The Chronicles of Trellah, Book One: The Perpetual Rain

by T. S. Graham

  “Don’t think for a second that I approve of what you did,” she scolded. “If anything happens to Sophina, her blood will be on your hands.”

  Mrs. Tanner then disappeared into the steep corridor. Talfore and Jantu followed, leaving Sophina to trudge on alone, keenly aware that her every step was being watched by the vacant eyes of the dead.

  * * *

  Less than one mile away, yet a world apart, Gail Murray collapsed facedown upon her bed and screamed into her pillow. She had been outside for hours, climbing over branches and jumping over downed power lines, going door to door in search of Eliot, and all she had to show for it was a throbbing headache and blisters on her feet.

  She had started to make her way back home at dusk, clinging to the desperate hope that Eliot would be there, waiting. She had turned down Dirigo Drive just as Chief Dresden stumbled down Mrs. Tanner’s porch steps. She had called out to him, asking if he had any news of her son, but he’d refused to answer. Instead, he had brushed past her with an odd expression on his face, an unusual red glow emanating from his clenched right fist. For a moment she had been distracted by it, but she’d quickly regained her focus. She had yelled again, imploring him to stop, but he continued to careen away through the debris as if she didn’t exist.

  Confused and angry, Gail had walked up the cobblestone path to her front door. When she’d stepped inside, Mrs. Cousins explained that Sophina had been asleep in her room the entire time she was gone. She saw Mrs. Cousins to the door, thanked her one last time, and then shuffled into the living room. Sinking down onto the sofa, she hoped the exhaustion that had crippled her mind would soon pass. As she stared into the fire, she realized that something was amiss.

  The house was quiet. While that may not have concerned most parents of a sleeping teen, for Gail, it was grounds for panic. Sophina had taken a nap every afternoon since her dad died, and not once had she done so without her radio being tuned to her favorite station. The power outage wouldn’t have stopped her from doing this, because Gail had replaced the radio’s spent batteries just yesterday.

  She had leapt off the sofa, run upstairs, and thrown open Sophina’s door—only to find her bed empty. She had then rushed through the house, screaming her daughter’s name every step of the way. When she finally gave up, she almost didn’t have the strength to reel into her own bedroom and collapse onto the bed.

  Now, as she stared into the blackness of her pillow, a scathing voice screamed within her head: What were you thinking? Of course Sophina refused to stay home while Eliot was out there alone! You would’ve left too if it were your brother!

  Then, a most harrowing thought crossed Gail’s mind: Something must have happened to Sophina. Having a look around the neighborhood is one thing, but staying out after dark—in this weather—without at least checking in? Sophina wouldn’t do that even in her most stubborn moments.

  Gail shoved herself off the bed and ran out of the bedroom. A new sense of urgency purged the fatigue from her body as she hurried downstairs and threw open the front door. Maybe she hadn’t done everything she should have done to keep her children safe, but that was about to change. She was going to find them, even if she had to turn over every rock in Thomasville. She was going to find them—or die trying.

  6 THE CROSSING

  Sophina stepped into the relative brightness of the Great Cathedral’s main hall to find Talfore and Jantu kneeling down before the Keeper. The craggy woman dipped her index finger into a vat of gray dust and transferred a dot of the material onto the forehead of each man as Tahra watched from Jantu’s shoulder.

  “It’s a ritual,” said Mrs. Tanner, so only Sophina could hear. “Protectors always take the ashes of their ancestors with them when they go into harm’s way.”

  Seeing someone dot the ashes of dead people onto the foreheads of others normally would’ve been cause for Sophina to strike up a conversation, but not now. It seemed downright normal compared to everything else she had seen that day. Besides, there were more important things to deal with.

  “I’m sorry you’re disappointed that I’m staying,” she said.

  “Disappointed? I’m not disappointed,” Mrs. Tanner corrected. “I’m terrified.”

