Shattering Earth: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Magic of Nasci Book 4)

by DM Fike

  Better to go with Plan B.

  I shifted from leg to leg, trying to radiate an aura of agitation. “Sorry to interrupt, but I really need to use the restroom. My stomach’s a little upset.”

  “Oh.” Vincent’s face shifted to one of concern. He motioned toward the room’s front door. “Let’s go to the lobby.”

  But I’d already jumped back into the bathroom. “No time!” I yelled before slamming the door shut and locking it.

  Vincent’s muffled voice reached my ears. “Try to touch as little as possible. This place is supposed to be secure.”

  I entered the tub as quietly as possible so as not to arouse suspicion. “Sure thing!” I called, easing into the tepid water. The kembar stone glowed underneath the wavering surface. I relaxed, allowing water pith to flow through me. When my pithways bulged with it, I drew an underwater breathing sigil.

  Nothing.

  “Not now,” I cursed under my breath. I tried to relax and drew the complex strokes of the sigil again.

  Still nothing.

  “Ina?” Vincent asked. “It’s sure gotten quiet in there.”

  Vincent wasn’t stupid. He’d figure out I was up to something if I didn’t leave soon. I didn’t bother to waste pith on a drying sigil for my boots as I laid fully on my back. My hair floated around my face as I clasped the stone by my side. I breathed slowly in and out, not attempting a third try until my own pith equalized with the bath water.

  The bathroom’s door rattled. “Ina? Ina, what are you doing?”

  It was now or never. I did my best to ignore Vincent’s increasing pleas as my fingers flowed with water pith, outlining the strokes purely out of habit, rather than through memory. It took a while because I let my water pith guide my motions, letting my fingers drift idly in the ripples.

  That’s why, as I finished the last stroke, I caught a brief glimpse of Vincent’s shocked face as he managed to pick the door’s lock. But he was too late. In a dizzying flash I teleported, far away from Florence, more than a hundred miles away.

  CHAPTER 16

  I LANDED BACK at the lodge pool with a dull splash. I hadn’t drawn a drying sigil before escaping the motel, so my soggy clothes weighed me down as I exited the pool. A shiver went through me that had nothing to do with any chill in the room.

  I had to find Rafe and get some straight answers out of him. Why, for example, did he set forest fires if he worshipped Nasci? Those two things were simply not compatible. And I finally admitted to myself that Rafe’s behavior went far beyond annoying. His erratic advances interlaced with angry outbursts, his obsessive behavior about the golems, and even his explanations about the weirdo breaches no longer made sense.

  I pulled myself out of the pool, sopping wet. Streaks of purple washed out the stars in the sky. Dawn approached. It was a gamble to go search for Rafe now, but I couldn’t sit back for the rest of the day and pretend I was fine. He had some answering to do. And although I didn’t want to confront him alone, I didn’t see how I had any other choice. Guntram would never understand, and Vincent had another agenda at odds with mine.

  I had to face him on my own.

  I replaced the kembar stone in the kitchen cabinet. I was mentally mapping out the wisp channels that would take me to Glenada Ponds when a shriek ripped through the quiet lodge.

  I dashed toward the source of the noise, down the hallway, wet boots leaving mud tracks in my wake. Guntram, dressed in a nightgown, threw open his bedroom door at the same time as I arrived at Darby’s room. Stifled moans drifted through the wood.

  Guntram pushed past me to thrust his way inside. I stuck on his heels, leaning over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of Darby bunched up in a wool blanket on the mattress, eyes closed and drenched in sweat. She jerked from side to side, battling her own internal demons. Despite her obvious distress, she still managed to look like a fairytale princess.

  Guntram grabbed her by her pale shoulders. “Darby! Wake up!”

  Instead of complying, the ground beneath our feet suddenly rolled. It knocked me over as a crack split the outside wall, bits of stone and wood debris plummeting toward us.

  “G-Guntram…” I managed through clattering teeth.

  “Hold on!” Guntram stomped his foot on the ground. The earthquake subsided somewhat, although the walls continued to wobble. The outside wall cracked in a few other places, a triangular gap forming so that we could view straight out into the darkened fields of the homestead. Guntram threw his hands up to create a circular bubble of wind, protecting us from the larger chunks crumbling from the ceiling. Darby cried out in her sleep, oblivious to the mounting earthquake.

