Riven

by A. R. Knight

  Alec didn’t see Graham coming, didn’t see the hammer as it smashed down into his back, the spike crushing through his coat. With his left hand Graham blasted my mother with another wrist wire, circling around her leg and knocking her to the ground. As I stood up from where the breach had been, Graham looked over at me.

  “If you want her, follow,” Graham picked up my mother with his left hand and dragged her away. I ran to Alec’s crumpled form, sprawled out on the ground. A dozen pacified spirits stared at us.

  He wasn’t in good shape. Alec’s chest barely rose and fell, his eyes were closed. I looked over Bryce and saw the same. The man’s hands weren’t moving. The voulge still stuck there, pinning my mentor to the rock. I wanted to help them, to drag them back to the clock tower, but if I let Graham get away than this was all for nothing.

  “Forgive me,” I said as I stood up and walked away.

  I went out to the street. Graham was a block away, moving quickly with my mother in tow. A pair of shadows sifting through Riven’s haze.

  “Anna?” I called.

  “I’m here,” Anna said, stepping out from behind a building.

  “Shoot the sparker,” I said. “Bryce and Alec need help.”

  The blue sparks launched into the sky. I had her use all of it. Create a show. Any guide seeing that would know there was something wrong. Any guides in the Tar Pit, or the central part of Riven’s city would see that and come running. If Bryce and Alec were going to make it out of this alive, it would be up to them.

  Chapter 62

  My heart burned at leaving Bryce and Alec behind. Nobody wanted to abandon their friends. But if I didn’t follow, Graham would have my mother. He’d just set up another breach. Find another army like the one we’d already dealt with. Anna looked at me like I was crazy, but she stayed by my side.

  “You sure they’ll be found?” Anna said.

  “There’ll be dozens of guides in Riven right now,” I said. “Some would’ve seen the sparks, they’ll come. They’ll come.”

  “What happened in there?”

  I told her as we kept moving. Replayed the desperate fight, the back-and-forth against the overwhelming number spirits coming from the breach. We had expected a breach, but not for one so large, with spirits so angry.

  As I talked, we kept moving after Graham. Anna matched my speed, and we caught up to the spirit. As we closed, Graham looked back at us, my mother in his left hand and the hammer in his right. I could see my mother wasn’t moving. He’d either knocked her out, or threatened her with something so terrible that kept her from fighting.

  “If you come any closer,” Graham said. “It will be the end of her. Follow me, at that distance.”

  I thought about using the crossbow. Taking a shot at Graham’s back. But the statement made me curious. Follow where? Graham was taking us westward, towards the edge of Riven’s city. Towards the wall.

  “She said you were my father,” I called to Graham as we moved. “That you two were a team. Why would you do this to her?”

  “You don’t always have control,” Graham said, and for the first time I picked up a note of sadness in his voice.

  “We met a spirit, his name was Barth,” I said. Anna, next to me, took the cues and kept silent. Must’ve been a sneak’s instinct; to listen when there was important information at play.

  “Barth was a fool,” Graham said. “He had no method. All he had was hope.”

  “What do you have?” I said.

  “I have you,” Graham said. “I have my son. The key.”

  We left the Tar Pit and moved into the last bit before the wall. A section of wide open pavilions. A place that would’ve served as a market back, if, Riven had ever been a real city. In front of us, the wall appeared through the haze. Five stories high and made of stacked stone.

  I’d only seen the wall on a couple of occasions, both long journeys with Bryce. Few of the wall’s stones had any cracks, and the stairs on the inside that led to the ramparts were all there. As though Riven’s city devoted what energy it had left to keeping the wall intact.

  “Who is controlling you?” I said. “Barth mentioned you, mentioned a master.”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Graham said. “The Master forbids it.”

  “You never mentioned anything about a master,” Anna said to me. “I thought this was all about Graham?”

  “Tonight it is,” I said. “Tomorrow, maybe not.”

  Graham led us to the stairs up the wall, to a tower next to the gate leading outside. With my mother still in his arms, Graham began the limping walk up to the top. We followed, waiting until Graham gave us the nod to come up behind him. Halfway up, Graham told us to stop.

