Architects of Ether

by Ryan Muree

  Clove mumbled to herself and then motioned to the shipping label still in Grier’s hand. “What’s the identification number?”

  “Long,” he said.

  Clove hugged herself and rocked on her heels. “What are the last two letters?”

  “A and U.”

  “What?” Adalai roared. “Are you sure it’s not UA, as in United Architects?” She took it from him.

  “No, it says some numbers and then AU.”

  “What does that mean?” Emeryss asked, but Adalai was already lunging across the crates, hands at Clove’s neck, and driving her into the wall.

  Emeryss reached for her, but Adalai was drilling Clove’s body into the shards of rock.

  “You stole them from us! We wouldn’t have given them over!” Adalai shouted.

  Grier lifted Adalai up and away fairly easily and sat her down a few feet from Clove.

  She was practically growling and snarling, ready to tear Clove limb from limb.

  “Hold her, Grier!” Emeryss positioned herself in front of Clove protectively. “We’re getting out now.”

  Adalai pounded on Grier’s arms keeping her restrained. “No, I’m killing her! You all care more about her than me! You all hate me. Her people are stealing from us, and it’s killing us, so I’ll kill her—”

  “You’re going to get us all caught and killed. Shut up!” Emeryss hissed, all patience gone. “If you bring these guys on us, you’ll be to blame—”

  “Hey!” A deep voice from a man at the end of the tunnel echoed up to them. Kimpert was beside him. “What shit is this?”

  “Clove?” Kimpert asked. “Is that you?”

  “Run!” Emeryss took Clove by the arm and led her farther in.

  Chapter 10

  Gruskul Mines — Ingini

  Emeryss did not want to go any deeper than they had to.

  The rest of them were clearly losing their minds, and going deeper meant staying down there exposed to ether even longer. As far as she knew, she hadn’t been affected by it, and she wasn’t willing to test the limits.

  “Take another tunnel!” she called ahead to Adalai.

  “Do we know where the other exit is?” Adalai shouted back.

  They passed several other tunnels, racing past carts and miners.

  “Follow the signs,” Clove shrieked.

  The mine was truly a maze, and if it wasn’t the raw ether that made you crazy, then it was the ease of getting lost, the darkness, and the fear of being closed in.

  It was like being at the bottom of the ocean, except in the ocean Emeryss knew she could just go up.

  “Why are we not staying to fight?” Grier asked.

  Two blips of ether-pulses blew past their lower legs and ricocheted off the walls.

  Sonora screamed, and the echo reverberated, amplifying the sound and dropping pebbles and dust.

  “Don’t do that!” Clove shouted. “Don’t cast!”

  “I wasn’t. I promise,” Sonora yelled back.

  Emeryss wasn’t sure of the risk, but she wouldn’t not cast if it came down to saving their lives. Sure, the miners would see, they’d be outed as Revelians, and the ether in the cave might not like it very much, but she wouldn’t go down without a fight. Not after all she’d trained for and learned.

  Emeryss dropped the veil and lowered her hand, poised to cast a shield, but the surrounding ether was blinding. The veil wasn’t a veil. It more like the world’s thickest blanket of color and light, searing her eyes. She cringed and squeezed her them shut, releasing the ethereal realm to bring back reality.

  “Come on.” Clove grabbed her by the arm and pulled her faster.

  Stars sparkled, but she was able to refocus and keep up.

  Orders rang out behind them but were quickly drowned out by machines in the neighboring tunnels.

  Adalai darted between carts and track and people, who’d all turned to watch them as they ran past.

  “Have we seen any signs yet?” Emeryss called up to her.

  Clove pointed to a carved marking on the wall with a rusted ether-lamp dangling above it. “Follow that!”

  They rounded corners, dodged piles of rock and ore, and passed carts full of glittering rainbow ether. They passed down another tunnel and slid around a corner. The ground descended again.

  “It feels like we’re getting deeper!” Sonora shouted.

  Clove panted. “We are, but it’s headed toward a shaft elevator to the top.”

