Shattering the Ley

by Joshua Palmatier

  “We’re here to see about the problem with the ley stream,” he said, the guards straightening as they approached.

  The elder of the two guards nodded. “Aye, the eddy. It hasn’t affected any of the barges yet, but it’s disturbing some of the passengers. I’ll take you down right away.”

  He muttered something to the remaining guard, who nodded, then motioned them toward one of the corridors. They descended toward the platform below, the people of Erenthrall streaming past them in both directions. A few of them shot the Wielders curious looks, but most were too intent on reaching their own destination.

  “I can’t say as I’ve ever seen anything like this,” the guard said as they hit the platform and he turned right, heading straight for the ley stream on that side. “Although I hear there have been other instances at other stations.”

  At the edge of the platform, he halted and nodded toward the bed below.

  Kara hung back as Marcus stepped up beside the guard. The ley pathway flowed past in a deep channel, the white light bright enough to illuminate the entire platform without the need for any globes. Normally, it held steady, carrying the barges from one station to the next.

  But in this stream, perhaps an arm’s length beyond the edge of the platform, a vortex had formed, the light twisting and swirling like a whirlpool on water. Riptides had formed around the vortex, evident as ripples on the surface of the ley. Even at this distance, Kara could feel the disruption to the Tapestry that had caused it, like a wrinkle in fabric.

  Marcus gave the guard a reassuring smile. “This happens all the time,” he said, even as he shot Kara a troubled look. “It’s easy enough to repair. If you’ll step back next to Kara, I can handle it myself.”

  The elderly guard frowned, but moved back, hands on his hips as he watched Marcus kneel down and raise his arm toward the distortion. Kara wasn’t certain what the guard expected to see. What Marcus intended to do wouldn’t be visible to those who couldn’t sense the Tapestry. He’d only see the effects on the ley stream itself.

  Marcus closed his eyes and then Kara felt him reach out toward the wrinkle in the Tapestry, felt him surround it, then begin to smooth it out. It stretched from beneath the surface of the ley stream to a height at about eye level, although there were no visible distortions above the surface. Anyone who passed through the wrinkle would feel its effects—a tingling sensation that would make them shudder—but nothing else. Kara reached out herself, ready to steady Marcus if anything happened, but knew she wouldn’t be needed. She’d seen Marcus handle problems much worse than this one in the past month.

  Beside her, the guard’s face set into a grim expression as the roiling ley began to calm down, the ripples of hidden undercurrents vanishing. The whirlpool began to lose cohesion, struggled to maintain itself, and finally collapsed. Kara expected to hear a slap of water, like a wave breaking as it hit the riverbank, but the ley wasn’t liquid. It merely behaved like it sometimes.

  The guard relaxed, letting out a held breath. He shook hands with Marcus when the Wielder finally stood, the Tapestry repaired. “Thank you, both of you. The passengers will be relieved.”

  They left the station guard on the platform, herding the few passengers who’d been attracted by the display back to their lives. Marcus’ expression turned grim as soon as they reached the corridor leading up to the mezzanine.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He glanced toward her, then away. “We need to report this to the Wielders at the node, and the Prime Wielders as well. I lied to the station guard. That . . . fold in the Tapestry doesn’t happen often. In fact, I don’t know if anyone had ever seen one a year ago, certainly not any of the Wielders I know of working the nodes. But this is the third one reported among the districts so far, and I don’t think it’s going to end any time soon.”

  They hustled up the corridor and emerged into the mezzanine, the illusion of trees and foliage surrounding them even though the chamber was filled with the noise and voices of the ley station patrons. Marcus headed straight for the arched doors leading out into the plaza beyond. They had almost reached them when Kara heard a high-pitched, familiar whine, the note growing in volume. She reached out and grabbed Marcus’ arm, bringing him to an abrupt halt. As he turned in annoyance, she said, “Listen.”

  He paused, his irritation faltering as he concentrated.

  A moment later, his breath caught and his eyes widened. “A distortion.”

