Riven

By A.R. Knight

The dead belong in Riven. The living on Earth. But as war fills Riven to bursting, Carver has to find a way to keep those lines clear, or there won’t be much difference between the worlds for long.

Guiding the dead to their next life has never been an easy job. Turns out, most dead don’t like being, well, dead. But when an angry, powerful spirit begins marshaling the lost souls and claiming Carver might be the bridge back to life, Carver has to find out why before the dead make him one of their own.

RIVEN is the first book in THE RIVEN TRILOGY, a steampunk fantasy set during a twisted World War One. With action-packed adventure, humor and a little bit of love, Carver’s adventure promises to keep you turning the pages, searching for answers along with the guide.

If you’re looking for your next great story, RIVEN will take you to a brand-new setting, with characters you’ll never see coming. Read it today, and get pulled into a magical world!

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.R. Knight
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781946554079

A.R. Knight

A.R. Knight spins stories in a frosty house in Madison, WI, primarily owned by a pair of cats. After getting sucked into the working grind in the economic crash of the 2008, he found himself spending boring meetings soaring through space and going on grand adventures.Eventually, spending time with podcasting, screenplays, short stories and other novels, he found a story he could fall into and a cast of characters both entertaining and full of heart.Thanks, as always, for reading!

Book preview

THE ANGRY DEAD

She’d been dead for a month, but damn if I didn’t love her.

Selena looked back at me from across the room, an ashen square occupied by swirling sheets of paper, a lone chair, and a closed door that Selena stood near. The walls were cracking, bits of mortar falling to the ground before getting swept up in Riven’s ever-present breeze. Selena gripped the doorknob, but she wasn’t going to open it. Not till I was ready.

My right hand slipped to the hilt on my waist, tied to my belt. My fingers fit into the creases on the leather grip. I lifted it free of the holster without a sound. As I held it up, the lash unrolled and played out along the floor like a snake waiting for its chance to strike. At the end of its long tail, the lash split into a pair of metal points. Points that glowed a faint blue.

I’ve seen that enough times to not be impressed, Selena said. Her voice came with a thousand memories, scratches and scars underlining every word.

It’s part of my style, I said. I walked forward to the door and took Selena’s hand off the knob. No reason to risk her for this. My gloved hand took her place, and I twisted.

The door opened inward, revealing an even greater disaster on the other side. Rubble from a caved-in roof spread across the floor, stone blocks split in half or smaller pieces scattered around. Dust swirled and danced in Riven’s cold light. The same gray cast colored everything in this world. Sitting on the rubble, head between his hands, was a man. Or at least what used to be one.

His hair was thinning, some spare spidery wisps falling to touch his dirty white collar. A bow-tie hung askew beneath his neck, the lone spot of black until the man’s torn trousers. He’d lost his shoes somewhere on the way to here. I noticed the watch on one hand, gold and shining. Rare to see something like that come through. Must have been a present, a treasured gift.

Be careful, Selena whispered. This one’s got an edge.

It won’t get close, I replied, and raised the lash.

As my lash went into the air, its length whipping up and stretching over my right shoulder, the man looked up at me. No matter how many times I saw their eyes, they never failed to send a shiver running through my nerves. Pale blue fire burned where their pupils should be. The sign of a spirit that’d been consumed, that’d lost what little remained of who they were.

Now you’ve come again, the man said, standing. Come to take what’s mine, as you have so many times before.

This will be the last, I promise, I said, and then I swung the lash. It went forward, snapping in the air. The lash wrapped around the man’s neck, the metal points digging into the spirit. The points made the man’s gray skin stretch and warp as they dug in, and then I twisted my wrist.

The lash turned the same color as the man’s eyes. Blue fire tracing from my hand down the length of the lash and through those points into the man. The spirit howled, an otherworldly noise carrying all the pain the spirit had suffered to bring him here. To Riven and to let him stay.

As the blue flames covered the man, he fell to his knees and grew silent. Seconds later, I saw his eyes extinguish and twisted my wrist back. The lash returned to its normal black and, with a flick of my arm, I withdrew the coil and watched.

