Shatter (The Children of Man)

by Elizabeth C. Mock

  Faela grabbed a low-lying branch of the elm and pulled herself up. Levering off of her torso, she brought her feet under herself to stand on the branch. Just as she reached for the next branch, she saw someone jogging below her. She swung her knee over the branch and lifted herself up to sit on it. She rotated her back to rest against the trunk. The man stopped under the tree and pivoted scouting in every direction.

  Faela's nose tickled and she sneezed. Alerted by the sound, Kade found her and lay his hand on the first branch. She waved halfheartedly before she stared through the canopy of the forest out to the stars above, ignoring him.

  "Can I come up?"

  Without looking back down, she beckoned for him to join her. Kade swayed holding the branch as he brought a foot to meet his hands and stepped up into the tree. He slung his arms over the branch Faela used for her seat.

  "You always look for somewhere to run?" Kade asked looking out into the forest from their high vantage point.

  Faela finally tore her gaze away from the sky to glare at him. The leaves shuddered in the wind, which cut through Faela’s shirt. She leaned forward to tuck her bulky overcoat closer around her body.

  "It's a better alternative to what I would have done had I stayed," Faela admitted, her voice still had a sharp edge.

  "He's not a traitor, Faela." Kade finally turned back to her. "I was there, in Stantreath. He wouldn't let me testify."

  Faela’s face fell slack, the anger diffusing around her like steam. "You were there?"

  Kade nodded. "Your brother saved my life. It wasn't the first time." Kade snorted. "This was different though. I didn't think any of us were going to make it out."

  Faela held her breath as he continued. Laying her head back against the tree’s ridged bark, she played with the fraying cuffs of her coat.

  "They weren't supposed to be there. We were supposed to be walking into friendly territory. Did you know that? It's why they got so many of us in the first attack. But a moment before the ambush, Caleb got this odd look on his face and shoved me to the ground. He was fast, just not fast enough. That’s how he got the scar on his face. He was protecting me. Your brother would have gladly died to save his men, Faela."

  Faela's eyes shone with tears.

  Smiling with regrets about events he could never change, Kade grabbed for her hand. "He betrayed no one."

  Faela returned the pressure. "I know he didn't. It’s just that a lot happened today and I couldn't, I just couldn't brush off what that horrible woman said."

  "She's not horrible," Kade objected. "Eve is just a little tactless regarding what she views as the truth. To her, it's irrational to be offended by what she considers a statement of fact or truth. She's a little single-minded sometimes and she just lost someone very close to her. Just give her a chance. I think you'd actually like her."

  Faela made an unladylike noise of disbelief as she wiped the unshed tears away with her thumb.

  "She's typically the friendlier, more good natured one, while Sheridan… frankly Sheridan can be a lot to take. You just caught her in a manic mood tonight."

  "What’d you mean?"

  Kade laughed. "Well, she’s very opinionated, but she’s usually afraid of offending someone. My guess is that her curiosity overcame her reticence. You and Mireya present a mystery for her. You’re puzzles for her to try to solve."

  "I'm a puzzle?"

  It was Kade's turn to laugh. "You are indeed, Rafaela."

  Faela's eyes darkened as she turned her head revealing some flakes of bark caught in her hair. Kade could feel her withdrawing into herself. "You don't like your given name?"

  "Not many people call me that. That’s all. You just surprised me."

  "No, that wasn't surprise I felt. That was guilt. Who calls you Rafaela that makes you feel guilty?"

  Faela looked at Kade’s intent gaze that seemed to find whatever he sought. Trying to evade him would be futile and she was worn out from hiding. "The only person who calls me that was my father."

  "Was?" Kade asked his dark amber eyes continued hunting for her reactions.

  The guilt spread to shame and she chewed on her thumbnail. "He's dead."

  Bringing the pieces together, her reticence to discuss herself, her clear fear at seeing Caleb despite his devotion to her, her evasion when talking about her family, Kade nodded. "I see."

  Faela realized that he did indeed see and her guilt flowered into grief as her eyes shimmered with tears. "I killed him." Faela managed to force the awful truth past her lips. "It was me. I did it."

