Shattering the Ley (51 page)

Sucking in a deep breath, he roared, “Silence! Nobody move!”

The curses and shouts died down, along with the scrape of armor against stone and the rustle of cloth. Someone was gasping in pain, from the direction of the training circle itself, and everyone was breathing heavily.

“Who’s there?” someone demanded.

“Hagger. Alpha. Now shut up. Are there any other alphas here?”

Silence, broken a moment later by the same voice. “None. They’re all out collecting the rest of the Wielder suspects.”

Hagger rolled his eyes. “I said shut up. Who’s on duty at the desk?”

“I am,” another voice said, from the direction of what Hagger thought was the front of the room. “Drew.”

“We need light. Aren’t there some of those damned candles in the desk? We put them there after the last blackout.”

He heard drawers opening, a clatter of junk as Drew rooted around, then a cry of triumph. “I found them.”

Hagger swallowed down impatience. “Then light them.”

A moment of hesitation, and then: “I don’t have any flint.”

Hagger felt the urge to crush something with his hammer, but before he could act the main entrance doors burst open and a slew of Dogs rushed into the room, the lead carrying lanterns, the strange gold light washing through the chambers and highlighting the rest of the Dogs in various tentative poses. Hagger was happy to note that not all of them were frozen in shock, that at least twenty spun on the new arrivals, swords already drawn or hissing from sheaths as they turned. The Dog who’d been harmed in the training pit when the ley died moaned and Hagger noticed blood coating his hand where it clutched his side.

“Drew, see to the wounded. And get those candles lit!” He stalked across the room, directly toward the new Dogs. “What’s happened?”

The leader turned to Hagger, face tense. “The entire city’s out. Again. We found lanterns and came straight here.” He motioned toward a young man the Dogs were holding captive behind him. “We brought one of the Wielders.”

“Put him in one of the rooms,” Hagger said, “then get back out here. We’re going to need all the Dogs we can get.”

The grizzled alpha nodded. “There’ll be more of us coming in with Wielders.”

“I don’t care. We need to get everyone out on the street and into the Tower. Where’s the Baron? Where’s the captain?”

The other alpha shrugged, already halfway across the room. “In the Amber Tower, last time I heard.”

Hagger shook his head, then glared around at the rest of the Dogs in the chamber. “Form up into packs! Now!”

The Dogs scrambled, those out of uniform racing to get into armor, everyone else forming into groups of ten. Hagger began dispensing orders, Dogs rushing out into the tower. He didn’t know the situation outside, but he knew what had happened the last time they experienced a full blackout. He sent them to secure the area immediately surrounding the tower. Protecting the Baron was imperative. Everything else could wait.

Even as packs left, new Dogs arrived, another Wielder behind them, this time a woman.

“We brought her from the University,” the alpha reported, even as he motioned the Dogs holding her toward the cells.

Hagger’s eyebrows rose. “What was she doing there?”

The man scowled. “I don’t know. Something in one of the practice rooms. Something to do with sand. She’s spent an inordinate amount of time there in the last week.”

Hagger followed the woman with his eyes as she was taken away. She appeared stunned, but pissed off as well. She struggled only when the Dogs holding her used force.

She knew something, though. Hagger could see it in her eyes.

He raised the hammer still clutched in his hand, anticipation boiling in his blood, then lowered it with regret.

He could question her later. Right now there were more important issues at hand.

He motioned to the new alpha. “Follow me. I need to see what’s happening outside.”

They trotted up the stairs, another group with a Wielder passing them as they climbed, and then they broke out into the main chamber. Lanterns had been lit, imbuing the room with an orange amplified by the amber walls. All of the ley globes were out, but still hovered overhead. Servants were scattered, running to and fro, half panicked, but Hagger was glad to see that ten Dogs guarded the stairs leading higher into the tower on either side, another five inside the main door.

He nodded as he and the other alpha burst through to the outside steps.

Dogs lined the stairs, keeping all but fellow Dogs from entering the Amber Tower. As Hagger shielded his eyes from the sun’s glare with one hand, blinking rapidly, his attention was caught by the harsh white glare coming from the Nexus.

He halted in his tracks and turned on the other alpha.

“It was like that when we came in,” the alpha said.

The city might be dark, but the Nexus certainly wasn’t. In fact, the ley appeared to be shooting out above the building itself, at least half the height of the Amber Tower. Unlike the displays of ley Hagger had witnessed at the sowing of the Flyers’ Tower and at the Baronial Meeting, though, these jets of ley were chaotic. Beautiful, but uncontrolled.

Hagger swallowed, and for the first time in decades tasted the bitter acridness of fear at the back of his throat.

When the ley died, Augustus halted, already halfway down the steps from the Baron’s dining hall in the Amber Tower.

Then he ran.

He plowed through the clog of panicked servants and Dogs at the entrance to the tower, shouting “Prime coming through!” then spilled out onto the steps, tripping and falling down to the street below. Carriages lay dead, not even hovering above the ground, and he cursed as he picked himself up. Pain shot through his hip, but he shoved it aside. If the carriages were no longer hovering, then the ley that supported them had nearly vanished.

He staggered away from the street, cutting through the park to the left and emerging at the edge of the wall that surrounded the Nexus. It was housed at the base of a wide depression in the ground, stairs descending to the main building from four different directions. Primes were running toward the building, their figures casting long shadows as the throbbing white light of the ley fountained upward from the center of the building.

“It shouldn’t be doing that,” Augustus muttered to himself as horror pressed against his chest. “It shouldn’t have escaped the confines of the building.”

