“How did you do that?”
Rook rolled back up to her full height, blinking before her gaze finally focused. “It’s what happens when riftspawn possesses a physical object. Because the tree is dead they’ve merged to form a being that’s somewhere between spirit and log. Quite fascinating, huh?” She lugged Viktor over to the log and dumped his boneless body in, kicking his arm back in when it flopped out.
“Is this possible because of the rift?” Kilai was perturbed by the possibilities.
“It’s certainly made things worse. In the otherworld it’s supposed to be possible to change your surroundings just by thought. Imagine that?”
“I’d rather not,” she said. “There are minds I’d rather never witness.”
Rook nodded. “It’s a pretty terrifying possibility.”
A possibility for the future? She couldn’t imagine a world where the world could be affected by something as unbridled as thought. What would such a world even look like? Her imagination did not supply a pretty picture.
“What is that?”
Kilai stifled a gasp as she whirled around, seeing Janus eye the dead log with Viktor sprawled awkwardly inside. “Where have you been?”
“Looking for you. Went to the temple because I saw these weird lights and lightning. Got there and no one was there. Turned back around and found you here.”
“No one?” said Rook. “No soldier lying on the ground?”
Janus stared at her. “No.”
It wasn’t a surprise but a chill went through Kilai all the same. Such staggering power, at the hands of a mere human, and with a goal that could shake the foundations of their very world. For all that Kilai had said she would help Rook with taking matters to the Order, it was only now she realised the magnitude of such a task. Another glance at Viktor’s sleeping face had her mind spinning with visions of the cold expression on his face as he had been engulfed in flame.
I fear gods walk among us.
“Can we go back to the boat now?” she piped up.
“Yes, we can,” said Rook, snapping her fingers. It still preyed on Kilai’s mind when her eyes glowed but it was over so quickly she barely had time to dwell. Then the log began to move, branches and thick layers of bark pulling back to propel the whole thing along the ground. Rook is not like the other creature, she said to herself, even if she did not really understand what made that so. Not to mention the new question of Viktor himself. They were becoming a strange and sorry group, when viewed all together.
Janus pulled away the cigarette that was halfway to his lips, eyebrows rising.
“Riftspawn propulsion! If the rift has ruptured, we might as well take advantage.”
“Did you consider… rope?”
“I didn’t,” Rook conceded, “but I don’t have any anyway. Besides, my arms are tired so you would have had to pull.” She gestured to his wounded arm.
Janus shrugged and stuck the cigarette back in his mouth. “Don’t suppose you could summon a little fire, could you?”
“You should ask Viktor that one,” said Kilai wearily.
“I don’t think his flames work like that,” replied Rook.
“Like what?”
“Oh, you didn’t see. Well…”
“Why are you looking at me?” she said. “Aren’t you the expert on all things rift-y?”
“Not an expert. Just, well, he’s able to set himself on fire somehow? It was pretty wicked, honestly. I need to visit the library and see––”
“He set himself on fire?”
Kilai slapped a hand over her face. “You should really look more surprised about that, you know.”
“He did! But get this: the fire was green.”
When they finally crested the tree line to the sight of the boat atop the sea-slick shingle, Kilai had never been more relieved. Anticipation still coiled within her for what was to come, even as she drank in the first glimpse of the city – the stone fort atop black cliffs outlined in the gold of the rising sun – but she was ready to leave this island; the symbol of their failure. Of her failure.
*
“Where is everyone?”
“Hiding, probably.”
Rook glanced at Kilai, taking in the clenching muscles of her jaw and hard gaze upon the empty streets, devoid of life. A basket lay abandoned on a window sill by a half-full washing line. “Are people likely to be afraid of them here, do you think?” She looked up at the riftspawn drifting through the sky, larger and more defined than the standard will-o-wisp sometimes seen gravitating towards street lanterns. Some of these creatures looked and felt threatening but Rook was sensitive enough to recognise the difference.