  Kara nodded. “I’ve heard one before, before they came to take me to the college.”

  Marcus was already scanning the mezzanine. None of the patrons appeared to have heard the distortion yet. “It’s forming right now. Look for a light. An intense white light.”

  They darted in among the station passengers, both frantically searching, Kara on Marcus’ heels until he shouted to head left, gesturing with one hand while he angled right. Kara hesitated, a shot of fear at being alone piercing through her, but steeled herself and began working her way left. The high-pitched noise increased, patrons beginning to stop in confusion and glance around. Kara sensed a vibration on the Tapestry, a shudder that coursed through her skin, saw a few of the others shiver in discomfort—

  And then someone ahead shouted and pointed. Kara followed the man’s arm, saw the piercing white light hovering a hand’s breadth above the heads of the nearest commuters. Most of those closest began to edge away in uncertainty, but a woman dressed in the neat clothes of a seamstress carrying a basket with small bolts of cloth sticking out one side was reaching toward the light, a look of wonder touching her face.

  Panic sliced through Kara’s fear and she shouted, “Don’t touch it! Back away!”

  The seamstress flinched, gaze falling toward Kara as the Wielder sped toward her, her arm lowering—

  And then the high-pitched tone halted, as if severed with a knife.

  Kara gasped, her memories of what had happened when the noise ended on the street over four years before flaring as she watched it happen again.

  The light flashed once, painfully bright. Only this time Kara was more attuned to the Tapestry. She felt it shudder, felt it tear, as the light blossomed, spiraling open in coruscating whirls of color that spun outward and ensnared the seamstress’ outstretched arm. In the space of a heartbeat, the distortion opened . . . and then froze, the woman’s hand caught inside it.

  The seamstress screamed, the sound filled with terror so focused Kara felt it shudder down her back. Those closest to her lurched away, panic beginning to spread through the crowd, a space opening up around her. Kara stumbled into the widening region, came up next to the woman, her breath ragged and hoarse. She desperately wanted to know where Marcus was, but the woman’s horror was too intense for her to look away.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, and was surprised at how calm her voice sounded. When the seamstress kept screaming, tears coursing down her face, Kara snapped, “Look at me!” in irritation.

  The woman jerked to one side, but caught Kara’s gaze, held it. Her scream died down into a soft moan. Through choked sobs, she said, “I can’t move it. I can’t even move my fingers.” She noted Kara’s purple jacket and raw hope flickered in her eyes. “You have to help me. You have to get my hand free. I can’t be a seamstress without my hand! I won’t be able to work! Lady Bellum will find someone else—”

  “Stop it,” Kara said. “It isn’t helping.”

  The seamstress’ back straightened in affront, but then she nodded.

  Kara turned away, saw Marcus fighting his way through the crowd toward her. But she didn’t know how much time the seamstress had. The distortion she’d witnessed before had closed after only a short time.

  She chewed on her lower lip. She had only just become a Wielder. She shouldn’t have to deal with situations like this yet. That’s why she’d been doing the runs with Marcus.

  But Marcus wasn’t here yet.


  She met the seamstress’ pleading gaze, then sighed.

  “Don’t move. I’ll see what I can do.”

  She turned her attention to the distortion, the spirals of various colors frozen in midair, the woman’s hand encased inside halfway up her forearm. This one was larger than the one she’d seen when younger, nearly the size of her torso. But in all other respects, it appeared to be the same—a beautiful, delicate flower composed of blue-green light, a trace of orange threading through it.

  She reached out tentatively on the Tapestry, her stomach roiling at what she discovered. Unlike the wrinkle Marcus had smoothed in the ley stream below, the distortion wasn’t a fold in the Tapestry, but a tear. It had been wrenched open, the Tapestry within the distortion shredded—although even as she thought it, Kara realized that wasn’t quite right. It hadn’t been torn like fabric. It had fractured, as if the air itself had broken, like a clay pot dashed to the floor, or a glass window struck by a bird. She could see the shards of reality through the colors of the distortion, some of the fractures passing through the seamstress’ hand, through her fingers.

