Shattering the Ley

by Joshua Palmatier

  And then the young man next to her hauled the bearded man’s unconscious body back, yanking his legs free from the mast, which had risen off the ground more than two feet, tilting part of the deck of the barge with it. Mouth clamped tight with effort, Kara held the Tapestry still until both men were safe, and then let it go with a trembling cry.

  The ley light within the sail sputtered and died and with a crash the mast and splintered booms fell back to the earth. She felt their weight shuddering through the cobbles at her feet, heard something within the barge itself collapse as it settled again, another shower of embers shooting skyward. Men and women were lined up and down the street, buckets of water being passed from hand to hand at a frantic pace, but a cheer rose even as Kara felt the strength drain away from her legs.

  Her knees folded and she collapsed to the street.

  A moment later, hands grabbed her arms and dragged her beyond the range of the fire as it began to spread to the entire barge and the building beyond.

  Prime Wielder Augustus stalked down the hall of the Nexus, moving fast but not running, his footsteps loud on the tile floor, headed toward the focusing chamber, his robes swishing around his ankles, his hands tucked into his sleeves. All of the Primes he passed in the corridors paused at the sound of his approach. Panicked conversations fell silent. Those in the center of the hall slid smoothly out of his way without a word, without a glance. Most didn’t dare look him in the eye, their gaze dropping to the floor, and those who did were faced with a scathing glare, mouth tight with pure anger.

  What they did not see was the stark and utter fear that lay beneath Augustus’ seething rage.

  He turned sharply, ignored the startled looks of the Primes in the new corridor as they sidestepped and backed away, ignored the faint flicker in the panels of ley light that illuminated the hall, his gaze fixed on the polished oak door that led to the focusing chamber. He burst through the doorway without pause, flinched in annoyance at the sudden flare of brilliant white light from the Nexus itself, and glared down into the ley-lit pit as his eyes adjusted. He’d known the Nexus was still active, and the presence of so many Primes in one location meant that the Tapestry could be corrected enough to allow the ley panels to continue operating here, at least marginally, but after the utter darkness of the outer towers—of the entire city—it was still startling.

  He hadn’t waited for Baron Arent to come find him once he realized the extent of the blackout. He’d come straight to the Nexus.

  “What has happened to the ley?” he demanded. “The entire city is dark!”

  His voice rolled around the bare stone chamber like thunder, amplified and hollow, distorted by the dimensions of the room and by the undulating tendrils of ley light that flared down from the open apertures that led to the heart of the Nexus, where the intensity of the light and the power coursing through the single node would annihilate anyone who dared to enter the Nexus itself. No one had stood within the heart of the Nexus, beneath the thousands upon thousands of hovering crystal panes that captured and refocused and augmented the ley in all of its scintillate forms, since its creation.

  As his eyes adjusted to the harsh glare, Augustus picked out three other Primes, all three with panic written across their faces. His gaze latched onto the nearest, Temerius.

  “Why is the city dark?” he roared, and began to descend the wide stone steps that spiraled around the outside of the rounded chamber. “What’s caused this catastrophic failure?”

  Temerius scowled, following him with his gaze, as the other two Primes went back to frantically manipulating the ley. “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” he said acerbically.

  “And?”

  “We’ve found nothing so far. But we haven’t had much time to look. The blackout only occurred ten minutes ago.”

  “Ten minutes is an eternity, when you’re standing beneath the Baron’s gaze,” Augustus growled, coming up to Temerius’ side. He cast a suspicious glare at him, but couldn’t hold the man’s eyes. One of the Primes was a traitor, yes, but he’d known Temerius since he was a Wielder, working the node in Eastend. He’d seen Temerius’ potential even then.

  “I can sympathize, but we’ve still found nothing. Perhaps you’d like to take a look?”

