Threading the Needle (38 page)

“How is he?”

“He's out cold. He probably has a concussion.”

Kara nudged Adder's head to one side until she found the blood-matted hair where he'd been struck. A large lump had swollen up just beneath the base of his skull, the skin split. If they'd been in the Hollow, Logan would have likely already stitched it closed, but she couldn't do anything about it here.

She let his head roll back, then steadied herself as the wagon lurched forward. The White Cloaks were shouting back and forth, the enforcers spreading out, although a quick glance verified that Iscivius had kept twice as many of the guards on the wagon as usual. Up ahead, the riders who'd accompanied Marcus waited, Marcus himself riding out ahead of the wagons to return to them.

When she settled back down into the wagon, she noted Aaron's pale face.

“How are you doing?”

Aaron opened and closed his mouth a few times before any words escaped. “Everything happened so fast. The fight, running, Carter, and then Tim—”

She let Aaron lean into her for comfort, until he pulled back. He was staring at Carter.

“How could he do it? After everything that happened in Erenthrall, how could he turn on us?”

“He did what he felt he had to do.”

“He got Tim killed.”

“Yes, he did.”

“He nearly got Adder killed. If the White Cloaks hadn't been interrupted—”

Kara nudged him, forced him to focus on her. “Yes, and he'll have to live with that. You need to focus on us, not him. He made his choice. Now, what about Dylan?”

“He's better off than Adder. They didn't hit him as hard.” Through the part in Dylan's hair, they could see the swelling where he'd been clubbed. It was higher up and to one side and the skin hadn't been split. But it was an ugly red-purple in color.

Kara checked it as Aaron slumped back against the crates in the wagon. Then she looked Adder and Dylan over from head to toe as best she could while still bound. Aside from a few cuts and scrapes on Adder from the fight, and Dylan's knee, they both appeared to be in relatively good shape.

She sat back, the wagon jostling beneath her as they continued down the roadway toward the Needle. Her mind drifted, returning to Tim, to the stark horror of seeing his throat slit in front of her. What had they done with him? Had they just left his body behind, by the side of the road?

“Is it really him?”

It took a moment before Kara realized it was Aaron who'd spoken, and then she couldn't figure out who he meant.

“Is it really Marcus? The one they say caused the Shattering?”

Kara couldn't answer for a long moment, the roiling mass of emotion Marcus' name called up tightening her chest.

But finally she said, “Yes. It's really him.”

Cory was limping toward the entrance to the caverns when he felt the world around him shudder. It was like a hard gust of wind coming from the south, rippling through reality in a wave, except that it didn't bend the branches of the trees forward, or even set the leaves fluttering. Yet it compressed his chest. He gasped and leaned his weight against the makeshift walking stick he'd been using for the past two days, even though he didn't really need it; his ankle was nearly whole again.

Ahead, no one bustling around the mouth of the cavern reacted to the strange shudder after it passed. They continued hauling supplies from the wagons into the rooms and tunnels beyond—the last of the supplies, from what Sophia said. All that was left was what remained to be harvested from the fields.

If they were given enough time to do any reaping.

Cory had decided that the shudder had been nothing but an aftereffect of his injury—a wave of dizziness from exertion—when Paul suddenly charged from the cavern's entrance. “Where's Logan?”

Someone responded, and the elderly leader of the Hollow scowled through his panic. “Drop that sack and get into the village! Drag Logan back here if you have to. Tell him something's happened to the Wielders!”

Cory surged forward. He reached the cavern's entrance a moment later, Paul now surrounded by babbling villagers. Paul held his hands up to keep everyone back then motioned him forward. Cory waded through the throng to his side.

“Everyone, go back to work. You heard Bryce's last report. The raiders were last seen three days ago, and we haven't seen them since. We need to get the caverns secured now!”

The group grumbled, but most began hauling sacks and barrels again.

Paul watched them until he was satisfied they were working, then focused on Cory. “Come with me. Most of them are in the main cavern with the stellae—”

He cut off as a flare of light passed overhead, like lightning. But there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and this flare was brighter and held longer before dying. Everyone looked up, one or two shading their eyes, searching the heavens, including Paul.

“What in hells' flames was that?”

“I don't know.” But Cory could think of only one thing that would produce a flare of light like that. “I'll investigate it later, if Bryce and Hernande haven't looked into it already. What happened to the Wielders?”

Paul let his hand drop. “Right. The Wielders. Whatever happened, it didn't affect them all the same way.” They entered the cavern and he led Cory toward the deeper rooms. “Two of them just passed out, hitting the cavern floor like sacks of stone. Raven clutched her stomach like she'd been punched and then vomited. Mareane and another collapsed in some kind of seizure.”

“Were only the Wielders affected?”

“One of the University students said he felt nauseous. But the others in the room only looked spooked. I thought it was because of what had happened to the Wielders.”

They ducked through the doorway into the main chamber. The stellae remained unchanged, the white light of the ley bubbling up from the stone undisturbed. Whatever had happened, it hadn't affected the ley in any visible way here. The floor of the chamber had been cleared of all of the debris from the previous earthquake, except for the stones that were too heavy to move, like the one that had crushed Cory's leg. His eyes skimmed over that one as he scanned the rest of the room, Paul already beginning to descend the steps that they'd built over the scree. The outskirts of the chamber had been rigged with wooden frames and hung with blankets and sheets and tarps, so that each of the rooms had some small amount of privacy. The refugees from Erenthrall had adjusted to the bareness of the accommodations immediately—they'd been sleeping in tents and ruins since the Shattering—but those from the Hollow were finding it more difficult.

