A Season of Rendings

by Adam J Nicolai

  Syntal looked at him, the tension of the past two weeks gone. "I'm scared," she said.

  "Me too." Are you sure we should still do this? The question seemed more relevant to him than ever, but he'd learned to stop asking it. The only choice now was his: to help, or stand aside. He took a deep breath; the night air already grew colder. "How can I help?"

  Unmistakable gratitude filled her eyes. She squeezed his hand, then pointed at the second wardbook. "Finish studying this one. Learn everything you can, especially the chant to make a Rising. There's not much that will help in the battle, I don't think, but if I can't win, a Rising may let the rest of you survive."

  If I can't win. "You think it might kill you?"

  She pursed her lips, turning grim. "It's this stupid curse. The one the Fatherlord put on me. The pain is better—a lot better, but I still can't think as quick as I could before. It's still hard to concentrate. I don't think Lar'atul expected someone in my condition to be attempting his trial. If I were in top form, I'd be less worried, but . . ."

  "M'sai." He took the book, then turned back to her. "I can't—I mean, even when I used that Hover on you, back in Tal'aden, I was barely able to maintain it to the city walls. I don't think I'd be able to keep a Rising in place for more than ten minutes."

  "I know. But you'd be able to watch from inside. Hopefully during that time, the thing will . . . give up. Fly away, or something. I just want a way for everyone to be able to escape quickly, if they need to."

  "All right." He opened the book and settled in. But if everyone's relying on me to get out alive, I'm not sure this is the greatest plan.

  Lyseira called the rain again in the morning, and they all shared a quiet breakfast of manna and fresh water.

  As they finished, Syntal said, "I need to practice these chants."

  Iggy gave her a significant look. Angbar half-expected him to protest. Instead, thankfully, he gave a sharp nod.

  Syntal drew a shaky breath; she, too, had apparently expected the possibility of an argument. "I'll try to keep it brief. But I'm not just warning you because I know how much you dislike it. I'm warning all of you because these are . . . different. They're bigger."

  Seth tensed. "How much bigger?"

  "They're battle spells, designed to fight groups. Ves and Slumber were the only real combat chants I had before, but these . . ." She shook her head. "You need to stay where I tell you. I'm going to direct them out there"—she gestured toward the emptiness, the way they'd come the day before—"but I don't know for certain how big they'll be. Stay behind me, and don't leave the shade. It'll be dangerous."

  Seth's suspicion was plain, but he had made the same choice as Angbar. For once, he held his tongue.

  "All right," Helix said. "Now?"

  Syntal nodded, her eyes serious—but that familiar hint of anticipation glimmered there, too. Angbar knew it when he saw it. Just . . . please be careful, Syn.

  They did as she asked, lining up against the stone wall twenty paces behind her.

  "How far away will it happen?" Helix asked. "Will we be able to see it from here?"

  "You'll see it," Syntal promised.

  Then her eyes gleamed with a deeper reality, fading the world around them to grey. She formed a fist with her left hand. "Kor-val baelfar," she snapped, thrusting her arm upward and splaying her fingers.

  In response, a belch of flame shot from the open earth.

  It was huge—large enough to catch every one of them in its inferno, with plenty of room to spare. The fire roared upward then vanished, tongues of flame licking at the open air before flickering away. An instant later, the aftermath of the explosion rained dust and pebbles all around them.

  "Kirith a'jhul," Angbar breathed, and Helix parroted him: "Sweet Akir."

  Iggy turned away, looking green. Lyseira and Seth watched in silence.

  "That . . . that was impressive, Syn." Angbar's voice quavered.

  Syn gave a curt nod. Still Ascended, she pinched her thumb to her forefinger on each hand, her other fingers curled in, and held both hands together in front of her. "Kor-szal tan ekzhan," she chanted, snapping her hands apart vertically while keeping her thumb and forefinger pinched.

  A bolt of lightning tore from the empty air and blasted down into the baked earth, which exploded with rocks and dust. She reset her hands to the first position. "Kor-szal tan ekzhan." This time she drew her hands out horizontally, pushing her left hand forward and pulling her right to her chest. Another bolt of lightning ripped through the air, this one just a few feet above the ground but never touching it, instead blazing a trail straight away from the girl.

