This story is part of my loosely connected Thousand Kingdoms series, and features a supporting performance from Jonelle Crosse. It was originally supposed to be a short story for a clock-themed anthology…but it quickly became apparent that it desperately wanted to be a novel. Also, check out the Cast of Characters.
And here’s the blurb for the story…
A catastrophe befell the city of Mezepiki fourteen years before the story opens. An accidentally created magical vortex has devastated the center of the city, creating an area now known as the Shambles. There are survivors trapped in Shambles, which seems to go increasingly out-of-phase with reality the deeper you go. They call themselves the Malkuar, the Damned.
Only a few survivors who were caught at the edges have the freedom to move outside the Shambles. But to the rest of the city’s residents, they’re invisible. More than invisible, they are unseen, unheard, almost like ghosts haunting the city.
Now the rulers of the kingdom have come up with a plan to “fix” the Shambles, by destroying it…and all the survivors.
It’s up to Sander Grenfell to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Without further ado, here’s an excerpt from A Vortex Called Home featuring Sander Grenfell…
I approach the Shambles via—and I’m not kidding in the slightest about the name—Bucket of Blood Street, my usual route. It’s a modestly busy thoroughfare that’s easily wide enough for two wagons to pass and comes to a dead-end at the white-painted wooden barriers that warn people not to get too close to the disrupted area. It was also the site of a terrible massacre by raiders in the early years of the city, so those literal minded folks back then named the street “so that the evil done to our people would not be forgotten.”
My father told me about that when we first came to the city—for some reason, it’s one of the few things I remember about him.
I can’t even picture his face anymore.
You can easily tell the locals from the tourists. If you’re from Mezepiki, the Shambles is just something to be ignored…like a bad neighborhood that nobody goes into anymore.
As usual, there’s a small crowd of tourists gathered by the barriers, which are basically sawhorses placed end-to-end to block the way. Official messages adorn the obstacles, alternately warning of “Danger” and admonishing the public to “Go No Further.” There’s no City Watch presence to enforce this, of course; it’s generally believed that if you’re dumb enough to ignore the warnings, then you deserve whatever happens to you.
Ironically, only about a quarter of the population of the city can read.
The Shambles is a slowly swirling vortex, an area of magical disruption, that occupies what used to be the center of Mezepiki. It looks a little bit like a whirlpool, centered around the jutting silhouette of Kohekul, which means the “Time Tower” in the old language, or the Clock Tower in modern parlance. The tower is mostly obscured by mist.
There are five distinct “bands” surrounding the Clock Tower, numbered from one for the innermost band to five for the outmost, the one where I’d been when the Catastrophe happened. Three of the bands are rotating slowly clockwise, albeit at different speeds—the Third Band is zipping along quickly enough that its motion is easily perceivable. The Second Band rotates counter-clockwise; nobody knows why. And the Fifth Band doesn’t rotate at all, which probably has something to do with why I can cross that outer boundary at will. For the inner bands, one could cross the boundaries going inward, if you were lucky, but not outwards.
The tourists are looking beyond the roadblock as if they’re hoping something special might happen. Truthfully, all they can see are derelict buildings separated by the swathes of rubble that mark the band boundaries. Mist shrouds much of the Shambles today, leaving more distant buildings as shadowy silhouettes, except for the aforementioned spike which rises above the mist. Still, if one persists in staring at those ghostly shapes, it’s possible to discern the movement of the buildings in the Third Band.
I sidle invisibly through the crowd, trying not to hit anyone with the burlap bag hanging over my shoulder. Finding a free space near the barriers, I gingerly climb over. Somehow, my toe catches unexpectedly. I lose my balance and do a full-on belly flop on the cobblestones on the other side—not my most graceful moment.
More comical is me trying to break my fall as much as possible with one hand while the other scrabbles to keep the burlap bag balanced on my back. If the bag touches the ground with more than half its weight, then the bag would be more physically associated with the cobblestones than me and would thus become visible. It would be tough to explain why a burlap bag has magically appeared beyond the roadblock.
