Fractures (Facets of Reality Book 2)

by Jeremy Bullard

  Dropping all semblance of formality, he threw open the door and whistled shrilly, then stood aside as Retzu entered.

  The shol'tuk in the guildhouse came out of the woodwork to see what warranted the breach of protocol, only to fall into formality of a different sort. They parted before him, as the revelers on the street had, standing at attention and forming a hall within the hall. They drew their swords as he passed between them, two by two, through the foyer, then up the stairs, around the landing, and finally into the guildmaster's chambers. There he found D'prox and Trista, with their hands on their swords, gold hilt and silver respectively.

  Retzu extended the copper-hilted dagger to them. He would've taken her sword as well, had he found it on her person. Most likely, it was in her personal armory, where she'd laid it when she'd taken up the bow. "The shroud is parted, and their eyes see what is beyond," he intoned.

  Trista drew her katana and raised it high, saluting the fallen shol'tuk. D'prox stepped forward to receive Retzu. His hand moved from gold hilt to copper, taking the blade just below Retzu's hand and squeezing slightly, his blood mingling with that of his sodu. "Death approaches. For this one, he has come and gone. Crafter's bosom or the Abyss, their contract has come due..."

  Retzu's master stumbled as his eyes fell to the hilt. His mouth worked silently as he took in the generic curves, the nondescript windings of the nameless assassin's hilt.

  He knew. Crafter be blinded, he knew. Of course he would. She was of his guildhouse, but more than that, she was his daughter. If there were any blade he knew as keenly as he knew his own, generic or no, it would be hers.

  His moistening eyes met Retzu's once more. The guildmaster looked hollow, haggardly. Death was a part of life, and so much more the life of a shol'tuk adherent. It was their business to send people to the Crafter's judgment, and it was expected -- even axiomatic -- that they who lived by the sword would one day die by the sword.

  But this wasn't just any death.

  "Speak their name," D'prox said finally, his voice ceremonially neutral and yet, in its way, pleading. "Once more in the light, if they met it with honor."

  Fila du'Achi, daughter of Brightblade. The words were there on Retzu's tongue, ready to pour forth, but he hesitated.

  Divine is the man whose light is darkness.

  That was the creed of the Armies of the Shadow Mage, a band of mages, mundanes, smiths, artisans, and even shol'tuk that recognized the Highest as the Crafter incarnate -- not merely His vicar but the very deity Himself. It declared the very foundation of shol'tuk, the honor of the appointment and the fell justice of its execution, to be void. Death was dealt for death's sake, not to balance the scales and satisfy honor but to fill the appetite of the Shadow Mage. How could he tell his sen'sia that Fila had herself entered that darkness?

  How could he not?

  Fila du'Achi, daughter of Brightblade. Just say it. Give him peace.

  He is your sen'sia. He taught you better than to abandon honor to save the honor of one who had forsaken it.

  He battled with himself for long moments. Neither choice seemed right, but both were undeniable. He didn't know Fila the woman, but he'd known Fila the girl, and as a scrapper, she exuded an honor that rivaled even her father's. He could not dishonor the girl he knew, but he could not honor the woman he'd fought.

  A woman that he didn't know.

  "They were the shroud, blade, and hilt," he said finally, as he would of a stranger, honoring the guild he knew in place of the member he didn't. Still better than a Shadow Mager deserved, but he could afford her the benefit of the doubt.

  The older man, already hollow, deflated even further. His eyes were unbelieving, questioning, demanding. His cheeks flushed red and glistened with tears now falling freely. Love and fury battled openly across his features, however briefly. When he spoke, he did so with a note of peace.

  "Death is a conduit, conducting the soul to the next world as current through copper wire. May it be that the Crafter, who sees every facet of our lives, saw in this one something that we did not."

  "May it be."

  * * *

  "Can we do anything for her?" Sal asked quietly, trying not to wake Patrys. She lay on a feathered mattress in the infirmary, minus her leather armor and boots. They'd cleaned her up and made her as comfortable as possible. If not for the makeshift stoma cover tied around her throat, covering the gaping, scarred hole, she'd look perfectly normal.