  “Are they still following us?” Emeryss asked.

  Sonora shook her head. “I can’t hear them. There are too many sounds.”

  They passed dozens and dozens of miners, easily hundreds of people working in the mine, covered in grit and soot. Their faces were filthy, their hands just as dark, but the skin underneath the grime was stark white with matching irises. None of them tried to stop them. None tried to interfere.

  They’d acted like it was completely normal to see people getting chased through the mines.

  Adalai turned a corner to one of the smaller tunnels where a few miners were standing and talking. She made for the exit into another tunnel, but a metal grate slammed down in front of them.

  “What?” Adalai spun and looked back at Clove. “I followed the signs! Was this a trap?”

  “No—”

  “Cut off exit five and six next!” someone shouted behind them. “We have runners!”

  “Shit,” one of the miners said. He still had green in his eyes and some color in his cheeks. “Another one? We’re going to get stuck here all day.”

  Emeryss turned to Clove. “What is this?”

  Clove gripped her chest, wheezing. “These are suicide doors.”

  “What?” Adalai snapped.

  “It’s like controlling a fire, you know? But people, instead. They don’t want you killing more than just yourself if they can help it…” Clove panted heavily between words.

  “Insane. This place is insane.” Adalai paced.

  Grier grabbed the grate and shook it violently, trying to lift it.

  “Let’s go back and pick another tunnel.” Emeryss still hadn’t caught her breath.

  “The shaft is right there.” Clove gestured beyond the grate.

  “Adalai can go and get help,” Emeryss suggested. “She can fit through the grating.”

  Adalai refused. “I may want to kill everything and everyone in sight right now, but I’m not leaving you to be killed or captured. I’ve not lost that much of my mind.”

  Emeryss wasn’t sure.

  “Break it down, then, Sonora,” Grier said. “Can’t you shatter it?”

  “No!” Clove said.

  The foreman and one of his assistants came around the corner, both ether-guns raised. “No one’s killing themselves in my mine today.”

  “We aren’t trying to kill ourselves you stupid hol-shits,” Adalai huffed.

  The bald foreman blinked gray-violet eyes. “Then who in the Goddess’s name are you? And why were you trying to steal Kimpert’s crates?”

  Adalai nodded to Emeryss and cleared her throat.

  “Don’t do anything, Adalai,” Clove hissed under her breath. “You’ll set off the others and the ether—”

  “Not if I do something that’s not obvious,” she said softly through her clenched jaw. “Sir…” Adalai’s voice had come out salty-sweet, woven with warmth and care like a caress along the skin. “We’re here to see you, and only you. The other one can leave us alone, can’t he?”

  Grier looked at Emeryss. Was she remapping their minds? She hadn’t remembered hearing Adalai had gotten a hold of some charm sigils.

  Something rumbled in the tunnels above them.

  The foreman and his assistant looked to one another confused.

  Pink dust flurried between Adalai’s fingers as she stroked the foreman’s arm.

  “Adalai—” Clove warned.

  “That’s right,” Adalai continued. “We’re here for you, Mr. Foreman Miner, sir.” She turned to the other
guy. “You can leave. Go right back where you came from.” Adalai barely touched his shoulder, and he turned right down the hall in the opposite direction.

  While loving words were coming out of her mouth, her face was lined with fury, rage rolling off her in waves.

  The foreman remained, staring at her wide-eyed and jaw gaping open.

  “Give it to me,” Adalai had suggested, arm out. The hand with the ether dust floating around it touched her neck, then his other shoulder, and his forehead.

  Rumbling echoed in the tunnels again.

  They glanced up, and Emeryss looked to Grier. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Adalai, stop!” Clove said.

  But his gun was already in Adalai’s hands, and his eyes followed every move she made.

  “She’s charmed him?” Grier whispered.

  There was no telling, and it didn’t matter. They needed to get out.

  Two of Kimpert’s bodyguards rounded the corner, their guns raised and aimed at Adalai.