  I crawled over to one of the bed posts, pulling myself up.

  “Wh-What’s… h-happen… ing?” I asked, somehow without biting my tongue off.

  But Guntram could not reply, lips strained underneath his beard as he maintained his wind shield while the room’s roof finally collapsed, taking down most of the outside wall with it.

  Amidst falling logs and clay, Darby suddenly sat up. Not in an “I’m about to die!” kind of panic (which the situation certainly warranted) but in a trance, not focusing on me, Guntram, or even the caving room. Instead, she tilted her head, staring past us, toward a grove of trees in the distance.

  That’s when I spotted her. The magnificent deer dryant. At first, I thought I was staring at Jortur’s ghost, but there were differences. This was a female. She had no antlers but instead large bat-like ears with hints of green sparkles reflected from within. A constellation of those glittering dots ran down her sides, ending in a fluorescent yellow sunburst pattern near her flank. Her hooves had three toes each, the keratin a porcelain white that matched her other extremities: her snout, the tips of her ears, and especially her bright tail.

  Darby extended one gothic hand out to her. “Piyax,” she breathed.

  No wonder I didn’t recognize her at first. Piyax, the white-tailed deer dryant, lived in the Columbia River basin. Tabitha had imbued her with vitae after our encounter with the mishipeshu. But why was she here, so far from her territory?

  Earth rumbling beneath our feet, Darby stood fixed in her trance, muttering to herself, the words lost in Guntram’s gale force winds. Piyax pawed the ground, eyes piercing Darby’s, some sort of communication obviously going on between the two.

  But eyases couldn’t imprint with other creatures.

  Suddenly, Piyax took a swift step backward, her legs flying upward like a majestic horse about to ride off into the sunset. Then, in a flurry of green sparkles, she leaped back into the forest. As soon as she fled out of sight, the ground stopped shaking. Guntram executed a final sigil to keep the last bits of wall from crushing us, then fell down to one knee, exhausted.

  Darby blinked, gaze coming back into focus. She wavered from one leg to the other. I gingerly extracted my sore arms from the bedpost, vibrations from the quake still rattling my bones.

  “Ina?” Darby asked. Then she laid an arm around my augur. “Guntram? Are you well?”

  “I’m fine.” Guntram brushed her off. He managed to exude an air of authority as he stood to his full height, despite his loose nightgown showing off his hairy knees. “What vision did you see?”

  I balked at that ridiculous question. “I don’t know about either of you, but I just saw a room of the lodge collapse for no good reason. That match up with your experience?”

  Darby ignored me, trembling hands clutched to her chest. “Mt. Hood,” she whispered.

  She might as well have punched Guntram in the gut. He leaned over, pale both from his recent magical exertion and the shock of her statement. “What?”

  Darby nodded. “Piyax told me to go.”

  I coughed on my dry spittle. “Sure. Like that’s going to happen.”

  But Guntram and Darby spoke to each other as if I wasn’t even there. “Then we must go. Immediately.”

  “I’m scared,” Darby admitted.

  Guntram placed both hands on her shoulders, the very i
mage of an augur in charge. “Do not worry. I will guide you there myself.”

  “Hold on!” I cried, making a ‘T’ with my hands. “Time out. I thought you”—

  I pointed at Guntram—“weren’t supposed to go to Mt. Hood and that you”—I shifted to Darby—“were a mere eyas.”

  Guntram marched past me, a look of determination on his face. “That’s all changed,” he called over his shoulder as he waltzed back into the hallway. Despite the damage to Darby’s room, the rest of the lodge remained relatively untouched, as if Darby herself had caused the localized damage.

  I rushed to catch up with him, leaving Darby billowing like a ghost in the predawn light. Guntram grabbed waterproof pouches out of a drawer and began stuffing them with food, a sign that he meant to be gone for some time.

  “Guntram.” I snapped my fingers at him. “What is going on? One minute, the lodge is shaking apart, and the next, Darby’s muttering about Mt. Hood, and you’re all ready to escort her like it’s some sort of cheesy predestined prophecy.”