  Again, she reset her hands. "Kor-szal tan ekzhan!" Now she looked to the sky as her right hand drew up and left, her left hand down and right. Again, lightning answered her—this time far above them, mimicking the motion of her hands in a precise diagonal line.

  Thunder came with each strike—Boom. Boom. Boom.—echoing across the wasteland and between the stones of the tower until Angbar's ears rang with it.

  Syntal buckled to her knees and grabbed her head, hissing.

  "Syn!" He could barely his own voice over the ringing in his ears. He started toward her, and Helix grabbed him.

  "No! She said to stay here."

  Angbar sputtered. "But she's not―!"

  "Better safe than sorry," Seth said.

  Angbar shook off Helix's hand and ran to Syn's side. "Are you all right?"

  "I think so. They're just . . ." She groaned. "Those are strong chants. And the Fatherlord's curse, it . . . surged all of a sudden, like I triggered it somehow."

  He knelt and put a hand on her back. "Are you well?" It was a pointless question, and she'd already answered it, but his tongue didn't seem to care.

  "It's all right. It's fading again." She nodded as she panted, catching her breath. "Shouldn't have gone so fast, I just . . . I thought I could shape the bolt, and I wanted . . . to test."

  "You can shape it, all right." Angbar helped her to her feet, his nose tingling with the smell of scorched air. Just like during a thunderstorm.

  Syn leaned into his shoulder, nearly prompting him to ask again if she was all right. Before he could, she stepped away to stand alone. "Two more." She glanced meaningfully back to the wall.

  Angbar took the hint and retreated, rejoining the others, and Syntal summoned a tornado.

  The cyclone formed from the ground up, howling and writhing skyward like a snake under a charm. It didn't reach the sky, but Angbar didn't realize that until later; he was too awed.

  She can control it, he realized sickly as Syntal dragged her left fist through the air—forcing the wind, like the lightning before it, to mirror her movements. It sucked at the earth and hurled it upwards, where it shot from the top in an endless plume of spraying debris.

  "All right," Iggy called. "M'sai. That's enough."

  Syntal didn't hear him, or pretended not to. Instead she widened the fingers of her fist, slowly uncurling it. The cyclone responded by widening, its ravenous base spreading to devour even more of the parched ground.

  "I said enough!" Iggy shouted.

  Syntal released the fist and staggered backward. The tornado vanished. The debris caught in its funnel hung in midair for a heartbeat before raining back to earth.

  Iggy was pale, his skin shining with cold sweat. He turned away, his fist to his mouth as if he dared not let himself speak.

  Syntal, too, swayed on her feet—and now, the first line of blood traced a delicate line down her jawbone from her ear—but she said to Angbar, "I need your help with the last one."

  Angbar nodded. He'd been expecting this. "There," he said, pointing at a rock the size of a fist that her tests had thrown into their shelter. "I'll Hover it. Ready?"

  She was.

  His Ascension had improved; he only needed to run through the mantras once in his head before the glories of the Pulse opened to him. He chanted quickly, the words seizing his tongue and arms as they rewrote the Pulse's mess
age. His hand extended, palm down, and he pressed it toward the earth. The rock responded, rising at his command. Then he Descended, leaving the infinite wonders of the Pulse behind before they could consume him.

  The chant had grown no lighter than it had been in Tal'aden. Whether lifting a rock or a boulder, it was the same crushing burden on his mind. He breathed deeply and steadily, bearing up its weight, pushing to hold on as long as possible.

  Then the weight vanished. His mind stumbled, as if it had been pushing against a wall that had suddenly disappeared. He felt an instant of vertigo.

  The rock fell back to the ground.

  "That was fun," Syntal said.

  "You Soothed it?"

  The fresh line of blood trickling from her nose gave her smile a macabre cast. "Yeah. It was . . . different. How did it feel to you?"

  "Like the floor dropped out from under me."

  She gave a weak chuckle. Then her legs gave out.

  This time Helix was first to her side. "Syn!"

  "I'm all right," she insisted. "Just need . . . to rest."