  Augustus grunted, already reaching out with his senses, stretching himself on the vast cloth of the Tapestry, reaching for the edges of the pit where the contours of the walls and the power laid into the stonework gathered and enhanced his perceptions, turning them back up toward the heart of the Nexus itself. When he felt centered, his power focused and steady, creating a sheath before his eyes hazy with a diffuse yellowish tinge, he gazed up through one of the apertures and into the heart of the Nexus.

  Where a moment ago the white light would have blinded him instantly, burning out his retinas and scouring deeper into his brain, he now saw through the film of yellow power folds upon folds of translucent and vibrant color, like the aurora borealis in the north, rippling across the glass-encased building above. Only this aurora was a thousand times more dense, a thousand times more active, the colors shifting fluidly back and forth across the chamber, glancing off and refracting through the crystal panes that hovered steadily throughout the massive room above. The crystals were precisely placed, so that the energies fed on each other, gathering and heightening, until they reached a peak, the measured power then shunted through the access channels that led to the ley lines and the intricate network of nodes in Erenthrall and the cities beyond. Bleed-off fed down into the focusing chamber, creating the dance of arching light around them, but it was nothing but a beautiful, secondary effect. The real power cascaded through the chamber above and out into the lines that fed the city’s power grid.

  Augustus’ mouth tightened as he absorbed the vibrancy of the ley through the lens of his own power . . . and then he began a methodical search through the crystals, noting their position, their placement, comparing them to the memory of the positions agreed upon by the Prime Wielders during their last council session, the one thought to produce the most effective balance of power and bleed-off achievable while still producing what was necessary for the business of Erenthrall and the rest of the ley network. Height, declination, degree of rotation—he considered every facet of their three-dimensional orientation in the Nexus, skimming from one crystal to the next, his frustration growing. He’d been searching for the traitor among the Wielders since the meeting with the Baron, had spent the better part of every day here, personally, in the focusing chamber, straining to catch a glimpse of the traitor’s handiwork, to find a trace of his or her manipulation of the crystals, anything that would point the traitor out and provide a clue as to how the system was being altered to affect such drastic fluctuations in the network. Only here could the system be manipulated, so it had to be one of the Primes, one of their own.

  But he’d found nothing. After inspecting every crystal pane in the Nexus not once, not twice, but five times, he hadn’t found a single pane out of place. Without knowing what changes were being made or how, he couldn’t formulate a defense against them.

  It was infuriating, the manipulations and the blackouts themselves a personal affront. This was his Nexus. He hadn’t allied himself to the Baron and put in years of work within the city of Erenthrall itself, then suffered years beneath the Baron’s oppressive hands with the risk of Arent withdrawing his support, to achieve the power he now held, only to let someone slip around his control and subjugate his own node. He’d designed it so that only he knew all of its intricacies, so that Arent could never remove him and seize control himself. To have someone else even touching the network’s power. . . .

  Add to that the reports he’d been receiving for the last few days of the Dogs, obviously set to trail the Wielders within the city. A blatant watch, most not even attempting to hide the fact that they were following the Primes, some reveling in it. The Dog set to watch Augustus had seated
himself across the barge from him last night. Dressed in ordinary citizen’s clothing, he’d actually nodded when Augustus shot him a glare, tipped his hat, and smiled!

  Augustus’ jaw clenched so tightly at the memory his back teeth began to ache. He would never have been on the barge—would have taken his personal flyer home—except that the flyers could no longer be trusted, not until the blackouts could be resolved. Oh, the flyers were still operating within the city, but he refused to use one himself. He knew that the ley was at risk, knew that if one of the blackouts occurred at one of the subtowers, or even the Flyers’ Tower itself, the barges would drop like stones.

  But he’d never expected a total blackout throughout the city. The magnitude of the event, its extent . . . it was overwhelming.

  And the Baron would expect answers. No, more than that, he’d expect results.

  Augustus shuddered, forced himself to unclench his jaw and focus in on the Nexus, on the crystal panes and the scintillate light.

  Out of the corner of his eye, at the edge of the aperture, he caught the distinct glint of reflected light off of crystal as one of the panes shifted.

