by L. Penelope
The angry girl is linked to those on either side of her, but continues to stare daggers at Ulani. The funnel holds and everyone here is part of it, until the girl releases both her hands, pulling herself out of the chain. Her neighbors are safe because the funnel is a circle, the person on their other side keeps them a part of it, but the girl with the braids is at risk. No one dares move out of the chain to grab her, just about everyone else is focused on the spirit floating overhead.
The angry girl grips something in her hand that Ulani can’t see. Hatred pours from her like smoke from a chimney. Meanwhile, the spirit swoops down, angling for the one unprotected person. With one hand around Papa’s neck, Ulani reaches toward the girl, who’s racing forward, lifting her arm.
Raven lunges forward directly into the girl’s path, but she kicks him viciously. Tears form in Ulani’s eyes as he rolls away, whimpering. The thing in the girl’s hand is a rock. She’s still too far away for Ulani to reach, too far away to protect. The spirit arrows toward her, a breath away from her skin as she lunges forward.
Papa twists, turning Ulani away from the blow, putting himself in its path. The fist with the rock hits Papa’s head just as the spirit starts to breach the girl’s body. But the girl joins the funnel when she touches Papa. The spirit can’t penetrate and bounces off.
Papa stumbles and begins to fall. Ulani feels his pain as if it’s her own.
Mama grabs his arm on his way down, and the man next to him lunges for his leg. They’re all still connected, though Ulani lays in a heap on top of him. The girl howls as feet from all around press her body into the cold ground.
Ulani has to focus on the funnels. The spirit arcs and dives overhead, still threatening. Other spirits slide through the walls, seeking hosts to infect. The room is soon darkened by their presence.
Papa’s head is bleeding. She wishes she could fix it, but she’s not sure if she can split her focus. She doesn’t want to risk it, but he’s sleeping a kind of sleep that isn’t really sleep and it’s giving her a bad feeling. Raven limps over and licks Ulani’s cheeks, tasting her tears.
She’s sorry she wanted to see a spirit so badly—she takes it back. She wants them to go away so she can heal her father. They have to go away soon so she can make sure he wakes up.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Let unseen evidence guide us toward
the mysteries of being.
Pay close attention to
the eyes unseeing.
—THE HARMONY OF BEING
Varten had a tight grip on his father’s shoulder as the two of them raced down the street. He hadn’t been here for the other two wraith attacks, but he could already sense that this one was going to be worse. The portal was somewhere out of his line of sight, but the sky darkened ominously, filling quickly with writhing spirits ready to find hosts.
“There’s a shelter down that street,” Papa said, pointing.
“No, I have to get back to Zeli. I have an idea about how to restore the Songs. I think they’ll be needed sooner rather than later.”
Papa looked around wildly before leading them into an alleyway. It would provide no protection from the spirits, but got them out of the frantic flow of pedestrians scurrying down the sidewalks.
A dark smoke-like column sprinted overhead, swooping down. Varten had a hand on his father, he was protected, but still flinched at the proximity. He felt nothing when the apparition bounced off him and redirected to find another victim.
Crashes sounded as windows broke nearby. Metal crunched and tires squealed. Screams rang out and hysterical people shouted, cried, and streamed past.
“I’m not sure we can make it back to the palace,” Papa said.
Varten peered out at the chaos around them, agreeing. “What if this is it? The Songs might be our last chance.”
“You really think you know how?”
Doubt clouded his mind, but he pushed through. “I think I might.”
“All right, then we’ll need a vehicle.”
Hand in hand, they ventured out into the street. Two middle-aged Elsiran women were hurrying past. The taller one stopped and did a double take at Papa.
“Earthsinger?” she asked, looking at their joined hands.
Papa nodded and extended his free hand to her and she grabbed on, holding onto the other woman. At the corner, someone had abandoned an older-model roadster. It sat, idling, driver’s door open.
“There!” Varten yelled, pointing.
“Does anyone know how to drive?” Papa asked. The two women shook their heads.
Varten had never driven an auto before, but he’d observed each time he’d been a passenger and had been shown the fundamentals of operating one by some of the drivers at the palace. “I think I can figure it out.” To the women, he said, “We need to get to the palace. You all are welcome to come, but this is an emergency.”
The shorter one looked to the taller one, who shrugged. “I don’t care where we go as long as those things don’t get us.”
They hustled over to the car and piled in awkwardly, a jumble of moving arms and legs trying not to break the chain of protection with Papa. Once settled, Varten reviewed what he recalled of the instructions and placed the car in gear. He tapped the accelerator and they moved forward.
Papa was in the seat next to him, one arm gently grasping his shoulder. Varten looked over and smiled when something thumped against the front of the vehicle. A woman stood there, eyes shining with malice. Her two fists had dented the hood.
Varten rushed to put the car into reverse and back up. The woman charged, but then froze and slid to the side before crashing into the front of a building.
“Drive. Now,” Papa said tightly. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He must having been using Earthsong on the wraith.
“Are you all right?”
