by Ember Lane
“It wasn’t really her fault,” Pog suddenly said. “Dragnor had no business attacking Rakesh. She was just the excuse.”
Sedgewold clicked his fingers. “Exactly. Elisha wasn’t the nicest, but The Jester got it wrong. She married for money not an unusual knot to tie. Had she married for the power of Dragnor’s army, then where’s the stupidity in that?”
“So what’s the question?” I asked.
Sedgewold grinned. “The question is this: Can the jester juggle?”
“Because if he can, he set them all up,” Pog crowed.
Joss the Nine clicked his fingers. “And in doing so, removed Valkyrie’s biggest army, its wealthiest family, and its southernmost castle.”
Selor stood. “We have taken enough of your time. My thanks, Sedgewold, for your wonderful recantation.”
Sedgewold cocked his head. “I have better stories.”
“But perhaps none as important as this one. Alexa, Pog, let me show you to your quarters. You may rest, recoup, and wash up.”
We followed Selor out and into a tight corridor, soon losing the sunlight and entering the cool of the underground. Our path twisted and turned, a warren of alleyways branching off, and we continued until Selor stopped at a gated door. She handed me a key.
“Privacy is treasured here. We come from all over Valkyrie, a mismatch of houses, a mix of social tiers not all equal. Do not discount possible spies within our ranks, but if there are, then so far, they have left us be.”
Pog bundled through the doorway. I thanked Selor and backed in and closed out the world, sliding down the doorway and sitting on the cool, stone floor.
“We’ve got a bath—more a pool, two beds, and a table, oh, and a balcony too.”
Hardly the stuff of gritty resistance, I thought. I heard a splash, and that brought a smile to my face, but it was only brief, my mind going ten to the dozen.
Burying my head in my hands, I had to wonder.
I had to know.
Why had Flip undermined Valkyrie and handed their land to Ruse?
Chapter Eight
The World Weaver
Rest and Relaxation
Downtime, that’s what it felt like.
Our balcony looked down on an inviting river lined with green. It was a ways below—about a hundred feet. The morning sun hadn’t found us yet, still tucked away behind. Pog mused his own problem, namely why Vengeance was so quiet, why it wasn’t pestering him to be found.
“Striker Bay,” he suddenly said.
I pulled myself from my own musings. “What?”
“The stone—it’s here somewhere—in Valkyrie. I reckon it’s Striker Bay.”
“Your thinking?” I was coming to realize that Pog had a highly intuitive mind. He analyzed most things like it was a puzzle to be solved. To him, Valkyrie was an RPG map, and a stone was hidden in one of its hexagonals. All he had to do was find which one.
He scrunched his little face up. “It boils down to the imprints of the gods. We have two—Taric and Belved. None of the others matter.”
“Belved?”
“ShadowDancer’s god. He’s been here, and so has Taric.”
“As far as we know.”
“Which is all we can go on,” Pog snapped as if I were interrupting his train of thought. “The stones were smuggled out of Mandrake between Poleyna cracking the world and the mists falling, so it had to be then. What if it wasn’t Ruse?”
“That what?”
“That hid the stones. Have you ever heard of a quest trail? Mine started with Stalker, then Warrior, Unity, and then Enmity, each carefully placed to move us around Mandrake. And then there were your veils. You began in Irydia, same as me, but it might just as well have been worlds apart. You happened to get to Castle Zybond where Sakina tasked you with the seven veils. They moved you around Irydia until…”
“Until I found you,” I whispered.
Pog was nodding. “It’s like certain things have to be done at certain times to unlock the next path. Think about it like this. We’re floating through space; our ship’s badly damaged. Let’s call the Prism of Light its fuel rod, its drive, something along those lines. Let’s say that Petreyer represented the transport bay, cargo area—something like that. What if we needed to liberate that in order to leave our ship and travel to Valkyrie. What if we needed to get to Valkyrie to salvage parts to get our drive working?”
“So you’re still thinking there’s something more to Barakdor than meets the eye.”