“I think so. I told you before, this is completely unprecedented. I think many had stopped believing altogether.”
“Yet you seem afraid.”
Dark eyes met hers.
“I mean, beyond that. Is it your father?”
Kilai hesitated, pausing under the guise of letting Janus and Viktor catch up. “I have never seen the city like this. It’s unsettling.”
“Can we rest now?” mumbled Viktor, eyes drooping. Janus had shaken him awake once they’d landed at the shore by Nirket. “We’re safe now, right?”
Rook still felt tense but she smiled anyway. “We should rest. Get our bearings. Look at your arm, Janus.”
Janus grunted, which she took to be an agreement.
As they walked they discovered another disconcerting sign: broken windows, glass scattered over the ground and crunching beneath their feet. There was no one in sight, each street as quiet as the last. The more they went on, the more Rook’s agitation grew, bolstered by the consternation on the faces of her companions, and the humming drone of spiritual energy in flux.
“There’s an inn on the next street over,” said Viktor, pointing.
The inn in question was a short, square building designed after the western fashion, with a bar at the back of the room instead of a circle in the centre. It was completely empty. One window had been smashed, a jagged hole in the middle gaping in grey light. The rest was left to a thick gloom that loomed over the room, painting the upturned chairs and shattered bottles in more sinister strokes. Glass glittered on the floor, winking at them.
“Creepy, huh?” Rook said as the door creaked open.
“We should keep moving. It shouldn’t take much longer to reach Shanku Square,” said Kilai.
Rook eased Viktor into a chair, his skin waxy and ashen. “You’ll need to go by yourself then.” The wooden floor groaned beneath her feet as she crossed the room. “I know you are worried,” she said as she inspected the door to the pantry, “but we’re in no state to travel right now.”
She heard the huff of breath as Kilai flopped into a chair beside Viktor and then lost sight of both when she entered the room full of barrels and shelves of an assortment of foods and drinks. She whipped some dried fruit and nuts from the shelves, as well as some dried meat she wasn’t too sure the origin of, then trotted back through to them. Janus was leaning over the bar in search of drinks, coming away with a bottle of clear liquid, which he held up to her in triumph.
“How’s your wound?” she asked as she came over.
“Which one?”
“You have not ridden the currents of fate well, have you?”
Janus took a lengthy drink from the bottle and then wiped his mouth. “Fate.”
“You do not believe in it, I assume?”
“Fate is an excuse men make for bad choices. I will freely admit I make plenty of those.”
She snorted. Gesturing for him to pull back his sleeve, she began to unpick the hastily tied bandage. Beneath the slice was deep but clean, crusted over with blood. “I don’t have anything to sew it with.”
Janus shrugged and sloshed some of his drink over the wound. The hiss that escaped him ruined his nonchalant air and she laughed. Quiet and hard to read as he might have been, he was the simple kind of character that was easy to talk to.
“I used to
think there was some great destiny I aspired to,” she confessed as she gestured for the bottle. “It was comforting, for a time.” The alcohol was a pleasant burn going down. She thought it might have been gin, although she had never tried it until arriving in Yllzlo.
“And now?”
“Not so much. The comforting part, I mean. I don’t think it is anymore.”
Janus prepared one of his cigarettes with the quiet kind of reverence she had only seen of the shrine maidens performing their rituals in Yuratsa. “Wouldn’t it feel nice? To know you have a set path lined out for you? You’d never make the wrong choice then, because it would be destiny.”
Rook genuinely couldn’t tell whether he meant this wryly or not. “Then I wouldn’t have any choice because they would all be preordained.”
“Ah,” he said, smoke curling up to the ceiling. “You worry you can not escape your circumstances.”
“Something like that.”
He spent a few moments smoking while she fiddled with the label of the bottle. “Can’t really offer you any niceties.”
“That would probably be disturbing rather than comforting.”
“But I think you’ll figure it out.”
She met his eyes and smiled. “Careful. You are almost starting to sound warm and cuddly.”
