Threading the Needle (3 page)

The group grew somber.

“It doesn't matter,” Bryce said abruptly. “We can't pin all of our hopes on the crops. And we can't count on remaining hidden here in the foothills, not with these groups arming themselves and venturing out onto the plains. We need those supplies trapped in the distortion, and we need to start work on defending ourselves here, at the Hollow.”

“What do you propose?” Sophia asked.

Bryce stood, reaching for the bag Allan still held. The ex-Dog handed it over.

“We need to send some of the Wielders, with protection, to Erenthrall, to see if they can get at the supplies in the shards. As for the Hollow, I don't have enough Dogs here to protect it fully. We need to start training some of the others to fight. With swords, bows, anything else we can find. Crops will be worthless if we get raided.”

He slung the bag of medicine and food up over his shoulder and headed for the door. “I'm going to hand this over to Logan and then go to my tent. It's been a long, bitter few days.”

They watched as he stepped outside and turned left, out of sight.

“He's right,” Allan said grudgingly. “The attack on the wagon only emphasizes what we saw in the city. We need better defenses.”

“Paul won't like it,” Sophia said. “Nor some of the others. They'll claim that the only reason we're at risk is that we took you in, and we should kick you out now.”

“These groups would be coming whether we'd come here or not. Would Paul and the rest rather wait to have their throats slit one night, when one of the groups finds the Hollow? Because that's what will happen eventually.”

Sophia's lips pursed at the gruesome image. “No, I suppose not.”

“Then I suggest you start training people how to wield swords and handle bows.”

The elderly woman still appeared resistant. “I'll have our trackers start drilling those interested in archery. At worst, we could always use additional help with the hunting. And I'll tell the rest they can go to the Dogs for training with swords if they want.”

“Good.” Allan turned to Kara. “You need to speak to the Wielders and figure out how to heal one of the shards. I don't want to wait too long before returning to the city.”

Kara contained a surge of excitement. They'd become too complacent here in the Hollow. They needed to begin work on retrieving Erenthrall before that complacency spread. “I'll meet with them right away. Working to heal a few shards may give us an idea of how to heal the entire distortion, something we haven't thought of yet. We won't lack in volunteers, even if Erenthrall is still dangerous.”

“It's still dangerous. Perhaps more so than before the Shattering.”

K
A
RA LAY IN THE DARKNESS
of her and Cory's tent, listening to Cory's deep breathing and the utter quiet of the night. It was close to dawn; she could taste the dew on the chill air. Earlier she'd heard others rousing to relieve the patrols Bryce had set up. He'd paired one of his Dogs with one of the Hollower trackers and a third untrained man or woman, each team walking the edge of the valley at set intervals. There were at least three such teams on patrol at any one time, in addition to the two set to watch the passes where the creek entered and left the valley. In another hour, she knew she'd hear the muted clang of those practicing with swords at the far end of the meadow. Kara and Cory's tent was too distant to hear the thunk of the arrows hitting the practice targets.

“Can't sleep?” Cory's breath felt warm against her neck.

“No. I've been awake for hours.”

He kissed the nape of her neck, then rolled away with a sigh. She twisted to face him.

“Worried about going to Erenthrall?”

“Yes. I'm worried about the distortion, about our attempts to heal it. What if we trigger the distortion's collapse? I know we can't restore Erenthrall completely, not after what's happened, but we could at least make it a refuge, a place of safety for the survivors. Think about all of the people who are trapped inside it. We saved a few, but if the distortion collapses . . .”

“Those people would want you to try to free them. Besides, I thought you said that even if you can't release one shard at a time, the attempt will give you more information about how the distortion is formed.”

“It will. And I know we have to try. But still, the distortions are so unstable.”

“The
world
is unstable. After the attack on the wagon, I don't even think the Hollow will be a haven much longer.”

Kara heard rustling from a tent nearby, followed by the slap of a tent flap being thrust aside, then silence. Cory stilled, both of them listening. Someone yawned and shook themselves, then there was a clank of metal against metal before the sounds moved off.

“Sword practice,” Cory murmured softly.

Outside, they heard more rustling as others rose and headed toward the practice yard.

“I haven't been back to Erenthrall since the Shattering,” Kara said. “From what Allan and the others describe, it isn't remotely like it was before. Confluence, Eld, Stone, even Grass and Copper. I'm not certain I want to see it now. I don't want to see the damage that the Wielders have done.”

Cory sat up. “The Wielders didn't cause the Shattering. The Baron did, and the Kormanley.”

