Shatter (The Children of Man)

by Elizabeth C. Mock

  “Just Faela’s.” Kade quipped.

  “Well that’s different.” Jair fumbled.

  “Are you implying that Faela isn’t a lady?” Kade said, twisting Jair’s words.

  “Stop using my words against me,” Jair protested helplessly.

  “What do I need to do, Mireya?” Faela asked ignoring the men arguing over her head.

  “Find this man. This is the start.” The girl’s eyes focused beyond the forest to a place few can see. “You still have far to travel.”

  More than a week had passed since Caleb and Talise had left the cave and, finally, they had arrived at the border of Vamorines. The moors of northern Nabos dropped away in a sheer cliff face down to the churning water below. A wooden and iron bridge ran across the deep chasm but disappeared into a shimmering wall of blue light, the Boundary.

  Since the time of the Shattering, Vamorines had been protected by the Boundary. No one strayed into the lands occupied by the Nikelans without an invitation if they wanted to ever leave again.

  “Subtle,” Caleb observed the rippling blue curtain that plunged down to the roiling waters below.

  “So,” Talise said looking at Caleb and back at the Boundary, “I guess we just ride across?”

  “Well, we aren’t going to get there by sitting here any longer.”

  Neither spoke a word as they prodded their horses into a trot and rode into the magical barrier. Passing through, they found themselves enveloped and suspended in the blue light. They could no longer see or feel the bridge beneath their horses. They could no longer tell up from down. They had stopped moving.

  A clear and firm female voice surrounded them, coming from every direction and yet from none. “Why have you crossed the Boundary into my domain? Only the foolish choose this path without cause. Speak.”

  “We seek an audience with Nikela’s Oracle, the Scion of her Order.”

  In the pause, a lifetime passed or a heart beat only once for all they could tell lost within that light.

  “What would you seek from me?” the voice finally asked.

  Caleb fished Kade’s log out of his bag attached to the saddle behind him and held it aloft.

  “I request an audience to present to you evidence of an infection that is rotting the Daniyelan Order from within. The Brethren have returned.”

  The voice fell silent again and they both felt as if something unseen examined them and that if they failed to meet its standards they might find themselves trapped within this space between spaces forever.

  “Be welcome, friends.”

  As the words faded, so did the shimmering mist around the bridge and they saw in the distance the ruins of an expansive white city that ended abruptly in a steep cliff that dropped into the sea. Half of the ruins lay submerged in water. Before them sprawled the broken skeleton of the ancient city, Gialdanis.

  A gentle breeze, laced with the salty tang of the sea, glided through the cavernous room. The gossamer curtains billowed and shimmered like warm ocean waters. While glittering light swirled around the room, the afternoon sun fell across the white marble floor. Leather-bound volumes stitched together by hand, scrolls faded as if stained with tea, and disintegrating fragments protected within blue canvas sleeves hid the walls.

  Small, round tables ran parallel to long tables that seemed more at home in an alehouse than a library. The chairs scattered around them like lost children clashed in wood and style, yet all were upholstered in some shade of blue. The blending of the scattered light with the blue and white accents made the room appear to float underwater.

  Hunched over a battered table in the corner stood a slight, almost frail, woman with silver hair that swept past her knees. She wavered for a moment as if in pain. Tucked within the shadows of the shelves waited a man with hair the color of iron that fell down his back in a loose braid. His hooked nose gave the impression of a falcon as he waited. Straightening, the woman smoothed her hair away from her face with deft and precise movements.

  “It’s costing you more,” the man stated, his upturned eyes hard, but not cold, “every prophecy is costing you more.”

  “Whose was it?” the woman asked, her voice regaining its gentle strength.

  “Mireya’s, the one she received before they left.”

  “Its resonance…” the woman trailed off as she shook her head as if denying something she refused to even acknowledge. Her eyes strayed past the open doors to the balcony.

  Striding out to the balcony, the woman surveyed the cliff that plummeted hundreds of feet to the crashing waves below. Amongst the scattered rocks at the cliff’s base were white stones with lines too regular to be natural. As her gaze moved further to the sea, the individual rocks began to resemble the vestiges of buildings. The rubble of these once white structures of immense size and scope were battered by waves as they had been for thousands of years.

