The World Shaker

by Abby Dewsnup

  “I can see why you left this city,” Warren began to say, pulling his sleeve up to use as a shield against the salt. “The weather is terrible.”

  “It’s normally much calmer. The land knows there is a World Shaker here,” Roland said in a lowered voice, sparing us a glance over his shoulder. What he had spoken of felt like an omen, and I didn’t want to add his words onto my lengthy list of things to worry about. I sighed and tucked all thoughts of World Shakers into the back of my brain, focusing on the Sol Tavern ahead of us.

  A long path of metal led to the doors, and I realized with a start that the ground ended abruptly on either side of the pathway. Below, the sea raged. There wasn’t anything to act as a protection from the fall, just the slick, rain-beaten metal walkway. The Sol Tavern was floating on a mass of dirt and rocks. I wondered, briefly, what drunken men did when faced with the challenge of returning home.

  “Everyone in the Fringe has a keen taste for dramatics!” I shouted over the torrential ocean. “Why couldn’t they just attach it to land?”

  Jay nodded. “I’m starting to think that the Light Districts are built off of satisfaction and propaganda — am I right, Roland? This is to attract customers.”

  “Exactly. A keen taste for dramatics, sure. It’s what the people like,” Roland replied loudly.

  Warren fluttered a few feet from the walkway, undisturbed by the sheer drop off. His wings were somewhat of a comfort as I tried to refrain from looking down. At least if I fell, there was a half chance that Warren’s reflexes were fast enough to catch me.

  After what felt like ages, my feet met with the creaking wood of the tavern porch. Roland knocked three times, his face settled into the usual scowl. The door creaked open, and an invisible figure admitted us inside.

  The scene was exactly how I imagined a city tavern would look like. Metal booths pressed against the walls, a glowing drink counter wrapped around the farthest corner. In the center of the room was a cauldron, where a bright liquid bubbled and swirled. From its contents sprang the beacon, the rays streaking through a hole in the roof and into the sky.

  People in skin-tight clothing reclined in the booths, their laughter filling the room. A single solitary figure sat in the farthest booth, a hood pulled low over their face. I was about to look away when I noticed Jay’s eyes on the man, his hands flexing at his side.

  Roland approached the thin bartender, and I followed him. Jay stared at the hooded figure for a moment longer, unable to tear his eyes away.

  “Hey,” I said, brushing his hand. “Do you know him?”

  Jay looked down at me, his eyes clearing as if remembering I was there. “No, I don’t. Sorry, let’s go.”

  The bartender was a thin man with a hooked mustache and a nose that looked as if he’d broken it one too many times. His beady eyes studied us as we approached his counter, taking in our clothing and weapons.

  “Roland, long time no see, my friend,” he said in a nasally voice, a shark-like grin stretched across his face.

  Roland sat down at the counter, forcing the rest of us to stand behind him. Warren’s wings were attracting notice, but aside from a few casual stares, no one stood up to make a scene. I assumed that Windwalker’s had come through the Light District before on a few occasions.

  “What can I get for you and your companions?” The bartender continued, setting down the glass he had been polishing.

  “Not here to drink, Eustace,” Roland said, his voice low. “Don’t play games. Where can we find the entrance?”

  Eustace chuckled. “Last time you were here, you were asking the same question. Finally shaken that Glass Trader Mane, did you? He was so adamant that he join you at the Stones.”

  I glanced at Roland. It made sense now how he knew the Glass Trader, Mane. He must’ve met him in this tavern. That was a detail Roland had left out.

  “Yeah well, this time I have the Prince’s approval, and we’re running an errand for him. You don’t want to get marked for treason, do you?” Roland ventured.

  Eustace leaned over the counter, revealing a brazen set of teeth. “He doesn’t run these parts anymore. I’ve heard there’s a new big man running the city, and he goes by a strange name. The High Prince doesn’t scare me none.”

  “Hey,” a new voice said from behind me, “You lot gonna buy a drink, or make some space for the rest of us?”

  My fingers were itching to grab my staff. Tensions were running high across the room, and several pairs of eyes landed on us. “One more moment,” I replied to the unknown voice.