“Did they? I know that Marcus did something to cause the blackout just before the Shattering. What if he unbalanced something in the Nexus? What if that's what caused the explosion?”

“You don't know it was Marcus who caused the blackout. You only know it was someone in Eld, based on what you saw in the sands before the Dogs took you.”

“It was Marcus. I know it.”

Cory gave a weary groan; they'd had this argument before, many times. “It doesn't matter now, does it?” She could hear him shifting around the tent, pulling on clothes. “The Nexus is destroyed. We'll likely never know exactly what caused it, or who brought it down—Marcus, the Kormanley, the Baron. We have to deal with what's happening now.”

Kara tensed, ready to keep the argument going, but then relented. Marcus, the Baron—all of them were dead.

“Where are you going?”

“To the practice yard.”

Kara suddenly sat up. “The yard?”

“I need to learn how to use a sword. At least the basics.”

“Of course.” She wasn't even certain what was bothering her. Except,
like the cottages, it was one more sign that they were moving further and further away from Erenthrall.

She reached out and caught Cory's arm in the darkness. “Don't go today.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” She fumbled for a reason. “Because I need you to show me the ley system in Erenthrall in the sands again.”

“It won't do any good. The ley is changing too fast. It won't be remotely the same by the time you reach the city.”

“I know.”

Cory was silent, then sighed. “Get dressed then.”

Kara threw the blanket aside and scrambled into clothes, touching the heating stone to turn it off.

When they stepped out into the predawn darkness, the chill air sucked Kara's breath away. She rubbed at her arms as Cory pulled the tent flap back into place and secured it, then they headed toward the village, many of its residents already up and doing chores.

They reached the barns, lamplight glowing from inside the last of the stone-lined stalls. When she and Cory rounded the corner, they found Hernande and Artras leaning over the sand pit, scrutinizing the shifting sands beneath them. Both of them looked up.

“Kara!” Artras said, rising stiffly from her crouch. The elder Wielder pulled Kara into a tight hug, then held her at arm's length. “Are you ready to return to Erenthrall?”

“No. But I am eager to see if we can finally do something about the distortion.”

“So am I. Not all of us want to remain here in the Hollow like Sovaan.” She motioned toward the sand pit. “I asked Hernande to show me the state of the ley before we depart. I assume you had the same idea?”

“That's why we're here.”

“Then take a look.” Artras hunkered down at the edge of the pit, Cory joining her. Kara moved around to the far side with Hernande.

“The chaos of the ley lines is rather interesting.” Hernande's tone was that of a University mentor. “I am convinced there is a pattern here. Nature is not generally prone to complete disarray. The ley lines must be attempting to establish a new network.”

Kara knelt down, knees pressed into the stone they'd used to line the floor and pit. The sands that filled it had already been set to Erenthrall
and were moving in eddies and swirls, some of them slow, others accelerated, the lines merging and flowing. Occasionally, a spurt of sand erupted upward, like a geyser. The shifting sand created a soft hissing sound that Kara found soothing most of the time, but today the noise irritated her.

The center of the pit was nearly static, the active ley lines cut off by the distortion in a perfect circle. Inside that circle, where reality was shattered, there were only a few localized areas where the sand shifted, indicating a shard where time was still moving forward and the ley trapped there was attempting to realign itself. Kara, Hernande, and the others all agreed that the ley in these shards was attempting to form its own network, but in most, there wasn't enough ley for it to organize. A few of the shards were completely full, edges well defined, as if something had ruptured and flooded the region.

Hernande pointed toward the distortion. “I believe, from what Allan has been able to tell us, that this is the section where he was forced inside the distortion by the Wolves.”

“It doesn't appear those shards are holding much ley.”

“No,” Artras said, “which is a good thing. My guess would be that fixing a shard that contains active ley would be more difficult than one without. We wouldn't want to break down the walls of a shard flooded with ley, for example, only to have it rush unrestricted into a section of the city that may be occupied.”

Kara shivered at the image. Ley was harmless in its natural state, but if it were concentrated, it could be deadly. She recalled the stories about the sowing of the towers in Grass before the Shattering, where some of the lords and ladies of the city and surrounding areas had risked exposure to the ley by watching from unprotected balconies. They'd been killed, their bodies consumed by the ley when it touched them.

And then there was the Shattering itself. When the Nexus had exploded, the ley had devoured everything organic within a certain radius of the center that wasn't protected in some way. Kara and most of her fellow Wielders in the Hollow had only survived because they were locked away in cells beneath the Amber Tower. The same was true for Allan, Morrell, and the Dogs in their group. If Kara had been out in the streets, doing her rounds as a Wielder, she would have been killed. Most of the other survivors that had found their way to the University and then the Hollow had also been protected in some way.

