Harold stood, his staff in hand. “I won’t have you speaking to me this way.”
“Then come forward,” Drexil said, “and shut me up.”
“Both of you shut up!” Waypman barked. “We’ll find the boy and that black bastard soon enough. But not until the storm let’s up.”
Anger welled in Harold’s chest. It was one thing to deal with the gob. But to have the Garfaxman now shouting at him? I was too kind to this rabble. I should have let the selectors kick them to the sides like so much trash.
Outside, the snow continued to pound the membrane. Harold pressed his hand to its quivering surface and let out a nervous sigh. It’s weakening . . . and fast, he thought. I need Nicodemus. I can’t keep us protected alone.
“I bet the wraith went back to town,” the gob mumbled. “Realized what a bunch of losers he’d ended up with. Forget him, I say. Never trusted his kind anyway.”
A curtain of hail began crashing onto the bubble, rattling its fragile skin.
“Stay your tongue, fool!” Harold hissed. “If he were to hear such talk he’d kill us all.”
“Let him hear it then, I don’t care,” Drexil spat. “My blade can cut faster than his magic. And deeper, too.”
Growing weary of their prattle, Waypman rose and walked over to the far side of the bubble. Outside all was white, a vast swirl of nothingness. But as he stared into the storm, he noticed something stir to his left, a furtive shadow flitting across a distant hilltop.
“We have company out there,” he said, cupping his hands to the membrane.
The gob snickered. “There’s plenty I’m sure, squiddy. Moving, eating, hunting . . . and we’re next on the plate.”
“Could be the Charger . . . or the boy,” Waypman went on. “It’s too dark to tell.”
Harold sat slumped beside the fire, defeated.
“They’re dead by now,” the mystic murmured.
Waypman shook his head. “If that’s true, then we’re all dead men.”
The city sprawled before Michael like a silver dream, it’s many rooftops glinting moonlight as ribbons of acrid smoke curled toward the open dome above.
A thousand scents polluted the dense, metallic air: fried laptane meat, laxore oil, Tritan sweat, and waste smoldering in enormous compost heaps. Humidity and humanity mingled as one beside the dozens of water spires rising through the city’s floor.
Michael froze, his heart racing. He held a blood-soaked knife in his hand. Where am I?
“A dream,” the voice said. “And a most interesting one at that.”
Michael took a step forward but stumbled as something caught his foot. When he looked down, he saw a gob lying in a pool of blood. The twisted man stared up at him wide-eyed, accusing, his throat a mass of rent flesh and gore.
Without a word, Michael knelt down and plunged the blade deep into the gob’s chest. As he twisted, blood pulsated around the hilt, staining the gob’s gold tunic. When he was done, he sat back and looked up at the sky.
“My god!” he breathed.
An enormous, crimson tidal wave was crashing through the dome. Bodies flowed in its wild current, thousands of torn humans and gobs thrashing together like logs trapped at the crest of a flash flood.
“NO!” he cried.
But it was too late. With a deafening roar, the crimson flood slammed into him, drowning him in darkness.
Michael awoke with a start, his suit filled with sweat. As he gasped for air, he felt ivory fingertips tiptoeing across his neck.
“By the gods!”
He reached up and swatted something hairy into the dark. When he struck a match, he saw an enormous spider scuttling around the stool. Before it could escape, though, he smashed it beneath his boot.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Michael shouted.
A chuckle echoed through his head. “Your dream amused me,” the voice replied. “I didn’t want to end it before the finale.”
Michael spat, brushing dust off his face and hands. His back ached, and his throat was dry. I need water, he thought. Just then, a thin ray of light sliced through the clogged portal.
“The storm has ended,” the voice said.
Michael pulled open the brass panel. As it swung aside with a rusty groan, snow quickly poured in, leaving only a thin opening at the top.
“Tell me something,” the voice said as Michael made the opening bigger. “Why do you hold such hatred for those of the metal island?”
Michael tossed snow over his shoulder. “Just about everything you see here was of their design.”
