Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1)

by Michael Watson

  “The simplest shape. Try again. Hold. Form. Loose. Find the essence of the stone. The unifying rhythm.”

  She replaced her hands and mentally dug down through the ground, focusing in on the subtle thrum of potential in the stone and the echo of that rhythm in stored magicks within her. Again the rock fluidly rose from the whole of the plateau and gathered into a shape between her planted hands. This time it held together, a six-inch cube of gray rock. Tyrissa sat back, satisfied.

  “It’s no guild hall or mine tunnel, but I’ll take it,” she said, smiling at Settan.

  Settan stepped over to the little stone cube and nudged it with his bare foot. He frowned as it crumbled to pieces, though Tyrissa wasn’t surprised her creation’s poor quality.

  “Hard to judge, since you are no true Shaper. This might be remarkable for one such as you. Again.”

  She remade the cube, after a fashion. Then another and another until her supply of earth magick was exhausted and her practice space was filled with a stumpy forest of stone cubes, some more geometrically accurate than others.

  “I feel as if I can’t make anything larger,” Tyrissa said as Settan stepped through the cubes, testing each one. Some withstood his mild kicks, though many crumbled. Every attempt at a larger cube had ended in failure. The riftwinds, while strong for most applications of earthen magick, couldn’t fuel her in Shaping.

  “Hmm. It is possible that is your equivalent of a Shaper’s response to air magicks.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “When in the presence of the opposing element a Shaper’s gifts come easier. It is a reaction to the touch and presence of our primal foes. A Shaper is stronger in the Rift than on the surface. Stronger still when within an air domain. Since your form of magick is already reactionary…”

  “It responds proportionally to what I encounter.” Tyrissa said excitedly. She stood and circled around the training area, thinking it over. It explained why most elchemical devices caused no reaction, despite being made with elementally aligned materials: they were inert. The Rift and nearby active magicks were a step above that. Then Pactbound and then domains. And beyond domains… she spun on her heels toward Settan.

  “What about in the planes themselves?”

  “Then we would be as gods,” Settan replied without hesitation, as if he knew exactly what it was like.

  Tyrissa nodded thoughtfully. What strange realms have you visited, Settan?

  “Well, hopefully what I’ve learned about Shaping will be enough. I’ll have to improvise next time.” If they caught Vralin within the Crater itself, perhaps she would be stronger at Shaping just by virtue of environment.

  “Next time?”

  “This will be our last session for a while. We’re going after Vralin as soon as we can get a zeppelin south. Got any tips?”

  “Mmm. Windmages are rare these days. I have never fought one. In that regard you have more experience than I. As for Shaping, you have the basics down. It is only a matter of practice, of turning a weak construction into a strong one. It is for the best that our sessions are at an end. The Khalanheim Circle will meet soon. That will require my full attention.”

  Tyrissa saw deep concern on his face. Eidar’s reaction to her was extreme, but he was able to check his anger. Eventually. He would tell them about her and the other Shapers might not be some accommodating. She was glad to be leaving the city soon.

  “You’re going through with Eidar’s idea? You’re rejoining?”

  Settan considered her question for so long that Tyrissa thought he might not have heard it.

  “The earth moves methodically until there is a burst of fury,” the Shaper said. “Rockslides. Earthquakes. Volcanoes. The various Circles are steadily approaching such a burst. I fear that, should certain choices be made, the common people will no longer see us as so benign, so helpful. Eidar convinced me to return, to attempt to guide the Circle away from those decisions. If they have a choice at all.”

  Tyrissa felt a nebulous worry rise in her gut, well apart from the weight of stone pulled from the riftwinds. She felt that regardless of how soon they caught Vralin, the troubles caused by one Pactbound would be supplanted by another.

  “Could you be more specific, Settan?”

  He shook his head. “I really cannot, for I do not know the details.” The Shaper turned towards the tunnel that lead back up to the surface and said, “When you return to Khalanheim, try to stay in touch. It would be good to have a wild card like you around. Come. Let’s run back up one more time.”

