Celia Friedman - Black Sun Rising

He stopped, and forced her to stop with him. His eyes were still Worked enough to let him see the current that swirled about their feet, though the image was little more than a shadow of his former vision. He checked the flow again, felt his heart stop for an instant. It had changed. He could see it. Not in direction, nor in speed of flow, but in intensity . . . He gripped her hand tightly. There was less of it than there should have been, less of it than any natural tide could have prompted. It was as if the fae itself were withdrawing from this place, gathering itself elsewhere to break, with a tsunami’s sudden force—

“Earthquake?” he whispered. Aghast—and awed—by the revelation.

“Come on, ” she answered. And dragged him forward.

They ran until they reached the north end of the street, where it widened into a sizable shopping plaza. She stopped there, breathless, and bade him do the same. There were already several hundred people gathered in the small cobblestoned square, and more were arriving each minute. The horses that were tethered there pulled nervously at their reins, nostrils twitching as if trying to catch the scent of danger. Even as Damien and Ciani entered the tiny square the hanging signs of several shops began to swing, and a crash of glass sounded through one open doorway. Shopkeepers exited the buildings hurriedly with precious items clutched in their arms—crystal, porcelain, delicate sculptures—as the signs above them swung even more wildly, and the panicked animals fought for their freedom.

“You had warning, ” he whispered. What an incredible concept! He was accustomed to regarding Ernan history as a series of failures and losses—but here was real triumph, and over Nature herself! Their ancestors on Earth had had no way of knowing exactly when an earthquake would strike—when the concentrated pressure that had built up over months or years would suddenly burst into movement, breaking apart mountains and rerouting rivers before man even knew what had hit him—but here, on Erna, they had warning sirens. Warning sirens! And not on all of Erna, he reminded himself. Only in the east. Not in his homeland. Ganji had nothing to rival this.

He was about to speak—to share his awe with Ciani—when a sound even more terrible than the siren split the night. It took him a few seconds to realize that its source was human; it was a voice racked by such pain, warped by such terror, that Damien barely recognized it as such. Instinctively he turned toward its source, his free hand already grabbing for a weapon . . . but Ciani grabbed him by the arm and stopped him. “No, Damien. There’s nothing you can do. Let it be.”

The scream peaked suddenly, a sound so horrible it made his skin crawl—then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was cut short. Damien had fought some grotesque things in his life, and some of them had been long in dying, but nothing in his experience had ever made a sound like that.

“Someone Working when it hit,” she muttered. “Gods help him.”

“Shouldn’t we—”

“It’s too late to help. Stay here.” She grasped his arm tightly, as if afraid he would leave despite her warning. “The siren went off in plenty of time. He had his warning. That’s why we run the damn thing. But there’s always some poor fool who tries to tap into the earth-fae when it begins to surge . . .”

She didn’t finish.

“And they die? Like that?”

“They fry. Without exception. No human being can channel that kind of energy. Not even an adept. He must have wagered that the quake would be small, that he could control a small bit of what it released and dodge the rest. Or maybe he was drunk, and impaired in judgment. Or just stupid.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Only an idiot would bet his life against an earthquake. No one ever wins that game— no one. Why do they insist on trying? What can they possibly gain?” Something in his manner made her look up at him suddenly, and she asked, “You were warned about that in the west. Weren’t you?”

“In general terms.” His stomach tightened as his mind replayed that terrible scream. “We were warned. But not quite so . . . graphically.”

He was about to say something more when she squeezed his arm. “It’s starting. Watch.”

She pointed across the plaza, to a tailor’s shop that faced them. Sunken into the lintel of its arched doorway was a sizable ward, made up of intricate knotwork patterns etched into a bronze plate. The whole of it was glowing now, with a cold blue light that silhouetted its edge like the corona of an eclipsed sun. Even as he watched the display it increased in intensity, until cold blue fire burned the pattern of its warding sigil into his eyes and his brain.

“Quake wards,” she told him. “They’re dormant until the fae intensifies . . . then they tap into it, use it to reinforce the buildings they guard. But if it’s a big one, there’s more than they can handle. What you’re seeing is the excess energy bleeding off into the visible spectrum.”

On every building surrounding the plaza, similar wards were now firing. Awed, he watched as tendrils of silver fire shot across doorways, about windows, over walls, until the man-made structures were wholly enveloped in a shivering web of cold silver flame. And though the force of the earthquake was enough to make brickwork tremble, no buildings toppled. No windows shattered. Furniture crashed to the floor within one shop, glass shattered noisily inside another, but the buildings themselves—reinforced with that delicate, burning web—weathered the seismic storm.

“You’ve warded the whole city?” he whispered. Stunned by the scale of it.

She hesitated. “Mostly. Not all of it’s as well done as this. Sorcerers vary, as does their skill . . . and some people simply can’t afford the protection.” As if in illustration, a roar of falling brick sounded to the south of them. Dust and a cloud of silver-blue sparks mushroomed thickly over the rooftops. Damien could feel the ground tremble beneath his feet, could see brick—and stone-work shiver all about him as the force of the earthquake fought to bring the man-made structures down—and the Workings of man fought to keep it all intact. The smell of ozone filled the air, and a sharp undercurrent: sulfur? The smell of battle, between Nature and man’s will.

Our ancestors had nothing like this. Nothing! Venerate them we might, but in this one arena we have surpassed them. All the objective science on Earth could never have managed this . . .

Incredible, he thought. He must have voiced that, for she murmured, “You approve?”

He looked into her eyes and read the real question there, behind her words. “The Church should be using this, not fighting it.” The ground was singing to him, a deep, rumbling sound that he felt through his bones. “And I’ll see to it they do,” he promised.

The tremors were increasing in violence, and the wards—fighting to establish some sort of balance—filled the plaza with silver-blue light, as nearly bright as Core-light. Some of them began to fire skyward, releasing their pent-up energy in spurts of blue-white lightning, that leapt from rooftop to rooftop and then shot heavenward, splitting the night into a thousand burning fragments. Nearby a tree, unwarded, gave way to the tremors; a heavy branch crashed to the ground beside them, barely missing several townspeople. It seemed second nature for him to put his arm around Ciani, to protect her by drawing her against him. And it likewise seemed wholly natural that she lean against him, wordlessly, until her hip brushed against his groin and a fire took root there, every bit as intense as the faeborn flame which surrounded them.