Fractures (Facets of Reality Book 2)

by Jeremy Bullard

  Eventually, Patrys tired of snooping on Atrius' private thoughts -- she would've thought that an assassin would have more interesting thoughts -- so she expanded her awareness to take in the minds of those inside the guildhouse. And immediately regretted it. It was like diving headlong into a crowded room, each voice babbling incessantly, each voice indistinguishable from the others. None of the voices were louder than any of the others, so she couldn't home in on any one mind. Frustrated, she pulled back to Atrius' mind, and pressed her chin more heavily into her palm.

  Jilon. The name came to Patrys, loud and clear, as Atrius tilted his head back toward the door. He was listening to somebody -- this Jilon, an iron-hilt born of Bastion, from parents native to Morningsun. He and Atrius had been fast friends since they were rawhides together.

  She was able to get the gist of the conversation -- they were discussing the next shift, and a tankard at the Spitted Shadow after -- but it felt second-hand, as if Atrius was telling her about the conversation. Which he was, of course. But Patrys wanted more. She wanted to hear it.

  Centering herself on Atrius, she let her mind roam free. Rather than actively sifting through Atrius' mind, she relaxed her thoughts, settling into Atrius the way a bather would a pool.

  "--but if you're there, she might actually talk to me," Jilon was saying, his Ysrean drawl belying his Onatae heritage.

  "She's not impressed that you're shol'tuk, mate," Atrius said. "Ain't scared, either. Assassins are a copper a company for her. Me being there won't help you a bit -- may even hurt your chances!"

  As Atrius spoke, Patrys saw images of him and Nadia, a steely-eyed tavern wench, blonde and stunning even with the ugly scar that connected her left eye socket to her upper lip. Many of those images were less than flattering, and all of them provocative. No, Atrius would be no help at all in garnering her attention for Jilon.

  Shaking her head, she drew herself back from the conversation, but not so much that she disengaged from Atrius' senses. This could work, she thought. Focusing on Jilon's voice, she reached out to his mind... and found it!

  Her perceptions shifted from sunny alley stoop to darkened interior guard as her mind shifted from the worldly Atrius to the lovelorn Jilon. His admiration for Atrius was genuine, though a bit naive. His memories of Atrius' trysts with Nadia had a much more romantic bent -- unnervingly so, for an assassin. Patrys could only imagine that it came from his near-hero worship of his friend.

  Unable to convince Atrius to come to his aid, Jilon left off his pleading and headed back into the guildhouse proper, carrying his sapphire passenger along with. Jilon continued to think about Nadia, but his thoughts also drifted to Retzu and the steel hilts he had carried -- those belonging to Kaleb Listau, a vi'zrith, and partner to the titanium-hilted D'prox and the diamond-hilted Mikel du'Ander, Retzu's uncle. He looked up the stairs, toward the room where she and Retzu had turned over du'Cyphem. The very same room, in fact, where Retzu was now turning over the steel-hilted swords to his sen'sia.

  But rather than mount the stairs, Jilon headed down the hall toward the kitchen, and to the basement stairs running directly beneath the stairs leading up. Those stairs led down to a series of cells, set apart for prisoners of the guild. And in one of those cells...

  Du'Cyphem.

  Patrys rode along with her host, watching and listening the whole way, as Jilon picked up a plate of prepared food with a nod to the cook, and headed down the stairs to the torch-lit basement and its one occupied cell.

  The sapphire prisoner straightened on his cot to receive his visitor, his bearing unbearably confident -- regal, even, despite the chains that bound his wrists to his ankles. "About time," he muttered grudgingly, as if the mere utterance was beneath his dignity.

  At the sight of him, Patrys' blood ran cold. Though Jilon continued to go through his motions, Patrys' only thoughts were of the prisoner that he was serving. How vile he was. How utterly evil. When she looked at him through Jilon's eyes, she didn't see an elderly sapphire. She saw Cedric, light fading from his fatherly eyes, even as a satisfied smile spread across his slacking features. He gave his last breath ensuring that Patrys would draw just a few more.

  And this man is the reason. He may not have cast the spell, but he was the one who commanded the mage to action.