  Sophina was terrified too, of course, but there was no changing what had happened. She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she went back to watching the odd ritual playing out across the room.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” said Mrs. Tanner after a while. “Some weeks ago, while buying supplies to bring here, I caught a headline at the newsstand. It was about your father.”

  Sophina turned to discover that Mrs. Tanner’s eyes were lined with tears.

  “I wanted to come to you, but I’d convinced myself that I couldn’t . . . I want you to know that I was wrong. I thought I was protecting you by staying away, but nothing justifies abandoning you during your time of need. I’ve been plagued with guilt because of it. I can only hope that, someday, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  “I’ll work on it,” replied Sophina, who was hit with her own wave of guilt the instant the words slipped from her lips. She wanted to forgive Mrs. Tanner. After all, it would be the right thing to do. It just didn’t feel right yet; the scars were still too deep.

  “That’s all I can ask,” said Mrs. Tanner, her look of disappointment diminished by the reflection of blue flames in her eyes. She looked like she wanted to say more, but didn’t get the chance.

  “Come, Sophina and Kate,” rasped the Keeper as she arrived with Talfore and Jantu. “I’ll take you to your quarters.”

  She led them through a doorway and into a sharply rising spiral corridor. The passage was lit by more singular blue flames that burned in liquid-filled vats. Mrs. Tanner paused to run her fingers through a flame, and then with a look encouraged Sophina to do the same.

  Slow and tentative, Sophina extended her hand and touched the flame. She was surprised to find it cool to the touch.

  “Fire without heat,” Mrs. Tanner said with wonder. “It’s the only source of light allowed within the perimeter wall. Traditional fires are too dangerous, given the makeup of these structures.”

  They followed the Keeper past curving murals, each depicting a new and violent battle. One mural showed the Protectors fighting an adversary that was familiar to Sophina—the vrahkoles. Even their likeness proved disturbing, so she forced her eyes to the floor as they continued to climb up, up, up.

  Finally, they exited the corridor and stepped into the open air of the Great Cathedral’s highest turret. Its peaked ceiling was supported by three polished columns, providing a nearly uninterrupted view over the rooftops of Trellah. The panorama was breathtaking. Even the landscape beyond the firelight’s reach was visible, for it was bathed in the soft glow of the gaseous drahtuah dispersed throughout the night sky. But Sophina sensed it was more than just the eerie luminosity that was aiding her vision; the drahtuah within her body was also sharpening her eyesight, allowing her to discern more detail at greater distances than any normal person should.

  “My first night here I couldn’t take my eyes off it,” Mrs. Tanner reflected as thousands of Trellians milled through the streets and back alleys below. “All this life, existing in a place few from our world have seen.”

  “Yes,” the Keeper chimed in, “the child bears great responsibility.”

  “She’s come this far without losing her life or her mind,” Mrs. Tanner pointed out. “That’s more than can be said for most of our kind.”

  Sophina stood still as the Keeper looked deep into her eyes. She could see the various strata in the old woman’s irises, which ranged far more in color than the absolute red they appeared to be in the daylight.

  “I hope you’re right about her,” the Keeper rasped at Mrs. Tanner. And without another word, she turned and disappeared into the spiral corridor.

  “Could she be any more terrifying?” Sophina asked.

  “I know,” Mrs. Tanner r
eplied with a smile. “She gave me nightmares for weeks.”

  Sophina’s nerves began to settle as she watched Talfore and Jantu walk toward a row of golden fur pelts that lay on the floor at the far side of the turret—but the respite didn’t last. As she turned to soak up more of the view, her eyes were drawn to the western ridge of Mount Vahkar, below the snow line and directly above the waterfall, where a halo of scarlet light glowed brighter than anywhere else.

  “That glow on the mountain . . . is that where the drahtuah is being gathered?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Tanner confirmed.

  “Then that’s where the vrahkoles took Eliot and the other kids. That’s where their lair is located.”

  “They’ve never taken their captives anyplace else,” Mrs. Tanner explained.

