Threading the Needle

by Joshua Palmatier

  Allan had a hand clamped over her mouth, his other arm around her waist, but her frightened eyes were glued to the two swords leveled inches from her face. They flicked toward the Wolf and widened even further. She struggled again for a moment, then subsided, her chest heaving. Cory noted her darker Demesne skin and nudged Hernande.

  “The Wolf won’t hurt you,” Allan said. “None of us will hurt you. We’re here for our Wielders and those who were with them. Where are they?”

  Allan removed his hand from her mouth. “I’ll tell you nothing.”

  Hernande stepped forward, crouching down in front of her. He pulled back the sleeve of his left arm, revealing a scattered array of tattoos across his bicep that looked like a constellation of small stars. Cory had never seen them before; they’d always been concealed by Hernande’s clothes.

  The woman’s eyes flared with fear. “Oransai! But Prince Valladolid slaughtered all of the oransai and their families at Barakaldo.”

  “Not all. A few escaped.”

  The floor heaved, a curtain of dust cascading down on them all as they staggered. Cory glanced up, noted a crack running down the length of the ceiling, then resolutely dropped his gaze back to Hernande.

  “Tell us where the Wielders are.”

  The woman stiffened, defiant, but then her eyes dropped to the tattoo. “My parents always said Valladolid was wrong in what he did, that the oransai deserved better.” She met Hernande’s eyes. “The Wielders are at the node. Prime Lecrucius had them taken there.”

  “Prime?” Artras had come up behind Cory, the other Wielders behind her.

  The Demesnes woman sniffed. “Yes. Prime.”

  “Where is the node? How do we get there?”

  “I’ll take you.”

  Allan released her and they followed her through the corridors, Cory slowly realizing that these were the servants’ quarters. They passed a kitchen, men and women bustling over steaming cauldrons and roasting pits, no one noticing as they ran past. A few ducked out of their way, startled, the Demesnes woman shouting something at them, and then they reached a much wider cross-corridor that led to a door, which the woman flung open.

  The sunlight was shocking, everyone drawn up short as they raised a hand to shade their eyes. Cory stepped forward, wiping away tears, as the woman pointed toward the base of the black tower across a field of stone and stellae. “There!”

  As soon as Cory saw the opening in the tower, he charged forward.

  Behind him, Hernande and Allan both shouted, “Wait!”

  He ignored them, rushing through the entrance, pausing in the darkness beyond, eyes adjusting yet again to the pulsing ley light that ran through the walls of the tower. He spun around in desperation, caught sight of the stairs to the left, and bolted for them. He heard the skittering of claws on slick stone and knew the Wolf was right behind him, then the sound of cursing and the tread of boots.

  He emerged into the pit’s massive chamber as the earth heaved violently. Below, white-cloaked figures were arrayed around the fountaining ley in the center of the pit. They screamed, half of them thrown to the ground, a few of them no longer moving. Another group cowered on the floor near the pit’s wall. Cory’s gaze latched onto Kara, leaning crookedly against the wall, Dylan half holding her upright, another figure crouched before her, back to him, others scattered around them.

  “Kara!” He clutched at the stairs as the ground heaved again—

  And then the wall next to Kara and the others cracked and exploded outward. Chunks of stone spilled down to the ledge of the pit, some the size of a man’s torso, dropping into a section that had already crumbled away. Kara was tossed to the floor, her body strangely limp. She struck the stone floor hard with her shoulder, rolled onto her back, and then cascading stone buried her, a sheet of dust blocking her from view.

  “Kara!” Cory scrambled down the stairs, leaping a gap without thought, nearly tripping over the side.

  He sprinted across the ledge, shoved someone out of his way as he fell to his knees, and began scrabbling at the stone that had buried most of Kara’s body. Only her head, shoulder, and part of an arm and leg were visible. He tossed rocks aside, digging through the loose rubble beneath, aware that others were helping him, that some were digging nearby for more buried in the debris.