  He stiffened, his entire body going rigid. For a long, held breath, he couldn’t move, couldn’t think, the shock coursing through his veins like cold water, tingling in his fingers, in his toes.

  Then Temerius barked, “What is it?”

  Augustus flinched, the heated rage he’d felt returning in a warm rush as he drew in a ragged breath and pointed. “There. There! Someone’s altering the crystals, altering one crystal, changing its orientation.”

  “Who?” Temerius spat, already spreading his perceptions out on the Tapestry as he cast a scathing glare at the two other Primes in the chamber, both wide-eyed in disbelief. But even as Augustus felt Temerius reach out in the direction he’d indicated, he knew that the other two had nothing to do with the adjustment of the crystal pane. He could sense their incursion on the Tapestry and they weren’t near it. No, the adjustments were being made by someone outside the focusing chamber, by someone outside the Nexus. They were being made by someone manipulating the chamber through the ley lines themselves, not through the apertures within the pit.

  The revelation stunned him. He would not have thought it possible.

  At his side, Temerius cried out, a sound of disbelief. “They’re using the open channels of the ley lines,” he hissed. “They aren’t even in the Nexus, not even within the building! They’re gaining access—”

  “Through one of the nodes within the city,” Augustus growled, still shaken, although none of that fear bled into his voice.

  Temerius took a step back from him, his own eyes going wide as the implications sank in, as the ramifications shattered what he thought he knew of the Nexus. Augustus was already ahead of him, his own thoughts leaping forward. “But that means . . .” Temerius began. He caught Augustus’ gaze, his mouth open, working to produce words.

  Augustus nodded, jaw clenched. “That means we were wrong, that I was wrong. It might not be one of the Primes who is the traitor. It could be one of the Wielders.”

  They stared at each other a long moment, both numbed, and then one of the other Primes shouted, “Augustus! The pane has stopped moving!”

  Augustus turned back to the crystal, saw two other crystals now moving into new positions, saw the undulating colored light shifting its pattern, flares of backlash and bleed-off scattering through the Nexus above and into the chamber below.

  And when the last pane settled into its new position, Augustus felt his heart shudder in his chest.

  “Holy Mother of Korma,” Temerius breathed.

  Augustus turned toward him and, in much too calm a tone, said, “Say nothing of this. To anyone. I will warn the Baron.”

  Above them, the Nexus flared with new light and ley surged out through the apertures and into the lines.

  Through his connection to the Nexus, Augustus felt the city come back to life.

  Twenty

  ALLAN STOOD ON a hilltop far to the west of Erenthrall and stared out over the darkened plains toward the city. Stars gleamed overhead, and the leaves of trees shushed in a faint breeze to either side. The thin edge of dawn sliced across the horizon to the east, but the plains themselves were a black puddle, like spilled ink. He could barely pick out the nearest hills in the moonlight, even after his sight adjusted from moving away from the campfire where his daughter slept in the copse of trees at his back.

  Which was wrong, he thought with a disturbed frown. He should be able to see the city if nothing else. He should be able to see its ethereal white glow even through any mist or fog that might obscure the rest of the towns and villages on the plains. He should be able to see the glow that had become the heart of the Baronies, the glow that connected the entire continent—that connected the entire known world and beyond—in a web of ley.

  The fact that he couldn’t sent a prickling shiver of worry down his back.

  He grunted at himself in annoyance, ran his fingers through the beginnings of his scratchy beard—he hadn’t done a proper shave in the last two days of traveling—and turned his gaze southward, toward Baron Leethe’s domain, where the city of Tumbor would be. He caught the faintest glow of white from that direction, strained to see another patch of pale white farther out to the southeast, one he could see better by looking at from one side rather than directly on, where Farrade lay, then back to the darkness of Erenthrall. He didn’t bother looking north toward Severen, Dunmara, and Ikanth on the Steppe. The glow of their ley would be blocked by the mountainous Reaches.

