The Broken Door

by Sarah Stirling

  “He’s a very important man. But he didn’t get to the position by not being good at his job.”

  Rook frowned. “No? I could have sworn the book I read on the journey over said the island had been in Shaikuro hands for centuries.”

  Alik glared at her and she grinned at him as he folded brown arms thick with muscle, angling himself away from her. He was far too tightly wound, like one of those little toys she’d seen in the stores at Yuratsa, turning the key until taut and then the soldier would march of its own volition. As much as he wanted to blame her, he was perfectly capable of winding his own key it seemed.

  “Wei?” said the same servant from before, eyes darting between them. “The Governor asked me to pass on this letter. He has very urgent business to attend and wishes to express his deepest apologies.” The servant folded himself in half when he bowed and then scurried off, shoes squeaking against crimson and white tiles.

  Rook peered over Alik’s shoulder. “What does it say? Open it!”

  Alik nudged her aside, already walking towards the exit. He broke the wax seal with his eyes on the window beneath the clock, the shutters open and thin gossamer curtains billowing in the breeze. “No one ever takes this seriously,” he grumbled as he yanked the yellow sheath from the envelope.

  “I told you, didn’t I? They think we all belong in the witless house.”

  “Maybe you do,” he said, eyes scanning the elegant scripture of the Governor’s handwriting. Rook had picked up her letters quickly when she’d joined the Order in Lyrshok, but she still struggled with differences between the dialects spoken across the Myrliks. She squinted at the squiggles across the page, mouthing over the words.

  Alik swore. “He’s not even going to meet us.”

  “Why not?” This time when he moved out of her way she overbalanced and nearly fell over. “What does it say?”

  “He’s pawned us off on his daughter. We’ve to meet tomorrow at the Order’s house in the city.”

  “Are there lodgings? I never really got the chance to find out yesterday.”

  Alik’s eyes were still on the letter, not bothering to look up even as he bumped into people. “There will be lodgings.”

  When they arrived at the thin slice of building wedged between two larger townhouses, yellow paint flaking away to reveal the brick beneath, she soon realised the meaning of his assertion. There were exactly two other members of the Order of the Riftkeepers in the city of Nirket, and they were the old couple that ran the house itself. It was sparse but still had a rustic, homely feel, sunlight streaming in through the window over some rickety looking chairs and a table by the fireplace.

  “I’ll show you to your room, dear,” said the kindly Yusha, plodding up the stairs with a basket of linens. “It’s nice to have a visitor. We see too few.”

  “I’m sorry to see the state of the rift guardians here. I know things aren’t the way they used to be, but…”

  “It’s been that way for some time now. People do not like to think of the things they cannot see clearly. A will-o-wisp might be one thing, but it is unheard of to see something like a Vartza. After a while people stop believing.”

  “Apparently that’s not the way of things any longer.”

  A lock of Yusha’s grey hair fell from her bun as she nodded. “Yes, the rift. It is not far from here. I fear the bridge widens every day.”

  “You’ve seen them? Greater riftspawn?” They came in different orders, although scholars were inclined to disagree on what those classifications were. The one common piece of knowledge was that sightings of the more powerful classifications of riftspawn were a sign of instability in a rift – the bridge between the physical realm and the realm of spirits.

  “I felt it. I think anyone would have felt the chill in the air.” She shivered as if in memory, the motion racking through her hearty frame. “Alik-cho has seen them. He’s getting good at classifying them but it’s hard to come by the information here. He said you’re from the base in Rökkum?”

  “I am. I’m training to be a rift warden.”

  Yusha raised her brows. “My, my. A good luck to you, then. I’m glad the boy got such a quick response.” She gestured to the second door on the left along the narrow hallway. “This one is yours. The washroom is on the end.”

  “Thank you, Wei.”

  The room had been ridiculously cheap so Rook wasn’t about to complain about the lodgings which consisted of a simple square room with a single bed and a tiny round window looking out into a small courtyard, the warped glass blending the coloured buildings into an abstract painting of pastels. All in all it was pretty pleasant, the linens fresh and the room comfortably airy despite the swelling heat of the day. She dropped her satchel and let herself fall onto the bed, legs dangling off the edge.

