Reaping the Aurora

by Joshua Palmatier

  High overhead, columns of black smoke and dust appeared over the top of the temple, followed by muted screams and the clash of weapons, all of it dampened and distant.

  Marcus listened intently, then swore and ducked back into the Needle.

  Kara shaped the surge of ley from the reservoirs into a sharp point as she rode it toward Tumbor, refining it into a thin spire, like the Needle itself. She let the momentum of the ley drive the spike through the ley line, so that when it struck the distortion, it carried behind it the force of the entire network, magnified by the crystal configuration at the Needle, augmented by the ley captured in the reservoirs.

  It pierced all the way to the center of Tumbor, shards of reality shattering as it passed. A pang twisted in Kara’s gut—how many people were still alive in those shards, how many trapped and now dead?—but she held the spike of ley until it reached the node in Tumbor. It collapsed instantly, ley filling the chamber, Kara already beginning to reshape it into another needle, this one aimed straight up from the pit toward the center of the distortion high above. The distortion itself shuddered around her, a reaction to the disturbance caused by what she’d done so far. It would collapse within moments, but she didn’t spend a single heartbeat worrying about the collapse. She’d done this too many times to allow herself the luxury of fear.

  But as she prepared to send the new spike on toward the heart of the distortion, she did take note of the pit here in Tumbor itself. Because it wasn’t a pit, not like it should have been. It was much larger. As the ley branched out, seeking to fill the available space in the shard not still locked away inside the distortion, the magnitude of what she’d found hit her.

  This was a Nexus, far surpassing the one built at the Needle. This one rivaled the original in Erenthrall in scope and capacity. Or it would have, if the crystals hadn’t been shattered and the surrounding landscape destroyed. The destruction here was far worse than what she’d seen in Grass. The chamber she stood in was exposed to the distortion overhead, at the bottom of a crater obviously caused by an explosion. The towers had been sheared off much closer to the ground, the stone debris thrown much farther. Here, the devastation was nearly absolute. At least, what she could see of it in the freed shards.

  She thought again about what Marcus had claimed upon her capture—that the Shattering hadn’t been caused by the Kormanley, that it had been Baron Leethe. She hadn’t believed him, had thought he was simply rationalizing his own culpability in what had happened.

  But now . . .

  Was it possible that all the cities had had their own Nexus? She hadn’t been a Prime. She’d only known the nodes in a few districts in Erenthrall. Perhaps every city that had been connected to Erenthrall had a node such as this.

  But no, that couldn’t be true. She could sense through the ley a pit like the one she’d expected not that far away, built like the nodes she’d worked before the Shattering, except on a larger scale. The layout of that node and this one didn’t make sense, unless one of them had been built in secret, had been used as an attempt to subvert or break free from the Nexus controlled by Prime Wielder Augustus and Baron Arent. Except something had gone wrong.

  Marcus had said the pulse that caused the Shattering had come from Tumbor.

  The distortion shuddered, a reverberation she felt in her teeth, even though her body stood hundreds of miles distant. She focused again on the second spike she’d created, gathered the strength of the ley now filling the dead husk of this new Nexus, and shot it upward, to where she could sense the heart of the distortion vibrating. It lacked the power of the spike she’d used to reach this node, but it still hit its target.

  The entire distortion lit up with a fiery white light, blinding in its intensity. Kara screamed, her metaphysical form in Tumbor turning away, cowering down, even as her voice echoed in the chamber at the Needle. She lost her hold on the ley, let the raw power funnel unfettered through the crystals at the Needle toward her position, then channel upward through the distortion. In Erenthrall, that raw power had healed the shards from the inside out, branching along the distortion’s main arms, then out through the secondary and tertiary filaments, down to the tiniest cracks and most minuscule shards. That feral energy had fused the fractured realities back together, even as the distortion over Erenthrall continued to collapse.

  But that didn’t happen here in Tumbor.

