The World Shaker Read online

  Abby Dewsnup

  The World Shaker

  Copyright © 2019 by Abby Dewsnup

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  First edition

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  Contents

  There Once was the Sun

  The Elder’s Palace

  Boneyard

  Rise of the Red Sun

  The Bounty Hunter

  An Awakening

  Dark One

  The Captain

  Centuries Deep

  Dragon Bones

  Flight

  Things Unseen

  Ghost Stories

  Enter the High Prince

  Golden Locket

  Sol Tavern

  When is a Curse Not a Curse

  Creation

  The Solifeer

  Lightning Strike

  Enter the Seer

  Illumination

  Boy Without His Wings

  Captive

  Girl Burning

  There Once was the Night

  Don’t Miss What’s Next!

  About the Author

  1

  There Once was the Sun

  My parents used to tell me that the outside world spoke to them. I never understood what they meant until they disappeared. Then, I heard it too.

  That is my great secret. The streets of the Caves made me into a thief long ago, the twisting alleyways cradling me in their calloused grip, but my loyalty has never resided with my people. I imagine that one day my family will return, and my mother will see that her daughter’s eyes search not for the darkness but for the sun. She’ll see how I cut my hair short in an effort to blend in with the rocks and their jagged edges, to vanish into the mountainside.

  When my parents return, as I hope they will, they will bring the light with them. But for now, I must steal it.

  The Caves are a sodden place full of shadows and rusted metal parts. They told us in primary school that our people had fought a terrible, bloody war ages ago. In the aftermath, our grandfathers had decided to trek below ground and stay there, casting off all relations with neighboring provinces in the process. The Great War had ended over three centuries ago, though.

  I ran down the worn path, my gloved fingers tracing the veins in the stone walls. Behind me, light dripped from the cracks in the walls. I covered my face once more in a makeshift scarf as I descended into the tunnels. My bag jingled with the sound of a dozen glowing glass orbs, filled to bursting with stolen light. I worried that the glow would give me away, and so my feet hardly touched the ground as I sprinted for the safety of the stone corridors.

  “C’ mon, James,” I whispered, grabbing my little brother’s hand.

  He kept pace with me, his curly hair concealed beneath a scarf. Grinning, he yanked his hand away. “Why don’t we stay above there, Anya? In the Fringe? Then you wouldn’t have to steal the light.”

  I touched my own orb around my neck, fingering the leather string. It was customary to wear your orb around your neck, but the stolen items in my bag were hardly customary. “If we went to the Fringe, would you stop pestering me?” I retorted. “Not that it matters, James. We’re Cave-Dwellers, you know this. Now hush.”

  “I want to see the dragons in the sky,” he said in a fervent whisper. “I want to be one of the brave ones who slay them.”

  I laughed, my voice echoing off the stone walls. “The bravest men were dragon riders. They didn’t slay them.”

  James’ eyes widened at the accidental wisdom. “One day, I will ride one.”

  Sometimes I wondered if I was making the right choice by staying in the Caves. We were Cave-Dwellers, after all. James and I weren’t meant to stand beneath the sun, only steal its warmth with trembling fingers, deep beneath the earth.

  His dark hands found mine to keep himself from stumbling. James and I had a darker complexion than most, which is due to the fact that our mother had skin like the day and my father had skin like the night, which I suppose could be a beautiful metaphor if I only found the time to write it.

  I haven’t had time for much of anything since their departure. I was seventeen, almost of the age to hold my own registered light-giving orb, and soon I would need to present my citizenship to the Elders. The Elders expected my parents to be in attendance. I doubted they knew my parents were gone, or that I already had my own stolen orb.

  My fingers curled around my father’s orb at the thought, the stolen light within it warm beneath my hand. He had given it to me as a reminder that he would return. It was a poor reminder, but it had saved my life in other ways. Purchasing food, for one.

  The Caves were damp and filled with creatures I had only encountered during fire drills and emergency raids. Dwellings sprouted from the rock like a seed in the dirt, large enough for only the necessities. Tunnels laced the stone walls, running like veins through our mountain. Almost everyone mined for gold and jewels. Almost everyone.

  “James,” I hissed, urging him along on the trail. “We have to go deliver this to Lanke, remember?”

  Lanke lived in a rotting cottage at the bottom of the tunnels, his property littered with rusted iron parts and broken orbs. He was a burly man, covered in hair, with a knack for making a profit on illegal business. He was the only one who would take my Smuggling business and give me a good price — the other traders threatened to expose my age to the council. I suppose they were afraid of being found out.

  His house came into view, isolated against the towering cave walls that surrounded it. We crossed the front yard, kicking aside spent metal pieces, and tugged open the rusted door.

  “What will you give me for an orb full?” I asked, slinging my gathering pack over the rock counter.

  Lanke scratched his scruffy face, his odor leeching across the room like a raw sulfur breach. “Good shipment, Anya,” he grunted. “Good time of day.”

  I pulled the pack away from his prying fingers. “What will you give me for it?” I demanded.