  Roland was still arguing with Eustace, who seemed to relish in the contention. The itch in my fingers persisted, and I fingered the edge of my staff with trepidation.

  Across the bar, someone dropped their glass. It exploded, and in that instant, several things happened all that once. Roland grabbed Eustace by the shirt collar, jerking him across the counter with a snarl. The man behind Jay shoved him aside, resulting in Jay lobbing a punch straight across his jaw. Men jumped from their seats, smashing their glasses against the table. And I, with a movement quicker than I ever thought possible, pulled the staff from my back and whipped it beneath the man’s chin, stopping him dead in his tracks.

  The bar was in chaos. Jay was yanked back and forth in the mob, their fists flying. He ducked, decking a man to his right as the crowd smothered him again.

  Roland released Eustace and shouted over the confusion, “Come with me, it’s out back!”

  Warren’s wings created a massive wind that slammed several men against the wall. It was enough for Jay to break free from the crowd and rush to my side, breathless and bruised. I slammed my staff into the gut of a drunken man, and used to other side to whip someone across the temple. There was shouting and punches flying, spilled bottles and the reek of alcohol in the air. I pushed through the people and flung the back door open, grateful for the fresh air.

  “Wouldn’t be my first bar fight I’ve been in,” Jay said once he stumbled outside, panting from the fight. He looked over at me and grinned. “They’re kinda fun, if you stay away from the glass.”

  I shook my head. “They’re dangerous, it’s reckless to go around starting fights with drunken men.”

  “Ah, so now Anya is the sensible one,” he shot back.

  We could still hear the fighting inside, and Eustace’s nasally voice rang out in a plea to end it. A tall bearded man fell hard in the mud next to us, only to stand back up and promptly return inside.

  “Okay, so where are these Oracle Stones anyway? I’m getting hungry, and we’ve missed lunchtime,” Warren complained.

  “Eustace said he had reason to believe the entrance was halfway down the cliffside, in an ancient cave. There’s a trail this way,” Roland replied. He had purchased a bow in the markets yesterday while Jay and I were away, and it was now pulled tight in his hands, an arrow nocked and ready.

  I pulled my own staff free and placed it in the soil like a walking stick. “Lead the way,” I encouraged him.

  Before crossing to the cliff’s edge, Roland turned to Jay. “Now would be the time to bring up any weird Sparrow senses you’ve got up there. Can you feel anything? Are we walking into a trap?”

  Jay’s expression never flickered, the same seriousness in his eyes as he said, “Death isn’t wafting from any of you, if that’s what you mean. But I do feel as if the Stones are waiting for us to come. Maybe it’s because I was literally reborn from them, but I just have this feeling...” I noticed his thumb brushing the hilt of his sword as he spoke, and his eyes darted over to mine. In an instant, his face had returned to normal.

  “Are you sure that’s all you know?” I asked, cursing my brash mouth in the next breath.

  “That’s all I’m aware of,” he said with a scowl. “If I get any other other-wordly, Death Bringer prophecies, I’ll alert you immediately.”

  His tart reply did nothing to settle my nerves as we followed a trail down the cliffs. The rocks were starch white and well worn, but the path was
thin and overgrown. It looked as if the last person to seek out the Oracle Stones had died centuries ago, if that.

  The trail grew steeper, cutting through rock and mountainside. The ground was loose, and I was glad for my staff to keep me on my feet. Ahead of us, the path vanished around a bend in the cliff.

  Warren flew alongside us, his clothes soaked from the spray of seawater. Several times Roland stopped, his hand pressed against the rock as if searching for something. He felt around for a moment before brushing past and continuing down the trail.

  I shivered, trying to ignore the freezing mist that threatened to chill me to my bones. The pathway never seemed to end, and I wondered if we had been sent on a wild goose chase by the bartender. Maybe the entrance was in his tavern basement, and he was too selfish to expose it.

  The anticipation of seeing James again was what kept me going. We were impossibly close to our goal. Jay would get his brother back, as would I, and the world would be well. And soon, I could figure out what exactly my light marks meant and what was beneath my skin. Everything was falling into place.

