Fractures (Facets of Reality Book 2)

by Jeremy Bullard

  "You little minta'hk," the ruby barked, spinning a fireball her way. His menacing snarl fell to utter astonishment as he watched his magics unravel before his eyes. "How---?" He launched another spell, and another, his disbelief giving way to horror as he watched every salvo evaporate.

  Holding the inverted null field as a shield before her, Delana gave quick glance over it to the parapet above. Behind the stone bulwarks, she caught the barest hint of a lavender skeleton, continuing its slow circuit of its patrol. They hadn't noticed. Perfect.

  She turned her attention to the auric residue around her, erasing all traces of her amethyst magics. "Ye got one o' two choices, lad," she told the ruby as she worked. "Ye can let me in and I can be on me way, and ye can forget ye even saw me, or ye can keep up this pitiful, pitiful attempt t' take advantage of a wee lass like meself, and I'll just end the lot o' ye right here an' now, a'fore ye can so much as holler fer backup. I can e'en make it look like the storm done it," she added, raising her splayed hand between them and dancing her amethyst magics from one finger to the next for dramatic effect.

  The ruby gave a petulant frown. "What's to stop me from sounding the alarm once you're inside?"

  "What? You tellin' yer superiors that you let a git slip past ye, and beat yer fellows int' the mud to boot? I suppose you could..." she speculated, then added with an evil grin, "...but if yer best magics canna e'en touch me, let alone hurt me, how powerful must I be? What could I do t' those who betray th' trust I place in 'em?"

  "S-Soleis Harbor, you said? You'll want to talk to Harker, captain of the Trident. You can find him at the Gill and Gull, near the wharf."

  * * *

  The Rank guard was most accommodating, more than eager to see the strange amethyst on her way. And true to his word, he raised no alarms, even after she'd left him sniveling outside the gate.

  Such a sweet young man.

  The streets of Stormhold were just as foreboding as the roads leading to the fortress, with the storm above only adding to the atmosphere of dread. The cobbled lanes were lit by ruby lamps, and what they did not illuminate, Delana's soulgem did. Human, dog, and rat skeletons still wobbled through the rain, but she greatly preferred the wavering view to one cloaked in shadow. Apparently, the skeletons did not. They skittered away like cockroaches as she drew near, sparing her not so much as a sidelong glance.

  The streets remained more or less deserted as Delana made her way through the northern districts. The shops and residences, painted and decorated gaily enough to be visible even in the gloom, were about as respectable here as they were likely to be anywhere else in the walled city. Which wasn't saying much. Stormhold had always had a rather sour reputation, even when she'd come here as an academic, and the years had done nothing to make it more appealing.

  She turned onto a side street and spied a street fountain in the middle of the next intersection. She remembered it from last time. It had been one of her landmarks to finding the inn. It was made of marble, snow white shot through with gold veins, and it had shown brilliantly in the perpetually stormy weather. But as she drew closer to her destination, her pulse quickened. Even from this far away, the fountain ahead of her looked... off.

  Reaching the intersection, she realized why, as she stared in disbelief at the inn sitting across the street from her.

  Or, not sitting.

  The building she'd once stayed in -- had found her clues in, had laid to rest her search -- that building was gone. Instead, a crumbling ruin sat in its place.

  The remaining structure told the tale. Its beams and rafters were long gone, save only for a few charred ribs, sticking up from the brick and mortar foundations in odd places. Even that foundation was pitted and gapped, charred in some spots and completely missing in others. Delana had seen this particular scene -- had caused similar to this -- often enough that she didn't need to hear the building's eulogy. It had been struck by lightning. What could burn had burned, and what couldn't fell in on itself, taking with it any hope that she could find some answers there.

  The city watch tolled the bells for Watchbreak, at the precise moment that lightning crackled from one corner of the sky to the other.

  Well, if that didn't fit her mood...

