by Lucy Hounsom
The circular chasm that made an island of Naris had ruptured. Before Kyndra’s horrified gaze, the ground broke open and a tear zigzagged southwards. As the solid rock divided with an awful groan, Nediah pulled her up. ‘Go in front,’ he yelled. ‘Make for the citadel.’
‘This side’s closer!’ Kyndra screamed over the tumult. ‘We’ll never get across in time.’ She tried to turn around, but Nediah tightened his grip and forced her into a run, his face set.
Another tremor nearly tumbled them again. The sky lit up and this time Kyndra saw the fork of lightning as it hit. It was a jagged bar of fire, impossibly thick, and, where it struck, an identical fissure opened to the north of the fortress, so that Naris seemed like the pupil of a terrible, widening eye. They’d never make it. The stone bridge was heaving and bucking as if the lightning had given it life, and blind terror pumped through her veins. She was going to die here, falling endlessly into the dark.
Desperately, Kyndra fixed her gaze on the far side of the trembling bridge, but couldn’t help noticing the cracks that spider-webbed through the stone beneath her. Every footfall seemed like it would be her last – the next could send her screaming into the abyss.
There was an ominous creak and Kyndra glanced over her shoulder. The buttresses that connected the bridge to the Murtan side of the chasm wall had dropped away, leaving behind a bare whisker of stone. It crumbled in a rapid crescendo and chunks of the bridge collapsed. Wracking growls preceded their fall, as if from a giant’s throat.
They had almost reached Naris when the supports on the near side failed too. The bridge dropped a few inches and panic flooded through Kyndra. The cracks beneath her feet were no longer spider-thin and she could see the chasm’s gaping mouth beneath her, feel its cold breath. She leapt as the buttress gave way, landing on solid ground and rolling to a stop. Then, grazed, her breath coming in shuddering gasps, she scrambled up and looked for Nediah.
The gap was now too wide to jump. Kyndra’s heart clenched. Little flashes of gold erupted from the Wielder’s hands, but it was evening now and his power was fading. In an agony of slowness, Nediah began to fall. Kyndra saw the rock slide out from beneath his feet, the fat raindrops tumbling a curtain between them. ‘No!’ she screamed, throwing out a useless hand. Nediah’s eyes were wide, disbelieving. Then his face firmed.
The Wielder leapt into space and Kyndra yelled his name. Nediah slammed into the mountainside below her, his hands and feet scrabbling ineffectually for purchase on the wet stone. Not pausing to think, Kyndra wrapped one arm around the ornamental pillar beside her and launched her body towards Nediah. ‘Take my hand!’ she screamed. The Wielder made one wild swing and Kyndra caught his grasping fingers.
She wasn’t prepared for the lurch of pain as she took Nediah’s weight. Her shoulder wrenched and it felt as if her arm would be pulled from its socket. Nediah’s hand was slippery with blood and rain and Kyndra could feel her grip loosening, as she pulled upwards. The effort tore a scream from her lips. Nediah tried to get his feet under him, but the rock face was too smooth.
Then light flared like a miner’s torch striking a vein of silver and Kyndra heard the same night song that had hypnotized her in Brenwym. This time it sounded like owl wings or a breeze through dark grass. It conjured images of gleaming, tilted eyes and of trees rendered in black and silver. Nediah’s weight lessened – there was a filmy coalescence beneath his feet, moonlight made solid. Kyndra immediately pulled the Wielder up over the lip of rock and Nediah collapsed beside her, whey-faced and trembling.
A gasp sounded behind them. Wearily, Kyndra looked around. Brégenne stood there, the Lunar light fading from her skin. Wind had pulled her hair loose and rain dripped from its long, pale ends. Her robes clung to her and she was shaking almost as much as Nediah, who had raised himself onto hands and knees. His hair hung over his face as he took deep, steadying breaths. Brégenne hurried over and, ignoring the dirt that smeared her silver robe, dropped down beside him. Nediah knelt back and she put her arms around him, wet hair against his cheek. ‘I thought,’ Kyndra heard her whisper, ‘oh, I thought …’
There were other witnesses to the scene. A crowd had come out to stare at the empty space where the bridge had been. Alandred was one of them, but he was not looking at the chasm. His hot eyes lingered on Brégenne and Nediah still kneeling on the rock.
