The Broken Door

by Sarah Stirling

  Try as he might, he couldn’t stop the story of Dhakar Mir plaguing his thoughts unbidden. Why did I say that? Seeker took a few steps backwards until something spiny scraped across the back of his neck and he yelped, scampering away with his heartbeat in his ears. “It’s just a tree. It’s just a tree. It’s just a tree,” he chanted, desperately trying to catch his fleeing composure. When he tried to look back the tree branch clawed at him like a gnarled hand.

  “Seeker,” intoned Relkan. It did not sound anything like his voice.

  Somewhere next to him he could hear the girl sniffling.

  To his complete and utter horror, Relkan began shuffling towards him, still swaying from side to side in unnatural lulls, and Seeker continued to step back until he was pressed against the rough bark of the trunk behind him. Cold sweat dripped down the back of his neck.

  Then that face loomed in front of him again. Only it was Relkan’s face – his skull – illuminated in a bioluminescent blue and green, sockets empty, mouth stretched across the whole of his face. “See-ker,” he sang, the sound echoing through the forest and lining his skin with gooseflesh. The high-pitched laugh sounded more like the haunting wail of a fox, much like the one that had started him awake more than a few times in the barracks. Those hands loomed out, fingers spread, and Seeker squeezed his eyes shut, thinking, I’m going to die.

  For the length of one drawn breath all was still, except for the drumbeat of his pulse throbbing inside him. Then there came a muffled thump and the hiss of air brushing past him. When he opened his eyes the moon cut a thin ribbon of light across the pathway, the girl standing alone in the centre, chest heaving as she breathed. She was holding the torch that she must have found lying on the ground and she stared at him with hollow eyes.

  “Are-are you all right?” she asked finally, breaking the quiet between them.

  “I think so?” Seeker was still unsure of what, exactly, had just happened. He had to physically wrench his fingers from where they’d moulded themselves onto the knobbly holds of the tree behind him, wringing them together to alleviate the residue adrenaline inside him. The sting of his scraped palms brought back some of his focus as he looked around him. “Where is Relkan?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “He just…” She made a kind of shrugging gesture that was at odds with her terrified expression, torch shaking in her hands.

  “Here, let me take that,” he said, plying it from her grasp. With his own hands shaking it took a few attempts before he found flint in his pocket and used it to start a light. The flame was a relief, bringing colour to both of their faces, even if it was just a trick of the light. He felt like he was supposed to be the responsible one but he didn’t really know what to do. His mind snagged on Relkan’s gone over and over again, and the worst part was that he didn’t know what in the Pillars had taken him.

  “We should get out of here,” said the girl, glancing around as the trees danced in the wind.

  Open your eyes, they seemed to say, taunting him.

  “Shut up!” he snapped at the trees and then felt colour rise to his cheeks. “Er, not you. The…” The trees? The wind? Seeker really did not belong in this place. Too much light was melting his brain, clearly. “Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

  She looked uncertain but nodded anyway.

  “What’s your name?” he asked as they began to walk further down the path.

  “I am Lyrka.”

  “I’m Seeker,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  That was the extent of their conversation for the next indiscernible passage of time as they followed the worn trail down towards the city of Nirket. There probably wasn’t much conversation to make, all things considering, and Seeker could still taste the tang of fear on his tongue, drained from the way the tension had fled his body and left him that weak, shaky way that made his limbs cumbersome.

  He glimpsed lights ahead of him and sighed when he spotted a string of red paper lanterns that helped to guide them out of the woods, crafted in the shape of turtles with fins that ruffled. They were etched with symbols drawn in an old stylistic way that made them difficult for him to read. Peace, maybe? That nearly made him laugh, bubbling up in his throat and escaping as a choked gasp.

  Lyrka looked at him again, probably wishing she wasn’t with the least frightening soldier in the Myrlik Isles. In the lights from the first buildings they approached he could see how small and thin she looked, considerably shorter than him, with long hair that hung limp to her skull. I just got rescued by this girl, he chided himself.