  "Not without ripping her throat out and starting over," Jaren replied apologetically, though his tone said that it wasn't impossible. Sal fought to control a wave of shock, though it surprised him how little Jaren's suggestion shocked him. After spending half a year in this world and seeing only some of the wonders it held, Sal couldn't really say what was impossible anymore.

  Aten'rih nodded his agreement. "You did good, Sal," said the bulky emerald, laying a meaty hand on Sal's shoulder. "Better than most others would in your place. She's Crafter-touched just to be alive, let alone in as fine of shape as she is. Between you and Cedric---"

  Patrys stirred at the amethyst's name. Aten'rih cursed under his breath. The young mage turned bleary sapphire eyes to the Master Instructor, then to Sal. She opened her mouth to talk... and panicked!

  "Patrys, calm down," Sal said in as soothing tones as he could muster amidst her flailing arms. "It's gonna be okay."

  She tried to sit up. Her shoulders heaved and the stoma cover dimpled inward as she fought for breath. Her hand rose to her throat, but Sal caught it.

  "No, don't. You'll get stuff in your lungs if you mess with it. Whisper to me, Patrys," he said firmly, locking eyes with her. "Speak to the wind."

  What's happening to me? I canna breathe right. Me breath feels weird in me lungs, and it dinna reach me nose. Her panicked eyes darted around the room as the thoughts spilled magically from her head.

  "What's she saying?" Aten'rih demanded. "Is she saying anything?"

  "Hang on, hang on," Sal said, raising a halting hand to the emerald. He turned back to Patrys. "See if you can extend your Whisper. Include everyone in the room, like you did when you warned us of the ambush."

  She calmed somewhat as she worked through how to "speak" to the room rather than to individual minds. The anxiety was still plain on her face, but she was wrestling it into submission.

  Can ye hear me now? she asked, her Northern Plains accent abnormally thick in her thoughts.

  "Yes, we can hear you," Jaren said, nodding. Aten'rih affirmed as well.

  "Listen," Sal said, regaining her attention. "Listen close. You were hurt. Badly hurt. I did what I could to patch you up, but..." He let his voice trail off, lost for words.

  Patrys raised a halting hand to her throat, careful not to press, but just brushing the linen flap that hung there. Me throat...

  "Patrys, if I may," Jaren interjected. "I'm a friend of Sal's -- Jaren Fiol, at your service, miss."

  Patrys Goatherd, at yours.

  "Your throat was severely injured during your fight with the granite. Your amethyst partner, Cedric, cauterized the wound, slowing the flow of blood long enough for Sal to reach you and employ emerald magics to heal you." Jaren paused to lick his lips nervously before continuing. "The cauterization did slow the flow of blood, but it also started a healing process all its own, so when Sal tried to heal you, the tissue didn't heal together, but rather scarred around the wound. Even I couldn't have healed it properly, had I been there."

  Patrys considered for a long, silent moment. So I'll have this hole in me throat for the rest o' me life? To her credit, the question was not condemning. Simply a request for clarification.

  "I'm afraid so, girl," Aten'rih chimed in. "Short of ripping your throat open and starting from scratch."

  "Which we can do, when you are properly recovered," Jaren quickly added. "Right now, you're just too weak to attempt something so risky."

  Patrys' attention wandered from mage to mage as she considered. Sal schooled his face to not betray how
alien the emerald's suggestion was to him. The sapphire's expression was cold and hard -- ironic, given the nature of her magic.

  Cedric...?

  Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. Patrys nodded slowly, the chill in her eyes moistening a bit with her acceptance, only to refreeze a moment later. I want to see him.

  * * *

  She asked Sal and his emerald friend to remain behind, allowing only Master Aten'rih to lead her to her fallen comrade. Her head was atwirl with emotions and implications, vapors of the past and storms on the horizon, such that she could barely keep a single thought in her head without it being assaulted by myriad others, all vying for place. Many of them having to do with Sal.