  Kade still held her hand in his and twined his fingers through hers. He had no intention of leaving.

  They had followed the Foster River south for several hours, when the town of Moshurst came into view at the river’s headwaters. Like many of the towns in Nabos its main industry was agriculturally based. Farms surrounded the land approaching the village, but this close to the ample forest Moshurst also had a thriving lumber trade. A mill with high smoke stacks thrust into the sky sat on the river near the line of the forest. Signs of a healthy timber industry spotted the landscape, but no smoke rose from the mill.

  Trailing behind the rest of the party, Haley walked with Faela. When Faela and Kade had returned to camp the night before, Haley noticed that the girl had been crying. Her demeanor, however, had an easiness that she had previously lacked. She seemed almost relieved, though sadness still clung to her like a shadow. What a girl like this could have done to turn Gray fascinated him. He wanted to know more about her. He had to know what crime she now paid for.

  "So, you been to Kelso before, yeah?" Haley asked companionably as he brushed his hair out of his eyes.

  It still caught Faela off guard that he made no attempt to hide the mark of his corruption. "I haven’t actually."

  "I would've bet you had being a Durante and all. More proof that I should stay far from gambling."

  "I never spent that much time with my family after I was sent to Kilrood. Many of my travels were with," Faela paused as though she changed her mind. "They were for my journeyman training with the Tereskans."

  "When were you at Kilrood?" he inquired, his face relaxed in an easy smile of interest. "I grew up there."

  "I spent nearly all of my training with the Tereskans," Faela commented offhand surveying their surroundings. As they got closer, the mill dominated more of the landscape. "Hold on."

  Putting two fingers in her mouth, she whistled shrilly once. The party stopped and turned to see the source of the noise. Faela motioned for everyone to wait and swung her bag off her back to dig inside. Her fingers brushed Sammi's first blanket and kept searching until she found her hat. Jair took the opportunity to drink from his water skin and offered some to Sheridan who removed her wool jacket before taking a swig.

  Pulling out the hat, Faela set it in place low on her forehead. "Sorry, let's keep moving."

  Haley looked at the hat and tugged on its brim. "Inconspicuous, lass."

  "You don't seem overly concerned with anyone noticing you," Faela observed.

  "People see what they want to see." Haley snapped his fingers and golden sparks rose like smoke in front of him. "The trick be making them believe that what they want to see really be there." The sparks transformed into a delicate pink flower that fell to the ground. With a flourish and a wink, he picked it up and presented it to her.

  "Oh, and how do you do that?" As Faela inhaled the flower's light, sweet scent, it disintegrated into a rainfall of golden light. She found it natural to talk with Haley. Maybe it was his infectious smile. Maybe it was his easy laugh. Maybe it was that when she looked at his eyes, the silver looking back at her didn't condemn her, didn't pity her. Haley just accepted what she was.

  "Oh no, tricky lass. I'll not be fooled into revealing the secrets of my trade." Lucien surprised himself. The smile he gave Faela was genuine. He liked this quiet woman. He didn't have to try with her. He wanted to lighten the melancholy that hung on her whenever her attention wandered, so he
took it upon himself to dispel as much as he could. Though he wanted to know if her story matched his own, it didn't matter in the end. What mattered to Lucien was that they shared something he could never explain to anyone else. They were connected.

  Faela smiled. "So, you grew up in Kilrood? Where about?"

  "Gallows Way." Lucien found himself telling her the truth without reservation.

  At hearing that name, Faela stumbled and Lucien steadied her by the elbow.

  "Careful now, lass."

  "My thanks." Faela nodded as she looped her thumbs through the straps of her pack. "I'm sorry. It's just I used to go down there to help with the children after the first frosts, not to mention having to set some broken bones."

  "Aye, the lil' ones down there always got lung sick in the winter. And, well, the seasons don't change the men down in the Way. They'll get drunk and hit anything that makes the mistake of getting too close."