  Lanke caught my brother’s eye, and his face broke out in a smile. “James, child, why is your sister always so stern, with her dagger and her mouth?”

  James grinned and clamped his fingers on the edge of the counter. “She’s gonna teach me how to be a Windwalker, sir.”

  “A Windwalker, eh?” Lanke crossed his meaty arms. “I heard their skin is as yellow as the sun and their hands are like dripping stalagmites. They steal everything, like you two. What makes you so different?”

  I leaned further over the counter, breaking the conversation. “I need a price, Lanke. Or I’ll take my business elsewhere.”

  He chuckled. “Elsewhere? The only other place that will take your thievery is the Cave council, and they’d send you right to prison.”

  I leveled my gaze.

  He sighed and reached beneath his counter, pulling out a fat potato sack. “I went into the markets this morning for you kids. Only picked out the best for the light you gave. I took some interest, of course.” He opened my pack and removed a handful of glass balls, letting them roll on the counter. He pressed one of the orbs to his own orb around his neck, and I watched the light transfer into his necklace. “I dread the day you come of
age, Anya, and your orb comes to life. I do enjoy our dealings.”

  I nodded, watching him transfer the light. When it was complete, he returned the emptied orbs. I pulled my sack from the counter. “And I look forward to the day I can buy food for my brother and I with my own orb.”

  He nodded in agreement and slid his door closed.

  I did this each day, stealing light from above in exchange for decent food from the markets. Only those who were of age could transfer light back and forth from their orbs — an ancient custom that our Elders hadn’t done away with. Light was the currency within our Caves, and it was through this that we kept the Shadows at bay. I was certain if my people knew light was an infinite resource above ground, no one would be groveling over a shattered orb or shouting for help in the night. My people had proven that their fear of the outside world outweighed their desire for safety in the sunlight.

  I suppose it wasn’t such an issue, the age law. Orphans were prey to the Stygian at night, so the Elders had long since decided to send them away to the mines. Everyone who found themselves without a home could get a job there, with plenty of light and the weight of indentured servitude hanging above them for the rest of their days.

  I didn’t want to work in the mines, and I dared not send my little brother to such a place. Becoming a Light Smuggler had happened as naturally as growing up, and I was good at it, too. It kept us alive.

  My brother danced around the trail, kicking aside pebbles and bits of twisted metal. He waved the food bag in the air, relishing in the prospect of a full supper that evening.

  Columns of twisted rock towered above us, stretching into the darkness that concealed the cave ceiling. Makeshift light fixtures were strung across the rocks, illuminating the clusters of buildings spread across the cave floor. The Cave was massive, spanning through miles of underground. I liked to think that the Cave-Dwellers inhabited their own world, a place in the shadows, hidden from the Fringe. Stories about Windwalkers and dragons didn’t belong here.

  Only one creature belonged in these caves, and it wasn’t anything to write stories about. I clutched my orb closer to my chest at the very thought of the Stygian ghosts.

  James stopped his dancing and turned to me, the peculiar expression of a confused eight-year-old crossing his face. “Anya, if you could be anything, what would you be?”

  I shouldered my pack and shrugged. “I’m a Cave-Dweller. Why would I be anything else?”

  “If I’m a Windwalker, you have to be something, too.”

  I knelt down next to him and tugged the food bag out of his clenched hands, slinging it over my back. “Alright, I’ll be one of the Upside Down, those people who live in the Hanging Villages.”

  James laughed. “Then you’d be walking on your hands and eating with your feet.”

  I ruffled his hair and chuckled. “And why not?”

  He pulled off my headscarf, letting my hair fall loose. “And your hair would be all crazy,” he said.

  I shook my head and pulled the covering back on, rising back to my feet. My black hair brushed my jaw, short enough that I could tuck it away without the fuss, and easy to manage with the mess of wavy curls I was cursed with. I suppose the short hair was fitting, as I wasn’t exactly the tallest person around.

  My favorite thing about myself was the fact that James and I have the same dark eyes, the same mop of black hair. He was the sole evidence that I have a family at all. Slashed across his cheek was the mark of our Caves, two lines as thin as a spiderweb. I wore the same.

  Only my hands were unique, scarred from years of burning in the light. My fingers were the only part of me that had ever felt the Fringe, having reached through cracks in the outer ceiling to absorb stolen sunlight. Those scars, combined with the thief mark on my palms, made for hands long since disfigured.

  The rock trail faded into a cobblestone lane as we entered the town. Buildings made of stone stacked together neatly, with light crystals and orbs strung across the balconies to illuminate the streets to a dim glow.

  I noticed a man standing on an upturned box, his arms in the air and his mouth spewing anger. “The Stygian ghosts are advancing, and Cave-Dwellers are safe no longer from this plague,” he shouted. “The Elders have kept us in the dark for too long, and as we crouch in fear each night within dwellings that are hardly adequate, the question still remains: how long before the Stygian ghosts are able to attack in the light? Where is our army?”