Fortunately, that doesn’t happen. Nobody notices anything.
I take a little time to catch my breath, then I get to my feet, brush myself off, and look around.
The buildings beyond the barrier look about like you’d expect to them look after fourteen years of neglect. They’re in ill repair, some with broken windows, others with doors sagging open due to rotting doorframes. This isn’t really the Shambles yet, just a safe zone the city authorities set up around the disrupted area. The outer boundary is about fifty yards further down the street. You can’t really blame the authorities for that; I’d have been cautious, too.
I go into one of the buildings close to the roadblock, one of the ones with a gaping doorway. Dirt has blown in and is heaped up in places.
I drop my sack. I sweep up some of the dirt into my hands and go back outside with a double handful. I approach the barrier, then twirl like a dancer as I release the dirt.
“Ooh,” an onlooker says, “it’s one of the whirlwinds the guide mentioned.”
I can’t help smiling at the crowd’s obvious excitement. I like tourists. At least they’re interested in what happened to us.
To everyone else, the Shambles is just a nuisance. And those of us impacted by it, well, we’re the forgotten. The Malkuar, the damned.
I retrieve my sack and head down the street, away from the tourists. I feel a slight tingle as I cross the outer boundary. The Fifth Band doesn’t spin, but it’s definitely present. As I go deeper into the Shambles, I start to encounter eddies of mist.
I go into the ruined building I’ve commandeered for my activities—I call it the Warehouse, even though it was originally a furniture repair shop. In the spacious main room, there’s a four-wheeled cart in the center with supplies piled on it. I’ve also got stacks of varies types of supplies piled up around the room.
A young man with long black hair and a wispy beard and mustache is nonchalantly sitting on a window ledge eating an apple he’s stolen from the basket on the cart.
“Really, Slice?” I say. “The apples aren’t for you.”
“You could try to take it from me.”
I sigh. “Nobody is going to want that apple now.”
“Well, good,” he drawls. “I guess that means I’m not killing you today.”
“That’s great news, Slice. I’m overwhelmed.” I drop my sack on the floor, happy to be free of my burden. “Of course, if you gave me the old heave-ho, you’d have nobody left to talk to.”
“True.” He rests his elbow on his knee, then his chin on his hand, posing as if he’s thinking. The pose also shows off the row of scars he’s cut into his arm.
“Well, while you’re thinking about offing me, I’ve got a delivery to make.”
I start pulling things out of the burlap sack and adding them to the cart, which is about five feet long and three feet wide, with wooden sides that are about a foot high.
Slice isn’t really right in the head. To my knowledge, he and I are the only ones left from the survivors who were caught in the outer band during the Catastrophe. He’s literally the only person who can see me and hear me.
I call him Slice because he has a strange passion for knives (and because he’s never told me his real name, if he even remembers it). And lots of scars, mostly from where he cuts himself for, I don’t know, fun, rage, or whatever strange reason he might have. I don’t know, pick your own reason if you’d like. I think he’s found work as an assassin for Mezepiki’s underworld. He’d kill me if he really thought he had a reason to do so. But the one time I got badly injured, he carried me to safety, stitched me up, and took care of me while I was delirious.
I’m pretty sure he’s insane.
In short order, the cart is loaded, including most of the stuff from the burlap sack. I look up from my exertions, expecting to see Slice. But he’s slipped out.
There’s a long handle on the front of the cart. I use it to pull the cart out of the Warehouse and into the street, then continue my journey deeper into the Shambles. I go slowly and cautiously, looking from side-to-side.
This is the dangerous part, approaching the Fourth Band. A boundary is only evident by a slight shimmer in the air, so you can easily cross a boundary if you’re not paying attention. And the boundaries shift around, so you can’t always count on it being precisely where you expect it. If you cross into another band, that’s it, you can’t get back out. Even worse, a boundary that’s on the move can tear you apart.
Yes, I’ve done my weather-check from the Zaffino Tower, and the Shambles looked reasonably stable to me. But, still, it always pays to be careful.
