Fractures (Facets of Reality Book 2)

by Jeremy Bullard

  He tried to say something -- anything -- but the words just wouldn't come out. What could he say? I found a building inside the Spire that comes from my world but from my future, and hey look, I got a magazine that I can't read with a title that I shouldn't be able to but do?

  His eyes fell again to the swords before Marissa, the katana and tanto with the steel hilts and granite tassels. He stood there for a moment, considering, then he tossed the magazine on his pallet and turned on his heel.

  "Where are you going?" Marissa asked.

  "To get a grip."

  * * *

  Retzu and Patrys walked on in a comfortable silence. They were quite the pair, Retzu observed with a smirk -- an apathetic brute and a hot-headed git half his age, bound by the desire to protect their loved ones. Or to execute murderous revenge on Patrys' part, which basically amounted to the same thing.

  She was definitely something else. Give her a few years to ripen, to throw off the childish features of having not enough summers, and he'd likely have walked up to her in the tavern, bought her a mug, maybe bounced her on his knee. Well, until he noticed the gaping cavern that was once her throat. But there again, it did give her a unique quality that was oddly attractive, despite how repulsive the wound itself was. Such an interesting combination.

  They rounded the corner, and found Sal in the street in front of his tent, working through his katas. Retzu shook his head slightly in spite of himself. Sal's steps were erratic, his reach overextended. The assassin wasn't sure what was weighing on his sodu's mind, but the one-eyed mage was obviously distracted.

  "Patrys," he said, instantly inspired. "Lesson One in discipline -- taking advantage of opportunity." With that, he strode forward, motioning the sapphire mage to follow.

  "Sodu, attend," he commanded as he close the distance. To his credit, Sal stumbled not in the slightest, instantly sheathing his katana and coming to attention, entering shol'zo masu as if he had meant to do so all along. Whatever had Sal out of sorts, it wasn't so weighty that he had lost control of his faculties. He was just letting off steam.

  So much the better.

  "Sen'sia," Sal said, eyeing Patrys curiously, but saying nothing further.

  Retzu nodded. "I'll explain later. Or not. I haven't decided yet. Right now, we have business to attend to. Patrys," he addressed the sapphire mage, canting his head without taking his eyes off of Sal. "You have anger, lass. It can be a help or a hindrance, a curse or an opportunity. You decide which. Sal here has distractions of his own that he's working out. Perhaps the two of you could be of use to one another."

  His sodu took the hint, and dropped into shol'zo masu with a hint of uncertainty. Patrys, on the other hand, responded with eagerness as she snapped a staff of ice out of thin air and assumed a ready stance.

  Retzu grinned wickedly as his blood rose up within him. "Begin!"

  * * *

  Sal wasn't sure what to make of Retzu's ad hoc sparring match -- what he was hoping to prove, what Patrys hoped to accomplish sparring against a silk hilt, what Patrys was even doing with Retzu -- but when the assassin signaled the start of the match, all of that seemed to fade away. The thrill of battle, the calm of it, the certainty, overshadowed any questions that he might have had. Now, all that existed was this fight.

  He'd chosen to engage Patrys unarmed, to give her the advantage of having a weapon other than her hands and feet. It was immediately apparent that though Patrys was a competent Unmarked, she was completely unprepared to engage a shol'tuk. Her kicks went wide, her staff swung well past the extent of her control, and she favored her throat. For obvious reasons, of course.

  But for all that she was raw, she was passionate, and Sal wondered more than once whether shol'zo masu had been wise. The few strikes that she was able to worm past his bare handed defenses were well-placed, and brutal. That ice staff of hers may not have had the resilience of a wooden bo, but it was hard as rock, and every time it broke, Patrys simply grew more staff, pushing the sharp-edged breaks out to the end of the staff where it could taste flesh. Before long, Sal was bruised and bleeding. He may have been far more skilled than Patrys, but she was unpredictable... and that made her effective.

  "Hold!" Retzu called. Blessedly. Sal bent over double, panting not only his fatigue but his surprise. How in the world...?