  The man shadowed her, but offered no empty words of comfort. He simply watched. Grasping the rail of the balcony, she soaked in the destruction that lay before her, a testament to beauty, to folly, a reminder and a warning.

  “Though I am a bit older than when we first met, no prophecy has ever possessed such a terrifying resonance.” Clasping the banister tighter, she continued. “Mireya is a vessel of great change.” Her eyes flickered to the decimated city submersed in the ocean before her. “I can only pray that Lior will see fit to spare her, if only in some small fashion.”

  “Jha’na—”

  “Don’t, Vaughn. Please don’t call me that right now.”

  Vaughn stepped behind the Nikelan Scion and enfolded her in his arms. “Rivka, you know who and what we are. We are servants of Lior, at his mercy. As you said, we are vessels.”

  “But Mireya is so young.”

  “And strong. You’ve seen the depth of her ability to channel and that was just the surface of what she’s capable of. No one can match her receptivity. No one that you nor I have ever seen.”

  “Her prophecy will change everything. The choices of the seven in that prophecy will either remake this world or shatter it.”

  Their eyes both strayed to the sculptures on top of the half-sunken palace. The crumbling remains of three men standing with their shoulders barely touching created a triangle. The first man held a harp, the second a flower, the third a downturned sword.

  “You know that this did not start with Mireya’s prophecy, Rivka. This working began more than twenty years ago with a very disturbed and very powerful little girl.”

  The hint of a smile touched her lips and she sighed. “I miss Ianos’ dry humor, especially these days.”

  The slight patter of bare feet on stone echoed through the chamber behind the two and they turned at the noise. A girl, who could be no older than eight, with guileless blue eyes stepped onto the balcony. “Jha’na?” she asked.

  Rivka knelt and called the girl over. “What is it, sweetling?”

  “The man and the woman from the Boundary are nearing the temple.” She scrunched up her nose in distaste. “They’re wearing all black.”

  Rivka kissed the girl on her forehead. “Well then, let us greet them properly. Go, Lynn.”

  Lynn grinned revealing a missing tooth and scampered back into the library. Rivka stood gracefully and smoothed her dress. She caught Vaughn’s eye. “Shall we?”

  Rolling off of the river, the breeze carried the stench of rotting sewage and water-soaked timber into every corner of the harbor. Including the alley where Sheridan crouched over a decomposing corpse. The buildings hunched in close hiding them within their shadows. Behind her, Wiley kept his distance looking a little white around the lips. Unlike Wiley, Sheridan knew the ravages of death all too well.

  A red mist covered her eyes. As her hand hovered an inch over the bloated body, it came to rest over a series of lacerations on his chest that appeared to have been cauterized. Rocking back on her heels, she rested her arms on her knees and stared at the corpse of Gareth Burke or what was left of him.

 
; Over the last several days since Eve left, Sheridan and Wiley had interviewed anyone who had seen or been in contact with Kaedman Hawthorn or Gareth Burke the week before their disappearances. This had led them all over Montdell from hospitable visits at the offices of council members to following scullery maids around the Reid’s townhouse. Everything they had discovered pointed to Kaedman fleeing the city, while Gareth had simply vanished. Her investigation had gone no further and the lack of real progress had already worn Sheridan’s patience. She was no closer to understanding each man’s involvement with Nessa Reid’s murder than she had been the day she arrived.

  When it had become clear that Gareth hadn’t left the city, Wiley suggested they check with the city guard. In a trade city like Montdell, unclaimed bodies caused little fuss. This was the fifth smelly corner of Montdell and the fifth body they had examined this morning, but there was no doubt in Sheridan’s mind that these were the remains of Gareth Burke.

  “He’s been dead for over a week,” she concluded after a few minutes, the red light dispersing. “Whichever of your guardsmen guessed he was tortured had a keen eye, captain.”

