An Echo of Things to Come

by James Islington

  Several hundred feet below, beginning at the base of the cliff, was a plain—but there was no grass, no trees, or any signs of life whatsoever. Like an enormous desert it just stretched away, barren and unsettlingly uniform.

  That was all secondary, though, to the staggering blue-white wall of flickering energy that illuminated it all.

  For the first ten seconds Davian just stared in silence along with the rest of them, trying to comprehend it. There was nothing to use for scale but he knew immediately that it was enormous; from this distance and elevation he could see it curling away as it got higher, forming a dome. Energy pulsed and shimmered as it flew across the wall’s surface; with enough concentration, Davian imagined that he would be able to watch a single streak of energy traverse miles as it raced from one point in the Boundary to another. The plains below, the cliffs, even the cloudy sky above were lit by the Boundary’s radiance.

  “Fates,” breathed Ishelle.

  “It’s hard to take in the first time you see it. Especially like this, at night,” said Muran quietly. Davian turned to see the man gazing out toward the light, almost as entranced as the others. “The stories tell you what it’s like, but … they don’t tell you what it’s like.”

  Davian nodded silently. Then he squinted. Far, far below and in the distance, there were a series of small dots moving near the base of the Boundary. Some sort of small animal, perhaps?

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

  Muran followed his finger. “Patrol,” he said confidently. He gestured to a looking glass mounted on the parapet when Davian gave him a dubious look. “You can check for yourself if you’d like.”

  Davian frowned, turning back to study the tiny black dots, utterly dwarfed by the shimmering curtain of light that silhouetted them. Those were people? He felt a chill as he reassessed his first impression of the scale of the Boundary.

  Clearly the others were doing the same. “We’re supposed to fix that?” whispered Fessi in a horrified voice.

  Muran watched them curiously for a long moment, then sighed. “As you can see, day or night, our lookouts can tell if something gets through,” he said quietly. “Back when all of this was built, even these cliffs were supposedly positioned and shaped by the Gifted. The only ways up them end at outposts; it’s all designed to funnel attackers here. The areas in between cannot be scaled.”

  “So you don’t think that anything has slipped through?” asked Erran.

  Muran grimaced. “No doubt some things have,” he conceded. “Sometimes one of the men will think that they’ve seen something, but it’s gone so quickly, they don’t even get a chance to spot it in the looking glass. I’d discount it as their imagination, except …” He sighed. “I try not to alarm newcomers, but I suppose it’s best that you know everything. We’ve had men go missing. As well as independent, correlating reports of … creatures, I suppose you’d say. Monsters.”

  “We were attacked by something along the road, too,” said Fessi. “Quite a way south from here.”

  Muran cocked his head to the side. “‘Something’? What did it look like?”

  “There were a few of them. Flying creatures that fired long spears at us,” said Davian quietly.

  Muran nodded, looking unsurprised. “The Gifted up here call them “eletai.” One gets spotted breaking through every few days—I’ve caught a glimpse of one myself. We try to bring them down, but …” He shrugged. “They fly, and they don’t seem too interested in coming near us. Nothing we can do.”

  Davian exchanged a grim glance with the others. They’d conjectured that the monsters attacking him and Ishelle had been another of Devaed’s Banes, but it was still chilling to have it confirmed.

  Suddenly there was a flash from the Boundary, a ripple of light that emanated from a single point and spread outward. Moments later there was a low, growling, buzzing thunder on the air that pressed down for a moment before dissipating.

  “Right on time,” murmured Muran.

  “What was that?” asked Fessi.

  “We think they’re testing it from the other side.” Muran kept his eyes on the Boundary as there was another flash from a different section, accompanied by another thick rumbling that made Davian want to rub at his ears. “Trying to send more monsters through.”

  Erran frowned. “What happens to the ones that don’t get through?”

  “If it’s anything like what would happen on this side? Disintegration.” Muran shrugged at their questioning looks. “The Boundary seems to reflect projectiles, block them entirely—but it dissolves flesh. Birds mostly know to keep away, but occasionally you see one get too close.”

  Davian shuddered, gazing out at the sight. “How long does it take to get there from here?”

  “Including the climb down … an hour, perhaps?” Muran nodded back toward the stairs to the keep. “I’ll have some quarters made up—fates know that there are enough spare—and get someone to take you in the morning.”

  Davian hesitated. “I’d prefer to go now.”

  Muran gave him a dubious look, but eventually inclined his head. “If that’s what you want. You’ll just need to be careful going down the cliff path. The Boundary lights it well enough, but it’s narrow.”

  “We could wait until tomorrow,” Erran observed to Davian.

  “The sooner we get an idea of what we’re up against, the better.” It was relatively early, and Davian wasn’t tired. Besides, they wouldn’t need to take turns at keeping watch tonight. That already gave them a few more hours of sleep than they were accustomed to.

  Erran made a face and Fessi didn’t look thrilled either, but eventually they each acceded with a nod. Ishelle, as she had been for most of the conversation, was still staring northward in fascination and barely responded.

  Muran grunted. “I may as well take you, then,” he said with a sigh. “Less grumbling than if I have to ask someone.”

