Reaping the Aurora

by Joshua Palmatier

  But as she steadied, she sensed a disturbance. Something vibrated through the ley lines, buzzed through her body. She clamped her teeth together in an attempt to halt it, but it persisted, sinking into her bones. At her position atop the geyser, she swept herself around in a circle—

  And spotted the flashing light of the distortion over the northern mountains.

  She swore.

  “What is it?”

  Allan’s voice, shockingly close, even though she knew he stood mere feet away.

  “One of the distortions to the north, part of the Three Sisters, is quickening.”

  Now that she could see the source, she could feel it not only through the ley, but through the Tapestry as well. It sent out ripples in every direction, the Tapestry warping, too loose and unanchored to absorb the stress. Cory had told her the Tapestry had reacted when the distortion over Tumbor quickened, that he’d felt it as far away as the Hollow, that it was as if someone had snapped the Tapestry, like a matron would snap a rug to rid it of dust when cleaning. He’d said it had shaken the foundation of reality.

  That had been before the nodes in Tumbor had been destroyed and the entire ley network south of Erenthrall had collapsed. What would the quickening of the Three Sisters do to the Tapestry now, when it had been loosened even further, when one of its fundamental anchors had been compromised?

  “Dalton was right,” she said, more to herself than the others.

  “Right about what?” Allan asked. His hand gripped her shoulder.

  “When the Three Sisters quicken, it will destroy us all.”

  Allan squeezed, his voice coming in closer, his breath hot against her neck. “Then stop it. You’re the only one who can.”

  She wrenched her gaze away from the flickering lights of the distortions over the mountains and turned it toward the geyser beneath her. Ley sprouted around her in sheets, reaching its apex before falling away in arcs. Her tethers held, but they were only anchored to the north, east, and west.

  She needed anchors to the south, or she’d never be able to stop the geyser.

  “Let’s hope Morrell managed to repair the nodes in Tumbor,” she said, then reached for the dormant lines that led southward.

  She cried out when she not only found the old lines, but freshly forged tunnels to hold new lines as well. “Morrell made it to Tumbor!”

  Kara rocked backward as Allan grabbed both of her shoulders, practically shook her. “Morrell’s alive? My daughter’s alive?”

  “I don’t know if she’s alive or not, but she made it to Tumbor. She must have repaired the node—I can’t tell yet, the line to Tumbor is dead—but she did something more. There are new lines reaching to Tumbor and Farrade, tunnels that didn’t exist before.”

  Allan sobbed, his hands flexing on her shoulders. “I knew she’d do it,” he said in a cracked voice. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

  “Yes,” Grant’s voice rumbled, “she is.”

  The tunnels were what Kara had felt when she arrived, a fundamental change to the layout of the Nexus in Erenthrall. Except that the new tunnels and the old weren’t being flooded with ley. The system in Erenthrall had stabilized into a configuration without them.

  “I need to alter the flow of the ley, somehow force it into the new channels.”

  Kara gathered the strength of the ley from the Needle and dove back down into the geyser, fighting its pressure the entire way. The deeper she went, the stronger the currents became. Her progress slowed and she fought harder, the ley blasting past her. She pulled on the tethers, tried to draw more strength from the ley feeding into Erenthrall from their sources. She reached, the currents she needed to adjust less than thirty feet away, but the power of the ley she controlled wasn’t enough, even with the addition of the Needle.

  She gathered her energy again, tugged hard on the tethers, and stretched.

  She screamed in frustration, still twenty feet short.

  “Something’s wrong,” Marcus said into the subdued silence of the Needle’s pit. His voice echoed in the chamber, all eyes turning toward him.

  “What?” Artras asked at his side. “What’s wrong? Is it Kara? Is it the ley?”

  Marcus shook his head, concentrating on the crystals on the Nexus they’d created, on the ley that surged through their node and out toward Erenthrall. He was tempted to travel down the line, as Kara did, but knew that he’d never reach the city. He wasn’t strong enough to reach that far.

  But he could feel something through the line, a subtle shift. No, not a shift, more like a . . . tug.

  “It is Kara!” he shouted as realization struck. He spun, searching the crystals, their configuration, the faces of the Wielders. “She needs more power. What we’ve sent isn’t enough.”

  “But we’ve sent her everything we’ve got!” Dylan protested. “The crystals have been positioned to maximize output. We can’t reposition them without them threatening to shatter, not without the presence of a Prime, or without the help of the mages.”

  Marcus’ gaze shot toward Hernande, but the mentor was still unconscious. “I know that!”

  “Then what do you propose we do?” Artras asked.

  “I don’t kn—” Marcus’ voice cut off as his eyes fell onto the thread of ley arching up toward the door and flooding through the Needle’s first floor, keeping the Gorrani and Devin’s men outside.

  Dylan stepped forward, following Marcus’ gaze. He spun back. “If you drop that thread, the Gorrani and the others will storm in here and kill us all.”

  “If you don’t,” Artras said on his other side, “and Dalton is right, then we all die anyway.”