  The black-clad assassin strode forward, edging between the combatants. He shot Patrys a rather dirty look, as if she had done something that he'd disapproved of but nevertheless expected, before he turned to Sal. "She was cheating," he said bluntly.

  S'not cheatin', the sapphire objected. Fightin' fair ain't fightin' t' win. Sal's better'n me. I needed every tool in me arsenal or I'da been kissin' dirt.

  Retzu considered, then gave a half-shrug as concession.

  "What tools?" Sal asked.

  "She was using sapphire magic to slow you down."

  "How...?"

  "Let's just say she's adapting well to the loss of her more melodious qualities. Improvising as you should be," he replied, the twinkle in his eye belying his stoic expression. "There are ways to counter it -- ways that you yourself dreamed up, had you thought to employ them -- but I wanted to see where the both of you are at, and where you can improve. I've... decided to take her under my wing."

  "As sodu? I thought the Guild didn't allow mages to become shol'tuk."

  "She won't be my apprentice. Not exactly. She won't be picking up a sword or earning any hilts. But..." he paused, considering his wording. "She has qualities that if left unchecked could do her great harm, but if we can harness them, make them work for her..." Retzu spread his hands and quirked an eyebrow, hinting at the possibilities, before turning and gathering up the sapphire mage. As he left, he regarded Sal over his shoulder. "Expect the unexpected, mate. You got a knack for improvising when you have no other alternative, but it's a useful trait, even when you are sure of yourself and your situation. Not everything is as it appears."

  "Not everything is as it appears," Sal repeated to himself softly as they left. He continued to watch the unlikely pair fade into the twilight-darkened streets of Caravan until they were well out of sight, and then for a moment or two longer. Was he right? Was that what he was missing with his granite magic? Or maybe with that impossible building, tucked into the bowels of the Granite Spire? Sighing, he turned back toward Marissa's tent. It was only then that he realized that, however odd the sparring match had been, it had been exactly what he needed. He wasn't the bundle of nerves that he had been when he stormed into Marissa's tent only to storm right back out again. He was calm. Centered. Oh, he was still a bit frustrated about the facility he'd found -- and the answers that he hadn't -- but he could think clearly about those things. And maybe puzzle out some answers.

  Marissa looked askance at him when he pushed through the tent flap. "Did you get your grip?"

  Sal snickered a little sheepishly at her. "Sorta."

  "Good," she quirked a smile. "So about that chowder..."

  Dinner passed amiably, with Sal talking around his spoon more often than not. He didn't have much to tell, and certainly not much that Marissa would understand -- he didn't even understand it -- but whatever he did have, he wanted to share with her.

  "So you and Aten'rih could read the same symbols, and read them the same way, but not understand them the same way?" she asked incredulously. "How does that even work?"

  "Well... like this," he replied, picking up the magazine that he brought back with him from the Spire.

  "Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Some sort of artisan's journal? Moving paintings that look real, painted on pages that feel nothing like paper?"

  "It's some serious sci-fi stuff," he admitted. "But that's not what I wanted to show you. Look here."

  Sal laid the magazine on the table in front of her, and pointed to the cover. "See the title here? That's the same kind of self-translating writing that we found on that placard. When I look at these symbols, I read the whole thing as FUTURENOW. If Aten'rih w
ere to look at it, he would read the same thing, but see only portions of it as words, and the rest of it as gibberish."

  "Well, it's in runes," she shrugged. "Of course Aten'rih's only going to read his portion of it."

  "Runes? There are no runes on the page."

  "Of course, there are," Marissa argued stubbornly. "They're right there, all stacked together, plain as day."

  Confused, Sal took the magazine back and scrutinized it, turning the page this way and that, trying to catch a hint of even a single rune. But he saw none.

  "You really can't see them? Look, I'll show you," Marissa said, heading to her artisan's bench. Retrieving a spool of copper winding and some cutters, she made her way back to the table, snipping lengths of wire as she went. She twisted the first strand into an elaborate shape, and laid it on the table. "What is this?" she asked, already twisting another strand without waiting on the answer.