“But they did not wield the weapons.”
“They profited from them,” Michael spat. “To me, that’s just as bad as setting them in motion.” Light flooded the chamber, a cool, winter glow that warmed Michael’s face.
“They took someone close to you, didn’t they?” the voice said. “A father?”
Michael ignored him as he peered outside. Windswept flakes swirled across a sea of white. They will never find me now, he thought. More than likely, the crew had fled back to Cumlety in the night.
“How did he die, Michael?”
Michael closed his eyes. It was all he could do just to push the memory from his mind.
“Ahhh,” the voice crooned. “The madness took him. Your anger is quite justified then.”
Michael stood silent, unwilling to reveal more.
“Oh, I understand now,” the voice went on. “I would harbor such yearnings, too. To feel a blade pierce the flesh of those who stole my kin. To feel the final beat of a dying magistrate’s heart in your very palm.”
Michael swallowed. “You don’t know shit.”
“You’re so young, so hopeless, Michael. But think about it. There is purpose for you now. Purpose that includes vengeance for your father.”
Michael felt a part of his soul stir, but he suppressed it.
“Tritan plays a role in our fate now.”
Michael unclenched his fists.
“Revenge is but a sea away. First, though, there is something we must find. Something my people hid from those who would exploit it.”
“And what was that?” Michael asked.
“An atuan, Michael. Menutee’s atuan.”
Michael’s heart quickened. “It’s real?”
“Real and more powerful than you could ever imagine.”
“But even so,” Michael said, “how’s it going to help me?”
“It’s the only thing that can break our bond.”
Michael stared off across the frozen landscape. Everything blended into one, the hills, the gullies, the dunes. A great canvas of maddening white.
I should’ve never come here, he thought.
“Where else would you have gone, Michael?”
Michael shook his head, frustrated by the intrusion. “I don’t know.”
“Come with me then. To find the key to freedom. To revenge.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?”
“We need the atuan,” the voice said. “But it is protected. And only a Karna-bara key can free it from its bonds.”
9
The remains of an enormous bunker jutted from the snow, its collapsed passages and exposed chambers filled with smooth, unbroken snow drifts.
“What is this place?” Michael asked.
“Just a lookout post,” the voice replied. “We had hundreds buried throughout the Downs. Be careful, though. The ground is soured.”
Michael turned to the east, where a snowless field of sand contrasted against the white landscape. It was large, probably the size of ten galleys, and patches of bone and ash lay scattered across its surface.
“Probably a fire trap,” the voice said. “Keep your distance.”
In that moment, an enormous draba bird swept down from the sky, screeching wildly as a small, ratlike creature raced into the field.
“Watch closely and learn, Michael,” the voice said.
The draba bird spread its wings and opened its claws. But just when it
was about to clutch its prey, it broke off the attack, banking high into the sky. Moments later, the rat burst into flame, curling in on itself like a burning leaf.
“The man who spun that trap was a master,” the voice said as the rat’s smoldering bones quickly turned to ash.
“How many of these do you think are left?” Michael asked.
“Countless,” the voice replied. “And there are others far worse than this.”
A hundred footfalls to their right, situated atop a large dune, a row of statues stood sentinel beneath the gray sky. Michael approached them cautiously.
“They look alive,” he said, his flesh prickling as their eyes met his.
“Some may very well be,” the voice said. “Suspension spells were not unheard of during the war. A cruel and unusual form of torment . . . but it was successful in its psychological effect against the enemy.”
“By the gods, you’re joking, right?”
“Men will always find new ways to torture and murder their brothers, Michael. There is no limit to mankind’s cruelty.”
Michael swallowed. “Apparently not.”
Over the next call, Michael trudged through deepening snow until he finally entered a windswept vale. All around him, great snow-covered hills stretched toward the sky, blocking out the Waste and much of the horizon.
“Where are we?” he asked as his boots crunched atop the snow.
“The Vale of Twin Mirrors,” the voice replied.
