Shimmerdark

by Sarah Mensinga

  As ten sets of yellow-gray eyes watch me float up into the dark sky, I struggle to both control my levitation and expand the disc I’m sitting on.

  My shimmerdark soon spreads out like a black pool edged in dancing blue light. It’s so large I can no longer see the wolievs or the seg-coach, just Silvermaar Lake, stretching out dark and vast.

  When I have the trembling sense that I’ll lose control if I summon any more energy, I walk to the edge of the disc. Now I’m not above the bridge anymore; I’m standing over the lake.

  I’m also about to be so cold—and oh, this had better work.

  I take a short, sharp breath to gather my courage, and then I jump. At the same time, I crush the vast disc of cagic into a small, blazing hot sphere of shimmerdark, and I send that sphere streaking down toward the reservoir. As it drops, I do too, plummeting toward the frigid lake.

  The canister explodes, just like I hoped it would, and for a glorious, satisfying second, I see a rainbow of sparks and flames blossom up from the bridge. Then I splash into the water.

  Eeeeergh, it’s brutally, painfully cold.

  So cold I think my heart might stop.

  If I want to live, I have to get out of the lake immediately.

  It takes me a long, shapeless moment to gather my wits. I feel as if the seg-coach has rolled over me several times. I try to create an energy disc to lift myself upward, but nothing happens.

  I suppose I can’t summon cagic underwater.

  I have to get to the surface.

  Frantically kicking and paddling, I try not to think about what might be lurking in the icy darkness. And although I’m thankful I know how to swim; I’ve never been in such frigid water and never swam fully clothed. When the ferry sank, I was in a lifeboat.

  Finally, my head breaks the surface. I gasp in frosty air and reach up to create a shimmerdark bar.

  It sizzles and crackles under my wet fingers and feels like a mass of sharp pins. I lengthen it and grab on with my other hand. Then I haul my drenched self back onto the bridge.

  At first, all I can do is collapse onto the stone, shivering and sopping. But I’m still alive. Realms, I’m relieved.

  I also see that the exploding canister made a huge hole in the bridge and surrounding it are smoldering woliev parts.

  I did it.

  I saved us.

  “Rutholyn!” I shout, limping back to the seg-coach.

  She unbolts the cabdwell door, and I tumble inside, my wet clothes slapping onto the rug. I vaguely notice that Rutholyn managed to shove the floor panel back.

  “You need to be dry,” she says, and I hear her shut and bolt the door.

  “I know,” I mumble.

  But I can’t see to my own needs just yet. I still have to protect her. Standing up wearily, I shove the dead woliev out of the midpassage with a shimmerdark cube. Once I’ve flopped its body onto the bridge, I climb back into the damaged vehicle and block the midpassage with a new shimmerdark panel. To kill two birds with one stone, I fill the door with extra energy, heating it until the edges glow a cozy orange. Now we’ll be safe and warm.

  I have just enough strength left to strip off my wet clothes—an agonizing ordeal—and then I pull on the first outfit I find in my trunk, a long, sleeping gown. Once dressed, I wrap myself in a blanket and fall onto the table-bed. Rutholyn curls up beside me.

  “Keep watch,” I mumble, and I’m not sure who I’m talking to, Rutholyn or Glowy Pony. After that, I fuzzily consider how impressed Drae Devorla is going to be with me, and then I succumb to a deep, dreamless sleep.

  15

  Haberdine

  Iwake to stinging pain, the odd sensation of small fingers prodding my back, and the plink, plink, plink of rain on the metal roof. I’m also cold. Blinking my eyes open, I see that my shimmerdark panel still blocks the midpassage, but the sparks skittering across it are no longer orange. Instead, they’re a greenish-blue. I suppose hot shimmerdark eventually cools off.

  I blearily roll over and find Glowy Pony and Rutholyn sitting beside me. She’s wrapped herself in a heavy blanket, and she’s also wearing a simple, glimmering tiara of shimmerlight. I think she’s using it to see—how clever.

  “There’s still blood coming out of you,” she tells me.

  That explains why I feel so weak. “How much?”

  Rutholyn holds up a red-soaked rag. “This much. I couldn’t find any bandages. I only found that.” She nods at what seems to be a tin of medicinal balm. It smells pleasantly like pineflower oil.

