Voice of war, p.23
Voice of War, page 23
part #1 of Threadlight Series
The Masked Guard were Jelium’s elite. Each of them was a threadweaver. In fact, almost every single threadweaver in Cynosure was a Masked Guard. Alverax watched to see if there was a pattern to their patrolling, but it seemed random. Best to avoid them if possible. The last thing he needed was a Masked Guard questioning his black irises.
The horn blew once more. Alverax pulled his hood forward, obscured his face, and moved down closer to the track. He needed a good line of sight if this was going to work. Unfortunately, he had no idea which rider Jelium had bet on for this race.
A bellowing shout rang out as the announcer called out that the gates were ready, and then initiated the countdown. A rough group of dark-skinned Felians—that looked like they could be Alverax’s cousins—stood next to him, each of them shouting out the countdown. He moved closer to them, trying to blend in.
The race began.
Six new riders burst forth out of the gates, necrolytes thrashing back and forth as they slithered down the sandy racetrack. He looked at the riders. Alverax opened his vision to threadlight and examined each of the riders before finding Jelium’s threads. They surrounded a thick tree of a man who had taken an early lead. The spindly threads of pulsing light latched onto him, fastening him securely to his mount.
Alverax waited for the final switchback. As all six creatures rounded the turn, he ran his experiment. All he needed to know was if he could break a thread at this distance. He squeezed gently against the smallest thread and gasped as single every one of Jelium’s threads burst apart in an explosion of threadlight. The sudden shift in gravity surprised the rider, and he was thrown off his necrolyte as they finished rounding the corner. Panicking, Alverax grabbed onto the man’s corethread and squeezed right at the pinnacle of his ascent, hoping to save him from the same fall as the earlier rider. His corethread burst asunder and he started to float in the air, like a wayward bubble.
Heralds save me.
The necrolyte thrashed out at the other necrolytes around it, gauging a tusk deep into the body of its nearest neighbor. A beastly howl rang out from under its harnessed mouth and it reared back, tossing its rider off into the sand. The two necrolytes fought fiercely, dashing in and out of each other’s striking distance. Their tusks tied together, and they came crashing to the ground. The tusks of the larger necrolyte rammed down through the plated scales of the other and its body went limp.
The crowd exploded in applause, but Alverax stood still as death.
What had happened? He was sure he’d only broken the one thread. Not the whole lot! He looked around, terrified that the Masked Guard would find him. Jelium was standing and yelling at people as he raised his hand and stilled the last, raging necrolytes. Two guards near him nodded and surveilled the stadium.
Gasps and curses surrounded him as fans watched the man floating in the air above the track. Alverax needed to get out. One of the Masked Guard moved in his direction. He turned and walked as fast as he could up the stairs toward the exit. It was a struggle to push past the gawking crowds. Rough men cursed him as he bumped his way through. After crashing into a fully tattooed Kulaian, apologizing, and melting away, he made it to the top of the stairway.
A masked guard stood staring at him. Alverax looked into the man’s green eyes. The guard looked back. “What in the—”
Alverax shoved a thin girl into the guard and took off. He rushed through the overcrowded street, crashing into dozens of people, until a short, angry man grabbed his arm.
“Watch it, pal!” When the man saw Alverax’s eyes, he cursed and let go, backing away. “I didn’t mean nothing!”
Alverax looked over his shoulder, but the Masked Guard was nowhere to be seen. He ran, continuing toward the exit leading to the Nest. He could see the tunnel going in and out of view as he dodged around people.
Two masked guards dropped down from above, eyes burning blue in the bright moonlight. They were cutting off his path to the Nest. He turned in a full circle, looking for a way out. The crowd stared at him, curious why the Masked Guard was so interested.
“On your knees. Hands behind your back.” They moved forward. “Jelium would like to speak with you.”
His hands shook as they moved toward him. He couldn’t go back to Jelium. There was no way he’d be as lucky a second time. He looked to the guards and broke their corethreads. His veins burned hot as fire. He needed water. He needed to jump off Mercy’s Bluff and into the ocean to cool his skin. Instead, he watched as the guards both took their next step, launching themselves in a slow ascent up into the air with puzzled looks on their face.