  The distortion was too large. The energy spread to all the shards, through the arms, skating along the fractures, but by the time it reached the entire breadth of the shreds of reality, it had grown too dissipated. Kara choked on her own scream and lurched up in horror, reached out with one arm, fingers extended, as if trying to grasp tendrils of light from the air.

  “No,” she whispered.

  The distortion began to collapse.

  She should have fled back to the Needle. Instead, she solidified her connection to her own body through the ley and stayed. There was nothing she could do. All the power they had been able to produce at the Needle had already been brought to bear. There was nothing more to reach for, nothing left to grasp. And it hadn’t been enough.

  The ground began to rumble, like distant thunder, but it grew swiftly, became a growl, a howl of grinding stone, punctuated by a hissing slicing sound that shuddered in Kara’s bones. A sound she remembered from the distortion that had maimed the seamstress’ hand and killed her dog Max’s original owner back in Erenthrall, as if the air were being shredded.

  She flinched when the collapsing distortion reached her, the churning wall of destruction blasting past her with a concussive wave that wrenched at her spiritual body before abandoning her to an utter calm that felt surreal after the chaos. She hovered resolutely, staring after the wall of the distortion as it imploded, a sphere shrinking in size, whirling in upon itself, until it was nothing but a blazing, multicolored ball the size of her hand that flared once and winked out.

  Her connection to herself at the Needle wavered, the ley lines between Tumbor and their Nexus destroyed. But still she didn’t flee. She turned in a full circle, witnessed the destruction she had caused. The land around Tumbor had shattered, splinters of rock and dirt and debris jutting up at odd angles in all directions, nothing of Tumbor left. Nothing recognizable. The air felt edged, as if slivers of the fractured reality remained, the act of breathing enough to kill.

  A wind tugged at her arm.

  “It’s gone,” she said, her voice cracking. Her chest ached. Her cheeks were wet with tears. “It’s all gone.”

  The wind again, at her arm, except this time it registered that there was no wind. Someone pulled at her arm. Someone was bellowing in her face.

  Her metaphysical form faced the Needle. She considered staying, letting the thin tendril that connected her to her body snap. She’d failed. And now Tumbor and everyone and everything trapped within it was gone.

  But the moment was fleeting.

  She dragged herself back to the Needle, slamming into her body with a jerk.

  “It’s gone!” she shouted, before she realized Marcus was clutching at her arm, that he was holding her upright as the entire pit lurched around them. A quake. Because the ley lines had been stressed. Because the firmaments of reality had taken a significant hit.

  “We have to get out of here,” Marcus yelled over the roar of the quake.

  “It’s because the distortion in Tumbor collapsed! It’s gone, all of it—Tumbor and everything trapped inside. This is the aftershock.”

  Marcus drew close, so he could shout in her ear. “That’s not why we need to leave. The Kormanley are attacking the temple.”

  He dragged her toward Hernande, Okata and Artras hauling the mentor to his feet. He hung limp.

  “He’s still in the trance, holding the crystals,” Artras said.

  “We have to wake him.”

  “It will release the crystals!”

  �
��Someone will have to stay and stabilize them.”

  “I’ll stay,” Kara said.

  “Hells you will,” Okata snapped. “The Kormanley want you more than anyone else here.”

  “Jenner and I will stay, with the other Wielders,” Dylan said. “We’ll hold the crystals. And someone has to stay to control the Nexus after this quake ends anyway. We can’t all leave.”

  “Dylan—”

  “Don’t argue! Go!”

  Marcus pulled Kara toward the stairs, stone and debris falling from overhead. Dylan said something to Artras, the elderly Wielder nodding once as he and Jenner ran toward the edge of the pit. The crystals were locked in place, strangely stable compared to the lurching stone around them. The other Wielders in the room had been thrown to the floor or were scrambling to escape, only a few attempting to hold the churning ley under control. Artras slapped Hernande hard, the mentor’s head snapping back as his arms jerked upward. In the pit, the crystals began to tilt and twist, Dylan and Jenner shouting orders, dragging in a few others as they seized control.

