by J M D Reid
He was on the other side.
She couldn’t touch the threads. Some force repelled her light. She pushed and pushed. Tears spilled down her face. Raya’s lover stared at her with sadness in his eyes while his face held calm acceptance. The rent knit tighter and tighter. It swallowed his torso. His shoulders and neck.
Only his face remained.
“Raya,” the man whispered as the darkness wove across his face.
Then all that stood before her was the devastation of a battlefield. She sank to her knees and buried her face into her hands. She sobbed and sobbed, pouring out all her grief. Avena had felt this pain once in her life.
When Dualayn told her that Chames had succumbed to the spring fever.
I’m so sorry, Raya, Avena thought. She was dreaming the White Lady’s memories. This had to be the Shattering when the Archon-Supreme had led the devas into driving the darklings back. The healing rent must have been a Warding being established, banishing the demons and other monsters from their world.
But why was Raya’s lover trapped in there?
I’m so sorry! The words felt hollow. Avena didn’t know if the White Lady could understand her nor if she could even affect anything in this dream.
Raya beat at the earth next, liquid diamonds falling to the scorched earth. She threw back her head and let out a pained cry of anguish to a sky covered in a haze of gray dust. Pure grief, undiluted by any other emotion. Her entire body shook.
Avena wanted to hug Raya. The memory of their last conversation, when the White Lady had kissed her forehead, resonated through her. The woman had mentioned losing someone and wanting to get them back. This was what she wanted.
To free her lover from this barrier.
From the Warding.
What did that mean? There had been breaks in the Warding in the past. When her ancestors had first landed at the mouth of the Ustern River a thousand years ago, they had found the darklings free. Boan Sword-Arm had to use three artifacts—supposedly, the Amethyst Band held by the Kings of Lothon, the Lost Emerald Spear of Ondere, and the Healing Staff of Roidan—to re-establish the Warding and trap the darklings back in their black domain.
In this dream, Raya’s lover seemed to be at the focal point of the closure, the point where the weave between realities was completed. Avena knew the weakness of any weaving was at the end, where the tails of the threads used to create it lay. If you were to pull on one of those, you could unravel everything.
Did the White Lady seek to unravel the Warding?
Before Avena could even consider this, whispers intruded on the vision. She knew what they were now. Why she was having such problems with her body around the crystalmen. She was hearing the commands they received. Impulses that she could almost make out. There was a single voice giving orders, and they were responding. She concentrated on them.
Her dream of Raya’s life faded.
Avena floated in a dark void. A place of nothing. There were harmonics that rippled in the background. They were hard to make out, faint like the ringing in the ear after a loud noise. They were all merged together and yet separate. They had . . . auditory flavors to them.
Fiery.
Soothing.
Gusting.
Radiant.
Was she hearing the tones that powered the gems? Were these the reverberations of creation that the jewelchines tapped into and channeled?
Maybe.
But there was something else. She could hear a commanding voice over them. It boomed to her right. It came from a construction of diamond and obsidian, the two jewels merged and connected to each other via an intricate network wire trapped inside of them. The device floated with her, projected into the immaterial like her thoughts. The jewelchines went beyond any she could imagine. It seemed like magic to her.
It was sending signals to a dozen units. Four of them were close. Those were being directed to chase. To hunt. Demons had intruded. They had to be destroyed. Koilon had to be defended. In the commands were images.
Fingers and Ōbhin ran, a limp figure in the Qothian’s arms.
That’s me in Ōbhin’s arms. We’re being chased. Understanding crashed through her. The voice gives purpose to the crystalmen. They’re nothing without it. They have no minds, so the ancients created a mind to control them.
Avena knew what she had to do.
Chapter Thirty
Avena collapsed as Ōbhin reached the pair.
“Avena!” Fingers gasped, clutching her body and keeping her from hitting the ground.
Fear consumed Ōbhin’s shock at seeing the pair. The crystalmen still lumbered after him. His plan to only risk himself had backfired. Now Avena was in even more danger. Fingers struggled to lift her limp form.
Ōbhin couldn’t allow that. He wouldn’t entrust his Avena’s life to the impostor. With practiced skill, he slammed his tulwar into its sheath as he stopped before Fingers. Fear gleamed in the impostor’s face, faking the older man with skill.
“I have her!” growled Ōbhin. He ripped Avena from Fingers and hefted her across his arms. He clutched the lantern still in his left hand, her legs draped over that limb. “Let’s move!”
“Right!” Fingers shouted and ran the only way they could.
Away from the crystalmen.