  It shocked her, how far behind they’d fallen here. No one monitored the rift. No one cared, beyond the three members of this pitiful Order, barely aware of what they were potentially dealing with. Rook could taste it in the air; the tangible tremble of power somewhere nearby. Like a lighthouse in the deepest dark of night, warning ships from being dashed against the rocks, it emitted the pulsing signal of the dangers to come if they didn’t find a way to prevent it from rupturing completely.

  Rook swallowed, absent-mindedly making patterns out of the marks on the ceiling. A rift hadn’t ruptured for the past three hundred years. How was she, still an amateur from an organisation much diminished, and with much knowledge lost, able to solve a problem that no one had been able to fix for such a length of time?

  *

  Kilai cracked open the shutters with enough force that they rattled off the stone wall of the tower. A refreshing gust of air rolled in and she shut her eyes with an escaped sigh, feeling the breeze kiss her flushed cheeks. Words rolled over her like the gentle swell of the waves out in the bay, twinkling in the sunlight when she finally reopened her eyes.

  “I hear what you’re saying, Dakanan-all. I understand that your men need more space.”

  The man in question stared back at her, forehead creasing before he finally gave in. “I assume a ‘but’ is going to follow that sentence.”

  “No,” she said with her best pleasant smile, just the hint of white teeth against dark skin. “However, I simply do not have the resources to give you. Do you not see how it will look to the people that don’t have homes – the ones who live in little more than shacks and cannot feed themselves – that I have allocated more resources to the Empire’s forces? They would begin to wonder, just exactly why we need all these soldiers in a peaceful city. She moved back to stand behind the chair of her father’s desk. “You understand my dilemma, do you not?”

  Dakanan snorted. “You already talk like him. Parroting back sweet words as if I won’t understand that you’ve basically told me to paddle off back home. Careful, girl, that you don’t get to big for your father’s breeches, hm?”

  “Actually, Dakanan-all, you’ll address me as Kilai-shai in this office, if you do not mind. I am acting Governor in my father’s stead.”

  She should be thankful that he simply smirked and crossed his arms, apparently more amused than angry at her gall. Let him think her a naïve little girl playing at games she did not understand. Being underestimated was a gift she would not squander.

  “Yes, I do wonder what is keeping that father of yours quite so busy.” He paced the length of the room leisurely, arms crossed behind his back. “You do understand my authority is greater here, don’t you? Should you prove to be too much of an obstacle it won’t be so hard to have you removed.”

  Her grip tightened on the chair. “I think you’ll find that decision to be very unpopular. Do not forget that my family has governed this island for centuries. To them, you are but a stranger, and they will not listen to a stranger.”

  Dakanan scoffed. “Hardly. Occupation here is nothing new. Like sheep they’ll follow the flock. The people want assurances of safety and food in their belly. Anything more than that is mean
ingless to them.”

  “You are a military man, Dakanan-all. Perhaps you should leave the needs of the people to people like me.” She sat down and pulled loose a sheath of paper, reaching for her pen and ink. “There is an old farmhouse not too far from the city with plenty of land. You may station the men you cannot fit in the barracks there.” She signed the document with a swirled signature and passed it to him along with a scribbled mark on a map, noting the look of surprise on his face. “Happy?”

  “It’s not the most convenient of locations,” he said, brows furrowed.

  Kilai sighed. “Are you ever satisfied, Dakanan-all?”

  The smile he gave her looked so unnatural on his face it nearly cost her composure. “Yes, of course. We will be speaking again, soon. Thank you for your hospitality, Shai.”