  Then Kara coughed, a horrible wet choking sound. Cory paused, a stone half lifted from her still mostly buried body.

  Kara drew in a ragged breath, then exhaled slowly, her head sagging.

  Cory threw the stone aside, then leaned over Kara’s head and shoulders. Tears fell onto her face, dark splotches in the dust that had settled there. His hands hovered over her cheeks, trembling. He was afraid to touch her, afraid he’d break her, even though she was already broken. He couldn’t even tell if she was breathing anymore.

  “Cory!” Someone shook his arm. People were still digging around him. “Cory, she’s still alive.”

  His head shot up, but everything was blurry. He wiped at his face with his arms, focused—

  “Marcus?” He couldn’t think. It didn’t make sense. Marcus was dead. He’d died in Erenthrall, after disturbing the Nexus and bringing about the Shattering.

  “Marcus.” He vaulted to his feet. His arm snapped out, fingers like claws as he formed a knot in the center of Marcus’ chest. The Wielder—no, the White Cloak—gasped, hand leaping to his heart as he staggered back—

  But then another hand latched on to Cory’s arm, grip tight, commanding. Hernande stood calmly beside him.

  “Let it go.”

  Cory released the knot, his hand cramping as it relaxed. Marcus sagged. He shot Cory a look of pure hatred.

  But then, between them, kneeling at Kara’s side, Artras said, “Her arm’s dislocated, and I think she bruised the hell out of her ribs, but she’ll live.”

  Cory fell back to his knees. “I thought she was dead.”

  “Unconscious.”

  Marcus stayed a few paces away. He still clutched his chest, but his breathing had settled and his natural color was returning. “She healed the distortion over Erenthrall.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “She nearly burned herself out, but she did it.”

  Only then did Cory realize that the earthquakes had stopped.

  Kara moaned, and Cory reached out and touched her forehead, pushing a lock of stray hair out of the way. She rocked her head side to side, then opened her eyes. “C-Cory? What are you doing here?”

  “We came to save you, of course.”

  Kara tried to sit up, but sucked in a sharp breath and lay back down, sweat sheening her skin. “My shoulder hurts.”

  “It’s dislocated,” Artras said. “We’ll need to take care of that as soon as possible. It’s going to hurt, especially with the bruising you got from the falling rock, but it needs to be done.”

  “Then do it.”

  “Hold her.”

  Kara screamed, but she cut it off by biting her lip as they settled her back to the ground.

  “You’ll have to stay immobile for a few days, in case it isn’t just bruising and you do have a fractured rib.”

  “No one’s going anywhere at the moment,” Allan said.

  Cory started. He hadn’t been paying attention to anything other than Kara and the immediate area. But as he looked up at Allan, standing at the top of the stairs, he realized that the White Cloaks were clustered to one side. Marcus stood back, eyeing Allan, while a few of the White Cloaks hovered over another who’d also been dug out from the rubble, a Gorrani man. Dylan sat propped up against some of the rock nearby, massaging his knee.

  Aside from Hernande and two other Hollowers, none of the rest of the group who’d come with them were in the pit.

  “Where are the others?”

  “Bryce found Adder and Aaron. They’re all at the entrance to the black tower, holding it.
The commander of the Needle’s guardsmen wants to speak to either Lecrucius or Marcus.”

  Allan escorted Marcus out of the pit, the ley that lit the corridor dying out within twenty feet to both the front and back of Allan as they moved. He’d made certain he didn’t actually enter the pit below, not knowing how he’d affect the node itself. He kept his hand on one of Marcus’ shoulders as they pushed through the Hollowers crowded around the Needle’s entrance, Adder and Aaron both hanging back. Grant stood in the corridor leading off from the entrance to the center, nostrils flared, a few of his Wolves beside and behind him. None of the men were close enough to the entrance they could be picked off through the doorway by archers, but all of them had their swords drawn. He didn’t see Cutter among them and wondered briefly where the tracker had gone off to, but shifted his attention to Bryce, the Dog waiting where he’d left him.

