Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  “What is it, Sol?” she asked.

  “I think someone’s following us.” He said, urging the hauler up a little higher.

  Zyn’dri tried to turn around and see, but there were Stracahn in the way, and the baby’s hupta in her arms limited her movement. She tried to focus on the dim shape of the broken peaks ahead.

  There was a soft light touching the Eastern sky when Sol stopped the crawler beside an enormous boulder. Dawn was coming, cold and clear.

  Zyn’dri saw the fused fence and the boulders and the broken peaks above it all. The sight was disheartening.

  She got out. Sol took the baby while Zyn’dri went to inspect the fence.

  “Stop! Zyn’dri! Wait!” Sol cried out, and Zyn’dri froze. “There’s a charge. If you get within fifteen feet, it will zap you.”

  He ran toward her, still holding the baby and scooping up a rock with his free hand as he came. He tossed it at the fence beside the pile of boulders. There was a loud snap and the rock exploded.

  Zyn’dri took a step back.

  Sol was breathing hard.

  “Are you all right?” She asked.

  “Fine,” he answered, but his voice was strained. “It’s just that the last time I was here was not a good day for me.”

  Walt had told Sylvia all about Sol’s troubles, and Zyn’dri had been listening. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t know how they ever thought it was you.”

  Sol picked up another rock and threw it, angrily this time. It popped, and he grabbed another.

  But Zyn’dri saw the baby squirm, and Sol’s throw was off. The rock went sailing toward the fence behind the boulder field where the gate used to be.

  The stone sailed, unimpeded, to the fence and bounced off, clattering against the boulders and down to the ground. Sol and Zyn’dri looked at each other. Zyn’dri tossed a rock of her own. It hit the fence and bounced off unharmed.

  Sol was nodding. “That’s where the gate used to be, Zyn’dri. There must not be a charge on the section where it fused.”

  She moved forward.

  “Wait!” he called. He tossed several more rocks all along the section, aiming some high and some low. When he seemed satisfied that there was no charge, he nodded. “You can go check it out. But be sure you don’t go more than fifty feet or so. The other side of this fused section is likely to be hot, too.”

  Zyn’dri made her way around the boulders and saw an odd, jutting part of the fence. As she approached she saw that two slabs of rock had kept the fence from fusing here and that a boulder lay between them, a small crevice gaped open where the three stones met. With the sky lightening above her, Zyn’dri heard a sound more beautiful than music: the gentle tones of Sylvia’s voice.

  “We need to get back to the West gate.” Sylvia was saying. “It’s the only way out.”

  Though Zyn’dri still couldn’t tell where it was coming from, she heard Walt speak next, “Dead or alive; we have to find Zyn’dri.”

  And finally, Meir’s mellow voice reached her, “I suspect we’re about to.”

  A light flickered. It was coming from shoulder-height, in a crevice near the top of a large stone. Zyn’dri leaned down and peered inside. She heard her name spoken with surprise, and then Sylvia’s face was next to hers, and the woman’s hand was reaching through the narrow opening to caress her cheek.

  “Zyn’dri, Zyn’dri, how did you get here?”

  Zyn’dri was crying, and her voice was weak as she answered. “Sol brought me.”

  She heard Walt’s startled laugh. “That kid knows just when to show up.”

  She turned to look at her friend. He was gently helping the Stracahn out of the hauler.

  But in the wan morning light, Zyn’dri saw something else. Behind Sol, a small, angry man was coming out of the shadows of the forest. She cried out in warning and Sol spun, placing himself between the approaching man and the Stracahn. Zyn’dri left the crevice and inched closer.

  “So it’s true,” the man said, leaning around Sol to sneer at the Stracahn in the back of the crawler, “Carl’s been harboring aliens.”

  “Mister Hastings,” Sol said, gently passing the baby to Pyrsha and then holding his hands up.

  “Commander Hastings.” The man corrected. He took a swing at Sol, but Sol ducked.

  “I’m out of the Milguard,” Sol said. “Out for good.”

  The man grew still. “You should be. You were nothin’. Nothin’ like my boy.”

  An eerie tension settled over both of them. Sol stood quietly.

