She could smell the tallow on Cory even now, the scent much sharper than before the sowing. Everything around her felt sharper. She could feel the energies flowing beneath her and around her, although this far away from the grotto the sensations were muted, the eddies like a faint breeze brushing against her skin. They strengthened or lessened depending on where she was in the city. They were strongest near the Eld’s main ley node, the short tower that connected the ley network in Eld with all of the other nodes in the districts and with the Nexus beneath the Amber Tower. According to Ischua, the nodes controlled the entire network in Eld—the flows of ley that regulated the barges and the transportation system, all of the heat and light that relied on the ley, the few ley cars in the area—everything related to the ley, including the ley clocks her father occasionally worked on. Kara had gone to the node and stared up at the stubby tower from around the corner of a nearby building, but there wasn’t much to see. Maybe four stories high, it was round, built of dark gray stone with few windows, the top crenellated like the old walls of the University down in Confluence. She hadn’t seen anyone on its heights, and she hadn’t seen how it could control the ley throughout the district. She hadn’t seen any of the ley at all. As far as she could tell, none of the ley lines that were interlaced throughout the city connected to the building.
Yet, when she was that close, she could feel the ley in the stone and in the air around her.
Now, to cover her sudden nervousness at Cory’s reaction, she reached down and picked up the small ball and scanned the scattering of metal thistles that lay between them. They, along with Justin, were in a small square paved in wide flat flagstone that was perfect for a game of Thistle Snatch, since it was far enough removed from most of the markets that the traffic through the area left them mostly undisturbed. Cory and Kara had found the square three years before, after they’d first met and had begun exploring the surrounding area, once their parents were willing to let them roam alone. Kara liked the architecture of the red stone buildings that enclosed it, and the tall stone obelisk that rose from its center, benches on its four sides and urns with scraggly bushes at its corners.
Head still bowed as if contemplating the thistles, she glanced at Cory. He was glaring at her, mouth set, back against the nearest bench, exactly the reaction she’d been afraid of, the reason she hadn’t said anything to Cory about Ischua or the park since it had happened.
She could feel Cory shifting away, just like her parents, and it made her sick to her stomach.
“Never mind,” she said tightly. “Forget I said anything. It’s my turn. How many thistles do I need to catch this time?”
She bounced the rubber ball, but Cory snatched it out of the air. “What do you mean you’ll be leaving?”
Kara winced at the anger in his voice. She swallowed, something hard lodged in her throat. “The Wielders are going to come and take me away at some point.”
Confusion crossed through Cory’s eyes. “The Wielders? But why? You haven’t been tested. You won’t be tested for two years.”
She shifted uncomfortably, caught Justin watching her out of the corner of her eye, his eyes wide. “I . . . I was tested. Sort of.” She told them what Ischua had said to her father after Cory had left, about the trip to Halliel’s Park and the grotto, about the fact that the gardeners were really Tenders, retired Wielders sent to the park to tend to the stones and the original ley system. Then she told them of the energy she felt, how she’d known where the stones were supposed to be through her feet, how she could feel it in the air and the stone and the earth deep down beneath her. Excitement crept into her voice, overwhelming her fear of how Cory and Justin might react, and when she was finished she found herself slightly flushed and breathless.
Until she saw Cory’s face and then she couldn’t breathe at all.
“But you can’t leave.” The anger she’d heard in his voice before had settled into an intense fury. “We were supposed to be . . . to be friends. You, me, and Justin! We were supposed to hang together, protect each other from the other kids, watch out for each other. How are you going to do that if you’re gone?”
Kara tried to say something, but no words came. Cory’s fury was shocking, but the fear that had crept into his voice as he shouted at her only confused her, along with the sudden redness of his eyes as tears began to fall down his face.
Justin fidgeted uncomfortably on his bench as the awkward moment spread, Cory and Kara staring at each other. Cory coughed up phlegm, nearly choked on it, and scrubbed his arm across his eyes, glaring at Justin defiantly for no reason at all before ducking his head as if embarrassed.
Still searching for something to say, Kara leaned forward and took the rubber ball from the limp hand resting in his lap. She held it a long moment, not willing to look up into Cory’s face, uncertain what she was supposed to do or how she was supposed to feel. She’d seen something in Cory’s eyes that she didn’t understand, but it still sent uneasy shudders through her chest, hot and fluid, but not unpleasant.
And then Justin said, “Five thistles.”
Bewildered, Kara turned toward him. “What?”
Justin shrugged awkwardly, watching her, pointedly not looking at Cory, and nodded toward the flagstone between them. “It’s your turn. Five thistles.”
Cory shifted beside her, the anger creeping back into his eyes, but before he or Kara could react a group of Dogs burst into the square.
All three of them gaped as the Dogs spread out, moving quietly along two sides of the square, most with swords drawn, heading toward one of the buildings opposite. The two in front halted at the corner, then motioned sharply to the remaining eight men. The men and women who’d been caught in the square on their arrival watched silently a single moment, then turned and left as quickly as possible, heads ducked and shoulders hunched, but the Dogs didn’t pay attention to them. They remained focused on the building, on the door two down from the right.