Just then, he was tackled from behind by a third guard. He didn’t fight back; he was terrible at it. Instead, he simply complied.
The whole thing had been a terrible idea. Every time he had a chance to make something of his life, he ruined it. Maybe he was more of his father’s son than he wanted to admit.
He dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his back. The guard tied a thin rope around his hands and placed a blindfold over his eyes.
Tears built up in his eyes. He was so stupid. He’d been given a gift and the first thing he did with it was to cheat a king. He should have run. The desert was only so big. If he’d run north, he would have made it to Alchea eventually. He could have started a new life. Become something more than the thief’s son. Instead, he was going to die…for the second time in a week.
The guard lifted Alverax’s hands high behind his back as they pushed him forward. He tripped on a rock and they beat him for it. He could hear everyone whispering as he passed, mocking him under the dull roar of the crowd. He must look so pathetic. Some poor sod. A nobody.
After a few minutes of walking, they finally stopped. With his eyes blindfolded, he had to rely on his other senses. There was no breeze, so they were likely indoors. It was quiet, which meant they were far enough away from the Pit for the noise to fade. But the most intense sensation of all was the smell. He recognized it but couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Horrid, surely, but there was something familiar about it.
A door opened, and heavy footsteps passed through. Dread washed over him. He had flashbacks to the week before, but this time he was actually guilty. The man didn’t speak, and even though he knew he shouldn’t, a small part of him started to hope.
“I don’t surprise easily.”
Oh, Heralds, why?
Jelium’s voice was gravelly, as if he were gurgling a pinch of saltwater while he spoke. “Yet here I stand…quite so.”
Alverax knew he shouldn’t, but he did. “I’m surprised you can stand at all without help.” He cringed, cursing his tongue, preparing for a brutal response, but it never came.
Jelium ignored the jibe. “You know, people with not only the will but the ability to survive can be quite useful. I think you could be useful to me but, knowing your lineage, I’ve a feeling you would be much more trouble than you were worth. We have much to discuss, and it would be more efficient if I didn’t have to extract the answers from you manually. So, do behave, and we can have a pleasant rest of the evening.”
Did Jelium already know? Maybe he had a suspicion but needed to confirm. And what would Jelium do if he found out that Alverax was a threadweaver now? Run experiments on him? He already had scars from the last one. That’s when he realized what the smell was. It smelled like the pit of bones he’d awoken in. The smell was death.
He’d been so focused on what he could do now that he was a threadweaver that he hadn’t thought to ask how. They did this to him. Whatever they’d done on that operating table, it was what had given him these abilities. How was that even possible? Could you make a threadweaver?
Jelium ripped off the blindfold. “Let’s have a look, shall we?” Alverax kept his eyes on the ground in front of him. “Oh, don’t be shy, little thief.”
The insult cut deep. Jelium knew well who Alverax’s father was. He’d executed the man. And he would always see Alverax as the thief’s son. He looked up defiantly, black eyes meeting a pallid yellow. He tried to lunge forward but was held down by an unseen power. “I told you before, I am NOT a thief.”
“Oh, you are.” Jelium smiled, tilting his head as he stared at the black irises and thin black veins pulsing in Alverax’s eyes. “But you are also much, much more now.”
Jelium sat down in an oversized chair in the corner of the room, smiling to himself. The rest of the room was empty. A large door with no handle to the left of Jelium’s chair. A slight breeze wafting down from the open roof. Flickering torchlight barely peeking over the high walls. Just the two of them.
“I suppose the right thing to do would be to hand you over to the lady,” he said with a rhetorical tone. “But, then again, you would be a powerful tool to hold onto for myself. It would infuriate her if she ever found out. You are her proof. But plans change.
“The greatest irony of it is that my most worthless daughter has unintentionally delivered me a most priceless treasure.”
