Threading the Needle (53 page)

Then it struck.

The earth heaved. The wagon Allan stood on bucked. The horse squealed, a hideous sound Allan had never thought to hear coming from any animal. If he hadn't been holding onto the front for support after the horse stopped so abruptly, he would have been thrown. Artras clung to the side, the entire contraption rattling in the tremors that followed. Men were bellowing, everyone crouched low to the ground. Aurek's men were doing the same.

After another, smaller heave, the trembling faded. Everyone began to pick themselves up, dusting each other off.

Artras righted herself. “That came from the Needle.”

“Stronger than the few we've experienced in the past week.”

“And the quakes are coming closer together.”

Allan didn't know what to say. They were running out of time. “How far to the Needle?”

“Hard to say. At least three days at this pace, maybe more.”

“Then we'd better start moving faster.”

“Look!” Gaven pointed toward the west, where a plume of dust was rising from the land, blowing away from them. “What is it?”

“I don't know.” Allan caught Bryce moving toward him, but motioned the Dog toward the west before stepping over Artras' legs and hopping down from the wagon. He turned back to the others. “Keep everyone here. Bryce and I will check it out.”

“There's someone headed over from Aurek's group.”

“Deal with them.”

“Do you want to stop here for the day?”

“No! If Aurek's men are up to it, get everyone back in motion.” He cut through the men clustered around the wagons, ignoring their questioning looks.

“Another quake,” Bryce muttered as they intercepted each other, both trotting out toward the distant smear of dust. It was beginning to settle. “They're getting stronger.”

“How did you know it was coming?”

“The animals back in the Hollow acted the same way before one of the stronger ones earlier.”

They fell silent, moving swiftly. The dust settled completely. Allan's chest began to ache with effort, his muscles to protest—

Then Bryce's hand shot out and pulled him up short. “What—?”

But then he saw.

The earth had opened up before them, a fissure over ten feet wide, earth from the edge crumbling down into the depths. He heard stone hitting the sides as it fell, but he couldn't tell when it hit bottom.

Hernande's words echoed in his head:
The ley system may end up ripping the entire continent apart.

“How long is it?”

Bryce took a step forward, then jumped back as a chunk of grassy earth fell away a few steps ahead of them. “Hard to tell. Long enough. It's not a sinkhole.”

“No, it's not. Hernande warned us this might happen. I can't say I believed him, not truly. Until now.”

They stared down into the fissure, neither one moving, until movement on the far side caught Allan's attention.

A Wolf loped into sight, appearing from behind a fold in the land. It trotted up to the edge of the fissure, its motions slightly unnatural, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. It halted and faced them, faced Allan.

“Tell me that you're seeing this.”

“I am.” Bryce didn't move. “There's a second one.”

Allan didn't break the Wolf's steady gaze, but caught more movement to one side. The second Wolf was a dark brown-gray. The first one, larger, had black fur, frosted near the muzzle and ears. Its eyes were yellow.

Allan suddenly remembered the wolf's howl he'd heard before the earthquake. It hadn't come from this direction.

An indeterminate time later, the Wolf huffed and broke contact, jogging off to the right along the crevasse, the second one at its heels.

“Where there are two of them, there will be more.”

“The entire pack is here. They're following us. But they haven't attacked.” He recalled what Drayden had told him. The Wolves wanted the White Cloaks, just like Aurek.

“What's their game plan?”

“Hard to say. But if they intended us harm, they could have hit us at any point over the last week, assuming they've been here that long. And I think they have been. I thought I saw one of them back at the Hollow, before I spoke to Aurek that first time.”

“No reason to show themselves now either. They want us to know they're there.”

“He wants us to know.”

“He, who?”

Allan turned away from his scrutiny of the western plains, giving up his search for more Wolves. The wagons had already begun to move. “Grant, their pack leader.”

He broke into a light run to catch up.

Kara steadied herself against Dylan's cot as the floor shook with another quake. The tremor shivered through the stone before quieting. Dylan leaned forward from where he'd propped himself up against the wall.

“A small one.” He shifted his legs over the side of the cot with a wince.

Outside in the hall, one of the enforcers on guard glanced inside at the movement, then turned away.

“But they're becoming more frequent. Something needs to be done soon.”

Dylan massaged his knee then, with Kara's help, stood. They began to walk around the room, Dylan using Kara for support when necessary. “You said this Nexus they're creating won't work?”

“The Nexus is holding, but it's not going to repair the ley. I'd say that it stabilized it briefly. They built it slowly, about four months after the Shattering, when they realized that they didn't have enough Wielders to heal the distortion from the outside and that doing it one shard at a time was too dangerous and unrealistic.”

“That's when we started to think the ley might heal itself. The quakes had lessened.”

“The ley wasn't healing itself, it was this Nexus. But it's only a stopgap measure. It didn't fix anything, and now the ley is reacting, worse than before. Marcus knows it, but he doesn't know what else to do. Neither does that Prime, Lecrucius.”

“But you have an idea?”

