The Fifth City (22 page)

A smoking crater was all that remained of the city of light.  Hundreds of villas had been replaced with mountains of burning hot embers.  Parts of the wall had been spared, but the sections that remained were now only mounds of melted glass and stone.  The fires had sliced through the center of the city at the demand of the exploding orbs, which had been close enough to cause one long, disastrous chain reaction.

Which was their fault.

With one hand covering his mouth, Ven reached out the other idly, as if he could do anything to save the doomed city.  Its fires burned as high as mountains where they had enough fuel.  Harry and his niece had indeed crafted a formidable weapon.

No one spoke for what seemed like an hour as they watched and waited to see if the fires would burn out.

Ven fought between the urge to run down and start looking for survivors, and the impulse to head back to Meadowcity, where everything was alright, and he hadn’t just caused the destruction of an entire city, killed thousands of people.

He let out a barbaric groan and dove for the ground, beating it with his fists.

How could he have caused such a thing?

They had only been trying to help—to take those things away from the Scouts, from Greyling. 
Why did those two Scouts have to interfere!
  He beat the ground again, and raised his fist for another strike, but someone grabbed his forearm.

Flint held him back.  The boy’s face was covered in soot; streaks of tears cut lines down his cheeks.

He offered Ven a hand up.  After a second’s consideration, Ven took it, though he was tempted to swat it away.  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and he took stock of their pathetically small group of survivors.

Harry, Andred, Morgain and Vivi were what was left of the Lightcitizens; and then there was Ash, Arden, Thom, Rolfe and Jet.  That was it.

His heart crumpled in pain at the obvious absence of Dahlia and Tems.  Tems had only joined up to help liberate his city—and Dahlia, Dahlia had a family at home…

Ven’s muscles bulged with tension as he fought the urge to run home, to beat the ground again, to run screaming for the burning city.

Everyone else was in a similar state of distress.  Harry had turned his back on the group and walked away about ten paces; he was crouched down, head in his hands.  Morgain sat on the ground weeping, and Andred held her around the shoulders and stroked her hair.

The rest just stared at the burning city, their eyes holding oceans of misery and terror at what they had done.

Thirty Four

Sylvia slept uneasily, and upon waking immediately remembered why.  Before she could wipe them away, tears rolled down her cheeks and onto her pillow as she thought of Lightcity, and the horrible explosions she had seen in the looking-glass.

Her head began to ache, and her muscles were still sore from the other night on the cliffs, so she rolled over to get out of bed and stretch, wiping her eyes as she rose.

Breakfast was laid out as usual, and she headed to the table to get some water.  But as she rounded the corner of her bed, she saw that something had appeared while she was sleeping, something that made her mouth drop.

Laid across the bench at the end of her bed was a long, flowing black gown.  But it wasn’t normal fabric, it was the shimmering oddity of datawoven fabric.  Poking out from under a sleeve was a piece of paper.

She snatched the paper and unfolded it, idly stroking the strange and silky fabric as she read:

It’s time you learned how to be creative. We’ll talk about the war after your third Trial, if you can show me what’s in your mind.
              -N

Sylvia’s brow wrinkled in disgust, and she nearly threw the dress down to the floor.  Lady Naomi must know she had seen what happened to Lightcity.  How could Sylvia have been so oblivious?  The Lady had spies everywhere, why not in her own castle, in her own observation room?

The Rider stormed away from the dress and over to the sunlit looking-glass, but that only reminded her of the observation room, so she strode away, her breathing becoming fast. 

She went for the door, thinking maybe she would just go outside, out the way Atlan had shown her yesterday, now that she knew how to use the map.  Some fresh air would clear her mind.  She turned the handle.

But it was locked.

She slammed her open palm against the frame, and her head followed more gently.  For the first time in the weeks she had lived in their castle, they had locked her in.  Her breath clouded against the polished wood.  Trapped.

She turned and slid down the frame to sit with her knees pressed close to her chest.  She hugged her bent legs and tried to think.

Lady Naomi still expected her to compete in the Trials.  What was the Lady’s game?  Why was it that she was leaving notes and valuable datawoven fabric for her?  Her mind raced with possible motives.

Sylvia’s stomach flipped as she had a strange thought. 
Had the Lady meant for Sylvia to see what happened to Lightcity?

But Atlan had been the one to give her the map, and Sylvia could tell that the Lady and her son were not close.  Atlan, however, had gotten the map from Oliver…

That had to be it, then.  Was the Lady merely curious to see how Sylvia would react?  And why had she given her the datawoven dress and told her to be creative?

Then it hit her.  The next Trial.

Creativity.  The Lady had hinted at it twice now.

Sylvia pressed her hands against her head and shut her eyes.  She only wished she had Atlan to help her.

She only had a little more than four days to learn how to draw with her mind.

Thirty Five

For hours they sat on the rise, watching the city burn.  Ven couldn’t tear his eyes away from the smoldering embers as the flames destroyed more than just buildings.

The sun had fully risen, shining its damning light upon their failure, showing them precisely the damage they had caused.

Ven sat with his knees up, arms loosely hugging them to his chest.  He jumped at a nudge on his shoulder, which turned out to be Flint offering him some water.  He shook his head.  He didn’t want it.  He didn’t want anything anymore.

Flint shoved the canister into his hand and ordered, “Drink.”  The look in his eyes was so venomous that Ven complied.  After the first sip, he realized how thirsty he really was, and downed about half the container.

“You about ready to go down there?” Flint muttered.

Ven looked around and noticed that the others were standing and readying to go.  His heart began to race.  No.  He wasn’t ready for that.  There was nothing he wanted to do less.

“Get up,” Flint commanded quietly.

Ven swallowed the hateful words and surge of anger that bubbled up.  This wasn’t Flint’s fault.  All his.

