by A. R. Knight
“If you think time holds little relevance in Riven today, it held less then. Nothing measured how long we stood there. No buildings to tell a history of wars, no scraps of paper to write down the passing of days. Eventually, the three of us noticed each other. Found in our inaction, in our hesitation to walk off the edge, a common bond. Nara and Mali’s eyes, like mine, tracked the endless walk of our countrymen without joining their journey. Mali spoke first.
‘Are you alive?’ Mali asked us.
“We did not know, then, what had happened. Whether we had died or whether some mystical event had forced us into this strange new place. Our gods had no stories of a world like this one. Our elders had no tales to prepare us for such a void as Riven. So in our confusion and our loneliness we bonded over the endless years.
“Our friendship kept the Cycle at bay. Its whispers quiet, hovering at the edges of our consciousness. As children will do, we started to play. To test the boundaries of the world we were in. The dead spirits us didn’t mind as we pushed them around.”
“You three were the only ones that stayed?” Selena said. “No other spirits came over questioning where they were?”
Dolan paused, his foot settling into the sand at the top of a rolling dune. The look he gave Selena held the same sadness I’d seen on a thousand spirit faces. Regret that cannot be righted.
“That patch became our castle. Our sanctuary. Anyone that didn’t start the walk to the Cycle became a problem. Someone that might attack us. Attempt to rule us.” Dolan twisted into a defiant mask. “We are not saints. We were a trio who found ourselves in a strange and unfamiliar place. Without guidance, without knowledge. But Riven was ours, and we kept it.”
“That’s evil,” Selena said.
“Selena,” I cautioned.
“She’s right,” Dolan said. “My, our, only defense is that we knew nothing better. Only that the spirits that fell into the infinite blue never returned. That our patch was small. And that, in our experience, newcomers only meant loss.”
I could see more questions dance around Selena’s lips, but she kept them closed. Dolan waited a moment, then began his march. Continued his story.
“Over time we began to see the cracks in Riven’s facade. The pieces of this world that didn’t quite connect. It started when one spirit fought back. When I managed to overpower it, and break its neck. Only to have the same spirit heal itself and stand back up an hour later. That was our clue, that the normal rules did not apply.
“Nara was the first. She realized she could find a way to attach to the spirits. To hold their hand and gain their trust and eventually, control them. Those were momentous hours. Mali and I watching Nara go up to each spirit in turn, take its hand, and speak softly to it. You must understand, such an act as the binding came to us as out of one of our legends. Magic, you might have called it, though in time we understood binding to be more akin to love than to sorcery.
“As Nara proved to us that our conception of reality didn’t hold sway in Riven, Mali played with a different sense. Projected her dreams and desires out into the gray. I never understood quite how, and Mali never explained it to us. A jealous keeper of secrets, that one.”
“Seems to fit with her character,” I said. “She didn’t want to talk much with us.”
“Always more interested in her own mind,” Dolan said. “It’s why I wound up trusting her more than Nara. Mali wanted her own world, but she didn’t feel the need to destroy this one to get it.”
Chapter 35
“So she didn’t tell you how to create things yourselves?” I said. “And you didn’t ask?”
“We asked,” Dolan said. “Both Nara and I. Except, as you’ve seen, talent still chooses its targets in Riven. Mali harbored hers, and neither Nara nor I could ever master more than the simplest creations. For me, that meant these.”
Dolan nodded at the columns we were walking past, the ones coated with paintings.
“Spots of color,” Dolan sighed. “That’s all I could ever make. Nara even less. Her attention tuned inward, to the workings of the soul. With Mali’s growing ability, we became kings and queens, living in grand castles in the middle of the city. Nara bound spirits and questioned them, brought us information from the world outside. I acted as the enforcer, working with Nara’s spirits to push any reluctant souls into the Cycle.
“I began, before long, to have Mali make weapons to arm Nara’s souls. To arm myself. A few of the spirits had become aggressive, resisting our escorts to the end. With the long shaft of a spear I found my own talent. A curious dip in the Cycle, the spear’s point vanishing beneath the surface, sent the pale fire up its length and into my body.
“I should have been destroyed then,” Dolan paused, brushed at the edges of his eyes, where the faint blue hue still shone. “Except Nara’s spirits, my bound allies, pulled me back from the brink. Brought my passive body back to Nara, where she ignited me. Brought me back.”
“Then you owe her your life,” I said.
“To a degree,” Dolan admitted. “A debt I have long since paid back, I assure you. After Nara returned me to myself, I could feel the fire raging in my soul. If the Cycle whispers to you, it screams at me. And like a shriek, I found I could let it out. Pour its energy into things, like that spear. Like your sword.
“It didn’t take long for the city to crowd with lost spirits. Nara became more obsessed with binding them, demanding that I take care only of the ones that appeared sentient, to know where they were. Nara turned to Mali to create streets and stores, buildings large and small. Replicas of places the spirits would tell us about. Riven’s city grew larger, and I found more spirits wandering its alleys. Lost and growing angry.”
“So you took action,” I said.