  She waved him out, only allowing herself to slump back into her chair after she could hear his footsteps on the stairs. Scraping red locks of hair from her face, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm herself down. There was a fine line she had to walk, of appeasing the general while not appearing so weak that she gave in immediately. Too easily her machinations could backfire and it would mean losing everything her family had built over hundreds of years of governance in Nirket. She fingered the enamel pin on her blouse, depicting her family crest of the redback turtles that occupied the waters surrounding the island of Sathkuro. Too easily it could be wrenched from her fingers if she did not tread carefully. It was exhausting.

  “Shai,” said one of her servants, a young girl by the name of Varryll, “there are more farmers who are demanding to speak with you.”

  “Do they have an appointment?” she snapped and immediately regretted it when the girl flinched. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What do they want?”

  “It is about the…” Varryll stepped forward, dark eyes wide, “spirits.”

  Kilai sat up. “Did they say what the problem was?”

  Varryll shook her head.

  She glanced at the clock and resisted the urge to sigh, feeling her stomach rumble a protest to a lack of food. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. “Send them up,” she said with a flick of her fingers, relishing the brief moment of quiet as Varryll ducked out of the door.

  Riftspawn sightings were increasingly becoming a problem, too many townsfolk and those in the surrounding areas coming to complain of spirits and demons plaguing their lands, destroying crops, stealing, and possessing their animals. It had seemed like superstitious nonsense, at first, but if people were continuing to come to her then it was something she was going to have to deal with, lest they start to think she didn’t care about their problems. As much as she’d never seen anything beyond a White Nettle, she couldn’t afford to dismiss it any longer, regardless of the real cause. A knock at the door had her scrambling to fix her posture, battle mask slipping on as she commanded the farmers to enter.

  Grubby, clothes threadbare, the two men rubbed at dirt-covered hands as they approached her desk. She blinked, momentarily caught by her own surprise before she flattened out her expression and laced her fingers together. Apparently she’d been convincing enough to intimidate them. “Gentlemen,” she said, “please take a seat. Tell me what the problem is and I’ll do all I can to help you.”

  The elder of the two lifted his cap and rested it on his lap, tapping two fingers beneath his chin as a gesture of respect. “Shaikuro-shai, you have to help me. Help us.” He wet his lips and nodded to the boy behind him, who scrambled into the chair beside him. “We rely on our crops to eat. If we cannot sell our coffee we will starve out this winter. I have another two boys at home, and if––”

  “I understand. Please, tell me what you saw.”

  The farmer nudged his son.

  “It-It was the Dhakar Mir. I’m sure of it. It appeared right before me… and the way it laughed. It was glowing and it had no eyes, just like the stories.” He shuddered. “I thought it might try to eat me but instead it disappeared into the field. Next morning all our crops were dead.”

  Kilai had to restrain herself from revealing her thoughts on her face. The Dhakar Mir was a figure from legend, used to frighten children who were being unruly. Supposedly he hunted those who were not pure of heart, tormenting their every waking minutes, leaching away their life to feed himself. On the solstice children would put on masks in his likeness and run around scaring one another. It was absolutely ridiculous. Kilai would bet that they’d been plagued by a band of locusts and their own panic had let the boy’s imagination run out of control.

  “You’re absolutely sure of what you saw?”

  The boy nodded, eyes darting towards his father’s.

  “Can you confirm this?” she asked him.

  The man hesitated, mashing his cap between his fingers. “Well… I didn’t see the creature myself, but I’ve heard the whisperings around. Old Sanma said the same thing happened to her apple trees. She saw a face too. Glowing in the dark of night.”

  Drumming her fingers on the table, she contemplated. Clearly something was going on, spiritual or not. She was going to have to investigate, regardless of the cause, but riftspawn? Believing in such folktales was bordering on the blasphemous. The idea sat heavy in her gut. If Dakanan were to find out she was taking such a claim seriously he’d be trying to run her out of office for being a boor. But if she was seen doing nothing…

  “We’re not making this up, Shai,” said the farmer hotly. “Ask around and they’ll say the same thing.”

