Shield and Crocus

by Michael R. Underwood

  “It’s made from a part of whales.” Rova motioned Fahra over and gave the girl a hug. Fahra’s curiosity reminded Rova of herself, when she’d gotten lashes for asking questions and wanting to know more about the world outside the pens.

  Fahra hugged back, squeezing with her little arms, then ran over to one of Douk’s desks to throw papers around the room. She grabbed one particular sheaf, waved it in the air, and hurried back over to Rova. The little Millrej girl sat the drawing on the desk in front of Rova.

  The drawing was a clear portrait of Douk’s café from the perspective of a person on the street looking in. Fahra had drawn the finely-carved stone of the bricks Douk had used to re-build the façade and the lovingly-painted sign Xera had made herself, adorned with the inviting plumes of steam in subtle shades and a perfect curl.

  Several scenes played out in the front room, an inviting look at the way people came to life in the café. Douk stood behind the counter, gesturing wide with his hands like he was telling a story. Xera and Fahra sat at a table, with the Shields at another table talking and eating. Wonlar paced around the table, one hand on his chin and the other gesturing as he talked. Bira and Sarii were playing a board game, the Qava floating an inch above her seat. Fahra had captured Sarii in a rare smile, sitting in a chair she’d spun from the same stone as her cloak. Wenlizerachi reclined in his chair, a trio of plates with food piled high in front of him as he ate with both hands, a wide smile on his face.

  Rova looked at the picture. That scene had never happened just so, but she’d captured the feeling of a Shields’ meeting at Douk’s perfectly.

  “This is wonderful. How long did this take you?” Rova asked.

  Fahra smiled wide. “I did it yesterday when it was raining.”

  This girl is amazing. Xera’s a painter; maybe she could tutor her…

  They talked for a while, away from the bustle of the café, interrupted only when Xera or Douk paced through quickly on their way to the cellar for supplies. The smell of fresh pastries and coffee wafted back into the room, and Rova had to keep Fahra from wandering back in to get more sweets. One plate of cookies is enough for the both of us.

  Fahra added more sketches of buildings in the neighborhood to her growing stack. While she drew, she asked Rova questions about everything and anything: history, food, science, and the Shields. Rova marveled at the girl’s mind as it flitted from subject to subject. We need to find her a school, and fast. With a mind that sharp, she’ll put First Sentinel to shame when she’s grown.

  While getting more iced coffee from up front, Rova saw someone running down the street, a toddler in arms.

  Rova crossed the room in three long strides, looking out to see what had the woman spooked. Three blocks down the street, a carriage was pulling its horses, the wheels broken out into wooden claws clambering down the street, dragging terrified whinnying horses behind it.

  “Spark-storm!” Rova yelled back into the café, trying to spot Douk. The patrons at the café scrambled, sending desks and chairs rolling and crashing across the room.

  Douk appeared from the kitchen and waved people towards him. “Everyone, get downstairs!”

  “Fahra, honey, go find Xera and stay put!” Rova shouted, reaching into her pants for her mask as she stepped outside. She hoped no one saw her putting it on. In Sapphire’s experience, abject terror and panic weren’t conducive to reliable memory.

  Xera and Douk could handle the patrons, but dealing with a storm was Shield business. Rova lifted up her sleeve, then double-tapped her gem on the alarm bracelet.

  Please let someone be nearby, she thought as she dashed into the street.

  A block down, horses melted into swarms of centipedes, birds flew straight into the ground as if pulled by invisible string, and the people’s screams melded into the unsettlingly familiar cacophony of the storm. Another wave of people passed her in the street, fleeing the chaos.

  Sapphire took three quick steps to build up to a run, crossing the distance to the edge of the storm’s effects in just a few seconds. On the north side of the street, the greystones were merely turning random colors and dripping water, but on the south side, the mortar between the bricks was melting and coursing down the side, leaving the walls to sag and tumble, doubtlessly with people inside.

  Oh no. She could charge in and try to haul people out before the building collapsed on them, maybe be able to shrug off a few hard blows from falling stones, but even she had limits.