They'd circled the room twice, Dylan only faltering and grabbing onto her arm once. “Not a new idea. But they have enough Wielders here, with both of us, and a Prime, that I think we can heal the distortion exactly like we used to before the Shattering.”

Dylan halted, one hand on her shoulder, skeptical. “It's huge, Kara. How many Wielders do they have?”

“Thirty-one, along with Prime Lecrucius. According to Marcus, they're all of varying strengths, but mostly average or less. Some of them would never have been chosen for the college, but they're desperate. I've seen Lecrucius working with the ley and he's strong, and Marcus has grown since Erenthrall. With all of us—and with the Nexus that they've built—it might be enough.”

“You mean, with you and the rest of us lending you our strength.” Dylan sank back onto his cot and poured himself a cup of water. He drank, then leaned back against the wall again. “You haven't told Marcus yet. Why?”

“I don't trust him.”

“Does that matter now?” Dylan waved a hand around vaguely. “This isn't about the White Cloaks or the Kormanley or what happened between you and Marcus before the Shattering. It isn't even about whether Marcus brought about the Shattering himself. If we don't do something about the ley now, it might destroy us.
All
of us.”

“But—”

“Kara, is there a better option?”

“No.”

“Then tell him.”

Kara thought of the crack running up through the pit of the Needle. Not just a crack, a rent in the stone a handspan wide. And the quakes were intensifying. The next may be enough to bring the Needle down around the Nexus, destroy this node entirely, and then they'd have lost the best chance they'd had to repair the distortion over Erenthrall for over a year.

“It won't fix everything, even if we succeed. There's the distortion over Tumbor to deal with now.”

“But it might buy us more time.”

Kara wished she had Artras here to discuss this with. She hoped the elder Wielder had made it out of Erenthrall and back to the Hollow. Her and Allan and all of the others.

“Buy who more time?”

Kara recognized Marcus' voice. “Us. All of us.”

Marcus glanced back and forth between the two. “What are you talking about?”

“Kara thinks that with the Nexus you've built, and the Wielders you have here, she can heal the distortion over Erenthrall.”

“We'd still have to deal with the distortion over Tumbor, but we'd be able to stabilize the network using the nodes in Erenthrall, at least for a while. It will take everyone here working together, though. I don't see that we have any other option.”

“How would you do it?”

Kara had thought he'd dismiss her idea out of hand. “I'd tap into the power stored in the Nexus, once we maximized the alignment. Then, with everyone—including you and Lecrucius—for support, I'd heal the distortion the same way we healed the distortions in Erenthrall before the Shattering. I'd envelop it and repair it from the outside in.”

Marcus hesitated.

“You don't think I can handle it.”

“No. I know you can handle it.”

“Then what?”

“It's Lecrucius. He won't want to have you tap into that much power. He won't want you to lead the attempt.”

“I've seen him working the ley. I'm stronger than he is.”

“That doesn't matter. He wants control of the Needle, of the White Cloaks here. He's been undermining my status as the Father's Son, probably since he arrived here, biding his time. He has a good portion of the White Cloaks under his thumb, including Iscivius and Irmona. If he refuses to help, then so will the others.”

“There won't be a Needle to control if something isn't done soon.”

“I'm not certain he cares about that.” He paused. “There's another problem.”

Kara had learned to read Marcus decades ago. She stiffened at the look in his eyes. “What?”

“The Gorrani.” At their looks of confusion, he added, “There's a force of about five thousand of them surrounding the Needle right now.”

“Where did they come from?”

Marcus had brought Kara to the Needle, but instead of descending down into the pit, he'd taken her up, to one of the highest windows looking southeast out over the plains. They stood at the edge of that window now, a cold wind whipping Kara's hair back from her shoulders in gusts. Below, the small city surrounding the Needle spread out in a circular pattern away from the temple and the node, a ring of stone buildings that merged into the tent city she'd seen from the wagon as they arrived. The tents brushed up against the outer wall, the gates sealed shut now, the top of the wall manned by the enforcers.

Beyond the wall, a massive group of men had gathered, keeping far enough distant to be out of archer range. They'd started to encircle the Needle, spreading out to either side of the main gates. Trailing out into the distance, in the direction of Tumbor, were rank upon rank of horses and Gorrani, marching toward them. A cloud of dust rose behind the column, the curtain blown toward the west and the setting sun. The fractured faces of the distortion around Tumbor gleamed with the orange light.

“They came from south of Tumbor. They'd established a community there along the river after the Shattering, so they could raid the ruins of the city and the groups struggling to survive there. They were far enough away to be outside of the distortion when it quickened.”

“What do they want?”

“What we have.”

Kara took a step closer to the window, squinting down as the Gorrani forces continued to grow. They had wagons, horses, and camels. Tents were already being erected. In snatches, the sound broken up by the wind, drums could be heard, and an occasional chanting roar. The setting sun glinted on armor and swords, and she recalled how nearly every Gorrani in Erenthrall had kept a distinctive curved blade in their household, even if they were forbidden to carry it on the streets. Every Gorrani youth was required to train with the scimitars, to be blooded with them, in order to be declared a man.