When the first two Dogs hit the short steps that led up to the door, Kara turned to Cory and Justin, their eyes wide, bodies still, as if afraid any movement would draw the Dogs’ attention. Kara’s heart thudded in her chest, but she reached down and scooped up the scattered metal thistles and began stuffing them in her pockets. “We have to get out of here,” she whispered fiercely. All of the tension from her announcement, all of the confusion over the emotions she’d seen in Cory’s eyes and the heated ache in her own chest, had vanished. All she could see was the image of the Kormanley priest in the market square on the day of the sowing and the blood splattered across his white shirt as they dragged his limp body out of sight.
Cory nodded mutely. Justin slid off of the bench and huddled down next to them, helping Kara snatch up the last of the thistles. They watched as the rest of the Dogs closed in on the doorway, the two at the corner moving forward when one of them reared back and kicked the door in with a grunt and splinter of wood.
“Now!” Cory said.
As the Dogs began streaming into the building, Kara, Cory, and Justin dashed from the base of the obelisk across the square in the opposite direction. Kara’s blood sang in her veins, her breath coming in harsh exhalations, burning in her chest as they ran. Cory and Justin reached the far corner ahead of her and charged beyond, but she skidded to a halt behind its protection, risked a glance back.
One of the two Dogs who had hung back had turned to watch their retreat, his face set in a deep frown. She was surprised at how young he appeared, although there was a hardness about his eyes.
His gaze caught hers and held for a long moment. Kara shuddered.
Then he turned back to the building, his fellow Dogs already inside.
Kara heard a crash, followed by a woman’s scream and a man’s enraged bellow. Then Cory grabbed her arm from behind and pulled her away from the corner and back toward their homes.
Allan watched as the team of Dogs charged the fro
nt door, bursting through into the interior with a splintering of wood and harsh roars as the lead, Range, ordered the others to fan out. More crashes followed, glass breaking, shifting from the front rooms into the back and up to the second story. Allan followed the movements of the men with his eyes, even though he couldn’t see anything. He could picture it in his mind, though. He’d led three such raids over the past week, the Dogs stepping up their hunt for the Kormanley priests and their followers as the Wielders—in particular Prime Wielder Augustus—prepared for the upcoming unveiling. The sowing of the tower had only been the first step, according to the Wielders. The real event wouldn’t happen for another two weeks.
And Baron Arent wanted nothing to go wrong. The attack and self-immolation in the tower during the sowing had sent ripples through the aristocracy and the Baron had taken his rage out on the Dogs.
Hagger nudged his arm. “Three kids just bolted toward a side street. Should I send men after them?”
Allan turned, caught sight of the three as two of them made the corner. The third, a young girl with light brown hair and a narrow face, spun back to watch, her eyes terrified. He held her gaze, then turned back to the house. He knew the question was a test. Hagger was the leader of this squad; the decision would be his, not Allan’s. But he answered. “No. They’re not worth the effort.”
Inside, something large and solid crashed to a floor, followed by a woman’s vitriolic cursing and a man’s animalistic roar of rage.
“That’s our cue,” Hagger said, and began trotting toward the building, hand falling to the sword strapped to his side. Allan followed a few short paces behind.
They passed through the outer door and into a room whose furniture had been trashed, chairs and tables tossed to the floor, strewn with the broken glass and pottery of lanterns, plates, and what appeared to be urns. The sharp scent of pickling brine permeated the space, vinegar burning Allan’s eyes. The shouts of the other Dogs were everywhere, the eight men calling out to each other as Hagger barreled through the rooms, all in as much disarray as the first. One of the men shouted, “Downstairs, downstairs!” and suddenly Hagger and Allan were pounding down a flight of steep steps into a torch-lit basement lined with crumbling mudbrick and makeshift shelves filled with sealed pots. One wall had been cleared, the shards of clay and the watery contents strewn across the floor—Allan couldn’t tell what had been pickled—but the stench was horrendous in the confined space. He tried to take shallow breaths, blinked away the tears, and caught sight of the far wall.
The shelves had been torn away and were now a splintered wreck on the basement floor, exposing a narrow doorway leading into the basement of the house next door. Lantern light shone through, blocked as Hagger passed the Dog guarding the door and ducked down to enter. Allan followed.
As he straightened on the other side, Hagger stepping out of his way, he found a woman and man trussed up in the center of the room, kneeling on a stretch of carpet. The man’s nose had been broken and blood covered his upper lip and dripped from his chin. A bruise had begun to form on the woman’s face. As Hagger entered, she spit at his feet. The elder Dog merely chuckled and scanned the room.
Lanterns hung from the ceiling, illuminating a wall of texts, scattered tables and chairs, and a banner bearing a vertical squiggly line with a straight line branching off from it. One table held a few waterskins and a stack of parchment.
Hagger’s attention returned to the two captives. Allan moved toward the table bearing the waterskins. The strange banner hung above it. One of the Dogs shifted out of his way as he approached.
“Are you Kormanley?” Hagger asked. When neither answered, he stepped forward and gripped the man by the chin, squeezing hard as he forced him to look up. “I asked, are you Kormanley?”
