Threading the Needle (6 page)

Janis emerged from the edge of the trees onto the stone outcropping that overlooked the hills south of the Hollow, the sun just above the jagged peaks of the mountains to the west. The harsh colors of the distortion over Erenthrall glittered on the horizon. Sophia had found her in the cottage she shared with Allan and Morrell, had told her what had happened with Claye. She'd been concerned Morrell had overheard them and run away, but Janis had brushed her fears aside. Now dread clutched her chest at the thought that Sophia might have been right. She'd already checked all of the other places Morrell would run to when upset.

Then she heard a muffled scratch of cloth against stone. She stepped farther out onto the rocky outcropping and found Morrell seated, leaning against an upthrust ridge of granite, staring out into the distance.

Toward Erenthrall.

Morrell didn't move as Janis settled into position beside her. Tears sheened the young girl's cheeks. Her hands lay in her lap, palms up.

They sat in silence for ten minutes before Morrell said, “They told you, didn't they?”

“Of course they did. They were worried. They thought you'd run away.”

Morrell's breath caught. “I didn't have anywhere to run to!”

“Oh, my dear child.” She placed her arm around Morrell's shoulders, and to her surprise the recently willful and independent girl she had helped raise tucked herself into her side. Janis brushed her silken hair, and a sudden image of Morrell at half her current age stabbed into her
heart with a sharp pain. She made soothing nonsense noises, watching the distance without really seeing it. The sun sank closer to the mountains, the shadows of the trees growing long and thin and diffuse, the lights of Erenthrall brighter.

“Did you think Logan and Sophia and the others would throw you out of the Hollow?”

Morrell snuffled and nodded, the motion against Janis' chest felt more than seen.

“Why would they do that? They've known you since you were a baby.”

“Because they don't like the ley or anyone who can wield it. Look at how Paul treats Kara and the other Wielders.”

“The Baron and the Prime Wielders forced Paul from his land, hurt his family. He's bitter. It has nothing to do with you. He accepted your father, didn't he?”

“That's different,” Morrell said hotly, pulling away from her, sitting up straight. Her face was red and splotched from crying. “My father kills the ley, blocks it somehow. Of course everyone in the Hollow likes him.”

Janis' eyes narrowed. “Sometimes you're too smart for your own good.” She shifted tactics. “It won't matter. Paul won't find out what you've done. Logan, Sophia, and I have agreed to keep quiet about it.”

“They won't tell anyone?”

“Why would they? What would they say? They don't know exactly what you did.”

Morrell glanced down at her hands. “All I did was touch him.”

“From what Logan says, you healed him. Cured his infection, at least.”

“But I don't know how I did it.”

“My point exactly. Why would they tell anyone if they aren't even certain you can do it again?”

“I
won't
do it again. I refuse to.”

Janis' skin prickled in sudden unease. “Why not? You saved Claye's life, didn't you?”

“Yes. But when it happened, I saw—”

Morrell's jaw snapped shut.

Janis touched her arm, drawing Morrell's attention from the distant plains, now cast mostly in shadow, to her own eyes.

“What did you see?”

In a quiet voice—not childlike, but adult; more adult than anything she'd seen or heard from Morrell the entire time they'd spoken—she said, “Lights. I saw auroral lights. Like those we sometimes see on the plains.”

“Is it going to hit us?” Allan asked.

Kara reached for the ley as she shaded her eyes with one hand, staring hard toward the shifting auroral light rolling across the plains between their position and Erenthrall like an eerily beautiful fog bank. A hideous prickling sensation crawled across her skin and down her back at the sight, like a thousand fire ants scuttling beneath her shirt. “I don't think so. But it's too close already. We should be careful.”

They were standing on the outskirts of an abandoned town, long since raided for whatever supplies it might have held. As Kara lowered her hand, something tugged at her attention on the ley and she turned to face the west.

Allan caught her sudden tension. “What is it?”