  Before she really knew what she was doing, she dropped the meal tray to the flagstone and reached up to unlock the cell door.

  "Oh, so we're having dinner and entertainment?" the elder sapphire jeered. "What a treat."

  How was she doing this? How was it possible? It barely made sense to her that she was able to look inside another person's head, let alone see through their eyes, hear through their ears. It was entirely unheard of -- at least, as far as she knew. But this...? She pushed the cell door open with a creak and moved forward.

  "Well, come on, then. Let's see what you're made of," du'Cyphem taunted, though Patrys got the impression that it was false bravado. Still, he pressed on, more comfortable with the illusion, apparently, than the reality. "I always thought there was quite a bit of legend to the shol'tuk's legendary code of honor."

  Standing at arm's distance from the elder sapphire, Patrys felt the urge to throttle him, to pummel him with her borrowed hands. Instead, she looked briefly into Jilon's memory then, finding what she needed, she reached out and opened the clasp. With the sharp ring of gemstone and metal, du'Cyphem's amethyst shackle fell away.

  At once, du'Cyphem's gemstone eyes took on a brilliant azure glow. "I don't know what moved you to do that, my friend, but you probably shou---"

  His breath caught as Patrys formed a dagger with her thoughts and jabbed it home. His mind, no longer restrained by amethyst magic but no longer protected by it either, lay bare before Patrys, and she took full advantage of his surprise. He loosed a guttural howl and clawed at his forehead, blood welling up under his fingernails as he tried to dig Patrys out with his bare hands.

  But that advantage was short-lived. His face telling the effort in detail, he snapped his jaw shut and forced his hands down to his side. "Clever girl!' the prisoner grunted through clenched teeth, his lips stretching in a wicked grin that put the lie to the obvious strain in his voice. She pushed with her magic, digging and clawing for purchase, but he pushed back, uncurling the tendrils of her magic as quickly as she put them forth. "That you could learn this at all is remarkable," he said, the tiniest bead of sweat forming on his brow. "The complexity of the spell makes it nearly impossible, even for the best of us. But to figure it out on your own... That, my dear, is true brilliance. Tragic that you won't live to develop it."

  Patrys' mind screamed as du'Cyphem jolted forward, reaching deep into her consciousness with icy tendrils of his own. She flailed as du'Cyphem riddled her mind with a thousand pinpricks, none of them lethal by themselves, but each one compounding the effect of the other. Where she had been the predator at first, she was quickly becoming the prey.

  Mustering her flagging strength, she lashed out again, this time driving full force into du'Cyphem's mind. She pushed mercilessly past his consciousness and into his very soul. He screamed at the strength of her attack, the sound of it taking on an odd quality as she shifted her mind forward, possessing him. Behind her -- or before her, rather -- Jilon collapsed, eyes lolled back in his head and foam flecking his mouth. Some distant part of her felt sorry for him -- an innocent bystander, relatively speaking -- but she couldn't afford to care too much. She had started this thing with du'Cyphem, for better or worse, and if she lost to the elder sapphire, Jilon's sacrifice would be for nothing.

  She cast her sapphire magic about, but this time, with purpose. Now inside du'Cyphem's head, she could feel the fear that he had only hinted at, and not just of Patrys but of what she might discover. Latching onto that thought, she drove deeper, and with abandon. She couldn't find out. She must not find out. Heramis told him...

  Where was Heramis? He didn't know. That much was true. But he did know that Heramis was not with the granite co
ntingent on its way to Bastion. Impudent fools, presuming that the Shadow Mage would not know that He had spies in Schel Veylin, spies watching and waiting for the Earthen Rank army that the Highest would certainly be sending to quell the rebellion in Ysre.

  How utterly delicious! For all their watching, the spies hadn't seen the army of granites, swimming through the earth well below their feet. If they had, the rebels in Bastion would've fled days ago. That they were still here could only speak to their ignorance, or their stupidity, which amounted to the same thing.

  Days ago? How close are the granites? Patrys wondered, her own panic rising.