“I can’t hold her,” he groaned. Varten shifted again and accelerated forward. The streets were in chaos; people ran from spirits and from each other as wraiths wreaked havoc on the city.
Traffic semaphores were working, but no one seemed to be following them. He was forced to slam to a stop when a runaway horse pulling an empty carriage galloped past. When they reached the first of the steep hills they had to climb, nerves buzzed inside him. The engine revved loudly as he pushed the gas while shifting.
“Don’t stall out,” the taller woman called from the backseat, just before the engine cut out.
Varten gritted his teeth. “Thanks.”
He felt the scrutiny on the back of his neck, but focused on restarting the car. This time, he took off successfully. All around them people were trying to run to safety, while more and more were being transformed.
They drove by a wraith lifting the front end of a parked car and tossing it into a house. Varten turned down a side street to avoid a cluster of wraiths up ahead who appeared to be tunneling through the pavement with their bare hands. The creatures tore down power lines, picked apart buildings, and were generally causing as much mayhem and destruction as possible.
“Does the True Father want anything left of the city?” he murmured.
“He doesn’t care about things like that,” Papa responded. “He’ll build a new city if he has to on the ashes of this one.”
When they finally reached the palace gates, Varten was certain he’d shaved several years off his life. Security was nonexistent—even the Royal Guard must have fled to the shelters set up to protect the palace workers.
“Where to?” Papa asked as they ran through the main entrance, hand in hand. Even here, dark shapes arced and dove through the air, searching for hosts to take over.
“This way.” Varten led them through the empty hallways, no other living being in sight, just spirits tracking them, waiting for a break in the chain of protection that Papa offered.
They were racing down a hallway in the newer part of the building when the electricity flickered and died, leaving them in darkness. One of the women gave a cry of surprise, and Varten was forced to
stop. There were no windows in this corridor and it was impossible to see. But a flicker of fire rose in the air in front of them.
“How’s your Song?” Varten asked, as his father’s grip weakened slightly.
“All right for now.”
Varten quickened his pace, relying on the others to keep up. They wound through the passageways until they reached the obelisk room. The door was open, the rubescent glow of the monolith lit the small room. Zeli sat in front of the column but popped up at their arrival. Her jaw hung open in shock as she took them in.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, breathless.
In response, he just reached for her hand. She hesitated for a moment that seemed to last forever. In that brief time, his heart flooded with sorrow. But she stretched out her arm and took his hand. Varten released hold of his father.
“Go to the shelter in the Summer Ballroom,” he said to Papa. “See if there are others you can help or relieve.”
“Be careful, son,” Papa murmured. And then he and the women were gone.
Varten and Zeli stood in the doorway, fingers intertwined. “You came back,” she whispered, eyes wet with unshed tears.
“I’m sorry. I—” He shook his head. “I owe you an apology for a lot of things, but I had an idea.”
“An idea? About this?” Hope laced her voice.
“Do you think you can do that thing that Gilmer did to talk to his acolytes? Except for the whole city?”
Her brow furrowed as she thought. Then she nodded. “I think so. I should be able to do it with the obelisk, but why?”
“Because I think I know what the sacrifice needs to be.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
The Voice you hear inside
is mine
is ours.
It belongs to all and none at all.
It whispers louder than a scream and if
ignored it still continues
speaking.
—THE HARMONY OF BEING
Taking care not to touch it, Zeli unwrapped the king stone with her free hand. While all her old fears were excised when her Song had been restored, it was still possible for new ones to intrude. But after having felt the amazing freedom of fearlessness, she wasn’t eager to take on more anytime soon.
It had been difficult as the doubts intruded. Then the bitter sense of abandonment when Varten had fled. She’d struggled not to let the panic into its former place. She was still struggling as she placed her hand around the caldera, holding the Songs of her people.
Nothing happened when she touched it—it had not been created to respond to touch the way the one Yllis had made was. It was just a heavy, warm presence in her grip.
“I need to touch the obelisk,” she told Varten. “Hold onto my shoulder.” He complied, his fingertips grazing her collarbone. She shivered at the touch. He squeezed her lightly and she took a deep breath before placing her other hand on the obelisk.
Oola and Darvyn, the most powerful Singers alive, had reawakened this ancient caldera, though she could sense it only held a tiny fraction of its potential. Still, this was ancient magic and should be enough to do what she needed.
She concentrated on the Song within her, eager and thirsty and ready to be used. Connecting to Earthsong was second nature, even after mere days since her Song’s restoration. And as it turned out, using the obelisk was not all that difficult. Normally, she would pour Earthsong into her own Song the way you’d pour water from a pitcher into a glass. The obelisk vastly expanded the size of her glass. She felt as though she was linking with both Oola and Darvyn, wrangling their massive power under her control. The obelisk filtered and refined the power until she could wield it with pinpoint accuracy.
Words and spells recalled from Yllis’s journal came to mind. They hadn’t made much sense before, but now she understood. So much knowledge had been lost to time, so much had been impossible with so few able to retain their Songs and pass on the knowing. All she had to do to bring her voice to the ears of the people all around the city was to open her mouth and speak.