  He tugged Marcus to a halt. “Any change?”

  “He’s waiting about halfway between the doors to the temple and the tower. There are a couple of stellae to either side. It’s difficult to tell if he has any archers in the windows above, but he has men ready at the door. Cutter’s taken a few of our own archers up into the higher levels of the tower to see if they can gain an advantage there. We haven’t found any other entrances to the tower besides this one.”

  “There aren’t any,” Marcus said. “This is the only way in or out, except for the tunnels currently filled with ley. However, there are three other entrances into the stone garden, one each at the four compass points. He could be sneaking in soldiers through those doors, although if he were doing that, I assume you’d have heard about it by now from this Cutter.”

  Bryce glanced toward Allan. “Do we trust him?”

  “For now.”

  Bryce ordered someone to check out the other doors and see what Cutter had found. Men shifted to fill in the gap. Allan released Marcus and stepped to the side of the entrance, tipping his head out for a quick look around. The commander stood where Bryce had said, a plinth of stone three paces behind him and to the right that was tall enough to provide cover for a single man. The nearest stone on the left was five paces to the side, shorter, but wide enough that someone could be crouched down behind it. He counted seven men in the shadow of the opposite door in the temple, with a minimum of three windows above that could conceal archers.

  He took another look, this time focusing on the man, not his surroundings, then turned to Marcus. “What’s the commander’s name?”

  “Ty.”

  “He was a Dog.”

  “Dalton ran into him after the Shattering,” Marcus said. “He recruited him and the others for protection. It’s the only reason he survived the first few months, before he found this place.”

  It sounded like what had happened to the refugees before they’d made it to the Hollow. Allan doubted that those who’d fled the University would have made it far without Bryce and the other Dogs watching their backs.

  Their courier returned. “Cutter placed the archers in windows a few levels up. They have a sightline on the commander and the door here. The other three doors are closed. He reports no other activity in any of the windows of the temple—no archers, no watchers, nothing.”

  Allan and Bryce exchanged a troubled look. “He should have at least put watchers up there.”

  “I would have already had men filing into the stone garden, archers in all of the windows.” Allan turned back to the entrance, watching the harsh sunlight and the sharp shadows it cast as it edged toward sunset. “What’s his strategy? We’re trapped here, with no way out. He knows that.”

  Marcus cleared his throat. “Commander Ty is a reasonable man. And like me, I don’t think he’s bought into Father and his visions. Unlike his second, Darius.”

  “Who’s this Father?”

  “Dalton. He’s the man who established the Needle. He pulled all of these people together, brought them here, all based on visions he claimed to have. He convinced them he saw the ending of the Nexus and the Shattering. He told them he could save them all, that he could heal what had been destroyed, that we could begin again on the correct path.” Marcus’ eyes flicked toward Bryce and the others. “Before the Shattering, he was the head of the Kormanley.”

  The Dogs in the group spat curses and shuffled around, the tension in the small entrance room doubling.

  Allan kept his focus on Marcus. “But Commander Ty isn’t a believer.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “That could mean anything.”

  Allan considered. “Let’s find out.”

  He motioned Marcus toward the door, then fell into step behind him, but off to one side. He didn’t place his hand on Marcus’ shoulder as he’d done before; Marcus had earned at least that much.

  As soon as Marcus stepped into view, Allan called out, “I’ve brought Marcus. We’re coming out.”

  Marcus paused a step beyond the door, letting his eyes adjust, Allan guessed, then walked toward Commander Ty. Allan had to blink away the harshness of the sun, but he never took his eyes off of Ty. The man was older by ten years, face scarred and pitted like anyone who’d spent time as a Dog. His stance was solid, shoulders wide, back stiff. A sword sat sheathed at his hip, but his arms were crossed over his chest as he watched them cross the short distance to his position. His light hair, thin and wispy, glowed in the sunlight, his body framed behind by the shadow cast by the stone plinth on the left.

  Marcus halted three paces from him without any direction from Allan. A quick glance revealed that no one was hidden behind either of the nearest stellae.