  He started back down the stairs, and the others began to follow. Davian was just about to descend, too, when he realized that Ishelle hadn’t moved.

  “Ishelle?” he turned back, frowning as he watched the other Augur. She was still staring in rapt silence at the light of the Boundary, mouth slightly open, unblinking and looking unsettlingly intent. “Ishelle, we’re leaving.”

  Still Ishelle didn’t respond; brow creasing, Davian hurried back to her, putting a hand gently on her shoulder.

  Immediately Ishelle flinched and turned, blinking in a moment of apparent confusion. “What?”

  “Are you all right?”

  Ishelle hesitated, then gave him a tired smile, shaking her head ruefully as she realized that the others had disappeared from the roof of the keep. “Just thinking. Sorry.”

  “You’re sure?” Davian gave her a worried look, but Ishelle inclined her head reassuringly and there wasn’t much more that he could say. They hurried back down a couple of flights of stairs and rejoined the others, eventually coming to the north-facing gate, which was thick steel and appeared far sturdier than the southern one through which they’d entered. Unbarring it with Davian’s help, the captain led them out onto the cliff’s edge.

  A cold breeze whipped at Davian as they began their descent. As Muran had indicated, it was a slow, careful process. The path was only wide enough to accommodate a single person, but he was relieved to discover that a railing had been etched into the cliff face; though he never actually lost his balance, he kept his left hand firmly sliding along the hold at all times.

  It took perhaps fifteen minutes to pick their way down. Being at the base of the cliff offered little protection against the wind, which if anything felt stronger down here. Moonlight and the cold illumination of the Boundary filtered through clouds of dust kicked up by the breeze, giving the scene before them an ethereal quality.

  Davian shivered as they walked and that wall of fizzing, pulsing light grew larger and larger, filling his vision until he felt completely, utterly dwarfed by it. Just when he thought that he’d graspe
d the scale of it, they got closer, and the concept eluded him again. He’d thought the Shields at Ilin Illan were tall. He’d thought Ilin Tora was tall. It was all insignificant compared to this.

  And the entire thing … shimmered. It was not the steady light of an Essence bulb, not the kind of light he expected from Essence at all. It was all energy but it … rippled, dancing and flexing with different shades, pulsing and crackling and swirling in constant movement and rhythm.

  “It’s amazing,” murmured Fessi suddenly, the first of them to speak in a while.

  Muran nodded. “I’ve been here for a month, and I’m still not used to it.”

  Davian swallowed as they neared the base of the barrier, noting how the ground for several feet approaching it was charred, completely black. The air here held a hint of that thundering, rumbling buzz that they’d heard earlier, as well as the sharp smell of being out before a storm. The ground was starkly illuminated by the cold light; dust swirled dramatically near the base, somehow emphasizing how empty the space really was.

  He shivered again. For the first time, it occurred to him just how much power must be flowing through that barrier.

  “What’s that?” asked Erran, pointing.

  Davian followed Erran’s finger to a little way down the wall, spotting the square stone pillar. It was perhaps thrice his height and a few feet across on each face, standing right at the edge of the swirling blue light. Polished, it was reflecting the colors of the energy around it, but Davian thought that it was white. The entire thing was nearly impossible to see until they were up close.

  “There’s one every mile or so,” said Muran. “They’re all along the Boundary.”

  They moved a little closer, and Davian felt a chill as he spotted a symbol amid the flashing energy, pulsing steadily on the pillar. He’d known that it would be there—Taeris had told him so, what seemed like an age ago—but it was still unsettling to see it.

  The wolf’s head was exactly as he remembered it from the bronze cube that he’d been given at Caladel, exactly as it had been tattooed on Caeden’s arm. He wondered again just what that meant. He’d thought of Caeden now and then during their trip, wondered how his friend was doing and whether he’d found out anything more about his identity. Often pondered what his true role could be in all of this, too.

  Ishelle came to stand beside Davian, and he frowned across at her. She had seemed fine since they’d left the outpost, but now her expression was distant again. As if she was not focused on the Boundary at all, but something else entirely.

  “Ishelle?” he asked quietly.

  Ishelle blinked, then shook her head as if clearing it and turned to him, giving a soft laugh when she saw his look. “I’m fine, Dav. Really. Just … a little intimidated.” She nodded toward the pillar. “Are we assuming that these are the Vessels that are keeping this thing going?”

  Davian nodded slowly. “That’s a logical guess.” He glanced at the others. “Thoughts?”

  Erran shrugged. “We’re going to have to look at it sooner or later.”

  Davian nodded again, then closed his eyes and pushed through kan, extending his senses toward the pillar and hoping desperately that the simple act wouldn’t affect anything. For all his training, all his study, he had no true idea of what was or wasn’t wise to do here.

  His heart dropped as he took in what no natural vision would be able to see.

  Kan was everywhere.

  He examined it despairingly, trying to comprehend the vast, complex workings of the strands. The network stretched left and right, upward and downward farther than Davian’s senses could reach in any direction. A layer of black lines and edges covered every facet of the wall of light, and there was even more—impossible to properly make out—farther inside.

