“Someone’s messing with the bend? The earth’s bend?”
Alayne nodded. “It’s—it’s messed up. Only the earth element. It doesn’t feel right. The rest of the elements feel normal.”
“Can you tell where the bend is coming from?”
Alayne again shook her head. “No. I can’t get any sense of direction. It’s only in the earth here at the base camp.”
Sprynge glanced back at the girls, and his eyes narrowed at their whispering. “I’ll go ahead and search this side of the street, and the three of you can look over there.” He motioned across the gravel to the opposite buildings.
“I’ll come with you, Professor. Two pairs of eyes can find things better than one pair.” Marysa hurried to his side and led the way toward the first building. “Let us know if you see anything,” she called to Alayne.
Sprynge followed Marysa, and Alayne hurried across the gravel road with Kyle.
He bypassed her and tried the handle of the café’s front door. It was locked. “Watch out,” he warned Alayne. He put his shoulder against the door and slammed his weight against the glass. The glass shuddered. He tried again, and the glass broke on the second impact.
Kyle reached inside the shattered opening and unlocked the door, pushing it open.
“I guess there’s no going back now,” Alayne murmured as her boots crunched across broken glass on the floor of the café.
Kyle stepped in behind her. “Hello? Anyone here?”
The silence that greeted them was not unexpected. Alayne glanced around at the tables. Despite the layer of dust, the place looked ready to serve. Silverware sat bundled neatly into napkins in a basket on the front counter. The old-fashioned, glass-encased cooler was empty, but its light flickered weakly on the bare shelves.
Alayne made her way to the back of the room and through the open door into the kitchen. Dishes and utensils hung from various hooks. A huge grill sat next to a dishwasher. Four aprons hung in the corner. A sign across the back wall read, “Caryn’s Café.”
Alayne turned back to Kyle and shook her head. “Whoever owned it left all their stuff here. Let’s try the next place.”
They went from one building to the next. Across the street, Marysa and Sprynge didn’t seem to be having any better luck. Alayne and Kyle finished the last building on their row and glanced across the street. Sprynge and Marysa still had three more buildings. Alayne could see them through the window of the small hotel, searching behind the lobby’s counter.
“Let’s take the post office.” They hurried across the road and entered the front door.
Alayne looked in awe at some of the antique devices: a mail-sorter, an envelope sealer. “Did someone not tell these people that this stuff went out before the Great Deluge?”
Kyle pointed to the monitoring room where mail was sent via MIU. “They had some up-to-date stuff.”
They wandered through the building toward a door marked “Shipping.” This door was made of wood, and once again, it shuddered open before Kyle’s shoulder.
The pungent odor almost knocked them backward. Alayne immediately clapped her hand over her nose, her eyes watering. “What is that smell?”
Kyle strode across the room, shoving carts with huge mailbags hanging in the middle of them out of the way. He reached the far wall, where the last cart’s bag hung a little lower than the others. Alayne followed behind him, the queasiness in her stomach turning into a painful knot of dread.
Kyle reached into the bag and pulled back its mouth. “That’s the smell,” he said grimly.
Chairman Dorner lay stiffly inside the bag, his head tilted back, his sky-blue eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
Chapter 18
Alayne stumbled back outside, clutching her stomach, dry heaving over the edge of the boardwalk. Marysa and Sprynge had just exited the hotel. Alarm spread across Sprynge’s face, and he started to speak, but Marysa beat him to the punch.
“What happened? What did you find?”
Kyle appeared at Alayne’s side. “In there,” he murmured to Sprynge. “In the back room.”
Sprynge ran past them into the post office as Kyle filled in Marysa. Alayne stared numbly at her feet.
Sprynge returned, his face grave. He came to stand with the group and looked out over the cliffs. Clasping his hands behind his back, he paced in the gravel for a few minutes. Finally, he stopped and took a deep breath. “I’m afraid this is far more serious than I ever imagined.”
Kyle wordlessly held up an object. Alayne blinked as she zeroed in on it. It was a tiny badge, no bigger than her thumb nail. “LO” was stamped on it.