  I walked past him without making eye contact, swinging my empty bag over my shoulder. James trotted next to me, his eyes trained on the man.

  “People are crazy,” I told James.

  He only nodded, his dirty hands shoved in his pockets.

  The markets came into view. Stands covered in colorful cloth that seemed to glow beneath the paper lanterns. Cave-Dwellers crowded around each stand, their orbs clutched in their hands, admiring the wares each vendor sold. I couldn’t understand why anyone would buy a gemstone necklace, or lace. The Caves were too dim to admire them.

  I cut through the crowd, letting James clutch the hem of my shirt. Someone shouted about fraud, his back turned to me and his voice raised. Another figure smashed through the crowd, followed by a man in pursuit. I leapt out of the way, watching them disappear behind the stands.

  Without warning, a shadowed figure shouted something unintelligible in my ear. Another man cried back in anger. In all the confusion I felt my food bag slip from beneath my arm and drop to the ground.

  In an instant, a thin, willowy-looking boy grasped the drawstring bag and took off running through the crowd. “Hey — thief!” I cried. “James, go cut him off on the east side.”

  He nodded and let go of my shirt. “Run,” he urged.

  I cut through the crowd, shoving the complaining people to the side. The thief had rounded the corner, daring a glance back at me with a fearful gaze. I finally broke free of the crowd and propelled myself towards him, darting into the side street that the thief had turned into.

  The alleyway was a dead end full of packing crates. The boy was darting along the crates, scaling them with all the grace of a trained professional. I followed, grabbing onto the balcony railing of an apartment and hauling myself onto the roof.

  “That’s mine,” I shouted. “Turn back or I’ll get the patrolmen.”

  He ignored me, dashing along the rooftops with the bag still clutched in his hands. I tried to ignore the sheer drop on either side as I ran. I leaped onto each rooftop, trying in vain to catch up to the thief. Luckily, he was running out of rooftop. I knew he’d run into James, who was waiting on the East side.

  I was gaining on him, my feet flying across the rooftop. I could nearly reach out and grasp his hood when a form materialized in front of me, causing me to jump back and cry out in alarm.

  The creature was dark and faceless, his hood drawn and sword in hand. He seemed to be smoking, his silhouette flickering in and out of existence. I lost my footing at the sight of him, grasping at open air in a desperate attempt to stay on the roof. The Stygian raised his sword, a heavy silence emanating from him as he attempted to take my life.

  The world was a blur. I plummeted from the roof and grabbed the column, my hands sliding off the sandy surface. Another cry escaped me as I fell, landing with a thud on the house steps.

  The Stygian had vanished as quickly as he had come. I stood, dusting off my pants with a groan. The street was empty, luckily; otherwise my fall would have attracted the attention of the patrolmen.

  The Stygian had startled me. Considering it wasn’t sundown yet, the creature shouldn’t have been able to materialize, much less take on such a solid form. Have I lost track of time, or are the Stygian growing stronger?

  I took off running again, skidding around the street corner in time to see the thief disappear far down the other street.

  I hesitated, spinning around the four-way. “Dang it, James,” I muttered, staring down the empty roads. He hadn’t made it in time to cut the man off, and the th
ief had succeeded in stealing our food.

  “I hope you enjoy our dinner!” I shouted, kicking the ground.

  There was silence. I waited for James for a long time, leaning against the building with my dagger in hand. Finally, I sighed and stood up straight, glancing once more around the barren streets before heading back to the markets.

  I passed a vacant spot in the street. The walls were in ruin, having been burned down long ago. I forced myself to look away. My hand brushed the small of my back absentmindedly, recalling the blackened hand print there.

  When a Cave-Dweller touches a Stygian, they die. It’s a simple way to go, one that many of my neighbors had fallen prey to. Except, for most, the touch a Stygian would turn them into a shadow. It was obvious that this was becoming tradition, with a growing number of Stygian in our streets. That was the demise that scared me the most.

  I pulled my hand away from the scar as we passed the burned ruins. It had been a black night, one that pulled away the lantern light and ate away at the warmth. I was ten years old, still unsure how to keep the Stygian away from my brother and I. I remember being scared.

  I had been clutching my dwindling orb, having evaded the patrolmen through a crumbling house near the market square. I crouched beneath the kitchen table, hearing the Stygian peel themselves from the walls. They were so close, I could feel their breath. And a hand, one so cold I couldn’t shake the chill even now, had touched my back and ripped at my shirt. I remember the way it hurt, how I should’ve withered away into a shadow. But I didn’t.

  Instead, I lit one of the various matches on the ground and lit the house on fire. I was able to get away and meet James at our skeleton home, but not before the house burned down.

  Why I had been spared such a grisly fate, I did not know. But the scar remained as a testament to what I had done. I shrugged aside the memory. The hand print hadn’t hurt for years, and it was time to forget about it entirely.

  Behind me, a Stygian flickered in the shadows, his sword blade breathing in and out of life like a dying ember. Thin trails of soot threaded above the rooftops, exposing the location of the few Stygian who dared step into the light.