  Ty caught the look. “No one is lying in wait. And no one is preparing to flank you through the other entrances to the stone garden.” He didn’t wait for a response, shifting his attention to Marcus. “What’s happened here?”

  “What happened to the Gorrani?”

  “They have been routed. The fires that Father Dalton foresaw—that I assume your White Cloaks provided—destroyed nearly all of them. Those that remained regrouped after a disruption at the walls”—he stared at Allan for a moment—“but we held the minor breach. Once they realized they couldn’t take the walls—not with only a thousand men—they retreated. Returning to the southern flats, I presume. We have scouts trailing them.

  “Now, what’s happened here?”

  Marcus had paled at the mention that only a thousand Gorrani remained. “Lecrucius and the other White Cloaks used the Nexus to bring you the ley fire, but it destabilized the network we’d established. That’s what caused the extended earthquake. We nearly lost the Nexus completely. It would have caused another Shattering. Not as destructive, but devastating nonetheless.”

  Ty’s only reaction was a slight tensing of his shoulders.

  “With the help of Kara—the Wielder Iscivius captured in Erenthrall—we managed to bring the Nexus back under control. But the damage had already been done. The network around Erenthrall had collapsed. Kara attempted to repair it, but it triggered the distortion. As it imploded, she managed to heal it. The distortion over Erenthrall is gone. The ley lines to the nodes in the city have reinitiated and stabilized the ley. That’s why the quakes have stopped, at least for the moment.”

  Ty’s eyebrows rose. “She healed the distortion in Erenthrall? By herself?”

  Marcus waved a hand. “She had the support of the White Cloaks here, and the Nexus to draw power from, but essentially, yes.”

  “And what did Lecrucius have to say about this?”

  “He didn’t survive the near collapse of the Nexus.”

  Ty nodded, as if he’d expected that answer. Oddly, the tension in his shoulders eased.

  He turned toward Allan. “Which brings us to you and your men. You breached our walls, and then sealed them back up. Not without damage, of course. The height of the wall in that area has dropped by nearly thirty feet. That’s a weak point that w
e’ll have to watch and repair sometime in the near future. How did you do it? We saw you approach with that other group. You had no siege weapons, no ladders. No one on the walls saw you set any black powder.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Allan had no intention of giving up such an obvious advantage. “We came for our people, those that this Iscivius captured in Erenthrall. Return them to us and we’ll leave.”

  Ty’s gaze shifted toward the burn scar Allan had received when the Kormanley priest had set himself on fire at the sowing of the Flyers’ Tower.

  “Allan,” he said, as if testing the name out. Then his arms dropped, hand falling to the hilt of his sword. “Allan Garrett. You were a Dog. You ran, abandoned your brothers. Commander Daedallen had the entire pack searching for you, until we were distracted by the Purge. He even sent a Hound after you.”

  “No one leaves the Dogs.”

  “No one dared. Yet you did. And you survived. How did you escape the Hound?”

  “I didn’t. He found me at the edge of the city. He could have killed me easily, but he let me go.”

  “Strange bastards, those Hounds. I could never stand being near them.” He paused in thought, staring first at Allan, then up at the black tower behind them, then back down at Marcus.

  “I have a problem. I don’t much like Father Dalton. I don’t trust him, or his visions.”

  “His most recent vision appears to have come true.”

  “Did it? He predicted that a fire would destroy the Gorrani snakes, but only after Lecrucius revealed he could use the ley as a weapon. Did he have a vision, or did he make that up after he found out the Gorrani were coming and that Lecrucius could destroy them with the ley?”

  “What would your second, Darius, say about that theory?”

  “Darius is overseeing the main gates. What would your lover, Dierdre, think?”

  “She’d flay me for doubting Father.”

  “And yet you don’t believe him either.”

  Marcus hesitated. “Not his visions, no. But I do believe in some of what he preaches, in his hatred of how the ley was being abused before the Shattering, and his conviction that it needs to be returned to its natural state.”