  Then maybe today is the day to find them. Sapphire scaled the front stairs in one bound and ripped open the door when she reached the top. “Spark-storm! Everyone in the hall, now! You have to get out of this building!”

  Citizens trickled out of their apartments, families in bunches and others in ones and twos. Sapphire stood in the doorway to hold it up, and the interior walls held long enough to get the first floor out. The storm might catch them outside, but that was down to chance, and she was almost entirely sure that the building was going to come down.

  She raised her voice as much as she could, yelling up the stairwell. “Get out, now!”

  A quick check outside told her that the storm had reached her block and would hit the café soon if it hadn’t already. Too many people to save and not enough help.

  She weighed options as greystone bricks fell around her. Another half-dozen residents stumbled down the stairs and ducked under her to vacate the building. As the top of the door fell onto her shoulders, she checked the stairs again. Nothing.

  Sapphire grunted, her arms trembling with the effort of holding the building up. She shifted, then sprung out the doorway and onto the street, the building crashing down behind her with a cloud of dust. But instead of landing hard on solid stone, she plunged in sand, her feet sinking into the granulated cobblestones.

  Sapphire looked down the street away from the coffeehouse, then back towards Douk’s. Fahra’s laugh passed through her mind and she started dashing back towards the café. Buildings all up and down the street had been warped, changed in color, texture, and even size. Already dead plants grew out of the windows of one building, dropping rotten fruit that exploded into bugs that were nothing but heads on legs.

  The walls of the building across the north-south vein from the café had been replaced by multi-colored coral, with sounds of chittering coming from within. The building just beside the café had burst like a bubble, spilling itself out onto the street. Liquid greystone and wood flowed in streams through the cobblestones. One or two buildings on each block were untouched, oases of normalcy in the Spark-storm.

  As Rova bounded back to Douk’s, she saw a trio of women run out from a greystone apartment in chic clothes and impractical shoes, detoured from their fashionable day by the world ripping open around them. They dashed for the café, swatting at a swarm of the buzzing head-bugs from the fruit.

  The woman in back paused for a second, frozen, then continued running, but heading in the other direction, as if she’d been flipped around in an instant. Another woman of the group turned to look back, seeing her friend. She froze in place, her skin petrifying. The third woman of the group made it into the store, seemingly unchanged.

  In fact, the café was untouched. Sapphire slogged through the cobble-sand towards Douk’s and her feet found solid stone once more. She stopped and took a look around the café. Why was this place spared? The storms were random, but they usually worked their way through walls and buildings without trouble.

  A thunderclap of recognition struck in her mind. She took a step back and two to the side. From there, she saw Douk’s café framed the same way it had been in Fahra’s drawing. Every single thing in that view had been spared the storm—the café itself, the rest of the building above it, and the sidewalk around it for five paces in each direction, the same place where Fahra’s sketch had ended.

  I have to tell First Sentinel.

  * * *

  Three hours of rescues and aftermath management later, Sapphire was sure she was onto somethi
ng. She addressed the Shields in Douk’s back room.

  Sapphire held up a handful of Fahra’s drawings, and then laid them out on the table. “After the storm subsided, I walked around the neighborhood. Every single building and person that she drew was spared from the storm. This is why Magister Yema sent warlocks after her, it has to be.”

  First Sentinel leaned back in his chair, holding up the drawing of Douk’s café. “If you’re right, we need to put her to work immediately. District by district, building by building, with as many portraits as possible. She could single-handedly end the threat of the Spark-storms.”

  “You don’t know it for sure, either of you,” Sarii said. [And it will not be easy to test.] no one wanted more Spark-storms. Except the Smiling King, of course. “Of course we’ll have to test, but we can’t just lock her up with a ream of paper and some pencils,” Sapphire said. Sabreslate rolled her eyes. “Of course we can’t. But this is too valuable an opportunity to pass up.” Sapphire took a seat, let the moment calm. “I’m not talking about passing anything up. I went straight from Medai’s pens to these meetings. I want to be sure that Fahra still gets to be a child, make friends, go to school.” “agreed. We’ll find a balance.” First Sentinel set the drawings back on the table. “If she agrees, we’ll have our newest Shield-bearer. Let’s hope you’re right about this, Sapphire. If we destroy the Rebirth engine and get her sketches in order, we could end the Spark-storms for good.” First Sentinel had a smile on his face, all the more rare of late.