When Sprynge saw the badge, he asked sharply, “Where did you get that?”
“It was on Dorner,” Kyle murmured, handing it to him. “What does it mean?”
Sprynge studied the badge for a long moment before answering. “It means,” he shoved the badge into his pocket, his cheeks flushed against the sea breeze, “that Dorner was a member of the Last Order.”
“What’s that?” Marysa asked.
“A secret group dedicated to the cause of disrupting the Elemental Alliance and everything it stands for.”
“If it’s a secret group, how do you know about it?” Marysa asked. She added quickly, “With all due respect, sir.”
Sprynge raised a bushy eyebrow. “Young lady, my position as deputy Chairman gives me many connections in the Capital and the High Court. The Last Order is a secret that hides behind a lot of whispers.”
The weight of Sprynge’s words smothered them. “So it’s true,” Alayne said. “The Casters are responsible for Dorner’s death and have buried the rest of the students in a cave somewhere.”
“But why? Why leave them alive when they went so far as to kill Dorner?” Marysa asked.
Sprynge didn’t answer. He looked up and down the street. “I’m going to take a walk to clear my head. Maybe something will come to me.” He turned and wandered to the dirt path that led along the clifftops. His lonely figure cut a dark gash against the sky as he walked, head bent, hands deep in his coat pockets.
Alayne stared after him. “Well, that was stunningly helpful.”
“Be nice to the poor man,” Marysa scolded. “It’s a difficult situation.”
“What are those for?” Alayne asked, pointing at two large coils of rope that hung over Marysa’s shoulder.
Marysa hitched them higher. “In the hunting and fishing store, they still had some rope in stock. I figured if we have to go looking through any caves, we might need it, so I helped myself.”
Kyle looked around. “I’m hungry. I’m going back to the café to see if there’s anything we missed. Want to come?”
Both girls shook their heads. Kyle shrugged and ambled off down the street.
Alayne and Marysa walked to the edge of the street. The wind flowing over the cliffs whipped Alayne's braid over her shoulder. She lifted her hand to shade her eyes against the sun. “I wonder how many square miles that is,” she murmured, “and which particular square mile contains Jayme and the others.”
Marysa squeezed Alayne's shoulder. “We'll find them. We're here, aren't we? There's got to be a clue.”
But as Alayne stared out over the cliffs and the sea surging against them, hopelessness filled her. “It's just so big. Where can we even start?”
Marysa didn't answer. She stepped forward, her eyes narrowed. “What's that?”
Alayne followed her gaze. In the distance, so small it was nearly a dot, a square of red fluttered against the rock cliffs, just above the surf line.
“Is that—” Alayne couldn't breathe. “Is that a shirt?”
Excitement crept into Marysa's voice. “I think it is.” Then she shouted, “Kyle, come see this!”
Kyle appeared at their side a moment later. “What are you looking at?”
“There's someone's shirt over there, hanging from that opening in the cliff.”
The cliffs barricaded the sea for at least half a mile, and
a narrow ribbon of land along the top of them widened into a broad tundra that formed the far side of the canyons. The water crashed against the cliffs, sending huge sprays of white foam flying into the air.
“It is an opening. Well done, Alayne,” Kyle said. Almost invisible at this distance, a black hole in the rock hid behind a crag.
Her eyes quickly measured the distance between where they stood and the cliff, and then along the cliff tops to Professor Sprynge, who was already halfway there. “Let's run.” She sprinted down the gravel path toward the sandy one.
The four of them stood on top of the cliff, staring down at the surging water below. Kyle flopped on his belly and leaned out over the cliff for a better look. “The cave is a good fifteen feet above the surf line, and the shirt is wedged into a crevice in the cliff face.”
Alayne squatted near the edge and concentrated on the water element below her. She reached out for it, but it kept slipping out of her grasp. Every time she closed her hold, the element jumped back, as if a barrier stood in her way. Alayne huffed in frustration.
“What’s wrong?” Marysa asked.