The man’s jaw clenched in defiance, his eyes hardening.
Moving faster than Allan thought possible, Hagger released his chin, grabbed the man’s nose with one hand, the back of his head with the other, and ground the broken cartilage between his fingers.
The man screamed, the sound trapped in the low room, grating against Allan’s skin and making his shoulders hunch. The woman shrieked and tried to intervene, but Hagger backhanded her, the other two Dogs grabbing her and pulling her away. Allan focused on the table as the torture continued, Hagger releasing the man and repeating his question.
The papers were covered with notes and sketches of maps from different locations around the city, mostly parks and larger intersections, a few of the ley stations where people could catch barges to different parts of the city. One map appeared to be of the ley routes, starting at the central area of Grass—at least those that were visible above ground. Allan knew that the Wielders kept the true ley lines—those underground—secret. He pushed the maps aside, looking for a list of names, for something that would identify the Kormanley priests, but there was nothing that obvious among the papers.
Disgusted but not surprised—the Kormanley were adept at keeping their members secret—he spread the maps out again, rearranging them into a rough pattern of the inner city’s districts, then bent over them, squinting at the scrawled notes. Most were senseless, a sequence of numbers or letters that didn’t form words. Like a code.
Allan shook his head and stood back, his gaze falling on the waterskins.
Except they weren’t waterskins. Not really.
Behind, the woman screamed, the sound degenerating into a whimper, and Allan turned to see Hagger thrust her away in disdain, a knife held in one hand. Her face was lined with bloody, yet shallow, cuts, and streaked with tears. The man lay on the floor, facedown, moaning.
“They’re Kormanley,” Allan said.
Hagger spun on him, hand clenched on his knife, a snarl twisting his mouth. Allan had seen him like this before—enraged, on the verge of a full-out brawl—usually when the interrogations of the Kormanley they did find didn’t go as planned.
Like this one.
“How do you know?” Hagger snapped.
Allan picked up one of the skins. “Remember the sowing? The Kormanley who immolated himself? He was wearing one of these.”
Hagger broke away from the two prisoners and approached the table.
Allan opened the one he held and sniffed the contents, grimacing, then held it up for Hagger. “Lamp oil. These were strapped to that man’s chest. He split them open with a knife, then set himself on fire.”
Hagger took a whiff of the skin. “Sick bastards,” he muttered, then glared at the two captives. One of the other Dogs had pulled the man back into a kneeling position. Both of them were wobbling in place, the woman’s head downcast, the man’s face set with rage.
“They’re just like all the others,” Allan said. “They aren’t going to tell us anything.”
Hagger stiffened, then jammed his knife back into its sheath and motioned toward the other Dogs. “Take them back to the Amber Tower. Take everything in here. The captain will want to see it.”
The Dogs dragged the two Kormanley outside, then began tearing the place apart. Allan scooped up the papers, folded them, and tucked them into a pocket.
Hagger gave him a funny look. “Something important in there?”
“I don’t know, but there’s something bothering me about it.”
“Just make certain it gets to the captain.”
Allan nodded, back straightening at the undercurrent of suspicion and threat in Hagger’s tone. He reminded himself that he hadn’t been part of the Dogs for long, even if he had caught the attention of the Baron.
Hagger watched the Dogs working, then motioned toward Allan. “Come along. We need to meet with the captain and tell him what we found.”
They ducked out of the hidden room, through the stench of vinegar and brine, and back onto the street. A few people gawked at the Dogs’ activity from a safe distance, but none of them appeared to be a threat. Hagger ignored them, tu
rning north out of the small square, moving at a brisk pace. Allan’s breath came in short gasps by the time they’d wound their way out of Eld and into Green.
A short time later, Hagger slowed, turning toward the base of one of the newest spires in Erenthrall. Allan tilted his head back and scanned the narrow tower’s length as they crossed the plaza where the spire had been grown. It was too thin to hold any rooms, more like the bole of a tree, but it soared well over the nearest buildings. Since the sowing of the main tower in Grass, twelve of these smaller spires had been grown in different parts of the city, four in the inner city surrounding Grass, and eight more in the outermost districts, set on two concentric circles that encompassed Erenthrall. None of the Dogs knew what they were for, and the Wielders had kept silent.
Allan spotted Captain Daedallen at the base of the tower, with Baron Arent, Prime Wielder Augustus, and another man at his side. The Prime Wielder was shouting at a group of Wielders working frantically around the tower’s base.
“—keep working, you fools! This subtower must be activated by the end of the day today or we’ll fall behind schedule. No, no, Parl, adjust your position, you’re too far to the left.” Augustus heaved a sigh and stalked over to one of the Wielders, seizing him by the shoulders and shoving him hard to the left. “My left, not yours. Now prepare yourself. Use the catechism if you have to. Barthen, are the others ready on the far side? What about those from the University? Good. Have the Wielders begin calling the ley, then.”
Hagger and Allan had halted a respectful distance away from the Baron, Daedallen, and the man Allan didn’t know, outside of their small entourage of Dogs and Wielders. None of them had noticed them yet, but when Augustus spun around, he caught sight of them and frowned.
Shattering the Ley Page 8