  “Here you’ll have to make a decision,” Graham said. “Carver. You’ve come this far. You’ve seen your friends fall. Your mother captured. How much more are you willing to lose? I asked you once about a gateway home. Now I ask you again. Give up yourself, and save the ones you love.”

  I paused. Took a deep, unsatisfying breath of Riven’s non-air. If I charged Graham now, he’d either kill my mother or use his better vantage point to strike me down. So I did the only thing I could.

  “Take me,” I said. “I’m done.”

  “What?” Anna said, her eyes going wide as I went up the steps and left her behind. “Carver, what are you doing?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s just the end of the world.”

  I stepped out onto the top of the tower. Behind me, Riven spread out like a charred ruin. Its gray and ashen structures falling apart forever. Still, it was a home of sorts. I’d wondered its alleys, climbed its buildings, and explored its secrets for so long that it didn’t seem like an alien place. In fact, I realized, Riven was more of a home to me than Chicago. Than the real world.

  On the other side, over the wall, a dense forest began a hundred yards from the gate. Interlocking trees of white and thick clusters of black leaves. Not truly alive, not entirely dead. The forest continued on to a horizon where, barely, I could pick out the outline of a mountain. Somewhere back there, according to rumor, was the Cycle. If I looked over the wall to the left I could pick out spirits working their way around from the Shambles and entering the forest on the long walk to nothing.

  “The Master wanted this place,” Graham said. “Likes the view, I suppose.”

  “I don’t care, let’s get this over with,” I said. Graham set my mother down, and I saw her eyes open. She looked at me, her face curling into a question. I lied down on the cold stone next to her, and reached out with my right hand, found hers, and gripped it tight. Graham stood over us and raised the hammer.

  I saw it. The same look Graham had in his eyes earlier, the same expression Barth had. He was receiving instructions.

  “I have been getting here,” Graham said to nobody. “We are ready to begin.”

  We laid there, my mother and I, for what felt like forever. It was moments, but when you have maniacal spirit standing over you with a giant spiked hammer, the seconds feel long.

  “He’s not there?” Graham said, glaring down at me. With his left hand, he gripped the collar of my coat, and pulled me up. “Where are you? Back home?”

  “Nowhere you’ll ever find me,” I replied, then did as Nicholas said. Shrugged my shoulders and let the lines on the coat ignite. Graham jerked back as the fire ran up his arms. I was ready for the fall, caught myself and made my move. Took the knife from my belt with my left hand and stabbed forward, twisting the hilt. Graham didn’t expect it. The knife slid between his ribs and the pale fire spread out over his body. There was nowhere to slip away. No way to dodge.

  As the fire crawled over him, Graham’s eyes met mine. He smiled.

  Chapter 63

  I stood over my father, or the spirit that had been him. As the pale fire died away, Graham stood up and stared at me with blank eyes. No expression on his face. Ready to go to the Cycle.

  "Bind him," my mother said. "We need what he knows."

/>   I reached out and took Graham's hand. He looked at me, then down at our grip. Expressionless. His hammer sat on the ground next to us. Just a moment ago, he'd been perhaps the deadliest thing in Riven. Now, he was nothing. I could just let him go all the way to oblivion. Instead, I searched for the pinprick. Found it, and nearly passed out.

  I was exhausted. I already had three bound spirits. My mother, Selena, and Nicholas. Another would take too much out of me. I might be able to walk, keep that sarcastic mouth of mine, but in a fight? I would be useless.

  Thankfully, I wasn't the only one in the tower.

  "Anna," I said. "You want to be a guide?"

  "I don't like the way you're saying that," Anna replied, coming up the steps.

  "I need you to bind him. Take Graham, and make him yours."

  Anna hesitated. "Are you sure that's the right thing to do?"

  "It's the only way," I said. "If we ever want to figure out who is behind this, we'll need Graham. I'll walk you through it."