  "That's the emerald rune for growth," he answered, confusedly. "Not the act of growing itself, but of the maturity that a seed or young animal will reach once realized."

  "Right. It's one of the runes in that first symbol. And this one?" she said, her voice slightly disconnected as she shaped a new rune.

  "The amethyst rune for potential energy. But..."

  "And this?"

  "The ruby rune for a shift between states of excitement, usually used for an increase in temperature. What are you..."

  Marissa twisted out two more runes. She grew more excited as she worked, as if solving a puzzle on the fly. "Runes are a physical representation of magic," she explained. "They're like letters, but they form concepts instead of words. Because they're arcane in nature, they serve as a universal language. Even mages who've never learned to read can read these. Except you. You're a mage, but you've always seen runes the way I do. And now I think I know why." She paused to take him in, her expression an odd mixture of awe and curiosity, before completing her work.

  "These are all the runes in that first symbol," she said, spreading the completed shapes out on the table and pointing to them in order. "Emerald. Amethyst. Ruby. Sapphire." Finally, her finger fell on the fifth rune. "And this one."

  "I've never seen that rune before," Sal said, catching her excitement.

  "Neither have I," Marissa replied, a little breathlessly. "But these four all said 'future' in their own way. I'll bet you a scrub on that chowder pot that this rune says 'future' too."

  "What are you saying?" He knew. He was sure of it. But he wanted to hear her say it.

  Gently, meticulously, she stacked the runes atop one another, pausing as she took up the last one. "Milord Diamond, may I present to you, the granite rune. But more importantly..."

  Sal gasped as she laid the granite rune atop the stack, the symbols coalescing and self-translating in his sight. It said FUTURE.

  "...the diamond rune," finished Marissa breathlessly.

  * * *

  Nestor stared at the figures on the dais, the hunkering blue one curled up on the ground in a clearing near the southern edge of Aeden's Garden, and the brown one that appeared to be collecting firewood. He didn't know what he should be feeling, looking at Cao Tzu's image through the magic of the map table. Betrayal for leaving them? Curiosity for whatever mystery he represents? Gratitude for setting Nestor free of his shackle, and his feet to whatever path to discovery that he might be on?

  "I don't know about you, but I'm going with anger," Jaeda said, giving voice to his unspoken thoughts. "I don't care where he's going, or why. But I don't like not knowing. He could've had the common decency to tell us."

  "Maybe he couldn't," Nestor argued, though he didn't really believe it himself. "Who's to say that he didn't have a good reason, even if we don't know what that reason is? I mean, we don't really know the man. Well, I don't, anyway..." he added, turning his crystalline eyes intently to her.

  Jaeda looked to him, then back to the map, then back to him again, and shrugged uncomfortably. "It doesn't matter anyway," she insisted. "I only knew him in passing. And to tell you the truth, I can't even say who Cao Tzu is, because that man right there," she paused and melted into the floor. Nestor felt her aura expand as she gathered her magic and wielded, sending out a pulse toward the south. Almost instantly, the brown figure straightened, craned his neck right and left, then lifted a hand and waved. At Nestor.

  "That man is not the man that I knew," Jaeda finished.

  "Look at him. He knew we were watching. He knew! He didn't even seem overly surprised when you bumped him with your magic."

  "I could do a lot more than bump him," Jaeda glowered. Nestor felt her gathering mana again, as if to make good on the threat.

  "Let it be," he said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

  Jaeda turned ice cold eyes to him for a moment, but released the mana she held. She turned again to the table, chewing her lip in thought. "So, what do we do now?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, look! He's gone, and our answers are gone with him."

  "What answers?" he chuckled. "He never told us anything outright, and never anything useful."

  "But it was something. Anything is better than nothing. He knows what this place is, what happened here, what it can do."

  "And everything that we know about this place, we learned on our own," Nestor said pointedly. "His leaving has cost us nothing, really, except some expectations that he left unmet."

  Jaeda glowered a moment more, as if unwilling to bend in her anger. Finally, she shrugged. "Well, if nothing else, now I have the fig tree all to myself."

  "You do at that," Nestor screwed up his face in distaste.