“I’m saying we’re following a plan, and that plan is quite rigid. You have your tasks, and I have mine. Yours?”
“Rouse the witches of Speaker’s Isle.”
“Something to do with communications, then.”
I nodded. It sounded plausible. “And you think your stone is hidden in Striker Bay?”
“Yup, and it won’t reveal itself until you have completed your task.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re a team, and if it did, I’d have to split off and find it.”
“Well, I’m glad about that, then. Question is, who’s laying all these plans, and who would profit from selling parts of the stone?” I asked.
“Well, we all know the answer to that one, and it had to be to a god. No one else would be able to hide it from me. Or Flip, never discount him.”
I scoffed, “Always comes back to Flip.”
Pog retreated into himself after that, no doubt still thinking things through. I envied him that. He’d told me just to concentrate on what was in front of me but clearly didn’t heed his own advice.
Choosing to try and harvest some mana, I cast everything aside and cleared my mind, seeking out the river below, the flora and fauna lining it, and tried to welcome the peace and serenity of all. Slipping into it fairly easily, I began to see a pattern, to understand the mana’s circulatory system. The light mana was active, like pumping blood, but my shadowmana differed, more passive lymphatic pathways—counter to its explosive magic.
Slow to anger sprang to mind.
I breathed deeply, accepting my respite.
Elisha’s face kept interrupting me. Her narrow eyes, nose, and lips poured scorn upon me as if my efforts to help her weren’t good enough.
“I don’t know what you want from me!”
“To see the truth—to understand. Who am I? Who is Dragnor, and who is Rakesh?”
But the answer evaded me.
I ground my teeth in frustration.
“Come on, Pog. We’re going out. This is driving me nuts.”
His face immediately lit up. “Can we get some new clothes? Mine are itchy.”
“We’ll do that. I’ve got gold.”
“Show me.”
I grabbed a coin from my bag of holding, tossing it to him.
“We’ll find a blind smithy first.”
“Why?”
“These are Irydian coins, might make a fuss if we start spending them in the markets.”
It made sense.
“I wonder what happened to this place,” Pog suddenly mused aloud as we walked the corridors, trying to find a way down.
“What do you mean?”
“The rivers are too low,” he said and then ran to some steps, jumping down them three at a time. “And it smells like the ocean.”
I shrugged, my brain scrambled enough for one day.
We found the blacksmith in an alleyway right at the gorge’s bottom. It was in a narrow, dusty road, the sky a mere faraway, blue stripe. He exchanged our gold for Valkyrian coin, and we went shopping. Pog demanded a cloak. He said it lent him mysticism. I grabbed myself a new cloak too, some pants, and boots. It felt like a fresh start, a day off to recharge and recoup.
Joss the Nine eventually found us. Apparently, we were simple prey, standing out like two sore thumbs with our strange accents and inability to haggle.
“Your companions have arrived. Let’s go feast.”
As we walked out and stood at the bottom of that towering alleyway,
something changed. A heavy still suddenly descended, the air thick with sweat. We exchanged fast glances, knowing, dreading. A crack, like a huge sonic boom, like a thousand of them, clapped across the air, followed by rolling thunder, a tsunami of noise, and the ground began shaking. Joss looked up at the sky, as a blinding flash, then another flashed across it. The sky then crazed with countless bolts of lightning. I crouched, winced, the light blinding me. “What the hell was that?”
Joss grabbed us, pulling us along the alley, to a set of steps and up. The whole place shook, urgency running riot within me as the sandstone vibrated and clouds of dust thickened. We pelted up those steps, skidding around, and up the next flight. Screams filled the air, fueled by the panic of the unknown. Another huge bang, like some nuclear explosion. The ground below me shifted a yard, maybe more, sliding back under me, upending, sending me crashing into a wall. A huge rent opened up underneath me, its gap widening. Pog reached out, trying to grab me. Joss the Nine yanking me over.
Just as the side of the building slipped away.
Joss pulled me, a huge tug that sent us tumbling back. We scrambled away from the precipice as a maelstrom of dust billowed up, choking, blinding, filling my every sense, and then silence, that silence of ultimate doom.