Alayne shook her head. “I—don’t know. I can’t get hold of the water.”
Marysa squatted down beside her and surveyed the splashing waves below.
“It’s not just the water,” Alayne whispered to her. “None of the elements are available. Someone’s holding them out of reach.”
“Let me try.” Sprynge looked up at the pearly white winter sky and squinted. Alayne could see him straining physically; his face turned red and beads of sweat formed along his upper lip. At last, he let out a breath. “No, I can’t either. Whoever is holding the elements is using teamwork, and a lot of it.”
Kyle stripped out of his coat and shirt. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to do it without the elements.” He dropped the clothing on the ground.
Alayne stared at him. “You’re not jumping in there.”
“I am jumping in there.”
“Kyle, you’ll die, and then we’ll waste a whole lot of time fishing your poor dead body out of the sea so we can drag it back to Clayborne and get in touch with your parents to tell them they don’t have a son anymore because he went cliff diving. What would we even get your body out with, anyway? We have no boat.” Alayne’s voice had risen to a shout by the last word.
“We have rope,” Marysa said helpfully, holding up one of her rope coils. “Remember?” She began unraveling it, throwing lengths to Alayne.
Alayne caught the rope, knotting it every four or five feet.
Kyle picked up one end of the rope and measured lengths with his arms. He tossed one end over the edge of the cliff, slowly feeding it out as Alayne finished knotting. He leaned over the edge to gauge how much more rope they needed. “Maybe half the other reel, Layne. I’m gonna guess that they’re going to be too weak to climb, so I’m going to put together a makeshift harness to bring them up with me, one by one.”
“Anybody got a knife?” Alayne muttered, surprised at how spoiled she was already by being able to use the elements rather than normal everyday Natural Human tools. She wished she could burn the rope in two.
Sprynge shook his head. “No, but I’ve got this little pocket tool.” He fished it out of his pocket and tossed it to Alayne. She glanced up at him as she caught it, startled to see that his face was still a deep red. His hands seemed to be trembling.
“Are you okay, sir?”
Sprynge’s eyebrows winged upward. “Me? Certainly, certainly. I’m fine.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his forehead. “It’s nothing.”
Alayne nodded uncertainly and then began the painstaking process of shredding rope fibers with the small folding blade from the tool.
Kyle knotted the other end of the rope together into a harness, and as soon as Alayne had severed the rope, he slipped it up around his legs and tightened the slip knot.
“That’s a harness?” Alayne eyed the contraption doubtfully.
“Of sorts.” Kyle shrugged. “It should at least keep the person attached to me on the climb back up.” He cinched the harness tighter around his waist. “This would be so much easier if we had access to the elements.”
Alayne watched him as he gave the rope one final adjustment and stepped to the edge of the cliff. “Aren’t you going to put your shirt back on?” She glanced at his muscled chest before snapping her gaze back to his face.
He threw her a saucy grin. “This is for your benefit.” A birch sapling stood near the edge of the cliff. Kyle wound the rope around it, anchoring it there. He left the remainder draped over the edge. Marysa still held the coil in her hands, and Alayne took hold of the rope on the far side of the tree.
Kyle nodded to the group and lowered himself backward over the cliff.
Alayne squatted on the edge, both hands still gripping the rope, and watched Kyle shimmy toward the cave at least a hundred feet below. She tried to keep the rope steady, but as he bounced against the stone wall time and time again, it grew difficult.
“Is he almost there?” Marysa called.
“About halfway.” Alayne kept her eyes trained on Kyle. What if he slips? There’s nothing between him and the ocean. The waves crashed against the cliff. Flecks of foam flew as high as Kyle and splotched his pants with moisture. She glanced up at the sun, wondering when the tide would come in.
Something changed in the air around them, an element bend, a powerful one, but unlike any Alayne had ever felt. She couldn’t put a name on it, couldn’t assign it to any one of the four.
Marysa’s voice croaked behind her. “Layne.” The timbre of her voice whipped Alayne’s head around.