  “There are more medical supplies in the guidebox,” I say before realizing they probably aren’t there anymore. And thinking about the damaged guidebox with its shattered windows, broken steering wheel, and shredded seats is sobering. When I was fighting the wolievs, my only goal was survival. Now that the battle’s over, I wish I’d tried harder to protect the seg-coach.

  Rutholyn touches my shoulder. “Also there are rattatears out there.”

  The dead wolievs must be attracting scavengers. I should have expected that and pushed their bodies off the bridge.

  “I don’t think rattatears will bother us.” I try to remember what Fedorie used to say about them. “They aren’t hunters.”

  I summon more cagic into the shimmerdark door to warm up the cabdwell, and then I take off my gown so Rutholyn can more easily tend to my injuries. Oh, I am a mess. Shallow cuts and ugly purple bruises cover my arms, and my back feels like… well, it feels like I just fought a pack of wolievs. “Should my cuts be sewn closed?”

  “Maybe… I don’t know.” Rutholyn presses a damp cloth against my torn skin and then smears some balm on the wounds.

  The pain around my spine brightens, and I wince.

  I didn’t see any sewing supplies in the seg-coach anyway, so I suppose we might as well just cover my wounds.

  I help Rutholyn make bandages out of clean kitchen rags, which we secure with laces pulled out of Golly’s boots. Once my injuries are well wrapped, Rutholyn asks, “What should we do now?” And I’m sure she’s really asking, “How will we survive?”

  With the seg-coach broken, we don’t have many options. “We’ll have to walk to Haberdine… or maybe ride on an energy disc. At least we’re close.”

  Rutholyn strokes Glowy Pony’s dark head and frowns. “Do you think you can stop nocturnes from always trying to eat us?”

  “I hope so,” I say, and then realizing a child might need more reassurance, I add, “We just killed a pack of wolievs, so the nocturnes should really be afraid of us.”

  Rutholyn smiles, and then in the soft glow of her shimmerlight crown and my shimmerdark door, we prepare to leave. I first change into warmer clothes, and since most of my outfits are for hot Bright Month weather, I put on both of my densely ruffled stolas, two sets of leggings, a vest, and a pair of Golly’s woolen socks. And oh, how I long to bathe. I smell like woliev breath and lake water.

  Once Rutholyn is also warmly dressed, wearing several of Theandra’s coziest outfits, we take the remaining downleveling equipment out of their storage cases. We then repack those cases with two empty bottles, a few tins of food and a wind-up can-opener, a big kitchen knife, the remaining crackers, the medicinal balm, and a pair of blankets.

  “Look at what Glowy Pony wants us to have,” Rutholyn says, holding up a basket of hats and mittens.

  “What do you mean, Glowy Pony wants us to have these?” I ask.

  Rutholyn looks blankly at me. “I don’t know. He went to that drawer, and I opened it, and there was this basket.”

  I give Glowy Pony a suspicious look. “How did you know that was in there?”

  The shimmerdark horselet blinks innocently, and then he trots over to a different drawer and touches it with his nose.

  I open it and find two canvas rain covers. How strange, but also, how helpful. “Thank you,” I say. One of the rain covers is huge and surely Golly’s. The other is about my size and must fit Theandra. Taking scissors, I chop the bottom off both, that way Rutholyn
can wear Theandra’s and I can wear Golly’s.

  Footwear is also a challenge. Rutholyn’s wearing thin canvas shoes with flimsy soles, and although I have several pairs of boots, none of them are sturdy enough to hike in. Besides, my right foot is still swollen and might not fit into a shoe. Yet other than Golly’s far too big boots, I can’t find much.

  I cautiously ask Glowy Pony for help. “Are there other shoes here?”

  The horselet shakes his head, no, and I believe him, which makes me feel like I’m losing my mind a little.

  “We’ll find better shoes in Haberdine,” I tell Rutholyn, easing my injured foot into one of my boots and lacing it loosely.

  I also want the map and compass from the guidebox, and I hope I can get them without upsetting the rattatears. The compass will be especially challenging to take because it’s built into the control panel. I’ll have to pry it free.

  “Are you ready to go?” I ask Rutholyn.