  She needed many things at the moment, but Sal wasn't one of them. She revered him for leading her from the compromise of Earthen Rank life to the freedom that the Cause hoped for. She loved him for saving her -- weeks ago, by drawing her away from life devoted to the Highest, and again tonight, by drawing her back from death. If it could be said that she had any friends, Sal certainly numbered among them. To her chagrin, she would probably find herself crying on his shoulder tomorrow, but tonight, it was all too much. She didn't need a friend. She needed a soldier.

  Master Aten'rih cast a hesitant glance back at her as they walked. "You doing okay, girl?"

  Aye, Commander. About as okay as I can be, though I gotta say me new mouth is a mite bigger than me old'n.

  He laughed roughly at this. "You probably shouldn't do this, you know. Not yet. Give yourself time to---"

  To what? To get used to the idea that me partner -- me friend -- died and I nearly followed? To get used to not singing or talking... or coughing?!? I'm sure ye'll get a kick outta watching me battle hay fever, but I'll not relish it. She sighed -- a very strange experience, considering her new normal -- and the stoma cover billowed out from her scarred flesh. Whatever me future holds, easin' into it ain't gonna make it no easier. And ain't none of it got a bit to do with me friend, lyin' cold on a hard slab.

  She grabbed the much larger man by the arm, drawing his eyes to her own. Mark me well, Commander. I will bid me friend farewell, and I'll not have ye talkin' me out of it. Whatever difficulties lay a'fore me tomorrow, they'll not stay me from Cedric tonight.

  The emerald's eyes narrowed, and Patrys wondered faintly if she'd stepped over the line, speaking to him in the manner she did. But what if she had? What did she have to lose that she hadn't already lost? What, would he eject her from the Earthen Rank? Her, a rebel like him? Her, one of Sal's lieutenants, dismissed by Sal's former master? Indeed, Aten'rih was her own "commander" now in name only.

  ...only, she couldn't bring herself to call him anything less. Whatever her new reality was -- with the Cause, with Aten'rih -- she still saw him as her superior. However bold her brush with death might have made her, he was still a commander, and she was still Unmarked.

  She opened her mouth -- vainly -- to apologize, but he shooed the apology away before she could Whisper it. "Don't. You deserve the right to vent. You need to, else you'll bottle it all away until it explodes out of you." He smiled sympathetically. "A leader must know the needs of his people, and supply them as best he can. I expect you to mind your tongue around the others, sure, show respect for the chain of command and all. But when we're alone? Speak freely. Hold nothing back, not the slightest frustration, and know that I will always listen."

  Her vision clouded at that, and she very nearly poured out her heart. But she knew that once she started, she'd be unable to stop. Instead, she drew a shuddering breath and nodded them forward.

  The morgue was on the far side of the Main Hall, closer to the stockade than the infirmary. It was near enough to offer ready access, but far enough to be out of sight for those unfortunate enough to need the infirmary's attention. The thought was that the less the sick or injured saw of death, the less likely they would be to join them. That may well have been so, but for Patrys, it made an already long walk seem longer.

  Time slowed as they neared the door, grinding to a near halt as they passed through and her eyes fell upon the gurney beyond.

  It was occupied.

  Her eyes filled to the brim as she approached the body. Cedric's chest was peppered with gaping holes and lacerations. The dust that remained of the granite's magic stuck to him, suspended in the congealing blood like a grim pudding. And his face... oh, his face...

  His smile blazed forth in her memory, brilliant even through the ripple of amethyst magics. He'd been practicing that reversed null field ever since Sal had demonstrated it around Watchset, even going so far as to show off for a couple Unmarked of his Tile who had yet to master the spell.

  Look how small I can make it, Cedric had said, shrinking the inverted field to the size of a bitterbark melon, and holding it aloft as they walked their patrol route. I bet I can make it even sma---

  She had looked Cedric's way just in time to see the granite, interrupting the amethyst's experiments with magics of his own. A dozen of them of various sizes made wet thump-thump-thump sounds as they pincushioned Cedric's body, shielding her from the brunt of the attack. One of the projectiles, a sphere made of finger-length blades, passed between Cedric and his null field. The ball grazed the field, disintegrating as it passed. The blades, like spear points, scattered and spun as the field threw the magic off course. She tried to scream out her warning through Sapphire, but was struck herself.

