The Broken Door

by Sarah Stirling

  A beserker though… There were stories about beserkers from the Yllnyk. Brutes that had sold their souls to demons for power; that could crush a human skull between their hands like a crumpled ball of paper, and that lost sight of who was friend or foe to the extent that they frequently killed their own loved ones. It was the kind of thing Kilai had dismissed as much as she had stories of riftspawn and spirits, but given everything that had happened she could no longer afford to assume anything was as she had once knew it. It was a dizzying reorientation of all she thought she knew about the world.

  Regardless of her feelings on the matter it seemed she was going to have to talk to Rook again. She didn’t trust that these people knew what they were doing any more than she did and it was always best to have multiple contingency plans in place. But could she afford to let them fail? It seemed a waste to fight them for control over a matter even she did not know how to handle, yet if things got any worse she wasn’t sure her father’s reputation would hold. She had to prevent him from being ousted. Perhaps there was a way to shift the blame onto the soldiers. Yes, that seemed like the best way to go about things.

  Kilai shivered at her own callousness but attributed it to the draught stealing in from the open window. She slammed it shut against the cries of children playing out on the street and sank back into her chair – her father’s chair – steepling her fingers as she calculated her plans.

  Dakanan looked at her with discerning eyes. “What are you plotting?”

  Kilai made a show of sighing and running a hand through her hair. “I’m trying to decide which is the best way to handle this crisis.” Very nearly the truth. “I understand you hesitate to attribute this all to anything but superstition but I think it is time we all face the facts. The world as we know it is changing and the only way to survive that change is to change with it.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “No. I believe you took matters out of my hands. You were very keen to handle this yourself, were you not?”

  “And you seem very keen to wash your hands of it all of a sudden.”

  “I, like your lieutenant here,” she said, nodding to Yshi, “can admit I don’t know enough to know what to do. I shall entrust this to your very capable hands, Dakanan-all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a matter to which I really must attend.”

  Kilai stood up and began to usher them from her office, Dakanan throwing her a speculative look over his shoulder. Let them fail. Let the public see how these soldiers could not protect them. They would see how pivotal her family was once she was able to destroy the creature once and for all. Even if I must unleash a beserker to do so. But needs must.

  “A good day to you both,” she said pleasantly as she shut the door behind them with a resolute click. Once they were gone she slumped against the door, exhaling deeply. “The things I must do to keep this family afloat,” she said to the empty room.

  It did not reply.

  *

  The bars on the window above her cell cut the moonlight into strips across the ground, puddles of water rippling silver when Rook splashed her feet listlessly, humming as she did so. With little to distract her it was difficult to prevent her thoughts from tumbling back to the incident at the shrine. According to the philosopher Roklo, anything thrown upwards must inevitably come back down. So it was with her memories; she could try to throw them away but they always fell back down to her.

  I lost control again. She gritted her teeth, staring at her hands wrapped around her knees, fingers cutting into flesh and bone. In the moonlight her skin was a pale, unearthly white. What did it mean that she could not maintain control of her bond? Was she weak? What did that word even mean?

  In the mountain clans deep in the heart of Rökkum, to be weak was the worst thing you could be. But to be strong was about physical strength and the raw, destructive force of a beserker was something to be lauded rather than feared. Weakness was not being able to fight or defend oneself against the slights of others; an inability to prove that no provocation would go unanswered. Something to be looked down upon. Strength was supposed to be about protecting those around them – certainly that was what her father had always said – but she couldn’t deny that more and more this lack of control made her afraid of herself and what she could do. Was such recklessness really strength? Surely she could not protect anyone this way.

  She’d tried to walk a different path and join the Order of the Riftkeepers, to try to be something else. There they had tried to teach her how to fight the being inside her that threatened to take her over. The Rook. Her partner, now. For they were intrinsically linked, each of her senses heightened by the combination of their strength, feeling both the physical sensations and hidden currents of the spiritual.

  Even now the creature called to her in soft whispers. With their bond like a thread pulled taut, she could feel each tremble of power vibrate between them; a tantalising tremor. Its senses were so sharp that she suffered from a keen awareness of the riftspawn around her, often overwhelming when in the presence of great numbers or potency. For so long she’d been living in a world of which others weren’t even aware and it had been so terribly lonely.

  In Rökkum they called her ‘shrakur ik korshi’. It meant twilight walker, for the stories of beings that had been trapped between realms, never belonging to either, like the proverbial twilight walkers that could only come out when the sun was rising or setting. She’d hoarded these stories with an incurable kind of fascination as soon as she’d had access to the Order’s library, reading different texts from around the world for their varied explanations of such myths. Some said they were being punished for misdeeds – they had tried to gain power, more than any human should have – and had been sentenced to a life of never knowing power in either realm. Others said they were types of spirits that abhorred sun and moonlight both, only knowing the dusky glow of the in between.