  Both Emeryss and Sonora lifted their hands, a gut reaction.

  “No!” Clove lowered Sonora’s.

  The bodyguard shot, but the ether-pulse missed Adalai, hitting the ground and bouncing against the walls. Pinging back and forth in several directions around them, the pulse grew louder and louder until they had to cover their ears. It amplified and enlarged with every bounce, carving larger and larger pieces of rock from the walls until it finally hit the bodyguard in his hip.

  Screaming, he fell over and grabbed his side, while his partner turned and ran.

  Rumbling echoed again. Pebbles and rocks fell on top of their heads.

  The three miners ducked along the walls for cover.

  Grier let his shield blossom to life and lifted it above their heads to protect them from falling debris.

  An ear-piercing alarm ran down the halls, a blaring of whoops and horns.

  “Out now!” Clove shouted.

  “Where?” Emeryss looked at the tunnel the bodyguards had come through.

  Clove shoved past them, and Emeryss, Grier, Sonora, the three other miners, and Adalai with the foreman in tow, followed after Clove as she wound her way through the passages.

  The alarms were jarring, grating on her nerves, but it had definitely gotten the message out. Miners scattered in all directions toward other passageways. Screens of metal grating went down in certain tunnels and not in others. They were being herded toward the exits.

  Clove heaved as they passed another tunnel. “We’re locked in.”

  “We can make it to the last backend shaft,” one of the miners said. He had ink stretched across his face and down his neck. “This way.”

  Emeryss turned back to make sure Adalai was with them. Her thin lips, the pure scorn in her eyes, she either hated dragging the foreman along with her or loved it. It wasn’t clear. The foreman’s eyes, however, were hollow, his expression blank.

  A piece of the cave wall cracked free, threatening to crush a leg or arm.

  Grier held his shield out to block most of it and grunted against the force. He managed to jump forward and keep up.

  They continued racing through the tunnels behind Ink Face, Green Eyes, and their quiet friend. The rumbling never ceased as they were constantly being pelted with rocks and dust. But there was light ahead. She could see it.

  Two more chunks of rock broke free from the walls, pinning Clove and Green Eyes.

  Clove cried out but managed to pry her leg free. Green Eyes, however, couldn’t. With his torso crushed between a massive boulder and the wall, he roared and groaned.

  Emeryss lifted her hands to cast something to push it off, but Clove screamed again, tears coming through this time. “Don’t! You saw what a little pulse of ether did! Don’t!”

  “Just go!” Green Eyes shouted at them.

  “Forget it.” Ink Face and Quiet Friend propped themselves against one side of the rock. Grier even joined in, but it wasn’t enough to roll the piece off Green Eyes.

  “I can’t move.” Green Eyes sucked in a breath. “Go! Get out before you can’t leave.”

  Emeryss looked at the ceiling and back toward the mouth of the exit. Most of the rumbling had stopped, and they were so close. They could get him out and make it, too.

  “Just let me try to shrink it,” Emeryss said.

  Clove shook her head.

  But Emeryss wasn’t going to stand there and leave someone to suffocate alone. Ingini or not, these miners were caught up in their escape. They were just making a living, trying to care for their families as Clove had said.

  The miner wailed in pain as the rock pushed harder against him.

  She didn’t agree with their history, but these men hadn’t been the ones to shoot Marana or attack Revel.

  She placed her hands against the rock and recalled Vaughn’s sigils, the one that shrunk anything to the size of a pebble. The walls of ether had amplified Sonora’s sound and the ether pulse. It had strengthened anything related to ether.

  The veil fell around her, blinding her to the point of pain. She just had to get the sigil out. Index finger up, she drew the sigil on the air in gorgeous amber ether. It glittered and shined, and when she merely tapped it against the rock, the rock exploded in a cloud of black dust.

  She coughed and waved her hands, blinking to see again. The real world had returned, but stars sparkled and clouded her vision. Like staring at the sun too long, her eyes strained to adjust.

  The miner gasped for air as his friend held him upright.