  Sophina imagined Eliot huddled inside some dank cave, oblivious to where he was or how he got there. The thought was so disturbing that she forced her mind to focus on something else—a question she had thought about several times since her arrival but hadn’t had the opportunity to ask.

  “Mrs. Tanner, how did you get here? If there’s no drahtuah in our world, how did you create a wormhole?”

  “I didn’t. No one comes here unless someone from this world reaches out to them.”

  “It was Jantu, wasn’t it? He reached out to you.”

  Mrs. Tanner glanced at their hosts. It was clear that she thought they might be upset if they heard what she was about to say.

  “Last winter, a rock slide exposed the cavern that’s parallel to my basement,” she described quietly. “As part of his training to become a Protector, Jantu was sent there to collect the drahtuah that was unearthed. Curiosity got the best of him. He brought water to the cavern and poured it over a small stone. Imagine my reaction when I looked up from my lab table and saw his red eyes staring back at me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I sat for hours, waiting for something to happen.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Of course I was. But I knew that what I’d seen was real, and I had to be there in case he came back. The next day, Jantu appeared again, and I spoke to him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “ ‘Hello,’ I think.”

  “Hello? That’s it?”

  “It’s not like there’s a manual on what to say if you find yourself face-to-face with what amounts to an alien being. I actually think I handled myself quite well.”

  “Better than I would have,” Sophina conceded. “I would’ve run away screaming.”

  “From what I’ve seen, I doubt that,” said Mrs. Tanner. “It took several more portal openings before I gathered the courage to step into that cave. Unfortunately, that decision has led to you standing here tonight.”

  “I thought Protectors were forbidden from doing that,” Sophina pointed out. “Did Jantu get into trouble?”

  “He was confined within the Great Cathedral for weeks,” answered Mrs. Tanner. “When the Elders saw that I meant no harm, they agreed to let me stay—under close supervision. If Jantu had intended to use me as a weapon against the Umbyans, his sentence would’ve been life. He has taken steps to atone for his mistake, but his promotion to being a full-fledged Protector has been postponed indefinitely.”

  Sophina glanced at Jantu, who, along with his father, had begun to spread the pelts out into a circle on the floor. She understood how his curiosity had gotten the better of him, for she was sure she would’ve done the same thing if she had been in his position. Imagine knowing that another world existed, and having a tool at your disposal that would allow you to take a peek? It was a no-brainer. She couldn’t even restrain herself from asking more questions.

  “Mrs. Tanner . . . you said that the storms at home were caused by the drahtuah that’s being collected by the vrahkoles. How is that possible?”

  A rare look of indecision crossed Mrs. Tanner’s face. “I’m not certain, but I do have a theory,” she said. “When the volume of drahtuah that’s gathered in a single place reaches a critical mass, the resulting radiation becomes powerful enough to disturb the fabric of space-time. Here, the phenomenon has formed a pocket of high atmospheric pressure over Mount Vahkar that’s been strong enough to repel every passing storm system for the last thirty days. Many times I’ve watched clouds approach Trellah, and each time they split apart and pass by on either side of the mountain. The crops you saw survive because water is brought to them. The rest of the valley is suffering a terrible drought.”

  “Thirty days,” Sophina repeated. “That’s the same number of days it’s rained in Thomasville. It’s having the opposite effect.”

  “It seems that our worlds must be in balance to coexist,” Mrs. Tanner suggested. “Why that is, I don’t know. But I do know this: If the vrahkoles continue to take drahtuah from the mountain, the consequences will be disastrous. Because a stone produces radiation faster than it’s emitted, it builds up over time, like steam in a pressure cooker. When the pressure becomes too great for the surrounding atoms to insulate, it bursts forth all at once, creating a radiation storm—or, in our world, a microburst of sorts. The larger the stockpile of drahtuah, the stronger the storms become. It’s just a matter of time until they grow powerful enough to destroy everything in their path.”

  Sophina wasn’t surprised that she understood the explanation. Mrs. Tanner had always had a knack for describing the theoretical in a clear fashion. There are, after all, few absolutes in science.