  Perhaps it was merely metaphorical. Even Rook could see that clearly, for it was simply a time of change, a cushion between the night and day. But it did leave her wondering of her place in the world and whether she was simply destined to be the mindless brute that people assumed she was. She let her head thud back against the stone wall, cold seeping through her clothes. I tried to be better. Alik flooded her thoughts no matter how much she tried to fight him off and her stomach sank, fingers tightening enough to cut off circulation.

  She hadn’t known the man long and she wasn’t sure they had ever really been friends but… she had failed to save him. She had failed to save him because she had no control over herself and that stung more than any physical wound. Part of her longed to curl up and wallow in her own misery but she forced herself to focus. Giving up was not in her nature no matter how much she might long for it. The living rise again; the dead do not. Do not fight the wind, child. Let it guide you. Two different pieces of advice from two starkly opposing men but they added up to the same thing.

  Never stop fighting.

  I am tired.

  A scraping noise startled her from her thoughts and she peered out through the bars into the hallway, seeing the familiar double-breasted coat of the officers from the continent. This one in particular she recognised, with his long nose and dark beard, eyes looking down on her with a grim twist to his mouth, as if she were an unruly animal he did not want to deal with.

  “How nice of you to visit me,” she said with a wave, chains around her wrist clanking together. “I was beginning to grow bored.”

  “Quiet,” he barked. “You have a visitor.”

  “Oh?” She craned her neck but it was too dark, with only a thin sliver of moonlight to see by.

  Then Kilai appeared beside him, face lit by the warm candlelight from the lantern dangling in her hand. She nodded to the soldier at her side. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” A clear dismissal.

  He hesitated, looking between them, but the arch of Kilai’s brow had him saluting and turning away, footsteps echoing against stone as they faded into distant
tapping.

  Swinging the lantern over to her cell, Kilai cocked her head as she looked in. “You said before that you thought the rift seemed unstable.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you mean by that?”

  “Exactly what I said. I do not know how things are done here, Shai, but the rifts are supposed to be monitored. When I visited, it was clear that far too many riftspawn were passing through the threshold for it to be sustainable. I suspected it would cause problems but no one seemed inclined to listen.”

  “I’m listening now.”

  Rook regarded her and saw conviction in the flickering depths of her eyes. Yes, she had come around it seemed, although as to why she could only guess. Trepidation pulled at her as she considered that something else had happened in the time she had just been sitting in her cell, but she dismissed it. She would have felt the spiritual energy change if something had happened. Which meant that Kilai was probably concerned about the townsfolk and the lasting consequences of not tackling the problem at its route. From what she had observed, Kilai seemed to be a practical woman, who made her decisions based on what she considered to be the rational choice. If she could not escape her cell, this woman was her best bet for redemption.

  “You want to know what to do.”

  “A surgeon diagnoses a symptom so she can treat the disease, no?”

  Rook nodded. “So you understand. Although,” she said, looking up as she felt a quiver of energy against her senses – a small Taemlah zipped through the bars of her cell and flapped around the ceiling, “I do not know that we can do anything now. You must write to the main headquarters of the Order in Tsellyr and ask for their assistance. They’re all that’s left now. The Great Library survived the burning. It will host the knowledge we need.”

  “That will take some time. In the meantime I do not intend to sit around on my hands and worry.”

  “A wise course of action.” Kilai did not seem impressed with the praise, even if Rook did not really mean to tease. “The more that riftspawn cross the threshold, the weaker it becomes. Too many in this realm and it starts to change things. The physical becomes… less physical. Soon things will begin to resemble the other realm.”

  Kilai bit at her lip, frowning. “I don’t take your meaning.”

  “Riftspawn need physical forms to interact with the physical world.” She sucked in a breath and drew in energy, feeling the air hum and crackle as it would before a storm. Like a moth to flame the Taemlah flapped in shallow circles towards her, approaching her outstretched arm. Kilai drew back as her eyes landed on its small, sinuous form. “My bond allows me to interact with them if I choose to but you––” she beckoned Kilai forward “––you would pass through them.” She demonstrated as her finger passed through the surface of its translucent body, feeling the spark as her energy met it, pulling on their conjoined force to prevent it from draining her.

  “As the threshold weakens, they are able to interact more easily with things around them on this plain and to forge bonds. It is in their nature to do so, you see, as they can move freer and much further from the rift. Ideally, you only want to see harmless little fellows like this one so far from the threshold, otherwise you know you have a problem. The weaker the gate, the more powerful the spawn that can come through. That is why we are supposed to have wardens.”

  “The broken door invites the thief.”

  “Huh?”

  Kilai shook her head. “It is something my father used to say.” She wet her lips, frown deepening. “How is it that you know so much of this and I don’t?”

  Rook struggled to tilt her wrist with the thick band of iron clamped around it, forcing her arm up to a beam of moonlight which illuminated the mark of the Order of the Riftkeepers. “Where I come from the rift is highly unstable because of the extent to which my – my people, I suppose – interact with the riftspawn. The biggest rift lies just outside of Lyrshok city and must be heavily monitored or it will rupture and flood this plane with riftspawn. For me it is necessary to know these things. I did not expect it to be so lax here.”