  She waved a hand to indicate the burns, the crushed fingers, and the minuscule slashes. Standing up, Sheridan looked at the innocent clouds gliding by in the sky and heard the shrill whistle of a departing train. It made the grisly scene before her seem even more obscene. She wiped her hands on her trousers. Catching Wiley’s eyes, she motioned to the entrance of the alley. He nodded and they moved out into the sunlight.

  “The person who did this was a fairly powerful Tereskan,” Sheridan said in a low voice, “with intimate knowledge of how to prolong a person’s suffering.”

  “A Daniyelan as well?” Wiley conjectured. He breathed more easily now that he was out of the confines of the alley. “Most likely a veteran of the war?”

  Sheridan nodded, tracing the inside of her elbow with her fingers in a calming gesture. “Well done. That seems the most probable answer. But what does this evidence point to, seeker Wiley?”

  Glancing over his shoulder back at the body, his brows furrowed as he considered the options and possible scenarios in his mind. “Well, the combination of Tereskan and Daniyelan training along with a person who served in the war points to only one suspect who would have been in Montdell when he was killed. At least that we know of.”

  Wiley avoided answering the question as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  Though it pained Sheridan, she prodded him to finish his line of reasoning. “And who would that suspect be?”

  “Brother Kaedman Hawthorn,” he said reluctantly. “He’s the only resident of Montdell that I’m aware of who fits the evidence. But I can’t imagine why Brother Hawthorn would have done this. Whoever did that was filled with a consuming rage. Brother Hawthorn was always so controlled. No matter how many pranks we pulled, he never got angry.” Wiley’s shoulders hunched forward as he tucked his hands into his pockets, clearly unhappy with his own conclusions. “Sister Silvia is another matter entirely.”

  The memory of her sister's voice reverberated inside Sheridan’s mind. People can change.

  “We’re Daniyelans, Wiley,” she said in a saddened voice. “We don’t have the luxury of allowing our own wishes and desires to change the facts of an investigation. Though this evidence is not enough to convict Kaedman of Gareth’s murder, it does implicate him and we can’t ignore that.” Sheridan slid an arm around the gawky adolescent’s boney shoulders to comfort him as well as herself.

  “Yes, Sister,” Wiley mumbled looking down at his arms.

  “But,” she said as she squeezed him, “in your analysis of the evidence you touched on something vital. You were quite right when you said that whoever committed this crime did so out of intense passion and wrath. As you also said, Kaedman is a steady and calculating man. If indeed he did kill Gareth, we must ask ourselves something: What could Gareth Burke have done that would cause Kaedman to lose control like that?”

  Wiley nodded as he chewed on the side of his thumb. “Well, he was engaged to Nessa Reid. What if she had decided to run away with Brother Gareth? Jealousy and infidelity can cause the most rational person to break and do things they would otherwise be incapable of. So, he killed her, then tortured and killed Gareth?”

  “Possibly,” Sheridan conceded, “but I never said Kaedman is incapable of such ferocity, simply that his temper is very tightly controlled.”

  “So, betrayal could have been enough to push him over the edge,” Wiley said dejected once more.

  Clearing his throat, the captain interrupted their speculations. “Sister Reid? One of my men found this next to the body.” He extended a slender piece of metal. It was a throwing knife with a leaf-shaped blade.

  Sheridan took the knife and ran her finger across the crusted blood on its edge. Fragments of images flashed through her mind. The thin face of a man with sable hair stared back at her. All emotion, all feeling was drained from those hollow amber eyes that glowed with a fiery light. Grimacing, she turned it over in her hands.

  “Sister?” the captain inquired at the glazed look, as the red flashed over her eyes momentarily.

  “I’m sorry, captain. I just recognized the blade type, that’s all.”

  The captain gave her a dubious expression, but kept his thoughts to himself as he returned to his guardsmen.

  “I had hoped I wouldn’t have to resort to this,” Sheridan said more to herself than Wiley.

  “To what?” he asked as he looked at the blade she spun in her hand. “Did you see something?”