  As usual, Settan broke into a run, leaving Tyrissa racing to catch up. After so much training, she easily kept pace with Settan and was able to savor that last run to the upper levels: the heavy air rushing through her hair, the slap of foot to stone, and the stability of earthen magick coursing through her muscles. They emerged in an alleyway of Under Crossing, not far from the crossroads that mirrored the great square above. The din of the passing traffic echoed off the cavernous ceilings, buzzing through the air and stone like the thrum of life itself.

  “Good hunting, Tyrissa. One less Windmage is one less problem. Stay solid.”

  “Stay steady, Settan.”

  With that Settan vanished back into the gloom of the earth’s depths, the sound of his feet like a departing rockslide.

  Tyrissa leaned over the top of a low fence made of rough-cut logs that ringed an artificial pond. To her left, Liran copied her pose while tossing a pinecone between his hands. She had just finished catching Liran up on recent events, revelations, and where she was bound next. It was a lot to go through as he had been equally busy with less dramatic work within his Prime. Her brother silently digested it all, staring out across the pond and the wooded grounds that fronted the headquarters of the Khalan North Trade Company.

  Angled afternoon sunlight filtered through heights of the Morgwood evergreens above them. A wide variety of tree and plant species filled the Prime’s grounds, a collection of living trophies from Khalan North’s long-range trade expeditions. Most of the grounds were in a brown and barren winter state, the leaves of autumn skittering about on the riftwinds. Pine needles and waterlogged leaves bobbed on the surface of the pond between the drooping remnants of cattails.

  “All right,” Liran said finally and with finality.

  “Just… ’all right’?”

  “Yeah. What weight does my word carry against the grand struggle among the Outer Powers and the mysterious legacy of a line of counter-elemental enforcer witches?”

  “Not much.” Tyrissa said, though it was half a lie. His word didn’t matter in the greater context, but she deeply cared about what he thought all the same.

  “We all must play with whatever hand we’re dealt. You’re headed for the Hithian Crater on some grand quest. I’m going on a joint mission between Rift Company and North to the opposite end of the Rift. Is it so different?”

  “It’s a little different,” Tyrissa said with a smile. Liran had delivered his news first: he was bound for another far-flung trade mission to a town called Asul Cercerni at the northern terminus of the Rift in the shadow of the Ten Brothers Mountains. Strange how that worked out, the two of them headed for opposite extremes of the Rift: north and south, to lands warped by air and earth domains.

  “I bet you’ll even beat me back,” he said. “I’ll put five gilders on it.”

  “I’ll take that bet, sure.”

  Liran let the pinecone roll out of his hand and fall into the pond.

  “I like how you hired a contractor to do some of the research legwork for you. That’s very… Khalan of you.”

  “All the more reason to get out of this city, it’s starting to get under my skin.”

  Liran straightened and turned toward her.

  “’Valkwitch’, though? Can’t say I care for the title.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I think I’ll stick with ‘sister’.” It was Liran’s parting gift to her, a refuge. To him, she was still just his little
sister and nothing else mattered, Pacts be damned. She pushed off the fence and threw her arms around him.

  “Thank you,” Tyrissa whispered.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  The next morning, not long after sunrise, Tyrissa and her allies waited on pier seven of the Moor district. The sounds of a dockyard buzzed around them, the hiss of ocean waves replaced by the whispers and howls of the riftwinds. The edge of the Rift was lined by a forest of cranes and mooring towers standing above piers that reached out into the open air of the canyon like metallic fingers. Dozens of zeppelins filled the mooring towers, a mix of utilitarian cargo vessels and intricately styled passenger ships. Most were bound for destinations north of Khalanheim, where the majority of Rift-side cities lay. Kexal had arranged transit south on a Rift Company cargo zeppelin named ‘Chasm Skimmer’, though specifying a Prime in regards to zeppelins was often unnecessary. The Rift Company built, owned, and operated nearly all the zeppelins flying the along the Rift.