Kyndra watched the shock ripple back towards the gates of Naris. The thunder boomed and the lightning came again, directly overhead this time. The rain beat down on Naris, as furiously as it had upon Brenwym, and though there were no houses here to topple and nothing to burn but bare rock, the Breaking did not abate. It had come without warning, as abruptly as a spring squall. Murmuring swept through the Wielders and Kyndra heard her own thoughts echoed back to her.
As if awakening from a trance, Brégenne let go of Nediah. Their gazes locked for a few seconds then Brégenne dropped her eyes. ‘Your hands,’ she said, examining the torn flesh, ‘they’re hurt.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Nediah replied. He did not take his gaze from her face. ‘I’ll see to them in the morning.’
Brégenne shook her head, picked up both his hands in hers and frowned at them. Lunar light climbed out of her skin once more. As Kyndra watched, chips of stone began to wriggle free from Nediah’s flesh and he winced. Slowly, the wounds knitted and closed.
Nediah looked over his hands critically. ‘A fair job,’ he said, his smile teasing, but Kyndra noted his bloodless cheeks and ragged eyes. Perhaps Brégenne noticed them too, for she dropped his hands and rose swiftly to her feet.
‘What were you doing out here?’ she demanded.
Instead of answering, Nediah looked at Kyndra. ‘You saved my life,’ he said quietly, wonderingly, as if he couldn’t quite believe it had ever been in danger.
Kyndra shook her head, thinking that she’d spoken the same words to Nediah only a week or so before. ‘If it wasn’t for Brégenne—’
‘No,’ Brégenne said. ‘You bought me time. If you hadn’t caught him …’ She trailed off, obviously unwilling to voice the alternative.
More Wielders came out to swell the crowd. Now cries of dismay rang under the stormy sky and, for the first time, Kyndra fully appreciated the situation. She was trapped. They were all trapped. ‘Isn’t there another way across?’ she asked, aware that Irilin had already told her there wasn’t.
Nediah shook his head. His green eyes darkened as they looked back over the impassable chasm. Kyndra turned her gaze towards distant Murta and, unbidden, an image came to her of Solinaris under siege, ringed not by an abyss, but by an army clad in blood. An eerie feeling of history repeating itself seeped through her and she tried to throw it off. There was no war now, no hungry empire branding the world with its fire. But, Kyndra thought with a shudder, the citadel was faced with a different kind of fire – a threat that attacked the Wielders in their very home. Where had the Madness come from and why? Staring into the endless dark of the chasm, a terrible suspicion began to close around her heart. She thought about Mardon and Rush and the Wielders who’d died during the test. Kyndra could see only one thing that linked them together – herself. And it wouldn’t be long until someone else came to the same conclusion.
Rubble now fringed the ground around the mountain, shaken loose from the heights. Another crack of lightning sent a flurry of small rocks down into the gathered Wielders. There were cries of pain and Lunar shields bloomed in the dusk. Then a boulder the size of a cider cask hit the edge of one too hastily erected and it broke in a shatter of sparks. The rock struck the Wielder beneath a glancing blow on the shoulder, hard enough to knock him back and he shrieked in pain as he fell amongst his fellows.
There was almost pandemonium – almost. But then Kyndra heard a crisp voice start to issue orders. ‘Solars, you’re of no use here. Get the novices inside and anyone else who’s been injured. Lunars, cover them.’
The Council had arrived. Lords Loricus and Gend stood behind Lady Helira, who w
atched with chilly blue eyes as her orders were carried out. An impressively large silver shield with curving sides hovered over her head. One of her fists glowed, feeding it a constant stream of energy.
Nediah rose to stand beside Brégenne and Helira eyed his bloodstained hands. ‘All three of you will come with us,’ she said, and without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel. Loricus and Gend fell silently into position around the three of them and Kyndra keenly felt the danger of their proximity. Taking a deep breath, trusting to Brégenne and Nediah, she let herself be herded back up the slope and under the great lintel of Naris.
24
A peculiar sense came over Kyndra when she entered the citadel for the second time. At first she couldn’t tell whether it came from within or without. Perhaps something in Naris responded to something in her that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. What had changed? Kyndra wondered, searching herself, but all she could think of was Jhren and his chill, hopeless words.
