Shattering the Ley (42 page)

“The Kormanley,” she said. She’d meant for it to sound derisive, but as she thought about it, it made more and more sense.

Steven hissed for silence, glancing toward the doors, fear making his body rigid before he turned back to Kara and stepped forward. Voice low, he said, “We don’t utter that name around here. You weren’t part of the node during the Purge. There were . . . accusations here. At least half of the Wielders vanished into the Amber Tower and weren’t seen again.”

“I have my own reasons to hate the Kormanley,” Kara muttered. “One of their attacks killed my parents. The Purge killed my friend and mentor, Ischua. But if you suspect them—”

“I do,” Steven said, eyes still shifting toward the doorways, “and I’ve shared these thoughts with some of the other senior Wielders, and a few of the Wielders here, like Illiana. But that’s as far as it’s gone. We have nothing to base our suspicions on, and no one wants to broach the subject with the Primes . . . or the Baron.”

“But the disruptions,” Kara protested, still thinking it through in her head. “It makes sense it would be the Kormanley. They’ve wanted a return to the natural order since the beginning. It’s what their entire philosophy—their entire religion—is based on. And isn’t that what happens when the ley is diverted? The ley is still there, it simply isn’t being magnified. It’s returned to its natural state. Isn’t that enough?”

From one side, Illiana said simply, “Do you want to bring about a second Purge?”

Kara sucked in a sharp breath, thinking of Ischua’s death at the hands of the Dogs, then let it out slowly, sending Illiana a glare. “Of course not.”

“Then don’t talk about it.” Illiana met her glare and didn’t flinch.

“It doesn’t matter,” Steven interrupted. “We won’t talk about it because no one will listen. No one wants to listen, least of all the Primes. They don’t want to admit that someone—especially someone within the Kormanley—might be able to tamper with their system.” He gave them both a significant look.

Illiana sniffed, but Kara turned back to the map, leaning over it, hands planted to either side, elbows locked. After a strained silence, she said, “Where’s the map with all of the blackouts shaded that we looked at before?”

Steven hesitated, then moved to a second table and began sorting through the maps on its surface. Illiana threw up her hands in disgust, but paced the room behind them, unable or unwilling to leave.

“Here,” Steven said, sliding the map before Kara. “Why? What are you looking for?”

Kara tapped the map. “If someone is diverting the ley—and not just the ley of one district, but the ley of the entire city—you won’t discover who by looking at just the Stone District. You’ll need a map of the entire system. You’ll need to be able to see how everything is interconnected, and how one node is affected by all of the others.”

Steven’s eyebrows rose. “You won’t be able to find that even here, remember? This map only shows what the average layperson sees walking the streets. Only the Primes have access to everything. And there’s no way they’ll let you see it. You may be on track to become a Prime, but you aren’t a Prime yet. That’s one secret they’d kill to keep. It’s what gives them power over the Baron.”

Kara frowned in frustration, because she knew he was right.

But what disturbed her more was that, looking at the two maps, the frequency of the blackouts—of all of the disruptions in the ley—and the magnitude of each were accelerating.

“So you’re saying these blackouts are being caused by one of the Wielders?”

Augustus tried to contain his frustration and failed. He had gone immediately to the Baron to report what he’d witnessed in the Nexus, but had been forced to wait as Arent dealt with a sudden influx of concerned lords, merchants, and the demands of Captain Daedallen as the Dogs dealt with the riots and looting that had sprung up around the city, not to mention the destruction caused by the flyers falling from the sky. He’d seen three fires raging from the window of the audience chamber in the Amber Tower as he waited. One of those fires raged out of control, consuming at least three sections of the Northward District.

As soon as he entered the Baron’s chambers, Arent had stood, face haggard and drained but still vital. Without a word, he’d ordered Daedallen to send the Dogs to clear the gardens below, and to hold all other visitors.

They’d descended to the gardens in silence, the wait grating on Augustus’ nerves. His news, and the ramifications of it, pressed against his chest. They had barely entered the first section of pathways, shielded from sight by trees, before he’d spat out the most significant news.

“Yes,” he said, nearly growling at the audacity of the Wielder. “Whoever it is has entered one of the nodes and followed the ley lines directly into the Nexus itself, using the ley as a conduit. They’ve been manipulating the crystals within to redirect the flows of the ley for their own purposes. I believe that all of the previous blackouts have been tests of their abilities, or perhaps experiments used to determine how the ley lines would react to different settings. That’s why, when I searched the Nexus myself, I found nothing—they reset the system after they were done.”

“But today was different?”

Augustus ground his teeth together. “Today,” he spat, “they changed the configuration of the Nexus completely. They’ve realigned at least three of the crystals within it. During the blackout itself, the ley was shunted to a different location, all of its power used for some other purpose, and once they were finished the traitor reset the crystals and allowed the ley to return. I can’t believe the temerity of these people! To infiltrate the Nexus, to seize control of the entire system—!”

“What people?”

Augustus was brought up short by the question, seething inside as he turned to Baron Arent in mild surprise. “The people behind this catastrophe, of course. It can’t be just one traitor here in the city. The ley went somewhere, had to have been used by someone else.”