“No,” Dolan replied. “Though I wonder what would have happened had I started sooner. Before Nara became enraptured with the lives she was spinning in our dead city. As your world grew, more souls crossed into Riven. Nara couldn’t bind them fast enough. The spirits would turn on her, on ones she had already charmed. The bright streets became dangerous, and Nara looked to me.
“Mali and I created the weapons together. She molded the edges, I imbued them with the fire. At first we gave them to Nara’s spirits, and they patrolled the streets with deadly efficiency. Tireless warriors. With only one master.”
“You didn’t like that,” Selena said.
“We were a trio.” Dolan nodded. “Now, we were Nara’s prisoners. Mali realized it first. When Nara requested a change to part of the city and Mali denied it. Said she preferred that neighborhood as it was. Only when Mali refused, a pair of Nara’s spirits holding my weapons appeared at her door. This time, it wasn’t a question.
“From then on, Mali and I began to recruit and harbor those sane spirits we found. Built them up and trained them in secret, in a mountain on the edge of the forest. Well away from Nara’s fantasy world.”
“We’ve been there,” I said. “To the Mountain.”
Dolan looked north and west, towards where the Mountain would be. “Mali made it to cover the Cycle, to hide what we were doing. She claimed to Nara that it would allow us to control the spirits coming in, and it did. We took and trained those we could. In time, we had an army of our own.
“I don’t know how long the war lasted. Only that Nara ran out of weapons before we ran out of souls. At the end of it, standing in Nara’s grand room, we made our worst mistake.”
“You trapped yourselves,” Selena said. “That’s why you split up.”
“We tried to bind her,” Dolan said. “Rather than simply send her to the Cycle, which is what we should have done.”
“It didn’t work?” I said.
“Nara tried to do the same thing,” Dolan said. “Bind us as we bound her. The conflicts wrecked our minds. Nearly drove us all to insanity. Mali herself leveled half the city, built it up and brought it down. As though a thousand voices yelled in our minds at once. Nara, you don’t understand, she can command your
every idea. Your every feeling, if she chooses. So Mali and I clung to the only thing we could control, which was our connection to her.
“We sent Nara east, into the fields. Made her walk every step, and then forced her to remain in that clearing. At the same time, we could hear her whispering to us. To Mali and I. Soon after, I found Mali at my throat, coming for me with Nara’s curses spilling from her lips. After that, we left the city. I came here, where the desert sand and distance kept Nara’s voice quiet. I think Mali and myself would have thrown ourselves into the Cycle years ago, except doing so would have freed our enemy.”
“If what you’re saying is true, then bringing you back is a risk,” I said. “Can’t Nara overpower you?”
“Maybe,” Dolan said. “Though all things change with time. Perhaps I can resist her urging now, or control her with my own binding. Better still if we do not test the theory. Better still if we can quiet Riven without involving Nara.”
After what Dolan had said, I was all in favor of that.
Chapter 36
Bringing Dolan, an ancient spirit, into the middle of the guide headquarters went over about as well as I expected. Guides are taught to treat anything new with more than a bit of suspicion. Especially spirits, and one that looks like Dolan, wearing clothes no guide would sport, was just an excuse to take extra precautions. Guides watched us from buildings as we walked, sneaks trailed us from the moment we entered the city.
Bryce had an operation running, and it ran well.
Even so, I saw the cracks. Other guides crossed our paths, dashing by in front of us and ducking down alleys. Calling for help to close a breach, or wrangle a group of spirits. Still, the chaos seemed better controlled than when Selena and I had first left the city for Nara days and days ago. I even let myself feel a rush of hope. That maybe, somehow, we’d manage to control the city. Break out and stem the tide of angry spirits.
Bad idea.
By the time we made it to the clock tower courtyard and Bryce’s haphazard command center, the leader of the guides expected us. Alec walked the three of us into a cluster of senior guides, standing around a large table cobbled together from doors torn off of their hinges. On it, marked by chunks of broken stone, sat landmarks I knew.
The Mountain. The city walls. The gates on the south and west sides.
“For a makeshift war, I’m not impressed,” Dolan announced after introductions were made. “You are letting the spirits come right up to your doorstep. You should be driving them back. Take the breaches one by one until there are none left.”
“I don’t know what the numbers were like in your day, sir,” Bryce said. “We have neither the manpower or weapons to make such a move.”
“With me, you do,” Dolan said. “I will lead your finest to the west gate, into the forest, and clear it. From there we will forge a straight path to the Cycle and keep it patrolled. Make it easy for spirits to find their way to their everlasting home.”
“You talk as if the breaches are not constantly moving,” Bryce said. “They pop in and out. We close one and another appears in a completely different part of the city. There are no paths to patrol, there are no single regions to hold. They are everywhere, and we’re not.”
Dolan stared back at Bryce, thinking hard. Or at least that’s what I thought he was doing. Perhaps, after so many centuries, the idea of holding a strategic conversation was new to him. So I figured I’d better step in.
“Bryce, I think Dolan has a point. If nothing else, cleaning out the older breaches in the woods can buy us time get rid of some of the ghouls and maybe bring us to another solution.”