Alverax lunged forward, a primal defensive rage burning in his soul. He shouldn’t care for Jayla after what she’d done to him, but the deepest wound doesn’t cause love to fade any faster. He had barely moved before Jelium’s veins lit up with Amber threadlight. A dozen tendrils of light crawled out of the earth, latching onto Alverax like vipers.
“I will break you personally. And I will enjoy every last moment of it. By the end, you will be mine, mind and body. Everyone breaks, little thief.”
Everyone breaks. It made it sound like he wasn’t already broken, but he was. He didn’t deny that. Alverax was broken. Perhaps in time—much like threads—the broken parts of him would heal. But not if he was dead.
The thought gave him an idea. Threadlight burned inside of Alverax, his veins glowing with black effervescence, and he grasped onto the unnatural threads holding him down. He poured every ounce of hate, every scrap of pain, every fragment of his soul into the threads. They burst apart into millions of incandescent specks of threadlight. At the same time, his corethread exploded in a brilliant spray of light and the weight of the world lifted from him.
Jelium gasped in his chair, as if he could feel the breaking threads. He pounded on the door. “Open the damn door! Now!”
Alverax took a step forward, rising up just the slightest off the ground. Jelium had no power over him. As the door opened, Alverax smiled. “Goodbye, little beef.”
He leapt off the ground, launching into the air with no gravity to stop him. A bird with no need of wings. The wind flowed over his body, cooling the burning in his veins. Slowly, but surely, he continued to rise. Then, looking down at the cityscape below him, he realized his mistake.
He had no way to land.
Chapter 24
It was an odd feeling, weightlessness. Floating. Wafting in the wind. With how bad the situation stunk, Alverax was trying hard not to apply the obvious metaphor.
He’d drifted far away from the Pit but could still see the little room in the distance. He couldn’t see Jelium down there, which surprised him considering the girth. A cloud passed high over the city’s southern quarter. The view was captivating. He’d once climbed to Lover’s Lookout with a “friend”, but his current view from the sky made the other seem like a guest room in a palace.
The desert city sprawled out beneath him. To the northeast, he could see Jelium’s palace with a complex of apartments for all of his children. He could see Alabella’s more humble home beside it. The city center was a ghost town, filled with empty tents and quiet streets that would fill to the brim in the morning.
And, Heralds, the horizon. He’d grown so accustomed to the view looking out over the Altapecean Sea that he’d forgotten how magnificent it was. Mercy’s Bluff at the southern edge of the city was an abrupt drop-off, a cliff that plunged hundreds of feet down into the sea. Down below was a collection of ships that floated in the ocean surf. Cynosure itself was miles wide and partially covered by a sandstone mountain arcing overhead like a half-completed ceiling. It’s what caused darkness to constantly cover the northern quarter.
After the wind drag had stopped his initial horizontal momentum, he floated helplessly in the air, a light breeze carrying him along. He knew it would happen any moment. When he broke threads, it was temporary. But what if it wasn’t this time? What if he was stuck up in the air forever? He’d already floated longer than he’d expected to. Either way, he was probably going to die. The thought was oddly reassuring. He’d already died once. What was one more time?
Then it happened. His corethread reappeared, popping back into existence, becoming brighter and thicker over the course of a few moments. The world pulled him, and he fell. Slow at first, but he knew it would accelerate until he was falling at terminal speed. An image of himself splattered over a sandy walkway flashed in his mind. He panicked. He did the only thing he could do. He grabbed onto his corethread. His veins filled with dark threadlight, and he broke it. It shattered apart into a thousand particles of threadlight and faded away.
He was still falling, but gravity no longer pulled. As he descended, he realized that the friction of the air itself was slowing him down. He’d felt a host of new feelings over the last day, but a freefall that slowed as he descended had to be the strangest. He was going to live! The Blightwoods were hard to kill after all.
“WOOO!” He screamed out into the open air, pumping his fists out over his head. Unfortunately, it threw him off balance, and he began to rotate. Despite being alone, he was horribly embarrassed. Hours ago, he’d felt a god, and now, he was a floppy, floating sky fish.