  The reason she'd come to Stormhold hadn't changed. True, the inn where she'd found the ring and other effects was gone, but she never really believed that the inn would reveal any more secrets than it had the first time. Her planned visit to the inn was more about making sure her moorings were all tied off. Her only real lead was still the vi'zrithi ring.

  So she needed to find a vi'zrith. But where?

  The vi'zrith were an aquatic race. They looked human enough, or so Delana understood -- spindly, fair skinned, with fine hair on their heads and little if any on their bodies. In fact, if you didn't see the gill slits on the upper part of the neck, behind the jaw, they could easily pass for human. Especially in Stormhold, where the culture thrived on water and secrecy.

  But they were an aquatic race, so it stood to reason that however they hid themselves among humans, they would do so near the water.

  With the barest glint of an idea, Delana set out for the wharf, plotting as she went.

  The streets were starting to fill with the daily press of humanity, looking to start another toilday, when she reached the Gill and Gull, the tavern that the ruby guard had directed her to. She mounted the porch and angled toward the open doorway when a faint misting of amethyst gave her pause.

  The aura that flowed from the common room was diffuse, piecemeal, following the general layout of the room but not following the exact lines of the building. It quite reminded her of a roiling fog, hanging close to the ground with some billows thicker than others. Each lilac-colored eddy was anchored to a brilliant gemstone chip hidden deep within the structure of the building itself, visible only to her amethyst eyes.

  "In or out, it makes no difference to me," came a gravelly voice from the bar, where sat a man pouring over a stack of papers, not even bothering to turn his emerald eyes her way. He simply hunkered down within his long coat, the collars turned up against the chill wind coming in through the doorway. A serving wench, who Delana took to be the lady of the inn, bussed the counter opposite him. "But out gets nothin' done, and this day already looks to be busy," the mage added.

  When Delana made no move to enter the tavern, he shot her a brief glance, then caught the wench's eye and nodded. The woman poured a steaming cup of what appeared to be blackbrew and set it at the end of the bar. "First one's on the house," she said, implying that the next one would not be.

  Delana weighed her options. Rushing headlong into a null field certainly wouldn't be her first choice. She briefly toyed with the idea of employing her unique variant of that same field, but quickly dismissed it. She could create a bubble around herself that would push back the effects of the amethysts, even to include the emerald and his wench, but she was loathe to reveal the existence of this new talent to the world at large. After all, they were on equal footing as it was. The last thing she wanted was to leave herself vulnerable to emerald magics, especially while dividing her concentration between the field and whatever counterattacks she might offer. She was reasonably sure that even within the common room, she could deploy her inverted field within her own body and extend it outward, so she decided it was far better to keep that advantage hidden as long as possible.

  Not that it made her feel any better about her situation. There were still more unknowns here than there were with the guards at the gate. So, still dreading the possibilities, she swallowed hard and stepped forward. She barely suppressed a shudder as she felt the amethysts in the room taking effect.

  The man at the bar watched her askance, nodding slightly in satisfaction. "They're for my protection and yours. We get quite a few mages, even here in this part of town. Well..." he paused, looking up thoughtfully, his gaze locking on nothing in particular. "I can't think of any part of town that's particularly safe, but if there were one, this
wouldn't be it."

  "Tis not a complete null field," Delana remarked, careful to remember her accent. "There's patches where I could still wield Amethyst, if'n I wanted to."

  "Yes, but not easily, and not for any significant distance," the man affirmed, finally looking at her squarely. The man wasn't old, per se, but he was grizzled and worn. His balding head was rimmed with wispy black strands, enough to give the general impression of hair but not much else. His skin wasn't wrinkled so much as it was leathered, toughened by years of life by the sea. He had the look of a sailor about him, thin yet solid, but his complexion seemed much too light for that.

  "Besides, milady amethyst," he said with a knowing wink. "I'm sure you know enough about null fields to know that I'm not entirely defenseless myself."

  "Indeed," Delana admitted with a wry grin. "I was told I could find Harker here."

  "Aye, you can," the man replied. "What's your business with him?"

