Shattering the Ley (36 page)

She had healed a third of the distortion by the time Illiana made it to her side, had nearly freed it from the building. A moment later, she felt the Wielder enfolding her, lending her strength without interfering, as Marcus had done so long ago. Her concentration wavered only a moment as she thought about him, the rhythm of her hum breaking, but she knew Illiana sensed the hesitation. She redoubled her efforts, Illiana watching her, judging her. For a brief moment, she felt like she was back at the college, testing before one of the Masters.

She let the anger this thought sparked drive her. Behind, those in the square gasped as the distortion shrank, slowly at first, then faster, its edges rippling as if with heat. It pulled free of the building and Kara relaxed, certain now there would be no damage if it did collapse before she was done. But by the time it had shrunk to the size of her fist, Kara knew they would seal it before then. None of the signs of an imminent collapse were evident—the trembling of the spiraling arms, the resumption of motion, however small.

A few harsh breaths later, the distortion vanished, sealed away completely, reality restored. She staggered back, gasping, felt Illiana’s hand at the small of her back, supporting her. She drew her sleeve across her face, surprised at the amount of sweat that stained the cloth. Her arms trembled with exhaustion, but it was a good sensation, like that after a long run, body weak but euphoric.

The crowd in the square—hawkers, patrons, parents, and children—broke into scattered shouts of approval, whistles, and applause. Those nearest swept in and clapped both Kara and Illiana on the back, a few of them thanking Illiana by name, others asking for Kara’s name, having never seen her before.

In the midst of all of the activity, Illiana caught Kara with a considering gaze.

“Kara, huh?” She pursed her lips, then nodded. “You’ll do.”

Kara ran patrol with Illiana for the next three weeks, until her fellow Wielder finally threw up her arms in exasperation in the middle of a meeting at the node and shouted, “She doesn’t need a nursemaid! She’s better than half the Wielders here, Steven. Give her to Colt or Terry. I’m done with her.”

The outburst might have stung if Illiana hadn’t thrown Kara a wink and smirk as she stormed off, leaving a slightly stunned Steven behind. The senior Wielder had shrugged an apology to Kara and then ordered Colt to partner with her.

She’d been running with Colt for the last week. Younger than her by nearly ten years, he was skittish, but he knew Stone better than she did and had a firm grasp of the Tapestry and its uses. He wasn’t polished yet—she’d been forced to support him too much when they’d run into the fist-sized distortion two days before—but he’d learn. His shock of brown hair and blue eyes reminded her of Marcus, but his stance and the way he ducked his head dredged images of Justin from memory.

Now, sitting across from him at a tavern as they waited for their trenchers of pork to arrive, ale already served, he looked up at her briefly and then away.

“Why did you wince?” he asked.

She reached for her ale in surprise. “I winced?”

He nodded. “You’ve done it a few times over the past week. And you get this distant melancholy look.”

Kara stared down into her ale, then took a deep swallow before setting it down. “You remind me of someone I once knew, a young boy named Justin. You don’t look like him, but you act like him. We went to school together, before . . . before the Wielders came to take me to the college.”

“What happened to him? You wouldn’t wince if something hadn’t happened.”

She sighed. “I don’t know what happened to him. I convinced him and Cory—another friend—to take the ley barges from our home district to Shadow, even though our parents didn’t allow us to leave Eld, and he disappeared. Cory and I searched for him for weeks after, but he never turned up. I saw him once after that, coming out of a tavern, but he ran away and I haven’t seen him since, even though I’ve watched for him.”

Colt remained silent a moment, watching her. “Do you want to run with someone else?”

Kara laughed. “No, Colt, I don’t need to run with someone else.”

He looked relieved and she shook her head.

Their trenchers arrived, the serving maid setting them down on the table with a thunk, knives and forks rattling. “Your food,” she said, glancing at them both, then toward their glasses. “More ale?”

Before Kara or Colt could answer, the ley globes throughout the tavern flickered. Both of the Wielders glanced up with a frown, Kara automatically reaching for the Tapestry. Something surged around her, the globes sputtering in reaction—

And then they all went out.

Colt shoved back from the table and stood, eyes wide. Around the tavern, patrons cried out, a few muttered curses.

Their server merely glanced around with a frown. “What happened?”

“A blackout,” Colt said, excitement tingeing his voice. He shot a glance toward Kara. “I’ve never experienced one before.”

Kara sighed, contemplated the trencher with regret, sucked in the heady, thick aroma of the meat and gravy . . . and then stood. Taking another deep swallow of the ale, she turned to the server. “Save it for us?” At her nod, she motioned to Colt. “Come on. Let’s see how extensive it is.”

They emerged into the half-light of dusk to find the blackout extended up and down the street, but that the white glow of the ley could still be seen in the towers of Grass. Kara scanned the area, eyes narrowed, most of the citizens in sight looking around in confusion, a few shrugging and continuing on their way. A horsedrawn carriage rambled by, the clatter of the wheels on the cobblestones loud. She’d kept her senses extended on the Tapestry, but the warp and weave had settled. Yet her skin still tingled, prickling with dissonance. She could sense the ley line as well, throbbing with power, the station for Stone not that far away.

“Should we head back to the node?” Colt asked uncertainly.

She shook her head. “No, not yet. It’s too far. The blackout might end before we get there. I want to see what we can find at the ley station.”

Colt’s eyes widened in surprise, but he fell in beside her as she took off for the station, cutting across the street, through an alley, and the square beyond. She stretched out her senses, trying to determine what had caused the blackout and how to repair it. None of the Wielders who’d been around during a blackout had found anything like the wrinkles or the rifts that caused the distortions, but something was affecting the Tapestry and the ley. Perhaps with access to the ley line itself, she could find out what.

