The Coming Chaos

by D. K. Holmberg

  Ryn returned to her small workspace. She took a seat, the stack of books calling to her. There was more to learn here, and yet the longer she was here, the more she questioned what exactly she would figure out. The Great One expected answers from her, and if she failed him…

  She would not. More than anything else, she was determined to do what was necessary. That involved understanding what had taken place within the temple.

  As she turned her attention back to the stack of books, she heard the steady tapping continuing. It became a rhythm she worked to, and when it was done, she pushed her book aside, heading back out of the room and toward the staircase. She hesitated, listening for sounds of movement. There had to be something she could detect. So far, she hadn’t determined anything.

  As she waited, standing in the darkness and the shadows, concerned that someone might appear and realize she was standing there doing nothing, she focused on the potential for movement all around her. The steady clomping of feet on the steps caught her attention at last.

  Ryn waited, standing off to the side, expecting that it would be the blacksmith coming up the stairs, but instead it was Dillon.

  He seemed oblivious to her presence, and when he turned down the hallway, she followed him, keeping a reasonable distance. He headed out of the tower, departing through one of the side doors, and Ryn paused for a moment before scurrying after him.

  She could follow the blacksmith another time. While Dillon might not know anything—as far as she could tell—he might lead her someplace where she could learn more. That was what she needed. That was what the Great One demanded of her.

  Out in the city, night had fallen, leaving darkness hanging like a cloud. The air had a thickness to it, an odor that drifted to her and reminded her of her home. Why should that be? It wasn’t like Vuahlu, but the home she had lived in before that.

  Ryn hadn’t considered that place for quite some time and didn’t know whether she should be worried about the fact she had so few memories of it. Then again, her mother had wanted to protect her from the dangers that had befallen her father and had thought that bringing her to the city would do that.

  She racked her brain, trying to figure out what it was about the smells that reminded her of home. Perhaps it was the mixture of aromas. Vuahlu didn’t have nearly as many smells within it as the city did. There were the scents of Baker Hughes and that of weavers working with the conash fruit, along with the salt coming off the sea. Through it all came the scent of the volcano, the stench of the fog hanging over everything. It had been worse over the last few months, that smell mixing with everything else, practically cloying, and this city had none of that. There wasn’t any odor of the sea, and they were far enough from volcanoes that there was nothing here that reminded her of it.

  Dillon turned a corner, and Ryn followed. It led into a narrow alleyway, and she hesitated. She wasn’t nearly as talented as so many others the Great One had gifted. If someone meant her ill, an alley like this would be dangerous. Not only that, but the protections of the temple didn’t extend to her here.

  But she wanted to know what Dillon was up to, and it was the kind of thing the Great One would expect her to follow up on.

  Ryn took a deep breath, heading down the alleyway.

  With her enhanced eyesight, she wasn’t nearly as weak as she felt before. She could make out the gradations of light, the faint moonlight providing enough illumination for her to know where she was and what was down here, but little more than that. There was no lantern light glowing in any windows like there was in other places in the city. It would be pure darkness.

  It was the kind of place Dillon should not have gone.

  Perhaps she’d misjudged him. He shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have gotten involved in anything like this. The fact that he had, disappearing as he did, had her on edge. This was the kind of thing the Great One would like to know about.

  Unless he already did.

  The Great One had a way of knowing people’s intentions, as if he could read their minds. Though she knew that was possible, it had limitations, at least according to the Great One. Then again, having seen the way he worked, maybe he didn’t have the same restrictions as others.

  She moved carefully now. As she went, she listened for sounds of movement along the street. He had to be here somewhere, but where had he gone? It wouldn’t be possible for Dillon to simply disappear.

  Ryn paused. There came a sense of movement. She didn’t see or hear anything, but she felt it. That surprised her. She shouldn’t be able to feel someone moving.

  But hadn’t she detected someone moving before? When the Great One had been there, she had felt him. Perhaps—and hopefully—it was one more aspect of her abilities that she didn’t really understand.

  Ryn remained motionless. It was better to observe that way, a lesson the Great One had taught her. For as much as he involved himself, he was an observer first. It was a lesson she wanted to take from him. The more she could observe, the better she would understand what others working with the Great One were after.

  As she stood there, the sense of movement came again. This time it was behind her. She noticed it as a stirring from somewhere deep inside her, a fluttering sensation.

  Ryn turned only her head, barely enough to look over her shoulder, trying to avoid drawing anyone else’s attention. If she wasn’t alone in the alley, then she needed to be careful.

  There was nothing there.

  Ryn frowned to herself.

  She was missing something.

  If there was one thing she hated, it was the idea that she might overlook something.

  Searching against the darkness, she tried to peer through the shadows. With her enhanced eyesight, she knew she should be able to do so, but how?