  "I'm need'n to book passage t' Soleis Harbor. And... I'd like t' go by way o' th' Maw."

  "Ach, you would, would ya?" he chuckled. He shrugged, then nodded and met her stare. "Alright then. Why would Harker choose to run the Maw, if you just want to go to Soleis? Why not go the southern route? Skirt the coast near Trunk and Tusk?"

  "Why'd a stranger want t' know?" she countered, playing on her hunch that this man was Harker himself.

  "Why would a Plainswoman from the Delta take on an accent that was clearly thicker than her own?" he parried.

  Delana blinked her amazement, then her appreciation. The man was sharp. She decided any further charades would only insult his intelligence, and make her request that much harder to see fulfilled. "I need to find a vi'zrith," she said finally. "Seems like a ship that would run the Maw would have a vi'zrith working on it."

  Harker's face went stony -- not malicious, per se, but very guarded. "Ansley, give us a moment, if you please."

  The wench pressed her lips thin, but said nothing. Instead, she turned to Delana. "Morning kettle's gonna be grits, eggs, and cubed ham. Also got bread and ham gravy. Fish at High Sun -- after the first catch, if you're still here."

  Delana shook the rain from her cloak. "Morning kettle would do me fine, thanks."

  "Sunny or shady?" the emerald drawled as Ansley departed. "If you don't mind my asking."

  "Pardon?"

  "You've told me what you want, but you haven't said why," he elaborated. "There's only two types of people come to this inn looking for the water folk -- crooks and hunters. And you're no crook."

  Delana schooled her face. "No, I'm not."

  "So you're a hunter. And there's only two kinds of business a hunter does -- that which can be done in the light of day, and that which is better left in the shadows. So... sunny or shady?"

  "Sunny... I think. I'm looking for someone that my husband once loved very much."

  Harker loosed a rough laugh. "Sounds more shady to me. I dunno. See, the vi'zrith are a very particular people, and they..."

  A most amazing scent caught Delana's attention, drowning out Harker's waffling. Seconds later, Ansley returned from the kitchen with a bowl of her morning kettle, setting it before Delana. She hadn't realized just how hungry she was, living for days on trail rations. But now, with the bowl before her, she was utterly ravenous.

  "Here," Ansley added, handing Delana a towel. "You'll catch your death if you don't dry that mop on your head."

  The amethyst thanked her, and ran the towel over her dripping hair, then around the front of her neck. She was bundling her hair in the towel behind her head when she noticed Harker staring at her chest. Not leering -- she half expected that in this town. But, staring, his expression somewhere between confused and severe. What...?

  "Alright, I'll do it," he said abruptly. "I had a run planned for the Sentinel this week anyway. We can leave with the tide, if that suits you. After Ansley's High Sun fish, of course."

  * * *

  The tightly drawn bits of the metal barricade gave way to the sparsity of open air as Nestor Merged with the door to join Jaeda in the room beyond. Free of the metal, he employed Clarity -- a compulsion for him, now five days since being freed from Marissa Loh'tein's shackle. Having been deprived of Clarity for...

  "Oh, my," he whispered, running the calculations in his head. From Sunglory 6th to the Goldenleaf 36th. Fourteen weeks. A month and a half, not counting two Festivals. He'd secretly cherished his times of Clarity, few and far between as they had been under the Highest. They offered a most wonderful respite from the morose Granite view of the world. So for him to be deprived of that respite, and for so long, was even more torturous than his captivity. Small wonder, then, that he now employed it with abandon.

  Not that it offered any particular insight for him this morning. Cao Tzu's latest assignment already seemed like more of the same.

  "You say something?" Jaeda asked, already well into her search of the room's contents.

  "Just expressing my awe at how... common this room is."

  "Oh, come now, Nestor," she chided. "This is only our first room of the morning. At least give it a chance to impress you with whatever secrets it might be hiding."

  "After thirty-odd rooms just like it this week, I can't imagine this one having any more 'secrets' than we've already uncovered," he scoffed before giving himself over to his work.