A thousand footfalls to the north, two enormous lakes shimmered in the afternoon sun, their surfaces choppy and covered in rainbow colors. Cutting between them, an overgrown road stretched toward the horizon, vanishing at the base of an enormous mountain range.
“We should fish one of them,” Michael said, his stomach grumbling. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week.”
“Not here,” the voice replied. “There may be water watchers.”
Just then, a draba bird landed on the surface of the eastern lake. A newborn, its crimson plumage glowed bright in the afternoon sun as it plucked its feathers clean.
“Yet another lesson, boy,” the voice said. “Watch.”
Michael’s heart sank as a cluster of bubbles approached the unsuspecting bird. When they were within inches of it, the bird finally turned and started. But it was too late. The surface exploded as a circular, silver device ensnared the bird’s head, cutting it clean off. The headless draba then flailed about, kicking up crimson water as the spherical mechanism hovered over it.
“What is that?” Michael whispered.
“A watcher,” the voice replied.
After a few moments, the sphere folded in on itself and slipped back beneath the water.
“That trap is more than a hundred turns old,” the voice said as the bird’s headless corpse vanished in a crimson cloud. “A testament to Tritan craftsmanship.”
Michael turned away in disgust. “Tritan deviltry you mean.”
A thin, green fog clung to the snow-covered path separating the two lakes. Michael walked cautiously along it, gazing at the lakes’ still, mirrorlike surfaces. “It’s a shame,” he said. “It was probably beautiful here once.”
“In time, the world will heal,” the voice said. “Perhaps not in your lifetime . . . or your children’s children’s. But someday.”
Michael huffed. “Until then, I guess men like me will just have to clean up the mess. Right?”
“It’s an unfortunate hand to be dealt. But a necessary one. After all, this is a mere pittance of what might have been.”
“If you say so,” Michael mumbled.
After a time, the road widened again as it vanished into a snow-covered forest. Michael entered beneath the dark canopy and reluctantly continued along the path.
“I thought this place was forbidden,” he said as he scanned the forest. “The paths look like they’ve been cleared.”
“If there is life out here, it’s best we avoid it,” the voice said. “The gods only know what this place has done to them.”
The pines swayed and creaked as snow trickled through their bows. Here and there, empty bunkers poked up through the snow like forgotten tombstones. But when Michael peered into one, he saw only rubble and snow inside.
After a few more miles, the mighty pines thinned, giving way to rock outcroppings and tangles of brush. Soon enough, the road began to slope up a steep hillside, where it finally forked both east and west at the base of a barren, rocky mountain.
Michael halted, staring up both trails. Dense clouds encircled the western slope, an eerie veil in which little sound stirred, save for the occasional creek and groan of swaying, dead trees. The eastern path was clearly visible, though, switch backing up a bare, rocky cliff.
“Which way?” Michael asked the voice.
“West.”
Mustering what little strength he had, Michael began the long march up the steepening incline. Soon, he was shrouded in mist, his visibility ten footfalls at most.
“This place is a graveyard,” he whispered as the lakes vanished behind him.
“That it is,” the voice replied. “And we are the ghosts now.”
“We should go look for him,” Waypman said as he rolled up his sleeping sack.
Blinding sunlight now reflected off of fresh, unbroken snow, forcing the trio to squint as they broke camp.
“He might still be alive,” Waypman went on. “Who knows what might have happened to him out there.”
Drexil stood before the fire, urinating into the smoldering coals. “Forget him, Garfaxman. He’s dead for sure. As is the Charger.”
“And how are you so sure, gob?”
“It was probably fifty below out there last night. Nothing could survive that.”
Harold sat silent as the two argued, his eyes fixed on the horizon. He had only one choice now. We must return to Cumlety, Charger or no Charger.
“It’s not right that we just up and leave without giving it a shot,” Waypman said. “He could be hurt . . . or worse.”
“What does the mystic have to say?” Drexil asked, turning toward Harold.