  Finally, Roland stopped. “There’s words here in the stone. Jay, you speak Turk fairly well, I assume.”

  Jay eyed the inscription. “I don’t know what sort of Bounty Hunter you are, but that definitely isn’t Turk.”

  Warren pushed past them both. “Good thing Windwalkers are learned in a handful of languages. Alright, let’s see here,” he bent over, squinting at the words. “You guys, I gotta be honest. This thing’s written in some sort of weird localized dialect, and this word — this word literally means ‘step not’, but a while ago it was used as an expression for death, and I’ve only ever studied the secondary form of the dialect. When was this carved? Sixth century? Because if it’s sixth century then the word means ‘to become.”

  Roland crossed his arms. “So can you read it or not?”

  “Wait, wait,” Warren pushed him away. “This is either a crypt, a warning, or both.”

  I looked over at Jay’s scarred face. “It’s probably both,” I replied.

  Warren took a deep breath and began to read the inscription. “Behold, the house of the Oracle. Step not but with pledge, for those who enter shall come away, and those who come away shall enter.”

  Jay shrugged. “Hm, troubling. So where’s the doorway?”

  At the precise moment he spoke a deep rumble echoed through the cliffs. The ground beneath my feet trembled, and I instinctively grabbed onto the rocks. The slit in the mountainside began to grow, widening into a dark cavern. Then, it went quiet.

  I peered inside. “Found the entrance,” I said dryly.

  The yawning cave seemed to whisper my name. I looked at my friend’s faces, noting their confusion. The cavern must’ve spoken to them, too. Fog trailed out of the darkness, promising sodden rocks and Stygian. I shivered again, but this time it was out of fear as opposed to the cold.

  “Anyone got a torch?” Warren asked. In our silence, he found his answer.

  “Wait, I’ve got a built-in torch.” I held out my hand, entwining my other hand through Jay’s fingers. It was slow coming, but my light marks flickered to life, spreading down my arms and neck, lacing across my back like branches in a tree.

  Warren cursed under his breath at the sight, but no one else said anything as we entered the Oracle’s cave. My light reflected off the polished walls of a long, slim passageway, and I couldn’t see the ending through the stretch of dark ahead of us. The air reeked of earth, and the temperature lowered until I could see my own breath fogging around me.

  I caught my reflection in the shiny stones. My hair was wet, the black strands dripping like snakes down my neck. My dark eyes stared back, looking startled and alert in the lowlight. But it was the light marks that shocked me the most. I had never seen myself with so many strange markings across my olive skin. I was reminded of a warrior with war paint on, a soldier who went to battle and returned with bleeding scars. Except, these markings were intricate, symmetrical. They even sprouted across my face, down my cheekbones and jaw, out across my collarbone.

  “See, you’re incredible,” Jay whispered. “You don’t need to run from it.”

  I looked up at him. “Neither do you.”

  The passageway rounded a corner, revealing a dead end. I stopped in my tracks, scanning the barren rock face. Desperation filled my chest. This wasn’t right — there must be another way.

  Roland, unbothered by the end, pressed his palm against the flat stone. “Anya, do as I am doing, just right here.”

  Confused, I pressed my hand against the rock. Cold crept up from its surface, but I could feel a slight tremor running through the rock. Just as it had done before, a crack spread up the face. It widened, revealing another dark room.

  It didn’t occur to me until I had stepped into the room that Roland shouldn’t have realistically known how to open the doorway. His certainty in what appeared to be dumb luck threaded a strand of worry through me, but my panic was momentarily forgotten at the scene unfolding before me.

  We were standing in a cavern, but the sheer size of it resembled my Caves back home more than anything. The ceiling was dozens of feet above us, as tall as the mountain we had entered. Rocks made for makeshift platforms against the walls.

  The highest tier slanted low, gathering water inside the dip of rock. Three rocks protruded from the small lapping pool, glowing a strange green color that illuminated the cavern with an eerie light. The hue seemed to melt from the stones like wax on a candle before dispersing across the floor.

