Threading the Needle

by Joshua Palmatier

  “Tell me that you’re seeing this.”

  “I am.” Bryce didn’t move. “There’s a second one.”

  Allan didn’t break the Wolf’s steady gaze, but caught more movement to one side. The second Wolf was a dark brown-gray. The first one, larger, had black fur, frosted near the muzzle and ears. Its eyes were yellow.

  Allan suddenly remembered the wolf’s howl he’d heard before the earthquake. It hadn’t come from this direction.

  An indeterminate time later, the Wolf huffed and broke contact, jogging off to the right along the crevasse, the second one at its heels.

  “Where there are two of them, there will be more.”

  “The entire pack is here. They’re following us. But they haven’t attacked.” He recalled what Drayden had told him. The Wolves wanted the White Cloaks, just like Aurek.

  “What’s their game plan?”

  “Hard to say. But if they intended us harm, they could have hit us at any point over the last week, assuming they’ve been here that long. And I think they have been. I thought I saw one of them back at the Hollow, before I spoke to Aurek that first time.”

  “No reason to show themselves now either. They want us to know they’re there.”

  “He wants us to know.”

  “He, who?”

  Allan turned away from his scrutiny of the western plains, giving up his search for more Wolves. The wagons had already begun to move. “Grant, their pack leader.”

  He broke into a light run to catch up.

  Kara steadied herself against Dylan’s cot as the floor shook with another quake. The tremor shivered through the stone before quieting. Dylan leaned forward from where he’d propped himself up against the wall.

  “A small one.” He shifted his legs over the side of the cot with a wince.

  Outside in the hall, one of the enforcers on guard glanced inside at the movement, then turned away.

  “But they’re becoming more frequent. Something needs to be done soon.”

  Dylan massaged his knee then, with Kara’s help, stood. They began to walk around the room, Dylan using Kara for support when necessary. “You said this Nexus they’re creating won’t work?”

  “The Nexus is holding, but it’s not going to repair the ley. I’d say that it stabilized it briefly. They built it slowly, about four months after the Shattering, when they realized that they didn’t have enough Wielders to heal the distortion from the outside and that doing it one shard at a time was too dangerous and unrealistic.”

  “That’s when we started to think the ley might heal itself. The quakes had lessened.”

  “The ley wasn’t healing itself, it was this Nexus. But it’s only a stopgap measure. It didn’t fix anything, and now the ley is reacting, worse than before. Marcus knows it, but he doesn’t know what else to do. Neither does that Prime, Lecrucius.”

  “But you have an idea?”

  They’d circled the room twice, Dylan only faltering and grabbing onto her arm once. “Not a new idea. But they have enough Wielders here, with both of us, and a Prime, that I think we can heal the distortion exactly like we used to before the Shattering.”

  Dylan halted, one hand on her shoulder, skeptical. “It’s huge, Kara. How many Wielders do they have?”

  “Thirty-one, along with Prime Lecrucius. According to Marcus, they’re all of varying strengths, but mostly average or less. Some of them would never have been chosen for the college, but they’re desperate. I’ve seen Lecrucius working with the ley and he’s strong, and Marcus has grown since Erenthrall. With all of us—and with the Nexus that they’ve built—it might be enough.”

  “You mean, with you and the rest of us lending you our strength.” Dylan sank back onto his cot and poured himself a cup of water. He drank, then leaned back against the wall again. “You haven’t told Marcus yet. Why?”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “Does that matter now?” Dylan waved a hand around vaguely. “This isn’t about the White Cloaks or the Kormanley or what happened between you and Marcus before the Shattering. It isn’t even about whether Marcus brought about the Shattering himself. If we don’t do something about the ley now, it might destroy us. All of us.”

  “But—”

  “Kara, is there a better option?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell him.”

