Reaping the Aurora

by Joshua Palmatier

  He pointed to the bottom of the stairs. “Go back down and make certain all of the Gorrani who fall are dead.”

  She nodded and started back down the steps. Marcus took her place.

  He sensed a change in the ley a moment before a Gorrani sword sliced across Marc’s neck. Blood gushed, but Marc drove his own blade through the Gorrani’s chest before falling backward down the stairs, tripping up the desperate Wielders in front of Marcus. The Gorrani surged forward but were blocked by the tangled bodies. Marcus cursed as he was driven farther down the steps.

  The reprieve was short-lived. Before Marcus and those few around him could rally, the Gorrani were on them.

  He brought up the sword defensively, the motion awkward, uncertain. A Gorrani’s blade smashed into his, numbing his entire arm. Marcus’ breath came in grunting gasps, his entire body prickling with sweat, vibrating with a strange energy. The Gorrani screamed into his face, eyes wild—

  And then the Gorrani’s blade slashed across Marcus’ chest.

  Marcus stumbled backward, startled, but found no footing. He tumbled from the edge of the stairs.

  He felt no pain from the wound until he landed on the stone ledge. Then the soothing blanket of calm that had enfolded him shredded, and he screamed as his entire chest burst into agony. Above him, the Gorrani streamed down the steps, the Wielder resistance collapsing. Marcus rolled onto his side, his clothes matted with his own blood, the searing pain cutting from his right shoulder down to the bottom of his rib cage on his left side. His chest felt hot, yet his entire body was shaking as if he were standing in the ice and snow of the northern wastes. He tried to crawl toward the pit, but his body was too heavy, his one arm too numb to function. With a groan, he rested his head against the stone and watched as the Gorrani poured out onto the ledge near the pit, cutting down the Wielders right and left. Cutter continued to fire arrows from the far side of the pit. Artras had retreated to Hernande’s side, stood over him defensively alongside Dylan.

  Something within the Nexus shifted again. The line to Tumbor. It had become active. Marcus grinned. “She did it.” A laugh bubbled from his throat.

  The Gorrani were halfway across the pit when the quake struck.

  It threw half of them to the floor, a surge of ley erupting from the pit and catching a few of the Gorrani unaware as they struggled upright.

  When the ley settled, Marcus realized the flow had calmed. Kara wasn’t using all its power any longer.

  With no time for subtlety, Marcus seized hold of the ley and sent it in a wall diagonally across the pit, cutting Artras, Hernande, Dylan, Cutter, and a few other Wielders off from the Gorrani. They stumbled back from it, shouting in anger and frustration in their own language.

  Then, before he could reconsider, he shoved the wall forward, so that it would sweep across the Gorrani, up the stairs, and out through the corridors of the Needle into the stellae garden beyond.

  A moment before it swept over him, he rolled onto his back and said, “For you, Kara.”

  Then he opened himself up to the ley and let it consume him.

  Twenty-Four

  ARTRAS STRAIGHTENED in mute shock as the wall of ley that had cut them off from the Gorrani surged across the room and up the stairs, flowing out through the entrance into the Needle beyond. It left nothing of the Gorrani or the bodies behind except metal weapons, buckles, and jewelry.

  “Gods,” one of the surviving Wielders said. “What happened?”

  Artras’ gaze dropped to where she’d seen Marcus fall. “Marcus.”

  Cutter sprinted across the shuddering floor toward her. “He bought us a reprieve, nothing more. We have to get out of here before more of them arrive.”

  He reached toward Hernande, Dylan jerking out of his shock and reaching to help. They hauled him up and slung his arms over their shoulders, then began dragging him toward the steps. The other Wielders were already sprinting toward the entrance.

  Artras rushed to the edge of the pit and reached for the ley. The ground still shook with the quakes, but the crystals remained steady in a stable configuration. The flows coming in from Erenthrall and the node near the Hollow were being funneled toward Tumbor and the connection to the south. She grunted in approval, then sped after Cutter and Dylan, heading up the stairs before them, her knife ready. “Kara has stabilized the ley,” she said as she passed them.

