The Coming Chaos

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Now you attack an unarmed woman,” she said.

  The blacksmith spun and lunged again, bringing the hammer around.

  He was fast—faster than she would’ve expected.

  If he wasn’t augmented, he still had power. He was considerably larger than her, and if he crashed into her, she likely wouldn’t get up.

  It was the kind of thing that suggested she needed to keep moving. If she suddenly Slid away, then the answers she needed would be gone.

  She breathed out heavily.

  The blacksmith neared her, and she Slid, reappearing where she’d been before, with her back to the wall. The other man was there. Lucy attempted to Slide, but he had grabbed on to her.

  She pulled, but he was strong.

  She felt a faint surge of emotion from him. It was the only thing she was able to uncover. With it, she could feel his triumph, as if he was excited about grabbing her.

  She needed to glimpse more of his emotion than that.

  She Slid, dragging him with her, and then Slid again. Each time she did, she emerged only a small distance away, but it was enough to unsettle the blacksmith, keeping him from reaching her. With every Slide, she dragged this man with her, preventing him from releasing her. She tried to disorient him. If he had the ability to Slide on his own, then he wouldn’t have any trouble with this, but if he didn’t—and the longer he held on to her, the more she began to wonder whether or not he did—she expected he would find the jarring sensation of each Slide too much to handle.

  She wasn’t getting anywhere. Each time she emerged, the blacksmith spun toward her. And so she Slid, emerging outside on the street.

  The other man still held on to her, but she kicked, driving her foot into his groin, and he released his grip. She Slid back a few steps, getting away from him, and watched.

  He leaned over, and when he did, she searched for evidence of a scar on the back of his head, or anything that would tell her he had some augmentation, but she wasn’t able to see anything.

  If he did, it had overgrown, much the way hers had overgrown.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “You come to our town and question us?”

  “Are you with the C’than?”

  He stood up and wiped his hands on his jacket before crossing his arms over his chest. “You aren’t going to get any answers from us.”

  Lucy looked around, worried she might be surrounded by others, but there wasn’t anyone else.

  It was just this man, and then the door to the shop opened and the blacksmith poked his head out.

  Out in the street, he could barrel toward her, but she was able to Slide quickly.

  What she wanted was information, not to continue to battle with them, but she wasn’t sure she was going to get that information.

  She could return. If she brought enough support with her—and if Carth came—she might be able to find out what she wanted, but she worried if she disappeared, they would too.

  And here she had come for understanding, but now that she was close to finding it, she wasn’t sure if her efforts were going to be enough.

  She focused on the smaller of the two men and tried to Read him.

  His mind was muted, shielded, but there had to be some way beyond that. Her mind would’ve been the same way with the Architect, and yet he had somehow managed to reach inside her thoughts and place a soft Push.

  Was there anything she could use from that experience?

  She had to believe he had somehow Slid those thoughts into her mind. If so, then could she do the same?

  She was able to anchor to thoughts, and in this case, she wasn’t trying to Slide to the man but attempting to Slide a Push into him.

  It would take something different than she had ever tried before, but if she was ever going to do it, now would be the time.

  She focused. It was a strange thing to try to think of, but as she did, she found she was able to do it.

  The barrier in his mind fell away, and she forced her pressure inside, Pushing on this man. The request was simple: Open your mind.

  She didn’t want anything more than that, only for him to reveal himself to her and for her to be able to understand what he was doing and what the two of them were planning. She needed to know whether there was anything to fear from either of them, and whether they were working with this man. It was possible he didn’t even know. They could’ve been experimented on the same way she had been.

  Thoughts drifted into her mind.

  As they did, she felt a moment of victory.

  It was short-lived.

  The blacksmith barreled toward her, lumbering faster and faster, and without any other choice, Lucy Slid.

  17

  Lucy

  Lucy emerged within the tower and looked around the inside of the library, finding it empty once again. She breathed out heavily, leaning on her thighs, resting her hands there as she panted.

  Was there anything she’d be able to uncover from what she’d managed to Read? Anything she could dig up would be faint, difficult, but she needed to try to reach through it, to see if there was anything useful there.

  She took a seat at the table, looking around the library. When she’d been here before, she had used this as an opportunity to Read herself, and now she again wondered if she could learn anything.

  This time, she had been able to Push on the man in town. She had to be able to find something from him. She closed her eyes, focusing.

  The answers were there, deep in her mind.

  It had been fast, fleeting, and yet she knew they had to be there.

  Images raced through her mind. Lucy struggled to slow them, trying to get through them so she could better understand what she had encountered, but she could feel only faint stirrings.

  There had to be more than that.

  The more she focused, the more she could slow down what she’d encountered. She had to dig deeper.

  There might be another way.

  Could she reach him from here?