  Kara thought of the crack running up through the pit of the Needle. Not just a crack, a rent in the stone a handspan wide. And the quakes were intensifying. The next may be enough to bring the Needle down around the Nexus, destroy this node entirely, and then they’d have lost the best chance they’d had to repair the distortion over Erenthrall for over a year.

  “It won’t fix everything, even if we succeed. There’s the distortion over Tumbor to deal with now.”

  “But it might buy us more time.”

  Kara wished she had Artras here to discuss this with. She hoped the elder Wielder had made it out of Erenthrall and back to the Hollow. Her and Allan and all of the others.

  “Buy who more time?”

  Kara recognized Marcus’ voice. “Us. All of us.”

  Marcus glanced back and forth between the two. “What are you talking about?”

  “Kara thinks that with the Nexus you’ve built, and the Wielders you have here, she can heal the distortion over Erenthrall.”

  “We’d still have to deal with the distortion over Tumbor, but we’d be able to stabilize the network using the nodes in Erenthrall, at least for a while. It will take everyone here working together, though. I don’t see that we have any other option.”

  “How would you do it?”

  Kara had thought he’d dismiss her idea out of hand. “I’d tap into the power stored in the Nexus, once we maximized the alignment. Then, with everyone—including you and Lecrucius—for support, I’d heal the distortion the same way we healed the distortions in Erenthrall before the Shattering. I’d envelop it and repair it from the outside in.”

  Marcus hesitated.

  “You don’t think I can handle it.”

  “No. I know you can handle it.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s Lecrucius. He won’t want to have you tap into that much power. He won’t want you to lead the attempt.”

  “I’ve seen him working the ley. I’m stronger than he is.”

  “That doesn’t matter. He wants control of the Needle, of the White Cloaks here. He’s been undermining my status as the Father’s Son, probably since he arrived here, biding his time. He has a good portion of the White Cloaks under his thumb, including Iscivius and Irmona. If he refuses to help, then so will the others.”

  “There won’t be a Needle to control if something isn’t done soon.”

  “I’m not certain he cares about that.” He paused. “There’s another problem.”

  Kara had learned to read Marcus decades ago. She stiffened at the look in his eyes. “What?”

  “The Gorrani.” At their looks of confusion, he added, “There’s a force of about five thousand of them surrounding the Needle right now.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  Marcus had brought Kara to the Needle, but instead of descending down into the pit, he’d taken her up, to one of the highest windows looking southeast out over the plains. They stood at the edge of that window now, a cold wind whipping Kara’s hair back from her shoulders in gusts. Below, the small city surrounding the Needle spread out in a circular pattern away from the temple and the node, a ring of stone buildings that merged into the tent city she’d seen from the wagon as they arrived. The tents brushed up against the outer wall, the gates sealed shut now, the top of the wall manned by the enforcers.

  Beyond the wall, a massive group of men had gathered, keeping far enough distant to be out of archer range. They’d started to encircle the Needle, spread
ing out to either side of the main gates. Trailing out into the distance, in the direction of Tumbor, were rank upon rank of horses and Gorrani, marching toward them. A cloud of dust rose behind the column, the curtain blown toward the west and the setting sun. The fractured faces of the distortion around Tumbor gleamed with the orange light.

  “They came from south of Tumbor. They’d established a community there along the river after the Shattering, so they could raid the ruins of the city and the groups struggling to survive there. They were far enough away to be outside of the distortion when it quickened.”

  “What do they want?”

  “What we have.”

  Kara took a step closer to the window, squinting down as the Gorrani forces continued to grow. They had wagons, horses, and camels. Tents were already being erected. In snatches, the sound broken up by the wind, drums could be heard, and an occasional chanting roar. The setting sun glinted on armor and swords, and she recalled how nearly every Gorrani in Erenthrall had kept a distinctive curved blade in their household, even if they were forbidden to carry it on the streets. Every Gorrani youth was required to train with the scimitars, to be blooded with them, in order to be declared a man.

  “Can they get in?”