  The ground lurched, throwing them all against the wall to one side.

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” Cutter muttered.

  Artras didn’t answer. The Wielders had already vacated the pit, but she still slowed as she reached the entrance. Another shudder sent a jagged crack racing across the pit’s ceiling, a section of the stone ledge falling away below them. Dylan shouted, “Move, move, move!” and all four of them staggered into the outer corridor of the Needle as the ceiling gave way behind them. Artras raced ahead, slowing as she passed side corridors, wary of Gorrani, but there was no one within the Needle or in the stellae garden outside. She wasn’t certain how far Marcus’ wall of ley had reached, but she doubted it had maintained its integrity very long after his death.

  The temple doors gaped open before them. None of the Wielders were in sight.

  “Those gods-cursed cowards,” she said, then turned to Cutter. “Where should we go from here? We have no idea where the Gorrani are. Or Devin’s men.”

  Cutter glanced down at Hernande. “He’s still unconscious.”

  “The bridge.”

  “What bridge?” Dylan demanded.

  “He built a bridge over the chasm out of air,” Artras said. “No one knows it’s there except us, Lienta, and the Temerites, wherever they are.”

  “It’s our best chance,” Cutter said, “assuming it’s still there.”

  They entered the temple, proceeding cautiously through hallways and rooms filled with corpses. Dylan gagged and coughed at the stench of blood and carnage; Artras automatically switched to breathing shallowly through her mouth, a technique she’d learned working in the slaughterhouses before becoming a Wielder. Dust rained down from the ceiling as the ground shook, debris falling in a few corridors. They heard shouts and the sounds of fighting, but all from a distance. Twice someone startled them by stepping around a corner, but after a wide-eyed stare, the intruder darted away. None of them were Gorrani; survivors, attempting to escape, like they were.

  By the time they reached the doors leading to the outer city, the quakes had lessened, the earth settling down, the sharp jolts coming less and less often. The city was in chaos, people fleeing in the streets in small groups, headed toward the main gates, or cowering behind locked doors. Artras caught many furtive glances out of shuttered windows. Numerous buildings were on fire, the flames spreading, but they didn’t pause to help anyone. Most ran from them before they were within twenty paces, skirting the dead that littered the streets. Artras, Cutter, and Dylan kept to the base of the buildings, only cutting across the streets when necessary.

  They found the chasm, raced along the partially built wall toward where Hernande had constructed his bridge. A few sections had broken free and dropped into the chasm due to the earthquakes, but cutting around these areas was simple. Almost no one remained in this section of the city.

  When they neared the narrowest part of the chasm, Artras raced ahead and leaned over the wall, searching. “It’s still here! I can see the stones marking its edge.”

  “Help us get him over the side,” Cutter said as he came up behind her.

  Artras tucked her knife away, then crawled out onto the invisible span as Dylan and Cutter heaved Hernande’s body up onto the wall. Artras prayed Hernande wouldn’t wake up now as she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down onto the bridge. His arm slid over the side, dangling, but she heaved him farther out to give the others room to get over the wall.

  Someone shouted from across the chasm, a warning, but
Artras didn’t look. “Lift his legs. I’ve got his arms.”

  With her walking backward, she and Cutter half-lifted, half-dragged Hernande across the bridge. The stones they’d used to delineate the bridge’s edge were swept off on either side. Dylan followed behind, his expression one of stark terror as he kept close to Cutter.

  By the time they reached the opposite end, a group of twelve Temerites was there to greet them, two of them hauling Hernande up and into the dead garden after helping Artras off the bridge. They kept a careful eye on Dylan until Artras assured them he was one of the Wielders.

  As soon as they entered the half-collapsed building, the Temerites returning to their watch on the bridge, Artras collapsed onto a section of piled stone. She pressed a hand to her chest, her heart thundering, her entire body tingling with adrenaline. Someone rushed off to find a stretcher for Hernande, while Cutter and Dylan sank into seated positions beside her.

