Bridgebreaker (The Echo Worlds Book 2) (5 page)

Chapter 5

 

Silence fell.  Heather, Jasmine, and Cendan all exchanged glances at each other, and the nearly foot-long flying thing lying on the floor.

“Marcus had to have heard that.”  Jasmine was the first to break the silence.  “I’ll get Heather outside.  Make something up to tell him until we can figure this out.”  Grabbing Heather by the arm, despite the start of protests, Jasmine quickly ran out of the room towards the exit.

“What was that!?”  Marcus came barreling into the room, focus held up.  Cendan could only wonder at what he thought of the scene in front of him.  A dead flying grub of large size; the smell of pepper spray in the air; and Cendan holding a wall-light like a two handed club with bits of… whatever the thing was still sticking to the glass on the light.

Eyes narrowed, Marcus lowered his hand slowly.  “Ok, talk.”

Cendan sighed.  Jasmine should have stayed and talked to Marcus, not him.  Got to think fast, he told himself.

“Well…  Jasmine and I were talking about the map, about how we hadn’t seen any Bridges since that day, right?  I was talking to EVA and realized her and the map were linked somehow.  We came in here, and while we were seeing if EVA could find anything wrong with the map, that thing,” Cendan paused and pointed at the remains of the creature on the floor.  “That thing came out of the map.  You can see the crack it made.  Jasmine had the forethought to spray the thing with pepper spray, and I whacked it.”  Cendan held up the wall torch.

“Marcus, I think the map is broken.  I think that it’s been broken since that day.”  Cendan wasn’t looking at Marcus.  His eyes were glued to the map in front of him.  “I don’t know how to fix this yet…”

The blow came fast, hard.  Cendan went down involuntarily, grabbing the side of his head as pain exploded.

“You broke the map!  It was fine,” Marcus yelled, standing over Cendan, rage written across his face.  Cendan was stunned.  Through the pain, he fumbled to think to something; anything to say.  Instead, Marcus continued.

“You and that damn machine broke it!”  Marcus slammed his fist into the map, his focus, the ring digging into the wood.  “I used to dream about that thing coming back online.  I used to wish for it, and now, like everything with you, you’ve ruined it.”

Cendan slowly came to his feet.  He could feel a small drip of liquid on the side of his face - blood?  Maybe from the ring.

“Marcus, calm the hell down.  That thing broke the damn map.  Not me, not EVA - that!”  Cendan pointed to the remains on the floor.  “It probably got there the day the Slyph attacked and Sal died!  Think for a damn second, Marcus!”  Cendan watched Marcus carefully.  He wasn’t sure what had triggered this rage, this level of anger, but he wasn’t about to get sucker punched in the head again. Marcus he knew would be angry about the witch, but violence?

Marcus’s face, tightened, his lips a thin line on an already drawn and sharp face.

“Don’t you talk about the Bridgefinder that you got killed.  For the last two weeks I’ve sat and thought, each day realizing more and more that you, Cendan, you are the cause of all of this ... this falling apart of the Bridgefinders.”

“Sal’s death, the map, the breaking of traditions, the tainting of Jasmine, all of it.  It’s your fault.  We should have let Grellnot damn well have you.  I wish I could go back in time and take that focus of yours that day when you dropped it, the first night we all met.  Take it and send you away.  That would have been better than this!”  Marcus held up his fist, white knuckled and pale.  “I have been a Bridgefinder all my life.  My parents were, and their parents before them.  I honor this with my very life!”

“You, Cendan Key, you mock it.  And now, your stupidity and carelessness have broken the very tool we need to keep this world safe.”  Marcus spat on the floor.  “That thing I’m sure was something you brought back from your little trip to the Slyph’s world.”

Cendan reached out to EVA mentally, but once again found her hard to reach.  Prioritize! he told himself.  Cendan opened his mouth to respond to Marcus, but closed it again.

Jasmine saved the day as she walked into the map room and stopped short.

“What is going on?”  Jasmine rushed to Cendan, checking the mark on his face.  “What happened?”

