Shattering the Ley (39 page)

Kara felt the disturbance in the Tapestry as she reached for her morning cup of tea. She stilled, then looked up a moment before the soft, steady ley globes that illuminated her flat in Eld dimmed, pulsed bright once, and died.

They did not immediately flare back to life.

“Shit.”

Her eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness of her kitchen. The faint light of dawn shone through the windows on the far side of the chamber, the sun barely over the horizon, but Kara closed her eyes, drew herself inward until she could sense the Tapestry surrounding her and the ripples in its layers, just like those of the blackout a week before. She began to hum to herself, concentrating. An old verse, something she remembered from childhood, bringing with it the faint shriek of a child’s laughter, the tightening of an adult’s hand in hers, and the sharp scent of new-cut grass. Meadow grass.

The Tapestry around her reacted to the song. The ripples that felt so jarring to her senses spiked, then fell into sync, until the Tapestry smoothed and settled.

Kara opened her eyes, the globes now lit again, although the light was dull. She could still sense the blackout to either side of her but didn’t push her correction outward to the surrounding rooms in the building. As she’d learned with the previous blackout, the problem wasn’t with the Tapestry here, it was with the ley somewhere else. Anything she changed wouldn’t hold once she let her concentration slip. Besides, this was Eld, not Stone. Upkeep in this section of the city fell to Marcus and his team.

“Marcus.” She huffed out a short breath, but pushed the roil of anger and hurt aside. It wasn’t as easy as she had hoped it would be.

Grabbing her tea, she moved toward the front windows, stopping to add something stronger to the drink on her way, something with bite, wondering how extensive the interruption in the Tapestry and ley was this time. But when she halted before the window, tea half raised to her lips, close enough she could smell the brandy she’d mixed in with it, the world outside was dark.

Too dark. Even with dawn breaking.

She frowned, not understanding, her brain sluggish this early in the morning.

Then she realized: the entire city was dark. The surrounding neighborhood, the Stone District beyond, even the high towers in Grass in the center of the city backlit by the rising sun—all of it, all of Erenthrall, dark. Only a few lights glowed in that darkness, probably from the homes of those powerful enough to manipulate the Tapestry and the ley themselves, like her. But everything else had gone pitch-black.

Including the Flyers’ Tower.

“Shit,” she breathed again, more heartfelt this time. A frisson of fear sliced through her chest like a knife, followed by a sickening sense of horror.

The flyers. How many would be operating at this time of day? Would their ley-saturated sails be enough to keep them aloft?

She spun toward the ley globes that hovered behind her. None of them had crashed to the ground during any of the previous blackouts, because the ley wasn’t gone completely, merely dampened.

But the sky barges weren’t ley globes.

Perhaps some of those lights in the city weren’t from the ley.

Already dressed, she gulped down a slug of the bitter tea, winced at the brandy, then snatched up her Wielder’s jacket and dashed out her door into the awakening city, letting her hold on the Tapestry in her own loft go.

Kara cut across Eld, moving swiftly. On all sides, the buildings that had once formed the heart of Erenthrall loomed dark, gray and brown stone now worn and gritty, blackened in places by old soot and water stains. All of them contained sconces for torches, posts for oil lanterns, and stacks where chimneys rose to the sky. But none of those were in use. Even the signal fires in the watchtowers of the University had been replaced by ley globes.

Now, with the Tapestry disturbed, everything was black, the buildings somehow forbidding.

Kara paused at a corner and listened. People had begun to stir, emerging into the dawn with muttered curses as they glared at the darkened streets, others standing in their bedclothes or breeches on their stoops or balconies, staring out over the city.

Far distant, she thought she could hear shouting and screaming.

Kara shook her head and turned the corner. She had to get to Stone, check in with Steven and find out what she could do to help.

A few more people were on the street here—a young man on a horse, talking to another man outside an opened gate; a street urchin hunkered in the shadows farther down; a baker. The baker stood outside his bakery, growling and shaking his fist at the sky.

He noticed Kara and her dark purple jacket before she could dodge across the street to avoid him.

“You! Wielder!” he shouted.

Kara frowned at his thick southern Gorrani accent. She slowed.

“I know the ley is out—” she began, but the baker didn’t let her finish.

“How you expect me to make a living in this city with no oven, eh? How you expect me to live?” He gestured toward the defunct street globes, then settled his thick fists on his hips. “What’s wrong with you, you can’t keep globes lit, can’t keep heat on? My oven no work! I canno bake the bread to make my living!”

Kara came to a full stop two steps from him, where he blocked the walk, and glared up into his eyes. He was a foot taller than her, and twice as broad, his arms thick with muscle from kneading bread and hoisting the long paddles with dough on them into the ley-heated ovens all day. His Gorrani mustache dangled down both sides of his face, the thin line of his beard trimmed and running along his jaw in the traditional style. A true Gorrani then, probably new to the city, although he’d stopped wearing the ritual saber all Gorrani youth earned upon passing their trials. She had no doubt the saber was close at hand.

Her eyes skimmed toward the open door of the bakery, where she caught a fleeting glimpse of a Gorrani woman, shawl held across the lower half of her face, before she stepped out of sight. Someone had lit a lantern or candle inside, the light flickering warm and yellow against a back wall lined with sacks of flour and sugar and shelves of unmarked containers of spices.

Kara turned back to the man, met his angry gaze, and said, “Use your damned wood oven. In this part of the city, your bakery is bound to still have one.”

Shock began to register in the man’s eyes at her tone, but she’d already skipped to one side and headed across the street. He spat curses after her in his own language, one hand no doubt reaching for the saber he no longer wore—Gorrani men weren’t used to being spoken to so rudely by women—but she ignored him, even when he shouted, “I dunno have no wood!”