  They brought her back to the coolest area of the shelter, behind one of the stone pillars opposite the rising sun. "Tonight we press on?" she asked.

  "If you can," Helix answered.

  "I can. I'll be ready." She closed her eyes as Helix wiped blood from her face with a cloth. "I just hope . . . the dark of the dragon . . . doesn't require three lightning bolts."

  At nightfall they set out again, this time knowing what to expect. When the sun rose, they endured it for only half an hour before Lyseira brought the rain. Another hour, and Syntal made a Rising; it created a cool, comfortable space, providing a brief but critical respite from the sun for all but Iggy, who refused to enter.

  The two alternated providing relief until they reached the fifth tower, shortly before highsun. Despite the breaks, they actually completed the trip faster than they had the day before.

  They stayed overnight again, giving the two young women a chance to recover. Angbar spent the time studying the chant to create a Rising of his own; by dawn, he could summon and maintain one for nearly ten minutes, but he suffered a nosebleed of his own for the effort.

  The next two days of travel were the same. But as they reached the seventh tower, a new sight greeted them to the south at last: the ruins of an ancient keep.

  They gathered beneath the shade of the Chi'ite tower to peer at it. It wasn't far—only a few hours travel, if they made good time at night. While the first change of scenery in several days was interesting, Angbar couldn't keep himself from scanning the sky, looking for the dragon's dark.

  "Kesselholm," Iggy said. "Has to be."

  "We actually made it." Helix sounded faintly surprised.

  "I think we should wait for nightfall," Syntal said. "I don't want to fight this thing under the sun."

  "Makes sense," Angbar agreed. "Although it may be easier to explore in the daylight." He searched the ruins with his eyes, but it was too far to make out much. "Where do you think it is? Underneath? Flying out there somewhere?"

  "The stag said it was tied to the place of its death. It'll be in the ruin." Iggy's gaze, too, roamed over the distant structure before he shook his head. "Somewhere."

  They reached Kesselholm just after midnight. A broad trench surrounded the crumbling wall, the remnant of a moat long since dried. Chuckler could easily kill himself attempting the climb, not to mention facing the dragon's dark beyond, so Iggy sent the animal back to the last tower—stocked with manna and water—to wait.

  Then they picked their way carefully through: first down into the ditch, fighting not to slide down the incline, then up the far side. The trench wall stood at a good climbing angle, riddled with clefts and protrusions that served as handhelds, but was a deceptively tough climb. The handhelds crumbled under pressure, the earth dry and loose. Eventually Seth leapt to the top and threw down a rope to help the others.

  The outer wall was a ruin, more breach than brick. They climbed over the rubble and at last found themselves in Kesselholm. Angbar chanted a light, which joined the one Lyseira had already made, and looked around.

  They stood in what had been a broad, square courtyard, but the walls which once framed it had collapsed. The odd bit of rampart still stood here and there, framing a memory of the walls' lost design. Solitary soldiers, he thought, still at attention long after shift's end. The ruin of a round tower crouched at each corner of the yard. Most of these were broken and crumpled, but one, nearest to the mountains in the east, still stood. The keep proper was at the courtyard's northwest end, facing out into the Waste—but it had taken the brunt of the centuries' damage. While he could recognize the frame of a doorway leading in, rubble choked the passage beyond. Opposite the keep, on the southeast facing, stood a barbican and portcullis. The gate—an imposing mesh of black iron—still stood. Ironic, Angbar thought, since the walls to either side of it are fallen.

  "I see doors at three of the towers," Syn said, "and we may be able to get into the keep, too. If we split up, we'll make better time." She started for the east tower, the one still standing. "I'll take―"

  "If we split up, whoever finds the dark finds it alone," Lyseira said. "We need to stay together." A chorus of agreement echoed her. Reluctantly, Syntal gave in.

  They found the east tower dark and cramped, its spiral staircase just wide enough for them to take it single file. Interestingly, it led both up and down.

  "Stairs go underground," Seth noted. "Probably a safe passage between the corners, maybe an escape route from the central keep. We should check it."