  Tyrissa warily watched the Chasm Skimmer swaying above them at mooring tower number seven, its bulk casting a great pool of shadow in the morning’s light. The body of the zeppelin looked like a massive armored squash, the hull painted a sun-faded yellow. An armory of blades, fins, and fans bristled on the underside of the ship, all for combating the variable currents of the Rift. The impossible weight was held aloft through the union of the riftwinds’ uplifting magicks below and the metal-rimmed balloon filled with elchemy-made gases above. Zeppelins were a daily sight for her since arriving in Khalanheim, the merchant fleet that fueled the city’s fortunes. But riding on one was an entirely different matter and Tyrissa had doubts in placing her faith in the flight ability of something that looked to have no business defying gravity.

  A wide doorway gaped open on one side of the hull and a loading plank reached into the bowels of the Chasm Skimmer from the top of the mooring tower. Crewmen and dockworkers pushed wheeled carts loaded with crates of cargo into the zeppelin, unconcerned with the boarding plank’s lack of sides and the thirty-foot fall. They shouted at each other in a patois of Hithian and the common tongue, and many of them bore the sharper facial features of the fallen southern nation.

  “Doesn’t this break your rule of never being on the ocean, Kexal?” The ship was far from the stately galleons or sleek warships that came to mind when Tyrissa thought about sailing, though her impression was informed solely by stories and pictures.

  “Almost. I make an exception for zepps because you can see what may or may not be lurkin’ underneath you,” Kexal said.

  “Nothing?”

  “I’ll take that over the mystery of water.”

  The stream of cargo filling the hold of the Chasm Skimmer ended and the ship’s quartermaster waved them over to the entrance of the mooring tower. Quartermaster Kressen looked every bit the part of a grizzled sailor, though that was counterbalanced by his obvious Hithian blood. He gave Hali a deep bow and said, “Lisin’dir. If you and your friends will follow me?”

  Kressen led them into the mooring tower, a hollow three-story cylinder with walls lined in chains and machinery. “The Captain’s not pleased with having to take the Inthai route, but for the honor of carrying you? We’ll take the extra days without complaint.”

  “Thank you, Kressen.” Hali said.

  “Kexal, how much of this arrangement is your doing and how much is Hali’s?” Tyrissa asked in a low voice.

  “I may have dropped a few names in the process,” Kexal replied with a sly grin

  The quartermaster went to a control panel on one side of the circular lift and pulled a lever. With the creak of ropes and rattle of taut chains, the platform rumbled its way up the tower.

  Kressen spoke louder over the noise. “We’ll moor at Dovenell in three days and arrive at New Inthai in eight, if the winds be good. The remaining nights will likely be at outpost towers.” Zeppelins didn’t fly by night, when the darkness hid the slight changes in the riftwinds that could result in a disastrous collision with the canyon walls. The outpost towers were little more than a place to tie down and wait for the dawn.

  Eight days. It had already been three since their failed capture attempt in the depths below the city and Vralin’s lead would be widened considerably if he had found a faster ship. From the maps Tyrissa studied the night before, the Hithian settlement of New Inthai was the end of the line when it came to Rift transit. It lay at the southern end of the Rift, just below the rim of the Hithian Crater. It was also Tsellien and Vralin’s hometown. Tyrissa patted the Tsellien’s Valkwitch emblem in her pocket. There was an important secondary task she would have to see to while in New Inthai.

  The lift shuddered to a halt and Kressen led them across the scuffed boarding platform into the Chasm Skimmer. As soon as they stepped aboard, Tyrissa could feel the rhythmic drift and tug of the ship bobbing in place. Within the hold, the ship’s crew stacked and secured a maze of crates and sacks for the journey and below the din of the crew at work Tyrissa could hear the mechanical grind and whirl of the machinery that lined kept the zeppelin aloft. They ascended to the deck above where the brief tour ended at a door in a shoulder-width hallway. Nearby, light streamed in from an open trap door at the top of a short flight of narrow stairs that led to the top deck.

