Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2)

by Becca Mills

A huge column of dark water was rising behind the ship, chasing us and closing fast. It was wider than the ship’s beam and taller than the mast. Inside the column, pale things were moving. I couldn’t really make them out.

  “Ribbons,” Mizzy murmured.

  “What do they do?”

  “Engulf. Consume.” Her voice was weirdly flat and distant.

  I looked around desperately for Rykthas. She’d been propelling the ship this morning. We needed to go a hell of a lot faster.

  My eye finally picked her out. A crewman was helping her up off the deck. I realized we weren’t moving. The thing must’ve broken her working.

  The water column bellied up to the ship’s stern and began curving up and around. It took a second for me to realize it wasn’t touching the ship. There must’ve been a barrier around the whole thing, like a huge bubble.

  “That you?”

  Williams nodded. Then he grabbed my hand, and the invasion and the pulling and the pain started.

  I felt his barrier. Nothing fancy, this time — just compressed nitrogen — but very, very large. Just maintaining a barrier that big was hard, but there was also this incredible weight pressing on it. So heavy. It took every ounce of focus to keep the barrier from buckling.

  The water column moved around the ship, leaning on the barrier all the way.

  As it came closer, I saw what was inside — endlessly long, fuzzy ropes of something or other, coiling languidly, delicately. It looked like tinsel. I searched for a head, eyes, some sort of organization, but there was nothing.

  The column stopped amidships, leaning and leaning. It was pressing on the center of the long side of the barrier — the weakest part.

  So heavy.

  We were so focused on the pressure we didn’t notice the small opening being drilled at deck level — not until a thick shaft of water with a string of tinsel inside reached out and tagged the bare skin of a passing crewman. The man screamed and collapsed in a seizure. The water shaft thickened rapidly as the hole in the barrier got bigger. Within seconds, it engulfed the man and sucked him out into the column.

  We isolated the hole in the barrier and knitted it up, but too late.

  Now it became a game. We tried to find the holes being drilled, but the barrier was so big and the holes started out so small — just a gap between atoms. It took a lot of attention, and then the whole column would lean on us harder. Every time we focused on the pressure, a shaft got through and someone died.

  One of them must’ve been the ship’s barrier-worker. I hadn’t realized he’d been helping, but when his contribution vanished, god did I feel it.

  As though from far away, I could hear Rykthas ordering everyone to get below.

  The pressure became unbearable. I pushed back against it, and twenty new holes appeared.

  Then Terry stepped out in front of me.

  He was holding something roundish and dark, like an avocado. He was smiling ruefully, like it’d been a great party, and he was sorry to go, but it was getting late. Somewhere nearby, Mizzy was screaming his name. Then some small, metallic thing fell from his hands and stepped into the thick rope of water and ribbon I’d let through just for him. He disappeared into the column, and I put everything I had into hardening the barrier. There was a violent concussion, and the ribbons’ column went white inside. Then it collapsed, cascading over the dome of my barrier in an avalanche of frothy, pinkish bubbles.

  I sat on the bunk in Williams’s cabin, holding Mizzy’s hand.

  She’d cried and cried, had told me all the things I didn’t want to hear — how sweet Terry had been as a baby, his favorite color when he was seven, the first time a girl broke his heart. She might’ve looked younger, but she’d helped raise him, just as she had Ida. She’d known him for every single day of his twenty-eight years.

  I listened. It was the least I could do.

  I knew it was Williams who’d made the decision — Williams who’d understood Terry’s intentions, Williams who’d allowed the ribbon in to take him. But it felt at the time like I was doing it, and I couldn’t shake that feeling now.

  And why should I? I might not have been in the driver’s seat, but Williams couldn’t have done it without me.

  And if he hadn’t done it, we’d all be dead.

  Eventually Mizzy cried herself out. I took her back to her room and sat with her until she fell asleep.

  I went to check on Ida. I knocked on her door several times, but she didn’t answer. Worried, I pushed it open and peeked in.