  Then Marcus was shoving Kara up the stairs, on her heels, Okata, Artras, and Hernande stumbling behind. She caught sight of Dierdre’s body below, noticed a few others knocked unconscious or killed by debris, and then she passed up through the opening into the black corridors of the Needle, streaked with veins of ley, and the Nexus fell behind.

  Thirteen

  CORY HEARD THE FIRST EXPLOSION and saw the smoke out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t afford to glance in that direction. He needed to concentrate on holding the reservoir. Sweat already beaded his forehead, and it didn’t come from the heat of the sun. This field was ten times as large as the one he’d held inside the pit during their test run, and the Wielders hadn’t yet begun siphoning off the ley energy.

  “What in hells was that?” Sovaan asked from his position ten steps to Cory’s right. Jerrain stood to his left.

  “Does it look like I’m omniscient?” Jerrain answered. “Jasom, go see if you can figure out what’s going on. Mirra and Keller, stay here in case we need the support. The rest of you stay put! I don’t know what the Wielders are doing, but if they don’t start using this ley, they’re going to lose it.”

  Jasom trotted down the length of the temple. They were positioned on the second tier, but on the edge facing away from Tumbor, so they had it mostly to themselves. A few guardsmen were stationed at the edges, where those who’d arrived late were crowding to see around the two sides. There’d been a brief surge of people on their tier when they’d started filling the reservoirs, but that had already passed.

  Jasom returned. “There’s some sort of commotion with the enforcers on the first tier. Allan, Ty, and the Matriarch are retreating into the temple. I’m not certain what caused the explosion.”

  “What about—” Jerrain began, but he cut off as Cory felt the Wielders inside the temple begin to access the ley.

  “What about what?” Jasom asked.

  No one answered. Cory couldn’t, too focused on keeping the reservoir stable; he assumed Sovaan and Jerrain were similarly occupied. The ley drained far faster than he expected, surging out of the containment and flowing down into the chasm toward what he assumed was a ley line. As it drained, the pressure on the folded Tapestry he held lessened.

  Then light flashed overhead. Jasom, Mirra, Keller, and the other three students scrambled to the side of the tier, Keller crying out, “It’s the distortion! It’s completely white, blazing like the sun!”

  Whatever was happening around the corner escalated. Cory could hear oaths, people yelping, a woman’s curt scream, and swords clashing.

  Then the bell over the main gates began to clang, a startling sound, reminding Cory viscerally of the bell they’d used in the Hollow as a warning.

  A heartbeat later, explosions rocked the temple. Jerrain cursed as all of them staggered. Sovaan fell to one knee, his hold on the Tapestry slipping, what was left of his reservoir of ley dropping down into the chasm. Before Jerrain could berate him, choking black smoke billowed over them all. “Jasom and the rest of you, get back here!” Cory shouted, struggling to hold onto his portion of the Tapestry.

  “No!” Keller yelled, his voice threaded with dismay. Cory couldn’t see him through the smoke—couldn’t see any of them, could only hear Jerrain gasping—but he knew he hadn’t returned. He was still at the corner of the tier. “No, no, no!”

  “Keller!” Three shapes emerged from the smoke, blurred by the tears in Cory’s eyes—Mirra, Tara, and another student. Cory snatched Mirra’s arm and dragged the other two closer. “Where are the others?”

  “They’re helping Sovaan and Jerrain. Something went wrong, Cory. The distortion—it . . . it collapsed! And the enforcers! They’re fighting on the temple stairs. Commander Ty is holding them off right now, but he’s outnumbered.” Tears were beginning to form in Mirra’s eyes. She wiped at her own face in disgust, her skin already blotchy, her breath beginning to hitch.

  Cory fell to one knee, his attention half on the Tapestry, half on her. He grabbed both of her shoulders. “Mirra, listen to me. Are you certain the distortion collapsed? It didn’t heal?”

  “I’m certain. It wasn’t . . . wasn’t like Erenthrall. I saw it folding in upon itself.”

