The Coming Chaos

by D. K. Holmberg

  Ryn smiled to herself. The Great One had been curious about this place, and she had wondered what it had been before the temple had been taken over by the Ai’thol, but she never would have expected that a blacksmith would be the one who controlled the people within it.

  “I will fight him.”

  “How long do you think you can fight? Eventually you will get hungry. You will get thirsty. Eventually you will need what he can provide.”

  “I’d rather die.”

  Lorren held her gaze. “If that’s the case, then so be it.”

  He backed away, and Ryn tried to spit at him, but she had no saliva in her mouth. “You can tell him I know he’s on the other side of the door.”

  Lorren hesitated for a moment, frowning, and then he shook his head. “He wouldn’t remain behind for you. He is an important man and busy, and there are many things he needs to do and prepare for.”

  “He won’t be able to overpower the Great One.”

  “Overpower? That has never been his intention.”

  When the door closed, Ryn was left in darkness once again, and yet her eyesight allowed her to make out the various gradations of shadow. She had begun to give up hope of escape. There was no way for her to do so. They had her bound too tightly.

  If only she could break free from the chair.

  A memory drifted to her. Hadn’t that been what she had come to investigate?

  She tried to stand but couldn’t. She was weak, her time confined here having stolen strength from her, and the longer she was here, the weaker she was going to get. She needed to act soon. Otherwise, any opportunity to escape would be lost.

  Ryn put pressure on her legs. She had to ignore the pain surging through them, the increased intensity that burned within her as she put weight down on them, the throbbing that rolled through her from the metal wrapped around her ankles.

  For a moment she hovered, holding herself upward.

  And she dropped.

  Ryn threw all of her weight onto the chair. It was stout, and she was not heavy, but the sudden drop was enough to cause the chair to creak.

  She took that as a positive sign. Standing again, she held on, trying to ignore the pain that rolled through her, knowing she had to hold out, though uncertain how she would be able to do so. The pressure was enormous, the pain intense, and everything within her hurt. As she stood, it rolled up her legs through her thighs and into her midsection. It was almost enough to make her…

  Ryn crashed back down to the floor, slamming into the chair again.

  She sat there for a moment, her head spinning, tears streaming from her eyes, surprising her that she still had the moisture to cry. She swallowed and tasted a coppery flavor in her mouth. Had she bit her tongue? It was difficult to determine what hurt since everything did.

  When there was no other sound, and when her head began to finally settle, Ryn stood once again. She was determined to keep doing this until she passed out, or until someone else came in.

  This time, the pain shot all the way through her, heading from her toes all the way up into her head before rolling back through her chest and down her arms. It was almost as if the pain from the two places she was bound worked together, intensifying it, and she could no longer stand. As much as she tried, she found that she couldn’t hold out.

  Ryn collapsed into the chair, sagging backward, and she looked around.

  Not the chair.

  She sat on the floor.

  Splintered wood lay all around her, reminding her of the scene she had gone to investigate.

  Unlike that moment, the sacred metal was wrapped around her. Now that her arms and legs were free, she tried to slip the sacred metal off her wrist, but it wouldn’t move. They had it wrapped too tightly. Ryn tried to unwind it, but it wouldn’t budge. She rolled over, looking down at her legs, and found the same thing there.

  Worse, where the metal had been wrapped, the ends now pierced her ankles. Blood oozed around the piercings. She didn’t think that had been the case before.

  When she looked at her wrists, she noticed something similar.

  Her head felt heavy.

  What would happen to her?

  She had been so focused on escaping, getting free of the metal wrapped around her, that she hadn’t considered what she would do when she finally managed to get free. There wasn’t anything on either side of the door that she could escape to, and though she didn’t detect Lorren or the blacksmith nearby, she knew they had to be somewhere here.

  The advantage she had was that she had studied the temple. In the time since she’d come here, she’d pored over records, over the books, and had focused, searching for answers about the place.

  What she needed to do was get out of the room, find someone who could help pry the sacred metal off her wrists and ankles before it did anything more to harm her.

  Ryn got to her feet. With each step, pain coursed through her, and she tried to ignore it, but it was intense. Spots shone in front of her eyes, and every so often, it felt as if the room was spinning around her, forcing her to focus.

  She paused at the door, leaning on it a moment to gather herself.

  As she rested there, she tried to ignore the pain, but it was more than just the pain she had to overlook. There was something else—another sensation—and she wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.

  What was it? She needed to understand that. If she could understand what she detected, perhaps she could use it.

  There came a stirring sense within her stomach.

  Nausea. That was what she detected.

  She’d known nausea quite well in the time since her capture. Had it only been a day? Could it have been longer? She’d lost track, and with the number of disruptions they had made with her, it was their intent to ensure she couldn’t recover and focus on maintaining her mental barriers.

  Ryn took a deep breath. She pushed away the sense of nausea, the throbbing in her legs and arms, and pulled open the door.