Pog groaned, pushing himself up, looking like a dust-caked ghost. “We’ve gotta get higher,” he said.
“Higher,” Joss repeated.
We scrambled up, groans and wails now breaking the still, unseen but not unheard. The air choked. My ears rang. We stumbled blindly up, waiting, dreading the next explosion.
I retrieved my scarf, wrapping it around Pog’s head, pushing him farther into the dark. Conjuring a glowsphere, I bled mana into it, making it as bright as I could, seeing through the beige haze and spying hurrying figures, hunched over, dragging, pulling, forcing each other away from the edge.
We fought our way up rubble-filled alleys, always up, always away from the edge. I began to choke, my lungs on fire, dust, thick dust, coating my windpipe, tongue, and mouth. A shaft of light, a haze, like something magical, heavenly. Joss pulled us on, pulled us up, to the outside, to its plateau. There were hundreds, all dazed, confused, covered in filth. We sat, more dumped, ourselves down, heaving, searching out fresher air—any air.
Pog began to say something but fell silent. He cupped his ear, straining to hear. A rumble, distant, soft, but it was there.
“I told you there was something strange about this place.” Pog’s blue eyes, like fresh pools in the beige all around.
A big man, a silhouette like some monster, raged toward us. “Come away from the edge. Come away!” he shouted.
“Mezzerain!” I screamed, using every ounce of my energy to push myself up.
“Pog!” he cried, pulling him up and tossing him over his shoulder. “Alexa, Joss, all of you, run!”
“What? What’s happening?”
His wild eyes answered me and told me all I needed to know.
I scrambled up, ushering all before me. I was deranged, maddened; the rumble grew. It became deafening, drowning out my cries. Screams erupted behind me. Panic filled the throng, and we all surged toward Mezzerain. The huge slice of the ground we stood on heaved and fell away. And I saw waves where waves had no business. Great splashes of black water, clawing at the ground we stood on.
Then all steadied, the rumble turning to a sickening slurping sound, a sucking, like a plug being pulled on a bath. We walked inland, where inland shouldn’t be, and we found Melinka, Morgan, Vassal, and Sutech Charm.
Melinka looked up at me, and she mouthed some silent words, but they weren’t silent. I’d heard them; I just couldn’t accept them.
I slowly processed them, understood their meaning, reluctantly coming to terms with them.
“Variant is no longer. It’s gone. Swallowed by the sea.”
Grabbing her shoulders, I shook her hard. “What? You can’t possibly know that.”
The look she gave me nearly cut me in two. She jumped up, dragging me through the shocked throng. Whimpers, tears, devastation were everywhere. We climbed a small rise, Melinka shoving folks out of the way, and then she pointed, and I saw a huge cloud: ginormous, black, taking up nearly a quarter of that horizon.
“It’s gone,” she said, no more than a whisper.
“But how?” I asked, wondering what power could have done such a thing.
Melinka grabbed my shoulder, holding herself up as her knees gave way. “Perhaps Morlock turned to the demon when Jammer failed. Perhaps the others got rid of her. Whatever happened, that’s two dead.” She grabbed my cheeks, turning me, looking deeply into my eyes. “Perhaps they’re cleaning house.”
“Maybe we’re nearing the end,” Pog said, sneaking up on us.
Melinka threw her head back and laughed. “Thinning the herd—things are definitely spicing up.”
“What if we end up with no herd,” I said ominously.
The dust settled revealing a dystopian nightmare, like a thousand folks had walked through a sandstorm and barely survived—broken legs, cracked ribs, and worse. Melinka grabbed my arm. “Come on, time to put those healing skills to work.”
“What healing skills? I lost them all.” Sure, I’d bled a bit of mana here and there, but more in hope than any sound knowledge.
She rolled her sleeves up. “Nonsense, you have magic, so you can heal. Look at the problem; imagine it better, and then cast your heal.”
“Is that it?” I asked, grabbing at her, and stopping her walking off.
