Shatter (The Children of Man)

by Elizabeth C. Mock

  Ianos planted the butt of his staff on the stone floor with a resounding thunk, his eyes like granite. “Stop insulting me, Eli. I may be old, but I'm not senile quite yet. I know why you've come.”

  Eli's face maintained a concerned look. “Tomas did say you had kept in contact with that Nikelan nomad witch. It's a pity really, but my orders remain the same. Darkness, where is that horrible racket coming from?”

  Sammi still cried out, confused by the noises and yelling. Taking off his gloves, Eli walked over to the bassinet where Sammi lay. He pushed back the blankets to reveal the little boy within. His face was red and wet and his tiny fists thrust into the air.

  Kade circled the desk and gripped its edge staring down Eli, but the man saw nothing. His knuckles were white.

  “Darkness, why is there a baby here?” Eli asked with a genuinely confused expression. “We were told nothing of this.”

  Ianos made to move to the bassinet only to be met by one of the Daniyelans' swords. “Hurt that child and I will run myself onto this man's blade. Do you understand me, Eli? If you hurt him, you will have to explain why you failed to Tomas. Do you really want to do that?”

  “I have no wish to harm a child, jha’na,” Eli told him sincerely. “But what is the life of one child when compared to the lives of all the children in the world? After today, the people will be united for the first time since the Shattering. We will have peace, true and lasting peace.” Eli reached his hand into the bassinet.

  Kade made to grab for him, but Ianos reacted first. He brought his staff around and knocked the man in front of him out of the way and spun it to catch Eli in the shoulder. He staggered away from the bassinet and fell near where Kade stood breathing raggedly.

  “Jha’na,” Eli growled, “that was a very big mistake.”

  Ianos stood between Eli and Sammi. “No life is more important than another. You have no right to decide that this child's death is justified, because it will achieve some illusion of the greater good. Who are you to decide who lives and dies, Eli?”

  “Who am I?” Eli said smoothing back his burnished hair that had fallen into his face. His eyes were hidden in flickering darkness though the light of the lamps shone on them. His hands glowed with an oily, black fire. “I am the divine hand of justice and justice is terrible.”

  Flicking his wrist, the black fire coiled around Ianos like snakes writhing around him tightly before they sunk into his clothes leaving only a momentary ash. The staff clattered to the ground with a resonating echo of finality.

  “With my shielding, your cowardly Tereskans tricks won't work on me, but you already knew that. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been waiting with this.” Eli bent and balanced the staff in his palm. “But I can't have you hurting yourself. Sometimes justice demands a hard price from us, jha’na. One from which we cannot turn or look away.”

  Holding Ianos' gaze, he walked past him to the bassinet. All Kade could hear was the blood pounding in his ears and the resolute echo of Eli's boots on the stones and the low whimpering of Sammi who had cried his throat raw.

  Kade swung his gaze from Ianos back to Eli. He could see the seams of Eli's protection spell and the weakest point in the binding spell that held Ianos. Eli reached his hand into the crib. Sammi's whimpering returned to a distressed bawling. Kade's chest felt like it was being crushed by a vice.

  He knew he could do nothing that he watched little better than a shadow puppet reenactment. These events had already occurred, but that didn't matter. His rational understanding of his helplessness didn't matter. Sammi's cries grew louder, then muffled as fingers wrapped around his fragile neck. A sound like the snapping of a wishbone hit Kade like a kick to the gut.

  “No!” Kade bellowed and released his orange magic like a knocked arrow aimed between Eli's shoulders. The magic rushed back at him like molten iron. It felt like liquid fire pumped through every vein and muscle. The fire that always smoldered inside every Daniyelan seemed to erupt within him raging out of his control. In his agony, he heard the silence. The cries had stopped.

  Though every portion of him felt like it was being scorched away, he suddenly felt an icy cold grip him as though it dragged him to the bottom of a glacial lake. In an explosion of light and pain, he was hurled back against the wall. He hit with a crunch and fell crumpled on the floor of the hallway where he had left Faela.

