He moved back to Baron Arent’s side.
“How are the preparations coming, Prime Wielder?” The Baron’s tone was mild, but Augustus grimaced.
“As well as can be expected, my lord Baron.” Augustus’ eyes flicked toward Hagger and Allan and both Baron Arent and Daedallen turned to look.
Daedallen waved Hagger forward, Allan at his heels. “Report.”
“We raided the house the Kormanley priest revealed to us during his interrogation and found a hidden room and two more Kormanley inside. We questioned them at the site, but they did not break. The entire contents of the room are being hauled back to the Amber Tower for inspection, along with the two prisoners. I expect they will be more forthcoming there.”
“What was found in the room?”
“There were books, maps, a set of pages with notes, and a few skins of oil. We believe the skins are like those used by the priest who set fire to himself at the sowing.”
Baron Arent stirred, face troubled. “So they are planning more immolations?”
Hagger bowed his head. “So it would seem.”
Prime Wielder Augustus cleared his throat. “You said there were notes? And maps?”
Hagger deferred to Allan. With a nervous start, he reached into his pocket and retrieved the pages, handing them over to Augustus, who snatched them from his grasp. As the Prime Wielder began glancing through them, he said, “These were scattered on the table that held the oil. I couldn’t decipher the notations, but I think there’s something in the maps that I’m not quite seeing. Something important. There was also a banner over the table with a strange symbol on it.”
The man Allan didn’t know glanced up sharply. “What symbol?” Allan realized he must come from the University, like some of those helping the Wielders with the subtower.
“A wavy vertical line with a straight line branching off from it. Like this.” Allan knelt and sketched the symbol in the dust of the flagstones of the plaza.
Augustus snorted in contempt.
“You recognize this symbol?” Baron Arent asked.
Arent addressed the question to Augustus, but the man from the University answered. “It’s the symbol of convergence, of a return to the natural order. See how the straight line converges with the vertical one? The Kormanley must have adopted it as their own.”
“Does it have any other meanings, Sovaan? Anything subversive?”
“Only in the sense that the Kormanley have apparently adopted it.”
Augustus turned back to the pages with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s nonsense.” He rifled through them, his brow creasing in consternation as he glared at the notations. His lips moved as if he were muttering to himself, but Allan couldn’t catch any of the words.
And then he stilled, his eyes going wide.
“What is it?” Baron Arent asked.
Augustus stared at him in shock. “These maps . . . they’re all of the locations of the subtowers, along with a few of the ley stations and nodes.”
Sovaan frowned. “Let me see.”
“Which means what?” Daedallen asked as Augustus handed the notes over to Sovaan. He had shifted slightly forward, reacting to the edge in Augustus’ voice.
“It means that the Kormanley are targeting the subtowers. Or at least the Wielders who are set to guard them.”
“I agree,” Sovaan added. “All of their notes reference the new locations of the subtowers, even those we haven’t sown yet.”
Everyone remained silent as what Augustus and Sovaan said sank in.
Then Baron Arent said, “Can they disrupt the process from these subtowers?”
“Once the subtowers are activated, they could only disrupt it by destroying the spires.”
“How long before all of the subtowers are activated?”
Augustus frowned. “Ten days. After that, only the main tower within Grass needs to be activated for the new network to begin working.”
Baron Arent turned toward Daedallen. “I find it hard to believe that these skins of oil would be enough to bring down one of the subtowers. They must be planning something to halt their activation instead. I want an increased guard on the subtowers until the unveiling in two weeks.”
“The Dogs will handle it.”
“I’ll have additional Wielders stationed at the sites as well, just in case.”
Daedallen tensed, as if offended, but the Baron settled him with a cool look.
Barthen, the Wielder who had organized the others while Augustus was occupied, moved to the Prime Wielder’s side. “We’re ready to activate the spire.”
Augustus immediately turned away, staring up at the tower overhead. With a quick nod of approval from Sovaan, he said, “Proceed.” His voice had hardened, his attention so focused that the Baron, Daedallen, and the rest of the Dogs were forgotten. His intensity made Allan’s skin crawl and he was suddenly thankful that he was not one of the Wielders beneath Augustus’ hand. He would hate to have that gaze settled on him fully. The scrutiny of the Baron was hard enough.
Hagger gasped and Allan focused on the array of Wielders and University mentors beyond. All of them had their eyes closed, hands folded casually before them, and yet their faces were pinched in concentration. Three paces from Allan, Augustus’ breathing slowed and fell into a steady rhythm, drawn in through his nose and out through his mouth. The others appeared to follow suit, until those nearest matched Augustus. Sovaan had drifted to one side, scanning those from the University. Augustus may have created the Nexus, but it required the skills of those from the University to help channel such large energies into its appropriate uses.
Both Baron Arent and Daedallen had tensed and were staring up at the tower in anticipation.
“Can’t you feel it?” Hagger asked, his voice a low rumble. Allan noticed that the hairs on Hagger’s arm were standing on end. “It’s the same as it was at the party.”
Allan shook his head. “I don’t feel anything. I didn’t feel anything at the party either.”
Hagger shivered and ran his hands up and down his arms. “It isn’t unpleasant. It just . . . prickles.”