  “I have never known anything of the likes of which I have seen lately. It is simply unheard of.”

  “Then I suppose I am merely grateful you show an interest now.”

  Kilai looked at her for a long moment, dark eyes impenetrable in the small pool of the lantern’s glow, lips pursed together. “I cannot let you go. For what it’s worth, I did not wish to do this to you, but I cannot have you loose when I know you tried to kill your own allies.”

  Rook flinched, drawing back on instinct. It was a fair assessment, and sensible too, but it did not lessen the way it only tore open a badly stitched wound. “I – I did not ask you to.”

  “Perhaps, if you were to prove your worth in fixing the problem, I may be able to see what I can do.”

  “Secure your own safety first, then the safety of others.”

  Kilai blinked, brows drawing together as she opened her mouth to protest.

  “Do not be offended. It is not a bad philosophy, by all accounts. I am prone to running my mouth sometimes. It is a problem.”

  She caught the barest curve of Kilai’s mouth. “Quite. It would not serve you in the shark’s waters that I currently wade, believe me.”

  “Politics is not my game,” she said, and it was not a lie but it did not mean she was entirely clumsy, either. It would do well to endear herself to this woman, considering her importance on this island. “There is something you can do in the meantime, while you wait for reinforcements. The blades that you confiscated from me are special – they will kill the spirit as well as the man. You must rally whoever you can and destroy the Gorgei that plagues this city before it grows strong enough to travel.” It pained her to offer what she considered a part of herself but for now it was a necessity.

  “He must die, then,” said Kilai, softly.

  “Yes.”

  The word stretched out between them, thin and quivering. It felt like weakness to admit to it. I am not in the business of mindless killing, she reminded herself. Sometimes it was a necessity when a contract got out of control, the riftspawn consuming its host. She’d seen it happen. But for it to be one of them…

  More and more she felt this lack of control was a mark against her own character; a testament to how poorly her own will measured up against the razor-sharp force of The Rook.

  “Thank you, for your help. I must take my leave of you now.”

  “Don’t forget to write to them,” she said as she watched her leave, taking the warmth of the light with her.

  “I won’t.”

  Rook was left in her cell, alone with the unearthly silver sheen the moon cast upon her surroundings, leaching the world of colour. Her thoughts battered mercilessly against the confines of her mind, unyielding as the midnight waves against the cliffs she could hear in the distance, taste of brine in the air. With nothing to distract her she was forced to bear their brunt with all the strength she had left.

  *

  Viktor had been wandering aimlessly for hours, unsure what he was looking for. He still didn’t know what to make of all that was happening or what he should do now. If he left things as they were he might be able to return to some sense of normalcy and pretend that the horrors he had witnessed were nothing but his imagination. But the money…

  The horizon still tugged at him, blurring into the distant cobalt waves of the sea. Boats bobbed on the waves, following the gentle course of the tide, and Viktor wondered what might lie beyond the realm of what he could see. Viktor had been born out there, somewhere, and ended up in this old, decaying city on the edge of an empire. Here, they scrambled and clawed at one another like children for the barest trappings of power, as if this place meant something. Viktor pitied them; this place wasn’t home. It wasn’t Viktor’s home. It wasn’t anything.

  The air was still nippy this early in the morning but he could feel the first trickle of warmth from the eastern sun, sending soft rays spilli
ng across the bay whilst gulls circled and cawed overhead. The cold roof tiles beneath his hands began to leach in the heat with greed and he lifted his face to feel the warmth caress his face. He’d never been very good at simply living in the moment but he tried to let the breeze wash away his worries and take this fragile moment of peace for what it was, up here so far above the city. Atop the library’s roof he could look down on the city streets that wound their way down to the harbour and pretend he sat upon a throne. Viktor spent so much time in the dark, clustered hideouts in backwater alleys that this, with the wind cutting through his hair, felt almost like it could be freedom.

  A scrabbling noise kicked his heart into action and he whirled to see Red climb up onto the roof beside him, smile deepening the laughter lines on his worn face. “Thought I might find you here.”

  The breath that Viktor had been holding all exhaled at once and he looked back out to sea, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands. He settled for wrapping one around his shin and said, “How’d you find me?”

  There was a chuckle beside him and then the snick of a match. “I know everything that goes on in this city. Besides, I’ve seen you up here before. When your forehead gets all those lines in it and makes you look like an old man.”

  “I do not!”

  Red poked him between the eyebrows and blew smoke into his face, laughing when he coughed. “I beg to differ.”

  Viktor coughed, wiping tears from his eyes, but he couldn’t help the small smile spreading across his face. Red was good at knowing exactly what a person needed. With a few words and that nonchalant attitude of his, Viktor felt some of his tension dissipate. Maybe things aren’t so bad here, he thought as his eyes fell back to the red tiles. Where would I even go anyway?