  Faela looked at the jovial minstrel with a sobered respect knowing that he had grown up in one of the roughest districts in Kilrood. Ianos had tried so many times to help those living in the slums, but nothing he did seemed to achieve any lasting change. Its men still drank and still beat their wives. That is if they stuck around Gallows Way at all.

  Though the bar fights of the Way were infamous, its most notable distinction was its children. Every month Ianos would visit the Way to provide food and clothing to its parentless and abandoned children, but any with a sense of self-preservation had learned a healthy fear of adults and stayed hidden. While still a little girl, Faela began accompanying Ianos and gradually more children showed themselves. Though she still dreamed about their thin and battered faces, in the last year she had seen their suspicious and broken eyes reflected in her own.

  Ianos had managed to persuade several, who exhibited magical gifts, to come to the temple for training, but the war had orphaned so many and some feared any other life. Those refused his offers and eventually life in the Way caught up with them.

  She glanced at Haley trying to imagine him as a child. She wondered if she had ever seen him in her trips down to the Way. She wondered if he had ever seen her.

  "But what would I have to sing about without a little tragedy in life, yeah?" Lucien didn't want Faela to feel sorry for him. He had escaped from the Way, when Philip had found him and brought him to the Lusican temple in Kitrinostow. Philip and the Lusican Order had saved his life. A fact he had never forgotten.

  "Love and kittens?" Faela suggested as the bank of the river started sloping up the hill.

  Lucien chuckled his gaze drifting to Eve's back as she and Sheridan talked quietly, their heads close together. "Aye, love."

  As they passed the mill, the gaps in the weather-warped wood revealed the rusted teeth of its enormous saws. Kade cautiously approached the buildings with Sheridan and Eve only a step behind.

  "What happened here?" Faela asked as they entered the empty, dirt-packed courtyard grooved with ruts from heavy wagon wheels.

  Kade disappeared through the wide opening of the mill. "Anyone here?"

  Only the reverberation of Kade’s voice answered him. Sawdust covered the floor in piles blown into the corners and against the defunct equipment. A series of metal chains swung in the breeze filling the place with a clanking dissonance that masked the footfall of the twins behind him. The chains dangled from the rafters above the conveyor.

  His hearing muffled, Kade slipped a throwing knife out of his belt as he moved further into the building. Passing behind the conveyor, he saw that the mill had been stripped of anything not welded in place or too big to move. All the tools were gone and a dark, oily outline stained the floor where someone had pried the conveyor's steam pump off its bolts. Cabinets hung open emptied of everything, but the ever-present sawdust. Nothing indicated the presence of people. No one had used this mill for months.

  Sliding his knife back in its sheath, he turned to Sheridan and Eve who had fanned out to investigate the rest of the building. "Find anything?"

  Eve shook her head, wiping her hand against her thigh in a futile attempt to remove the sawdust. "Nothing here. This place was gutted efficiently."

  "Scavengers?" Sheridan suggested as she ducked her head under the slats of the staircase.

  "No." Eve drew the word out as she rotated on a heel to take in the entire room. "No, this was too systematic, not rushed. Those cabinets over there weren't left open." She pointed to the row of storage behind Kade. "Look, you can see how the hinges are cracked. That's from time and the elements, not clearing this place out."

  Kade nodded in agreement. "You've always had a good eye for the details, Eve."

  Eve smiled, her face brightening for a moment as she forgot about the past three weeks before she recalled the image of Nessa's motionless body and the coldness in her chest returned. She pivoted as only a dancer could and said, "We should keep moving and get to the town. They should be able to tell us what happened."

  Sheridan grunted her agreement. "Though it needs some love, this equipment would still function and there's still plenty of timber to fell. You can see how they staggered their harvesting, so that the forest would continue growing. I see no reason for this facility to have been abandoned."

  The trio came back outside to find Jair perched on the fence that surrounded the courtyard. His brows drawn together in irritation, he kept scratching behind his ear. Faela and Haley examined the water wheel and discussed something intently, but the river and the wheel's creaking hid their voices. While Dathien roamed near the tree line, Mireya sat on a rock, chewing on some jerky with a dazed expression.