  “It’s your fault!” The man cried. His voice was so loud that the Stracahn began to stir. They scurried out of the hauler and moved toward Zyn’dri. She gestured them toward the crevice, and she saw them huddle near it, next to the big fence. She heard Meir speaking to them in a low tone, and she saw them pass the baby through the little opening.

  The man went on. “It’s your fault he’s dead, you know?”

  Sol’s voice was pained. Zyn’dri could find no anger in it when he spoke. “I know.” He said.

  “Do you?” The man growled. “Because your little stunt letting that Cascadian go caused them to know all our secrets.” The man walked a tight circle.

  “I thought that was it, too,” Sol said, his voice pleading, “But Mister Hastings, that had less to do with it than I thought.”

  The man was shouting again, and pacing erratically. “What do you even know?”

  The Stracahn crouched in silence, watching the angry man.

  Sol went on, backing away from the man. “It wasn’t the Cascadians that attacked us. It was the Leadership. It was Damen.”

  “Why would you say that?” Hastings said, looking over his shoulder. Zyn’dri followed his gaze and saw the dark oval of a spinner behind him, half-hidden in the trees.

  “Because it’s true,” Sol said. For the first time, Sol raised his voice. “Isn’t it, Mister Damen?”

  A figure in a gray uniform stepped out of the spinner. “Sol. I told you, it’s just Damen.”

  Zyn’dri knew him. She knew him from the day he came to the school. She remembered his sneer and his swagger.

  The small man, Hastings, was looking back and forth between Damen and Sol. Zyn’dri sensed in him confusion and anguish.

  “What is he talking about, Damen? You said we could come out here and arrest him for letting that Cascadian go. You said my son died because of that. And you said we could gather evidence that Carl was harboring aliens.”

  “Well, see, that’s where I wasn’t completely honest with you, Hastings. I needed out of the brig, and I needed somebody to get me to my spinner, where I had this handy tool.” Damen pulled out a short, gray cylinder from his coat. “I should come clean and say that I actually don’t care who killed your son. And I actually don’t care if Carl was harboring aliens. What I do care about is the aliens not getting a chance to go back and talk about their failed integration, because that’s going to be hard to explain.” He ran his hands up and down the sleek cylinder, and Zyn’dri saw Sol freeze.

  “You mean their fake integration?” Sol asked. “I saw what your men did, Damen.”

  “That’s no good.” Damen said, “That means I can’t let you talk about it, either.”

  The small man leaned forward. “What did his men do, kid?”

  “They shot the Stracahn in cold blood. With our weapons, so people would think the Milguard did it. They framed us, Mister Hastings. And they invaded Liberty dressed like Cascadians so we wouldn’t know it was them stirring up trouble. It’s because of him that Juice is dead.” Zyn’dri heard Sol’s voice catch on that, and she walked over to him, putting her hand in his.

  “Sidney,” Damen said, and Zyn’dri knew that he said it wrong to remind her of that day in the school hut. “Why am I not surprised that you made it out? You seem to be an unusually lucky kid.”

  “What part of having my home destroyed and my parents and dozens of my people killed makes me lucky?” she asked, using a tone she had h
eard Walt use with other Rangers sometimes when he didn’t like what they were saying.

  “That’s true, isn’t it?” Damen asked, his voice smooth. “You seem to be at the center of every catastrophe.” He eyed her. “Maybe you’re not lucky. Maybe you’re unlucky. Maybe it’s you that’s bringing all this bad luck to your people.”

  The words hit Zyn’dri hard. She stepped back, trying to think of a reason this wasn’t true.

  “That’s enough.” Sol’s voice was harsh.

  Hastings cut in, and Zyn’dri, through her swirling thoughts, heard him say, “Your people killed my boy, Damen?”

  Damen must have sensed his only ally was shifting. “No, Irv. No. Like I said before, this kid was right there. He was always egging Juice on. He used his phone to call the park, didn’t he? He talked him into applying to work there? I showed you the documentation.”

  Hastings turned back to Sol. “That’s right.”

