Trouble at the Breach
A lton’s soul and consciousness sank into stone.
Disembodied, he felt nothing of the physical realm.
He opened his mind to go deeper into another level of existence, beyond the inert quality of feldspar and quartz and hornblende to where other souls sang of strength and weathering, of peace and restfulness.
However, as he drifted among the crystalline structures of granite, an undercurrent of strain marred the chorus.
The breach continued to spread hairline fractures in the wall, no matter how he tried to help with the song.
He found Marc’s presence nearby, unmoving, seeming to observe the world around him.
The guardians sensed his presence as well and rushed to him, their song growing ever more emphatic, its rhythm increasing like a throbbing pulse.
Alton was pleased. Their enthusiasm meant they approved of Marc and accepted him among them.
Had they disapproved, they would not have come to him in this manner.
They would have turned away. Perhaps he could be the one to repair the breach.
But then Marc was gone. He’d fled. The song sagged as though the guardians let out a great sigh of disappointment.
As much as Alton wanted to follow Marc to see what was wrong, he needed to stay for a time and add his voice to the chorus in an attempt to soothe the guardians.
They tolerated him, but he could tell they would have preferred his brother.
Slowly he parted from his communion with the wall and returned to his body.
When he strode into the main chamber, he found Dale and Estral still seated at the table chatting. Cats lay on the table or over by the hearth fire. Marc was nowhere in sight.
When Dale spied him, she said, “Marc ran right out. Didn’t want to tell us what was wrong.”
He’d track him down and have a talk with him in a bit.
“I think the guardians spooked him. They were drawn to him like a bear to honey.” As anxious as he was to hear what Marc had to say, he thought it wise to give his brother some breathing room to sort himself out.
Sending one’s mind into solid rock and hearing the voices of the guardians and feeling something of their presence was, at the very least, unsettling.
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” Estral whispered. “That they came to him?”
“I think so. They were excited to see him. I’m hopeful they can work with him to repair the wall, or at least mend the cracks, but it’s not going to happen if he runs off like that.”
He dropped into a chair beside Estral and idly took her hand and twined his fingers with hers. As much as the guardians’ interest in Marc was a good sign, it was galling to think it was his little brother who might be the one to fix the wall. This after all the effort Alton had poured into it.
“Do you want me to go talk to him?” Dale asked.
Alton considered, then shook his head. “No, I’m going to let him collect himself first; then I’ll go out and talk to him. I want to know what he experienced. Besides, he might be too embarrassed to talk to you.”
Dale paused, playing with Mister Whiskers’ tail. “What do you mean?”
“I think you are his first crush.”
“Huh. He was very sweet back while I recovered from my wounds in Woodhaven a few years ago and spent a lot of time with me. I’m sure it will pass.”
Alton thought Dale was likely correct. He recalled his own first crush on a tutor, but was soon over it as he got older and met girls his own age. Not that Marc was likely to meet many girls his age here at the wall.
Estral squeezed his hand as if to reassure him.
“Well, look here, another gathering.”
Merdigen’s sudden appearances always made Alton jump, especially when he materialized from behind.
“And no one invited me,” Merdigen added.
“Don’t worry,” Dale said, “you weren’t missing much.”
Merdigen fingered his long beard. “I guess I can see that. Cleodheris put on quite a to-do in her tower.”
The great mages had a penchant for throwing parties.
“Is that where Duncan is?” Alton asked.
“Yeeesss. He and Cleodheris have quite the tempestuous history.” Merdigen waved a chair into existence and sat at the table’s corner between Estral and Dale.
“Quite emotional, those two, either fighting and having tawdry affairs with others, or all over one another like cats in heat. No offense,” he told Whiskers.
Alton did not think he wished to hear the details of Duncan’s exploits in this regard.
Cleodheris, in her Tower of the Clouds, always struck him as serenely above the raucousness of the other mages, and it was quite a revelation to imagine her in so heated a romance with Duncan.
He shook his head not wanting to think too deeply about the melodramatic lives of the tower mages, or rather, the projections of tower mages.
How did they even—? No, he did not want to know.
“Was Constance there?” he asked. She was the Rider he had assigned to Tower of the Clouds.
“All too briefly, I’m afraid,” Merdigen replied. “Something about a tack cleaning emergency. I can’t imagine how that would be an emergency, can you?”
Alton could. The tower mages could be a little too much when they got together. They argued loudly over equations and philosophy, danced and played music, all of it while “drunk.” It was all so...awkward.
“Did you bring your young man to visit the wall guardians?” Merdigen asked.
Alton told him what happened.
“Hmm, I can see them being overly enthusiastic, but he must not be dissuaded by this experience. He may be our last hope for repairing the wall.”
Estral looked down at the table.
“This is not on you, love,” Alton told her. “You know that, right? You are not responsible for Grandmother and Lala stealing your voice and music. It’s on my shoulders. I’m the one who made the guardians mistrustful of me.”
“Oh, bother,” Dale said. “Listen to you, both of you self-sacrificing souls. Mornhavon tricked you, Alton. And it was Shawdell the Eletian who—”
Before Dale could finish, all the cats jumped to their feet and started shrieking. Merdigen disappeared.
“What is it?” Dale asked.
In front of her, Mister Whiskers transformed from a roly-poly tabby cat into a gryphon with a raptor’s head and beak, and the sleek and muscular form of a winged catamount. The gryphlings did likewise.
Alton rose to his feet. “I don’t—”
Merdigen popped back. “Trouble at the breach. That’s all I could get from them.”
He meant the wall guardians. “I should see if I can get any sense out of them,” Alton said.
“Don’t wait,” Merdigen said. “You need to go now.”
Alton jumped to his feet. “Dale, you’re with me. Estral—”
“I want to go,” she whispered.
“No, I need you here to keep an eye on Marc, and to contact Trace. Tell her I’m taking fifty soldiers with me to the breach to find out what the matter is.
” Rider Trace Burns, who was stationed at Tower of the Ice, could then relay the information almost instantaneously to the king through her connection with Connly.
Estral nodded, but Dale did not look pleased.
Since his return, she’d happily handed her command duties back to him, and spent most of her time in the tower, not wanting to be among others in the encampment.
She was still working through her loss of Captain Wallace.
Alton was sympathetic, but she still had a duty to perform.
Outside, he was surprised to find darkness had fallen. A soldier ran up to him. “Sir, your brother.”
Alton hastened to Marc’s cabin. He heard his brother screaming before he entered. Inside, Marc sat rocking back and forth on his cot with his ears covered and eyes shut.
Alton shook him. “Marc!”
Marc glanced up at him, his cheeks awash with tears, looking much more the young boy Alton remembered.
“They say it’s a great evil,” Marc said, lower lip trembling. “It’s killing all the people.”