The man stood and walked towards me. I stepped aside, back into the room with the chair, and Selena moved with me. The man kept walking, right by us, through the room, and down the stairs at the other end. He would keep walking on a long journey until he reached Riven’s center. The thing that both made Riven necessary and terrible. The Cycle.

I thought you said this was a bad one, I said to Selena. He didn’t even put up a fight.

You heard him. He was angry, Selena said. You always say to let you know when there’s an angry one here.

You weren’t wrong. I heard him talk, I replied. He didn’t know where he was anymore. Thought I was someone else.

I hate that. I hate it when they talk about before.

All of them do that. Even you.

But you saw his eyes. Mine aren’t like that.

That’s true. Any spirit with those burning blue eyes was lost. Needed to be sent back. I looked at Selena’s face, the smooth curves in the long scar down one side. Her eyes were gray, like the rest of this place. But her body, the blouse and pants that she wore, those still held color. And there was warmth in her lips. Warmth that I felt as I leaned in and brushed them with mine. Selena took the gesture, then looked away.

There are more of them, Selena said. I keep seeing them, Carver. Keep seeing them running through the streets, losing their minds faster than before. I think they’re feeding on it.

Then we’ll just have to work harder, I said. I told you what’s happening out there. A lot of lives are being lost. Riven is going to be crowded for a while.

I feel it too.

What do you mean?

The rage. The anger at all the loss, Selena said, pointing to her heart, and then her head. It’s like a sickness, festering inside. Whispering to me and telling me to lose myself in it and follow the feeling to the end.

I looked at her, studied those gray eyes for any hint of the fire. If you caught a spirit early enough, there were giveaways. Twitches and tells like clawing hands and snapping motions. The surest sign was a flicker behind the pupils, a spark that always led to the angry flame. Selena had none. I realized she was staring at my hand, my hand that still gripped the lash.

You’re bound, I said. That should keep you safe. You can draw on my will, my life, whenever you feel that anger.

Selena nodded. The same nod that she had probably given to her husband when she was alive, quiet and confident, but I could tell there was plenty left unsaid. She didn’t explain, just turned and walked from the room. As I followed, a far-off bell clanged, ringing through the vast gray maze of Riven’s city. That sound meant it was time to go home. Time to wake up.

FORBIDDEN

The building’s first floor consisted of a single room occupied by a lone table split down the middle, its two halves leaning into each other. Square windows, with no glass, were bordered by empty bookshelves. Long ago cleared out by other guides. Before my time.

How long had you been here before I found you? I asked Selena.

She paused at the exit, a single doorway with the door no longer attached. Hinges hung off the sides at odd angles. The old door had been ripped off long ago. We didn’t like leaving hidden places in Riven.

Thirty days, Selena said. Thirty days before Wiley lost his mind.

Wiley. Her last husband. The one that gave her that scar. After she gave him one far worse.

The man? The guy upstairs? I said. He’d likely been here a week or more. Long enough to lose himself. You and your husband had each other for help. He had no one.

You promise that won’t happen to me?

As long as I’m alive, you’ll be fine.

Selena stayed quiet. She did that a lot. Whether that was because I couldn’t hold a decent conversation or because she had too many memories to dive into, I couldn’t be sure. Riven was a place for silence, though. There weren’t chirping birds. No noise from machines moving, crowds talking. Only the blowing of the wind.

I followed Selena into the avenue. Like the building we’d been in, the avenue was a mixture of ruins, empty storefronts, and unlit lampposts. A ghost town filled with literal ghosts.

We could see plenty of spirits, a dozen wandering the street as we looked up and down. Most were in various stages of being called. Pulled to the Cycle where they would vanish and find their way back to reality as a new life. Some, held through a stronger bond to something left behind, wandered with more purpose. Looked at the buildings with actual curiosity or longing. Those were the dangerous ones, the ones that would inevitably turn to anger if they resisted for too long.

Selena and I walked through them, passed by spirits wearing everything from rags to the wealthiest and most ostentatious of suits. There was no telling what a spirit would be wearing when they died.

Overhead an endless stream of thin clouds muted the light. Riven had no sun that I could see, only a constant gray cast. Ash filtered through the air. It was always there, had always been there, though none of the guides I’d ever asked knew where it came from. Not even Bryce.