Not taking his eyes off Marcus, Cendan let out a slow breath.  “Marcus here blames me for the map, sucker punched me in the head.  Apparently I’m the worst thing that ever happened to this place.”

Jasmine turned to Marcus, eyes wide.  “Marcus?”

Marcus pointed at Cendan.  “I want him gone, Jasmine.  Don’t you get it?  Everything we’ve done, everything we’ve worked for, our parents worked for, everything the Bridgefinders is under threat because of him!” Marcus turned to walk away, but instead stopped and stared Jasmine down. “Where were you just now Jasmine? I know you were here..”

Jasmine grabbed Cendan’s arm.  “Marcus, you're being ridiculous.  Cendan is—”

Marcus cut her off.  “Gone Jasmine.  I don’t care about anything.  You’re staying, he’s going.  Forever.”

Jasmine stood up straight.  “Hell no.  What is in your head?  Cendan is a Maker, remember?  You want to send away the only Maker we’ve had in over a thousand years?”

Marcus barked a short laugh.  “Maker?  He’s only making a mockery of us.  Of all of us.  Don’t you see it, Jasmine?  In the short time he’s been here; this talk of magic; breaking things; getting Sal killed.  He’s the cause of all the pain we’ve had.”

Jasmine and Cendan exchanged glances.  Marcus didn’t know about Heather at least.  Whatever was going on with him that knowledge would probably push him even farther down this dark path he was on.

“Cendan isn’t going anywhere, Marcus.”  Jasmine answered quietly.  “I don’t know where you are coming from, you're one of my oldest friends, and I’ve been proud to call you such, but this… this is insanity.”

Marcus grimaced in response.  “Jasmine, I know you and he once dated, but get away from him.  Just... stay here, and he leaves.”

Jasmine looked at Marcus and blanched.  She turned to Cendan and whispered.  “I think Marcus is... jealous.”

Cendan however was being pulled in a thousand different directions.  Anger; that buried deep emotion threatened to come out and escalate quickly with Marcus.  Confusion over what was going on and why; worry over what had happened to Marcus in the last two weeks as he had sat in the barrier room stewing over the changes that had happened.

Slowly, Jasmine’s whisper made its way through the crowd of thoughts in his head.  “Jealous?  What?” was all he could mumble in return.  His head hurt.

“Jealous as in… of you.” Jasmine whispered again.

“Look, let me walk you out of this room.  He won’t do anything with me here, at least I damn well hope not.”  Jasmine locked eyes with Cendan, making sure he understood.  Glancing at Marcus, who was still standing with his arms crossed, watching them whisper to each other.

Without saying anything else, Jasmine led Cendan out of the map room and down the hall, out of earshot of Marcus.  “How are you?” Jasmine asked as she took another look at the wound.

“Damn it hurts.  The cut hurts, my skull hurts.  What do you mean jealous?” he said, wincing as he gently touched the sore spot from the blow.

“It’s no excuse, I find this all really hard to believe honestly, but Marcus is jealous of you.  You’re the Maker; you saved us; you went to the Echo World; and you found Oakheart.  All of it.”  Jasmine sighed.  “And you dated me.”

Cendan lowered his hand from his head.  “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Marcus and I are Bridgefinder kids.  Our parents were Bridgefinders, and on and on.  Marcus has long had a level of interest in me that I don’t share.  He knows I don’t.  And in the abstract, he was ok with it.  He didn’t like it, but it was ok.  But now, you, the person who did all these things that he the leader of what’s left of the Bridgefinders couldn’t even come close to doing, that person also used to date me?  Bitter pill for him.”  Jasmine sighed.  “I never thought he would do this, however.  I thought we were giving him space to get through things with Sal’s death.  We should have not let him sit there and fester.”

Cendan gingerly nodded.  “You think his jealousy and anger have pushed him to, well what, hating me?”

Jasmine slumped back against the wall.  “I don’t know, maybe.  But I’m at a loss what to do about it.”

Cendan was dumbfounded.  He knew Marcus was unhappy, that much had been made clear before, but this attack, the sheer bitterness of it all.  It baffled him.  And now Marcus wanted him out of the Bridgefinders.  Cendan wasn’t sure he could even do that.  He hadn’t really paid much attention to what Marcus being the head of the group really meant.

