote historical dates and names and achievements had been enough to make her scream. Who cared which of the Barons of the surrounding lands had signed the concordance that ceded all control of the ley to the Wielders in Erenthrall under Baron Arent’s hand? And who cared that Wielder Antipithus had discovered a secondary ley field in the Steppe fifty-five years ago, giving rise to the Nexus at the island-city of Severen and providing the first step of Erenthrall’s expansion of control to the north? Although Kara did wonder how Prime Wielder Augustus had been around at the time to oversee the building of that node; Augustus barely looked forty. And Arent had been the Baron then as well, even though he appeared younger than Augustus! She’d asked but been summarily shut down, her adviser telling her it was information to which only the Primes were privy.

She shrugged. It had happened long before Kara was born. She didn’t see why it mattered to Erenthrall today, especially not for a newly-jacketed Wielder.

She ran her hand down the purple fabric once again and shuddered at the sensation.

“Be careful, or you’ll wear it out before you even step onto the streets of Erenthrall.”

Kara started and spun, thrusting her hands behind her back guiltily, then glared as Ischua chuckled and moved toward her. Afternoon sunlight lanced down between the arched columns of the portico, an open square surrounded by buildings beyond. A few students were working on their studies in the light, most with green jackets. Two of the Master Wielders paced sedately through the area, passing through the shade of the porches and covered walkways beyond.

“I won’t wear it out,” she said with a mock scowl. “It’s too new.”

Ischua laughed and shook his head. “I tried to make it here before they presented it to you, but my duties kept me. A Wielder should have someone to rejoice with when they don the purple jacket. I know you have few friends here, and since your parents’ deaths. . . .”

Kara’s heart clenched at the old pain and a deeper hatred as Ischua’s voice grew somber. She tasted the ash of the fires from the park that afternoon, glanced to where she knew Ischua’s head was scarred from the explosion. He wore a simple rounded hat to cover the mark. He’d saved her and Cory that afternoon, although Cory’s parents had survived.

She thought of that last night on the roof of the apartment building, Cory’s flushed face after he’d kissed her, the panic in his eyes.

“My father would have been proud of me,” she said roughly, to break the awkward silence.

“Your mother as well. Especially since you’ll make Master soon enough. They did mention Master’s robes, didn’t they?”

She grinned. “How did you know?”

“Because I could sense your power back in Halliel’s Park. I wouldn’t be surprised if the black cloak of a Prime is in your future. Although you shouldn’t rush such things. You’re already two years ahead of everyone else.”

She gaped at him, speechless, her arms tingling at the thought.

Ischua chuckled, then reached forward to grip her shoulder. “In any case, you should not be alone at a time like this. The purple jacket alone demands a celebration. Walk with me.”

He tugged at her shoulder before letting his hand drop, a nudge that wasn’t necessary. Even if he didn’t wear the robes of a master, she would have come with him. The only reason she was here at the college was because of him; if he hadn’t been with them at the park, she wasn’t certain what would have happened to her.

They passed out of the shadows of the portico into the afternoon sunlight, chatting as Kara self-consciously caught the envious looks of the green-jacketed students they passed. Ischua guided her to the gates of the college, out into the streets of the Light District. The towers of Grass rose into the sky to the northwest, the beacon of the Flyers’ Tower burning bright. Numerous flyers had taken to the skies—at least five that Kara could see—the hulls of the ships dark against the white clouds above. Their specialized sails glittered with leylight. Kara could feel the eddies the ships caused in the Tapestry if she stretched out her senses. She’d once thought that what she felt in her skin and through her feet, what she’d discovered she could manipulate, was the ley itself. She’d learned in her studies that it wasn’t, that the Tapestry was the basis of reality around her, the essence of what was real, both seen and unseen. The ley—the power itself—merely flowed along the Tapestry in prescribed courses, as rivers flowed along the land through channels dictated by the hills and valleys. And like rivers, the ley lines were malleable, subject to change if the lay of the land were altered in some way. Wielders manipulated the Tapestry to force the ley into the lines of power they wanted; the Masters at the University manipulated the Tapestry as well, although they could not feel the ley structure like the Wielders.