My eyes moved to Selena. Even here she held her head high. That confidence, that willingness to confront whatever stood in front of her, I had noticed first. On the street not far from where I had crossed over. She had been fighting Wiley, right there on the road. Tearing at each other.

I wanted to go, Selena said as we walked along. Wanted to be cycled. But then I kept seeing them, their mindless faces as they went on. I just couldn’t do it.

So you explored.

She turned like this every once in a while. Reflective. Curious.

And I wrote, Selena said. Don’t forget that. You’re going to memorize those and take them out of Riven, remember?

I promised, didn’t I?

I’ve heard a lot of those.

I keep mine.

We reached the main square for this part of Riven. On one side, opposite where we came in, stood a large clock tower. The hours themselves were meaningless here. But the count, the number of those hours you spent in Riven, that meant everything.

Do you want me to walk you back? I asked.

I’ll be fine, Selena said. A flash of disappointment. You’ll be back tonight?

Should be, I said. All depends on what we hear today.

Another one?

With the war, we have to keep in close contact. It’s getting rough out there. As I finished the sentence my eyes took a jog around the courtyard. The large fountain in the center drew the most attention, spraying Riven’s water high into the air. I walked over to it, held out my hand, and felt the splatters on my palm. Lifted it to my mouth and tried to take a sip. The liquid went in my throat, over my lips, but it tasted like nothing.

Carver. Are you forgetting something?

Selena held me captive with a small smile. It twisted the scar cutting across her face into a sickle, and I loved it. It seemed so fitting for this place, for Riven. Beautiful imperfection.

I can’t risk it here, I said. Her face fell, settled into a line. Sorry, Selena. If they found out, they’d blind me from Riven. Tonight though, I’ll meet you at the apartment.

That didn’t quite knock the sadness out of her eyes, but Selena pulled her mask back on. Slipped one last smile, then left me alone in the courtyard. I went over the clock tower, pulled the handle on the large double doors leading inside.

The spacious chamber was full of stacked bookshelves, racks with various weapons, each one labeled for the guide who owned it. A round table and chairs sat in the center. And behind that, leaning against the far wall, was a line of beds.

I slid the lash into its holder on my rack. Pulled the long knife out of its holster on my left and slotted it beside the lash. The next rack over held a giant double-edged spear Bryce called a voulge. Waving symbols were etched into the thing’s pole. Bryce carved one every time he took out a ghoul. Something I hadn’t done. Hadn’t even seen. Bryce always said I was lucky for that.

I went over the beds, chose the one on the far right, and laid down. Almost as soon as I’d settled in, my eyes shut and sleep took me. I crossed over.

EVERY MORNING

The morning paper shot over my head as I woke up. The end of the tube came in over my window looking out over the streets west of downtown Chicago. The tube launched mail, paper, anything small enough to fit up from the ground and into my apartment, where it landed in a small basket.

The wall behind that basket, a jutting edge made just for this purpose, was padded with a thick cushion I’d nailed on when the first cracks from repeated impacts started to show. The start of the tube, at street level, had a small gate that only opened if you pressed the correct sequence of numbers on the keypad next to it. Prevented any kind of nasty bombs or pranks that people would otherwise send through the mail.

Outside the window, Chicago’s hazy morning was beginning. The sun bled yellow through a smoky filter. Buildings played staccato in the distance, and in between their rises shifted the occasional hulking mass of a mech, given away by their belching smokestacks. The sky overhead was peppered with thick blotches of varying length. Zeppelins carrying passengers, products, or in the case of the large one persistently hovering over Lake Michigan, prisoners.

The cloudless March sky made it look like it would be a nice day.

I stood up and took the three steps from my bed to my kitchen, a squat affair with the table on one side, my icebox on the other, and the single oven in the middle. I pressed the button on the top of the icebox and it appeared to split, the cover rising to reveal two sides. On the left were the truly frozen items. An empty half, save for a bottle of Nikolai’s Finest vodka. I reached for it then paused. Not this morning. There was a meeting that I’d have to be presentable for.