  “Now, let’s talk about something pleasant for a change,” suggested Mrs. Tanner. “Look at the sky and tell me what you see.”

  Sophina gazed up at the stars, which were quite visible despite the light of the surrounding fires—and was struck by what she saw.

  “I see Orion . . . and Taurus the Bull,” she gasped. “The stars look just like they do back home.”

  The rest of the autumn constellations were there as well: Aries, Gemini, and Pegasus, as well as the Big and Little Dippers, which Sophina recalled are observable year-round due to their proximity to Polaris, the Northern Star.

  “We’re looking at an entire parallel universe,” said Mrs. Tanner in a faraway voice. “If there’s life to be found among those stars, I’m sure it’s quite different from what our descendants will discover.”

  Just as Sophina got lost in the wonder of it all, a blast from a spiral shell forced her attention to a nearby watchtower. Straight above the tower, high in the snowcapped peak of Mount Vahkar, another fire now burned. From this distance it was nothing more than a flickering point of light, yet it was clear from the way it brightened the surrounding ice that its magnitude was much greater than it appeared.

  “The Umbyans are about to attack,” Mrs. Tanner stated bluntly.

  “What do you mean, attack?” Sophina asked with alarm. She looked down into the streets where every man, woman, and child had dropped to one knee and were now bowing their heads toward the mountain. She then turned and faced Talfore and Jantu to find that they had done the same.

  “Why are they kneeling?” she asked, confused by the lack of outward panic.

  “They do not fear death,” Mrs. Tanner explained. “They know that there’s more to life than what their bodies provide. Death at the hands of an enemy is considered the highest of honors.”

  Sophina turned back to the mountain as the tiny fireball shot into the sky, trailing a long orange tail behind it. It reached the pinnacle of its trajectory and then plummeted toward Trellah like a white-hot comet, revealing its true size as it approached.

  “This one’s going to be close,” said Mrs. Tanner in a matter-of-fact tone that drove Sophina mad.

  It was obvious that the cathedral was in no danger of being hit, but Sophina was terrified nonetheless. The mere thought of the destruction this nightmarish orb could bring upon the people below made her stomach churn. She wanted to scream out and implore them to take cover, but she knew they wouldn’t understand—even if she could be heard from such a distance.
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br />   A blast of stifling air stung Sophina’s face as the projectile streaked over the rooftops of Trellah and tore into the cultivated hillside beyond its gates. The concussion of the impact shook the floor beneath their feet as a wave of black earth surged deep into the giant forest.

  A ball of twisted metal burned with astonishing intensity within the newly formed crater as Sophina’s attention returned to the streets, where the masses had risen up and returned to their business as if nothing had happened.

  “Aren’t they going to fight back?” asked Sophina, beyond stupefied.

  “They don’t have the means,” Mrs. Tanner explained. “The Umbyans have gravity to assist their catapult. The technology that would make a counterattack possible doesn’t exist here.”

  “But that’s not right! Who attacks people that can’t defend themselves?”

  “It’s a complicated situation,” explained Mrs. Tanner. “I’m just now beginning to understand it myself.”

  “Tell me what you do know,” Sophina urged.

  Mrs. Tanner looked out across the expanse, nostrils flaring to take in the smoky air. “I suppose a brief history lesson is in order,” she said with an extra glint in her eyes. “A thousand years ago, the Trellians discovered solid drahtuah in these hills. Somehow they learned of its capacity to open a portal between our worlds, and they reached out to the inhabitants they discovered on the other side. It turned out to be a tragic mistake.”

  “The Native Americans?” asked Sophina.

  “The Vikings,” answered Mrs. Tanner. “Historians have long wondered why they disappeared from North America. It turns out it was because they came here. The Vikings’ thirst for drahtuah was all-consuming. They enslaved the Trellians, killing thousands in their quest to empty the hillsides of every stone. The resulting storms all but destroyed the local lands of both worlds before they realized that the stones couldn’t all be stored in the same place.”