  Cory squeezed her arms in comfort, but stood. He tested the Tapestry near the reservoirs, but no one was drawing on the ley anymore. He didn’t think the Wielders needed it any longer, now that the distortion had collapsed.

  He sucked in a sudden breath, coughed, and shouted, “Jerrain, let the reservoir go! The distortion’s collapsed! We need to get away from the temple as soon as possible, before the quake hits! Head for the northeastern corner of the tier now!”

  He pulled Mirra and the other students after him, trying to keep low, beneath the smoke, but it cleared within a few paces, the bulk of the temple blocking it. Standing straight, he herded Mirra and the others toward Sovaan, the administrator staring back toward the smoke with a shocked look.

  “This can’t be happening again,” he said as Cory approached. “The Needle was supposed to be safe.”

  “Nothing in the new world is safe! Now take the students and head toward the door near the corner. We need to get inside before—”

  They heard it before it hit, a low, rumbling, grinding sound.

  “Get down flat!” Cory shoved Sovaan to the stone tier, reached for Mirra, but then the temple lurched beneath them. He slammed into the stone chest-first, breath bursting from his lungs, but began crawling toward Jerrain’s position without thought. They’d experienced too many quakes for him to be shaken by this one. He pushed a sobbing Mirra toward the temple entrance and kept going, not looking back to see if Sovaan or any of the others were trying to reach it. Beneath the smoke, he found Jasom protecting Jerrain and two other students, all of them flattened to the stone. He gestured toward the doorway, Jasom nodding in response, then pushed on. Stones rattled down onto the tier, dislodged from above, but he merely winced as some of them struck his shoulders, back, and legs.

  Ten feet farther on, he ran across Keller. The brown-haired student lay crumpled on the stone, surrounded by three others—a woman and two men. Cory rushed forward on hands and knees, grabbed Keller’s shoulder, then lurched back, his hands bloody.

  Keller hadn’t been killed by the quake. His entire side was soaked in blood from a sword wound in his chest.

  Cory fought back the urge to vomit, checked the other bodies, and found similar wounds—one man with a vicious cut to the neck—then backed off. He scanned what he could see of the second side of the temple around the corner. Smoke still billowed up from multiple areas, the worst in the streets below and the square. It looked like the barracks was on fire. He spotted three craters on the second tier, bodies strewn on all sides, some burned and maimed by the blasts, others like those he’d found with Keller. Most of the dead were clus
tered near the main door. There were still pockets of fighting, mostly on the first tier, where a wave of stragglers was trying to reach the doubtful safety of the ground. He caught snatches of fighting on the outer walls, a few sections where explosions had torn at the parapet.

  The ground lurched again, and he scrambled back toward the others.

  “Where’s Keller?” Jasom asked as he approached. He and Mirra were waiting at the door, the others already inside.

  “Dead.” Cory motioned them into the corridor. The hallway beyond was choked with dust and he covered his mouth with one arm as he followed the other mentors and students deeper inside the temple. One or two of them were sobbing.

  When they reached a cross-corridor, Jerrain halted and snapped, “Quiet!”

  Cory worked his way up through the six remaining students to Jerrain’s side and listened. “They’re fighting in the main corridor.”

  “Who’s fighting?”

  “I don’t know.” He glanced back at Sovaan and the rest. “We need to get out of the temple, without running into anyone.”

  “I only know the main corridors.”

  Someone screamed, high-pitched and gurgling.

  Mirra tugged on Cory’s shirt. “I know all the back halls. I’ve been exploring.”

  “Then you lead the way.” Cory motioned her into the intersection of the halls. “Take us down and out as fast as you can.”

  Mirra nodded, then headed right, away from the sounds of fighting.

  They wound through corridors, past doorways open and closed, pausing at every crossing to listen. The rest of the students had figured out something worse than the quake had happened, now that the ground had settled for the moment, and were trying to stifle their sobs. Mirra led them without hesitation, cutting left, then right again. An aftershock rattled the temple when they found a narrow set of servants’ stairs down to the second level, but no one paused. They didn’t see any enforcers or anyone else.