  Sapphire grinned, watching the hopeful looks on her friends’ faces. This is more hope than we’ve had in years. Now to foster it, help it grow, and use it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  First Sentinel

  For the rest of the night and the following day, the Shields prepared, reviewed, and analyzed every scrap of information they could find.

  First Sentinel ran COBALT-3’s explosive through every test he could, but the differences between COBALT3’s style and his own made it impossible to draw a firm conclusion. He resolved to bring the dynamite, with the marble as a last resort.

  Meanwhile, the other Shields were out in full force: Blurred Fists made several runs to the location of the Rebirth engine to scout out the patrol schedule, Sabreslate and Ghost Hands tried to run down rumors and details about the composition of the Smiling King’s security forces, and Aegis checked in with their local Shield-bearers, setting up escape routes and contingencies.

  During their preparations, another Spark-storm hit. It started in Greasetown, on the opposite end of the city from the subjects of Fahra’s drawings. The storm came and went before any of the Shields could get on-scene, so all that was left to them was the clean-up. The Shields comforted families and tended to the worst of the damage, scattering when Omez’s forces arrived.

  First Sentinel had watched the “relief forces” from a hidden spot atop a nearby greystone. The slavers’ guards pushed their way through the neighborhood, barking orders and treating the survivors as if the Spark was a preventable result of some negligence instead of a force of nature (or the madness of the Smiling King, depending on whom you asked).

  City Mother, grant I never have to see another Spark-storm plague my home.

  * * *

  The night of the raid.

  It was almost eight as First Sentinel waited outside the warehouse in Audec’s Bowels. Citizens passed by in ones and twos, bundled in coats as clouds of misted breath trailed their conversations on their walk home.

  Of late, spring had slid back to winter. The cold sank in when the sun set and didn’t fade until nearly noon the next day.

  Holding Nevri’s suitcase in his left hand, First Sentinel stood just beyond the cone of light from a street lamp.

  He watched the guards at the door, waiting for the shift change. Taking a page from Nevri’s book, he stood with a lit cigarillo, pretending to be an impatient businessman waiting for a meeting.

  The two Spark-touched guards leaned against the wall and the door, chatting softly enough that First Sentinel couldn’t hear them. One had eyes the size of fists; the other had the lower body of a spider. First Sentinel hoped their replacements wouldn’t hurry in taking their turn at the door. In a minute, it wouldn’t matter either way. During a lull in the traffic, First Sentinel saw no one up or down the street for a block. First Sentinel dropped his cigarillo and stamped it out with his boot, giving the signal. Ghost Hands relayed the message with a projected [Go!].

  By the time First Sentinel looked up from the cigarillo, Blurred Fists had already knocked out the guards at the door. The Pronai whisked the pair around the corner to where Sapphire waited with a blanket to cover the guards.

  First Sentinel saw no need to upset people on the street.

  If they pulled the mission off without a hitch, all the neighborhood would hear was the sound of the Rebirth engine being destroyed.

  As First Sentinel crossed the street, Ghost Hands, Sabreslate, and Aegis followed, the Qava floating the crate of dynamite along behind her just above ground level.

  Sapphire emerged from the alley to join them. Blurred Fists unlocked the door with the guard’s keys and the Shields entered.

  First Sentinel stood by the door, scanning the street to check if they’d been seen. Satisfied that they’d entered un-detected, he closed and re-locked the door. The entrance was a long corridor of stained, cobwebcovered concrete and lanterns with dusty glass panels.

  The Smiling King was not known for his attention to safety.

  Blurred Fists scouted ahead, darting back and forth to check out each room as they advanced. The halls had been restructured to be more labyrinthine and less accessible. First Sentinel thought it likely that the Smiling King had personally advised the renovation. Blurred Fists subdued most of the guards without trouble, relying upon his speed and the element of surprise. The Shields moved through half of the warehouse using that tactic, staying quiet as Blurred Fists did most of the work.