Brenwym would never take her back. Even her friends had turned against her, turned to each other in an attempt to forget she was ever one of them. Kyndra clenched her fists. This was the Relic’s fault. It had been nothing but a stupid old bowl that – as Brégenne had said so rightly – stripped people of choice. Surely all she had done was end centuries of enslavement.
Surely all he had done was to end the war.
Kyndra’s thoughts stopped cold. Her feet kept moving and she let them, mentally searching for the presence that again had so suddenly usurped her. It was the first time she had done so, she realized. Before, she had shrunk from it, terrified of the stranger whose eyes allowed her access to the past. Now she wanted to know – she had to know. Who was he, and what part had he and the Yadin, Anohin, played in ending the war?
The Wielder Realdon Shune had asked the same, silent question all those years ago: What can one man do to stop a power that even Solinaris might not withstand?
‘I can do more than you can dream,’ Kyndra breathed, remembering the stranger’s answer.
‘Sorry?’ asked Nediah who walked beside her.
‘Nothing.’
Kyndra seemed to recall a passage on Yadin in Acre: Tales of the Lost World. The book claimed that they were a race of people created to be the Wielders’ servants in Solinaris. They looked human – they could bleed and die like humans – but they didn’t age and the power they were granted was finite. And they served their masters with a love and loyalty that went beyond simple duty. Or had that information come with the visions? Kyndra wasn’t at all certain.
They reached a corridor noticeably grander than the others she had seen within Naris, its floor overlaid with polished marble. Helira made to stop, but Loricus gestured her on. ‘Please feel free to use my quarters,’ he said. Helira glanced at him and nodded curtly. Brégenne and Nediah, Kyndra saw, gazed at their surroundings in surprise.
‘You are wondering why I chose to bring you here,’ Helira said, guessing their thoughts. ‘Simply, we must hold a meeting after we deal with the girl, a practice usually undertaken in the privacy of our quarters.’
Kyndra did not miss the worried face Brégenne turned her way. Quite obviously, the Wielder had little to no idea what to expect. That makes two of us, she thought.
Loricus placed one hand against a tall set of doors and they swung inward. With Brégenne and Nediah beside her, Kyndra stepped through and gaped at the room beyond.
Glazed Talarun tiles made a mosaic of the floor, which was spread with an unnecessary number of fine rugs. Silken drapes screened murals. Piles of fresh fruit – too much for one person – languished on elegant tables. The room reminded Kyndra of the vain and wasteful monarchs who always seemed to be the enemies in children’s tales.
Coolly solicitous, the councilman pulled out a chair for Brégenne. She looked at it for a moment and then sat down. Helira sat too, as did Loricus and Gend, but both Kyndra and Nediah remained standing. Kyndra cast a surreptitious glance at the Wielder beside her. She had the impression that this was Nediah’s way of showing some sort of solidarity.
‘Master Nediah,’ Helira said then. ‘You placed yourself in harm’s way this evening whilst in our service. You will be suitably rewarded.’
Nediah’s mouth twitched, as if he found the idea of being rewarded distasteful. He bowed silently and when he raised his head, his face was again unreadable.
‘How did you leave the citadel, girl?’
Kyndra didn’t answer. The old woman’s dogged use of the word girl set her teeth on edge. Brégenne turned sharply and fixed glowing eyes upon her.
‘I urge you to cooperate,’ Helira said coldly, as if she didn’t care whether Kyndra did so or not. ‘You will find the alternative less pleasant.’
Minutely, Brégenne lowered her chin and Kyndra remembered the words she had spoken on board Argat’s airship. We have ways to examine a person’s mind by means unavailable to others. ‘I hid in a miner’s cart,’ she said shortly.
‘How did you know about the miners’ gate?’ Helira pressed. ‘Not only are those levels off limits to most, they are also extensive. Someone must have helped you.’
They’ll punish us both if we’re caught. Kyndra steeled herself. If there was to be punishment, she would take it alone. Escaping had been her idea.