  He was only half-kidding. This room was so like the others, in that it had desks and bookshelves and standing panels and pedestals with glowing lights and moving pictures. It was a pure marvel the first time he'd seen its like. And the second. And even the third. But after so many marvels, he was having a hard time finding it marvelous.

  How odd that the extraordinary could become ordinary so quickly.

  As was their way, Jaeda took the desks and panels to the right and Nestor went left. Their mission seemed simple enough -- to learn about the facility, its purpose, its function. Cao Tzu seemed to think that it would be important someday, but for as amazing as the facility was, Nestor felt like he was entirely out of his depth. He could read the script on the pages and panels just fine, thanks to Clarity, but none of it made any sense. The most he'd been able to puzzle out was the once-name of Aeden's Garden -- Eden Project, though even with that, the name held a significance that the builders often alluded to but never explained, as if its meaning should've been obvious.

  His frustration, in a nutshell. Everything worth learning, the builders expected you to already know.

  Nestor sighed. Four days worth of turning over the past, and he was no closer to understanding---

  A disembodied chirp sounded, and the large dais in the center of the room sprung to life. Jaeda stood stunned on its far side, her finger still pressed to a glowing light in the middle of a panel of such lights. Likely as not, she was wondering what she had done, but unwilling to move her finger for fear that she might undo it.

  And what had she done...?

  The large pedestal glowed a soft white, enveloping its entirety in a milky aura, as if the table itself were made of light. As Nestor watched, bands of multicolored brilliance rose from the surface of the dais, floating upward, leaving lines and structures in their wake. The pedestal's surface took on a certain translucence, and Nestor could see the multicolored bands descending into the table as well.

  In the center of the dais, the bands created a triangle of crystal, seated atop its mirror image in black. Streams of dull white light stretched out from the structure like the spokes of a wheel. They joined the hub to roughly triangular mounds of red, green, blue, violet, and brown, each atop their mirrored counterparts, their placement precise along the outer ring of the dais. A ribbon of blue unrolled from the blue mound, first inward, then wending its way off the image.

  As the bands continued their work, Nestor noticed that the colored mounds on the outer ring were all misshapen, shortened, like sand castles that had collapsed in on themselves by the beating of incessant waves. All, that is, except for the brown structure. This one continu
ed to grow in height, forming a neat peak, half as tall as the crystalline pyramid in the center. The multicolored bands tapered the central mount to a peak as well, and then vanished, leaving behind a completed image. With their disappearance, the crumbled mounds faded slightly, becoming as translucent as the pedestal's surface. The central structures, the brown peak, and the now pulsating stream of white that connected them, all remained solid.

  Jaeda stood motionless a moment longer, then hesitantly removed her finger. Blessedly, the image remained.

  Nestor reached out a hand to touch one of the crumbled mounds near him. His hand passed through it, without stirring so much as an eddy. He reached out to the brown structure as well, then crystalline, to much the same effect, though an angry sound -- not unlike the disembodied chirp -- suggested the action was unwise.

  They were made of light, just as surely as the bands that had given birth to them.

  "What is it?" Jaeda breathed.

  "A map," he whispered. "A map of Aeden."

  * * *

  Cao Tzu cinched the leather strap of his pack to Lazul's saddle, then patted his friend's massive shoulder. The dragon shivered at the touch, his blue scales tinkling like crystal. "You know I hate these things," he rumbled.

  "Can't be helped, my boy," Cao Tzu lamented.

  "I could just carry you and your luggage."

  "What? And leave you limited in how you might defend yourself against rogues and soldiers and Crafter knows what else might be in the skies between here and Bastion?" he teased.

  The dragon sniffed. "I'm no fool, Master. You and I both know that if there were anything between here and Bastion, you'd know it before we ever took to the skies."

  The elderly granite chuckled and patted his friend again. "To everything, there is a season, my friend. A time to be free of our yokes, and a time to bear them with grace."