Shoreseeker

by Brandon M. Lindsay

  Part of Erianna wanted to throw up everything in her stomach, but she forced herself to steadiness. An odd mist clung to the ground in patches, mist almost as thick as cotton. She had seen this mist once before, back in Twelve Towers. Erianna was certain it was what began Shad Belgrith’s transformation into something … less than human. Erianna made sure to keep her distance.

  Amidst the twisted forms of the dead she could make out weapons—swords, arrows, an axe with a broken shaft—as well as the remains of a shield. Some of the bodies, she noticed, belonged to sheggam.

  Good. At least someone had put up a fight.

  She calmed the roiling in her gut before walking over to where some of the fallen lay. For a moment, she decided to forget her newfound freedom, and put herself back in the mindset of Shad’s slave—killing all emotion while forced to do something unpleasant. It was a skill she had honed over the years. She pulled apart two bodies that had been dismembered, and then a group of four that appeared to be more intact. The horrid smell of death, of viscera and even fouler things, threaten to overwhelm her composure, but soon she found what she was looking for: a shirt of chain mail.

  The soldier who had worn it had died from having his groin split open until all of his guts had spilled out of the bottom of him. She cleared her mind of the details and simply went about undressing him, ignoring the cold, clammy feel of his pale skin.

  Her own garments, such as they were, didn’t do much to keep out the night’s cold. As soon as she’d tugged free the dead man’s linen undershirt, Erianna quickly removed all of her own clothes before pulling on the shirt. Luckily it didn’t smell as bad as the man she’d taken it from. Then she stripped him of his heavy quilted shirt. On another body nearby she found trousers, though they were almost too baggy to be useful on her, and tucked their bottoms into her boots. She pulled on mail shirt, tying up her hair in a bun to keep it from getting snagged the in the links. The mail was much heavier that she had expected, but it was a comforting weight. Obviously, it hadn’t helped the dead man, but it felt good to know she was at least trying to ensure her survival.

  It was something, but it didn’t seem like quite enough. Careful to stay clear of the mist, she rooted around until she found a sheathed knife. She pulled it free, inspecting its narrow, double-edged blade. It would do. She slid it home and found a belt and began to strap the knife to her waist.

  The sound of a blade sliding free of its sheath from behind halted her.

  “You.”

  A human voice. Not a sheggam. She almost wept in relief. Slowly, she raised her hands and turned around to face the man who had spoken.

  She found herself looking down the length of a sword that she had seen once before, earlier in the day, the tip of its remarkable sky-blue blade only inches from her face. Gripping the sword was Tharadis, the Warden of Naruvieth. Not far behind him squatted a boy, no more than ten or eleven years old, who smiled up at her like a mischievous little monkey. The smile was forced, however, and it didn’t reach the boy’s eyes.

  Erianna met the Warden’s eyes. They burned with rage. “This,” he said. “This is what you helped to bring about.” With his free hand, he gestured towards the dead.

  Erianna didn’t flinch at the accusation, as much as part of her wanted to. “You want to blame me. Fine. I won’t stop you. Kill me if you want. Kill me if you think it will bring any of these people back.”

  The Warden stepped closer until the edge of his blade rested against her neck. She didn’t know what kind of material it was made of, but she felt certain that if she moved at all, it would open up her throat.

  “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t.”

  Erianna swallowed. She felt the scrape of the blade against her skin as she did. “I can’t say I don’t deserve it for what I did. No, for what I failed to do. I should have defied her sooner.” Erianna closed her eyes. “I was a slave in all but name. If I had defied her, she would have whipped me and put me in the dungeons. If I had tried getting a message out, she would have thrown me from one of the Towers. If I had tried to escape, she would have cut off my toes. But … knowing what she is capable of …”

  Perhaps it would be better if this man killed her now. She had her freedom, and that was all she ever wanted from life. If that’s all she had when her life ended, that was better than anything she had ever expected to have. And at least this way she wouldn’t end up with her belly clawed open, dying in a pile of her own innards. She lifted her chin, giving him an easier target. She felt a tiny trickle of blood roll down her throat, even though she couldn’t feel the cut that caused it.

  “Answer a question first,” he said. “If I had been one of Shad’s men come to take you back, would you let me?”

  Her eyes shot open and she lowered her head to face him. “I would have cut you open or died trying.”

  She could feel his eyes weighing her, as if they alone could sense the sincerity of her words. Finally, he dropped his sword, but didn’t sheathe it. “We’re looking for someone. A little girl, eight years old. Black hair, skin like mine. Her name is Nina.”

  Erianna rubbed her throat, fingering the tiny cut there. It was almost too small to feel. That sword must have been sharper than any blade she had seen before. “I haven’t seen many people. Living ones, anyway. And I haven’t been looking too closely at the dead.” She dropped her hand. Her voice softened. “Especially not the children.”

  The Warden nodded, as if he’d expected as much. He turned to the boy, who had taken interest in the paving stones beneath his feet. “Chad.” The boy looked up. “I want to you to take Erianna out of the city. There’s a caravan just west of the city. It’ll be safer than here. I want you two to stay there. Help anyone you see along the way get there too.”