  Waiting there for a moment, she searched for signs of anyone else, but there was nothing.

  After a moment passed, and then another, and then another, and still no sign of Dillon, Ryn moved deeper into the alleyway.

  There was nothing here.

  More surprisingly, there was no way out.

  Dillon couldn’t just have disappeared, could he?

  There was only one way he would have been able to do that—traveling.

  Turning around slowly, Ryn looked toward the mouth of the alley. That would be an unusual gift for someone like him to have.

  Which meant she had overlooked something about him. Either that, or he was not supposed to have it.

  12

  Haern

  Days had passed without any further events, nothing that suggested to Haern they were in any danger from other attackers, and yet Haern remained on edge, vigilant, continuing to search for signs of where another attack might come. He was convinced there might be one at any moment, but there had been no sign.

  It was late in the day, the sun beginning to set, when he caught sight of a caravan of wagons in the distance.

  Haern signaled for them to slow and turned his attention to Elise. “I’m not sure what we might find,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Wagons,” he said, squinting. His enhanced eyesight allowed him to make out the details of the wagons. There were probably a dozen, which meant there would be nearly a dozen merchants, likely more than that. Enough people that he had to worry about the safety of his.

  With each passing day, he felt more and more as if the women were his people.

  “Isn’t that what we want? Haven’t we been looking for signs of others?”

  Haern nodded. “We have, but it seems out of place.”

  “We’re out of place,” Elise said.

  Haern cupped his hand over his eyes as he stared into the distance. “That’s not why I feel that way.” He looked around, hesitating for a moment before dropping a coin and reaching for Elise. “Join me.”

  She frowned at him, her brow wrinkling. “Now?”

  “Would you rather wait until it’s so dark you can’t see anything clearly?”

&nbs
p; “I don’t like the idea of flying with you.”

  He smiled at the way she said it. She often referred to it as flying, and that seemed as good a way to term it as any. Yet it never felt quite like flying to him. There was much more work involved in it.

  “I won’t drop you.”

  She arched a brow. “That’s not what I was implying.”

  He smiled at her. “What were you implying?”

  “I don’t like heights.”

  “Then hold on tight.”

  Haern slipped his arm around her waist and pushed, taking to the sky. The strength he had built up working intermittently at the forge allowed him to hold on to her without risking dropping her, and they soared into the air. He was careful not to push them too high, not wanting to draw attention to them. At the same time, he needed to get high enough to make out the caravan in the distance.

  Wind whipped past them, and clouds filled the sky, obscuring everything with a grayish overcast light. It was the kind of sky that brought the promise of rain, or perhaps more likely the threat of rain. So far, the weather had been decent, and they hadn’t had to worry about rain.

  “Do you see it?” Haern asked, pointing off into the distance. The wagons continued to move, rolling slowly away from them. It surprised him that the wagons seemed to be moving slower than they were by foot.

  “I can see the wagons,” she said. “Don’t you think they’ll see us?”

  “They have to be looking in this direction.”

  “What if they’re the ones who attacked you?”

  Haern had considered that. That had been his concern from the beginning, and until he knew for certain, he wasn’t comfortable approaching the wagons, at least not with any of the others. He needed some sign they were nothing more than simple merchants.

  “We never had many merchants come through Elaeavn.”

  “Why?”

  “The leaders of the city, a family called the Elvraeth, preferred to keep us isolated. I think we had some merchants come through, but they were limited to the harbor. Even when they did come, they rarely came into the city. We never had any wagons like this.”

  “We did,” she said softly.

  “Why do I get the sense that troubles you?”

  “It’s not so much that it troubles me. Most of the merchant caravans who came through my home village were smaller than that, though. A couple of wagons. Oftentimes they carried exotic spices, or clothes, or other items the people in the village would trade for. We had skilled weavers, and merchants were always happy to take on our wares.”

  “Other than the metal, we don’t really have much in Elaeavn that merchants would be interested in.”

  “Seeing the way you can use the metal, I imagine that was prized.”

  “For a long time, we were forbidden to use it.”

  “Why?”

  Haern shook his head. “I suppose ignorance is the best answer. It was a battle my father fought long before I came around.”

  “Sometimes merchants would come through and bring musicians with them, sometimes dancers or acrobats, and occasionally we’d get storytellers.” She smiled, her eyes looking off into the distance. “It made merchant visits something of a celebration. You never knew what you were going to get when they came, and while they could be nothing more than merchants, it was always the hope for something more that made them appealing.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “Most of the time.”

  “Most of the time?”

  Her brow furrowed, her eyes darkening. “Some merchants weren’t as honest as others. Some didn’t trade in the same type of goods.” She looked down to where the circle of women had gathered and waited for them.