  Sheridan nodded. “I saw Kaedman.” She handed Wiley the throwing knife. “This is his. He has them specifically made by a smith in Wistholt. I have no doubts now that Kaedman Hawthorn killed Gareth Burke. What we need to know now is why. It’s not my strongest gift, I’m a popper, not a stepper, but I don’t see any other way of discovering what really happened here. I’m going to have to time-fold. We have to find where Nessa was killed.”

  Her mount’s tail swung in time with the clicking of her hooves as Eve lead her toward a weather-stained stone building that skirted the edges of Aberley and overlooked the Bramm River. The reins lay limp in her half-closed hand; the white mare followed without needing guidance. The horse’s even gait created a rhythm that seemed to flow through her body and her movements matched her graceful cadence. Each step rose and fell with a hypnotic fluidity, making no noise.

  Once Eve had left Davenford, it hadn’t taken her long to pick up Kaedman’s trail where he had doubled back out of the forest and headed north. Though his trail had diverted at several points, he had crossed back over his own path and kept heading north until she reached Aberley. She had ridden Kimiko hard trying to gain ground on her quarry and she was tired.

  Reaching the tavern, Eve let the reins slip through her fingers. “Stay here, Kimiko, while I get a drink.”

  Whickering in response, her horse nuzzled the top of her shoulder pushing her toward the door.

  “Trying to get rid of me, are you?”

  Blinking twice, her pupils adjusted from the unrestrained sunshine to the dim light that came through the thick uneven glass of the common room windows. Dispersed around the room, stragglers lingered over the remains of their noon meal. Conversation ranged from the serious and apprehensive discussion of a group of farmers in the corner, to the raucous laughter and offbeat thumping from a table of traders stopped for a rest on their way to Montdell. Underneath the chorus of tankards hitting the tables and loud calls for more ale, beat an unmistakable rhythm.

  That rhythm caused the delicate hairs on the back of her neck to tingle and her mouth to go dry. It was a familiar sound. Rubbing her clammy palms on the sides of her pants, she attempted to slow her breathing. It had been three years since she last heard this sound.

  Leave, she commanded herself in an attempt to calm the maelstrom within her mind. Leave now. It could be any Lusican.

  Turning, Eve could feel her heart beating in time wi
th the rhythm. That familiar, comforting union caused her to pause. The panic rising within her clashed with the joy this music evoked.

  No music has done this in three years, she admitted. Not since he left.

  Closing her eyes, she turned her back on the door. Every sign of doubt receded replaced by a calm poise as she strode further into the room. Weaving through the tables, she made her way to a knot of men seated to the right of the potbelly stove.

  In their midst, perched on a stool, a cloaked and hooded man coaxed the notes of a bawdy drinking song from a worn lyre. The pure clear notes produced a complex rhythm that soaked into Eve’s skin.

  The smooth wood of the lyre appeared glossy from years of use. Every curve, every nick in the surface of the instrument summoned a memory. The musician’s calloused fingers glided over its neck exactly as she remembered.

  As the last notes faded from the air, the inhabitants thudded their tankard onto their tables and stamped their feet while calling out the names of favorite tunes.

  Well, I can’t stand here forever, she thought with irritation, and I don’t want to ruin everyone’s lunch.

  Eve, supporting her voice, raised it above the din. “Don’t ask this worthless excuse for a minstrel to play those. He’d just butcher them.”

  Betraying nothing, the figure smiled underneath his hood. “You’re just saying that because you have two left feet and can’t keep up with my playing, Eve.”

  Disappointed by his nonchalant reaction, she decided to retaliate in turn. She placed her hands suggestively on her hips, deep golden-brown eyes flashing. “Is that a challenge?”

  Cheering, the nearby men began pushing tables and chairs to clear a space for the woman. The sounds of boots stamping and hands slapping wood thundered throughout the room. The patrons wanted a show. Chuckling once, the musician began to pick out the notes of a jig.

  Eve shrugged out of her restrictive jacket and tossed it onto an empty chair. She could feel the rhythm in her blood; she could sense it tingling on her skin. Her hands began twisting instinctively to the call within the music. The music seeped into her, demanding her limbs respond, demanding that she dance. Her hips began to move of their own accord. Her temples flared with yellow light that covered her eyes as well.