“A ley line, stronger than anything we've encountered since leaving Erenthrall.” She hesitated, dancing down its length, then gasped. “And a node.” She turned to Allan in astonishment. “An
active
node. I have to see it.”

Allan drew breath to protest, glancing toward the auroral storm in the distance, now blotting out half of the distortion over the city, then sagged in defeat. “Make it quick—”

Kara had already spun away from him, stalking toward the wagon and the rest of their group hovering on the edge of the town. “Artras, come with me. There's a ley line and node not too far from here. We need to check it out.”

Artras gaped a moment, then hustled down from the wagon to meet her. Dylan and Carter both perked up.

“I can help,” Carter called, hopping out of the back of the wagon as well.

“No need.” Kara waved the young Wielder off. “Artras and I can handle it.”

A look of irritation flashed across Carter's face, but then Dylan placed a hand on his shoulder and said something and he turned away.

“Where is it?” Artras asked as she approached.

“West of the village and the road, away from the main buildings.”

“I can feel it. Not that strong.”

“But stronger than anything near the Hollow.”

Artras didn't answer. They stepped off the stone of the road and between two buildings, storefronts of some kind. Behind were a few storage buildings, scattered cottages with gardens now growing wild. Beyond, the terrain was rougher, but Kara could sense the pull of the ley. They brushed through grass, the knee-high stalks pattering against their legs, only rolling grassland interrupted by a few trees stretching into the distance.

“What's that?”

Kara squinted. “I don't know.”

They stumbled onto the lip of a depression surrounded by a low wall of stacked stones. A break in the wall acted as a gate, and in the center of the shallow bowl of carved-out earth sat a rough-hewn triangular boulder resting on three squat round stones.

“It's like the bowl around the Nexus in Erenthrall. Not on the same scale, and that rock doesn't look anything like the Nexus when we found it, but close enough.” Kara descended down into the depression. The ley grew stronger as she approached. She laid her hand on the rough surface. “It's the node,” she said, then corrected herself. “No, it's not. But the node is directly beneath it.”

Artras had laid her hand on the stone as well, brushing her hands across its surface as she moved around its three sides, eyes narrowed, searching. Most of the bowl was shadowed, deep enough it wasn't catching the light from the distortion. “I don't see any markings.”

Kara realized what she was looking for and began searching as well. Within two steps, she stumbled on a stone hidden in the darkness. She felt it roll away—

And the energy within the bowl shifted. It was a subtle change, but Kara suddenly remembered Ischua, her father, and the test the Tender had given her in the middle of Halliel's Park when she was twelve. Her eyes widened as the memory poured in.

“It must be an old node.” She reached down to pick up the displaced stone and returned it to its proper position. “One that was probably part of the ley network before Prime Augustus and Baron Arent subjugated the ley by forming the Nexus.”

“But Hernande and Cory have been checking the network using the sands. They haven't seen many pockets of stability at all.” Artras patted the rock between them. “This node feels stable.”

“I don't think they've been monitoring it this far out. There's nothing here, after all.” Then, in a softer voice, “Or there wasn't.”

Kara shifted, reaching for the ley as she sighted along one of the ley lines. It angled straight for Erenthrall, the massive distortion looming on the horizon now, the auroral storm in between. It didn't surprise her that the node was connected to the city. But it couldn't be attached to the Nexus, or even Halliel's Park; both of those nodes were locked inside the distortion. It had to be connected to something else. But what?

And then there was the branching line.

She twisted, stepping away from the node toward the west, sighting along the second line. Unseen, it streaked straight across the plains, toward the mountains.

She'd started to reach out to follow it, perhaps to its destination, when Artras touched her arm.

“Look,” the elder Wielder said, motioning toward the stone.

“What? I don't see . . .”

“The stone. It's pointing in the direction of the lines.”

The stone had been oriented so that two of its vertices were pointed directly along the paths of the ley lines. The third . . .