  “Are you all right?” Dylan asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” Artras said. “I just need to catch my breath.”

  That’s how Lienta found them, with Cory and a slew of other Temerites behind him. He eyed them all, then asked, “Marcus? The others?”

  “We’re all that’s left,” Artras answered. “Except for a few Wielders who cut and ran.” She faced Cory, who was kneeling at Hernande’s side. “We’d be dead, too, if it wasn’t for Marcus. He used the ley to save us.”

  “What happened with the ley?” Lienta asked. The earth shuddered again, a small aftershock. “Has it been repaired?”

  “Yes, as far as I can tell. Kara stabilized it. Morrell must have succeeded as well. When we left, the ley was flowing toward Tumbor and Farrade. There must be active nodes there now.”

  “Did Kara survive?”

  Lienta asked the question, but Cory looked up. He looked exhausted, gaunt and drained. Tears burned at the corners of Artras’ eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t know. I’m not strong enough to reach all the way to Erenthrall to find out.”

  Cory glanced away, then down toward Hernande. “What happened to him?” he asked, his voice ragged.

  Artras shifted down to Hernande’s other side, reached out to touch his face. “He used the Tapestry to construct a bridge over the chasm. He said he needed to concentrate in order to do it. He’s been in this trance-like state ever since. Can you wake him?”

  Cory hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t think it’s being caused by the Tapestry at all. I think it has something to do with what he did—or what he was—before he came to Erenthrall and became a mentor.”

  Standing over them, Lienta said, “We should move him to the embassy. The Matriarch will have some of our healers look after him. They should probably check all of you as well.”

  Watchmen moved forward and raised Hernande’s stretcher. They followed them to the embassy, Artras surprised to find the sunlight fading as they made their way across the Temerite sector of the Needle. The earth still trembled occasionally, but it had certainly settled since the initial quake; she barely felt the tremors.

  Inside the embassy, Lienta escorted them to their rooms, then departed to oversee the defense of their sector from whatever was happening in the rest of the Needle. Cory collapsed onto a pallet in Hernande’s room, the watchmen placing his mentor gently onto his own bed. Artras settled into a nearby chair. Dylan and Cutter hovered by the doorway. Two healers arrived and poked and prodded them all, looking into their eyes, testing their pulses, but in the end, they could only prescribe rest. They paid closer attention to Hernande, but not even smelling salts placed beneath his nose roused him.

  Admitting defeat, the healers left.

  Artras drifted to Hernande’s side and stared down at his slack features, his beard scraggly and frayed.

  “What are we going to do now?” Dylan said from the door.

  “We wait,” Artras answered.

  “No, not about Hernande. I mean here at the Needle.”

  Cutter stirred. “We’re at the mercy of the Temerites, here on their sufferance. Protected by them.”

  “And to think they traveled here from Erenthrall to find sanctuary with us,” Artras said.

  “What do you think they’ll do? Once the fighting between the Gorrani and Devin dies out.”

  “I think they’ll seize control of the Needle, take over the entire city.”

  Cutter said it flatly, without emotion. But Artras thought he was right.

  “But what about the Nexus?” Dylan protested. “Who will oversee it?”

  Artras turned. “No one. Didn’t you see? After we escaped, the ceiling caved in. It will take years to clear out that stone.”

  “If the Nexus within is still even active.”

  “It is. We would have felt it if it wasn’t. There would have been a resurgence of the quakes, if nothing else.” She gazed off into the distance, in the direction of the node. She felt its pulse. “I don’t think anyone needs to oversee this node anymore. Not that we have many Wielders left. I think Kara has rigged it so that no one needs to oversee it.”

  “Then where are we going to go?” Dylan asked.

  She looked at him. “I think—I think I’m going to return to the Hollow. If they’ll have me. It was quiet there. I can work with the node we discovered, or even help with the animals. I know a little something about butchering.”

  “We can’t go anywhere right away,” Cory said, startling them all. Artras had thought he’d fallen asleep.