  “We’ve sealed the gates. According to Ty, we can hold them off, but not indefinitely. Father wants to use the ley against them. He wants to burn them from existence.”

  “We can’t! That’s not what the ley is for.”

  “But it was fine for Baron Arent and Prime Augustus to harness it and use it to control Erenthrall, to control all of the Baronies and wield power in the nations beyond the plains?”

  “They weren’t killing people with it!”

  “His Dogs were. And his Hounds. They were crushing the people of Erenthrall beneath the Baron’s heel. The Purge proved that. All for control of the ley. And you were willing to go along with it, to be a part of it, as a Wielder. You would have been a Prime, eventually. Then what? Would you have rebelled once you saw what they were doing, what they were keeping secret? Or would you have fallen into line and become one of Augustus’ supporters?”

  Marcus had a point. Except he didn’t know about Hernande, Cory, and the sands. She hadn’t run to the Primes with that knowledge. She’d kept it to herself. She’d like to think that such a small rebellion then meant she’d have fought back once she knew more. It had already begun, after all.

  Maybe she wasn’t as far from Marcus’ ideals as she thought, although it galled her to admit it, even if only to herself.

  “We’ll never know, will we? But I won’t use the ley to kill.”

  “We’ll see.” He motioned the enforcers that had accompanied them forward.

  “Where are we going?”

  Marcus turned away, speaking over his shoulder as he moved. “To the pit. Lecrucius is already there, preparing for tomorrow.”

  “Allan! Allan, look!”

  Allan glanced back over his shoulder at Artras, then followed her finger. She’d stood up in the wagon and now pointed toward the south, the sun nearly sunk beneath the horizon to the west, the sky to the east already pricked with stars. The distortion over Tumbor hulked to the southeast, its purple-red and jagged lightning competing with the sunset, but directly south—

  He squinted.

  “Is that a spire?” Glenn asked.

  “That’s what it looks like to me.”

  To the east, a shout rang out in Aurek’s group. A moment later, he saw Aurek and another rider take off toward the spire. The rest of his men ground to a halt.

  “They’ve seen it, too. Bryce, stay here with the group. Set up camp. No fires.” He hoped Aurek’s men weren’t stupid enough to light campfires either. “Glenn, you’re with me.”

  They took off after Aurek and his man at a ground-eating trot, following the dust trail. The sun eased beyond sight, the last flares of day painting the clouds overhead before fading into dusk.

  By the time they saw Aurek’s two horses drawn to a halt on a ridge ahead, both he and Glenn were huffing. Sweat crawled down Allan’s back and his face felt gritty with dust. He slowed as he picked out the others.

  Aurek looked back as they approached, his face a pale blur in the deepening dark. “We’ve got trouble.”

  Allan and Glenn drew up beside the other two, gazed down into the flat below.

  The entire area was lit with flames and ley light. An army encircled the walls of a small city, the black spire of what Allan guessed was the Needle rising out of its center. He’d seen similar spires in Erenthrall before the Shattering: the subtowers that the Primes had sown to support the Flyers’ Tower. Ley globes lined the walls of the city and lit some of the buildings within. Fires also lined the walls, but the majority of the fire lay in a ring around those walls, highlighting where the army was encamped. A wide circle of darkness lay between the walls and the camp.

  “Gods. There must be thousands of them. Who are they?”

  “Gorrani.” Aurek spat to one side. “I recognized their banners before the sun died.”

  “And their drums.” Allan thought Aurek’s second was named Devin; he hadn’t dealt with him much since they’d left the Hollow.

  Allan strained and caught snatches of a hollow drumbeat.

  “How are we going to get through them and the wall?” Glenn asked.

  “We have the Wielders and the mages.” He emphasized the mages, watching Aurek. Now that the self-proclaimed Baron knew where the White Cloaks were located, he needed another reason to keep Allan and the Hollowers around. The only advantage they had was the power of the Wielders and those from the University. “They’ll be able to get us through the army and the walls. After that, it’s up to us.”