  "Please," my mother said. I glanced at her and saw something I didn't expect to see in her eyes. She was giving out a pleading look. I realized she didn't want Graham to go. Didn't want to lose the man that she had loved, the man she'd worked with for decades. Didn't want to see him vanish into nothing just when she'd found her own way back to a new life.

  Anna saw that. Or at least, I thought she did. Because when Anna looked at me next, her face was determined. Anna walked up and took Graham's hand, pushing mine out of the way.

  "Tell me what to do," Anna said.

  "Concentrate on your touch," I said. "Where you feel his hand. You'll notice something small, like the tiniest poke you've ever felt."

  "I feel it," Anna said, her eyes closed. "What do I do?"

  "Focus on it," I said. "You'll feel it open, like a drain wanting to suction you away. Let it."

  The only clue was her sharp intake of breath. Anna shivered and her hand clenched even tighter on Graham's. Then it was over. When binding a spirit, you knew when you'd filled that well. When the drain stopped asking for more. Anna stepped back from Graham, let go of his hand. My father's spirit looked at her, still in that ridiculous hat, and nodded.

  "Thank you," Graham said.

  Chapter 64

  The doors opened on the eighth floor of the Chicago Medical Center. I took a breath; the sweet sterile real air coming in through my bruised lungs. Stepped in with Anna behind me and walked past a series of patient rooms towards a large one in the corner. One that had a doctor I recognized standing outside studying sheets of paper.

  "Carver Reed," Dr. Barrington Farth said as I walked up. “Who's this, a new addition to our group?"

  "Anna," Anna said. "And, maybe."

  "Not up to me," I said. "Anna, this is Dr. Farth. He oversees any problems the Chicago guides have."

  "Two of those problems are in there right now," Farth said. "Close calls. I'd prefer you keep to the usuals; broken bones and bruised egos."

  "They're alive?" I said.

  Dr. Farth looked at me over his glasses, his eyes at once skeptical and admonishing. "I believe they'll stay that way. Though I'd be more confident if they kept out of Riven for awhile."

  I nodded and Dr. Farth stepped aside, waving us in. The room had two beds facing a large window looking out over Chicago's cityscape. Each of those beds held a guide. Bryce in one, Alec in another. Of the two, Alec was the only one awake, and the heaviness of his eyelids said consciousness was hard to maintain at the moment.

  "Tell me, you took care of him, correct?" Alec said.

  "She did," I said, nodding to Anna. "He's bound to her now."

  "That would be a feisty binding," Alec said. "Be careful not to lose him. Would hate to have to clean up after your mess."

  "I'm not the one in the hospital bed," Anna replied.

  "I shouldn't be here long," Alec said. "Just broken ribs. And a punctured lung. Crossing isn't as effective when you're nearly dead."

  "Giant hammers will do that to you," I said.

  Bryce stirred in the other bed. It was hard to look at him. His skin was pale, and the jagged red outline of a burn traced its way around his eyes. From what I could see, large bandages wrapped around his chest. Evidence of more than a few injections to kill the pain. He pulled himself awake anyway.

  "I know what you're thinking, and I can still see that ugly face of yours," Bryce said. "Graham didn't quite blind me. Didn't quite kill me."

  "You heard what I said?" I replied. "Graham's done with. It's over."

  "It's not though, is it?" Bryce said. "For you, anyway."

  "What you mean?" I replied.

  "Barth and his master? You're not going to let that go are you?"

  "Eventually," I said. I meant it, but I wasn't in great shape. Alec and Bryce weren't either. Anna was fresh to the experience. Charging back in after some unseen enemy that had managed to control two of the more powerful guides out there wasn't what I wanted to do that afternoon.

  "You should know," Bryce said. "I'm not coming back. I said I was retiring, and this is it. You'll have to tell Piotr for me."

  "You're not coming back?" I said.

  "I should be dead," Bryce replied. "It was a miracle those guides from New York found us. Brought us back and kept us awake long enough to cross. Dr. Farth says some of these wounds won't heal. I can't risk leaving my family behind."