“There must have been another ley line in the past.” She stepped around Artras, lined herself up with the third point of the triangle, kneeling down so she could touch the earth there, reaching into it, feeling the energies that surrounded them. “Yes. You can feel it. The energies aren't quite in synch.”

Artras crouched down at her side and she felt the older woman reaching into the eddies. “Something must have happened to the node at the other end, something to cut off the natural flow.” Artras stood, staring off into the northeast. “It's pointing toward the Reaches.”

“Dunmara?” Kara asked. But she didn't think so. The angle wasn't quite right.

Artras shrugged.

A shout came from the direction of the abandoned town, faint with distance. Kara patted the stone as she said, “We should head back.”

They climbed up out of the node's bowl and entered the town to find Allan and the others already rolling out.

“We saw you coming,” Allan said as they emerged between two of the faded storefronts to join him. They began to follow the wagon. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“We found the node. But it didn't offer us any answers, only more questions.”

A
F
TER TWO WEEKS OF TRAVEL,
Kara, Allan, and the rest of the group entered the edge of the sprawling streets of Erenthrall. Two of the Dogs loped out in front of the group, vanishing into side streets to scout the way. Kara and the Wielders stayed with the wagon.

Kara eyed the buildings as they passed: windows gaped down at them, empty and hollow, their panes shattered; a few doors hung from hinges, some completely missing; shutters creaked in the wind coming from the east. But the streets were mostly clear, the buildings intact. The destruction of the Nexus hadn't been felt as badly this far from the center. Kara swallowed back a bitter taste nonetheless. She knew this was far from the worst, but she could sense how much the city had changed since she'd last been here. It felt wrong. The streets should be alive with people, with activity, with
life
.

One of the scouts returned and gestured to Allan. The ex-Dog motioned Gaven toward a secondary street, branching away from the main thoroughfare heading toward the city center. Gaven picked up the wagon's pace, forcing Kara and the others into a trot to keep up. They reached their destination within five blocks, making two more turns at odd intersections. Kara didn't even know what district they were in, much less what street they were on. But then, she didn't know all of Erenthrall, only the few districts she'd been assigned as a Wielder and some of the surrounding areas, all located closer to Grass, inside the distortion.

At a sharp whistle, Gaven slowed and cut left, leading the wagon into an alley. Kara, Artras, and the others followed it into the shadows, one
of the trackers lighting a torch, revealing an alcove and door cut into the building on the right. Everyone filed in, Kara glancing back to see Allan guarding the alley, turning to join them only after the other scout returned.

Inside, the Dogs and trackers led them through a few hallways, then up stairs to the higher levels. They halted in a vacant interior room, doors opening off to either side into other rooms.

Kara turned to Allan. “What are we doing here? There are still a few hours of dark left. Shouldn't we head deeper into the city?”

“Not until we find out what the situation is at the moment.”

“What do you mean?”

Allan glanced toward Glenn and Adder, who ducked into two of the side rooms. Kent and Jack headed toward the stairs leading higher up. “Tim, Cutter, keep watch outside.” Both headed back downstairs as Gaven and Aaron returned from taking care of the horses.

Only then did Allan turn back to her. “The boundaries of the groups still here in Erenthrall change constantly. The section we're in right now is controlled by the Wolves. That's why there's no one around. We don't know where the Wolves have holed up, but they roam the streets in this area and take out whoever they find. But the Temerites have been pressing into this area from the east, and there are smaller groups scattered here and there who hound them as well. The last time we were here, this building and area were safe, but that may have changed since then. We need to make certain before we try to move in closer to the distortion.”

“You've used this building before?”

“It's one of many we've set up throughout the city.” He moved to the side of the room, where the wall was covered in cupboards. He opened a few, removing some blankets, passing them around. Gaven opened others, revealing stored food, a few candles, other supplies.

Kara caught a glint of torchlight on glass and her hand shot forward, her fingers slipping over the object almost reverently. “A ley globe. I haven't seen one of these in months.”