She pushed aside the grim thought of what would have happened had she not been captured by the Dogs and shifted her attention to the rest of the ley. “It looks like the two rivers have settled into new courses.”

“They're flowing through what were once streets, their banks now defined by buildings and the debris collected at their edges. But note these areas here and here.” Hernande pointed to two locations outside the distortion. “They appear to be stable points in the general chaos of the ley.”

“How can you tell?” They didn't appear any different than the rest of the ley.

Cory answered. “We've been watching them for the past few months. Everything else is shifting, reorganizing, but these two locations haven't moved.”

“So the ley is attempting to establish a new system around the distortion, as we thought,” Artras said brusquely.

“Why hasn't it stabilized, then?”

Artras shrugged. “Who knows how long it will take? We have no point of reference. The ley system we were using was always there. Only recently did we humans have the arrogance to try to manipulate and change it. And look where it got us.”

Kara glanced up at the older woman's stern expression. For a moment, she'd sounded like Ischua, the Tender who had discovered Kara's talent and guided her after her parents' deaths.

Kara motioned toward the map. “I don't see anything around the area Allan found that will cause us any problems. The ley there appears relatively stable.”

“Yes,” Hernande agreed, “but remember that it is always changing. By the time your group arrives, it may be more volatile. Especially if the earthquakes have continued. We'll keep watch here, of course, but we won't be able to send word if something changes.”

“I know.” Kara rose. “Allan and the others are probably ready now. We'd better gather our things.”

Now that she'd seen the ley system, the fears and anxiety she'd felt before dawn had receded, replaced by resolve. The same resolve she'd felt standing on top of the building after being pulled from the distortion by Allan and seeing the blazing white lights of the unquickened distortions over Tumbor, Farrade, and the other cities in the distance.
She'd set it aside over the past few months to focus on survival, but it gripped her again now.

Kara bit her lip at the stricken look on Cory's face, but turned and left with Artras, the older Wielder taking her arm as soon as they were out of sight. “He'll be fine. You simply haven't been farther away from each other than a few minutes' walk in a few months. He'll adjust.”

Kara didn't trust her voice enough to say anything.

Artras and Kara hustled to the refugee's meadow. Artras broke away from Kara and headed toward her own tent, shared with Dylan. Kara thrust her own tent flap back and reached inside, her pack waiting. She pulled it toward her, ready to step back outside into the dew-laden air, but she paused. The inside of the tent, still warm from the heating stone, smelled like Cory, his musk like earthen loam mixed with a faint spice that tickled her nose. She drew it in, committed it to memory, then released it and closed the tent again. Swiveling on the balls of her feet, she pulled her arms through the straps on her pack and settled it as she wove through the tents back toward the village.

As soon as she rounded Logan's cottage, she saw Cory, Hernande, Artras, Allan, and the rest of the group surrounding the single wagon they were taking into the city. It was already loaded with the few supplies they weren't carrying in their own packs. Two horses were hitched and stamping their feet, impatient to get moving. Kara noted four Dogs, all grouped around Allan. Aside from Artras, two other Wielders were going with them: Dylan and a younger Wielder named Carter. Two men from the refugees and two others originally from the Hollow—none of whom Kara knew well—would help gather the supplies once they were freed.

She noted Morrell standing close to her father. As she watched, the young girl—young woman, she realized with a start—suddenly reached out and hugged her father close before pulling back. Allan stroked her long golden hair, but caught her shoulders when she pulled away, saying something to her that Kara couldn't hear, a serious expression on his face. Morrell nodded and Allan nearly patted her head before catching himself.

Both Sophia and Paul were standing to one side, Paul scowling as usual.

Allan glanced around. “We're all here. Let's head out so we reach the plains before nightfall.”

“Don't take any risks.” Sophia gripped Kara's hands in her own. “We need you here more than you need to heal the distortions.”

Behind her, Paul grunted in disdain.

Hernande shifted a discreet distance away as Kara turned to Cory.

“I'll be careful.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and drew him in close. “And I'll be fine.” She kissed him, then pulled away before her confident facade could crack.

One Dog and one Hollower had already taken the driver's seat and hied the horses to the edge of the forest, the rest trailing behind or already out in front. Artras was waiting for Kara to catch up. She said nothing as Kara rubbed at her face with her sleeves.

Then the group passed into the shadow of the trees, and the Hollow fell behind.