  Haern clenched his jaw. He had seen troubling things since leaving Elaeavn, and his experience with the Forgers had been perhaps the most troubling of all, but at least the Forgers were after power. He had lived much of his life wanting more strength and power, so he could understand that.

  People who used others like these women had been used were harder for him to understand.

  “How often did that happen?”

  “Not all that often. We knew to keep an eye out for that sort of trader, and if anyone came that we had any questions about, we observed them, keeping guard.”

  Haern stared at the wagons as they rolled away from them. “Are you concerned this caravan is something like that?”

  She shrugged. “It’s possible, but we won’t be able to tell until we get closer.”

  “I don’t know that it makes sense for us to get closer if there’s a risk to the others.”

  “We can defend ourselves, Haern. We’ve been practicing.”

  “I know we have. You have. It’s just they have more numbers than we do.”

  “What do you intend?”

  “I think that I need to figure out what they’re doing before we approach.”

  There was no doubt in his mind they would need to approach. If they had access to wagons, they wouldn’t have to travel by foot. With Marcy still injured, dosed with the medication to keep her comfortable, wagons would offer another benefit as well.

  “None of us like it when you go off on your own.”

  “I know, but if something happens to me, the rest will be able to make it to safety.”

  “You always seem to feel like you need to do things yourself, but we can help.” She looked around before her gaze settled back on Haern. “And if you need to fly, you can at least bring another person with you.”

  “By that, I assume you mean yourself?”

  “If you thought to bring someone else…”

  “I don’t know that I can bring more than one person.” It was times like these that he wished for his father’s ability with Sliding. If he could Slide, he could reach the others, and he could easily get to the wagons and then back without having to fear any sort of danger.

  “I didn’t say you had to bring more than one. I just said that you needed to go with someone else.”

  He nodded. “We’ll go when it’s dark.”

  By the time darkness had fallen, Haern was beginning to question whether he should bring Elise with him. But at the same time, having someone there to watch him and to ensure his safety was beneficial.

  Besides, the more he tried to go off and do things on his own, to serve as the protector of these women, the more he wondered if he wasn’t falling into the same trap his father had. Too often, his father had felt as if he had to be responsible for everyone, and while he believed he was the most skilled in some regards, the others weren’t without their own talents.

  “Are you ready?” he asked Elise.

  She smiled, nodding to him. Jayna and several of the others knew where they were going, and they had set up a watch system, prepared for the possibility that someone might approach. They had decided not to start a campfire tonight, a decision Haern agreed with. Until they knew this other caravan was safe, it was best to exercise caution.

  Grabbing for Elise, he dropped a lorcith coin and pushed.

  They went soaring into the darkness, wind whistling around them. Haern worked quickly, pushing and pulling on coins. He followed the direction where he had seen the wagons, scanning the darkness for them. They wouldn’t have been able to move that much farther ahead at the pace they were going. If they didn’t fear other travelers, they would most likely light a campfire, and he should be able to See that from a considerable distance.

  As he searched the darkness, he caught sight of it.

  They were farther than he would’ve expected, as if the wagons had picked up pace since he and Elise had seen them. Could the others have been aware of them and of his abilities? They would have been outlined against the sky, too large to be anything but people hovering, much larger than any bird or other airborne creature.

  Haern pointed and Elise nodded.

  “How do you intend to approach?” she whispered.

  “We aren’t going to go all the way toward them until we
know more.”

  “How much more do you need to know?”

  “It’s a matter of listening.”

  “Is that one of your abilities?”

  Haern smiled, though he wondered if she could even see it. “There are times I wish it was. I’m not a Listener—that’s what we call them in Elaeavn. I don’t even have any potential for it.”

  “You say it almost as if you think that makes you weaker.”

  “I do wish I could have other abilities beyond just Sight.”

  “Some of us don’t have any abilities at all, Haern.”

  She grinned at him, and he smiled back, knowing he should be appreciative of his gifts. It wasn’t the first time he’d been reminded of that, though it was hard for him to feel gratitude after seeing people like Daniel Elvraeth, even Lucy now that she had her significant abilities, or his father.

  “It sounds awful of me, doesn’t it?”

  “I think you’ve just lived a different experience than others of us. Most of us don’t know what it’s like to feel so powerful.”

  “That’s the interesting thing about it,” Haern said. “I don’t know that I would call myself powerful. Some other people in my homeland are even more powerful. The kinds of things they can do are amazing.”

  She smiled at him, squeezing him a little tighter. “Some of us think you are amazing.”

  “You’re just saying that so I don’t drop you.”

  “I thought that was a good enough reason to say it.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Are we going down?”

  He nodded.

  Elise squeezed him more tightly, and Haern descended rapidly, bringing them down on the outskirts of the area where the caravan had camped. They were a good fifty yards away, far enough he doubted that anyone close to the campfire would notice them.

  Unless they had enhanced eyesight like he did.