  There was no one there.

  She would’ve expected a guard or someone to be keeping an eye on her, but they must have believed her trapped.

  Perhaps she should have been.

  Ryn staggered out into the hallway. She leaned on the wall for support, running her hand along the stone, feeling the smooth surface beneath her fingertips. As she went, her heart racing, the nausea threatened to return, and she pushed it away again.

  She found stairs. Up meant to the top of the tower. She wouldn’t go there.

  Down ran the risk of encountering others within the temple, but she also had a chance of escaping. Then she could get word to the Great One.

  She started down the stairs. She had to pause to rest on the walls, putting her head down, as everything continued to spin around her.

  As it did, she felt a throbbing, a pulsating sense, that came from everywhere within her. It took a moment for her to realize that pulsating focused on the back of her head.

  She reached back, fingering the blessing, but it was gone.

  Had they removed it?

  Such a thing was not possible. If the Great One said it couldn’t be done, she had a hard time believing the blacksmith would have managed to do so. It meant it had fully integrated into her skin. She knew that it was happening anyway but didn’t know what that meant for her. Now that it was there, there was no removing it. Not that she would want to do so. It was a gift from the Great One himself. It was a return of her powers, a return of what she would have been had she remained in the land of her parents when she was younger.

  When the pain abated, she continued on the stairs, hurrying cautiously along. She took the stairs one at a time, and when she began to wobble, staggering a little bit, she paused to gather herself. Every so often, there came a sense of nausea, but she pushed it away. She managed to ignore that sense and focused instead on the pain. She welcomed it, embracing it. As she did that, it seemed to become less.

  Where were Lorren and the blacksmith? Those were the two sh
e was most aware of, but she didn’t detect them.

  That was odd. They should be here, shouldn’t they?

  She tried to think when she had last been aware of them but couldn’t come up with an answer. As far as she could tell, the last time had been when Lorren had tormented her, moments before she had started to drop into the chair, attempting to break herself free.

  He wouldn’t have been able to disappear so quickly… unless he could travel.

  Had she seen anything from him that would suggest he could travel?

  Dillon could. She didn’t know if the blacksmith could, but the idea that it was possible lingered. If they both could, then there wouldn’t be any place they couldn’t go.

  She reached the base of the temple.

  She needed to get out of here and find a way to get word to the Great One. If she did that, though, she would leave behind her records.

  Her room was only one floor above.

  When she reached the door leading outside, she decided to turn back. Hurrying up the stairs, Ryn felt waves of nausea threatening to spill over her, and she pushed it away, forcing that queasiness from her.

  This hallway was empty as well. When she started down it, she expected to find someone, anyone, but she didn’t. Throwing open the door, she found the room much as she had left it. Her cloak was there, and it surprised her they would have brought her cloak, but then, they might have wanted to search it the same way they probably had searched everything in this room.

  Ryn took it, slipping it on, covering the metal. It did nothing to ease the pain, but she continued to embrace that sensation, welcoming it, thinking that if she could accept it, perhaps she could overpower it.

  There were only a few books that were important to her. They were the observations she’d made in the time she had served the Great One, and she found them stacked near one corner. Ryn grabbed them, stuffing them into her cloak pocket, and started to turn when nausea rolled over her.

  It was almost too much. She sank to the floor, the sickness slamming into her over and over again.

  “No!”

  She forced it away from her, and it slowly eased off.

  Getting to her feet, she hesitated, afraid the nausea would return, but it didn’t. Instead, she found that she was steadier than she had been in a while. She headed toward the door, staggering, the pain making her gait strange. She took step after step, and with each one, she felt stronger. At the stairs, she looked down. There seemed to be some shimmering movement, and with it came the sense of nausea, which she forced away.

  The shimmering disappeared.

  Maybe it was only her imagination, or related to the sickness that she was feeling. She had seen the way people often shut down when suffering from severe pain.

  At the door leading out of the temple, she paused, looking outside. The sky was gray. She couldn’t tell what time of day it was, the sun hidden by the clouds, and people moved along the street in the distance. She could hear and see them, smelling their presence along with that of their animals.

  Ryn started toward the sense of the people. She wanted to get out into the crowd, wanted to disappear, to fade into that, and do anything that would help her escape.

  She stumbled with each step, dragging herself.

  Nausea washed over her, and as she tried to push away, she failed.

  Something shimmered in front of her. Ryn staggered forward, trying to run, fearing there might be someone here who would attack. She couldn’t help but feel as if someone were traveling toward her, and that the shimmering was the preceding effect from someone traveling, but as she moved forward, that sense faded.

  Maybe it was nothing more than her imagination.

  Nausea rolled through her again, and she tried to force it away, hurrying toward the distant sense of people, and failed.

  Ryn collapsed on the ground. She couldn’t keep her head up, and as the pain and nausea continued to roll through her, she felt herself failing.

  If the blacksmith found her, he would overpower her mental barriers.