  She was sitting on her bunk, her face a mask of suffering. There were no tears, just pain.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Would you like me to stay for a while?”

  She looked over at me, meeting my eyes for a long moment. Then she shook her head and turned away.

  I closed her door and leaned against the wall beside it.

  I felt empty inside.

  Terry.

  It didn’t seem possible he was gone. He’d just been here. Just this morning. He was so alive, so vibrant. How could that just stop? There wasn’t even a body left. There’d been six crewmen in there with Terry when the grenade exploded. We hadn’t recovered a single recognizably human thing.

  I was tired. My tears burned. I squeezed my eyes shut on them and covered my face. Ida couldn’t hear me cry. I didn’t have the right.

  I tried to make myself go check on Kevin, but I just couldn’t. It was too much.

  Instead, I went back to Williams’s cabin.

  The man was exactly where he’d been for the last three hours — sitting on the floor against the far wall.

  I sat down on the bunk.

  He looked at me.

  His expression held none of the things you might expect. No guilt. No remorse. No desire for sympathy. No request for understanding. No challenge. Nor was it blank and emotionless. It acknowledged the event and the responsibility. Yes, it said, I did that. And that was all.

  I looked back at him for a while, disturbed by how much I respected that expression.

  Then I curled up on the bunk and went to sleep.

  For the first time in several weeks, the night was just a dark emptiness. No dreams, nothing at all.

  Chapter 15

  I stood near the bow as Rykthas’s ship — battered and full of grief — bellied up to the wharf in Emden, one of Demesnes’s larger cities.

  Rykthas caught my eye and gave a little nod. She would cover for us. We’d killed two of her passengers and destroyed her barrier, but we’d also saved her ship and most of her crew from an attack her barrier probably couldn’t have repelled. Plus, someone must have successfully bribed one of her crew members to poison Williams. We’d agreed not to mention that little fact to anyone.

  So long as Cordus bought her a new barrier equal to the old, we’d be square.

  I hoped Cordus came through. Rykthas was probably the kind of person who could make problems for us if she wanted to.

  Williams, Mizzy, Ida, Kevin, and I disembarked with the other passengers.

  Kevin drummed up a cart for our luggage, and we waited as a crane lifted our stuff out of the ship’s hold and the city’s tax-collectors went through it. Once everything was accounted for, six men strapped themselves to the cart’s staves and started pulling it.

  In response to my raised eyebrows, Mizzy said horses weren’t allowed in the city.

  “So people act as horses?”

  She grimaced. “I think the idea is that people don’t relieve themselves in the streets.”

  Seriously? Emden sounded like a pretty uptight place.

  I groped around, trying to remember if I’d covered the city’s reigning power in my lessons with Yellin, but my brain had labelled a lot of that stuff “trivial” and buried it in some dusty, out-of-the-way closet.

  We headed up from the docks into the city proper. It was impressive. Everything was built of cream-colored stone, and the streets were paved with the stuff. Every store and residence flew a flag or bann
er. They seemed to be purely decorative, each one different. Flowering vines cascaded down from the balconies, and most windows had flowerboxes.

  I saw no animals of any kind. Instead of riding, people walked. Carts of all kinds were drawn by people instead of horses. Everyone — even the people pulling carts — was neatly dressed. I peeked into alleys, under fruit stands, and down storm drains. There wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere.

  It was sort of weird — like the city was more of a showpiece than a real place.

  Williams guided us north to the edge of town — an hour’s walk. At a certain point, we must’ve passed over the animals-are-allowed line because dogs started barking at us from people’s front yards. A plump silver tabby cat emerged from under a wheelbarrow and followed us for a block, running ahead to flop down and roll around extravagantly on the stone, showing us its furry belly.

  Eventually we came to a stable. We made the proprietor very happy by buying nine horses, riding tack for five, four pack saddles, and what seemed like a million panniers and bags.