The other side was loaded with small packets of food. One, labeled Breakfast Number Three, was on the top and I grabbed it. Breakfast Number Three was the best, eggs and bacon. Only two of those per week.

I slid it into the oven and turned it on by rotating a small dial on the front. Sparks sprayed out the back of the machine as it spooled up, adding their singes to the black smears on the wall behind. Then I had the chance to actually take a look at that paper.

The usual headlines about the war dominated. Wins, losses, speeches by generals and politicians about how this was either the greatest time, or the end of time. I hunted for the numbers. They were buried, hidden in small boxes at the bottoms of the articles. A thousand here, another five thousand there. Each and every one of those would be going to Riven. Most would be angry. Everyone worried about the cost of war for the living, nobody seemed to care what it meant for the ones who watched the dead.

The oven dinged, a noise more seen than heard as the thing stopped its shower of sparks and the front door popped open. A pair of tongs hung on the wall next to the oven. Using its hook, a spindly metal grabber, I fished my breakfast out. I picked out my utensil from the container on the table, a tall cylinder with my name, Carver, embossed into it. A welcome gift from the other guides when I came here.

The utensil was a thick tool with a slider built into the stem. I slid it back a notch, hiding the spoon and revealing the fork. Stabbed it into the mix of bacon and eggs and stuck the salty goodness in my mouth. They’d done a real nice job with the taste on this one. A glance at the label on the package, Breakfast Number Three and, beneath, flavored with cheddar. That’d be why. Every once in a while the processors got a deal on something tasty and stuck it in. I took an extra minute to savor every bite of this one, as I probably wouldn’t get another for a month or more.

Then a brief visit to the shared showers on my floor, always a crowded squeeze given the hot water for our building only lasted for an hour in the morning. 5:00 to 6:00. That’s what you had if you needed a hot shower. Most days I didn’t care, but today there were standards. Today I’d be going outside.

I put on an undershirt and the only sweater I owned. A faded green with the letters C.R. sewn into the back. My initials. Another gift, this one from a girl I’d known a long time ago. She would’ve laughed if she knew I still wore this thing.

Thick work pants, loaded with pockets, and then the coup de grace, my coat. A marker of status. Thick and long, originally black but now a dusty gray, with twin lapels stretching off the collar and down part of the front. A hood that tucked behind my neck and could be pulled out as needed. Only guides wore these, and they opened doors. Shut a few too.

As I left my place, I grabbed one more thing. My mask. The metal was cool on my face, but it settled under my chin and around my ears perfectly. Every year or so I had to take it in, get it adjusted. It had to fit tight. I rode the elevator down and as it opened I press the button on the side of the mask. A switch woven into the curling black metal with bits of topaz sprinkled in. I’d wanted it to look like embers in the night, and the guides had delivered.

I pulled over the hood, and stepped onto the sidewalk. The mask started filtering out dust and dirt from the air. The lenses dulling the sunlight’s bright edges from my eyes.

The streets were crowded, the masses generally going in my direction. Making their way to the trains going either into or out of the city. The streets themselves busy with ranging carts. Treaded steel beasts hauling cargo or passengers arrayed on lines of benches. Wheels crunched into gravel, sprinkling the sidewalk with pebbles.

The train station was a block away. Its looping entrance arch watched over by a three-story tall mech. The machine stood on four legs that bled into a squat sphere of a body. Lights coated the bottom, directed wherever the driver chose. Twin smokestacks on top sat still, they’d only belch when the mech was moving. On the sides of its body were a pair of thick guns, their bullet belts streaming down and wrapping around the machine so that it seemed to be literally cloaked in golden death. These days, most people looked up at the mech and smiled. Waved.

I did too.

FIND YOUR PEACE

Inodded to the conductor as I stepped on the train. Behind me, the next passenger pulled out her chit and the conductor punched it. Another perk of being a guide? Free rides. The train car was crowded this morning, but a pair shuffled away from a bench and let me sit down.

I took them up on the offer and settled in against the window. It was as cool on the train as it was outside, a temp I was comfortable with. In the summer, wearing this coat wasn’t always a pleasant experience, but without it I didn’t get the perks. So even if I was liable to become a pool of