  The Pronai came back from the door of the next room and held up his hands, signaling a halt. “The next room’s the mess hall. Twenty armed Spark-touched, long tables, and alarm bells at each door, all with guards standing by.”

  The Pronai’s smile was visible through his mask. “Looks like the rest of you are going to get something to do.” “did you see Onyx?” First Sentinel asked. Once he’s taken care off, this will all get easier.

  Blurred Fists shook his head.

  Twenty Spark-touched. That’s a lot of unknowns. First Sentinel said, “don’t underestimate them. They know what we can do, and each of them is a mystery. Treat them all like real threats and look for the vulnerabilities.” “This is where it gets complicated,” Aegis’ voice was hushed. First Sentinel nodded his agreement.

  Aegis pursed his lips, and then decided. “Ghost Hands, go high and control the air, engage any fliers or jumpers.

  Sapphire and I will take their powerhouses. Blurred Fists and First Sentinel, control the crowds. Sabreslate, I want you to be swing, go where you think you’re needed, and take out leaders if you can.”

  That’s my boy. First Sentinel smiled. “Take us in.” We need to make an impression, since they can’t all be fighters, even if they’re hardened by the Smiling King. These people were once bakers and messengers, grocers and secretaries and grandparents, before the Spark. Deep down, they’re still civilians. And we’re soldiers. when the Shields reached the room, Sapphire charged the door shoulder first, breaking it off its hinges. As the door crashed to the floor, the Shields took the room in force.

  The Shields caught them flat-footed. Blurred Fists dropped two before the door hit the ground, becoming a whirlwind of punches, kicks, and throws. Ghost Hands soared to the top of the thirty-foot-tall room to gain aerial superiority. She pinned three Spark-touched against a wall with a table, including one of the door guards, pushed away from the alarm. Sapphire picked up the table nearest their entrance and used it to swat at more Spark-touched. First Sentinel drew a handful of t
hrowing knives and targeted the guard closest to the other alarms, pinning sleeves to walls and hands to tables. Blurred Fists made the rounds to clear the Spark-touched away from the exits. But then the Smiling King’s forces returned fire. Arcs of electricity leapt from eel-like tentacle arms, others fired crossbows, and one Spark-touched vomited up foot-tall simulacra of herself, which began scurrying across the floor. Another Spark-touched took a breath in and expanded like a puffer-fish to three times his size, waddling towards Sapphire. Each power was stranger than the next.

  They knew the Shields’ powers and tried to target the heroes accordingly, threatening each hero where they were vulnerable. A rail-thin Qava shoved a wall of force at Blurred Fists, knocking the Pronai tumbling, along with chairs, a table, and two other Spark-touched. An arc of electricity caught one of First Sentinel’s knives just as he released, and the shock raced through his arm down his whole body.

  First Sentinel dropped to the floor, smelling his own roasted skin and burning leather. He rolled across the floor to smother the flames, and gained his feet only to look up, way up to the doughy Spark-touched giant. It raised a three-foot-long mud-spattered book to stomp down on First Sentinel’s head.

  The foot hung in the air for a moment, then wavered and fell backwards as Aegis tackled the Spark-touched with a shield-first dive. The blow drove the Spark-touched back, crashing down onto a table.

  Aria, are you watching him? That’s our son.

  First Sentinel pulled himself to his feet and returned to the fray. Smells crossed in the air as the fight continued:

  Ozone and burned flesh, mucus and magic. Ghost Hands continued to dominate the air, and Sabreslate trapped a trio of guards in the wall by the far door. Aegis bounded fifteen feet into the air and clobbered the doughy Spark-touched with a shield-bash to the head. The giant wavered in the air, so Aegis punched him in the base of the neck, targeting the nerve cluster. He rode the Spark-touched down, and the floor shuddered with the impact. There goes all pretense of stealth, First Sentinel thought. Blurred Fists finished off the crowd with a few quick blows, and the room fell silent.