All of the Wielders paused, Dylan and Carter rising and drifting forward.

“Should we see if we can light it?” Dylan asked.

They all looked to Allan. He shrugged. “It would save us using the candles or lanterns.”

Carter reached for the globe, but Dylan grabbed his hand. “You should do it, Kara.”

He didn't notice Carter's look of resentment.

Kara's brow furrowed. “Why me?” She placed the globe in Carter's hands. “You and Dylan see if you can get it to work. See if you can get a heating stone going as well. Just be careful with the ley. We know it's unstable and erratic here.”

Carter accepted the globe and they shifted into a corner, already arguing over how to get the globe activated when they didn't know the layout of the ley and how to keep it lit without constant monitoring if the ley was unstable.

“Will they be able to do it?”

Kara reached for the ley in the area, felt it throbbing against her skin. This close to Erenthrall, it surrounded her on all sides, but there was no order to it. The stable ley line they'd found in the abandoned town days before still lay off to their northwest. There were a few other points of stability nearby, possibly nodes, but there was no network, not even a significant locus of power. Somewhere close, ley was pooling beneath the streets, probably in one of the ley barge stations or one of the system's tunnels. Farther out, ley exploded from the earth in a geyser, the fountain already abating.

“They should be able to get this room stabilized, maybe the building, but it's too chaotic beyond that. And it won't last. As soon as we leave, it will collapse.”

“It's better than nothing. Just make certain they keep the globe in here. This room is central enough that the light can't be seen from outside.” Allan headed toward one of the side doors, weaving through the others, who had already claimed sleeping space around the room. “They won't be able to do anything if I'm here.”

Kara hesitated, then followed him out into the corridors and rooms beyond. As they passed through the apartments and flats, she noted that tables and chairs and other furniture had been rearranged, blocking doorways and halls, creating a maze with dead ends and false turns. Most of the rooms had been cleared, floors and walls bare, only the tracks in the dust from the guards indicating any signs of life.

Allan passed through a door into a room where Glenn stood guard to one side of a shattered window, a faded curtain fluttering back from the broken glass. Allan joined him, Kara hanging back. She could see
the variegated lights of the distortion through the opening, blocks of streets and buildings in between. The city rose and fell, following the hills and the natural landscape, but from this vantage, Kara could see all the way to the distortion, the view unobstructed except for a few taller buildings to either side. The land dipped down in a shallow valley, interrupted only by the cut of the Tiana River. The distortion illuminated it all in blocky rooftops and black shadow.

“Anything?” Allan asked Glenn.

“No activity nearby.” He pointed. “That ley geyser is new, so we should avoid the Backway District and probably Harker Street. There are torches along the Temerite walls to the east, and a few fires between here and there, smaller groups holding out in a few buildings. The River Rats appear to still hold their small island in the middle of the Tiana to the southwest.”

Kara shifted forward as he spoke, until she could see into the distance to the left of the distortion. The view wasn't as clear here, rises in the land cutting off the sightline, but there were numerous groupings of firelight, all on the far side of the Tiana and all too distant to make out any clear details. The ley geyser she'd felt earlier spouted up between a set of buildings much closer to their own, the white light harsh, near blinding.

Sliding to the left, closer to Allan and Glenn, she picked out the island. Not a true island, merely a long section of buildings where the river had split as it gouged a path through the city. She couldn't tell if there were other groups besides the River Rats in that direction.

“This entire area is controlled by the Wolves?”

“Yes.”

Kara straightened in mild shock. “But their territory covers at least four districts, if not more!”

“Which is the only reason we've been able to infiltrate the city and return to the Hollow with supplies all this time. The territory is too large for them to patrol easily. We've been able to slip in and out without notice.”

“Most of the time,” Glenn added, casting Allan a significant glance.