  “We’re no pleasure cruise and the passenger space is tight, but I think you’ll manage,” Kressen said. “The top deck’s always open if sometimes cold at night. We should have clear weather this time of year.” The passenger cabin was a barren wooden cube with a pair of hammocks tied to the ceiling, a few secured cots, and a fold-out table opposite the door. A framed horizontal map of the Rift stuck to the wall above the table was the only piece of décor.

  “Master Guldres let me know the score, who you’re chasing. I knew men on the expedition that Windmage tore up. Good men. Send him on to hell for me, yeah?”

  “That’s the plan, Quartermaster,” Kexal said. “Thank you kindly for the hospitality.”

  Kressen nodded and excused himself.

  The faint recoil of the zeppelin tugging against its mooring tower was suddenly gone and there was only the feeling of being detached. The Chasm Skimmer had cast off. Tyrissa set down her light pack of supplies and staff and followed the quartermaster to the top deck.

  She emerged toward the rear of the ship and stood aside to watch as the crew hurried about and saw to a hundred small tasks. The top deck of the zeppelin had all the charm of a spacious cage. Flexible mesh enclosed the deck, rising from the railing of the ship to connect with the metal rims and rigging of the balloon above. A gust sliced across the deck, the mesh a safeguard against the assured death from being swept overboard but doing nothing to dampen the winds. The gust faded back to the typical riftwind breeze that tossed any loose hair or clothing in the slow, aquatic way that Tyrissa had grown accustomed to in her training sessions with Settan.

  Tyrissa felt the familiar growth of earth magick rise in her core, though this high in the Rift the intensity was much weaker. In a coat pocket, she felt the weight of a smooth palm-sized rock, brought along as an outlet for what she absorbed and to practice Shaping. It was small enough to be discrete, as she suspected any flagrant displays of pact magick wouldn’t be welcome on the ship.

  A platform with a grated floor extended from the rear of the ship like a tail. There, a pair of crewmen let a weighted rope fall overboard through a foot-wide trap door. Pennants in a repeating pattern of colors marked the rope at regular intervals. Shortly after the rope snapped against its spool one of the crewmen called out, “Strong southerlies three-fifty down Captain!”

  “Three-fifty down,” came the captain’s response from nest of levers and wheels atop the raised dais at the center of the deck. “Begin the descent, Mr. Forlan.” The squeal of metal springing into motion sounded above the winds as the array of fans and turbines came alive under the ship.

  Tyrissa found a spot on the mesh wall well away from any mechanisms or ropes or ladders. She curled her fingers throu
gh the mesh and watched with a hint of wistfulness as the Chasm Skimmer dropped deeper into the Rift’s stony embrace and the city of Khalanheim rose and retreated from sight.

  There was little to do each day but practice, either improving her Shaping or sparring with Kexal, and the second activity became a source of entertainment for the crew. The Chasm Skimmer’s cruising depth ranged between two hundred and a thousand feet, leaving little to see other than monotonous rock walls during daylight hours. No pleasure cruise indeed. They rose above the edge of the Rift to moor for the night at lonely towers hanging over the edge of the Rift in the middle of nowhere, the great canyon’s equivalent of lighthouses and safe harbor. The towers were manned by lone dockmasters that Kexal found quite incorruptible, unwilling to speak of which zeppelins might or might not have pass through recently. Apparently they had no desire to risk their hermit-like jobs.

  Garth turned their quarters into a makeshift workshop to put the finishing touches on their ‘trump card’. Wolef managed to sleep through the mute Jalarni’s tinkering, taking the journey to shift his sleep schedule to a more normal rhythm. Tyrissa saw little of either of them, preferring to stay on deck. She favored sitting on the rear sounding platform. Encased more closely in the ship’s mesh walls, she felt slightly more immersed in the riftwinds that flowed around the zeppelin. She practiced Shaping and was soon able to split the stone into many fragments and meld them back together with ease, as well as mold it into more complex shapes. With as many hours as she had, the process was growing boring. She needed more. More stone to work with and stronger winds to fuel her. Sometimes she would simply sit there in a meditative state and watch as the Rift drifted by, trying to isolate the faint air magick signature of the zeppelin’s turbines and fans from the encompassing riftwinds.