Shattering the Ley (47 page)

Kara felt something choke off her breath, cutting off her excitement in a death grip. She thought of the Dog who’d followed her to the University grounds. “They’ll kill us all.”

“Why?” Cory asked. “Why would they kill us? We could have the key that helps them solve the problems with the ley.”

“They won’t care,” Kara said, beginning to pace again. “The ley system is how the Primes keep their stranglehold on the Barons. They knew when the ley system was created that it would become the basis of power within the city, and they knew that they could control that power. They’ll eliminate any threat to that control. If they discover that we have access to their system, to the ley’s secrets—”

“They will attempt to contain us,” Hernande finished. “Especially us. The rivalry between the Primes and the mentors at this University is . . . historic.”

“They’ve kept this secret from the Wielders as well,” Kara added. “Only the Primes have access to the Nexus. Only the Primes know how the entire system works. The division between Prime and Wielder is sharp. They do not react well when a Wielder treads on their turf.” She thought back to the interrogation the Primes had put her through after she’d worked with the distortion at the Eld ley station, and she had already been slated to become a Prime herself. If Marcus and the other Wielders hadn’t been there to protect her. . . .

She shuddered and glanced up to find Hernande watching her, his eyebrows pulled down in concern.

“What I fail to understand,” he said quietly, “is why you are so anxious about the Primes at the moment. They do not know what we have discovered. Only you, Cory, and I know of this. I have not shared this with any of the other mentors.”

She held his gaze a long moment, then said, “One of the Dogs followed us to the University.”

Hernande’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “That . . . is unexpected.” Then he frowned in thought, hand traveling to his beard. He chewed on it as he began moving around the pit of sand, coming to Kara’s side. “Is it possible the Primes have detected the construction of the map?”

“I don’t think so.” Kara closed her eyes and spread herself out on the Tapestry, her senses encompassing the room first, then passing beyond, feeling the energy flows around her. Someone was working in the room two doors down—she could sense the use of the ley and Tapestry there—but once she passed beyond a certain distance all signs that anyone was using the ley in this room faded into the background.

She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t see how they could know about it. The power you use for the map is too localized. It’s lost in the background outside twenty paces of this room. Besides, the Dog was following me, not Cory or you. And I didn’t know about the map yet.”

“Why would the Dog be following you?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know how long he’s been following me. I only noticed him on the way over here, but he could have been watching me for a while now. Either way, it doesn’t make sense.” She thought about the barge crash, how the Dogs had arrived before the city watch. But if they’d been following her since then, why hadn’t they appeared immediately after the distortion this morning?

And hadn’t a few of the other Wielders mentioned seeing the Dogs more often lately while chatting around the node?

Kara traded looks with Hernande, who shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense. They can’t possibly be aware of the map.”

They both turned to look at the flowing sands, Kara kneeling down at the edge of the bottom step. This close, she could hear the grains moving against each other with a faint hiss. The smell of salt was much stronger now than when she’d first entered as well, as if churned up from the sand pit’s depths.

“Do you see anything?”

“No. The patterns match what I know of those two districts, and Hedge and Tallow and all of the other districts I’ve worked in. But beyond that, I can’t tell. The Primes don’t like us to know too much about the rest of the city.”

“Then it may take some time to find any anomalies in the system. We’ll have to study it, look for discrepancies. We’ll need to take note of the directions of the flows, their strength, whether they ebb or increase at specific times of the day, if they fluctuate at all.” He began wandering away, his attention shifting to Cory. “And we’ll need to try to expand the map to include places other than Erenthrall.”

Kara reached out toward the shifting sand near her feet, nearly touched it, but pulled back and stood. “I’ll help, when I can.”

“What will you do in the meantime?” Hernande asked.

She smiled grimly, pulling her attention away from the sands. “I’ll watch the Dog, see if I can find out why he’s watching me.”

“And what if we find something here?” Cory asked. “How are we going to tell the Primes if we can’t reveal we have the map?”

“We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” Kara answered, although she had already begun planning. Steven had contacts within the Nexus. And the Wielders themselves could act, if it came to that.

The Primes couldn’t kill all of them. Not when the Wielders were the ones who maintained the ley out in the streets.

“I can help you with some of the equipment on your list, but the supply of medicinal herbs—the coraphile and bloodbane,” Vanter tapped his finger against the sheet of parchment, “that’s hard to come by. Costly as well.”

Allan scrubbed his haggard face with both hands, then grimaced. “What can you get on that list? And how much will it cost?”

Vanter shrugged his massive shoulders and moved back behind the long table that separated the front of the room from the dark recesses in back. Allan could see stacks of crates, labeled and categorized, straw sticking out of the cracks between the wood, along with heaps of burlap sacks, rounded casks, sealed clay urns and pots, and a hundred other assorted containers within the first thirty feet before the rest was swallowed up in shadow. The illicit dealer’s room reeked of hay, dust, animal feed, and some type of oil that must have been spilled recently. The overall effect was rather pleasant, somehow clean, especially considering that Vanter’s establishment was in East Forks, one of the worst districts in Erenthrall.

Which was why Allan knew that the two of them weren’t alone. There were at least three others hidden in the darkness of the warehouse, there to guard the supplies from the denizens of East Forks and to keep an eye on Vanter’s customers. Allan could feel their eyes on him, even though he couldn’t see them.

Vanter himself was huge, at least a foot taller than Allan, with a broad back a hand wider and certainly more muscular than Allan’s. None of his bulk was from fat. He wore a beard trimmed down to a thin line along the jaw in the current Temerite style, although Allan thought he came from Erenthrall itself originally. Allan had dealt with Vanter before and while he was straightforward and trustworthy when it came to the items he traded, the cost was typically exorbitant.