  She held du'Cyphem's mind in a death grip. With her inhabiting him, as she had Jilon, his body was at her disposal, his magic, his mind. There was no part of him that she did not have absolute control over. She felt him in the back of his own mind, clawing at her presence, trying to oust her without his magic, but to no avail. She owned him, completely. Like a slave, perhaps. Or like a robe that she could don or doff at will, with no will of its own to speak of.

  Or like a book, a codex, a font of wisdom that she could utterly consume.

  She dove into the deepest recesses of his mind, sorted through every whisper, every image. She learned what little he knew of Heramis in an instant, du'Cyphem's connections to the court of the Highest mere seconds later. But there was more... so much more. Years of scholarship. Years of experimentation. Sapphire secrets in abundance.

  And she absorbed it all.

  Finally, having drained du'Cyphem dry, she pulled back... but stopped. He knew now. He knew that she knew. He knew how she knew, and he would try to come for her. Or warn Heramis, or whoever was leading the granite army. He was too dangerous to leave alive.

  But she couldn't kill him. Oh, she could puppet him into a noose, or to fall on the still writhing Jilon's sword, or even search her newfound libraries of arcane knowledge and find something to kill du'Cyphem from within. But no. Death was too good for him. No, he needed to pay his debt to Bastion, to the Cause, and to Sal and Marissa and to herself. And to Cedric. He needed to have that smugness burned out of him, that superiority.

  As it happened, that arrogance was born of the same thing that made him a danger to the Cause -- his magic.

  A lunatic grin stretched across her face -- his face -- as the fledgling idea took root and grew. She could feel du'Cyphem there, in his tiny corner of her mind, his desperation to get free morphing into all-out terror. He knew what she was after.

  An instant later, she found it. Laughing viciously with du'Cyphem's own mouth, Patrys flexed her grip on that spot in his mind, then squeezed. She felt an incorporeal pop as the space gave way between the fingers of her magic, and with that pop, she breathed a sigh of satisfaction.

  The corner of her mind that was Hogan du'Cyphem thrummed first with confusion -- What was I afraid of...? -- then with growing unease, which only added to Patrys' pleasure. She withdrew, but slowly, as close to sauntering as her Sapphire-borne mind could get.

  "W-what? How...? I can do this! I'm a sapphire mage!" he demanded of the world as Patrys faded, the once-mage flailing in his mind for the knowledge to build the most basic sapphire concept. "Why can't I remember?!?"

  * * *

  The chill of emerald magic drew Sal back to the waking world, a sensation that he was becoming very familiar with.

  As was the sound of beratement. "Are you sizzled in the kippa?" Jaren shouted, his gemstone eyes dimming with the release of the mana he'd been wielding. "What did I tell you? 'Wait until I have you wrapped in emerald magic before you let go.' How hard is that?"

  Sal pushed himself unsteadily to a sitting position. "I thought if I could swap over to Emerald fast enough, you wouldn't need to."

  "And how did that work out?" the emerald demanded.

  Menkal reached out a calming hand, but Jaren shrugged it away violently. Senosh, on the other hand... just laughed. Raucously.

  "What's so funny?" Jaren spat, turning on the ruby mage with hands akimbo.

  "Y-y-you," the Mandiblean chortled breathlessly. "S-seeing you... angry... it's... it's..." He collapsed in mirth, unable to continue.

  "Jaren, I'm good, okay?" Sal assured. He spread his arms and twisted at the hips, presenting himself for inspection. "See? All my parts are here. Let's just give it another try, and---"

  "Another try? We've done it twenty times already. And every time -- without fail -- you passed off when you let go of Granite."

  "It's 'passed out'---"

  "Don't you presume to correct me," Jaren warned caustically, pointing one uncalloused, scholarly finger in Sal's face. "I've had just about enough..."

  Sal? Patrys Whispered.

  Sal held his hand up, cutting off Jaren's rant-- to the emerald's further ire -- as he reached out to Sapphire. "I'm here. What's up?"

  We need t' prepare. The Highest is sendin' men t' Bastion t' root us out.

  "Yeah, I know. We talked with the Patriarchal Council about that before we even---"

  No, Sal, ye dinna catch me meanin'. They're on their way. Now.