  “Kade, can you hear me?”

  He felt the fire melting away leaving behind the cold alone. His body shuddered at the sudden perceived drop in temperature. His lips looked like purple bruises.

  “Can you feel your fingers and toes? Kade, you need to answer me.”

  He wiggled his fingers and twitched his foot. “Yes,” he eventually managed to stammer through chattering teeth.

  He felt soft hands roll him onto his side and warm fingers at his temples.

  “Wait here. I don't think I have to tell you not to move, because I don’t think you could if you wanted to, but don't.”

  He heard footsteps moving away from him and his mind floated in the silence. Silence had never felt so empty to him before. He had always liked silence, but not today, not now. Before he realized any time had passed, the footsteps returned and he felt something heavy being tucked around him. Its rough weave scratched against his exposed skin.

  He heard the voice saying, “This is no good, you're too heavy, but you can't stay on the stone or we'll never raise your body temperature fast enough. Kade, I need you to help me, okay?”

  He nodded his head. He couldn't even manage a monosyllabic response with how steadily he shook. He felt hands slip under his shoulders, raising him up off the floor. He tried to lean his weight forward to help. He felt the warmth of another body against his back. It was soft, comfortable. Arms wrapped around his chest, adding more warmth. He rested his head back against the body's shoulder. He smelled dirt and dew and blood.

  He didn't know how long he sat there, but gradually the tremors finally stopped. Two voices drifted above him as he tried to break through the surface of the haze enclosing him. Both voices sounded tired. He finally opened his eyes and saw Sheridan sitting directly across the hallway from him.

  “So, you decided to grace us with your consciousness,” Sheridan said with a forced smile. She rocked forward, her thick eyelashes shading her troubled expression. “Um, Faela. I think you need to see this.”

  “This?” came the voice from directly above his ear.

  He shifted and an arm uncoiled from around his abdomen. He felt the back of her hand on his neck and cheek.

  “I think he's returned to a safe internal temperature.”

  He felt the warmth running along the length of his back move away as Faela adjusted him so that he slouched propped against the wall. Faela's face came into his vision and she checked his body for any other signs of trauma, but it took only a moment for her to see what Sheridan had meant. Her breath caught in a gasp.

  “That hideous?” he asked as he resettled himself causing a ripple of pain in his muscles.

  “Kade, what did you do?” Faela inquired in a low breath. “You've turned.”

  He remembered what Faela and Jair had said to Tobias. It felt like being consumed by fire, that’s what they had both said. Kade turned his eyes to Faela's and moved toward her. Seeing his face reflected in those silver pools, his brown eyes were gone, replaced by his own moonlit mirrors.

  “Huh,” he said resting back against the wall, “well, that's new.”

  *****

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Marion Lowe’s townhouse sat on the corner between Ivycrest Lane and Lamp Wright Street in the market district of Lanvirdis. It was a modest, but comfortable golden brick row house ringed by a wrought iron fence and over the slate walkway arched a trellis covered with wisteria vines. Marion Lowe had moved into these apartments after she had taken control of Irondawn House thirty years ago.

  Securing her position as Irondawn’s next leader within the Merchant Houses had come at a cost, b
ut then again she had never considered mercy a virtue. She had lacked the advantages of the old families. As a daughter of a sailor, who went down in a gale off the eastern cost of Isfaridesh when she was only nine, life had hardened her to its injustice at a young age. But what she wanted for in pedigree, she more than compensated for in cunning. If her reputation were to be believed, the last upstart to challenge her claim now enjoyed an early retirement at the bottom of Diarmid Bay.

  It was well past supper when the hurried banging at the door roused Marion’s household staff. The damp, cold night air drifted in through the hall and down into her study. She shivered as she reached on her tiptoes to pull a volume off the top shelf, when her steward, Irwin, cleared his throat from the office’s open double doors.

  “Mum, there’s a Daniyelan messenger waiting in the parlor,” he informed her while she cracked the book open in her palm.