Before Allan could respond—shifting awkwardly as he strove to feel something, anything—Augustus grimaced as if in pain.
Baron Arent immediately stepped forward. “What is it?”
Augustus shook his head, a curt gesture. “Something is disrupting the ley field. I can’t pinpoint what or where it is, though.”
“I sense it as well,” Sovaan said.
Daedallen instantly scanned the people who had gathered on the plaza or were passing through, eyes darting from face to face. Hagger and Allan responded as well, stepping away, hands falling to their swords.
“Could it be the Kormanley?” Daedallen asked.
“I don’t know,” Augustus snapped.
Baron Arent nodded and with a sharp gesture of his hand Daedallen ordered the nearest Dogs, including Hagger and Allan, out into the crowd.
Allan split off from Hagger, but kept him in sight, the crowd parting before him, most with a sudden look of fear crossing their faces. He clenched his jaw, felt his face harden, and slid past the terrified citizens. Even though they moved out of his way, their attention was still focused on the spire and the Wielders working beneath it. One woman cried out when she saw him, jumping to one side. A young boy gasped and fled for a side street. Allan tore after him, shoved people aside with low curses, then realized the boy was merely a pickpocket. He growled, letting him go. He searched the press of people, others scattering as the Dogs worked their way through the crowd, but he saw no one in the white robes of the Kormanley priests, no one acting suspicious.
Then everyone in the group gasped, a few hands pointing upward.
Allan spun and caught the first edges of white light as it surged through the inside of the tower, bleeding out through
cracks in the spire’s side as it rose. In the space of two breaths, it spiked to the top of the tower and exploded outward in a flare of light that made the crowd cry out and shy away, hands raised to cover their eyes. Allan squinted, head tilted to one side, but after a few pulses the light subsided to a bearable level.
After a few moments, Allan realized that the light wasn’t going to fade completely. It seeped from the cracks in the tower, making it look more like the texture of bark, and burned at the apex like the beacon of a lighthouse.
“I guess they handled the disruption,” Hagger muttered, coming up on Allan’s right. “I wonder what it was?”
Allan didn’t say anything, suppressing a surge of fear. He suspected he’d caused the disruption himself, simply by being near Augustus and Sovaan and the others as they worked. He’d been in Erenthrall long enough to notice that whenever he was close to objects powered by the ley, they flickered or, in some cases, died completely. He didn’t understand why it happened, but he knew he didn’t want Hagger, or anyone else for that matter, to find out. So he kept himself as far from ley-powered objects as he could, knowing through some careful experimentation of his own that a little distance—five feet or more—usually resolved the problem. Although it did appear to be getting worse.
They stared at the tower as the crowd around them broke out into hushed conversation, some of the people scurrying away. Allan eyed them all warily, but no one approached the Wielders or the protective circle of Dogs that stood around Baron Arent and Augustus. Everyone’s attention appeared focused on the spire and the white light that burned within it.
Hagger gripped Allan’s shoulder and pushed him toward Daedallen. “Let’s go. We’re going to be busy in the next few weeks, what with the Kormanley and these subtowers to activate. There are still eleven more to go.”
Allan sighed. He had hoped to make it back to the barracks and Grass in time to catch Moira as she passed through the inner gardens on her way home from work in the Amber Tower. He had only seen her a few times since meeting her at the sowing, but he definitely wanted to see her again.
Hagger chuckled and shook his head, as if he knew why Allan had sighed, then growled, “Welcome to the Dogs, Pup.”
Kara felt the surge of power through her feet, energy tingling in her soles and sending shivers up her spine.
She halted dead in her tracks and turned, even as Cory and Justin gasped on either side of her. Cory grabbed her arm, so hard she winced, and pointed. “Look!”
From the street where they’d fled after seeing the Dogs, they could see one of the spires that had been grown nearly a week before. Eleven others had been grown throughout the city; she’d heard the hawkers talking about it in the market.
Now, the spire in Green glowed with an internal light, appearing cracked, like shattered flagstone. A steady light glared out of the top, like a fiery white star. Kara could feel the energies beneath her feet as they rearranged themselves, patterns shifting into new flows. The air tingled against her skin. She glanced toward the two other spires they could see from their location, but they remained empty.
She didn’t think they would stay that way for long. Whatever the Wielders were doing, it was progressing fast. Not even Ischua knew what the Prime Wielder was attempting, but he claimed it was because he was only a Tender.
When it became obvious that nothing else was going to happen with the spire, Kara pulled her arm from Cory’s grasp, rubbing the bruised flesh. She glared at him, saw him shrug in apology, then noticed that everyone else on the street had halted to watch the spire as well. They were close to home, only a few streets away. At the intersection ahead, a group of young mothers had been bathing their small children in the fountain, but now they stood in a small huddle, children on their hips, pointing toward Green. A merchant on horseback had halted as well and spoke to a group of younger men who stood nearby, all of them talking excitedly. One or two others had paused, but were now moving on their way again.
Then, abruptly, Kara said, “What’s that sound?”
Cory, who had begun chattering with Justin, quieted. “What sound?”