It was one of many misconceptions the people of Erenthrall held about the Wielders, a misconception the Wielders encouraged. Like all of the specialized guilds, the Wielders held their secrets close, especially from the Masters at the University. Not even the apprentices learned everything, even those who passed the examination. Kara knew there were secrets revealed only to the Primes, such as the exact layout of the ley lines themselves—in Erenthrall, throughout the rest of the Baronies, and beyond—and the reason that both Augustus and Baron Arent appeared younger than they actually were.

“Here we are,” Ischua said abruptly, motioning toward an unmarked wooden door, a small window set into it at shoulder height.

Kara glanced around the unfamiliar streets. At some point during the walk, they’d drifted off of the common thoroughfares and into the alleys and side-ways. Like the rest of the district, the buildings were built of off-white granite accented with red-and-brown stones set in patterns along the corners, around windows and doors, and with an occasional artistic flare in the middle of large walls, but here the granite was yellowed with age, the cobblestones of the walks dirtier.

“Where is ‘here’?” Kara asked suspiciously.

“Come in and see.”

Ischua knocked on the door and the shutter on the small window flipped inward, a man’s gray eye filling the space, shooting between both Ischua and Kara before demanding, “Password.”

“Copper.”

The gray eye narrowed, fixed on Ischua, then vanished, the shutter snapping closed.

A moment later, the door creaked open.

Ischua motioned Kara forward. “After you.”

Kara stepped into the door’s shadow, caught sight of the gray-eyed man standing behind it, then moved along a short entryway and pushed through a deep red curtain into—

“A tavern?” she spluttered.

Ischua grinned as he joined her. “Not just
any
tavern. This tavern caters only to those who have donned the purple jacket.” He turned to scan the few patrons at the tables and booths, all of whom were watching them even as they continued their conversations. Then the old Tender caught the attention of the burly bartender, drew himself up to his full height, and said pretentiously, “An order of the special brew, Ivens.” The bartender’s eyebrows rose. “We have a new Purple.”

The patrons erupted in a general “Here, here!” and a round of applause. The bartender turned to a keg draped in a purple cloth embroidered in gold placed high up behind the massive bar as Ischua and Kara made their way to barstools. A few of the men and women present congratulated her on the way, one woman grasping her arm, a man clapping her on the back. By the time Kara slid onto the seat, the bartender presenting her with a mug that appeared to be made of bone, the same excitement she’d felt immediately after leaving the Wielders’ Hall gripped her again. She didn’t even hear Ischua order, but suddenly he held up his own mug—much plainer than hers—and toasted, “To donning the purple. May master’s robes be close behind.”

They clicked mugs and then Kara took a swallow of the beer, nearly choking at the bitterness of the hops, but marveling at the smoothness. She had drunk beer before, of course—no green jacket could survive four years without eventually hitting one of the many local taverns for a glass to take the edge off a particularly grueling day—but she had never had anything as potent or aged as this.

“It’s a little bitter,” she coughed.

The bartender shook his head and wandered away. Ischua ignored her.

“I have something else for you as well,” he said, fishing in one of the pockets of his robes. After a moment, he pulled out a stone and set it into her hands.

It was the size of her fist, blue-black, with swirls of white in it.

She hefted the stone, allowed herself to sense the energies of the Tapestry that flowed around her and through it, then squinched up her face in confusion. “What’s this for? Is this another test?”

Ischua shook his head. “No more tests. Not today. Don’t you recognize the stone? It’s from Halliel’s Park. It’s the stone you told me didn’t belong there, nearly five years ago.”

Kara’s heart stilled in her chest as some inexplicable emotion coursed through her, like the energy of the Tapestry and the ley. Her hands trembled, clenched unconsciously on the stone, and she looked up at Ischua as a strange ache filled her. “You kept it? All this time?” Her voice was ragged, and her eyes burned with tears.

Ischua merely smiled. “Of course I did.”

Kara didn’t know what to say, but she drew the stone closer to her body protectively. It carried with it a myriad of emotions, brought back memories of her father, who’d taken her to the park that day, and Cory, who’d felt so betrayed by her leaving to become one of the Wielders, even though they’d kept in touch.