  Doing so would be difficult, but she had touched his mind, and with the Push, she had a connection to him she didn’t before.

  She could reach across the distance, the same way she often anchored to Daniel Elvraeth.

  And if she could, then she might be able to uncover the answers she wanted without endangering herself.

  She focused on him.

  From here, he was farther away than she wanted. Could she Slide part of the way?

  Doing so was challenging, but she thought about shifting her focus, Sliding only a part of herself, using just her mind to stretch out rather than taking her whole body. Even if she could do that, Lucy wasn’t sure it was safe.

  And yet, to get the answers she wanted without endangering herself, it might be necessary. She didn’t have the skill to do it without getting hurt, and if she approached too closely, she was going to put herself in danger.

  She didn’t want anything to do with that kind of danger, so she focused.

  The faint streamers of his mind were there.

  It was muted, but she detected the sense of him, almost as if she could connect to him. She used what she had done before, Sliding her mind.

  Doing it again was easier the second time, and now that she had, she was able to bridge the distance between them, and she found his mind opened up to her.

  She forced her way in.

  It was possible he would know she was there. At this point, she no longer cared. All she wanted was to dig into his mind, to know who had been responsible for placing the augmentations, and to determine whether the C’than were part of this.

  As she dug, she found evidence of an augmentation.

  It was as she had suspected. The connection was there. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was the augmentation had given him an awareness of others around him. She could tell he sensed everyone, though it was different than her ability to Read. His was more of a connection.

  Strange, but perhaps a usef
ul ability.

  She pushed deeper. What she wanted was to know whether he was rogue C’than, or at least whether he was with the rogue C’than. Perhaps they had placed the augmentation, or perhaps it was the Ai’thol.

  There had been no scar, and without a scar, she had to wonder whether the Ai’thol were responsible.

  The Architect had been there.

  Could he have been running experiments?

  It was the kind of thing Olandar Fahr would approve of.

  And of course he would be conducting experiments. He would want to know whether it was safe for others to have an augmentation placed. If Olandar Fahr began to use similar augmentations to the C’than’s, it was going to be more dangerous for all of them.

  Within his mind, she found the person who had placed it.

  It wasn’t the Architect.

  She didn’t recognize the person, though she wasn’t sure if she would. The man she was digging into—a man by the name of Ryan—hadn’t known the person who’d placed the augmentation either.

  He had gone along with it, taking the danger.

  He had willingly accepted the augmentation.

  Such a thing was not unheard of. The Ai’thol, too, placed augmentations with the permission of the recipient.

  Which made it even more likely he was with the Ai’thol rather than the C’than.

  She searched for anything else she could uncover, but wasn’t able to discover whether he had ties to either group.

  He had simply taken the offering of power, and that had been it.

  There had been no conditions placed on him, no requirements. It had been the power, and nothing more.

  Someone had been watching. She was certain of it, even if she couldn’t tell who it was. There had to have been somebody keeping track of what had happened, the same way the C’than had been watching for any change with those they’d influenced.

  Which meant that if it wasn’t the Architect, somebody else was still in the town.

  And if they were there, would they have known that Lucy had come?

  If, like Carth said, they had some way of detecting Sliding, it was possible they were aware of her presence.

  She needed to go back.

  But she needed to go back with help.

  Lucy got to her feet, heading out of the library, and Slid down to the main level before looking around and realizing Ras wasn’t there. She Slid again, emerging outside of his rooms. She didn’t feel it was appropriate for her to suddenly appear inside of them and wasn’t even sure if she would be able to. He’d already proven he had a way of keeping her from Sliding; it wouldn’t be surprising if he had a way of keeping her from Sliding into his rooms too.

  She knocked and stepped back, waiting. It didn’t take long for the door to open, and he stood on the other side, studying her. He seemed to glow as he often did, using his connection to the flames. Lucy had often wondered what purpose there was in glowing like that. Did it somehow allow him a greater control over his powers? Carth did something similar oftentimes, and yet, Lucy didn’t know what purpose she had, either.

  “You’ve returned.”

  “You knew I was gone?”

  “Carthenne suggested you might be looking for information.”

  “I need to reach her. Do you have any way of getting in touch with her?”

  Ras frowned, then waved for Lucy to enter. She did so carefully. The C’than stronghold was mostly empty. There were other C’than who would occasionally come and go, and in the time she’d been here, she hadn’t seen too many different people.

  “What did you uncover?”

  “An experiment.”

  She took a moment to tell Ras about her experience, sharing everything she had observed. The longer she talked, the more the frown upon his face deepened. When she was done, he took a deep breath, sighing heavily.

  “Are you certain of this?”

  “When I reach into his mind, I can detect quite a bit. The more I find, the more certain I am of what’s there. He was experimented upon, though I don’t think it was the Architect. I’m not sure if it was Olandar Fahr or someone else, but whatever is taking place is tied to what we encountered before.”