“Maybe… maybe I should take a few days, let Marcus calm down some.”  Cendan said trying to find the right path, the right set of Branches.

“This is crazy, Cendan.  The map is broken; EVA can’t find the Bridges to keep them under control without it.  Only a Maker can fix the map, and you’re the only one we have.  And now Marcus wants you gone?  Right now?  When you’re the only thing that can fix it?  He doesn’t even know about the Grellnot-Slyph fight yet!”  Jasmine slid down the wall to sit on the floor.  “I wish Sal was here.  He seemed to be able to always find the right tone to get Marcus to listen, without setting him off.”

Neither of them said anything for a while, each lost in their thoughts.  Jasmine, trying to figure out how everything had gone so badly, and Cendan wondering what to do and where to go.  On top of it all, the issues with communication with EVA were odd as well.  He still didn’t know enough about EVA to venture a guess as to what was going on with her.  Jasmine gave out a long sigh, breaking the silence.

“Ok, we have to do something.  So here’s my thoughts.  You go get a few things together, do what you need to do, and head out for a few days.  Go back to your house, take your focus with you, just in case.  Give me a few days to try to get Marcus to change his mind.  Or at least to figure out where all this came from.  Not sure I feel particularly safe here either now, truthfully.”

EVA.  Why couldn’t he talk to her?  Was it something with that witch woman, Heather?  Some part of the map issue?  Marcus, who only a few short weeks ago had celebrated the return of EVA, now blamed her for the map breaking.  For a second he wondered if Marcus had anything to do with the sabotage, the silence from EVA, but discarded the idea.  Even as angry as he was with the man, Marcus wouldn’t do anything like that; at least he believed he wouldn’t.

Cendan nodded.  “Maybe come with me?  Leave him here to think things through, then come back to talk to him?  I don’t want him attacking you or anything.”

Jasmine snorted.  “Marcus wouldn’t do that.”

One finger extended to the drying cut on his face, he said, “I never thought he’d do this either, but it’s there isn’t it?  Whatever story he’s invented in his head, it’s not one that says anything good about me, and possibly you.”

Jasmine started to answer, but held back for a few before finally talking.  “That’s true, but I think I can do better here.  If things look bad, or I can’t make any headway, I’ll come to your place as quickly as I can.”

Cendan didn’t like it, at all.  He couldn’t force Jasmine to come with him, and their options were highly limited in terms of who could talk to Marcus.  It didn’t seem to him that Marcus had any friends, really; the Bridgefinders were his life.  That was it.  Cendan realized, however, that he wasn’t much better.  He hadn’t talked to, nor even thought about, the people he knew before all this started what, a month ago?  Month and a half?

He was a very different person now, in some ways, but not in others.  He still found people difficult to understand.  Marcus’s newly found rage, however, shook him a bit.  Not because it was aimed at him, though that wasn’t a pleasant thing.  It was because that branch was one he could have gone down in the right circumstances, and he damn well didn’t like that. Maybe Jasmine was right though, go back to his old house, get a few days separation, and hopefully all this Marcus stuff gets fixed, then they could fix the real problem.  The Map and the war on the Echo World.  All of the actual ‘threaten the world’ stuff.

“Ok, Jasmine.  I don’t like it, but I can’t think of a better path.”

Jasmine flashed him a smile. “Don’t you mean branch?” She had always found his decision making process somewhat amusing.

“Har har. At least you can laugh about it.” Cendan shot back.

Cendan wanted to get a few things from his room here, grab a journal or two from the Maker wing, and touch base with EVA, if possible.  He wasn’t sure how communication would go with EVA; he could still feel her in his head, but still muffled.  Maybe being in the actual room would clear it up.

Jasmine nodded.  “I’ll be careful, Cendan.  I’ll give him some time to cool down and then talk to him.  We can get this behind us and move on.”

The smile she flashed didn’t show much promise of that, however.