  At their approach, Jair hopped off the fence and captured Kade's arm. "Can I talk to you?"

  Never having seen this affable young man so serious before, Kade nodded and they detached themselves from the twins.

  When they arrived at an acceptable distance, Jair scratched behind his ear again and said, "There are no animals here."

  "What?" Kade asked skeptically. "How do you know?"

  "They're gone; they're just gone." Jair tapped his fingers against his crossed arms in rapid agitation.

  Even when he had caught Jair in that clearing, the young man had remained calm and good humored. Seeing Jair this anxious raised some serious concerns.

  "Okay, let's talk to Eve. She'll know for sure." Kade raised his voice. "Eve, we need your help."

  Eve cocked her head in question, but jogged over with the fluid grace of a gazelle. "What do you need?'

  "Can you check for animal life?" Kade asked without further explanation.

  Eve raised an eyebrow, but complied. She breathed in deeply through her nose and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they glimmered with green light and she gasped as though something restricted her breathing. The light flickered and faded.

  Kade steadied her with his arm. "What did you see?"

  Eve blinked and looked at Kade her face tight with panic. "It's gone. It's like a desert where there had once been a lake. There should be streams of life, of energy here, but it's just the faintest trickle. It's like someone dammed the flows, redirected them somewhere else." Her large topaz eyes widened and she clutched at Kade’s coat sleeve. "The town, Kaedman, we have to warn Moshurst. If the green magic has been diverted away from this place, first the animals would have left, and then no new crops would have grown. There would be famine, starvation, and then people would start getting sick – very sick, Kaedman. We have to warn them."

  Jair's face whitened, the color draining with each word Eve spoke.

  "Do you think that's why this place is empty?" Kade asked her.

  "Um, yeah, probably, but we need to get up there – now." Eve's urgency had caused her volume to increase attracting the rest of their party.

  "Eve, think it through," Kade said forcing her to meet his gaze. "If the mill has been abandoned then what are the chances that there's anyone in the town? This mill was the livelihood of this place. With it gone, what would they have had to trade?"<
br />
  Eve shook her head obstinately. "Even if you're right, we need to check. We have to make sure that they've left."

  "What's going on?" Sheridan asked as she joined them.

  "Somehow someone shifted the flows of green magic here, Sheridan."

  Sheridan’s shoulder blades pinched together. "How is that even possible? I've never met anyone who could channel that much energy without burning themselves to dust."

  "I don't know," Eve said shaking her head, "but how doesn't matter right now. We'll figure it out later. What matters is making sure that the people living here know how much danger they're in. We can't just stand around here debating this. I'm going."

  At her final word she pushed her way through the people around her and whistled once. Kimiko came trotting toward her and, without slowing down, Eve vaulted onto her mount's back and swung her around toward Moshurst. Whispering in her horse’s ear, her eyes sparked green and the horse jumped into a gallop as though chased by darkness itself. Eve rode up the hill toward the village without a look back.

  "She's right. If anyone's still there, we need to evacuate them," Kade agreed.

  "Why?" Faela asked confused by Eve's sudden exit. "What's going on?"

  "Someone's upset the balance of green magic here," Sheridan explained combing her long hair back from her forehead.

  "That's even possible?" Faela asked in surprise. "I thought that much contact with the energy would consume its wielder?"

  "Whether it be believable," Haley said shouldering his bag, "don't matter. If that woman says it be true, it be true."

  Faela could see Kimiko's gait eating the distance between herself and the town as Eve arrowed along the path of the river. As Eve passed the first buildings of the town and left their sight, a look of pain crossed over Kade's face and he clutched at his chest as he lurched sideways into the fence.

  "Kade!" Sheridan caught him before he pitched into the dirt.

  The wrenching pain that assaulted Kade slammed into Faela like the sudden splintering of a broken leg and she inhaled too quickly at the violence of the shared sensation. Trying to push through the pain, Faela walked with deliberate care to join Sheridan, careful not to lose her footing amongst the deep ruts cutting across the yard. Traces of orange light glowed on Kade's chest.