As they came close to the ley station, Kara felt a sudden shift in the Tapestry around her, an escalation of the tingling against her skin. At the tavern, it had rippled, as if someone had grabbed its edge and snapped it, like shaking dust from a blanket. She could smooth out that dissonance around her, but it wouldn’t hold, because the source of the disturbance was coming from elsewhere. She needed to find the source.

As they passed through the gates and into the nearest station, she sensed the ley line throbbing in its path. Normally that pulse was steady, soothing, somehow inherently natural. But now it felt . . . erratic.

The blackout had disturbed the ley line. Now that she was closer, its effects were worse.

She grimaced.

“Kara?”

She turned to Colt, realized she’d halted within the front doors of the station. Like the one in Eld, Stone’s station had vaulted ceilings and tall, narrow windows on all sides, but instead of stone carved to resemble trees, here the ceiling hung with stalactites, giving the impression of a cave, especially with the ley globes dark and the room filled with shadows. People were standing around in the fading sunlight, a few pushing past her and exiting with irritated expressions, but mostly the station was empty. It was dusk. Nearly everyone had already returned home.

“Is everything all right?” Colt asked.

“The ley line,” she said. “Can’t you feel it? It’s throbbing. It’s giving me a headache.”

“Thank the gods, a Wielder!”

Colt and Kara turned as one of the station’s guards walked toward them from across the darkened mezzanine, his boots thudding loudly on the flagstone floor. He tugged at the long gray coat of his uniform, his gaze sliding over those nearest with a frown before settling on Kara. His eyes were a dark brown, beneath lighter brown hair with a sprinkling of gray throughout, his face hard, marked with a few scars, his stance rigid. When he spoke, his voice was rough, and his hand settled familiarly on the hilt of the sword at his side.

“Are you here about the line?”

Kara nodded. “I’ve come to take a look, yes, but I doubt I can do anything about it from here.”

He looked her over with narrowed eyes, then grunted. “Come with me. I’ll take you down to the pathway.” He caught the attention of another of the station’s guards waiting at the far end of the room, gave her a nod, then motioned Kara and Colt forward. He led them past an amorphous stalagmite growing from the floor, down a flight of wide steps, through a darkened corridor where their footsteps echoed against the stone walls, and onto the ley line’s platform. There were fewer windows here, light slanting downward in shallow angles, most of the platform in shadow.

“We were hoping someone from the node would come,” the guard said as they moved to the edge of the platform and halted. “Thankfully the main rush is over, most of the people home, but those who were here waiting when it happened are growing impatient. Enough I’ve sent someone to call in more guards. If you and the other Wielders could get the ley lines back up and running before they turn into a mob, I’d appreciate it.”

But Kara wasn’t listening anymore. She knelt down at the edge of the line’s path, stared down into its depths with a frown. Like the bed of a river, the stone pathway stretched out to either side, nearly twice Kara’s height in depth and twice as wide. But she shouldn’t be able to see the bed; the pathway should be flowing with the ethereal white light of the ley.

The ley lines formed the infrastructure of the entire ley grid, all converging at the Nexus. To see one of them empty, dead. . . .

Kara repressed a shudder.

She reached out with one hand to where the ley usually ran, reached out even further with her senses, saw the fine hairs on the back of her outstretched arm rise as she moved it back and forth. There were no barges at the platform at the moment, so she had a clear sightline down both sides of the path, but she wasn’t using her sight as much as she was using the Tapestry itself,
feeling
the ley, letting it wrap around her.

The station guard knelt down beside her. “So can you get the ley back?”

“I don’t have to get it back,” Kara answered, still distracted. “It’s still there, still flowing down the path. See?” She motioned to where the hairs stood up on her arm. “You can feel it.”

The guard frowned, then tentatively reached out like Kara. His uniform covered his arms, but Kara saw the hair on the back of his hand rise. He shivered as his skin prickled with gooseflesh, then pulled his hand back sharply. Colt moved to Kara’s other side and held out his own arm, swirling it around and watching his own body react, his face set with an intense concentration, his lips quirking up in a tight smile.

Youth, Kara thought, and shook her head. Always experimenting.

“Then why can’t we see it?” the guard grumped. “Why aren’t the barges working? We should have had a barge arrive five minutes ago.”

Kara sighed, pulling her own arm back and resting her hands on her knees. “Because for some reason the ley has been . . . suppressed. Or dampened. There’s something wrong with the flow, something obstructing it. Its power has degraded so far that it can no longer be seen.”

“Unless you’re a Wielder,” Colt added.

Kara shrugged and stood. “Of course. Along with anyone else who has enough power. In any case, there’s nothing I can do here. Whatever’s keeping the power of the ley dampened isn’t occurring here.” She rubbed her forehead and stepped back from the edge of the platform, moving toward the corridor and the mezzanine beyond. The guard followed her, Colt staring out at the invisible ley line longingly before turning and catching up. “You should tell your passengers that the barges probably won’t be working—”

Behind her, a sudden pulse rippled down the ley line, a force that shoved her from behind hard enough she gasped and stumbled on the steps leading up to the mezzanine. Colt and the guard reacted as well, the guard’s hand falling to his sword, a hand’s span of blade showing even as he ducked. But both of them froze as a line of crackling light surged through the chamber, a strange purplish-white, pressing outward from the line itself. Immediately after the purplish light passed through them and up toward the mezzanine—gasps and startled screams echoing down toward the platform—pure white light spilled down the path in a flood, the ley reestablishing itself, filling the chamber with radiance.

“—until the ley line returns,” Kara finished with a frown.

The three stood motionless in the silence that followed, the ley globes hanging suspended all around them and up through the corridor flickering back on.