  “Once we’re inside the walls, you’re on your own.” Aurek jerked his horse around. “Stay out of our way. If you find your Wielders, get out. If we find them first—”

  He didn’t finish, kicking his horse into motion, back toward their camp. His second did the same.

  The two watched them retreat in silence. “Can Hernande and the others get us in?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s the only thing keeping Aurek and his men from attacking our group and killing us all right now.” Allan turned to the Needle, frowned in thought, then headed back. “We need to talk to Hernande, Artras, and Bryce.”

  Halfway to their camp, the ground shuddered with another quake. He barely broke his stride.

  Twenty-Four

  “THEY WILL ATTACK TODAY. They are readying their men to storm the walls as we speak. They spent the night constructing ladders.”

  “And driving us insane with their drums.”

  Commander Ty didn’t acknowledge Lecrucius’ comment.

  Marcus shifted uncomfortably on their vantage at the highest tier of the temple, where he stood with Father, Ty, Darius, Lecrucius, and Dierdre. An escort of enforcers surrounded them. Father stood at the far edge, looking down over his city toward the walls and the army of Gorrani on the far side. They couldn’t see them from here, the angle wasn’t high enough, but they could hear them. They’d started chanting at dawn, the drums that had beat a steady rhythm all night long changing tenor and accelerating. The chant rose in waves, cresting, then starting over again. It came from all sides of the city.

  The wind flapped in the sleeves of Marcus’ white shirt and his cloak. The banners of the White Cloaks snapped behind them.

  “Are the White Cloaks ready?” Father asked.

  Marcus drew breath to answer, but Lecrucius beat him to it.

  “We are, Father. We have been preparing all night. The white fires of your prophecy will burn the Gorrani from our walls at Commander Ty’s signal.”

  A niggling pain crawled through Marcus’ stomach. Ever since his confrontation with Kara the night before, he’d been uneasy. Five thousand Gorrani. Five thousand. Could he kill that many using the
ley? He’d never killed anyone.

  There was no other choice. If the Gorrani breached the walls, they’d kill everyone here.

  Commander Ty glanced toward Marcus. “Until that happens, the enforcers are ready to defend the Needle and keep the Gorrani at bay.”

  Below, the Gorrani chant reached its latest peak and broke.

  “Then get to the walls. Marcus, Lecrucius, to the Needle. Dierdre, what about the people inside?”

  “Most have gathered in the plaza, Father. They’re afraid.”

  “Then you and I will go down to the plaza and reassure them. By the end of the day, the Gorrani threat will have been eliminated and our cause proven righteous. The god Korma will prevail!”

  Lecrucius, Darius, Dierdre, and most of the guards shouted out, “Korma!” but Marcus and Ty remained silent.

  As they turned to disperse, a shudder ran through the temple, strong enough to knock a few of them to the ground, although Marcus remained upright. He caught Dierdre, keeping her steady, and she shot him a worried look.

  “That’s the fourth one since last night, and stronger than the last three.”

  “I know.” As the rest of them regained their feet, he held her in reassurance. “Don’t worry. Once the Gorrani are taken care of, we’ll focus on the Nexus. I know we can stabilize it.”

  “Because of Kara? She doesn’t have the strength.”

  “She’s more powerful than Lecrucius, certainly more powerful than me.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She grabbed him by the shoulders, looked him hard in the eyes. “You’re stronger than her. Look at what happened in Erenthrall. She didn’t have the courage to do anything about the Baron or Prime Augustus, but you did. Don’t let her control you. Don’t let Lecrucius control you either.” She punctuated the last statement with a fierce kiss, then pushed him away. Father was already descending the stairs, Ty and Darius at either shoulder, a dozen enforcers surrounding them. She rushed to catch up.

  Marcus watched their retreating figures, then turned to Lecrucius.

  “Shall we, Son of the Father?”