  "This whole place looks like a death trap," Helix said. "I'm not sure traipsing around underground is a good idea. If it comes down―"

  "The parts that were going to come down probably came down a long time ago," Seth countered.

  Angbar thought of the crumbling wall at the moat bed. "I wouldn't be so sure."

  "We should go up first, anyway." Syntal started that direction, not waiting for approval. "Get a better view of the courtyard. Might see something."

  But under the waning moon, the view from the one standing tower afforded them few new insights. They could just make out a cleft in the hills to the east, describing the way to the mountain pass Iggy had mentioned. Keswick, Angbar realized, is just past those mountains. The realization that they were finally almost out of the Waste gave him a shudder of giddy relief. Beyond that, though, there wasn't enough light to see anything of note in the ruins.

  They checked the other towers. The staircase in one of them remained intact enough to afford passage underground. The rest was a ruin. The keep, too, provided precious little in the way of exploration. After two hours of pointless excavation, they realized it was no good to them.

  Finally they braved the underground tunnels, keeping Syn at the head of the line and Angbar at the rear. The idea was that a chanter could use Hover to lift the debris off the others in the event of a cave-in, so they wanted to maximize the chances that a collapse wouldn't crush them both.

  The precaution proved unnecessary. Narrow and black, the tunnels branched off toward each tower, a set of cells, and the keep. But many of the branches had collapsed, and they found nothing else.

  "Maybe we need to draw it out somehow?" Angbar mused as they made their way back to the surface. "A chant?"

  "I've tried a couple things," Syntal said from the front, shaking her head. "I'm hesitant to just start throwing out spells to see what happens. It's no good to bring it here if I'm too weak to fight it when it shows."

  "It's no good to come here if we never find the thing in the first place," Helix pointed out.

  "I agree with Syn," Lyseira said. "We need to be careful. Besides, it's getting late. If we want to head back to the last Chi'ite tower, we need to get moving."

  "Why not just stay in the guard tower?" Angbar said. "Or even better, down here? I bet it stays pretty cool down here." They reached the stairs and started up. "We could poke our heads out every now
and again tomorrow, make sure the thing doesn't come by, and check everything again tomorrow night."

  "Not a bad idea," Iggy said. "I sent Chuckler back with plenty of food and water; he should be fine if we stay here a day."

  They emerged into the courtyard and crossed to a circle of stones that may have once been a pool. "I'd really rather not go back to the Chi'ite tower," Angbar went on. "I mean, this place isn't exactly Mellerson's inn, but it beats . . ."

  The words dried up, forgotten, and he stumbled to a stop. A soldier stood in midair a hundred feet away, staring out to the west, his feet planted where the wall should have been.

  Angbar blinked and rubbed his eyes, certain they were playing tricks on him, but when he looked again, he now saw two soldiers. The new one had a spyglass. He set it down and turned toward the courtyard, mouth open in a silent shout. He was solid to the eye, but when Angbar glanced away, the nighttime stars shone through him. This made Angbar jerk his gaze back, whereupon the figure became solid once more—but the other soldier, now in Angbar's peripheral vision, grew transparent.

  "What's happening?" Seth demanded as a soldier manifested from nowhere, charging across the courtyard to the nearest tower. "What is this?"

  "That symbol!" Lyseira said, eyes riveted to the livery of the running soldier. "It's the Kesprey, that's their symbol!"

  Angbar fixed his own gaze on the soldier, and saw it: a triangle housing a cross, each of its three corners capped. He, too, recognized it—it had been carved into the door of the Safehold.

  Before he could figure out what it meant, though, he heard the whisper of a horn blast. It was the waking noise of a dream, echoing unheard in the ears but no less vivid for being imaginary.

  It thrashes in remembered agony, the stag had said, the moment of its destruction seared into the Pulse forever.

  Maybe it's not the only one, Angbar realized. "Ghosts," he said. "Look."

  The battlements were thick with soldiers now, armed with bows and crouched near the arrow loops—some on the parts of the wall that still stood, but most in midair, where the walls had been when the keep was whole. All of them like smoke, seen just at the edges of his vision; until he focused on one, and then that one seemed to grow solid while the others faded.