  “Can you do something?” the seamstress pleaded. Fresh tears lined her face.

  Kara ignored her, circling the distortion instead. She heard Marcus’ heavy breathing as he made it through the edge of the commuters, sensed the crowd around them growing. Marcus shouted, “Stand back!” A few of the patrons grumbled, but no one approached closer than a few paces. Marcus came up to Kara’s side and whispered fiercely, “You shouldn’t be this close. We don’t know anything about them. We need to summon the Primes!”

  “We don’t have time,” Kara said, meeting his gaze. “She doesn’t have time. It will vanish before the Primes get here. I—” She hesitated, swallowed once, then said, “I think I can fix it.”

  Marcus opened his mouth to argue, perhaps to ask how, then closed it. He clenched his jaw and nodded once.

  Kara turned to the distortion and concentrated. She reached out on the Tapestry, surrounded the distortion completely with herself, felt its shape, felt the jagged edges of the shards where reality had been shattered. Then, as Marcus had done with the fold, she began to repair the damage, melding the shards together, starting at the outside, where the fractures were thinnest, and working her way in. The seamstress whimpered, clutching her basket of cloth close to her chest with her free hand, but Kara didn’t allow herself to be distracted. It was like working on her father’s clocks. Each fracture had to be repaired in a specific order, the reverse order in which they had occurred as the distortion formed. Each fracture was interconnected with the others.

  Sweat broke out on her forehead and she wiped it clear with one hand before it could drip down into her eyes. She needed to be able to see, but her energy was flagging already. She’d never done something so detailed with the Tapestry before, never worked with it on this level. She could feel how clumsy her touch was, as if her hands were shaking as she tried to place a fine metal gear into the back of a clock. She frowned at herself, brow creasing—

  And then she felt Marcus’ presence on the Tapestry, felt his energy flowing toward her, backing her up. She steadied, flushing at the intimacy of having Marcus helping her even as she reached for his aid. She didn’t know how much time she had left, but the seamstress’ hand was still caught, the folds of light entwined through her palm and fingers. Kara had freed her upper forearm, but she wasn’t close to releasing her entire hand.

  Then, working on a fracture that passed through the woman’s palm, she felt the distortion tremble.

  “We’re running out of time,” she gasped, voice strained. “It’s beginning to collapse.”

  “Do what you can,” Marcus said.

  The seamstress sobbed.

  Kara worked harder, dashed more sweat from her face, even as the vibrations increased. The remaining arms of color began to shift and the seamstress cried out in pain. Kara abandoned all finesse, focused on the fractures around the woman’s hand, heard her own breath quickening—

  And without any more warning, the distortion closed. The colorful rose of light spun shut, the fractures slicing through the air as it did so, slicing through the seamstress’ fingers. It vanished, as if it had never been there.

  A moment of shock filled the mezzanine, stilled Kara’s heart. She reached up to touch something that had splattered against her face, her fingers coming away slicked with droplets of blood.

  Then the seamstress screamed, her shattered voice joined by both men and women from the gathered crowd as she drew her mangled hand to her chest, her severed fingers lying on the ground below. Blood spurted from the stumps, stained her fitted dress as she collapsed to her knees, her scream breaking into hitching sobs and a mewling distress unlike anything Kara had heard before. Marcus shouted for someone to find a healer, to find another Wielder and summon the Primes, then grabbed one of the lengths of cloth from the woman’s basket and began winding it around the wound. One of the station guards—the elderly man who’d shown them down to the ley stream—dashed off through the crowd, shoving patrons out of his way with curses.

  Kara couldn’t move. She stared at the blood staining her fingers, splattered across the front of her purple jacket, numb.

  “I was so close,” she muttered, her voice no more than a breath. “I only needed a few more moments.”

  But no one heard her.

  Eleven

  “EXPLAIN AGAIN HOW you tried to repair the distortion.”