  "The question remains, though -- what do we do now?"

  He was silent for a moment as he considered her question. What did they do now? They weren't held prisoner there, and hadn't been since the day they arrived. They could leave any time they wanted to.

  But to what end? Where would they go if they left? And what would they do when they got there?

  Finally, Nestor nodded his conviction. "I am going to stay. I came here looking for a safe haven, a place where I could look for answers about the Highest. About myself. None of that has changed."

  Jaeda remained silent, still chewing her lip as she considered. "Would you mind if I stayed?" she asked finally.

  Nestor swelled a bit as he nodded. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

  * * *

  Delana leaned over the railing at the stern of the ship, watching the port city fade into the darkening east. The wind of the ship's passage blew her hair out before her in damp, stringy clumps. To her back, the storm front gave way to blue sky, allowing the setting sun to slide between the cloud cover and the water like a dagger sliding between two ribs. Occasionally, the prow of the Trident would rise on an unforgiving wave, allowing the fitful sunlight a few more feet, slicing a razor thin beam between the deck and the mainsail, only to get stuck in glittering drops on Delana's stringy tresses. She might have thought the effect to be breathtaking, had it not only served to highlight the blue-black of evening, rising like a wave over distant Stormhold. If she were honest, that rising wave of twilight fit her mood more perfectly than glittering sundrops. It was as if her whole life up to that point was receding with the shoreline, her home, her heart, everything that made her who she was. Crafter take it, it felt like she was dying right along with Reit, all over again.

  The rock of the ship was a comfort though. As was the salt air in her nose, and the racket of sailors at their work -- course language and all. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, taking it all in. For a moment, she was fourteen, leaning out over the stern of Crackerbane, Father's schooner. The heavy sway of the ship spoke to a hold full of reef cracker, and the cursing sailors her father's men, gutting and packing the fish in salted barrels for the trip upstream to Icewater Ford. She was just a fisherman's daughter, nobody of note, with no aspirations higher than watching the rough men sweating at their labors, and her trying to stay out from underfoot. She c
ould almost hear Father coming up the steps, heavy boots thumping across the deck...

  "I half expected you to be puking your guts out about now," came a voice behind her, gruff but not unappreciative.

  "I'm an old fish hag," Delana said with a smirk, turning to Harker, her amethyst eyes squarely meeting his emerald ones. "Used to be a much younger fish hag."

  "You're not that old," the captain objected, adjusting his high collar around his neck. "Not that haggish, either."

  She smiled. "I miss this life sometimes -- the freedom of the open sea, the salt water running through the crews veins like shared blood. Those were simpler times, and I was a simpler girl."

  "You regret it?" Harker asked. "Whatever it was that made you leave this life?"

  She forced a laugh, if only to cover the stubborn misting of her eyes. "Not hardly. Not for a second."

  "Your man." It wasn't a question.

  "My man," she confirmed, turning her attention back to the twilight wave and its unstoppable advance. The port city was now almost one with the darkness engulfing it. Delana offered Stormhold a bittersweet smile. I know how you feel.

  Delana swayed on her feet, and her mind grew cobwebs. She grabbed onto the railing to stabilize herself.

  Harker chuckled. "Done spent too long off the water. It's dulled your senses."

  "I guess the past week is taking its toll..." she started, noticing too late the glint in Harker's emerald eyes, blazing with wielded mana. She collapsed into his arms, her head lolling back against the neck of his coat, revealing the gills that hid beneath. Shock, confusion, anger, fear... They all rose up in her at once, but not fast enough or strong enough to stave off the sleep spell rolling in on her.

  Chapter 18

  "Uncle Mik," urged the whispered voice. "Uncle Mik."

  "I heard ye when ye first stirred from sleep, Denis," Mik answered roughly. It was too early for him to have to put up with the peasant man. Oh, he was gentle, kind, courteous, but he could be downright intolerable. Mik couldn't even water the morning flowers without Denis offering to help. "I heard ye when ye slung yer snot rocket. I could smell ye when ye marked yer spot on the leatherleaf there."