“Paul! Cory! Over here!”

Cory caught Raven waving both hands to the left of the stellae. He and Paul veered in that direction as Cory picked out bodies laid out on the stone floor to either side. Raven had dropped back down into a crouch near Mareane.

“What happened?”

“Mareane had a seizure. The others either seized or passed out.” She ran the back of her arm across her forehead. Only then did Cory realize her skin was pale beneath the smudged dirt and drying blood.

“What about you?”

“It was as if someone had stabbed me in the stomach with a hot poker. It took me to my hands and knees, and then I—” She waved vaguely to where a puddle of vomit stood off to one side. “There was a pain in my head as well, right here.” She pointed to the center of her forehead, between her eyebrows. “After I recovered, I realized I'd bled from the nose.”

Cory glanced around at the others laid out on the floor. Mareane was quiet and appeared to be asleep, her hands folded primly over her chest.

Logan and Morrell appeared at the top of the scree. Paul waved and they began to descend. Logan knelt next to Mareane immediately, reaching to touch her forehead lightly with his fingertips as he motioned Morrell toward the others.

Cory watched silently, then turned to Raven. “What caused this?”

“I don't know.” But she reached out to squeeze his hand. “Check Erenthrall.”

Then Logan pushed him back from her, forcefully but not unkindly. “Let me take a look.”

Cory retreated. He wanted to speak to the other University students, but they were all helping the healers.

Jerrain suddenly appeared, the elderly mentor straining up into Cory's face. “Did you feel it? Did you feel the Tapestry writhing?”

“Mentor! You startled me.”

“The foundations of the Tapestry shuddered and somehow I startled you? What is the University system coming to?”

“What do you mean the foundations of the Tapestry shuddered?”

“Exactly what he said.”

Cory turned as Hernande came up beside them. His mentor glanced toward where Logan and Morrell were working on the Wielders.

“The Tapestry . . . shuddered.”

“Isn't that what it felt like to you?” Hernande caught Jerrain's attention and motioned them away from those gathered. “Or didn't you feel anything?”

“I felt it. I haven't spoken to the others yet, but Paul said that all of them here looked spooked, so they must have experienced something.”

“I'm not surprised. They aren't as trained as you are. They don't know how to interpret what it is they see or feel yet.” Jerrain dismissed
them with a wave of his hand. “But it was definitely a systemic warping of the Tapestry. Something caused the entire structure to shake on a fundamental level.”

“What?”

“Do I look like I have all the answers? It could have been anything!”

“I don't recall any mention of such an event in any of the readings at the University,” Hernande said. “I'm not certain it's ever happened before.”

“Practically none of what's happened since the Shattering has happened before.”

“What about Sovaan and Jasom? Have you spoken to them yet? What did they think?”

“Sovaan panicked and rushed off to warn Sophia, although I don't know what he expects her to do. Jasom is still helping to move supplies. I don't think he's stopped.”

They reached the stairs up the scree and began to ascend.

“Where are we going?” Cory asked.

“Outside, to see if we can't figure out what caused the shudder.”

They wound through the tunnels to the outer chamber, everyone buzzing with the strange occurrences except for a few of the younger children racing about. Quite a few people paused to ask Hernande and Jerrain questions. One or two shouted from a distance. Jerrain ignored nearly everyone, waving a hand distractedly and mumbling something incomprehensible, but Hernande tried to be reassuring.

Once they were outside and clear of the main activity at the cavern entrance, Hernande looked toward the sky in thought. “Which direction did the disturbance come from, in your opinion, Cory?”

He thought back to his hike up the slope of the hill toward the cavern, turned to face the direction he'd been moving, and then pointed off toward the southeast. “It came from over there.” He paused and considered the flare of light. “I think the flare of light came from the same direction.”

“Light?” Jerrain asked.

“A flare of bright light.”

“I was inside the caverns. Describe it to me.”

As Hernande led them off the main path back to the village, heading to the hills to the southeast, Cory explained what he'd seen to Jerrain,
answering the elder mentor's questions as precisely as he could. Hernande explained what he'd seen and felt from the village. Both he and Jerrain had experienced the same thing as Cory, but at what sounded like a more fundamental level; they'd known what it meant.

“I think it's similar to what the Wielders say is happening to the ley.” Cory caught a significant look passing between Hernande and Jerrain. He'd seen looks like that from the mentors all through his tenure at the University as a student. “What? What am I missing?”

“The ley lines have been broken. What we're seeing now with the ley is a system that's seizing, trying to reassert itself. From what we've seen with the node in the caverns, I believe the theory that the quakes are related to the ley lines finding new pathways for themselves in the search for stability is correct. But what we just experienced with the Tapestry is fundamentally different.”

“Why?”

“Because the Tapestry, as far as we know, isn't broken.”

They'd reached the top of the ridge, the view still screened by trees. Cory thought about what Hernande had said as they began following the ridge toward where the trees dropped away and an outcropping of stone would give them a view of the southeast. Cory didn't see how the quakes and the ley were that much different from the contorted ripple he'd felt in the Tapestry—

Until he suddenly realized what Hernande meant.

“The Tapestry isn't broken . . .
yet
.”

“What we felt could be the first sign that the Tapestry itself is suffering some kind of strain, that it may, like the ley system in Erenthrall, fail as well on some fundamental level.”