  Kara swallowed a sob, sucked in a deep breath, even though her head ached from the unending questions, and began to answer—

  But Marcus cut her off. “She’s already answered that question a thousand times,” he barked, and behind him the rest of the Wielders who were part of the Eld node—those not already out handling problems with the ley or down in the pit dealing with it directly—shifted restlessly, their anger palpable in the room. “She can’t answer it any differently than she did the first time. I know. I supported her as she tried to free the woman, I know what she did. It wasn’t that much different than what we do to repair the folds in the Tapestry. Can’t you see that she’s exhausted? She’s practically falling out of that chair!”

  The two Primes who had finally arrived at the Eld ley station glared at Marcus, one seated across the table opposite Kara, the other standing to the right and a pace behind him. Their expressions were hard and unforgiving, and Kara could tell that they both fervently wished that Marcus and the other Wielders weren’t present for her interrogation. But somehow Marcus had sent word ahead to the node, so that when they’d arrived with the Primes, after dealing with the seamstress at the station, they’d all been waiting. None of them had let Marcus or Kara out of their sight since, demanding they be allowed in the room while Kara was questioned. The Primes had refused at first, but Marcus had pointed out that anything the Wielders could learn about the distortions would only be beneficial to everyone, since the Wielders at the nodes were the ones most likely to encounter them while in the field. When the Primes had still hesitated, he’d threatened to keep them from questioning Kara at all.

  Kara didn’t think he could do that. The Primes were higher in rank, after all. One of them—the one with the goatee, Ashton—had pointed this out by hinting they could summon the Dogs if necessary. But all of the other Wielders had grumbled at the suggestion, the atmosphere in the node’s main entrance turning ugly. After a whispered consultation with his fellow Prime, Ashton had relented.

  And then the questioning had begun. Kara didn’t know how long she’d been sitting in the chair in one of the small rooms built around the central pit. She only knew her head throbbed and her body had grown numb, her arms and legs tingling from exhaustion, her back pinched and shoulders hunched over. Her face felt taut, the skin around her eyes gritty. She’d come to realize during the questioning that the Primes knew as little as the Wielders about the cause of the distortions—
why they were appearing or how to stop them. After the first barrage of questions, they’d begun to repeat themselves, asking the same questions but with different phrasing, as if they were trying to dig deeper into what had happened. Or were trying to trick her into contradicting herself.

  But there wasn’t anything deeper. She’d acted on instinct, knowing that the Primes would not arrive in time to help the seamstress. She’d done nothing except what the Wielders had been trained to do when it came to anomalies with the Tapestry and the ley: she’d tried to fix it.

  She’d thought the two Primes understood that at one point, but they’d persisted. Or rather, Ashton had persisted.

  He shifted his glare from Marcus back to Kara and leaned forward onto the desk from where he sat. “Are you certain there is nothing more you can tell us?”

  Kara trembled, hated herself for it, but said, “Nothing. I’ve told you everything—everything I saw, everything I did. There’s nothing more.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but the other Prime—the one Kara had barely caught sight of, the cowl of his Prime’s cloak pulled far forward to conceal his face—placed a hand on his shoulder. Tension drained from Ashton’s body and he relaxed. “Very well. You may go.”

  Marcus took her by the elbow and helped her stand. Unsteady, she let him lead her out the door and into the corridors beyond, heading around the circular hallway toward the barracks. A few of the other Wielders trailed after them protectively, but halted outside Kara’s room as Marcus supported her until she could collapse onto her bed.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  As if she could move if she wanted to. She didn’t know if it was the intense interrogation that had exhausted her, or an aftereffect of trying to heal the distortion. It didn’t matter. She moaned and rolled onto her back, the straw of the mattress crinkling beneath her. She closed her eyes and raised one arm over her head, heard Marcus speaking to one of the other Wielders—Kyle, she thought, red-haired, with a quirky smile; or maybe it was Katrina—and then the door closed and Marcus began pacing, furious.