  She could still feel the biting fangs of rock as they tore at her throat -- tore out her throat.

  She fell to her knees, sobbing silently, collapsing on the morgue floor in much the same way that she collapsed on the cobblestones. The granite, lying on his back and writhing in violet lightning -- Cedric's lightning, she was sure -- had tried to get away, to melt into the street. Cedric cast another null field, a proper one this time, just as the granite was halfway in the ground. Even choking on her own lifeblood, it gave her grim pleasure to watch the granite's eyes freeze in surprise, his escape spell suspended and his skull truly becoming one with the flagstone. Then Cedric's hand fell upon her throat, and the world went violet-white... then dark.

  Patrys looked up at Cedric's prone form, his lifeless hand hanging over the side of the gurney toward her, almost beckoning her to take it. She did, and poured desperate kisses over the cold flesh.

  With Aten'rih's help, she stood, swaying briefly on her feet before steadying herself on the gurney. Her eyes fell to Cedric's face, and marveled at the peace she found there. No pain of injury nor fear of the unending season -- just peace. He likely knew that he was dead as soon as the granite's attack pierced his body. But he hadn't held anything back. He not only killed a granite in single combat -- an amazing feat in itself -- but he gave his last breath ensuring that Patrys might draw a few more.

  She caressed his face, a face that was twenty years older than her own, a face that she'd seen her own father in on more than one occasion. Cedric's parents had been Plainsfolk who'd found a home in the city -- in the theater, of all places. When Cedric ascended, he learned how to use his newfound magic to help his fellow man. When tragedy drove him from the theater, he joined the Rank to provide for his family. He'd lived his whole life for the benefit of others, and had died that very same way. If there was ever a man who the Crafter might embrace as one of His own, she prayed it was Cedric.

  May the sun illuminate your path, she Whispered to the silent room, her tears wetting his cheeks as she kissed them. And may you shelter in the Crafter's arms.

  Aten'rih lay a gentle hand on her shoulder, startling her. She'd almost forgotten that he was in the room. "Is there anything I can do, girl?"

  She turned to look into his verdant eyes, thankful for the sympathy that she found there. At first. But as she took in his gaze, something kindled within her. It puzzled her, then concerned her, as she gradually realized how... weak the emerald commander appeared, compared to Cedric. Aten'rih, a seasoned warrior, a veteran and survivor of the Battle of Tarkesien Flats, and he still had t
he presence of heart to care about somebody as broken as her.

  And Patrys was broken. She, a soldier, an Unmarked and a rebel against the Highest -- broken. If she was to ever have value to the Cause, to Sal, she would have to be stronger. Stronger than Aten'rih could ever make her.

  When she Whispered her response, her thoughts were so frigid that they repulsed even her. He fought until there was no life left in him. The granite... he feared Cedric in the end. I want those like him to fear me.

  * * *

  Senosh covered a yawn with his fist as he scanned the night-darkened dual community of Caravan and the Camp of the Unmarked, absently thinking that his relief couldn't get there fast enough. Yellow-orange heat blooms flickered in and out of his magical sight as the once-celebrants bobbed and wove through the streets, making their way to their beds in various stages of intoxication. The excitement of the night finally seemed to be winding down.

  And that was just as well, in his opinion. He admitted -- to himself, if nobody else -- that he envied the celebrants their ignorance, their blindness regarding the world around them. They knew nothing of the slavery that the Highest held them to, the tyranny that he wielded over them. They knew nothing of the struggle that the Cause fought in their stead, the men and women that died so that they might one day have a better life. They knew none of this, and cared even less.

  He envied the peace under which they slept their drunken sleep, but he knew it was a false peace, and it carried too high a price. Tempting as the prospect of such blissful ignorance was, he'd never return to it, even if he could have.

  His body was stiff from sitting in the guard tower. He stood and stretched backward, and was rewarded with a chorus of pops and creaks as his body righted itself. He remained there, hands akimbo, letting his lower back rest as he continued to scan the Camp.