“That sound,” Kara said curtly. “Can’t you hear it?”
She grimaced as the high-pitched buzzing noise increased. At first, it had barely registered, more of an annoyance, like a bug flying too close to her ear. But as it increased, it steadied, became a high-pitched whine. Both Justin and Cory winced, Justin covering his ears with his hands. The adults on the street and in the intersection ahead suddenly turned and began searching for the source of the sound. A couple of the infants began crying. The mothers hushed them and bounced them up and down, then began hastily gathering up clothes and bags and toys. Out of the corner of her eye, Kara caught a flare of white light, nothing more than a candle’s flame. The sound escalated—
Then abruptly cut off.
Kara drew in a sharp breath and held it, turning toward where she’d seen the small flicker of light. It held there, hovering in midair, flaring once.
Before she could point it out to Cory or Justin, it collapsed in upon itself.
Tension bled through the air, caressing her skin. Pressure built as the adults glanced around, a few of the men shrugging, the women glaring uncertainly at nothing, lips pursed.
“Kara—” Cory began, fidgeting, reaching out toward her as if for reassurance.
And then the air before Kara wrenched and tore open.
She cried out and stumbled backward a step, throwing up a hand to ward away the small flare of color that bloomed where the light had been. It unfolded like a flower, arms of distortion swirling outward as it spun. It expanded until it was the size of an orange, small enough to fit in the palm of one hand, and then the coruscating arms of red and orange slowed and halted.
Kara lowered her arm, Cory breathing hard behind her, as if he’d just sprinted all the way from school to reach her. One of the men shouted in dismay and pointed, even though Kara, Cory, and Justin were far closer to the strange, colorful light than anyone else. Through the air, Kara could feel the wrongness of the light, even though it was beautiful. Like something the glasswrights would produce for one of their aristocratic patrons. Intrigued, Kara stepped toward it, reached out a hand as if to pluck it from the air, but she halted when Cory shouted, “Don’t!” Even without touching it, she could sense it, the air around it somehow brittle and cold, frozen like ice.
She shuddered.
“Don’t go near it!” the merchant commanded, riding forward on his horse and motioning everyone else back.
“What is it?” one of the mothers asked. A few of them had already fled from the fountain, but two remained behind. One of them ignored the merchant and stepped closer, eyes wide, hand half raised, as if enchanted by it, even as she kept her body canted to protect her little girl.
The merchant glared at her, then cast his frown on Kara, eyes glinting. But Kara saw a layer of fear beneath the glare. “I don’t know,” he said gruffly, “but someone should summon a Wielder. They’ll know what it is, and what to do about it.”
No one moved, and a moment later the strange distortion flared and pulled in upon itself, vanishing without a sound.
Someone exhaled harshly, as if they’d been holding their breath the entire time. The mother sighed in disappointment. The merchant’s horse stamped its foot and snorted as its rider frowned down at where the flare of colorful light had been.
Kara turned to face Cory, his face creased in confusion and worry.
“What was it?” he asked, as if Kara would have the answer.
She shook her head. “Let’s get out of here before the Dogs or Wielders show up.”
Six
“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Cory asked breathlessly. He was trotting to keep up with Kara as she led them through Eld’s marketplace, Justin trailing behind doggedly. Justin’s eyes kept flicking toward the crowds of hawkers and customers,
head bowed, brow furrowed deep with concern. She could almost feel him vibrating with tension without even glancing back, a strange counterpoint to her own excitement.
“The ley station,” she answered.
Cory paused, startled, then rushed to catch up. “Why are we going there? We aren’t allowed to take the ley barges, not without our parents along. We aren’t even supposed to leave Eld.”
Kara didn’t answer, focused on pushing through the crowd, cutting between a stall selling colorful shawls from the Gorrani Flats to the south and a man with a blanket spread on the market’s flagstones to display crude pottery. But Cory snagged her arm on the far side, forcing her to halt. Justin sidled up behind them, standing closer than he normally did, ignoring them as he scanned the flow of people behind them.
“Where are we going, Kara?”
She could hear the anger that had edged Cory’s voice since she’d told him she’d be leaving for the Wielders’ school. She hated it—it set her teeth on edge and made the skin at the nape of her neck crawl—but she didn’t know what to do or say to Cory to make it go away.
So when she answered, her tone was curt. “We’re going to the Eld ley station. I heard they’re activating one of those subtowers in Shadow today.” When Cory’s eyes widened with the same excitement she’d felt since that morning—when she’d planned their escape from her father, who thought she and Cory were headed down to the riverfront—all of her annoyance with Cory’s tone fled. She grinned. “I wanted it to be a surprise, but we’re going to go see it! I’ve got three passes for the barges and three more to get back. The subtower is supposed to be lit this afternoon, so we have to hur—”
“Wait. Shadow?” Cory barked. “You want to go to Shadow? That’s three districts away! And my father says there’s nothing there but thieves and cutthroats, as bad as Eastend. He won’t even deliver candles to that area!”
Kara rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “It can’t be that bad. Besides, we missed the subtowers being activated in Green and Hedge. All of the rest are too far away. This is the only chance we’ll get to see one.”
Shattering the Ley Page 9