  “But Mister Hastings, Juice was my best friend. He would be here if it weren't for this guy and his invasion.”

  Hastings looked agitated. He glanced from one to the other.

  Damen walked several yards away. “So we disagree. Either way, I think we’re done here.” He spun quickly, and Zyn’dri saw the cylinder fly, arcing high and plummeting toward the snowy patch exactly between where she and Sol were standing and where the Stracahn were huddled against the rock.

  She felt Sol pull his hand from hers and dive to catch the cylinder, but she could see he would come up short. Damen had aimed well.

  She dropped down. Before she could think, before she could breathe, Zyn’dri’s fingers were tracing the time tay’ren in the snow at her feet.

  She looked up to see the cylinder slow, then stop its descent about five feet above the ground. She saw the small man, Hastings, frozen on his way toward Damen, and she saw the Stracahn frozen in their terror by the boulder.

  Morning light illuminated the little opening in the rock, and she saw the face of Meir peering through it, his eyes wide. He would have seen her begin the tay’ren.

  But what was she to do now? If she stopped the tay’ren, time would resume, the cylinder would fall, and whatever evil Damen had planned would be released. But she couldn’t keep time still forever. Even now she felt the Earth’s impatience, felt it straining to resume its usual rotation and bring bright morning to chase away the shadows of yesterday.

  And then Meir blinked. Not a slow, half-blink, but a real-time blink. His voice came to her as it always did, not in the underwater way that voices usually worked while using the time tay’ren.

  “Zyn’dri, you’re doing well. Keep going. If you want to get to that cylinder, you’ll have to transfer the tay’ren to your palm.”

  Zyn’dri shook her head. “I can’t! I’ll get lost in the pattern.”

  Meir’s voice was calm. “It takes practice.” She saw his long fingers appear in the little window of stone. “See, I am completing a tay’ren right now, in thin air, in order to avoid the effects of yours so I can help you.”

  Zyn’dri hadn’t known that was possible. But what did she really know about these patterns, anyway? She dropped her eyes back to the snow. She could not err now. She continued to trace the tay’ren, though her fingers were growing numb from the cold.

  “You’re going to have to walk to the weapon and alter its course.” Meir sounded as if he were saying she’d have to do something as simple as tying her shoe.

  “I can’t!” Her voice was high with fear.

  “You can.”

  Two more completions and Zyn’dri was beginning to feel the strain. She realized she could not do this forever.

  “What do I do?” she asked, terrified.

  “The easiest way to transfer it to your palm is to lay the opposite palm down just above the tay’ren you are tracing. Begin to make the tay’ren bigger, until part of it moves onto your palm. Then gradually do a bit more and a bit more until you are completing the whole tay’ren on your palm.”

  Zyn’dri processed that, then laid her left palm in the snow by the design. On the next pass, she exaggerated the first loop slightly and shortened the second. She did it just as Meir said. After only two terrible seconds where the world began to speed up again, she managed to correct her pattern.

  She was tracing the tay’ren on her hand at just the right speed as she carefully walked toward the cylinder. She glanced at Meir, who was nodding encouragement, and then realized her next problem: with both hands engaged in making the tay’ren, she had no way to reach for the cylinder.

  Meir advised her to try the tay’ren in the air. Slowly, she began to move the design off her palm. Slowly, she reached up with her free hand. Just at the moment she was going to grasp the cylinder, she faltered in her tay’ren, and the world sprang back into motion. In a panic, Zyn’dri batted at the cylinder and connected hard. It flew back toward Damen. The second before it hit, Hastings took Damen to the ground.

  As the cylinder hit the ground next to the two men, a sweeping pink flame leaped from it and engulfed the two men. Zyn’dri turned away, but their short, anguished screams rang in her ears. In the instant it took those screams to fade, their bodies curled and disintegrated. A ring of charred vegetation and Damen’s Agent in Charge badge were all that remained.

  Sol stood, shaking his head. He looked at the circle melted in the snow.

  His voice was puzzled. “Zyn’dri? What just happened?” he asked. Zyn’dri felt her heart beating hard. She said nothing, just turned away from him and walked to the little rock window. The other Stracahn moved out of her way, and she knelt by the opening, dropping her chin and letting her long hair fall around her face to cover her tears.