I spot a small pack of skitters, basically some sort of reptilian rodent, walking along the side of the street in the same direction as me, chittering in their eerie way. They’re another tell-tale sign that you’re in the Shambles—nobody knows where they’re from, but they’re everywhere.
I finally spot the shimmer of the boundary about twenty feet in front of me, well into the rubble zone that demarcates the border between the bands. I slow down even more and edge my way closer. There’s an ebb and flow to the boundaries, so I’m looking left and right to see if I can see any wavering in the boundary further away from me. It makes me nervous that I can’t see as far as I’d like because of the mist. When I’m within about five feet, I can finally see that there are people on the other side. They’re translucent, not completely invisible to me the way I am to outsiders. It’s hard to make out their features, but they’re waving at me.
I stop and let the wagon’s handle fall to the ground. Then I wave back. They’re speaking to me, but all I hear is snatches, as if their words are being torn away by gale-force winds.
There’s a rope tied to the end of the cart’s handle, leading to a coil of rope on the cart itself. I pick up the coil and throw it across the border, where the others pick it up and pull the cart through.
When you’re working near the boundary, speed is of the essence—you want to minimize how long you’re in the danger zone. On the other side, some of them hurry to load heavy items from the cart onto a wheelbarrow that I’d previously given to them. Others efficiently and quickly store small things into backpacks.
When the cart is empty, one of them throws the rope back. I’m about to pick it up, when I hear a screech from behind me. Glancing back, I see the skitters running away.
Ignoring the rope, I sprint after them.
And just in time, too, as the shimmering boundary suddenly bulges outward. Some rubble shifts under my feet, and I stumble, ending up off-balance and running even faster to keep from falling. I manage to get out of the expanse of rubble before I finally tumble to the cobblestones. Even then, I desperately scramble back to my feet and keep running as I hear grinding and cracking behind me.
I stop after another twenty feet and look back to see that the boundary has stopped expanding. It’s moved about thirty-five feet outward, which is on the extreme end of what I’ve ever seen it do. It’s spread beyond the previous extent of the rubble zone by about three feet, which means Band Four has just absorbed territory beyond what it’s ever contained before. It’s also jerked about fifteen feet to the left, further breaking up the buildings adjacent to the boundary, which explains the grinding and cracking I’d heard. The destruction has spawned billowing clouds of dust that are mixing with the mist, giving it a sickly brownish-yellow color.
This is exactly the type of situation that can rip a person apart. Images of my mother suddenly fill my mind before I can help myself. Suddenly, I’m sick to my stomach. I collapse to my knees, fighting hard not to throw up. It takes me a while to get myself under control again.
This is the closest call I’ve had in a long, long time. If I’d fallen when I first stumbled, I’d have either been trapped in the Fourth Band or killed.
I find myself grateful to the skitters for the warning, which has to be the first time that I’ve ever found a reason to appreciate the ubiquitous pests.
I finally look up, still breathing hard, curious to see what’s happened to the cart…and my partners from the other side. The boundary change has turned the cart sideways and moved it left about fifteen feet, as well. At least it wasn’t destroyed—I’m glad I don’t have to find another one to liberate. I’m also happy to see that the others had been able to run for safety, though it wasn’t as dangerous for them since the boundary was moving away from them.
But it’s going to be more dangerous for them now.
This has happened before, though not usually this bad. The protocol I’ve worked out with my partners on the other side is that we wait a while to verify that the border has stabilized. Then they have to get the cart back to me, which requires them to approach the boundary. The danger for them is the potential for the boundary to recede again, which would place them in the same danger that I was just in.
After a time, I cautiously approach the boundary from my side. A single person, a teenager it looks like, approaches from the other side. I figure he’s probably their fastest runner. He has to drag the cart closer to the boundary. And, this time, the rope exchange goes as planned. I pull the cart through, wave goodbye, and gratefully pull the cart away.
Did I mention that we’ve been doing this dangerous exchange almost since the beginning? Or that something similar, and equally dangerous, also happens at the other boundaries as these supplies filter inward?
I’m the lifeline for all the other survivors in the Shambles.
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