  The boy, Chad, frowned as he stood. “What about Nina? I can help you find her.”

  The Warden tousled the boy’s scruffy hair. “I know, and if she shows up there before I find her, I want you to wait with her for me. I imagine quite a few people are going to get the idea to go to the caravan, so she might head there too.”

  Chad’s frown didn’t go away, but he nodded anyway. Reluctantly. It was obvious to Erianna that he thought he would be more help here, but she knew he was putting on a brave front. “Do you really think this caravan is going to be safer than anywhere in the city?” she asked.

  Tharadis turned to her. “It can’t be any more dangerous. Garoshmir wasn’t built for defense. Not even the Dome and Spire would keep the sheggam out. After all, who would attack it? Many people didn’t even believe the sheggam were real until today.”

  Erianna’s eyes drifted back towards the shop front, where people had died trying to get in and died trying to get out. No, there were no safe places to hide in the city. But would a caravan be any better? As he said, it certainly can’t be any worse than this, she thought.

  Erianna nodded. “All right.” She looked to the boy and tried her best to smile. “I don’t know my way out of the city. Do you think you can—”

  The boy jerked upright, eyes widening as they focused on something behind Erianna. Then she heard the heavy booted footfalls, too heavy for humans. Sword in hand, Tharadis rushed past, calling, “Go, now!” Without looking behind her, Erianna grabbed Chad by the hand and dragged him in the opposite direction of the erupting sounds of combat.

  Chapter 63: Words and Flame

  The Archivist’s Room in the Academy Library was tiny, by far the smallest room in the library. It was tucked away in the corner, hidden under a staircase and protected with a massive steel door disguised as a wooden pantry door. The hallway leading to the mostly-useless staircase was kept purposefully dusty to discourage people from thinking it contained anything of value. But the second-most valuable object in the library, or even in the whole of the Academy, was housed in that small room.

  It was a small device consisting of strange red metal, unlike anything else seen in the Accord, roughly shaped like a ring standing upright on a stand, much
like the globes that were occasionally seen in certain departments within the Academy. But this ring held no spherical map of the world.

  Three spikes, made from the same metal, were attached to the ring, their sharp tips pointed inward. Patterns were etched all over the Crafted device, combining the two forms of magic in ways developed centuries ago, before Andrin’s Wall and the sheggam scourge which precipitated it, now lost to the oft-destructive path of history. In fact, this device was created to counteract such destructive tendencies. It served to preserve human knowledge from the inevitable ravages of time.

  Yet the device was only a tool, a means for such a task. The device itself could hold no knowledge. Which was why it was second in value to the green Memory Orb which hung on a chain around Alyssa’s neck.

  She sat down on the well-cushioned but backless stool in front of the bench upon which the red metal device sat. After unlatching the frame hanging from her neck, she took the Orb out of it and hefted it. Though she felt its weight all the time, it was so much heavier when she held it. As if she were feeling the weight of its importance settle onto her hand.

  This Memory Orb was the true reason why the library existed. The books, though by any other measure priceless, were expendable. Because even if the books were gone, the knowledge they contained were safe. All of them had been copied, by Alyssa and the archivists before her, onto the Memory Orb, using the metal device in front of her.

  She placed the Orb between the spikes, which, at an unseen cue, slid inward to trap the Orb in place. Using magic that Alyssa could manipulate if not fully understand, the device, simply called the Etcher, would then inscribe tiny irregularities deep within the substance of the Orb. What shape the irregularities took depended entirely on Alyssa.

  She hooked a string of red hair behind her ear and took a deep breath to calm herself. Then she gently gripped the Orb with the tips of three fingers from each hand. Each motion she made would change the Orb, writing to it. It was up to her to make sure that the correct Patterns, correlating to the text in the book she was transcribing, were etched into the Orb. All of her training in the Academy was focused on this one task.

  The Orb stored nine thousand seven hundred and twenty-two scrolls. Six hundred and one clay tablets. Nineteen thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine letters. Official documents beyond counting. And three thousand and eighteen books.

  Yet one more remained. One of the most important books, called First Night, Last Night, sat on the bench next to the Etcher, open to its final two pages. Ostensibly, it was about the formation and arcane rituals of the Knights of the Eye. But hidden within was information about the greatest tragedy known to man: the sheggam scourge.

  Suppressing a shudder at the thought of sheggam, Alyssa studied the words on the final page, committing them not only to memory but converting them to the Pattern she would etch into the Orb. Once that was done, she turned the Orb slightly.

  A tiny filament of off-green, appearing like a slight flaw, came into being near the center of the Orb.

  She shifted it again, slightly, committing more of the words to the Orb, then again. She had transcribed almost the entire page already when she began to smell the smoke.

  The skin on the back of her neck prickled as she turned from her task. Fire was a librarian’s greatest fear, and though the task she was engaged in was the counter to such problems, the thought of fire in the library still made Alyssa very nervous. After all, she could burn just as easily as a book.