  “Maybe,” she murmurs, looking very small in her grown-up clothes. “I’m scared that something will want to eat us.”

  “Me too,” I say, and it does seem reckless to leave the seg-coach. Even though it’s badly damaged, it’s still a shelter full of useful supplies. And now if I fight nocturnes, I’ll have to protect Rutholyn at the same time.

  But it would be just as risky to stay here. The Dark Month’s only beginning, and we’d quickly run out of food. So I release the cagic door, and we creep down the cold midpassage to the guidebox. Rain’s now splattering in through the broken navigation window and everything’s drenched. Outside, I see five rattatears gnawing on the dead woliev I pushed out of the seg-coach. The grimy rodents aren’t as large as most nocturnes, only about as big as dogs, yet they still look frightening with their scruffy bodies and ropy, forked tails. At least they seem more interested in the dead woliev than us. Yet if a hungry owleck spots them, it might snatch up Rutholyn or me instead.

  Theandra’s map is gone except for a few soggy fragments stuck to the floor. Thankfully, though, the compass is in good shape, and I’m able to twist it out.

  “Stay close,” I whisper to Rutholyn as I climb down the big coach wheel. I then reach up and help her follow me. A rattatear hisses at us but doesn’t attack, and the others don’t even look up as we quietly creep away from the seg-coach.

  “I think this will be a long walk,” Rutholyn says, watching Glowy Pony canter soundlessly ahead.

  “I think so too,” I say, limping beside her, glad the broken section of the bridge isn’t in the direction we need to go. If I remember the map correctly, we’ll reach Haberdine as long as we keep heading south. I very much hope the road ahead will be easier to follow than the one behind us.

  Once we are well away from the rattatears, I decide to attempt to use transference to carry us to Haberdine. I’m ambitious at first, creating a hollow globe of shimmerdark with a circular opening. It looks like a big egg, is roomy enough for Rutholyn and I to sit inside, and will provide warmth and shelter from both the nocturnes and the weather. Yet because of its complex shape and large size, I’m only able to make it float a hand’s span above the bridge and move at a snail’s pace. We could walk faster.

  So I try a simpler shape, creating a round disc of shimmerdark as wide as my outstretched arms. I then climb onto it, pull Rutholyn into my lap, cover our legs with a blanket, and hang our leather cases on my back. We still don’t travel fast, for I don’t want to topple off or get too cold, but we move somewhere between a walking and running pace, and it’s much easier on my ankle. Because I might have to suddenly release the disc to defend us, we hover no higher than chest height.

  It occurs to me that the glowing shimmerdark might attract flying nocturnes, and only seconds later, Glowy Pony abruptly stops and looks skyward.

  I look up too, and at first, I can’t see anything. Yet after a few seconds, I glimpse the triangular, stocky outline of an owleck.

  Rutholyn shrieks and presses closer. Fear whips through me too, but I push it away. I fought a pack of wolievs. I can handle one owleck.

  I abandon the disc beneath us so I can create a shimmerdark shield, and we fall to the bridge, landing in a jumble. Rutholyn yelps indignantly but then falls silent as owleck talons scrabble against my shield. Cagic crackles brightly, and then the monstrous bird sails off into the darkness with an offended screech. By the time the nocturne circles around again, I’ve had time to create and heat a flat, thin length of shimmerdark. I send the sizzling energy upward, and it stabs through the huge bird with a wet, crackling sound. The dead owleck drops into the lake, and a spray of cold water splatters onto the bridge.

  “I think you did a good job,” Rutholyn says in her overly serious way.

  “Thanks,” I say, helping her to her feet and feeling more confident as I reshape our transference disc. I learned from my fight with the wolievs, and hopefully I learned enough to keep us alive.

  Glowy Pony has also been surprisingly useful. Not only did he find those mittens and rain covers, he noticed the owleck before I did, giving me precious time to react.

  “You helped us,” I say to him. “Thank you.”

  Glowy Pony looks up at me, blinking his bright eyes. He still makes me uneasy, but I’m also kind of glad he’s here.

  We soon reach the far shore, which has a sandy beach rather than a rocky one. Rutholyn and I climb off the shimmerdark disc, and I fill our bottles. Nothing attacks us, but I ready a hot disc of shimmerdark just in case.