  “Where do we go now?” he asked and then mentally shook himself for deferring to a girl presumably several years his junior.

  “I came from over there,” she said, pointing. He followed her through a maze of winding alleys, splashing in gutter water and wrinkling his nose at the smell. She seemed to have perked up now that they were back within the confines of the city, safely ensconced in the warm light from lanterns hanging from iron posts, moths fluttering around the glass panes.

  Yeah, me too, buddy, he thought to himself grimly. We’re all just moths battering ourselves against the pane in search of the light.

  “Here,” said Lyrka and he looked past her to the empty square, not a soul to be seen.

  “Are you sure it was here?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s no one here.”

  “I can see that.”

  Seeker scratched his chin. “What do you suppose we do now?”

  “This way,” she said. “We must go and find the rift guardians. They will know what it is that we saw.”

  Seeker had heard of them, but he wasn’t exactly sure what it was that they did, other than create a nuisance for men like General Dakanan. Then again, he was hardly in the frame of mind to argue. “Lead the way,” he said, gesturing for the girl to keep going. Seeker continued to follow her.

  *

  When the chaos erupted Kilai had been in bed but she had awoken instantly on the first hair-raising scream, throwing herself out of bed so she could quickly change out of her nightgown. She’d stormed out of the tower with one of the soldiers her father had insisted she take with her and charged into the fray, a sense of foreboding creeping over her. She had carried the creeping sensation of knowing exactly what was behind the cause of those noises but she had realised then, with a startling and unfamiliar clarity, that she had no idea what she could do about it.

  The most sensible thing had been to meet with the paltry members of the Order and plan from there, for by the time she reached the source of the noises there had been nothing left to witness.

  “It’s not a pleasant feeling, is it?” Rook said as she sat down next to her, placing a steaming mug in front of her. “Sorry, I don’t know what your preference is so I assumed you were one of those fire blossom folks.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Then, because she was unable to leave a thread unpicked, “What isn’t pleasant?”

  Rook’s eyes sparkled with humour like she knew she had caught her. “Feeling helpless, I mean.”

  “I’m not helpless. And I think the situation warrants more sobriety, don’t you?”

  “Suit yourself, Shai,” Rook sighed. “There’s enough misery in the world that I don’t care to contribute.”

  Janus and Alik joined them at the table in the corner of the room. For once the place was a hive of activity, voices a dull hum in the background as various wild-eyed townsfolk and a handful of soldiers talked and cried and shouted, the atmosphere like a pendulum swing of agitation; an explosion in waiting due only a spark.

  “I’m hearing there’s been a few deaths but it’s hard to get anything out of people when they’re so hysterical,” said Alik

  “Where is the ‘spawn now?” she asked, fearing the answer.

  “I don’t know. That’s the thing. It suddenly appeared and then disappeared just as quickly and apparently no one knows where it went.” He sighed and eyed her tea. “Where did you get that?” />
  Rook slid hers over to him and then rummaged in her satchel, pulling out a scrunched piece of paper and flattening it on the table, edges crinkling. “I’ve narrowed the options down to three but without actually seeing it myself I have no way to know which it is.”

  Alik spewed tea over the table, coughing. “What in the Locker is that?”

  “It’s gökka leaf. I can’t stand the stuff you drink.”

  Kilai resisted the urge to bang the table. Did these people not understand the notion of urgency? “What can you do with what you’ve found?”

  “Right now? I’m not sure. The scent is still strong enough that I can probably track it but I’d be foolish to try and go on my own so I wanted to––” Rook cut off, looking around at the faces that ranged from incredulous to dubious to completely stoic. “What?”

  “You’re going to sniff it out?” Alik shook his head. “You know what? I don’t even want to know.”