  “Tumbor and Farrade seem fine,” he murmured to himself, “so what’s happening in Erenthrall?”

  War? He knew the Barons were at odds, but he hadn’t heard any murmurs of outright war. Most of the fighting was political. That kind of warfare never ended. That kind of warfare killed innocents like his wife, Moira.

  And that kind of warfare would not leave a city dark.

  He tugged at his short beard again, trying to decide what the darkness of Erenthrall meant—whether he should turn back and return to the Hollow or continue on—when he heard the snap of a twig behind him.

  He didn’t reach for the sword at his side, didn’t even shift position, merely turned his head slightly and said, “You can come forward, Poppett.”

  “Dad, I’m not a poppet! A poppet is a doll. I’m not little anymore.”

  Allan grimaced. When had it changed from Da to Dad? Would it change to Father soon?

  “I know, Popp—Morrell. I’m sorry. I was just—” Thinking of your mother, he almost said, but caught himself. Morrell had been too young to remember her mother when they fled and he knew it upset her when he spoke about the woman she’d never know.

  He turned slightly, shook his head, then sat on a nearby stone thrust up out of the earth. “Are you coming out? The dawn’s beautiful.”

  He heard Morrell sigh, then tromp forward, pushing the branches aside.

  “I woke up and you weren’t there. I got worried.” She settled down on the dew-damp ground beside him, gangly twelve-year-old legs crossed beneath her, still dressed in her night shift. Her long, straight hair was pale in the darkness, nothing like the soft gold it appeared during the day. She immediately picked up a stick and began stripping the bark from it in thin strands. “What are you looking at?”

  “Erenthrall.”

  “Really? Where is it? Can we see it from here? Are we that close?” All of the grumpy sleepiness and veiled worry vanished. She’d never seen Erenthrall, didn’t remember any of it from when she was little, before they’d left. He hadn’t allowed her to travel with him on any of his excursions to trade for the supplies the Hollow couldn’t produce for itself until now, and with Erenthrall dark, he was reconsidering taking her any farther. She’d be disappointed, and the Hollow would have a rough winter without those supplies, especially the medicine
, but still . . .

  “Actually—”

  Even as he spoke, he caught a pulse of light from the plains. The sun had risen enough the entire eastern skyline was bathed in soft gray-gold. The faintest contours—hills and valleys, rocky crags and mounds—had appeared, the black snakes of rivers and puddles of lakes cutting through them.

  The pulse came from the south, from the direction of Tumbor, a blinding white-purple. Ley. Allan repressed a shudder of distaste. It streaked across the plains, hit a junction, altered course, and flared arrow-straight to Erenthrall, a secondary pulse shooting out toward Farrade, other minor branches spreading outward from smaller junctions along the way. Allan followed the main pulse with his eyes to Erenthrall, where it connected with a brilliant flare, brighter than the sun. For a moment, the entire city lay silhouetted in the backwash of white, the towers of Grass visible, soaring high over the farthest reaches of the outer districts. Something hard filled Allan’s chest at the sight, prickling and hot, aching, the city beautiful. And large. Sprawling northward in the vee of the confluence of the Tiana and Urate Rivers, spilling over their edges into the surrounding plains to the north and south; to the east and west as well. The ley filtered through its conduits and spread, outlined all of the districts of the main city, then splintered farther into the outlying towns, and farther still, the entire breadth of the plains lighting up as far as he could see. For a moment, as the city lay bathed in whiteness, he heard an echo of the raucous streets, drank in the sounds of the tens of thousands of people that lived there. He breathed in the stench of so many bodies pressed so close together, totally different from the clean smells of the Hollow, where he and Morrell, Janis, and a few hundred other souls lived without the presence of the ley.

  And then the flare of light faded back down to its normal level, Erenthrall now easily visible, like a pulsing of dense moonlight at the center of a lacework from the surrounding smaller towns that supported it.