She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “How would I know? I have spells—not so careless that I’d lose them either.”
I stamped my feet. “Are you related to Marista Fenwalker, by chance?”
“No. Why would I be?” She shrugged me off and strode into the wailing melee.
My first patient—possibly substitute with victim—was a young man about my age. He was sitting, his back against a boulder. His leg was twisted into an unnatural position with dirty bone sticking through the dust-caked skin.
“There,” Melinka said. “He should be good to practice on.”
“Practice?” the man said.
“Do you want to be healed or not?” Melinka snapped, before marching away, her head held high.
I crouched by him.
“You have done this before, haven’t you?”
I closed my eyes, taking a breath and wondering if false reassurance was better than the truth. “Not exactly,” I admitted. “But I should be able to help. My magic changed recently—kind of been concentrating on blowing things up rather than healing.”
He nodded nervously, his curly, black hair spilling a crownful of dust, puppy-dog eyes looking up at me. Pain shuddered through him. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. Then he focused, grinding out a few precious words. “Are you her? Are you the one that destroyed the tower?”
I bit my lip, thinking carefully before telling him, yes. Taking out my knife, I cut the leg from his pants. The wound was brutal, fiercely angry, mauves, blacks, and browns all gathering around the snapped bone. Mezzerain crouched by me.
“Gonna need pulling or cutting it off. Pulling’s pain—pain like you’ve never felt. Your choice, son. What’s it to be?”
“Pain,” he said, far too quickly, shaking now, on the very edge of consciousness but fighting hard.
Mezzerain grunted, reaching into his tunic and bringing out a flask, popping the cork. He tipped its contents down the man’s throat, holding his mouth shut and forcing him to swallow. “Go with it, boy. Go with it.” Compassion flowed from him. “What’s your name, son?”
“Grast, sir.”
“Well, Grast, you’re in good hands. She should get it right by the third or fourth time.”
Mezzerain grinned.
Grast took a sharp breath.
“Remember her name: Alexa Drey.”
“Alexa Drey,” he slurred, before passing out.
“What the hell’s that?” I grabbed the flask fro
m Mezzerain, sniffing it, stripping my nostrils back to the bone.
“Striker Bay Six Bells Rum,” he told me, taking it back and holding it up proudly. “Valkyrian magic. Now we best get to it.” He moved around to the man’s feet, grabbing his ankles. “Ready?”
I supposed I couldn’t make it worse. “Hold on.” Looking at Grast’s good leg, I imagined the bone underneath his flesh, the pattern on his veins and arteries, nerves and muscles. Then I cupped his snapped leg, looking deeply into it, seeing its jutting bone, its severed blood vessels, and straining arteries. “Now,” I said, with little more than a breath.
Mezzerain tucked one boot into the man’s crotch, the other against the boulder with both hands on his ankle. “Sure?”
“Yes.”
He pulled with all his might. Blood spouted from the wound in feeble gouts, and the bone was sucked back into Grast’s flesh. I hesitated then looked into the leg, seeing both ends of the bone a good half inch apart. Grast suddenly screamed in my ear, scaring the crap out of me. Another man grabbed him by the throat, pulling him back and sticking a piece of wood between his teeth.
Mezzerain nodded his thanks. My heart nearly gave way.
“Ease off a little,” I asked Mezzerain.
The bones slowly closed on each other.
“Bit more,” I muttered.
Grast strained, writhed, but we held him firm. I began to dribble my mana in, trying to spread it around and through all the damaged flesh. The bones touched, I massaged them into place, watching as they began to resemble the other leg. When I was sure it was dead right, I let my mana flow, fusing the bone, the torn muscle, and his ripped skin.
I gasped, my head fuzzy, and I set the leg down, needing to recoup. I checked my mana and saw I’d used just a smidge. Pleased, I sat back on my haunches.
“Well?” Mezzerain asked.
“I…” I didn’t know what to tell him. “I think so?”
Mezzerain grunted. “Well, it’s no worse.” He eased the wood from the man’s mouth. “He’ll wake in a while, and we’ll find out.”