  The Emden carters unloaded our stuff and headed back to the city center, hopefully with a big tip. We organized everything and loaded it onto the packhorses.

  When we finished, we were left with a small mound of stuff that had belonged to Terry — clothes, weapons, ammo, some odds and ends. We stood around the pile in silence.

  “Take what you want,” Williams said.

  Ida took Terry’s gun-cleaning kit and a recoil pad that fit her shotgun. Mizzy took a pair of snake-proof gaiters. Kevin just walked away.

  There was a book in the pile. I bent down and picked it up. It was a volume of poetry — well thumbed, with a number of dog-eared pages.

  I’d had no idea Terry liked poetry. The realization of how little I’d known him reached into me like a trowel and scooped out a painful little hole.

  “Does anyone want to keep this?”

  Everyone looked at the book in my hands. No one reached for it.

  I walked over to my horse and made a big production of finding room for the paperback in my saddlebags. I needed the time to stem the tears. Behind me, I heard Williams gathering up the remaining stuff.

  Once everything was squared away, we mounted up. My new horse was a nicely put together buckskin gelding. I hoped he’d prove to be calmer and better tempered than Copper.

  We rode twenty minutes to an inn Kevin had recommended. He said it had inexpensive rooms with private bathing facilities, and he was right — there was a tub in the corner of my room, and it had hot running water. I knelt down next to it, running my hands over the polished copper. Mizzy stood next to me, an expression of awe on her face.

  Williams knocked and stuck his head in. “Don’t leave the inn. Either of you.”

  For a few seconds, he watched us worshipping the tub. Then he snorted and left.

  “How can he not be excited?” Mizzy said. “Doesn’t he bathe?”

  I forced a grin. “Why waste time? You just get dirty again.”

  She smiled a little.

  I took a breath to tell her to forget the whole fealty thing, but Williams’s words popped to mind. You’re new to this. Just take my advice.

  Mizzy stood there.

  I also stood there, mouth open, struggling with myself.

  After several long seconds, Mizzy said, “Okay, then. I guess I’ll go clean up?”

  I nodded, and she left.

  Damn.

  I’d had a half-dozen interactions like that with her over the past few days. I couldn’t quite understand it. I wasn’t usually so indecisive, especially when I felt right and wrong were at stake. I guess what Williams said had made some sense. Or maybe some sixth sense was trying to tell me Mizzy really was dangerous.

  Or maybe I was just being a chicken-shit.

  I shook my head, frustrated at myself. If only I had a friend here, so I could talk it through and get some advice.

  My mind’s ear heard my mother saying, If wishes were horses …

  I decided I’d think it through after dinner. Maybe revelation would strike.

  I took a long and very hot bath. It felt wonderful. Even on a ship as luxurious as Rykthas’s, fresh water had been tightly rationed.

  Afterwards, I sat down in front of the mirror and started working the tangles out of my hair. It was getting pretty long. Back in New York, Tezzy had been after me to cut it. She said long hair was a big liability in a fight.

  “Your hair is a lovely color,” Mizzy said from the doorway, startling me.

  “Did I leave my door open?”

  It must’ve sounded sharper than I intended, because she paled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think … I mean … I’m sorry.”

  She backed out and swung the door shut.

  Shit.

  “I didn’t mean you shouldn’t come in, Mizzy. Come back!” I paused. “Mizzy? Can you hear me?”

  The door cracked open, and she stuck her head in.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really just wanted to know if I’d left my door open. Because, you know. I shouldn’t do that. Safety, and all.”

  “No, it wasn’t open. But it wasn’t locked.” She was looking down. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just come in like that.”

  What’s wrong with her?

  The snarky, flirty, confident Mizzy was MIA. I didn’t know what to do with this tentative, scared person she’d become. Layer her grief for Terry on top of that, and she was a shadow of her former self.

  “It’s okay, really.” I tried for a jaunty grin. “I wasn’t in the tub, and even if I were, it’s nothing you haven’t seen in the mirror.”