‘Very well.’ Lunar light coalesced on Helira’s skin. She raised a hand and the next moment, Kyndra found herself floating in a sea of silver. Lie back, a voice seemed to be saying, lie back and let me in. The gentle waves buoyed her limbs and lapped over her skin in a calm luminescence. Sink beneath me, lie back in me. All she had to do was relax and submerge her body completely. If she put her head beneath the waves, everything would be all right.
Mentally, she sighed and let go.
The waves closed over her face and there was darkness, terrible, wailing darkness. And there were hands, dozens of aged claws that grasped her and pierced her skin as she struggled helplessly. An image of Irilin’s face rose out of the black depths and she tried to push it down, to hide it in the crushing water, but the hands snatched and triumphantly pulled it into the light.
‘No!’ The voice was hers. She was standing once again in Loricus’ quarters, hands riveted to her head. Helira was no longer glowing. Instead she stared irritably at Brégenne, who had risen to stand close beside Kyndra, touching her shoulder. Brégenne’s face was hard and sheathed in Lunar energy. In her heavy robes she looked like a gleaming, quicksilver statue, implacable as death.
‘Sit down, Brégenne,’ the usually silent Gend commanded. ‘Do not interfere.’
Helira waved a hand. ‘No matter. I have what I sought.’ She turned her pale blue eyes on Kyndra and smiled unpleasantly. ‘I think twenty strokes are requisite for such a serious breach in discipline. Make a note of the novice’s name – Irilin Straa.’
Kyndra wanted to lash out, to tear the sagging, careless smile from Helira’s mouth. She swallowed her rage with difficulty, thinking of Irilin. She wouldn’t let them hurt her.
‘The situation is grave,’ Helira said, addressing them all now. ‘Between the Breaking and the Madness, we are besieged. A cause must be found, or better – a cure. I expect you to make it your top priority, Master Nediah. Moreover, with the bridge gone, we have no means of monitoring the Breaking or discovering the reason for its intensification. We have people outside the citadel who will be unable to return.’ Her voice turned flat. ‘Brégenne, I saw what you did to save Master Nediah. Few have your command of substantiation. You took the weight of a man. Do you think you could take heavier?’
The hostility Brégenne had worn like a second skin when Helira invaded Kyndra’s mind had gone. Now she regarded the councilwoman impassively. ‘I expect so.’
Helira did not seem pleased by Brégenne’s casual response and Kyndra had a sudden suspicion that the old woman wasn’t able to emulate whatever it was that Brégenne had done. The thought brought her a fierce satisfaction.
‘Plans will be made to reconstr
uct the bridge as a matter of urgency and we may require your help.’
‘As the Council commands,’ Brégenne said, still in the voice that gave nothing away.
Helira nodded. ‘Now I ask both of you to leave us. We wish to question the girl over the events of last night.’
‘Is our absence strictly necessary?’ Nediah asked and although Kyndra was dreading the return of the irresistible silver sea, she was relieved to hear the alarm in Nediah’s voice. Perhaps the Wielder believed her warning about the Council after all.
‘It is,’ Gend declared huskily. ‘The matter is sensitive.’
‘If I may,’ Loricus said. He spread conciliatory hands and rose to his feet. ‘I see no reason to intimidate Kyndra. I will take this matter upon myself.’ He looked pointedly at Helira. ‘I would prefer to work without the use of force.’
Nediah, Kyndra noticed, appeared to share her own uncertainty at this unexpected development. The Wielder regarded the councilman with stiff, suspicious eyes. Helira and Gend stared at Loricus too and Kyndra imagined some silent exchange passing between the three of them. Then Gend rose to his feet. ‘Let him handle it, then,’ he said in his deep voice. ‘We reconvene in an hour.’ He strode to the door.
Helira gave Loricus a piercing, speculative glance before she, too, swept from the room. ‘I will not keep her long,’ Loricus told Brégenne and Nediah. ‘You may even wait outside if you wish.’
With a weight in her stomach like a sack of stones, Kyndra watched the two Wielders leave. Nediah turned as he shut the door and his look said quite plainly that he wouldn’t be far away.
When they were alone in the opulent room, Loricus gestured her to a seat. Despite knowing that the councilman’s power was currently bound, Kyndra sat warily. Medavle’s revelation of the white akan’s true nature had taught her not to take anything or anyone at face value again.