Three people stood there, and Alayne recognized their faces at once. They were the three missing professors—Walters, Pepper, and Foy.
Alayne stood, trying to steady the trembling in her knees. She retraced her steps to the tree, her hand still on the rope. “Why are you here?” she asked.
Pepper gestured at the tree that anchored the rope. With a quick dip, a branch reached for the rope and twisted around it. The element gave a powerful yank, snapping the rope.
“No!” Alayne dove for the loose end, her fingertips brushing the frayed end of the rope as it slid away. Her momentum was too great.
She slipped over the cliff.
Kyle, below her, scrambled frantically as the rope bounced free. He hit the opening of the cave, and his hand caught hold. Alayne fell alongside the cliff face, past the red shirt, past Kyle as he made a wild grab for her, but missed.
Another fifteen feet of foam-flecked air passed, and Alayne struck the surface of the water. The water surged around her, tossing her like a rag doll at the rock wall.
Sheer panic spurred her reflexes. She pulled up a five-foot wall of water and held it against the rock, barely remembering to wonder why the elements were suddenly available. The current threw her into the water cushion, softening her thud against the cliff. She smoothed the water out in a ten-foot circle around her so that it lay as still as glass. She treaded water for a moment as she struggled with the powerful ocean currents just outside her ten-foot circle. “Rope,” she gasped at Kyle, who had managed to swing himself up into the cave. He held the remainder of the rope in one hand.
“Here!” He tossed it down to her, arranging himself into a sitting position and wrapping the excess rope around his shoulders.
Alayne grasped the rope and practically walked up the side of the cliff while Kyle hauled her up hand over hand. She collapsed, gasping, in the mouth of the cave.
“What happened?”
“We’ve got—company.” Alayne pushed herself up and spit out water.
“How many?”
“Three. Those three missing professors. One’s an Earth-Mover.”
“Sprynge and Marysa?”
Alayne shrugged. “I don’t know. I was too busy falling.”
“We gotta hurry.” Kyle rose to his feet and gave Alayne a hand up. The mouth of the cave narrowed into a
small dark tunnel that led back into the darkness. Alayne moved ahead, Kyle following close behind her. He nicked her heels with his shoe and cursed. “Wish I had a light.”
Alayne wished she dared to make a flame, but still didn’t want to risk Kyle knowing that she could. So much could go wrong. With one hand on the wall and the other in front of her, she felt her way through the darkness. Her stomach cramped, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since supper the night before.
At long last, a dim glow appeared ahead. Alayne dropped her hand from the wall and ran toward it. The glow grew steadily brighter, until there it was at last—the same fire she had seen in her mirror. It was mostly smoldering embers now, the wood nearly burned up.
“Jayme?” The word burst from her lips before she could stop it. The figures lying around the fire didn’t stir. “Where are you?”
She ran toward the fire. She found Jayme on the far side of it, his emaciated form collapsed against a rock. His eyes were closed, and every breath he exhaled was accompanied by a moan.
Alayne dropped to her knees beside him, reaching for his face.
Kyle’s voice stopped her. “Don’t touch him. Looks like we might have a few cases of dysentery here.” He motioned toward a dark region of the cave from which a less-than-pleasant smell emanated. “There’s blood and—human waste,” he murmured, and Alayne shuddered. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s catching.”
Alayne’s hand faltered. “But you’ll have to touch them to get them out of here.”
Kyle squatted to check the others. “You said the elements are working again, right? Between you and me, we can make some water pallets to get them up on the cliffs. Plus, if they have fevers, the water will help to cool them down.” He sighed and shook his head. “I’m guessing dehydration, starvation, the aforementioned dysentery and a good case of pneumonia multiplied by,” he counted quickly, “fifteen people. That’s everyone on the trip, right?”
“Yes, so we haven’t lost anybody yet. They must have had water all this time.” Alayne glanced around at the students as they sprawled on the floor of the cave. Her shoe kicked a canteen on the cave floor. She picked it up and unscrewed the top. “Empty. They used it as long as they could.”
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