“You owe me the bottle for that one.”
“Fair enough.” She handed it over and walked back to Kilai and Viktor. “I’m about done with it anyway,” she called back.
Throwing her spoils from the pantry on the table, Rook flipped a discarded chair and fell into it with a sigh, only now realising how tired she actually felt. “Eat,” she commanded, demonstrating by grabbing a handful of nuts and stuffing them all in her mouth at once. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten and her stomach grumbled in anticipation.
Kilai grimaced at her but began to pick at some dates. Viktor’s head lolled back against his chair and she kicked it to prevent him from sleeping.
“What? What’s happening?”
“Eat.”
“I was sleeping, thank you very much.”
“You’ll thank me later,” she said with a pat on his shoulder.
Once he started eating Viktor seemed unable to stop, cramming various foods into his mouth with both hands. He tried to mumble between mouthfuls but stopped when Kilai shook her head at him.
“I wonder where the owner got to,” she said.
Kilai glanced around. “I wonder where the town got to.”
“The energy doesn’t feel quite right, either. But it’s more like I’m unused to feeling so much unnatural energy away from the rift.”
“Do you think––” Kilai was interrupted by the sound of a crash and then the rattle of a rolling tumbler.
They both froze, looking at one another.
“Wait here. I’ll check,” said Rook, rising to her feet.
A cold hand clamped around her wrist. “You shouldn’t go alone.”
She glanced back at Janus, now on his feet and alert, and then turned back. Viktor was sprawled out over the table, sleeping. “Watch over him. We’ll go and look.”
Outside the street was still quiet, nothing to disturb the peace but the flutter of dried leaves and debris on the morning breeze. The sun’s warmth was already beginning to bake the stone and she felt both weary and uncomfortably hot. Viktor wasn’t the only one of them that hadn’t slept; they would all be feeling the pull of fatigue wearing them down. Lethargy wasn’t something they could afford just yet.
After checking the alleyways around the building they agreed to walk a little further, just to make sure they weren’t going to be ambushed inside. Nothing. Either the townsfolk had retreated into the depths of their homes, or they had evacuated. Possibly due to the strange, drifting shapes all around. One serpent-like riftspawn draped around her shoulders in curiosity and she sneezed, sending it careening high into the sky, turning the same bright blue so that it only faintly shimmered to the naked eye like a heat haze.
“Do you think the owner would mind if we took a nap upstairs?” she said, blinking heavy lids.
“Don’t think they can complain if they aren’t here,” Janus replied. His skin looked even paler than usual, eyes steeped in heavy shadow.
Rook turned the corner onto the entrance of the inn and caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye as a figure dashed in through the door. In an instant she tore off after the person, dagger in hand. Instinct took over as she lunged for the intruder and pulled them towards her, slipping the blade beneath their throat. Only then did she feel the trembling body beneath her and realise it was a young woman, little more than a girl. She released her and slunk around to the back of the table, behind Kilai and a still slumbering Viktor.
“Who are you?” said Kilai. “Where is everyone?”
The girl’s big eyes widened even further. “I – They’re––”
A booming bang stole her words, reverberating through the inn as old wood creaked and dust scattered from the ceiling. Rook gripped the table to steady herself. They all froze. For a long moment the world settled back into silence, her eyes meeting each shocked face of her companions in turn, including a drowsy but fearful Viktor with the grain of nuts imprinted on one cheek. What in the Locker had just happened? She managed one step before a second crash thundered outside, muffled from inside the inn but no less startling for how it shook the very ground itself. More shots rang out in succession and they all scrambled outside in a flurry of limbs.
“The fort!” exclaimed Kilai, gripping her skirt as she ran towards the sound.
“Wait!” cried Rook, racing after her. “We don’t know what it is yet!”
She could hear footsteps behind her and knew the others followed as she tried to keep track of the route Kilai took, clearly knowing the city better than Rook herself did. Even as they ran she could feel the ground quake and tremble beneath the blows that caused her eardrums to ring, the sounds becoming tinny.