  Flipping through the pages, Marion sneezed at the musty smell of the parchment. “What in the bloody name of darkness could Segar want at this hour, blast the man? Ah, never mind me, Irwin. I just hate the cold.”

  She tucked the book under her arm as she walked down the green wool runner that lined the hall, her bare toes sinking into its pile. Like Marion herself, it was simple and unadorned.

  When she entered the parlor, she spotted a black-haired Daniyelan in battle dress waiting by the hearth. He was admiring the painting, lit by gas lamps that hung over the fireplace. It was a rendering of the destruction of Gialdanis. The painter had taken some creative liberties with the large gouts of flame that cracked open its streets, but Marion still liked the painting. It reminded her that no matter how immutable a power might seem, everything falls eventually.

  “What do you want, lawman?” Marion said in her gruff and blunt way. While she had lost the thick accent of the fishing village in which she had spent her childhood, she had never managed to lose their direct manner of address.

  “Mum,” the man said bowing his head in respect, but he did not flinch from maintaining eye contact, “your presence is requested at the keep for an emergency council meeting.”

  “Why is one of Segar’s pups calling me for such a gathering?” she asked, her natural suspicion raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

  No emotions flickered across the Daniyelan’s face at her jibe; he merely answered her question. “Scion Segar has not called the meeting, Scion Rivka Peacemaker has.”

  Marion grunted in surprise. “The Nikelan woman has peeked her nose outside the Boundary, has she? Well, I wouldn’t miss this for all the silk of Kitrinostow.” She turned her back on the Daniyelan to leave the room. “Run back to your master and tell him I’ll be along directly.”

  It didn’t take Marion long to dress in a manner befitting the Merchant House’s representative in Nabos. One of her maids had arranged her graying black hair into a cascade of curls at the crown of her head with two silver sticks, while the other had cinched her into a cream colored corset with boned seams. Her emerald green shirt slipped just off her broad shoulders and while it gave a nod to her femininity, she still wore brown trousers that tucked into knee high boots. Though Marion’s features were lined with age, the hard strength of their foundation gave her an air of tempered elegance.

  When she descended the stairs to the foyer, Irwin waited with her deep chestnut waistcoat. Helping her into the jacket, he said, “The coach is waiting outside, mum. Would you like me to have tea waiting when you return?”

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Irwin,” she said with a slap on his arm. “I’m meeting a legend tonight. Who knows when I’ll return?”

  When Marion Lowe entered the council chambers in Lanvirdis keep, many of the council members had already taken their seats in the chamber, but several were still spread throughout the room talking. Even called out in the middle of the night, the council members were well dressed, if a little winkled from their haste, but more than just council members filled the vaulted marble chamber. In the light of the gas lamps that lined the walls, Marion could see Daniyelans dressed in a similar manner to the one who had summoned her.

  On the recessed floor of the chamber, surrounded by a horseshoe table, stood several knots of people. A man who looked around her own age of fifty-two stood next to a column with a young girl who had spiky black hair and a quiet, but alert expression that captured Marion’s attention. This was a girl who had a disposition Marion could use. She tucked the observation away and considered how to approach the girl. Several yards from the girl stood an ageless woman with long silver hair accompanied by a man Marion did know, Tomas Segar. His brown hair tumbled over his forehead ruffled as though he had just gotten out of bed. While his hair looked a mess, the rest of his appearance was impeccable and an easy smile was never far from his thin lips.

  Marion took her seat next to Layton Norris the harbormaster of Lanvirdis. The leathery-faced old man gave her a nod before returning to scowling at the room. She didn’t bother to hide the amused smile his reaction gave her as she thought about how the council was filled with the finest group of cranky old buggers and shrews as ever governed Nabos. Fishing her watch out of her waistcoat, she clicked it open to check the time. It was nearly midnight.

