Threading the Needle (33 page)

The reaction was instant. The auroral lights strengthened, flooding outward from her fingers and up along the stone in waves. As with Claye and Harper, she merged with the prickling sensation, closing her eyes as she visualized sinew and muscle and bone. She traveled down Cory's calf, beneath the stone, into his ankle and foot, flowing through it all as if she were Cory's own blood. She felt the stressed flesh, the broken skin, the compression on the bones as the rock pressed down with its immense weight. After the initial shock, she relaxed into the sensation, realized she had also merged with the boulder, the stones holding it up, and the granite of the floor beneath. The connection wasn't as intense as it was with Cory's flesh and blood, but it was there.

And as with Claye and Harper, she could sense what was wrong.

“Cory's foot has been compressed. None of the bones are broken. Everything's just been squeezed together. All of it's bruised. And the muscles are damaged. Some of the tendons are torn, especially in his ankle. His foot's been twisted too far to one side.”

“Can you heal him?”

Morrell opened her eyes to look at the Wielder. Her connection to Cory's leg and the stone surrounding it lessened, but didn't break. “Not while the boulder is still on top of it.”

“Then we have to move the boulder. Somehow.” Raven lurched to her feet, using the boulder for support. “You three, get on either side of Cory and Morrell. The rest of you, fan out around them. I don't care if you think you're too weak, we need everyone we can get. All we have to do is lift it enough so that I can pull him free.”

The others moved into position, someone brushing up against Morrell's back. She closed her eyes again, focused. The circulation had been cut off for long enough that parts of Cory's foot were dying. She felt it as a shadow, settling over the skin and beginning to seep into the muscle and tissue beneath.

“Hurry.”

“On my mark, everyone push as hard as you can. One, two, three, mark!”

Feet scraped against the stone floor as everyone on either side of Morrell grunted with effort. Through the stone, Morrell felt them shoving back and upward, trying to force the boulder to roll. But it was too large, its bottom too flat.

“Again! One, two, three, mark!”

They all shoved again. Morrell mentally pushed hard at the stone surrounding Cory's leg, where it touched his foot.

“It moved! I felt it move!”

“One more time! One, two, three, mark!”

Morrell shoved as hard as she could through the strange prickling that spread from her hands through Cory to the stone around her. Something shifted, and then Cory's leg jerked beneath her hands as Raven hauled Cory free. Morrell lost contact with his leg, the auroral light around her hands flickering and dying. Everyone who'd been pushing against the stone released it, but it didn't seem to move at all as they did so. Morrell reached forward and wrapped her hands around Cory's calf again, connected with the wound, and began repairing it as best she could. As with Claye and Harper, she knew what was wrong, could sense how the flesh and muscle had been twisted out of true and where it should be if it were healthy and whole. Her hands grew warm, the skin beneath her touch shifting and re-forming in a way that sent shivers up her spine, but she didn't pull away. She worked from his knee downward, the worst damage at the ankle. The only time she spoke was to ask someone to tear away Cory's lower pant leg and to remove his shoe. Raven did so without a word, everyone around them silent.

And then it was done.

Morrell drew her hands away slowly and opened her eyes. Weariness washed through her entire body. She let her hands flop into her lap. Cory's foot was sheathed in blood, skin scraped off down to muscle in some spots, but it was no longer wrenched around at an unnatural angle nor flattened. Its entire length was a livid purplish-black from bruising, but Morrell knew that would fade with time. Besides, she didn't have the strength to heal it. Her entire body was drained. She could barely hold herself upright.

“That's the best I can do.”

Raven knelt down beside her, rubbing her back. “You did fine. You did better than fine.”

More people had shown up, standing back and watching silently. Behind her, someone whispered, “I don't think we moved the rock at all. I didn't feel it move. And look here. The hole's bigger, where his foot was. Isn't it?”

No one answered, and Morrell was too weary to care. Raven pulled her into a hug, rocked her back and forth, rested her chin on the top of Morrell's head. Someone ordered Cory to be taken up to Logan's cottage using one of the carts, the chamber suddenly full of activity as people began to vacate. Morrell let the sounds wash over her until finally Raven pulled back, still holding her shoulders.

“You did a great thing, Morrell. You should be proud.”

“I am. I'm just tired.”

“I'll get you back to your cottage. You can rest and Janis can take care of you.”

Raven helped her stand, and they shuffled over to where the others were lifting Cory by the shoulders and legs and carrying him up the scree and out into the corridor. Raven and Morrell trailed behind them, Max trotting back and forth between his master and Morrell. The small dog occasionally licked Cory's dangling hand, as if coaxing him to wake up. The corridor was already jammed with people going back and forth, assessing the damage or starting to clean it up. The chamber housing the animals where Morrell had been when the quake struck swarmed with people, Paul at the center calling out orders.

As soon as they emerged into the sunlight, Morrell blinking and holding up one hand to shade her eyes, Raven commandeered a wagon, recently emptied, and they slid Cory inside. Raven steadied Morrell as she climbed in beside him, taking a seat near his head and shoulders, a few of the University students climbing in toward the back. Max jumped up and curled into Cory's arm, laying his head down on Cory's chest.

“Take him to Logan,” Raven said to the wagon's driver. “Have him look over Cory and Morrell, then see that she gets handed over to Janis.”

Before he could snap the reins, Hernande hurried up, grabbing onto the side of the wagon. His normally stolid, contemplative expression cracked with a deeper, stricken emotion that Morrell couldn't identify as his knuckles whitened.

“What happened? Was it the quake?”

“Part of the ceiling caved in inside the ley node's chamber. Cory was trapped under part of it, but we freed him, and Morrell healed him as best she could. We're taking both of them to Logan.”