  “That’s because it is.” Guntram cut a loaf of bread from the shelf.

  I couldn’t contain my irritation any longer. I drew a quick sideways S, and the bread skittered across the counter, just outside of Guntram’s knife.

  He scowled at me and shouted, “Hey!”

  I shook a finger. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Guntram slammed the knife down on the countertop. “What’s going on is that Darby’s been given her Shepherd Trial,” he said. “And that means we leave. Now.”

  CHAPTER 17

  IT TOOK ME several minutes to appreciate the gravity of the occasion. Darby had been called to her Shepherd Trial. More than an entrance exam, it’s a test of your spirit. Guntram’s scurrying about the kitchen slowly made sense. When the deity that sustains the planet you walk upon tells you to haul magical tail, that’s what you do.

  But I didn’t quite understand why Guntram needed to follow. “Darby knows the way to Mt. Hood,” I said as he finished packing food for the trip. “Shouldn’t you stay here on the homestead?”

  “These are unusual circumstances, Ina. The Oracle has declared Mt. Hood off limits to any eyases, and yet Darby must go. I must accompany her as a witness to her Shepherd Trial calling.”

  I rolled my eyes at this concocted excuse. “You just want to visit the mountain yourself. Admit it.”

  Guntram ignored that accusation as he waltzed down the hall to his bedroom, presumably to get dressed. When he closed the door in my face, I knew he wouldn’t provide any sort of rational response.

  Throwing my hands up, I went to check on Darby. She’d mostly recovered from her dryant-induced stupor. She put on her traveling clothes, although I don’t think she understood how exposed her bedroom had become to the elements. Once ready to go, she couldn’t stop pacing around the bed like a caged tiger.

  I flung myself on her straw mattress. “Wow, Darbs,” I said loudly, hoping to snap her back to this world. “Looks like you beat me to it. You’re off to become a full-fledged shepherd.”

  She halted in her tracks to focus on me. “Yes. I suppose I am.”

  I leaned forward. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been training for this moment so long. It’s… a little surreal now that it’s happening.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, waking up in the middle of the night to an earthquake must have been something else.”

  She surprised me by shaking her head. “The earthquake didn’t bother me. It felt as natural as breathing air. It’s the vision that has left me uneasy. Piyax showed me a dream, one in which I stood before a foreboding mountain. She tells me I must move it, but as I raise my hands”—Darby mimicked her story, palms out and facing upward—“I falter. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know how to accomplish this task.”

  I blew a raspberry. “Pfft. You’re a genius at earth sigils. You’ve got this. And besides, Guntram always told me Nasci never asked for more than you could give.”

  “And Tabitha always told me that Nasci would ask you for more than you could imagine.”

  Guntram barged in on that ominous note, cape flowing and ready to take on the world. “Come, Darby. Let us make haste.”

  I pointed out the gaping hole. “Might as well exit this way. I’ve noticed some of Sipho’s enchantments on the lodge aren’t working anymore with the destruction. We’re tracking mud everywhere.”

  Guntram glanced behind him and noted the bootprints. “Indeed.” He then narrowed his eyes at me. “Perhaps it is because you are wet?”

  In between the chaos of Darby’s little dryant visit, I’d forgotten how I’d just returned from Rafe’s compromised hotel room. I never did dry myself off afterwards. Not willing to explain that now, I went for truthful but vague. “I fell into the lodge pool.”

  But Guntram couldn’t have cared less about an explanation. He had his sights set on Mt. Hood. Instead, he laid down one rule. “You are not to leave the homestead.”

  Sure, of course. “When do you think you’ll be back?”

  Guntram shooed Darby outside the building. “As long as it takes.”

  I took a few steps after them. “What about the lodge? And the weird breaches?”

  “It can all wait until we return,” Guntram insisted. “Stay out of trouble, Ina.”

  Any other situation, I’m sure Guntram would have spent an hour reading me the riot act, but today, I was obviously the last thing on his mind. He strode off the homestead property without so much as a backward glance, a nervous Darby jogging to keep up with him. His huge flock of ravens trailed after him like smoke in his wake.