  She felt a gentle hand on her head. “You did well,” Meir said.

  Zyn’dri was weary. She wanted to be in Sylvia’s arms again, to go home to the apartment and eat morels and catfish, to walk the trails with Walt. She wanted to go home to Yellowstone.

  This single stone stood between her and her family. She glanced up. It lay beneath the two huge slabs that formed the roof of their tunnel, but the slabs didn’t seem to be resting on it.

  Zyn’dri ignored the Stracahn around her. She forgot about Sol and focused solely on getting through to Walt and Sylvia. She raised her hand and began to trace, in wide loops, what she thought of as the cauldron design.

  She remembered the deep lines that formed at the edge of the Sulphur Cauldron, remembered how the ground had crumbled. When the pattern began to form in the rock under her fingers, she was not surprised. She made the tay’ren broad and sweeping, feeling the fatigue in her arm. Her fingers scraped from one side of the big stone to the other, its rough texture making her skin sting.

  Meir must have realized she was completing a tay’ren. He spoke her name, sharply, just before the rock split and crumbled between them.

  As the dust cleared, Zyn’dri left the snowy morning behind. She crawled through the new portal, into the waiting arms of Walt and Sylvia.

  64

  Sol saw every Stracahn through the opening safely. Another quake had struck, and there was a deep creaking coming from the slabs above the tunnel. Sol wasn’t sure how long they would stay up. The sun shone, dazzling, on the snow as the last one ducked into the tunnel and made her way back into the park. Sol crouched down, peering into the dim interior to make sure she made it.

  It was a natural kaleidoscope: the dark tunnel framing the vivid Stracahn standing in the sunlight at the other end. Their oranges and blues and yellows and greens against the snow made him blink. Meir was still in the tunnel, his green robes blending with the shadows of the boulders.

  “Come,” Meir said, holding out his hand.

  Sol hesitated. Cross illegally into the park? There was no way.

  But when a Ranger leaned into the tunnel and called to him, it seemed more like an order than an invitation. Sol crawled in and made his way into the brilliant light.

  Snow-blind for a moment, Sol blinked it away to see Wa
lt Bradley standing in front of him. Tears had streaked through the dirt caked on the old man’s face, and his bright blue eyes searched Sol’s. He tried to speak, then reached out and pulled Sol into a hug.

  Sol thought of the day, so long ago, when his father had died on the other side of this fence. He thought of the hatred he had felt toward the Rangers, the bitterness he had carried, and he felt those burdens slipping away. His mind reached for them for a moment, tried to hold them, but he realized how heavy it would be to carry those feelings all his life and dropped each burden like a stone. The vibrancy of the Stracahn around him, the victory over Damen, the safe, accepting space that Walt had made for him just now, all washed the pain away.

  “Thank you,” Walt managed as he stepped back. “We thought we’d lost her.”

  Sol didn’t know what to say. “Thank you. For fighting for me when you didn’t have to.”

  Sylvia and Zyn’dri stepped up and slipped their arms around Walt. He held them close.

  Syd walked up, ducking his head as he greeted Sol. “I radioed. Karson’s on his way with spiders to take them back to their villages.”

  Walt nodded.

  Syd looked uncomfortable. “Sol, I’m sorry. I—I don’t think you should be here when he comes. Things are too unstable around here still.”

  Sol waited for the bitterness to return, but something had happened in his mind. He saw the sense of it, saw that Syd wasn’t trying to hurt him, was actually trying to help him. He nodded. “I’m glad they get to go home.” He looked down at Zyn’dri. “You’re a tough kid.”

  Zyn’dri hugged him. “I’m barely a kid.” She said. “I’m eleven Earth years old.”

  “Barely,” Sylvia agreed with a smile. “And a lot more grown up than most adults.”

  “Good luck in here,” Sol said, casting a gaze around the former gate area. It was too familiar. He began to move back toward the tunnel.

  “Hey,” Syd said as if to make up for asking him to leave, “You should volunteer here again this summer. You were the best worker we had.”