Hernande reached out to grip Cory's arm, squeezing once, then turned to Morrell. “Thank you.”

Raven motioned to the driver, who flicked the reins. The wagon jerked into motion, Morrell slipping into a more stable position. Behind, Hernande made to follow, but Raven caught his shoulder.

“There's something you need to see.”

When Hernande turned with a questioning look, she added more, but Morrell was too distant to hear her.

“We were working in the node chamber when the quake struck. The rest of the Wielders and University students are still down there.”

Hernande almost ignored her, looking back at the wagon that carried his student as it jostled down the hillside in the ruts already worn into the ground from the recent activity. They were moving the supplies and animals to the caves first, and were nearly at the stage where they would begin shifting people, but the entire process would be worthless if the tracks from the wagons led the raiders right to the cavern entrances. He'd have to get the other students to work on cloaking the ruts in the ground, as well as hiding the entrances.

But the thought slid away as the wagon carrying Cory jolted out of view, Morrell holding onto the wagon with one hand, keeping Cory steady with the other.

“Why?” As the wagon vanished into the trees, he shifted toward Raven. “Why are they still there? Shouldn't they be helping with the quake?”

“They are. The quake woke the node. I haven't had time to take a look yet.”

“Woke the node?”

“The ley is bubbling up through the center of the stellae.”

“Visibly?”

“Visibly. Which means there's at least ten times as much ley passing through that node now, after the quake, than before.”

Hernande began stroking his beard in contemplation. “Do you think the quake—”

“I don't know what to think yet. I haven't had time to deal with it.”

“No, I suppose you haven't.” He looked back toward where the wagon had disappeared. Cory was in good hands. Morrell would take care of him. There was nothing he could do but hover and distract Logan.

He motioned toward the cave and the rest of the men and women scattered about. “Lead the way.”

As they trudged up through the remaining wagons, they ran across three bodies—a woman and two men—watched over by grim-faced Paul.

“Was anyone else hurt? Was there any additional damage?”

“I don't know. It didn't seem like it when we came up from the node cavern. I saw others injured, but none as seriously as Cory. His leg was crushed beneath one of the fallen stones. I honestly didn't think there was anything Morrell could do. I didn't even think we'd get Cory free. Not without cutting off his leg.”

Hernande halted. “Cory's leg didn't look that bad.”

“You should have seen it when we finally pulled him free. That girl is a miracle worker and she doesn't even know it.”

“She knows it.” Hernande started moving again. “She just doesn't know how to deal with it yet.”

They passed through the jumble of activity in the outer chamber, down the long corridor, then picked their way to the bottom of the node chamber. The ley surged up from the ground between the circled stellae, shooting up to waist height before falling back down again. Hernande noted that none of the ley penetrated beyond the outer circle cut into the stone floor. It must be a barrier of some sort.

He was still fixated on the ley as Raven drew to a halt before the collapsed portion of the ceiling. She touched Hernande's arm and pointed to the rockfall. “That's the boulder Cory was trapped under.”

The boulder was five times as large as Hernande had imagined, a significant chunk of the ceiling scattered around it in smaller pieces. But it was the sight of the blood that jolted him. The floor was covered with a dark stain around the boulder, a smaller pool a short distance away, where he assumed Cory had lain after being pulled free. He
stepped forward, near where two students knelt, looking at an indentation in the stone's base.

One of them motioned toward it. “That's where Cory's leg was. Everyone else thinks we moved the boulder, but I don't think so.”

“If we didn't move the boulder, then how did we get Cory out?” the girl protested.

“I think it was Morrell.” The boy waved a hand at the small crack between the boulder and the floor. “I think she made the opening wider. Can she do that?”

“Of course not. She heals people. We've all seen her. She can't move stone. Right, Mentor?”

“I didn't say she
moved
it.”

Hernande chewed on the end of his beard. “I don't know the extent of Morrell's powers, but she can certainly heal.”

The girl sent a scathing look at her fellow student, as if Hernande had verified her claim.

Hernande knelt down beside them. He traced the outline of blood on the ground. It was already drying, tacky now. He turned his attention to the boulder and the crevice at its base.

He brushed the outside, the stone grainy and rough, then reached further into the hole.

Inside, the rock was smooth, as if eroded by water.

Or molded, like the stone of the buildings in Erenthrall created by the Wielders and mentors.

He pulled his hand free, scrubbed it on his breeches, then stood. The students were waiting expectantly, but he shifted his attention to the node. “What do we know about the appearance of the ley?”

“As I said before, nothing. We haven't had a chance to study it yet.”

Hernande gave Raven a steady look.

She headed toward the circle of stellae in the center of the room. Hernande and the others trailed behind her. She halted outside the circle carved into the floor that Hernande had noted earlier. “Give me a moment. All of the Wielders—follow along, but stay out of my way.”

The Wielders nodded. All of them tensed, eyes distracted and distant, signs that Hernande had learned long ago meant they were reaching for the ley.

A moment later, some of the Wielders gasped.

Hernande stepped forward. “What is it?”

“The ley is strong. Coming from the north, although I don't know from where. It's not the right angle to be from Dunmara or Severen. Perhaps Ikanth? But even then . . .” Raven trailed off.

“Where is it headed?”

Raven remained silent long enough that Hernande almost asked her again. “Southwest.” The black-haired Wielder's shoulders hunched forward. She drew in a couple of deep breaths, steadying herself, while all around her the Wielders withdrew from the ley. Mareane stepped forward, one hand on Raven's back. She murmured something, too low for Hernande to hear.