  He lifted his arm from where it covered his eyes. “We have to wait and see if Kara and Morrell and the others survived. If they did, they’ll return here.”

  “And what if they didn’t?” Cutter asked bluntly. “How long do we wait?”

  Cory didn’t respond, placing his arm back over his face.

  Artras was too exhausted to even glare. “Right now, we all need to rest.” She headed for the door, but paused by Cory’s pallet. “Come find me if Hernande regains consciousness. Wake me if you have to.”

  Cory nodded.

  She slid past Cutter and Dylan. “Come with me, Dylan. You can take Marcus’ bed.”

  In her own room, she didn’t even bother to change her clothes. She fell onto her pallet with a groan, considered rolling onto her side, but decided it was too much bother. Thoughts of Kara, Allan, Morrell, and the others swirled around in her head, but they weren’t strong enough to ward off sleep.

  Within minutes, she was snoring.

  In the half-collapsed building where Hernande had performed the ritual that placed him into his trance, the soft light of a candle glowed. The watchmen set to keep an eye on what happened at the Needle and to guard against the bridge’s discovery noticed it an hour after darkfall, when one of them took a break to piss. The candle was obscured by the rubble, placed at the edge of a cleared circle, a small rug laid out before it. Wax pooled around its base. Based on the amount, the watchman guessed the candle had been burning for a day, maybe two, protected in its little niche. Now, the wick was nothing more than a charred stub in the middle of a puddle of melted tallow, the flame barely visible.

  He shifted around the small circle and knelt on the rug, then reached for the remains of the candle.

  Before he could touch it, the tiny flame flickered, guttered and spat wax, and then died. A wisp of white smoke rose from a dull red ember in the charred wick, then faded.

  Inside the Temerite embassy, Hernande sucked in a deep, rasping breath and opened his eyes.

  “—wake him, Sovaan. He needs to rest.”

  “He’s been resting for nearly fifteen hours now. I think that’s enough. Besides, the Matriarch would like to speak with him—with all of us.”

  “If what you say he did is true, he may well be sleeping for days.”

  Cory listened to the two argue, but let the words flow over him. He knew they were talking about him, but he didn
’t care. His entire body ached, and he’d heard Sovaan and Hernande argue often enough that he could simply drift back to sleep without it disturbing him—

  His eyes shot open and he bolted upright on his pallet. “Hernande! You’re awake!”

  Sovaan and Hernande stood in the hallway outside the open door, both with irritated expressions. Sovaan brightened and stepped into the room. “Good, you’re awake! We need to get you washed up and presentable. The Matriarch wishes to see us all.”

  Cory ignored Sovaan and leaped from his pallet, grabbing Hernande in a rough hug. Hernande patted him on the back. He tried to speak, but his entire chest, throat, and head felt hot, prickly, and congested, the edges of his eyes burning.

  After an indeterminate time, Hernande pushed him back. “I’m all right, Cory. Besides, this display of affection is unbecoming of a mentor.”

  “You aren’t h—wait, what? What do you mean ‘mentor’?”

  Sovaan cleared his throat ostentatiously. “Yes, well, after Hernande woke, he, Jerrain, and I had a long discussion about what transpired inside the temple when the Kormanley seized control. It was agreed that you comported yourself in a manner befitting a mentor, not a graduate student. This is not the time or place for an official ceremony, but you are hereby unofficially granted the colors and privileges of a full-fledged mentor. You may discard your tans and don the duns of your status, not that any of us have been following the formalities of the colors since the Shattering. Jerrain wanted to be here, but he’s still recuperating.”

  Cory spluttered. “But . . . isn’t there supposed to be a hideously prolonged test? Practicums? An oral examination?”

  “Under normal circumstances, yes. We feel the incarceration and the method of our escape at your hands was a significant enough demonstration of what you’ve learned.”

  Hernande extended a hand, a gesture Cory knew from the graduation ceremonies indicated formal acceptance of the new title. “Congratulations.”