Chapter 6

 

Grellnot wiped its face again on its dirty sleeve and arm.  Goblins, especially fat ones were rather greasy eating, and it didn’t want to get its shiny treasures too dirty with goblin blood and fat.  It had followed the tribe it had ambushed before and gobbled down a particularly fat one for a meal.  Grellnot, however, had some thinking he needed to do.

The Slyph was going to come for it.  Grellnot knew this.  It may not be the smartest creature the Slyph had ever created, but it was cunning, and it knew strategy. Right now she was powerful, but only had the power of this world, her world.  Now that Oakheart had been taken away from her that was. More dangerous to Grellnot was her army of creatures.  Those creatures, or at least most of them, thought of the Slyph as a living god.  A god that gave them life.

Picking its teeth with a cracked goblin finger bone, Grellnot smiled.  If the Slyph was the god who gave them life, Grellnot was the god who brought them death.  Pausing, Grellnot stood up a bit straighter.  Maybe... maybe Grellnot could use that.  The Slyph’s army of creatures were just too many for Grellnot to stop on its own.  But if Grellnot had its own creatures, maybe Grellnot could stop enough for Grellnot to get to the Slyph?

“Grellnot can’t make creatures, not like her.  But maybe Grellnot can make creatures follow Grellnot.  They not love Grellnot, no one loves Grellnot.”

A low whine came from Grellnot, and it rocked back and forth on its heels.  “Grellnot not loved, not liked.  But Grellnot is feared.  All creatures know what happens if Grellnot catches you.”  The goblin finger bone flew through the air as Grellnot spat it out.  “Grellnot needs an army of its own.  An army to fight for Grellnot, to kill for Grellnot!”

Grellnot stood and sniffed the air, reaching out in all directions with every sense it had, including its new ability to sense and see magic.  The goblins were nearby of course, but goblins were small things, cowardly, not strong.  Ok eating though, and enough of them might help.

“Grellnot needs strong things, mighty things.  Giants, Jabbers, and more.”

Grellnot sensed a village of dwarves a few miles away underground, but they wouldn’t be much help.  Dwarves didn’t love the Slyph either, but they hated Grellnot.  Tasted like dirt and dust, dwarves did; not tasty at all.  Finally, a wisp of a scent, a village of Jabbers, far, but no place was really far for Grellnot anymore.  A huge leap and Grellnot vanished, leaving only the slight remains of the fat goblin it had been eating, and a feeling of rot and decay behind.

________

The Slyph was both pleased and annoyed.  The creature she had created for the single job of breaking the Bridgefinders map had succeeded.  Without that map, the Finders were nearly blind.  Even better, this seemed to mean that the machine, the fake mind the Makers had made, had lost a great deal of its power with the destruction of the map.

“I should have destroyed the map instead of the machine when I had the chance before,”  the Slyph spoke out loud to her hounds, her now constant companions.

Her little creation was dead now, sadly; that was annoying.  Even more annoying was that the death was due to the interference of a human outside the Bridgefinders.  She wasn’t sure why or how, but she knew magic had been worked on one of her creatures; magic that the Bridgefinders didn’t use.  It must have been one of the humans that interacted with her world and her creatures.  She knew all about those types.  She’d been happy to work with them once, but they were still so limited, so slow.

Worse, they didn’t bow to her easily.  They summoned her creatures, her creations to make them do work for them!  Humans, if they were allowed to live at all, should serve her and her children, not the other way around.  But yet, one of those humans, one of the kind called a wizard, no a witch – that’s right, a witch – had helped the Bridgefinders.  Witch.  Humans were so limited in their understandings: witch, wizard -- it didn’t matter.  Both worked the same power, but because one was normally female and one male, they had different names.  Like that mattered at all to the magic.

It had been useful, the divisions between humans.  So tribal; easy hate.  But if things were changing, if those humans outside the Bridgefinders who could work power, true power, joined the Finders, she had problems.  Problems.  The very idea that she, the Slyph, could have problems was laughable, or would have been a short time ago.  Now, she faced a human world where a Maker had come forth, and a rebellion in the form of Grellnot on her own.