Her voice was carried on streams of invisible energy pulsing through across the distance. She spoke as Oola did to other Singers, not as sound on the eardrum, but as words in their mind. But not just those with Songs could hear her, everyone stopped to listen when the solitude of their inner thoughts was pierced with a foreign voice.
Even the wraiths paused their destruction, the human part of them thrown into shock at this mental intrusion. In basements and closets and rooms fortified with cement and iron, they all heard. And what’s more, due to the unusual way that she spoke to them, they did more than hear, they listened.
And this is what she said:
People of Elsira. People of Lagrimar. The True Father started a war five hundred years ago that divided us. It tore us apart and turned brother against sister, father against mother. Singer against Silent. He separated families and friends with the Mantle so that he could steal our magic for himself and subdue us. Right now, his army of the dead is tearing apart the land that we all originated from. He’s trying, once again, to take our home.
But we don’t have to let him. We can get our Songs back.
It may sound impossible, but a few moments ago, wouldn’t you have found my voice in your head impossible? You don’t know me, you have no reason to trust me, but please listen.
The True Father wants us divided. Now maybe the days of Singer and Silent living together side by side are over, and maybe they’re not, but today each of us has a choice. We can be transformed into armies for him, armies for hate and destruction and death, or we can form a new army. One working against him.
If you want to survive today and into the future, you have to sacrifice. We all do.
Magic requires a sacrifice. Earthsong, blood magic, all of it. Only this time, the sacrifice will have to come not from the magic users, but from you. From all of you.
What can you give up to save us?
All of you holding hands, seeking protection from the wraiths, look to the person next to you. Are they someone who you wouldn’t bother to speak to on the street? Someone who’s treated you badly, called you names, shut doors in your face? Someone you fear, who speaks a different language and has different customs and abilities?
Can you admit that the person you’re holding hands with right now might not be like you, but their presence in the chain is helping to keep you safe and alive? If you’re in a chain then you have an Earthsinger to thank. If you’re in a chain and the spirits are passing you by and not invading you, then don’t you owe it to yourself and those you care about to let go of your resentment, hatred, and bitterness?
Are you willing to release it in order to save your life? To save all of our lives?
In shelters in the city, Lagrimari refugees hold hands with Elsiran citizens. It is something neither of them would have chosen, had the world not been ending. But as it stands, with the deadly forms of enemy spirits filling the small, dark space, they dare not let go.
The girl’s voice begins speaking inside their heads, for a moment jarring those within the chain of protection enough that they almost let go. But one hand tightens on another, and the links in the chain remain intact.
The words spoken directly to their consciousnesses are accompanied by feelings, as if each of them are privy to all this mysterious girl’s hope and earnestness. A sense of freedom rushes through them that they haven’t felt since childhood. It’s exhilarating and a little frightening, if only because it will certainly go away, and they will long for it again.
An impression of peace—the kind of peace that seems unattainable once one is weaned off a mother’s teat—brushes over their senses and takes root in their hearts. This sensation is so different than anything they can recall feeling, that it has never occurred to them it could exist.
It draws a stark contrast to the bitterness and disappointment, the blame and jealousy which usually fill them. Which usually are directed against the person they�
��re holding hands with. They’ve grown up with hate, hearing all the usual complaints against the other person: they’re lazy or spoiled, untrustworthy or cruel, boorish or snobbish—the words have left stains that have seeped deep inside them. So deep they can never be cleaned … or can they?
For the words in their heads and the sensations brushing their souls reveal another way. Reveal that these long-held feelings and ideas are warped, that they are something separate from reality. A belief about a person is not that person. It is not the belief-holder, either.
These beliefs and these warped feelings can be let go.
Like a heavy burden set down.
Tears form in their eyes as this realization arises. They wonder how they can do what the voice asks of them, how can they let go of this weight they’ve carried since their memories began?
Their cheeks become wet with tears as this desire intensifies. Yes, they will give it up. Yes, they want this peace that is hinted at, even for a short time. Even if it will doubtless retreat back into the place where it hides.
They do not know that blood spells require intent, but it does not matter. Their tears leave their cheeks and lift into the air. The droplets hover over them, impervious to the hungry, diving spirits, careless of gravity and natural forces. The tears rise and hover, their clear translucence deepening and tinting to red.
They have never heard the word “caldera” before, they would not know what it means, and this, too, does not matter. Because they have chosen to listen, they have chosen to feel, and they have chosen to give up something that has been deeply embedded within them. Something they held precious, even if they didn’t know it.
And so, this sacrifice hovers before them, coalescing. Tears from all who gave them up, regardless of race or magical propensity, draw together, reddening and brightening into something that the spirits shy away from.
As more and more give in to the message and the desire to be free from the cancer that has marred their souls, they release the hate and mistrust, and with their release, their tears join together. The floating red masses grow, fed by the tears of the penitent.