Two blocks later, she heard someone shout her name. She thought the Gorrani had followed her, had already hunched her shoulders over and bowed her head, hoping he’d assume she hadn’t heard him, when the person called again and she recognized the voice.

She halted and turned in surprise. “Cory! What are you doing awake this early, let alone out?”

Cory grimaced as he came up alongside her and they continued moving toward Stone. “My mentor, the wise and all-knowing, had a flash of insight last evening while slamming back the honey mead and we’ve spent all night working in one of the practice rooms. When we lost power, he nearly had a seizure.” He rolled his eyes. “He sent me to find out what was going on, but when I emerged from the main hall, I realized that more than the University had been affected by the blackout. It looks like it’s hit the entire city!”

“So naturally you came running to me.”

Cory straightened, chin up, his dirty blond hair falling across his face. Even in the faint light, Kara could see his blush.

“You
are
a Wielder,” he said.

“I only patrol one district, Cory, not the entire city. And I’m headed toward Stone now.”

From the street ahead, a woman appeared, running toward them, her face blank, eyes wide in shock. She didn’t see Kara until the Wielder stepped out in front of her, blocking her path.

She plowed right into her, Kara reaching to catch her. The woman struggled, shrieking and clawing, Kara trying to hold and calm her as she fought, but then suddenly Kara’s purple jacket registered and the woman clutched at her and gasped, “The barge! My daughter!”

Kara didn’t wait for more, disentangling herself and handing the woman off to Cory, who stood helplessly as she sagged into his arms and began sobbing. Kara leaped down the street, sprinting, her heart thudding in her chest and the cool air burning in her throat. She hit an intersection, paused, zeroed in on the sudden rise of smoke a block away—smoke that hadn’t been there a moment before—and dodged to the opposite corner, shouting at the few stragglers to get out of her way.

When she rounded the corner, she drew up short.

For a moment, she found herself back among the destruction and chaos of the park when she was twelve, when the Kormanley had set off the wagons, people screaming in pain, in horror, thousands fleeing as the flames leaped toward the sky and the overhanging newly-launched flyers. The memory clung to Kara like spider silk, holding her stunned, as she’d been that day on that field, the sounds around her muted by the explosion, her mind unable to comprehend what had happened. Then she’d found her father, had rolled him over to find his face—

She shook herself free of the memory, forced herself to focus on the scene before her even as she heaved in a shuddering breath and suppressed the grief that threatened to choke her. Ahead, one of the sky barges had fallen from the sky, its prow gouging into the side of a stone building, tearing through its face as it plunged to earth and exposing the rooms within. Chunks of granite littered the street. The barge had come to rest on its side, deck tilted, the mast and the thick folds of the sail belling in a low draft. Bodies were scattered, most unmoving. At least five had survived and were standing or walking around listlessly. Two were lying on the ground: one woman screaming, her leg twisted at an unnatural angle; a husky man trapped beneath a portion of the mast roaring with pain and rage.

Somewhere within the building, or perhaps within the ship, a fire had started. Black smoke billowed around the prow into the sky but as yet there were no visible flames.

She hesitated. She should be headed toward Stone. This wasn’t her job; this was something the city watch should handle. Or the Dogs.

But she didn’t see any of them around.

Kara swallowed, her mouth dry, then swore, darted forward, and began checking bodies. The first few—two men and a woman—were dead, and she moved on, working her way toward the pinned man and the woman. She didn’t see any sign of the panicked woman’s daughter. She caught sight of some bystanders and yelled, “Don’t just stand there, help them!” A young man started guiltily and leaped forward. Two more men followed, along with a stocky woman. Kara heard one of them shout, “This one’s alive!” and caught sight of them dragging a girl away from the wreckage. She prayed it was the woman’s daughter. The smoke had increased, although she still couldn’t see a fire.

She made it to the man pinned beneath the mast at the same time as the young man. She noted his build—lithe but muscular—and motioned toward the length of the mast that had crushed the man’s legs below the knees. His roars had died down as they approached, but his face was livid, his teeth clenched against the pain, breath coming in harsh gasps.

“Try to lift the mast and I’ll drag him out,” Kara ordered.

“Get it off me,” the man growled between his teeth as Kara positioned herself behind him, grabbing him beneath the armpits. Tears were streaming down his cheeks into his beard and he moaned.

The young man straddled the mast and wrapped his arms around its bulk, knotting his fingers together underneath. He paused to brace himself, then heaved upward, legs straining, the cords on his neck standing out. His face turned red, then purple, and then he exhaled and staggered to one side, shaking his head.

“It’s no use,” he gasped. “It won’t budge.”

A drift of smoke passed between them and Kara shot a glance toward the barge. Flames were crackling along the length of the prow now, and the number of bystanders had grown, their murmurs louder and tinged with fear as the fire began to spread. She heard Cory barking orders, saw three men lift the woman with the shattered leg up into their arms and carry her to safety.

“Please,” the man beside her begged hoarsely, clutching at her hands. “Please don’t leave me here.”

His eyes glazed over and he passed out, slumping back against her. He was heavier than she expected.

Kara frowned down at him, something brushing against her face. She pulled one hand free from beneath the man’s body and pushed the fold of sailcloth away, then shouted, “Cory! The fire! Get everyone to tend to the fire! We can’t let it spread to the nearby buildings!”

As soon as she saw his nod, already ordering the bystanders into action—where were the damned guards?—she turned her full attention back to the man with the beard.

“Should we get some of the others to help?” the younger man said, glancing nervously toward the fire. “Maybe if three or four of us lifted all at once—?”