For a moment he faltered at the top of the stairs. He considered fleeing, the thought seizing his mind with conviction. He had already half turned back to the open gates—

But he halted with a shudder. His exhaustion returned, but he drew in a steadying breath and began descending toward the building, picking up speed as he went.

Erenthrall’s Nexus was his. He’d be damned if he allowed anyone else control over it.

He stalked through the outer rooms and halls, summoning Primes as he went, until he had a group trailing behind him, all of them talking, all of them shaken. When he reached the doors to the inner chamber, he shoved through them without hesitation.

He found the center of the Nexus in turmoil.

The entire chamber was flooded with white light, so intense Augustus raised one hand to shield his eyes. Through his splayed fingers, he caught movement on the main floor. Gouts of ley fountained up from the central pit, splashing against the crystal dome overhead and spilling down onto the edges of the shallow tiers that surrounded the pit. He could see the fallen figures of Primes who had been too close, their bodies black silhouettes against the ley’s fury. Other Primes were scattered on all sides, hands overhead, and even without reaching for the Tapestry, Augustus could see the wards they’d raised to protect themselves, the ley coursing down the invisible walls in front of the Primes like water sheeting down glass. The air in the chamber throbbed with power, thrumming in his skin. Before Augustus could step forward, one of the Primes holding the ley at bay cried out, falling back as his shield collapsed, the white ley he’d held at bay claiming him.

Augustus gestured toward the dozen Primes behind him and shouted, “Help them! Try to contain the ley as much as possible!”

The Primes spread out around the pit, dodging the licks of ley as it wreaked havoc throughout the chamber. Augustus ducked left, hurrying to the steps that led down into the lower chambers.

The lower pit was worse, bodies strewn everywhere, the ley breaching the overhead holes that looked out onto the heart of the Nexus, where the crystals within centered and augmented the network. At the heart of the Primes who had survived, Temerius shouted orders, his voice ragged and hoarse and threaded with fear. Augustus headed straight toward him, reaching for the Tapestry as he did so.

He found the Nexus in complete chaos, the Tapestry shuddering and rippling in waves. The crystals above spun out of control, no longer even remotely set in their usual positions. He could see Temerius and the others frantically trying to reset the crystals, but there were too many out of alignment, too many shuddering under the pressure of the ley as it raged.

He stepped forward, snagged Temerius’ arm as the Prime bellowed, “Ventris! Shift that crystal to the left! Now, Leigh, twist the other to the right, like that, yes!” Temerius shot a black look back, eyes widening in surprise as he recognized Augustus. “Augustus! Thank all of the gods. It’s spinning out of control. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to correct it.”

Everyone was shouting, even though there was no real noise. But down here, the throbbing in the air was amplified to a painful pitch. It carried a high-pitched whine at its edge as well, making Augustus grimace.

“Let me see what can be done.”

Temerius nodded, stepping back and releasing control of the Tapestry to Augustus.

He skimmed the entire Nexus, took stock, noticed the work the other Primes were doing to bring the crystals back into alignment, sectioning off the worst problems, planning an attack.

And then he noticed something else: even as one of the Primes corrected a crystal and moved on, someone else came behind and set the crystal spinning again. Someone was actively keeping the system in chaos.

The traitor. The Wielder.

He drew breath to report to Temerius, his anger flaring high, but a sudden hissing, as of ice cracking, resounded throughout the entire building. He glanced up, even though he couldn’t see the ceiling of the upper chamber above him. The hiss escalated into a groan, the sound shuddering through the stone floor. Some of the crystals in the Nexus whined in sympathetic vibration—

And then something above cracked, the single retort deafening. Augustus staggered as the entire building shook, catching himself with one hand against the floor in a low crouch as the rest of the Primes were flung to the ground. He heard cries of distress, shouts of surprise, but they were all muted, his head ringing with the explosion. More rumbling followed, and after a moment he recognized it as debris falling to the ceiling overhead, and he realized what had happened.

Someone grabbed his arm and helped him rise. He turned, and as if through a blanket heard Temerius shout, “The crystal dome! It shattered!”

He nodded agreement, then shrugged Temerius’ supporting hand aside, motioning toward the Nexus. “It doesn’t matter. Someone’s creating the chaos. Focus on the Nexus and get it stabilized. I’m going after the traitor.”

Augustus didn’t wait for Temerius’ reaction, spinning toward the Nexus and reaching out along the Tapestry toward the channels branching out from the core and into the city. The ley in each channel had been dampened, nearly to the point that it didn’t exist anymore, slowing down Augustus’ search. He could manipulate it more easily if there were more of it around, but he plowed forward, using his rage to bull his way down the pathways.

He found all of them inactive . . . except for one, the Eld node. Someone was in the pit there, and had accessed the Nexus through the line.

Augustus trembled at the affront, at the audacity, but shoved the emotions aside. If they were to regain control, he needed to shut the traitor down. Now.

Seizing the ley, he tried to slam a wall down between the Nexus and the channel to Eld, to cut off Eld’s access to the ley. Except the wall met resistance.

The traitor had put up a block. Augustus stepped back in shock, then narrowed his focus on the section of ley that kept his wall from cutting Eld off from the source. As he began sensing the folds in the Tapestry that kept it in place, began prying them loose, the traitor’s presence surged forward and slapped him back from the block, using the ley as a weapon. Augustus gasped at the temerity, then clenched his jaw.

“You want to fight?” he murmured to himself beneath the roiling Nexus. “Then we’ll fight.”

He gathered the faint traces of ley in the channel around him, then charged toward the traitor’s presence.