  She couldn’t have that. She didn’t want him to get into her mind, to force her to act against the Great One, but she was in no shape to fight.

  Scrambling to her knees, Ryn tried to move forward, to make her way from where she had fallen in the street, when another surge of nausea rolled over her.

  This time, she couldn’t fight.

  She sagged down to the ground, the sense overwhelming, and blacked out.

  26

  Haern

  With the realization that Rayen was there, Haern tried to pull on his connection to the metal, attempting to withdraw the lorcith, to prevent it from hitting her or anyone who might be with her, but he wasn’t strong enough.

  He fell back, everything within him hurting.

  As he stared upward, mouthing an apology to Rayen that he knew wouldn’t matter, darkness swirled around him.

  It lingered for a moment. Then another. And then another.

  When it cleared, he realized he was still alive.

  Hands reached underneath him, grabbing him, pulling him along. Someone tried to lift him, but they set him back on the ground.

  What was taking place here?

  His mind remained a haze. He tried to think through what was going on, and whether there was any way for him to understand it.

  There wasn’t anything.

  Rayen was here, and she should not be. There was no reason for her to be.

  He couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Everything throbbed, and when someone pressed something to his lips, he spat against it, determined not to be poisoned.

  “Drink,” someone said.

  He thought he recognized the voice, but he wasn’t entirely certain. If it was Rayen, why was she here?

  None of this made any sense.

  Somebody brought something else to his lips, and Haern spat again.

  Pressure on the back of his neck forced his mouth open, and something was poured into it. It was thick, unpleasant, and he tried to spit, but he couldn’t.

  “Drink.”

  Again, he thought he recognized the voice.

  Who would it have been?

  “If you want to live, you need to drink.”

  Galen?

  That couldn’t be, either. They weren’t anywhere near Elaeavn. But then again, Galen had been with him, hadn’t he? He remembered the attack, much like he remembered how Galen had taken on several Forgers at once. There was no way he should have been able to get away from the Forgers, no way for him to have survived.

  Haern drank, swallowing the liquid.

  It burned as it went down his throat. There was something unpleasant about it, but then there was often something unpleasant about the things Galen offered him.

  He lay there, a part of him expecting that poison would work through him, that he would pass out from it, another part thinking that perhaps Galen had given him a restorative. He didn’t know which it was going to be. All he knew was that everything hurt.

  After a while, there was pressure in his shoulder, as if someone were digging around within it. If they were, he needed to ignore the pain.

  The pain in his shoulder began to ease, and he felt something on his thigh as well, where he had sustained his other wound. Hands pressed down on either side of his thigh, clamping down with a firm grip, holding his leg in place. Haern tried to move, feeling a surge of fear at being trapped like this. Panic set in, sending his heart fluttering.

  “Just relax,” somebody whispered to him.

  Haern lost track of who it was, but at the same time, he didn’t think he could relax under the circumstances.

  Sharp agony worked through his leg again, the same sort of pain he’d experienced in his shoulder, and as he tried to pull away, the hands holding down on his leg prevented him from doing so.

  “There’s something else, but I can’t get to it,” a different voice said, one Haern didn’t recognize.

  “What else is there?”
<
br />   “It appears something injured his hands.”

  “Lorcith,” Haern muttered. “Or something like it.”

  Someone grabbed his hand, squeezing. Warmth washed through him, the kind of Healing warmth he had felt when Darren had worked on him. Could Darren be here?

  Why would he have come outside of the city?

  Unless someone had come for him, Sliding him back to Elaeavn.

  If that was the case, then what would happen to Jayna and the others?

  He tried opening his eyes, needing to look around, but couldn’t.

  All he saw was darkness.

  It was a wonder his mind still worked, and that there wasn’t more confusion. He felt off, though he wasn’t able to explain why. It was a strange sensation where everything seemed wrong. The longer he experienced it, the more worried he became.

  Would the attack have taken his ability to use lorcith?

  As strange as it was, that was his greatest fear. After having finally begun to see the value in lorcith, he didn’t want to lose it.

  Another wave of Healing washed over him.

  “It’s like the other.”

  “Lucy?” someone said.

  “Somewhat like that, though different. This has burrowed beneath the skin. I can’t take it out without harming him.”

  “Leave it,” Haern said. At least, he tried to. He wasn’t sure how much he was saying clearly at this point.

  “What happened?” someone said. Galen?

  Haern wasn’t sure. His vision was blurry, darkness all around him, and he suspected that came from Rayen. With her control over the shadows, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was the reason he couldn’t detect anything.

  “Forgers,” Haern said. “Trapped me. Metal broke off.” It was more than that, though he wasn’t sure how to explain it. Much like he wasn’t sure how to explain why the metal had seemed to be absorbed within him. He doubted that was the Forgers’ intent. From what he could tell, that had surprised them as much as it had surprised Haern. More than that, it seemed as if the side effect, that of his increased connection to lorcith, was not intended.