  We kept talking for a while longer, but I didn't remember much after that sentence. My mentor was gone. Wasn't going to be back with us. If we were going to go and find this Master, Anna, Alec, and I would do it without Bryce.

  "Carver," Bryce said as we made to leave the room. His eyes had closed, Alec was already asleep. A real sleep. "Finish it. Find the one who did this to us. Make them pay."

  "I will," I said.

  Anna and I split on the way to Ezra's. She had to touch base with Laurence and get back to some of her clients. I had to have an unpleasant chat with the leader of the guides.

  Piotr looked confused, sitting alone with the coffee at our table. When I came in, the man gave me a halfhearted grin. Stood up and reached out to shake my hand. As I told him what had happened, that grin replaced itself with a frown. At the end, he shook his head.

  "A guide retiring in a time of war," Piotr said. "If it were any other, I would call him a coward. But Bryce has put in more years than most of us."

  "He deserves it," I said.

  "Of course," Piotr replied. "Though I'm disappointed that the three of you disobeyed my orders. Went after that rogue spirit despite the risks."

  "But we won," I said. "Graham is gone."

  "To the Cycle?" Piotr asked.

  I wasn't sure how to answer the question. Anna wasn't a guide, and therefore was forbidden from binding spirits. I could say that I bound Graham, but then Piotr but want to know why. That wasn't a road I was ready to walk. So I just nodded. I'd tell Piotr everything, when it made sense. The leader of the guides sighed at my gesture.

  "Then at least one more soul is put to rest," Piotr said. "Now, with Bryce leaving and Alec incapacitated, Chicago is in need of a leader. A guide to represent the city. You."

  "I'm not ready," I said without thinking about it.

  "It doesn't matter," Piotr replied. "There's no one else. I have to leave, today. I'm heading overseas to try and do what I can to put an end to this war. I leave you in charge of the city, Carver Reed. May you protect her well."

  With one last sip of his coffee, the leader of the guides left me in charge.

  Chapter 65

  I thought my apartment would be a wreck. When I got up to my floor, I noticed my door was knocked ajar, hanging out on one hinge. Whomever had gone in there had done so in a hurry. Inside, though, the only messy thing was the bed. Sheets thrown away to other sides of the room. Evidence they had been moved to check if I was underneath.

  I figured the plan had been to kill me in both worlds at the same time, except they couldn't find me in this one. The danger with Riven and c
rossing from places you didn't know is that you couldn't be sure where you'd come in. You might be miles from where you wanted to be, or appear in a dangerous place without any of your equipment. Without any backup.

  So before we started our run last night, I moved what I needed from the clock tower to the Warrens, to the small room that Anna and Laurence crossed into every time from the construction site. Nobody had been here when Graham was ready with his hammer, and if the lock wasn't going to open, why destroy the key?

  I put my door back as best as I could, laid down on the bed, and crossed into Riven. I didn't expect them to come back for me, whomever it had been, because unless they had me strung up and ready to die in Riven, it wouldn't do any good to kill me back home.

  The apartment was crowded now. Nicholas working at a feverish pace to load out Selena, Katherine, and now Graham. The four spirits were huddled together the living room, discussing what they wanted for weapons and tools, and when I entered, they fell silent and looked at me. I held up a hand in a friendly wave.

  "Any ideas?" I said.

  "I'm working with him," Katherine said. "Unfortunately, it seems whomever bound him did a good job covering his tracks."

  "It's like there is a hole in my mind," Graham said. "A blank spot."

  "Try and find a way through," I said. "Because I don't think he's going to stop. Whether that's coming for me, or tormenting others."

  Selena came up and took my arm. "Let me show you something Nicholas made for me."

  We went to the balcony. Selena wasn't wearing the same dress she had been before. Now she wore a thick coat, one that reached down to her ankles with sleeves that covered her wrists. A guide cloak, with her hair pulled back tight. She turned away for a moment and reached into the coat's pocket, and pulled out a pair of blades. One, long and thin. Like my knife. The other, thick and wide. A cleaver brought to larger proportions. Meant for more than cutting meat. Along the cleaver's front edge, spines struck out like angry teeth.