Grellnot.  Where was the wretched thing?  She couldn’t track it, at least not directly.  If a creature had seen it she would know, but only if she went looking for it.  And looking took time, far too much time.  However, as much of a problem as Grellnot was, she did have the upper hand.  Grellnot was singular, alone, unloved and hated.  Feared.  She had an army, thousands of creatures that loved her as a living goddess.  She just couldn’t let Grellnot get near her; that was all.

The Slyph wasn’t sure if Grellnot could feast upon her or not, truthfully, but he’d try, and being taste tested wasn’t in the list of things she wanted to do.  Her hounds would offer some protection if it came to that.  Grellnot had to make the first move, she wasn’t going to chase it around, not while she had a bit of an opening on the humans’ world.

“Grellnot will come to me, and I will end its miserable life.  It may even thank me for it before it dies.”  The Slyph spoke to a hound as it rested its head on her hand.  “Don’t worry, I won’t make you eat the foul thing.”

The Hound shuddered at this information, its tail whipping back and forth.

“Come, I have to make sure when our former servant, Grellnot, finally attacks, that it won’t last long.”

________

Cendan found himself standing at the exit to the Headquarters.  He wasn’t sure how things had gotten so bad with Marcus so fast.  It had been obvious that Marcus and he weren’t going to be friends from somewhat early on.  But this -- this had been way outside what Cendan had expected.  His bag was heavy in his hand; clothes, books, and a few other things stuffed inside it.  A month or so ago he’d have been pretty happy to have Marcus kick him out to his old house, to walk away.  That did seem like a lifetime ago; so much had happened to him since.

Traveling to the Echo World; meeting Oakheart; his troubling deal with the Elves; talking Grellnot out of killing him; the resurrection of EVA; the death of Sal.  EVA.  His visit to her place in the lair had been far from helpful.  Her voice was still muted, even there.  Worse, he could tell she was trying to talk to him, or at least he got that feeling.  But something was stopping her, holding her back.  It was frustrating.  Marcus wouldn’t even let him tell him about it either.  He hated to leave her as well.  Marcus and Jasmine didn’t have a clue what to do with EVA, not even how to fix her if something went wrong.

For that matter, he was still tweaking everything to make it work better.  The job to get EVA back ‘alive’ during the attack by the Slyph had been a rush job, and not the way Cendan had wanted it to be.  Maybe that was the issue with her; something he and Sal had fixed in a rush had partially given way again.  Marcus, however, wasn’t going to give him the time to even try to figure it out, and he didn’t have much time left.

He’d grabbed a few books from the Maker Wing that he thought might be somewhat useful at least.  One on the creation of foci, another that appeared to be the notes of the Maker before Oakheart.  It was odd, but there always seemed to be only one Maker at a time.  Until the break with Oakheart, they followed each other like clockwork.  But then again, Oakheart hadn’t died; he’d been stuck in a tree, used as a conduit for Earth’s magic for the Slyph to use.

At least he still had his focus on him.  He’d had it when they had worked on the map, and Marcus hadn’t mentioned it in his rant to kick him out.  Cendan had little doubt that if Marcus knew he had it on him, the demand for its return would be swift.  Fishing the Key out, Cendan felt its touch and warmth comfort him.  It was as much a part of him as the hand he held it in.  It was also loaded with raw knowledge from Oakheart, most of which he still couldn’t make sense of.

Cendan still believed that the main reason for that was that Oakheart himself didn’t remember what he still knew or didn’t know.  Fifteen hundred years kept in the form of a tree would, and could, make you forget things, even important things.  He’d be mentally searching for information on, say, Bridges and why they looked different to each person.  He’d get a blast of information but it would have gaps, places where there was nothing.  ‘Mental whiteout’ Cendan muttered to himself.

Clearing his mind of his musings, Cendan held up the focus and opened the portal to leave.  The translation felt odd this time to him, however; as if the connection was wobbling.  Just as quickly as it came, the translation was done, and he was once again at the bottom of the basement steps of the Red Orchid.

Two things struck him at once: first off, it was later than he thought it was – the sky was starting to darken. And secondly, standing at the top of the steps was the witch, Heather.