Harold slowly looked up. His face was pale and sallow, black rings hanging beneath his eyes. “What would you have me do?” he asked, his words aimed at the Garfaxman. “Pick through the Waste and hope we find the needle in the haystack?”
“Yes,” Waypman replied. “I would.”
Harold shook his head. “He’s gone. As is the Charger. We’re a broken crew leagues from home without any protection, save for these suits.” He pointed to the meridium rods piled beside the wagon. “If we stick to this, the rods will be completely dead in only a few calls. At least if we head back now, you might still find work with another crew.”
“He’s right,” Drexil said. “We’ve wasted enough time here already. Let’s be done with this place and get back.”
Waypman bristled. “You have no say in this, gob! If anyone should be out there looking for him, it’s you!”
Drexil dropped his sack and approached the Garfaxman. “I’d watch my tongue, squiddy. We’re far from the law out here.”
“Is that a threat?”
Harold got up and quickly stepped between the two. “Stop it!” he hissed. “I’ve already lost two on this detail. I’ll not lose another.”
The Garfaxman and gob stood silent, their eyes fixed on one another.
“I said back off, you two!”
Grunting, Waypman slowly stepped down. Drexil stood fast, though, his hand still gripped about the hilt of his dagger.
“Put it away or I’ll make you,” Harold said.
Drexil laughed. “Is that so, boy?”
“That’s so.” Harold raised his staff, his heart pounding in his throat. He’s probably faster than me, he thought. But something has to be done.
Now it was the Garfaxman’s turn to intervene. “Enough!” he growled. “Blood won’t solve anything.”
“It solves all, squiddy,” Drexil spat. “As long as it’s not your own.”<
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Harold held his ground, his staff trembling before him.
Drexil cracked a black-toothed grin. “Wouldn’t be worth it, though . . . to kill the lot of you. Such graces should never be dealt for free.” With that said, he let go of his blade and stood down.
Exhausted, Harold sat down beside the steaming fire pit. It was too early, and too much had already gone wrong. In six more calls, they would be due back in Cumlety. And then I’ll have the elders to face. Harold shivered at the thought. There would be no mercy for him this time. Not after what happened on the Isle. Either way I handle this, I’m a dead man now.
Swallowing, he rose and shouldered his pack. “We should be going. The longer we’re out, the larger the penalty.”
Drexil tossed his bag onto the wagon. “I’m ready whenever you say, boy.”
Harold tucked his bag beneath the driver’s seat and climbed aboard. But when he picked up the reins, he noticed the Garfaxman standing on the opposite side of the fire.
“You coming?”
Waypman stood silent, staring at the white horizon.
“Leave him to his lover,” Drexil said. “They will make quite the find in a hundred turns.”
The Garfaxman glanced over his shoulder at Harold. “There may still be another way.”
“Oh, come off it, squiddy,” Drexil groaned. “We’re wasting time.”
Harold hesitated. “Go on.”
“The other day, me and the boy . . . we found something. A chamber hidden in the forest.”
Harold straightened. “And why wasn’t I told of this?”
Waypman laughed. “Why do you think?”
“You greedy filth!” Drexil barked, unsheathing his blade. “I should have stuck you when I first laid eyes on you!”
Without warning, Harold jumped off the wagon and twisted the dagger from the gob’s grip.
Drexil’s eyes went wide as Harold pinned his wrist behind his back. “Bastard! You’re breaking my hand!”
“One more word from you and I’ll break your neck,” Harold hissed. The gob struggled to wrench free, but Harold held him firmly in place. Where did this come from? Harold wondered, marveling at his unexpected burst of strength.
It wasn’t the first time it had happened, either. Back on the Isle, he had broken both the hands and collarbones of two fellow students who had tried to rape him. He still remembered the sensation, that preternatural rage culling strength where no strength had existed before. It was both horrifying and wonderful, a momentary transformation whispering of deeper powers lurking beneath his flesh. But that was self-defense, he told himself. Now I just want to hear him scream.
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