  The tunnels above them rumbled again.

  “Out, now!” Ink Face ordered.

  They ran as Grier scooped up Clove still hobbling as quickly as she could out the exit.

  Chapter 11

  Outside of Gruskul — Ingini

  Grier couldn’t seem to get his lungs clear enough.

  He hacked and wheezed.

  Black dust tinged his spit.

  They weren’t even in that mine more than an hour or two, and it was killing him he couldn’t remember all of it. How had they found the exit? How had they gotten that deep in the first place? Most of it was hazy with brief flashes, but nothing clear.

  The mine had been rumbling and caving in. They had to run out. He remembered that much. Emeryss had to use her casting on the rock to save the miner. Where had the miners come from?

  He coughed again.

  Goddess, his head hurt. His eyes stung. There was a metallic taste on his tongue like blood, but more bitter than sweet.

  He looked around and found rescue workers in bleached white jumpers, carrying boxes of supplies and water. Miners were everywhere getting treatment or water. Minor cuts and bruises were being seen to. Families were embracing.

  “What the shit?” Adalai was beside him, wiping her mouth. Black was smeared on her hand.

  The three miners in that alcove they’d hidden in when running away from the…

  Damn. It was right there.

  Why couldn’t he remember what was said? All he had to go off of was a feeling. A feeling of righteousness. Pompous. Arrogant. What had he said?

  Emeryss was okay, or at least she seemed to be. She wasn’t coughing or choking. She was bent over a pale Sonora, offering her water. Clove was off to the side hacking up mucous and black dust like the rest of them.

  It didn’t affect Emeryss, then. She’d probably remember more of what happened than he would.

  But why couldn’t he? It was frustrating having holes in his memory. Those miners—

  His stomach flipped over, threatening to make him vomit.

  The miners they’d saved would give them away.

  His head shot up to look for them, but they were helping their friend get care. Was he naïve to think they wouldn’t report them? At the moment, they weren’t turning them in. They cared more about their friend.

  He wiped the tiredness in his eyes and fell back against a tree trunk.

  They’d run into those miners because…

  Someone
had been chasing them? That’s right, the foreman had been chasing them. The foreman had meant to shoot Adalai when she—

  Adalai sat near him, resting on the grass and trying to catch her breath. Beside her was the mining foreman, sitting there staring into space.

  Two of the miners—the one with ink on his face and the quieter one—came up. They eyed the foreman for a moment but refocused on Grier.

  “Thank you for helping,” the inky one said. “We already told your other friend how grateful we are.” He pointed at Emeryss. “Our friend, he, uh, he’s the only one alive to help care for his kids. He lost his parents and his wife not too long ago in the collapse at the Underton mine, you know. His kids might have starved if you hadn’t helped. So, thank you.”

  Grier cautiously nodded. How much did they remember? How much had they understood? He’d brought up his shield, hadn’t he? And Adalai and Emeryss…

  Inky leaned in closer. “We don’t know where you come from or who you’re hiding from, but frankly, we don’t care. We won’t say anything to the UA. We don’t report on people who help us little guys.”

  Grier dipped his head in a careful nod.

  They nodded, too, eyed their foreman one more time, and returned to their friend.

  Adalai sat silent, and the foreman half-laughed to himself.

  “Adalai, you did something to him,” Grier whispered. “What did you do?”

  “Shut your tart-hole about it, okay?” she mumbled. “We don’t need to alert anyone to it.”

  “But—”

  “He thinks he’s in a beach paradise. It’s Illusionary Room. He doesn’t know where he really is, but he’ll come out of it in a few hours with a terrible headache.”

  “What?” Grier looked around at anyone who might be eavesdropping. “Adalai, that’s dangerous. What is the endgame here? Just let him go wander?”

  She tossed a lock of brown hair out of her eye with a flick of her head. “No, I’m taking him with us.”

  “Are you insane?” Grier wiped his mouth again. Even speaking brought up the flavors of the mine somehow. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”