“Yes, most of the time. But their hold on the others is based on fear. It won't last.” It looked as if he were about to say more, but then his shoulders slumped. “You should rest. Tomorrow, I want to take you and the others to the distortion. We need to see whether or not you can
release individual shards as soon as possible. If this has been a fool's errand, I don't want to linger in the city.”

Kara edged toward the window and looked across the Wolves' territory at the distortion, at the jagged edges of lightning that shot through it and the faces of the shards of fractured reality. Exhaustion brought on by the weeks of travel settled into her bones, but now that she was this close she wanted to be there, at the base of the distortion, acting to bring it down.

But it would do no good working on the distortion when she was already tired. It would only drain her further.

She returned to the inner room, where Dylan and Carter had managed to light the ley globe, its soft white radiance—so different from firelight—suffusing the room. After so long, the light felt strange and unfamiliar. They'd set up the heating stone in the center of the room.

Everyone had slumped down onto their makeshift pallets, a few even snoring. Only Artras stirred as Kara knelt to warm herself.

“This is for you.” Artras patted a set of blankets already arranged to one side before rolling over and pulling her own tighter over her shoulders.

Kara sank to the pallet gratefully. She thought the light of the ley globe would keep her awake, but she instantly fell asleep.

Drayden loped along the street in the darkness, his paws making no sound as he padded down the length of a building, winding through debris. The stars out over the plains to the north glinted like pinpricks of broken glass. To the south, the glare of the distortion washed most of the stars out. Dawn was an hour away.

He reached the end of the block and paused, staring out over the plaza to his right. The statue of a man stood on a pedestal at its center, right hand extended toward the heavens, a globe in his left. His lip curled and a low rumble rolled down through his chest. Something about the plaza, the statue, tugged at his memory. As if he knew this place, this person, the meaning deeper than simply a checkpoint on his patrol or a feature of the pack's hunting ground. A flare of sunlight in his mind brought the sound of a crowded bazaar, a girl's childish laughter, the touch of a woman, the scent of roasted meats and pungent ale.

His mind grasped for the images . . .

But he couldn't dredge them up from the depths, and the illusory sensations slipped away. His growl faded. He sniffed the air, the scents of
now
prickling his nose in layers. Dust and stone, dried wood, a dampness that remained from the rain two days before. The musk of his fellow pack mates who'd passed this way recently. Rat shit and urine, the tang of rabbit and vole, the dry slickness of snake.

Wind gusted, plucked at his fur, and he turned his nose into it, breathed in deep—

And slid instantly into a low crouch, neck fur bristling, ears pricked forward, as the scent of humans slammed into him. Many of them, their reek individual, distinct, and close. He pinpointed the direction and scrambled across the openness of the plaza, slinking around the statue that disturbed him with its dark familiarity and hints of lost memories and into the streets beyond. He prowled through the shadows, the noise of his claws against the stone suddenly too loud.

Two blocks further on, he slowed, the scent of humans—and horse—stronger now, almost overpowering. Reaching an intersection, he paused, searched both directions, but saw nothing. He trotted out into the street, nose to the ground, weaving back and forth, circling, picking out six, seven, no, a dozen distinct scents, maybe more if the group had scouts, plus the horses. Metal as well. A wagon, its wheels scraping the stone cobbles.

And one of those scents tickled another memory, more recent than the statue, more permanent.

He snuffled along the track, trying to place it—

Then images exploded across his vision and he jerked to attention, his lips drawing back from his teeth, an angry growl uncurling from deep inside: a frantic chase through debris-cluttered streets, a leap from one building to the next, and then a burst of pain as he slammed into the side of the distortion, followed by seething rage at the prey's escape.

The alpha had been furious, had punished them all severely.

The alpha had ordered them to warn him if the scent of the man were picked up again.

Drayden's anger banked like a fire and, still snarling, he backed away from the direction the man had taken before twisting around and racing toward the den.

The alpha would want to know immediately that the man who had escaped them so recently had returned.