  She smiled, but I could still see the worry there.

  “Come on in. Thanks for complimenting my hair. I’ve always thought it was pretty plain.”

  “No, it’s dark enough to be striking. It’s definitely not plain.”

  “Well, thanks. I like yours a lot too.”

  She twirled a bit in her fingers. “I don’t know. Maybe I should darken it a bit.”

  As I watched, her hair changed from platinum to golden blond.

  I stared at her, shocked.

  “Wow. You can just …” I waved my hand vaguely.

  “Remake myself?” Her brow tightened, and she looked away. “Yeah. But not drastically. I can’t change my mass.”

  Her voice contained all kinds of tones — grief, gratitude, confusion. Maybe resentment.

  I didn’t know how to react. I also didn’t really understand. Was the working she’d made using my power something different, or had I just never witnessed her playing with the earlier one?

  I dragged my voice out from the corner where it’d gone to hide. “It looks nice the way it is, but I like the lighter color too.”

  She nodded, still not meeting my gaze, and her hair shifted back to platinum. “Well, I’ll just see you downstairs, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll be down in a sec.”

  She closed the door.

  Jeez. Props for the most awkward interaction ever.

  I got dressed and put my hair in a ponytail so it wouldn’t get my shirt wet. Then I went downstairs.

  Williams, Ida, and Mizzy were in the common room. Williams was sitting in a corner, bent over a largely untouched beer. The women were seated across the room.

  Oh brother.

  I wondered if the separation was because of Terry. Maybe they blamed Williams.

  The big man motioned me over with a jerk of his head.

  I walked toward him, thinking he looked weird. After a moment, I realized it was because he was clean. Oddly, it made him look more dangerous, as though the coating of grime had been obscuring his sharp edges.

  I pulled up a chair, and he put up a barrier.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Rest up this afternoon. Head out in the evening.”

  I grimaced. “Can’t we wait ’til morning?”

  He rubbed a finger down his glass, leaving a trail in the condensation.

  “No.
This city’s no good.”

  “How come?”

  “Too damn many powers.”

  That sent a shiver up my back. “It’ll take two months to cross this stratum?”

  He nodded. “Ligature’s on the north island, about eight hundred miles from here.” He looked up at me. “We need to pass unnoticed. This is the most dangerous stratum we’ll travel through.”

  Wow. After what we’d already been through, that was saying a lot.

  “Should we go undercover? Join a traveling circus or something?”

  “First place they’ll look.”

  Was that a joke? Surely not.

  “What about Ice Like Glass? Are there a lot of powers there too?”

  He shook his head. “It’s wilderness. Mountains and lakes. The lakes are full of methane — only safe to cross when they’re frozen.”

  He was silent for a moment, and I thought he was done. Then he said, “The methane freezes in bubbles in the ice.”

  “Sounds beautiful.”

  He shrugged and looked down at his beer.

  I studied him across the table. “I’m still thinking of letting Mizzy go.”

  He flashed to anger. “Don’t.”

  “Why are you so suspicious of her?”

  He looked at me like I was dense.

  I shook my head. “It’s not just her wanting to draw on me. You were suspicious of her before Ancient Inland.”

  “How do you think she ended up with Gates?”

  I shrugged. “She’s a Nolander. She’s old. She was probably being hunted.”

  “Who hunted Nolanders?”

  “Seconds.”

  “Strong ones. Powers.”

  “Yeah, I guess. So?”

  “Hunter’s probably still around. She’s hiding. Hooking up with someone more powerful than Gates would make her safer.”

  I thought about it. “So she’s going to sell us out to someone who can protect her better? We’re, like, her entry fee?”

  He stared at me silently.

  “She could’ve sold us out to Chasca,” I said. “Or that guy in Kye Wodor. Kekataugh.”

  “Allies of Gates’s. And no stronger.”

  I looked across the room.

  As though she could feel my eyes, Mizzy turned. She only met my glance for an instant.