  Marcus stared up at the ley-flooded entrance to the pit. The sounds of fighting sounded from outside. If anything, they’d escalated since they’d altered the flow of the ley, grown closer.

  “Who’s currently controlling that thread?” he asked.

  Jenner stood. “I am.”

  Marcus turned. “When I say so, release the flow back into the Nexus here. I’ll direct it to Erenthrall. It may not be much, but it might be enough.” At Jenner’s nod, he glanced around at everyone else—Cutter, Marc, Artras, Dylan, the rest of the Wielders present. “We need to hold the Nexus as long as we can, give Kara as much time as possible.”

  Cutter and Marc were already moving toward the stairs. Artras pulled out her knife and followed. A few of the Wielders grabbed what few weapons they had in the pit and joined them.

  Marcus returned to the edge of the Nexus and stared down into the churning white ley, then raised his head, focusing on the crystals and the thread that protected them.

  “Let it go, Jenner.”

  Kara’s scream cut off as a thin thread of new ley surged through the Needle’s line. Momentarily stunned, she hastily seized it and wove it into the tethers, then dove into the center of the geyser with a half-disbelieving laugh. The vibration of the distortion to the north shivered into her joints as she grounded herself and then shunted the power of the tethers into a block, like a wall. The spiraling currents in the center of the geyser reacted, the flow disrupted, a portion of it funneling out into the new ley tunnels Morrell had constructed. Kara felt it surging toward Tumbor, toward Farrade, the line growing more and more tenuous the farther from Erenthrall it got, because it didn’t have an anchor. She fed more and more ley into the lines, desperate for it to reach the node she hoped Morrell had rebuilt there. Once it reached the node—

  She gasped as the line to Tumbor snapped, like a string suddenly pulled taut. The line to Farrade did the same an instant later. Without her aid, the lines strengthened as the chaotic eddies in the geyser shifted. Ley poured into the new lines, drawing from the geyser, as new lines sprang outward from Tumbor to Farrade, then spidering from both cities toward the Needle, toward the lands south and east and west. With each connection, the strength of the geyser lessened, t
he ley finding new outlets, new channels.

  Kara retained her hold on the tethers until it had lessened enough she could begin stabilizing the chaos in the network throughout the city. Now that the pressure on the ley had been reduced, she could map out the lines easily. But the nodes and pathways within the city had been created for the Nexus, designed to be used with the array of crystals that had stood within its heart. Those crystals had been destroyed in the Shattering, and based on what Lecrucius and Iscivius had done at the Needle, they wouldn’t be able to replicate them again easily.

  If she had any hope of stabilizing the system, she’d have to rely on the old nodes, the original ones, like the one beneath Halliel’s Park and in the Hollow. She’d have to create a new configuration, a blend of old and new.

  Someone touched her shoulder. “I don’t know what you did,” Allan said, “but the ley is receding. It’s lowered enough around us we can see the geyser. It’s only half as high as before.”

  “I’ve shunted a good portion of the ley into the new lines to Tumbor and Farrade, but that was only part of the problem. Without the crystals here at the Nexus, the entire ley system in Erenthrall needs to be redesigned. I’m working on that now.”

  The Wolves suddenly broke into high-pitched howls. Kara flinched.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “Can no one hear that sound?” Grant muttered. His voice sounded pained, an underlying whine laced through the words.

  Kara thought of the lines snapping into place and sucked in a sharp breath.

  The quake jolted her from her seat on the edge of the crystal. Her body struck the floor hard, pain firing through her shoulder and into her chest, even though her consciousness was deep inside the geyser, her awareness spread through numerous lines shooting out from the Nexus. Allan shouted, “Kara!” and snatched at a flailing arm. He dragged her across the floor where she’d rolled, splinters of crystal biting into her skin, then pulled her up and held her to his chest. She wondered how close she’d come to falling into the ley, outside of Allan’s sphere of protection, but it didn’t matter. The entire city shook beneath them. Even deep in the ley, Kara heard stone cracking and crashing to the floor around them.

  “Kara, if you can hear me, work fast!” Allan shouted over the rumble of the quake. “I’m not certain how much longer we can stay here!”

  Kara didn’t answer, dove back into the ley’s configuration, sensing the lines, the nodes, the connections here and the lines that led outward toward the other cities. She’d never studied the ley structure before, not like she assumed the Primes had done before the Shattering. But she could feel all its individual parts.

  It was like the stones in Halliel’s Park, the ones Ischua had used to test her when she was a child. Or like the crystals in the new Nexus at the Needle. Shifting one stone or crystal altered the pattern of ley, altered the flows. Some configurations were good, but with a tiny adjustment, something better could be found.

  All she had to do was find one that was stable, that would hold, without the need for supervision.

  Taking in a deep, steadying breath, she exhaled slowly and mentally dug her toes into the sand, as she’d done for Ischua and her father so many years before. The quake faded into the background—Allan and Grant would protect her—until all that remained was the ley. She floated in it, at the center of the geyser, at the center of the Nexus.