  Finishing the transcription could wait. She put the Orb back in the frame hanging from her neck and stood, looking at the door. Thin gray trailers of smoke rose from the top seam in the door frame. She hadn’t been here long—less than an hour—and this room was far away from the normal stacks of books. If that much smoke was already coming into the room …

  Cursing herself for nearly forgetting it, Alyssa snatched the Etcher and stuffed it into the pack hanging at her hip. Sweat sprang from her brow, though if it was caused by either the sudden rise in heat or her own anxiety, she didn’t know. She knelt down and touched the door lever.

  It was warm, but not hot.

  She pulled the lever down, and the catch holding the door in place slid back. The door opened a crack. Smoke spilled in all around the door and the room became considerably hotter. Alyssa crouched lower and threw the door open.

  It was worse than Alyssa could have ever expected. The hallway was filled with smoke. If Alyssa had been standing, it would have been down to her shoulders. Even so, her eyes burned. Murky orange light flooded the end of the hallway, at the intersection. The sound of burning was not at all like the pleasant crackle of a fire in the hearth, but the roar of some hellish beast.

  Alyssa placed the Memory Orb back in the fixture hanging around her neck and crawled halfway down the hallway before she noticed the body.

  It lay in the orange light, unmoving and silhouetted so she couldn’t see its eyes. She thought perhaps it was a man but she couldn’t say for certain. His arms were splayed in front of him, head cocked to the side.

  Perhaps he had breathed too much smoke. Alyssa would have to take him with her when she escaped. She couldn’t just leave someone to burn, even if it slowed her down and made her own escape that much more difficult. She couldn’t live with herself if she had the opportunity to save someone and didn’t.

  She crawled over to the man faster, determined to get him out of there if it was the last she ever did.

  The body moved. Though by the way its arms were still splayed in front of it, it didn’t move on its own. Someone or something dragged it back.

  Alyssa froze. Was someone else there?

  The man stirred slightly, then groaned.

  Then he screamed.

  Alyssa’s heartbeat pounded in her ears as she scrambled back the way she had come. She barked her knees climbing up the stairs. Hot smoke blinded her and filled her lungs. She coughed.

  The man’s screams were cut short with a violent ripping sound.

  A window. She had to find a window. She had to get out of there. Why wasn’t there a window somewhere? If only she could see!

  She coughed again. Her lungs burned painfully as she collapsed to her side. A window. Where was she? She had climbed the steps, but she couldn’t remember how many. She was on a carpeted floor now. Was she on the landing?

  Alyssa searched her mind. She knew the library front and back; she hardly ever left it. She knew where all the windows were. But it was so hard to think.

  The man was dead. Someone or something had killed him. Alyssa coughed again.

  It would hear her. Panic filled her. She tried crawling again, but even her muscles were beginning to burn.

  She was on the landing. She was sure of it. But was there a window there? She wanted to find out, but it was so hard to move.

  The bottom step creaked. The bottom step never creaked when Alyssa stepped on it. Something much heavier than her was standing on it.

  The next step creaked.

  Alyssa struggled to her hands and knees, began crawling towards what she hoped was the opposite wall. The window would be there. It had to be.

  Her fingers painfully hit the molding at the base of the wall. Her hand spidered up the wall, searching.

  No window.

  She coughed again. No. There had to be a window! She knew there was! She swept her hand left and right across the wall.

  Then she felt it. Cold glass.

  Without a second thought, she punched through it. The glass sliced her hand along the bones of her wrist. She punched again, ignoring the pain in her eyes, her lungs, her hand. She heard a roar behind, though she couldn’t tell if it was the fire, trying to escape with her, or the beast on the steps.

  She had no time.

  With the last reserves of her strength, Alyssa threw herself through the window.

  The impact jarred her shoulder, but the glass exploded outward. And as she fell through the air, she caught a glimpse of something through her wate
ry eyes—a massive, pale hand, each of its fingers tipped with a talon. Snatching at the air where she had just been.

  Then the window erupted in a sudden gout of flame, outlining the horrible creature for the briefest moment in an infernal blaze that then consumed it. The creature screamed in agony and then in death.

  The next moment, the ground rose up and slapped Alyssa in the back.

  She blacked out.

  Chapter 64: Swords Drawn

  Jerem, acting Commander of the Knights of Eye, stepped onto the Runeway, short sword drawn and gripped tightly. The scar under his eye itched worse than ever, but he resisted the impulse to scratch it. Now was not the time to be self-indulgent and weak. A stiff wind tugged at his cloak, snapping it behind him, but the force of the wind cowered before the surge of dark energy pulsing through him.

  The Runeway.

  About this, Dransig had been right. There was no denying it, yet Herrin Fayel had told Jerem and the others that he had always believed what Dransig had told them. Shortly after Dransig had betrayed his oaths to the Knights of the Eye and fled, Fayel had sent men—Jerem included—to discover the true nature of the Runeway.

  It had been just as Dransig had warned. Purest evil.

  Yet even so, Fayel had said it didn’t matter to the Knights. Andrin’s Wall still stood; therefore, the only sheggam threats could come from the Knights themselves. That, Herrin had told them all after Dransig had betrayed them, was the true calling of the Knights of the Eye. Protecting the world from themselves.