  “Excuse me, Shai,” said Lyss, her guard, into her ear. “There’s––” she glanced back to two people hovering behind her with tight lips “–– someone who wishes to speak to you. He says he saw that creature you’re after.”

  Kilai turned around to examine them: a dishevelled man with golden hair in an indigo coat much like Lyss’, and beside him a girl of perhaps fourteen with a curtain of black hair and dark eyes. They certainly looked haunted; the stooping lines of their shoulders spoke to a sense of defeat and there was a certain kind of hollowness about the way they stared at the ground without speaking.

  She motioned with her hand. “Bring them forward.”

  Lyss looked unhappy but went over to them and gestured sharply to the table. She and the other soldier clearly knew one another, circling like the reef sharks in the shallow waters of the coast when they scent blood. He brushed by her, knocking into her shoulder and sending her staggering back as he pulled out a chair for the girl and then sat himself.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Seeker. I’m from the twenty-second regiment.”

  “What did you see?” asked Rook, leaning forward, chin on her hand.

  “I was guarding the fort when I heard screams––”

  “So you left your post?” Kilai said.

  Seeker grimaced. “It seemed like an emergency. Lyrka,” he paused as he glanced at the girl, “came from town, begging for help, and it sounded… like a massacre. I decided that it was more important we help the immediate threat and my partner––” he choked off, eyes falling to the table, “–– he thought it was better we stick together. We got caught on the wooded path between the fort and the town.”

  “Where is your partner now?” said Alik.

  His eyes flicked back up the table, gold in the light cast from the iron lantern hanging by the window. It creaked every so often when a draught caught it. “He’s gone. That thing came out of nowhere. It was like some kind of giant face – like the face of Dhakar Mir himself – and it took him over. He tried to kill me.”

  Kilai glanced back to the others to confirm that this sounded reasonable. It sounded farfetched to her ears, but it seemed like more and more these days she was being forced to re-examine what was in the realm of the possible. Doubt still burrowed deep into the back of her mind; she was not inclined to believe in what she could not see and Kilai had not yet witnessed anything with her own eyes. Yet she could not deny the testimony of so many either, for to do so would be to willingly shut her eyes to it all. Was she supposed to believe in krakens and Var Kunir now too?

  “Describe this thing to me,” said Rook as she fumbled through her bag for a pen. “Anything you can think of.”

  Seeker frowned. “It glowed? The way waters do around the Zorkaai coast. It, uh, I think it managed to extinguish a fire so it can interact with the physical realm. I mean, that’s not supposed to happen, right?”

  Kilai did not like the way Rook ignored the question as she scribbled at her messy notes.

  “You might as well note possession down,” said Alik.

  “There are several higher class riftspawn that can possess humans.”

  “For how long?”

  Rook froze. “It hasn’t been long enough for that to be an issue.”

  This time Kilai did bang her fist down on the table with a resounding thud, trying not to draw her hand away too quickly so as not to ruin the silencing effect by revealing the pain crackling through her hand. “Explain what is happening. Right now.” She slipped it beneath the table to massage it.

  It was Janus that broke the silence between them. “Riftspawn have always been able to interact with the physical world but only in a limited sense, confined to riftsites, and it varies by place. It’s why you will not be familiar with this kind of being,” he said, addressing the last part to Seeker. “It would seem that the rift here is destabilising if such a powerful being is able to cross over and go as far as to possess people. When they do so, most drain energy from their living hosts in order to keep them in a physical form and such a thing is not sustainable for a long period of time.”

  “This was the effect on the body we observed before.”

  “Yes.”

  Seeker straightened up. “Hold on. Body? What?”

  The atmosphere turned uncomfortable as four pairs of eyes struggled to meet his, the wind howling outside as the patter of rain began to sound against the rooftop. Kilai did not know if this soldier was close to the man who had been possessed but she could tell that they did not believe he would survive.

  “It’s fine,” said Rook. “We’re going to go and find him. We’ll bring him back.”