  Then she reached out and began manipulating the stones. She shunted the flow of the ley here, blocked off a conduit there. With each adjustment, the entire network shuddered and shifted, abandoned lines suddenly flooded, other lines flickering out. She shut off the node in Eld, used Halliel’s Park instead, then reached for the node outside the city they’d discovered on their disastrous trek to Erenthrall last year. The system was intricate, each action having unintended consequences, but with each adjustment she learned a little more about how the nodes and lines interacted with each other. Turning off the node in Leeds caused the geyser to surge higher, the pressure too great, nearly sweeping Kara way. She swore and quickly added Leeds back into the network, focused on the nodes farther east. Adding a line from Hedge to Arrow caused the pressure to drop suddenly, Kara falling deep into the pit.

  Someone shook both her and Allan, forcing her attention back to her body. “We have to go,” Grant growled.

  “Not yet! I’m nearly done!” Kara reached out frantically. She could sense the stability now, over half of the system already calmed.

  “The entire building will come down on us!”

  “She said wait,” Allan said.

  Grant grabbed Allan’s shirt, dragged both him and Kara close. “We will all die.”

  “Then we die,” Allan answered.

  “She can’t repair the ley if she’s dead.”

  Something in the Nexus roared, an entire section of the ceiling falling in. Kara didn’t see it, but she choked on the dust as it overwhelmed them.

  Grant hauled them both to their feet. “Move!” he bellowed.

  Allan hesitated, then hefted Kara into his arms as she screamed, “Wait!” But no one listened. In desperation, she slammed nodes on and off, blocked lines and released others, her connection to the ley growing more and more tenuous the farther Allan and Grant dragged her from the Nexus. She sensed perfection in the configuration, only a few adjustments away. With a ragged, feral cry, she stretched toward the last node and slammed it open as the network slipped out of her grasp.

  She returned to her body with a wrench, moments before Grant, Allan, and the two Wolves ducked into the corridor leading away from the domed central room. She glanced back over Allan’s shoulder, another portion of the ceiling caving in, the geyser gushing upward one last time before sinking down into the pit. The ley that had flooded the area had already receded into the ground.

  They raced through the corridors, Allan and Grant shouting orders to each other as they ran. Kara thought about forcing Allan to put her down, but a stealthy lassitude had crept over her, like what she’d felt when she’d tried to heal the distortion over Erenthrall before it quickened after the Shattering. She barked a short laugh at the parallels between that moment and now: Allan carrying her exhausted body from the Nexus as they fled. Except this time the Wolves weren’t hunting her. This time they were fleeing a quake, not a quickening.

  And this time, she’d succeeded with what she’d set out to do.

  “But is it in time?” she mumbled to herself.

  They burst out of the darkened corridors into bright sunlight, everyone pausing, braced against the building as the ground continued to shake. Cracks appeared in the bowl surrounding the Nexus and shards of stone fell away from the remains of the towers on all sides. Grant pointed toward the stairs and shouted, “Up!”

  They climbed, Allan’s breath growing rough and harsh, coming in gasps as he slowed. Chunks of the bowl and parts of the steps broke free and rolled down the incline toward the Nexus below. They forged on, Allan staggering and collapsing to one side as they neared the top, hand clutched to his side. Kara crawled to him, caught his shoulder, and looked into his eyes, seeing his face twisted in pain.

  “You don’t need to carry me,” she said. “I think I can walk.”

  They climbed to their feet, supporting each other, Grant already above, standing at the lip of the steps, the Wolves pacing around him impatiently. When they reached him, he asked, “Where do we go now?”

  “Out of Erenthrall. To the top of the cliffs. I need to see the Three Sisters.”

  With the earth still shuddering beneath them, they headed south, toward the edge of Erenthrall.

  Jenner was the first to die.

  He was cut down by the Gorrani warriors that surged through the opening of the pit onto the stairs. He and Marc had held the outer corridor as long as possible, Cutter firing arrows from behind them over their shoulders. Marcus and most of the Wielde
rs had remained in the pit. The corridor was too narrow for more than a few to be fighting at one time. Marcus knew that was the reason they were able to hold out as long as they did. But Marc and Jenner and Cutter and the rest had been pushed back, a foot at a time, until they’d reached the top of the stairs. Cutter had raced down them, past other Wielders going up, so he could fire at the Gorrani as they appeared from the far side of the pit.

  Jenner fell before he’d reached the bottom, a vicious slice into his chest. He died without a sound, his body slipping from the stairs to fall to the stone ledge below. Another took his place, the screams and grunts and scrape of metal on metal echoing harshly throughout the chamber. Marcus watched from the edge of the pit, still monitoring the ley. A strange calm had descended over him, a blanket of acceptance.

  When the Gorrani reached the halfway point, with three other Wielders cut down after Jenner, Marcus rushed forward. He kept his connection to the Nexus intact, but scrambled to the bodies beneath the stairs, snatched up one of the Gorrani’s curved blades, and headed for the steps. Marc fought like a madman, thrusting and parrying and shoving the Gorrani back or over the side. He did it in total silence, only his expression enraged.

  Marcus came up behind Artras, four body lengths behind Marc. He spun her around, startled by the murder in her eyes before she recognized him.