  “Yes, yes, I hear you. I am taking this seriously, I promise you that.” She stood, hands planted on the desk between stacks of papers and books. “I have spoken to those…” she waved her hand as she struggled for the words, “those experts called the Riftkeepers. Rift guardians? I believe they’ve even sent for help from outside the island in the hopes that they will know more about the problem.” Paying them would cost a small fortune but it had to be done, if only for appearances’ sake. “For now, this is the most I can offer you. I’ll see what can be done about reimbursing you some of the cost once I have rooted out the creature you saw.”

  The man scrubbed his chin, lines worn into his skin softening. “Thank you, Shai. I’m sure some proper rift hunters will be able to kill this demon and then we can get on with our lives again.”

  Kilai nodded, feeling exhaustion creeping upon her. “Of course.”

  They both got up, tapping beneath their chins with two fingers. She returned it with the scrapings of a smile that dropped as soon as they left. With the beginnings of a headache drumming in her head, she dropped back into her chair and rubbed at her temples, soothing out some of the tension. How her father put up with this everyday she’d never know.

  Since being a little girl she’d dreamed of sitting in this one chair, helping to run the city, picturing it such a grand calling. She’d never imagined as a child with all her boundless imagination that it would be so draining. All people ever did was demand things of her and she had to stretch herself thinner and thinner trying to appease as many people as she could. Inevitably it still ended with someone wanting her head on a platter.

  “Shai?”

  Kilai looked up at Varryll. “Tell them to wait.” She surged from her chair and stalked past the girl who looked worried. “They can wait a quarter hour if it’s that important.” She swept along the corridor, keeping her head high as she passed two soldiers leaning against the railing and chatting animatedly, heedless of whatever patrol they were supposed to be on. The General can sort his own men, she thought, as she climbed the stairs at the end, grateful for the quiet when she reached the top floor of the tower, where her and her father’s rooms were located.

  “Papa?” she called softly as she knocked on the door, entering on quiet feet in case he slept.

  On the bed against the wall her father’s form was sunken into the mattress, chest rising in shallow puffs of breath past lips leached of colour, his normally rich dark skin lacking its usual lustre. His head rose a
t her entrance and her heart lurched to see the lucidity in his eyes as he smiled at her and patted the bed.

  The doctor by his bedside tapped her chin as she left them, but not before Kilai grabbed her wrist and whispered, “How is he?”

  The lines around her mouth deepened, mouth pinching. “I’m afraid his condition worsens, Shai.”

  “How long?”

  “I cannot say for certain but I fear it will not be long.”

  Stomach lurching, she nodded to the doctor and then stumbled to her father’s bedside, settling herself by his legs. “Hello, Papa,” she said, dunking the washcloth on the nightstand in the bucket of water that had been left and wiping away the sheen of sweat upon his brow. His eyes shut at the motions, a soft sigh falling from his lips.

  “How are you doing?” he mumbled. “You seem tired.”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “Can’t a father ask after his daughter?”

  She felt tears prick her eyes even as she laughed. “I am quite well. Things are tiring but I will persevere. I’ll make sure everything is in order for your return.”

  Her father began to speak but he was cut off by a hacking cough that shuddered through his frail frame, the sound harsh to her ears. “You – you look after yourself, all right?” he said, voice raspy. His eyes circled the room before settling on her and her vision began to swim. “Don’t let them take advantage of you.”

  “I won’t, Papa. I promise.”

  He began to drift off as she spoke to him of her day, eyes fluttering before his breathing evened out. For a few moments she could only sit there and watch, afraid that if she turned her back on him he would slip away from her. Tears slipped down her cheeks before she could stop them and she chased them away with trembling fingers. She was afraid and she had no one to turn to. Her father was the only one she had left.

  Walking over to the small, round window that looked out across the ocean, she felt her eyes fall upon the horizon. The future was filled with such uncertainty, and with that uncertainty came the feeling of being untethered, as if she were out there on the waves, letting the current pull her further from the shore. Without her father she’d truly be alone, forced to walk this path alone. Her fingers found the turtle pin again, feeling the worn enamel as she remembered her father pressing it into her small palm in this very room, looking out this very window.