  And if she was right, they needed to be equipped for what Olandar Fahr was planning. They needed to know more about these augmentations, so that they could be prepared for Ai’thol who had augmentations they had never encountered. He was up to something more than what they’d seen. While others were looking for the Elder Stones and the way they were planning on using them, she had to do this.

  “I can get word to Carthenne, but it might take some time,” Ras said.

  “Would you come with me?”

  He studied her, glowing more brightly for a moment. It was fleeting, barely more than that moment, and yet when it was done, he shook his head.

  “I’m not certain it’s wise for me to get involved.”

  “Why not?”

  “Anything I might do puts the C’than in danger.”

  “Doing nothing puts the C’than in danger.”

  “I suspect it does not. The C’than would suffer far more if I were lost.”

  From anybody else, it would seem like a strange sort of boasting, but if Ras were lost, it truly would be devastating to the C’than. They needed him, as he was one of the few people who had much influence among the group.

  “Is there anyone you think could come with me?”

  “You know many people of power, Lucy Elvraeth.”

  “Everybody else is occupied.”

  “Everyone?”

  She studied him for a moment. She had thought about bringing one of the women she’d been training, but she wasn’t sure how they would react. They weren’t fully equipped for what was to happen, and none of them had much experience with using their abilities yet.

  “They’re not ready.”

  “What do you think it will take for them to become ready?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get them prepared for what they might need to face, and yet…”

  Ras smiled at her. “And yet you fear they will not be.”

  “Yes.”

  She didn’t really want them to have to be ready for anything in particular. Facing the Ai’thol was something she had wanted to protect them from, and the only way she knew to do it was to keep them from actions that might bring them into greater conflict. None of them were ready for the kind of battles they might be required to fight.

  Many of them remained traumatized by what they’d experienced, the attack and torment still so fresh in their minds. It was fresh in Lucy’s mind as well, knowing the horrors of what they had gone through.

  “What are you doing to prepare them?”

  “I’m doing everything I can, but…” Lucy squeezed her eyes shut.

  Was she doing everything she could? She’d been trying, but the more she worked with the women, the more she wondered whether she was doing enough. It was more than just training them to know how to use their abilities; it was preparing them for the possibility they might need to fight.

  But then, she wasn’t a fighter, so she found it difficult to demonstrate what they might need in order to successfully resist.

  “I can tell you aren’t sure whether you’re doing everything you can.”

  “I don’t know if I am,” she admitted.

  “You wish you could do more.”

  Lucy nodded slowly. “I would love it if I could prepare them for what they might face in the world, but I can’t, can I?”

  Ras stared at her, smiling. “Do you think the people of Elaeavn once felt that same way?”

  “Why are you asking that?”

  “Because the power of Elaeavn has been confined to the city for a long time.”

  “My whole life.”

  “And one must wonder why.”

  “I don’t know. When I was a caretaker, I looked through some of the ancient records, but I wasn’t able to find anything to explain why
my people isolated themselves.”

  It might be only about the sacred crystals, but maybe there was more to it than that. Why isolate themselves when they had so much power?

  But then, there was suspicion of power. And with that suspicion, there were some who probably worried the people of Elaeavn would want to rule. The more she knew about people who’d left Elaeavn, the exiles who’d been forced to find a way to survive, the more she wondered whether or not that had been right.

  “When we look at people of power over the years, one thing has been true. Some chase power because they want to use it to rule. Olandar Fahr is one such man. The longer we’ve studied him, the clearer it has been that he seeks power in order to subjugate, and yet, not entirely. We’ve seen no evidence of him attempting to destroy, only to claim power, nothing more.”

  “He destroyed in Nyaesh.”

  “He did, but he did so because they were attacked.”

  “Are you trying to defend him?”

  “Not defend, Lucy Elvraeth, but understand. I find it most beneficial to understand someone in order to know what they might do.” He smiled at her. “Knowing what motivates someone is empowering. In the case of Olandar Fahr, I have not been able to fully determine what it is that motivates him. Is it only power? From what we’ve seen, we certainly could make that claim, and yet I am uncertain. It’s possible there is another reason he has been searching for the Elder Stones, one we have yet to uncover.”

  Lucy thought about the people they’d been dealing with, the nature of the power they’d been facing, and she couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps that was what it was tied to.

  “And if he’s facing another power?”

  “That would be reason for him to pursue his own power. If he sees an opponent, he would be searching for an upper hand, a way to ensure success.”

  “Success in what?”

  “In achieving his goal. Whatever that might be. I can’t say with any certainty what he might be chasing, but I can say that from what I’ve seen from Olandar Fahr, there is more to what he’s doing than we know.”