Vanter studied one of his ledgers, flipping back and forth, making notations on a separate sheet as he went. “I can get you the plows and the hitches easily enough. The leather materials will take a few days. Most of the rest of what I’ve marked here—the bags of grain seed, the oils and bronze ingots—are already here at the warehouse.”

He handed back Allan’s sheet, a check near the items he could supply.

Allan scanned it and tried not to grimace. Not nearly enough covered, and this was the pared-down list.

He looked Vanter in the eye. “How much?”

Vanter leaned back, hands behind his head. “Rumor has it you come with a list every year, yet you’ve only come to me . . . what? Three times in the last ten years? Why is that?”

Anger tightened Allan’s grip on the sheet of paper, but he didn’t drop his gaze. “You’re too expensive.”

“I see. The rates do get cheaper with repeat customers, as I’m certain you’re aware. You only come to me when you’re desperate.” He paused in contemplation, his eyes not wavering, then he grunted. “One hundred errens for the lot.”

Allan’s stomach clenched and he gazed back down at the sheet of paper, noticed that it shook. He mentally tallied what he’d brought with him to pay for the supplies—what the citizens of the Hollow had sent him with—and felt sick.

He straightened and met Vanter’s flat stare. “Seventy-five.”

Vanter snorted. “I could get twice that for half the supplies on your list.” But his gaze narrowed. “Ninety.”

“Eighty.”

“How do you intend to transport all of this? Plows aren’t light. Neither are the rods for your blacksmith.”

“I have transport already arranged. Eighty.”

Vanter frowned. “Eighty-five. Take it or leave.” His voice had taken on a dangerous, dismissive tone.

Allan thought of the Wielder at the distortion, of Hagger and the Dogs he’d seen all over the city since. More Dogs out than he had ever seen during his stint in the Baron’s pay, let alone the last twelve years he’d come to Erenthrall for supplies. They were looking for something. Or someone. He could feel it in the prickle on the back of his neck, in the sense of urgency building in his gut.

“Done.” He retrieved forty errens from the pack slung around his back. “Forty now, the rest on receipt and delivery of all of the supplies.”

Vanter nodded, leaning forward to take the money. “Agreed. I can have it ready to go in three days.”

“What about the medicine, the coraphile and bloodbane?”

“What about it?”

“You only said that it’s hard to come by. Does that mean you can get it?”

Vanter hesitated. Allan could see him calculating its cost against Allan’s desperation. “Let me ask around. I may be able to get it for you. How do I get in touch with you?”

Allan frowned. The prickling urgency in his gut passed through him in a wave. “You don’t. I’ll stop by in a day or two.”

“Fair enough.” Vanter scratched out a receipt—which Allan had always thought odd for someone who dealt on the black market—and handed it over. “Pickup will be at the docks, as usual.”

Allan halted in the street outside, scanned the surrounding rundown and decaying buildings—what had once been the thriving docks and warehouses of the city until the arrival of the ley lines—but saw no Dogs through the faint drizzle. The few people on the street ignored him, and those partially hidden in the alleyways and alcoves of doors that preyed on those in the streets sidled deeper into the shadows.

Allan shrugged his shoulders, but the prickling tightness at the base of his neck remained.

He headed toward the bridge leading to West Forks, head bent against the chill rain, shifting his cloak enough so that the pommel of his sword was visible to discourage the gutterscum, but the sense of urgency in his gut didn’t abate. Picking up his pace, he caught occasional glimpses of the Tiana River between the buildings, suddenly concerned about Morrell, left alone in the small room he’d rented for their stay in Erenthrall. She would have drawn too much attention in East Forks if he’d allowed her to come with him, both from the Dogs and from the gutterscum. But now, a cold, thin mantle of fear settled over him, shivering in his skin. What if the Dogs had tracked him to the room? What if they were desperate enough to bring one of the Hounds to bear to find him?

He shuddered. Even after the Hound had let him leave Erenthrall, he’d expected them to hunt him down. When over two months had passed, he’d assumed that he wasn’t important enough. Then he’d heard about the Purge and realized that the Dogs and Hounds were too busy controlling those within Erenthrall to worry about a lone deserter. But maybe something had changed. Maybe there was more going on here than a Wielder recognizing a former Dog who’d fled after the death of his wife.

Maybe the Wielder hadn’t recognized him at all. What if her strange look had been about something else entirely?

His pace slowed with the sudden thought, and new fear jolted through his back.

He lurched forward as the fear seeped inward, his heart pounding, nearly moving at a run. The reek of the district burned in his lungs, people dodging out of his way, cursing. All he could think about was Morrell, her sulking face when he told her she couldn’t come with him, that she’d have to remain inside and out of sight until he returned.

He never saw the men. The board swung out of the shadows of an alley and connected with his gut.

Pain exploded in blinding whiteness as he folded over the board, curled and twisted, hitting the ground hard with one shoulder and ripping the board out of the attacker’s hands. He heard someone curse, heard a short burst of laughter, followed by shuffling feet. His stomach clenched in agony, making it hard to breathe, hard to focus. He hissed through gritted teeth and rolled onto his back. The board clattered to the stone of the street.

He lay there gasping, blinking his eyes to clear his vision—

And a hand reached down out of the receding whiteness, grabbed a handful of his shirt, and hauled him across the stone, new pain exploding through his chest. Sounds grew muffled as they entered the alley. Allan winced as the man dropped him into the middle of the sludgy runoff from the rain, then retreated. Jolts of pain shot through him at every movement, so he remained motionless, willing the aches away with every gasped breath.