  Wes could feel her fingers itch when a handsome woman with refined features clicked closed a silver fob watch with floral etching. Though it was late at night, the woman’s salt and pepper hair was piled onto the crown of her head and held in place with two thin, long silver sticks that matched the scrollwork of her watch. In an attempt to resist the temptation, she shoved her hands under her arms. She felt Vaughn give her a knowing look out of the corner of his eyes as he watched Marion return the watch to her pocket.

  Wes had to fight to keep from showing her anxiety at being surrounded in an enclosed space by so much finery and so many lawmen. Through necessity she had acquired that skill even before she found herself on the streets, so she waited beside Vaughn hidden in the shadows of a column. Out on the marble mosaic floor of the council chamber, Rivka stood with Tomas who surveyed the gathering seeming completely at ease as he chatted with her.

  Wes was glad that Vaughn shielded her from Tomas. She had always known which people you didn’t dare lift a purse from and in all her years on the streets, she had yet to meet someone who made her blood run cold quite like Tomas did. He seemed so pleasant talking with Rivka, even kind, but Wes knew better. Though she kept herself from shifting too much or too quickly, she couldn't keep her fingers from grazing over the burns running along her jaw for just a moment before shoving them back under her arms.

  Though he assessed the crowd, Vaughn spoke in a low voice that only reached her. “When this is finished, Wes, how would you like to return to Vamorines with Rivka and me?”

  “I ain't want none of your charity,” she said in a knee-jerk reaction to the offer. “I don't like owing no one.”

  “Who said anything about charity?” Vaughn said in surprise. “If you want to live at the temple, you earn your keep like everyone else.”

  Wes eyed him skeptically. “Doing what?”

  “We're spread a little thin in the stables. The young ones tend to spook the horses more than do any actual good.” He watched her reaction out of the corner of his eyes. “You have a steady hand.”

  Wes recalled how well taken care of Mesa had been. “You can tell a lot about a man by looking at how he treats his beasts. Yours was happy and healthy. You'd trust a street kid like me with him?”

  “You wouldn't let me down,” Vaughn told her matter-of-factly. “It looks like everyone is here. Make sure you stick close. Things are going to become very unpleasant soon. Your decision. Want the job?”

  Wes shrugged her shoulders noncommittally, but her eyes snapped with excitement. “Why not? It's not like Lanvirdis has done right by me, yeah?”

  Vaughn smiled with genuine warmth for the first time since he had returned with his lady. “Good.”

  Tomas clapped his hands together to gain the attention of the gathered
assembly. Raising his melodic voice, he projected to every corner of the room. “My lords and ladies, masters and mistresses, we thank you for your gracious acceptance of our invitation despite the rather unconventional hour. But of course, tonight we host a rather unconventional guest in my fellow Scion, Rivka Peacemaker.”

  He swept his hand toward Rivka with an elegant flourish before turning back to the council members. “I wish that good tidings brought us together this evening, but the Light is hidden from us on this darkened night. I received word only a few hours ago that our Tereskan siblings in Kilrood have been attacked.”

  He paused awaiting the expected uproar that exploded around the room at his announcement.

  Layton Norris, dressed in some of the more simple, but still well made, clothing of those assembled, rose to his feet and with a booming voice that could cut across a crowded wharf or a storm-tossed deck demanded, “Were there any casualties? Where are they holding the attackers?”

  Tomas inclined his head to the man acknowledging his question. “Harbormaster Norris, tragically we have discovered no survivors.”

  Marion had remained in her chair while many of her fellows had jumped to their feet earlier demanding explanations, but the jangled mix of voices all ceased at Tomas' words to the harbormaster. The silence hung in the air like their disbelief. Many of the council members who had stood, sank back into their seats wordlessly. Most simply looked around the room as if hoping to find an explanation there.

  “Darkness take the bastards,” Marion cursed leaning forward onto her elbows. “Any news of Ianos?”

  After taking a regretful sigh, Tomas said, “Missing, Merchant Lowe. My people have not yet recovered his body. We will hold onto hope until they do. If anyone could find a way to survive, it's Ianos.”