As if on cue, his corethread reappeared. The sudden jerk of gravity pulled him down. He crashed into a tent in the city center, rolling head over heels until he was flat on his back in a large box that smelled like stale wolfberry. He picked himself up and hopped down out of the box. His first steps felt odd, like he’d stepped off a ship onto dry land. His mind matched his dizzy feet.
It was dark in the empty market. Feeling brilliant, he opened his mind to threadlight to better navigate the world, but quickly remembered that his own vision was tied to his ability to see threads. The world stayed dark, only a few dim threads appearing. As he let it fade, he had to place a hand on a large tent pole to keep himself from falling. Not all of the dizziness had come from flying. The veins running through his arms and neck were warm to the touch.
Not again.
He vomited.
A stranger passed by on the other side of the market and Alverax remembered that the Masked Guard would be looking for him. He needed to be discreet, and, Heralds, he needed to warn his grandfather. Then, he needed to get out of town. For good.
His feet guided him home, his mind and body still dealing with the overuse of threadweaving. His grandfather’s house had candles lit inside, but it was too late for him to still be awake. Alverax’s heart beat faster. What if they were already there? Would they hurt him? He was old. They wouldn’t. Would they?
He ran forward and almost knocked the door off its hinges as he burst into the small house. His grandfather startled awake, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room, eyes filled with exhaustion and worry.
“You’re safe,” his grandfather said.
Alverax smiled something fierce. “Me? I was worried about you, old man.”
“You’ve never been a good liar, Al. It was obvious you were going out to do something reckless, and I was worried you’d come back deader than you were last night.”
“I’m fine,” Alverax said, the nausea still a dull pecking in his stomach, “but I have to leave. For good this time.”
His grandfather nodded, unsurprised by the revelation. “You do what you have to do, son. Your father used to go on trips. He always came back. Just promise me you won’t be gone for too long.”
Alverax’s heart broke. He knew what his grandfather was implying, and the thought of his grandfather passing seemed so distant. He’d always been the rock Alverax came back to when things got rough. What would he do when the man actually was gone? But if Alverax left, what was the difference? Everyone in Cynosure may as well be dead. He wouldn’t see them again either way.
“I…I’ll try. Jelium is looking for me, and it won’t be a happy ending if he finds me.” He moved toward the hallway leading back to his room. “They’ll come here. It would be safer for you to hide out for a while as well.”
His grandfather laughed. “I’m too old to play games. Let ‘em come. Us Blightwoods don’t die easy. You take care of yourself. You’re a better man than your father. Wherever you end up, act like it. You’re the only good thing he ever did.”
He disappeared into his room before the tears came. If anyone should get credit for any semblance of goodness Alverax had, it was his grandfather. He was just too humble to admit it.
Alverax packed a bag of clothes while he thought about his grandfather’s words. It felt strange knowing that whatever he didn’t pack, he would never see again. In general, he wasn’t a sentimental person, but extreme times call for extreme feelings. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of Cynosure; they weren’t keen on letting people freely leave. But he could fly now, sort of. He was sure he could figure out something.
He returned to the living room and gave his grandfather a hug before walking to the door.
The old man sat nodding his head and smiling. “I should have done it myself a long time ago. The world is so much more than the sludge of taractus turds in this core-rotten city. Go, and don’t look back. Be better. I’ll be just fine.”
It wasn’t the right time to laugh, but he let out the whisper of one. He was going to miss the old man. “Thanks for everything.”
Alverax walked away from the small sandstone home he’d lived in his whole life, but he’d died this week, so it felt fitting. As he walked in darkness toward the northern exit, he thought about what he might do when he got out. Alchea felt like the obvious choice. It was the closest metropolitan city. There were smaller farming towns on the way, but if he was getting out of this place, he wanted to see more than farmland. In all honesty, he had no idea how far Alchea was from the desert, or even how far it was to get out of the desert. Was it true that there were wild necrolytes? And sandhogs? If they came at him, he could just float away. The thought put a smile on his face. He needed to invest in a really good pillow he could use for soft landings.