  Behind the rocks grew a gnarled cherry blossom tree, its roots twisting down the rock face. Petals fluttered through the air, floating around us and gathering in the water.

  Jay’s hand tensed in mine. I knew this scene before us — I had seen it before. My hand reached for the necklace he had gifted me only last night, remembering the similar one I had worn in my dream.

  “The sun is weeping,” Jay said breathlessly.

  I looked up at him, my breath fogging through the air. “Something strange must have happened here,” I said, my voice echoing off the walls.

  I couldn’t repeat the mantra from my dream out loud, the weight of it stifling my lungs. I recalled Jay’s hands, how they had risen against mine like the birds.

  The birds are silent because the flowers have died.

  I didn’t need to look at Jay to know that someone had died here in another lifetime. The ache of it stilled the world around us.

  Slowly, softly, he let go of my hand.

  17

  When is a Curse Not a Curse

  “So, I take it that those rocks are the Oracle Stones?” Warren asked, breaking the tension. “I thought they’d be bigger, if I’m honest.”

  “They don’t need to be big to do their job,” Roland said, his back turned to us.

  I couldn’t shift my gaze from the fluttering cherry blossoms. Everything in me wanted to turn and run the other way. There was no chance that I could have dreamt of this place. I was just Anya the Cave-Dweller. Magic hung heavy in this cavern, and I knew magic was not something to trifle with.

  “I grew up in a cave, you know. And there is no chance that a tree like that could have grown in here,” Jay said.

  Roland ignored the remark. He took a step forward and sank knee deep into water. In my haste to study the stones I hadn’t realized that the water extended farther than the highest tier of rock — the water had flooded the entire cavern.

  I followed him, the chilling water lapping around my knees. I held my staff in one hand, letting it trail behind me, glad for the feel of it in my hands.

  Warren took flight, his powerful wings sending colossal ripples through the pond. I noticed he held back, though he could reach the Stones in a few flaps of his wings. He was as wary of the cave as I was.

  A staircase carved of stone wrapped around the levels of rock. I used my free hand to brush the hard walls as our footsteps echoed around us, my knuckles rubbing against years
of ancient handprints and carvings. The Oracle had always been a deity of sorts, but the title had never felt as harrowing as it did now standing in her home.

  Roland’s shoulders were rigid as he climbed the rocks. I watched as he pushed his grimy long hair back, the arrows in his quiver shaking as he did so. I couldn’t imagine his courage, the Bounty Hunter turned friend who was about to sacrifice life as he knew it for us. My heart bled for him.

  We reached the Oracle Stones. The cherry blossom petals fell around us in a methodical rhythm, hauntingly similar to my dream. I couldn’t look over at Jay for fear of seeing his eyes overcast in the green light, the omen of a Death Bringer written all over him. There was a reverence about the Stones, enough to make me fear speaking.

  The light that pooled from the Stones began to take shape, rising up in a disfigured body and face. I knew enough to know that it wasn’t the actual Oracle standing before us, but a figment of her power, a messenger.

  “And was my warning unread in your ignorance?” she said, her rich voice echoing through the cavern.

  “We’ve come to seek out your help,” I said.

  Her flickering face looked at us each in turn. “Two Cave-Dwellers, a Windwalker, and a Light District Bounty Hunter. Tell me hunter, are they paying you well enough for you to seek me out a second time?”

  Roland crossed his arms. “I wasn’t prepared last time. I am ready for what you ask now.”

  She shifted her gaze over to Jay. “And you, Cave-Dweller, is your second chance not good enough? What is it they call you now?”

  Jay dipped his head. “A Death Bringer, miss. But the name only holds power over one who will allow it.”

  “Wise words for one so young. And you? Why have you come?” She asked Warren.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I needed a place to go.”

  The Oracle nodded. “You will find great friends in this group. However, there is one among you of whom I cannot read. What is your name, girl?”

  I tightened my grip on my staff, trying to look confident as I said, “My name is Anya, and I’m seeking the Light Kingdom. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency.”