Arent’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You spoke as if you knew who they were. Do you, Prime Wielder? Do you know who is behind these . . . attacks?”

Augustus halted abruptly, the stone of the garden path crunching beneath his feet. A frisson of fear sluiced through him as he recognized the cold gaze that both Arent and Daedallen had settled on him. He’d seen that gaze often during the appalling Purge, seen it leveled at lords and ladies, courtesans and merchants, at the supplicants of the Baron’s court—

But he’d never seen it leveled at himself.

He swallowed, his throat suddenly constricted, and screwed up his face in condescension, waving one arm toward the city. “Do you think if I knew I would keep it from you? I would have sent the Dogs to the perpetrators’ flats myself!”

Arent’s gaze didn’t waver. “But you have a suspicion.”

Augustus wrestled with himself, but finally said, “I didn’t have a suspicion until I saw the fires in the city. It reminded me of the attacks on the sky barges during their launch . . . and of the attack on the Amber Tower at the Baronial Meeting.”

Arent drew back, and Daedallen sucked in a sharp breath, a glance passing between them. Augustus suddenly wondered what they knew that they were not telling him. They did not appear surprised.

“The Kormanley,” the Baron said.

Augustus nodded. “They have already proven they are willing to destroy to gain what they desire, although this is more subtle than I would have given them credit for earlier. As I said, it is only a suspicion.”

Daedallen stiffened slightly. “The Dogs have reported nothing regarding a resurgence of the Kormanley. If they have returned, they are no longer preaching their beliefs on street corners or in taverns. None of our sources have reported anything either.”

Arent stared off into the distance in thought.

“Where was the ley shunted?” he asked abruptly.

“The south.”

Arent’s gaze fell on him and Augustus shuddered. “You cannot be more precise than that?”

“I did not have time to travel the ley before the adjustments were made. If I had known, if I had prepared myself—”

Arent waved him into silence, returning his attention to Daedallen. “It must be Leethe. He must be working with the Kormanley, as we suspect he did before the Purge. What is his purpose?”

“The Hounds have not reported yet.”

“But one was sent to Tumbor?”

Augustus’ shoulders prickled. He should not be privy to this discussion, and yet he knew that Arent would not have made such a blatant mistake. He was meant to hear this, as a warning. The Hounds had been unleashed. They were hunting outside of Erenthrall for the first time in decades.

Daedallen shot a glance toward him, then back to Arent. “Yes. One was sent to Tumbor.”

Arent turned away, heading back toward the entrance to the garden, anger tightening his shoulders. “I want to know as soon as he reports in. Baron Leethe has overstepped his bounds, far more so than he did before with the Kormanley. If the Hound discovers what Leethe is attempting, and it involves the ley, have him kill the Baron.”

The Hound disembarked from the barge into the glass-enclosed station in Tumbor and scanned the platform. Others who could afford the costly trip from Erenthrall spilled forth as well, rushing to meet friends or family while handlers offloaded baggage from the deck above. The station bustled with activity, people talking, children screaming as they cavorted around their parents, servants hustling as they transported the luggage to the waiting carriages and transports.

The Hound noted the station wardens in their sleek red-and-gold uniforms, motioning the patrons toward the front of the station, but his attention caught on the two men standing to one side, dressed as informally as the patrons, but with hard eyes and too casual a stance. They were watching everyone who came off the barge.

Baron Leethe’s enforcers.

He headed toward the glass-walled entrance to the station at a measured pace, keeping the enforcers in sight out of the corner of his eye. One of them glanced in his direction, but his gaze slid over the Hound without pause, although the enforcer frowned as if he sensed something was wrong.

Then the Hound stepped out of the glass doors and into the square outside the station.

He didn’t pause until he reached the first street corner, weaving in and out among the carriages and snorting horses. The sounds of hooves on cobbles filled the open area, along with the cries of hawkers and peddlers selling their wares out of modified wagons or on tarps spread out on the stone walk. A few tents had been erected near the fountain in the center of the square, beneath the widespread wings of a sculpted hawk ready to strike. The Hound imagined he could hear the bird’s shriek as it dove, smiled tightly at the sound, then stepped into the partial shade of a building to catch his bearings.

He found himself in the middle of the old trading district. Except for the glass ley station, the buildings were made of stone, mostly granite from the surrounding mountains. Trading houses and mercantiles, massive and brooding, filled up entire blocks, their facades looming over the street and square beneath them. Encrusted with decades of weathering, they appeared dirty and dark compared to the sun-glinted newness of the glass station.

The street and square were thronged with traders from every part of the continent. The light-skinned men and women of the Steppes with their colorful and voluminous shirts and breeches mingled with the darker-skinned, bearded men of the Demesnes, their linen shirts embroidered with intricate patterns on the shoulders and down the sleeves. The Gorrani merchants carried their sabers openly here, accompanied by women wrapped in shawls so only their eyes were visible between the silky folds. Olive-skinned men from the Correllite Isles, pale-skinned folk from the eastern shores of Temerite, and the black-haired women of the Archipelago with their armored male escorts who were rumored to do more than protect—all visible from the Hound’s vantage point at the corner of the square, all passing each other, conversing, conducting business, or rushing to a guild hall or mercantile or trading house.

And none of them mattered.