  * * *

  Stay out of trouble? Yeah, right.

  I gave Guntram and Darby all of ten minutes before I planned my own journey. I allowed myself a quick soak in the hot spring, leaning over the stone edge to draw drying sigils on my wet clothes so I wouldn’t squish wherever I stepped. Then, after a quick bite to eat and slapping on Rafe’s bracelet for good measure, I stood out in the middle of a homestead field. I called for Fechin and his friends, testing what kind of obstacles I’d have to avoid.

  None came. All the ravens must have gone with Guntram and Darby to Mt. Hood. I knew Guntram had seemed bent on leaving as soon as possible, but he must have been in a pure panic if he didn’t assign me at least one feathery guard.

  I almost left to find Rafe then and there, but I passed by the library on my way out. Curiosity overtook a sense of urgency. I’d been dying to know for weeks what Guntram had been researching. Now was the only chance I had to find out. I drew the correct sigil combo to open the library door.

  It was dark inside the unassuming building. I drew a fingerflame to guide me. Sipho had etched tons of sigils in the door frame to protect the structure, and they gleamed around me. I honed in on the table near the door that Guntram had used as his academic headquarters. Stacks of books still lay scattered in messy piles. I glanced at their titles.

  Training an Eyas. A New Shepherd’s Guide. Pithway Management. Illustrations of pithways, sketched as vague veins with strange globular organs in between, popped out at me. Every book was written by past augurs on how to bring new eyases into the fold. This gave me pause. I assumed he’d been researching golems, but maybe he’d been researching for my training after all. I noticed cloth bookmarks in books and cracked one open for a sneak preview of my new workout regimen.

  I didn’t expect to find an entire chapter on binding an eyas.

  Pulse quickening, I checked all the other tomes Guntram had studied. Every single one of them had to do with binding shepherds and closing their pithways. Most of them offered tips and tricks on how to get the sigil right so that the eyas would never be able to absorb pith again.

  One book in particular stood out on its own, away from all the rest. Guntram had stuck several bookmarks in it. This reading material didn’t focus on an ordinary binding, which merely cut a shepherd off from absorbing Nasci’s pith, but discussed a painful way to actual
ly disintegrate an eyas’s pithways. The technique was so dangerous, the book warned, that it could kill the casting shepherd if not handled correctly. The simple hourglass shape of the horrific binding sigil jumped out at me, searing into my brain. The technique may take a lot of pith to pull off, but it was deceptively easy to draw.

  I dropped the last book on the table as if it had become hot to the touch. This is what had been keeping Guntram up at night? How to bind me? I mean, he threatened it constantly, but I didn’t actually think he would ever do it. And what a cruel method to boot.

  But something didn’t add up. He’d been researching this stuff non-stop since before the boobrie showed up. And despite the recent fight with the boar vaettur, Guntram didn’t have any reason to believe I deserved such a horrid punishment.

  Or did he?

  I couldn’t do anything now anyway. I had to locate Rafe while I had the chance. I shoved my disturbing new knowledge aside and focused on my destination: Glenada Ponds.

  Glenada Ponds lay outside of Florence in the South Jetty dunes area. It remained publicly accessible if not well traveled, mostly a local fishing hole. I had no idea why Rafe would want to go there, but it was my only lead on where to find him.

  It took me only an hour of wisp channels to reach it, and by that time, morning had cracked wide open. Various species of chickadees sang out their various clicks and whistles among the dense Sitka spruce. Squirrels ran amok inside the underbrush, one of them squeaking at me in passing. The overcast sky kept things cool despite the season, so I drew an inner heat sigil for warmth. Once at the pond, I sneaked past two fishermen testing their luck on the northern end of the ponds. Traveling south, though, I ran into no further human activity.

  Despite that bit of good luck, my plan lacked fine details. I wandered around the eastern shore, scouring for a makeshift campsite, footprints, any sign of Rafe, all to no avail. After a thorough search, I begrudgingly glanced across the western shore with its sandy dunes and occasional ATV hums. I doubted Rafe would hang out anywhere near people, but with no other place to search, I drew a sigil to walk across the water to investigate.