“Leaving the protection of the walls will allow such a force to be surrounded,” Bryce said. “Here, if a breach appears, we have reinforcements. Help is all around you. Out there, in those trees, you will be swarmed by spirits looking for souls to devour. Ghouls by the dozen. The west gate is constantly pressed as it is.”
Bryce spared me a nod. “That spirit, Cheo, and his tireless force is the only reason we are not there now fighting for the city’s life.”
“Your guides are too terrified to risk their lives for Riven?” Dolan said. “Too scared to wade into danger?”
“They have no fear of danger,” Bryce said. “No love for suicide, either. We have families, Dolan. People on the other side that depend on our return. Throwing that away in an uncertain attempt is not an order I can make.”
“Then you are a coward,” Dolan replied. The rest the room looked at the spirit, and the stares weren’t friendly. Including my own. “I created the guides as a force for Riven. To face its dangers without fear. A sword against the plague of the dead. Now you say that you are nervous about the cost you might pay? You should be honored to pay it!”
All of us sat silent for a minute. I wasn’t sure what to say. How to calm the tension. Then Bryce did what he’d done for me countless times. Found a way.
“I cannot understand where you came from,” Bryce said to Dolan. “I do not know your life. What circumstances brought you here to us. Carver says you are a force for our side and I choose to accept his judgment. But here, in this place, you are not the leader. Whatever you might be, you are not a guide, and here guides make the choices, and we do so without threats.” Bryce turned to me. “Carver, you left to find a woman. Where is she?”
Selena and I explained what happened. How we found Dolan, and how Nara still lived in her hut in the field. Dolan said nothing. No outburst of anger, no harsh asides casting aspersions on Nara’s motivations and her character. No, he stood there and stared at Bryce. His eyes calm.
If I knew anything, I’d guess Dolan was finally evaluating Bryce. Taking a measure of my mentor’s person against Dolan’s centuries of experience and finding where Bryce landed among all the spirits Dolan had ever known.
“So you’re proposing that Dolan is as good or better than your original option?” Bryce asked me when we concluded, and I nodded. “That we should listen to him?”
“I don’t know if his plan will work,” I said. “But I do know that doing nothing will get us killed. Going back to Nara may well be worse, if what Dolan says is true. With those facts in hand, in my view, we should at least try.”
Bryce turned back to Dolan. Gave the spirit a nod. “We will allow you to take a force of spirits. My guides may follow. Provide support at a distance. If things go well, and I hope they do, then we will commit more of us to the attempt.”
“If that is what you can give, then that is what I would ask,” Dolan replied, nodding his head. “Now, if we can get started. It has been many, many years since I have had the pleasure of a good fight.”
“So who goes?” I asked the group around the table. “Who wants to brave the ghosts of the forests, the ghouls and the breaches? Because Dolan and I can’t do it alone.”
Dolan caught the inclusion. Adding myself to his cause. The old spirit gave me an appreciative nod. Selena, behind me, chimed in her name.
“I’ll go,” came Anna’s voice, from the back of the room. I hadn’t even seen her there. “Laurence can take my shifts watching from the Warrens.”
“I can’t let Carver get himself killed, so I will go,” Alec said. A number of other guides echoed his cheery observation and before long we had a group of thirty ready and willing to risk their lives in our impossible mission.
Chapter 37
We started out west from the clock tower courtyard. Went through crowded avenues and by the apartment that I’d long since left to Nicholas. Which reminded me that I hadn’t seen the scientist for a while.
Selena and I split apart from the pack and dropped in. I briefly wondered if Nicholas had blown himself to pieces, given that, from the outside, his lab appeared quiet.
What we found inside, what we saw, wasn’t what I’d expected. The machines that once covered his lab; crude furnaces and forges, gadgets crumbled together from whatever junk Nicholas could lay his hands on, were gone. The only thing that still remained in the room sat in th
e center. A spherical device that Nicholas hunched over, back to us, looking like a man madly devouring a meal.
“You’ve changed things around?” I said to Nicholas and he jumped at my voice.
“Carver,” Nicholas said, turning his goggled eyes towards me. I noticed more than a few singes along the man’s face, and his ever-dirty coat had reached a stage of filthiness that rendered its definition as clothing suspect. “I was not expecting you. With more notice, I could have prepared a better presentation.”
“Presentation of what?” I said.
“Ah, this.” Nicholas stepped aside and waved at the object. Without the scientist in the way, I had a better view. The ashen-metal ball resembled what I’d seen of artillery shells used in the war. Nicholas had been reaching through a flipped-up access door. I tried to peer inside, but, without sticking my head in, I couldn’t make out anything. “You remember my orange rays? From the crossbow?”
I nodded. The rays jumped from one object to the next, devouring and destroying anything close by. And by destroying, I meant ruining utterly. Disintegrating into nothing. Obliterating souls seemed dangerous, so I tried not to use the weapon all that often.
“This device will send out so many more,” Nicholas said. “At twice the range. It will keep burning until there is nothing else to grab.”
“Where do you think we would use it?” Selena said. “Spirits don’t sit still and wait for you to detonate a bomb.”
Nicholas looked beyond us, out the window on the first floor and into the street. “The city is crowded enough. The rays should be able to leap across the streets. If we used the device in your clock tower square, the entire city should go up.”