  Chapter 21

  The fire crackled in its pit, kicking off embers that floated off into the darkening sky. The smells of Caravan's cook pots, ripe with their steaming fruits, permeated every breath that Sal took and brought his mouth to water, but there was business to attend to, so dinner would have to wait.

  Even with the Cause down to one du'Nograh, Reit and Delana's tent seemed the most appropriate place to meet. The near-vacant shelter still had an air of command, due in no small part to Reit's body, lying in state on its cart at the back. The once-rebel could be seen through the tent flap, his features completely untouched by the weeks that had passed since his body was placed there -- "still dying", as Jaren had put it. With his cheeks still rosy and his eyes still unsunken, Reit could've merely been napping and not long gone.

  Caravan's Heads of Order and Guild all took their usual places around the fire, with Retzu and Sal at the head of the assembly, taking position on either side of Patrys. "Okay, tell them what you told me," Sal told the young sapphire.

  Aye, she Whispered, her magic carrying her thoughts to everyone present. Th' Earthen Rank are on their way from Schel Veylin. They left just after Harvest.

  "That can't be," Retzu objected. "I've got a man in Schel Veylin, keeping an eye on things for me. Last I heard, there's about a battle fist of Rank soldiers camped to the east of Veylin. Told me a couple days ago that they're just sort of... milling around. Waiting."

  Are they granites, or a mix of Ranks?

  "Standard mix, to hear him tell it."

  Then yer man's been duped, Patrys Whispered with certainty. The force headin' our way is made entirely of granites.

  "It's possible," Gaelen offered, the Mandiblean amethyst standing as proxy for the absent Delana. "Slip down far enough into the earth and even an amethyst wouldn't see them leave. Quick and easy. None would be the wiser."

  "They could deposit an entire army at our feet and we wouldn't know about it until it was all over," Senosh growled, standing to his feet and pacing. "How fast can granites travel?"

  "Well, an amethyst can Lift himself for a couple hundred or so miles in a day, if they carried only the most basic supplies," Gaelen said. "It'd take me maybe half a month to get to Veylin. Ships coming downriver from Scholar's Ford would make it quicker."

  "And it's been right at two weeks since Harvest," said the big ruby. "That means, at most, we've got three weeks, maybe less. We'll be fighting by Whitesong. Damn poor month to wage a war."

  "Wait... wait. How do you know all this?" Retzu asked, his brow drawing tight in dread, as if he already suspected the answer.

  The young Plainswoman adjusted her stoma cover uncomfortably. I... spoke to Patriarch du'Cyphem---

  Retzu rubbed a spot behind his ear intently then spoke. "D'prox, I need you to check on du'Cyphem," the assassin said as if through Sapphire, though he wasn't wearing any jewelry that Sal could see. Was it implanted?


  Sal couldn't listen in on the private exchange, but whatever answer D'prox had given Retzu, it came quickly, as if he'd been expecting his sodu's call. Hard as Retzu's face had been a moment before, it hardened further, the longer he listened. Finally, he nodded. "Not yet, but I'm about to," Retzu promised, thumbing the spot behind his ear again. "Patrys, what did you do to him?"

  I did what nobody else could, she sent defiantly, completely unflinching under the assassin's accusatory gaze.

  Sal scooted back a hair, just in case his sen'sia thought to knock some of the defiance right out of her. Bad enough that Sal knew how easily the nobleman-cum-assassin could do so. Worse that the maimed mage didn't seem to care how dangerous the man was.

  "He's broken, you ignorant git," he snapped. "Terrified, raving, saying he can't remember how to wield the magic that's been a part of him for decades. We could have used him!"

  Far from ignorant -- far from fearful -- Patrys squared her shoulders and took on an air of confidence that Sal thought otherworldly, even for her. I know everything he knows now, she Whispered.

  "What do you mean, everything?" Sal asked, dreading the answer. As powerful, as erratic as she had become since her attack, the teenage warrior might be capable of anything.

  T' say it another way, Sal, there's not a day he's lived, a lie he's told, a woman he's fondled, or a spell he's cast that I canna give ye the most intimate details of. Everything.