  I then use that disc to purify our water by setting the bottles on it until the water boils. After the bottles have cooled, Rutholyn and I drink our fill, and then I repeat the process, refilling the bottles and boiling the water. Yet this time, when we can comfortably handle the glass, we tuck the bottles inside our clothes and hug their warmth to our chests. No longer shivering, we climb back on a glittering shimmerdark disc and continue along the road.

  There aren’t as many trees on this side of the lake, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. It will be easier for nocturnes to find us, but I suppose it will also be easier for me to see them. The road is still in terrible shape, though, which makes no sense. Surely it should get better the nearer we are to Haberdine. Doesn’t anybody there travel north?

  As our disc glides forward, the landscape becomes hilly. The rain keeps falling too, sizzling and popping when it strikes the shimmerdark, and the higher we go, the windier it gets. It’s soon so cold, my fingers and toes ache, my face stings, and my nose is constantly running. Every now and then, I stop to warm our water bottles, but it barely helps. At least no nocturnes trouble us for a while. But as we pass a frozen creek, a shareck bursts out of the forest. I have just enough time to dump us on the ground and compress our transference disc into a small, hot dart of energy. Yet because of the monster’s loping, uneven gait, I miss, and instead of quickly killing the beast, all I do is severely slice its leg.

  How horrifying. With a cry, Rutholyn ducks behind me as the shareck slides down the wet rocks, bleeding and shrieking. I scramble to summon and heat more cagic, and then I behead it, which is disgusting, but at least it’s dead. “I’m so sorry,” I say to Rutholyn, and really to the monster too.

  I suppose that’s silly, though; that shareck was about to happily disembowel us. Yet as deadly as nocturnes are, the Dark Month is their domain. Rutholyn and I are intruders, invaders.

  “At least it wasn’t a senneck,” Rutholyn whispers.

  I nod. Sennecks are the most dangerous nocturnes, at least in this part of the Connected Lands. In the eastern arm, people are afraid of tigrons and waspers.

  I make a new transference disc so we can keep traveling, and although it’s finally stopped raining, a thick fog has settled. We don’t see any more sharecks, but a rattatear jumps on our transference disc and bites Rutholyn through her mitten. An owleck also carries me high into the air before I’m able twist free and kill it, and then a slow, surely ancient tortrussor crosses our path. He’s huge—the size of the seg-coach at le
ast—and covered in mossy spines and small plants. Yet aside from glaring at us for a moment, he keeps lumbering forward, and thank the realms. I don’t want to battle something so massive and well-armored.

  After seeing the tortrussor, though, I wonder if I could make Glowy Pony larger to protect us. When I explain the idea to him, he shakes his head. But I say, “At least let me try.”

  However Glowy Pony was right, it is bad idea. By the time he’s waist high, he seems unable to maintain his cagic form. Energy sheds off of him, and his crisp horselet shape softens and droops.

  “Fine, fine,” I say. “Hold still.” And thankfully, it doesn’t take me long to return him to his original size and shape.

  Soon after that, we reach another bridge that stretches across a deep ravine. It’s much shorter than the lake bridge and made of timber thick enough to support a subtrain. On the far side, I see the hazy, angular silhouettes of buildings.

  “Haberdine! We made it!” I cry, and I lower our shimmerdark disc so we can walk the rest of the way.

  “Now we’re here!” Rutholyn hugs me as Glowy Pony prances in a happy circle around us.

  High over the buildings, poles support a star net that looks a lot like a fishing net draped over the town. I thought Kaverlee was the only place in our cityland with aboveground cagic protection during the Dark Month. I suppose Drae Devorla must have installed barriers here while I was on the Grimshore.

  I look around, and sure enough, I see the same cagic projection towers that shield Kaverlee’s Expansion District.

  I remember Drae Devorla talking about building a barrier system in Port Beyder. She hoped that one day everyone in the Periph would live like we do in Kaverlee City: able to stay home during the Dark Month, rather than hiding in underground shelters.

  But why isn’t the barrier system here working? Shimmerlight walls should stretch from tower to tower, and the star net should glow bright blue.

  Perhaps it’s still being built.