  More worryingly, that network was confusing. He probed along its edges, frowning, trying to understand the purpose of all the different elements that he could see. Here a hard curve of kan, presumably to assist the flow of Essence that appeared to come from deep underground. There a soft barrier, a buffer of some kind. An overflow mechanism, Davian thought, designed to soak up any extra Essence in case of a surge. Hard barriers to encapsulate the Essence, to stop it from decaying.

  Then there were the parts that he didn’t understand at all, could not fathom why they existed. Strands of kan that looked more like the tendrils he would use to Read someone. A section that seemed to be designed to affect time itself somehow, though to Davian’s eye it appeared inactive, dormant.

  It was delicate, intricate machinery. The sort of thing that one didn’t tinker with unless one absolutely knew what they were doing.

  Worse, he didn’t think that they could tinker with it. There was no layer of hardened kan that he could see—he could examine the mechanisms easily enough—but that surely meant that the protections were simply hidden. More complex than a simple shield, and probably more dangerous.

  He withdrew his senses, glancing at the others. Erran had his eyes closed and was evidently still inspecting the wall of energy. Ishelle was sitting on the ground, staring at the light with a fixatedly irritated expression. Fessi was off to the side, looking at a different section of the wall entirely.

  Davian rubbed his forehead, glancing over at Ishelle. “I can understand some of the parts. Or I think I understand some of the parts. But how they all fit together …”

  Ishelle snorted. “It looks like nonsense to me. Like someone tried to take all of our different abilities and jam them randomly into a wall.”

  Erran stirred. “That’s about the impression I get, too,” he agreed grimly.

  Fessi wandered back over, shaking her head at their questioning looks.

  “It’s like …” She shook her head again, lost for words. “It’s more complex than I’d imagined anything using kan could be. There have to be a hundred different elements in there, all used for different purposes … and all working together to create this.” She gestured to the wall, tone despondent.

  Davian nodded slowly. “Remember, we don’t necessarily need to understand every aspect of it. We only need to figure out why it’s getting weaker.”

  “Is that all?” said Ishelle drily.

  Davian forced a smile. “It sounds like a lot, but we always knew it was going to be a big task.” He felt overwhelmed, too, but it wouldn’t help to show it. They needed to stay motivated. “At least we have an idea of what we’re up against now. Let’s head back, get some sleep and start fresh tomorrow.”

  The others didn’t look convinced, but nodded.

  Davian gestured to Muran, who had taken a seat a little way off and was watching them curiously. “Time to go back,” he said, tiredness suddenly crashing in on him. “We’ll be getting up early in the morning.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the immense, thrumming wall of energy.

  “We have a lot of work to do.”

  Chapter 37

  Asha gave a wracking cough as she came awake to the thunderous, echoing roar of water crashing against rocks.

  She forced her eyes open, though she barely had the energy to do even that. The roof above her, not more than six feet from her face, appeared to be natural stone. She turned her head slowly, blearily registering that everything in the cramped cave was illuminated by the flickering flames of a small fire to her left, which also appeared to be the only thing staving off the otherwise frigid air. She was lying on damp stone, near naked; her entire body was cold, sore, her muscles barely able to move. For a long few moments she couldn’t bring to mind what had happened, how she had got here.

  Then she remembered. The dar’gaithin. Dangling from the bridge. Laiman, hesitating, trying to save her too late.

  The seemingly endless fall, followed by … nothing.

  She managed to lever herself up onto an elbow, gazing around dazedly. Her clothes, she saw, had been carefully laid out by the fire. Beyond, she could see the cave entrance, which was mostly submerged by the pool that finished only a body’s length
away. In the slim gap visible between the water and the roof of the opening, a permanent haze of white hung where the Lantarche—she assumed it was the Lantarche—was smashing into the rocks beyond, causing the deafening roar that resounded constantly through the enclosed space.

  She shook her head, exhaustion seeping through every pore as she tried to grasp what was going on. As painful as moving was, she didn’t seem to have any injuries of note. Remembering the dar’gaithin’s attack—that sickening, crunching snap as something in her back had given way—she cautiously wiggled her toes. Bent her knees. Pushed experimentally with her feet.

  She breathed out. Her legs seemed fine.

  Her vision swam as the sliver of energy she’d managed to summon finally gave out, and she laid her head back against the stone. Suddenly, across the flickering flames, a figure that had previously been hidden in the shadows stirred.

  Breshada leaned forward so that her face was illuminated as she watched Asha, concern in her expression. The Hunter’s lips were moving, but the thundering of the water drowned out whatever she was saying.

  Asha stared at her blankly for a few extra seconds, but everything started to fade again.

  She slept.

  This time, when Asha woke the pain was almost entirely gone.

  She rolled to the side, staring at her new surroundings. Another cave, this one larger, no water in evidence but with multiple dark, looming entrances and a set of stairs cut into its side. The stairs led upward into a tubelike passageway that was lit by lines of Essence, the light that was leaking out from its entrance the only source of illumination in the cave. The crashing of the Lantarche was still audible but far more muted here, and the air was slightly warmer, despite there being no fire now.