  “We are?” said Alik.

  “That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Kilai saw Yshi come through the door, shaking out her short, damp hair and striding towards Lyss. Leaving the others to squabble out their plan, she slid from her seat and approached the soldiers. “What have you heard?”

  “Four confirmed dead,” said Yshi, expressionless as ever. “There is panic in the streets but I have done my best to contain it.”

  “Anything else?”

  Yshi and Lyss shared a glance. “Is there something we should know, Shai?” asked Lyss with a glance back at the table. “Like the rumours running rampant about a spirit attacking people, perhaps?”

  “No,” she said, just a little too quickly. “No more than you’ve already heard.” She gestured to the table behind them. “We’ve been listening to the account of one of your own men but I do not think he saw much. I only wish to know how best to handle the situation.”

  “It should be left to us. We will root out the one who causes trouble. You worry about the people’s recovery from this… incident,” said Yshi.

  Kilai raised a brow but refrained from rebutting her patronising tone. “I will not stand back while my city suffers, Lieutenant. But I do appreciate your assistance. Even so, I think it wise to consult the Order about something we both have little knowledge of.”

  “If you think it necessary,” said Yshi.

  “I do.”

  “It would be best if this information did not spread while tensions are so high.”

  Kilai pursed her lips. “Yes, I agree.”

  Yshi nodded and left to speak to more soldiers as they entered the room, leaving her with Lyss. The soldier’s gaze flicked between Kilai and the table behind them. “I would not trust his word, Lady Shaikuro. Seeker is a man of strange beliefs, who cares very little for the world around him. I do not know what he thinks he saw, but I would not go on his word alone.”

  Kilai assessed the woman before her, considering. She didn’t have time for petty rivalries, but she also wasn’t naïve enough to trust the word of one shaken soldier. What she was, was keen to keep her sanctioning of a spirit hunt as quiet as possible, for fear of how that would look if she confirmed that she was indeed taking threats of a riftspawn problem seriously. No doubt General Dakanan would delight in it. The last thing she needed now was to be denoun
ced for her ‘beliefs’ and cast out, giving him the loose thread needed to unravel all her father’s hard work.

  “Thank you, Private,” was all she said, nodding her head. “I will certainly take that into account.”

  *

  Out of habit Rook’s eye went to the door every time it opened but quickly fell back to the table when she didn’t recognise the faces that passed through. Her gaze flickered back up and stayed there when she saw Viktor enter, smile spreading across her face at the sight. It amused her that Viktor could not seem to keep himself away from them, even though she got the sense that perhaps he was trapped in a desperate situation, written into the uncomfortable way he looked around him, swerving by bodies as if their touch would burn him. She stood up from her seat and waved, his eyes finding her and some of the tension seeping from his shoulders.

  “I knew you’d be back,” she said nudging him with her elbow.

  “I didn’t,” he said, still looking as if he didn’t quite know why he was there.

  “We’re just about to head out and hunt this thing. Are you up for a challenge?”

  “Sure?”

  “That sounded convincing,” said Alik.

  Rook quickly introduced Viktor and Seeker and then left the men to go and talk to Kilai. “We’re about to head out on the hunt now.”

  Kilai nodded. “I’ll stay behind and try to placate people. The last thing this city needs is another cause to riot.”

  The taller of the two female soldiers turned to her. “Take Lyss with you. She can show you the site where people claim this thing first appeared.”

  Rook hesitated. One soldier was more than she was really comfortable with. To bring two was something she could barely stomach to agree to but she could see the way Kilai was looking at her, eyebrows drawn and eyes hard. She sighed and looked at the other soldier, a woman of Kilai’s height, pale and dark eyed.

  “We should head out now. Best to try and get ahead of this thing before it grows any stronger.”

  Lyss’ eyes flicked to the window where the rain had grown heavier, falling in a torrent that pounded the roof and rattled the shutters. “Fine. Let’s go.”