Finally Kilai stopped, gasping for breath as she doubled over. Just as Rook caught up with her, the woman slipped into a darkened alley and began to climb, eyes set with determination on the sky whilst she yanked herself up the iron ladder. Kilai wanted a good vantage point. It wasn’t the worst idea, running around as blind as they were, but the blows rattled the ladder in a way that made Rook’s stomach lurch, and she didn’t know what they’d be exposed to above.
“What do you see?” she called as she saw Kilai stiffen on the top rung.
With a grunt, she hauled herself onto the roof of the building and stared out at the bay. Storming through the choppy green waters was one of the Sonlin’s great iron warships, a staggering behemoth armoured in gleaming metal, firing at the fort on the hill. The fort itself was supposed to have an incredible range on its guns, but the sheer explosive firepower of the ship was beyond anything Rook had ever seen, stunned as stone shattered and crumbled beneath blow after blow, smoke billowing into the air and forming a hazy smog over the water.
In the wind the striped flag of the Empire fluttered triumphant.
“I’ve never seen these in action before,” she whispered. She couldn’t bring herself to speak any louder.
Kilai could have been a statue for all that she moved, face carved into a deep, sombre expression as she watched the battle unfold. Only the fluttering tangle of her red hair betrayed her for the truth.
“This has been a long time coming,” she finally said, turning away.
“What about – I mean – who is currently operating the fort?”
Kilai stole a glance back. “I do not know. I can’t––”
“What’s happening?” Viktor’s head appeared at the roof line, eyes snapping to the scene out at the bay. “Locker be damned!” His earlier fatigue vanished in an instant. He stumbled out towards the roof’s edge with his mouth gaping.
“Viktor?”
“No. No, no, no! They can’t!”
Rook went to place a hand on his shoulder but
he turned on her, eyes flashing green. “This is my fault! I should have––” The plunge in spiritual energy stole the breath from her and she took a reflexive step back.
“Viktor,” she said carefully, “please calm down.”
The force around him was a whirlpool, spinning and hurtling and sucking her towards it, sparking her connection with The Rook deep within her. Overhead she could see and feel the riftspawn gather, drawn to him like he was their king. An aura flared around him, rolling like the waters in the bay which had been torn to white froth by the cut of the warship.
“What’s he doing?” cried Kilai as Janus crested the roof.
Rook struggled to resist the call, smothering the frenetic energy within her. “He’s emotional about something! It’s setting off his – his––” She didn’t know yet, what kind of bond Viktor had, and she didn’t know what she could do without that knowledge.
Because whatever it was, it was stronger even than The Rook.
“Viktor!” cried Kilai. She looked fearful, eyes darting between him and the cloud of riftspawn above them.
Viktor didn’t look himself, his eyes glassy and blank as his head tilted. “Not Viktor. Not Viktor. Not Viktor.” This was repeated over and over; a mantra.
The smell of gunpowder and smoke wafted from the ocean, reminding Rook that time was running out. The riftspawn loomed closer, Kilai stepping back behind her and Janus. They carried a noxious stench, souring as the swarm darkened and swelled. She pressed her nose into her arm, already feeling the first tickle of blood, and swallowed the fear at the dark energy shuddering through her.
As some came too close for comfort, Rook swiped through them with her blades, drawing from the well of her power. On and on, she cut through them, just enough to shatter their temporary forms and send them back to the realm of the riftspawn. It lent her strength as she absorbed the residual energy they left behind, and she felt some of her exhaustion wane, senses sharpening. “Stop, Viktor! Remember who you are!”
He didn’t seem to register her words, his body turned towards the bay and the smoky remnants of the battle still thundering down below.
The familiar click of the safety drew Rook’s attention and she flung herself at Janus before he could fire. “Stop it! What are you doing?”
The Broken Door Page 26