“Finally!  That Jasmine woman told me to leave and wait here.  I’ve been sitting here for nearly two hours!”  Heather hid none of her irritation.  It was only then her eyes lighted upon the bag he was holding and the cut on his face.  “So what happened?” was her only question, her tone considerably calmer.

“Marcus happened,” Cendan answered.  “He wasn’t happy about doing anything with the map.  He blamed me for it, and in his anger, sucker punched me in the head and kicked me out.”

Heather gave off a low whistle.  “Sounds like your friend Marcus there has some anger issues.”

Cendan climbed the stairs, standing in rapidly vanishing light.

“Marcus is not my friend.”  Cendan dropped the bag with a thud on the ground.

“What?  But aren’t you like a, what’s that word you all use…a Maker?” Heather asked confused.  “We don’t call them that, but for you all isn’t that a big deal?”

It was Cendan’s turn to be surprised, then; what did she mean?  There were Makers outside of the Bridgefinders?  As soon as the thought came to him, he was slightly embarrassed he had never even considered the possibility.  He’d taken Marcus and Jasmine at their word that there was nothing but bad about those who were outside the Bridgefinders.

“You’re not the only one, you know. The title is different, but powers the same.” Heather watched him for a reaction to her words.

Cendan wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of surprising her. “Ah well... yes.  But Marcus blames me for, well, everything apparently.  Jasmine thinks it’s just a case of hurt pride, but hurt pride doesn’t go around hitting people and kicking them out.”

Heather nodded slowly.  “You’d be surprised.  Pride has made people do many a stupid thing in the world, Cendan.”

Cendan nodded, but wanted to get back to the subject she had casually mentioned; about other Makers, or whatever they called them, since they don’t call them that, whoever they are.

“Uh, Heather, what you just said, what do you mean?  Makers, or whatever you call them, or us, or… whatever.  I guess I’m confused.”

Laughter greeted his question, and to his surprise he found himself smiling at the sound of it.  Immediately, he suspected some sort of compulsion was being used, but when he summoned his magic sight, there was nothing active.  Chalking it up to relief from stress, Cendan focused his attention on Heather.  Tossing her hair back, Heather grinned at Cendan; that same smart-aleck look that seemed to be her normal face.

“I forget how little you guys know.  I find it funny really.  All I heard growing in my powers and abilities is about how the mighty Bridgefinders hate us, and we can never let them know anything about how we operate.  And now, after seeing the Bridgefinders up close, I see a dying group of people, in denial of their true powers, clinging to the remnants of what must have been an incredible past.”

Cendan grimaced, but it wasn’t something he hadn’t thought of.  Oakheart had told him that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, this denial of magic.  How had the Bridgefinders come to this, a whimpering end?  Shaking himself, he turned his thoughts to the now.  The past would be something he’d have to look into, if he ever had the time.

“Yes well, educate me then,” Cendan responded.  “Look, Heather, your help in there was more than valuable.  We’d never have even driven that thing out of the map if you hadn’t been there.  Just tell me, ok?”

For once Heather didn’t respond immediately.  “I’d like to, Cendan, but I don’t think it’s a good idea; at least, not without talking to people.  You have to understand, the separation between the Bridgefinders and the rest of us is old; really old.  I’m not saying there’s prejudice or anything, but there may be people who really don’t want you and yours to know about us.”

“That would make sense if I was still a Bridgefinder, but I got kicked out, remember?” he answered pointing to the bag on the ground.  “At this point I don’t think I’m a Bridgefinder.”

Silence fell over them, Cendan watching Heather, and Heather looking Cendan.

“Ok, I’ll do this.  You give me a ride to… a place.  I’ll ask them what they want to do.”

Cendan nodded.  “That’s fair.”

He wanted to know a lot more, like who was she going to ask?  He’d never really thought that the others, the ones that were labeled witches and wizards, warlocks and sorcerers, or whatever else they could be called, had any organization.  He just figured each was a solo agent able to do whatever they wanted.  Mentally he chalked that up to a lack of understanding, something he didn’t like.  It betrayed a prejudice, an assumption that whoever he was involved with was the right answer, the only answer.

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