And he needed to face it and see if there were any survivors.

Without a word, he rose and joined the others.  Harry had returned from his solitary contemplation, the same gruff look on his face as usual.  No one talked except in muttered phrases with little emotion.  Maybe the rest felt just as guilty as Ven.

They began the trek back to the city, and the first thing they noticed was the smell.  Burnt rock and the smell of molten glass assailed their noses; the acrid scent so overwhelming that they all had to bring their shirtfronts to their noses so they could breathe.  It brought memories of their escape from Riftcity surging to Ven’s mind.  Lightcity hadn’t been as lucky as the city on the rift.

Someone suggested that they all stay together to search.  Emotionless agreement all around.  No one wanted to lose anyone else.

They headed for the southern part of the city, the edge of which seemed to have been spared from the utter destruction that had annihilated the rest of the city.  There could still be survivors.

Ven wondered how long it would be until any of Greyling’s men came looking, with the Scouts’ promised delivery of orbs going unaccounted for.  Surely they had some time before Greyling sent anyone.  A wild laugh tried to escape his chest at the thought of what Greyling would think of Lightcity’s destruction.  He snorted into his shirt.  Maybe the Governor would think they did it on purpose.  Ven turned his attention back to surveying the rubble they approached, and all remnants of bitter laughter died on his lips.

He scanned the area for buildings that looked intact, ones that could have protected the people inside from the scorching heat and suffocating smoke.  The survivors would most likely be wounded; and then they would need to feed anyone they managed to recover.

Except that they had no supplies to speak of.  Only Jet had taken his pack with him for last night’s mission; but a handful of rations and one water canister split between nine people was laughable.  They were already out of water, and if they found any survivors… Well, they would just have to gather what they could and get back to Meadowcity as quick as they could.

As they drew close to the wreckage that was once a beautiful stone and glass bricked wall, Ven decided he wouldn’t be the one to suggest their next course of action.  He wouldn’t trust any decision he made.  He knew he was not meant to be a leader anymore.  There had been a pretty clear sign he wasn’t fit to be in command.

There was no getting around the smell anymore.  Ven gave up and dropped his shirtfront, and he wrinkled his nose, trying to get used to the overwhelming stench of burnt glass and stone.

Where it was safe to explore, they covered as much ground as they could, actually locating a few people, most of whom had already managed to extract themselves from the rubble.  They operated under a haze of exhaustion; after a night spent hastily trying to complete their mission, none of them had gotten any sleep since the night before.

Ven was sweating now, and the earth gave off waves of heat from the fires, not all of which were extinguished.  He paired up with Rolfe, and they lifted collapsed beams or leveraged stones out of the way so they could move further into the rubble and search for more survivors.

They didn’t speak much, except to make suggestions on how to move the rubble, or to point out something they hadn’t yet covered.

It wasn’t until sunset that Flint finally suggested that they stop.  They hadn’t found anyone else for hours.  Those they had found were back outside the melted wall away from the stench.  Morgain and Andred were with them, trying to care for wounds with what they had managed to scour from some of the broken buildings—cloth, wood splints, and canisters for water.

Vivi had left over an hour ago to go find a stream nearby and fill all the canisters she could carry.  There was no water to be found in the city, all of it had evaporated with the heat.  They hadn’t found any food either, a fact that did not help their continued search efforts, as they became even more fatigued, hungry, and increasingly discouraged.

Ven was busy shifting beams away from the door of a burnt villa; his heart hoping against hope that there could be survivors inside, when he heard footsteps in the ashen gravel behind him.

“Ven,” Flint called.

He dug his shoulder under the next beam and used his legs to lift it, then he slammed it to the ground away from the villa, clearing the way a little further.

“
Ven.”

He sighed and eyed the next beam.

“We’re done, mate.”

Flint approached through the ashen street.  “We can’t stay here, and you know it.  We haven’t found anyone for hours,” Flint added in a more gentle tone, as if that would soothe him.

Ven turned away, but a sudden smack on his arm made him turn around.

“What is your problem?” Flint demanded, changing tack.

“What’s my problem
?” Ven raged; and suddenly the self-accusations that had been rolling about in his head rushed out like a flood.

“We just got everyone in Lightcity killed! 
Everyone!
   We’ve found, what? Twenty people? 
I
convinced Gero to let us come here!  We could have waited for Sylvia, but I
had
to come here, because I thought she was in trouble!  And then we convinced ourselves we knew what we were doing, and now all these people…” he trailed off, finally losing steam.

Ven expected an accusatory look, or maybe he hoped for pity—what he didn’t expect was a fist sailing straight for his face.

He ducked, but Flint came back at him, jabbing him in the side with his knuckles and knocking him to the ground by kicking his knees.

“You think this is
your
  fault?” the Riftcity boy bellowed, towering over him.  “You think we weren’t all in this together—Do you think taking the blame will help?  You think it’s going to make Morgain or Vivi or Andred any happier that we destroyed their city, that they were a part of it?”

Ven’s hands clenched the ashen grit on the street and he sat up, staring at his knees.

“Look; what happened, happened,” Flint continued.  “There’s nothing we can do about it now, and sulking about it won’t do us or those survivors any good,” he jabbed his thumb back outside the city.  “If you want someone to blame, blame Greyling.  We might have been moving the orbs, but we’d never even be here if it wasn’t for him and his war. 
He
put them here.  He made us fight.”

Flint stuck out his hand, and Ven brushed the soot off his palms before letting Flint help him up.

“Now, come help me make camp with the others.  Morgain and Andred will have had enough time to explain to the survivors what happened.  I thought they’d be the best ones to break the news.”

They trudged out of the city, where the earth still smoked in some places.  Ven looked up at the rising moon and wished he could be anywhere else.