They all blared alarms. The sounds resounded through the alley. Ōbhin’s legs already burned from his run. How long will it take Dualayn to turn it off? Fear gripped his chest that the old man was waiting for him to be killed.
Once I’m dead, he won’t have to worry about my sword taking off his damned head!
The thought poisoned Ōbhin. He held Avena tighter. He rounded a corner, carrying her limp form from the charging monstrosities. Something crashed and boomed. The road shook beneath his feet. Fingers cursed.
“The one chasing us is barreling through the building!” he shouted.
“What’s one more?” Ōbhin asked with flippancy.
A dreaded certainty that he would die filled him. If he could just save Avena. If he could do one bright thing with his life and help her to find stability, he would gladly die down here. It was only fitting. He shouldn’t have walked away from the mines beneath Gunya. Not alone. He’d killed the man who’d helped him escape.
No, I never escaped. I’ve been wandering lost in those mines ever since.
He felt so close to the light. The surface was near. He pushed through the fatigue not for himself but for Avena cradled in his arms. The strained tendon in his ankle burned, growing weaker with every step. It was one more pain he embraced. He could take it.
He took another turn, lost in the maze of buildings. If he couldn’t lose the crystalmen, he had to find a place to set down her body where they wouldn’t see her but lumber past chasing him. She’d be alone, but she’d wake up and be out of danger. His eyes scanned the rubble of the streets.
Everything looked so obvious. He didn’t have time to do more than drop her. The crystalmen were close. He threw a look over his shoulder to see them already rounding the corner. Three of them marched with an implacable gait.
“Next left!” Fingers shouted. “Maybe we can duck into a building.”
Ōbhin went right instead. He darted down the road. It was opening up. There was less debris. He passed a rusting horseless carriage and leaped over a corroded streetlamp. His feet landed hard, steps echoing around him.
“Why not left?” Fingers growled.
“Liked right better,” he panted and then took the next left.
There was something familiar about this street. The light from his lantern spilled before him. The crystalmen thudded behind him. Their steps all merged together. The buildings ended as the street opened up onto a large plaza.
He’d run back to where he’d started his mad distraction. Maybe with more space, he could split off from Fingers. Then the impostor could do some good by leading a few of the automatons away so he could get Avena to safety.
Miguil and Dajouth will look out for her. Duala
yn will probably shut off the machines before she’s killed. He still cares for her in his own demented away.
Lights gleamed at the far end. Diamond lights. The others had turned their lanterns on, illuminating the shape of an impressive building looming behind them. Walls smooth. There was a frieze over their heads, choked with dirt and too far away for Ōbhin to make out the details. He ran towards them.
And if Dualayn doesn’t care about Avena, he’ll care about his own life.
Fingers thundered behind Ōbhin, puffing and wheezing. The run was taxing Ōbhin, too. He was fighting for breaths. The metallic flavor of blood filled the back of his mouth. Muscle fatigue consumed his thigh muscles. His healing ankle burst with pain. His gait became an uneven limp, but he couldn’t stop. His fear for Avena dragged him along like a panicked horse dragging its cart.
Halfway across the plaza, Avena burst into squirming activity in his arms. Her sudden movement threw him off-balance. He gasped and pitched forward. He failed to arrest their fall. The diamond lantern spilled from his grasp and crashed on the ground.
Went out.
He landed a moment later. They tumbled in a heap, rolling across the cracked and worn pavement. She cried out as the world spun. Then she ended up on top of him, her knee in his face, her elbow digging through his leather jerkin into his guts.
“Ōbhin?” she gasped.
“Yes,” he groaned, bruises throbbing across his back and buttocks while his left arm burned from abrasions. “You’re okay?”
“I know what I have to do!” She rolled off of him.
“What?” he called, shocked that she was acting without any confusion. “Avena!”
“Distract them!” she cried as she broke into a run for Dajouth and Miguil. The pair were on the steps, both holding binders.
“Come on,” Fingers growled and seized Ōbhin’s arm. The impostor hauled the Qothian to his feet. “Any idea on how to distract them?”
*
Avena could feel the four crystalmen sending status updates through her mind. Now that she understood what the signals were and how they were interfering with her brain’s connection to her body, she’d adapted to them. Like how a one-handed man could re-learn how to dress himself and do other activities. Her mind, it seemed, had capacities to mold itself to new circumstances and forge new paths.
There were eight other crystalmen also sending reports. All their impulses converged on the building before her. The signals blaring from it were so strong this close they screamed through her mind. It was sending out boisterous commands demanding help. It had been penetrated.
A demon had intruded the building.
She could see Dualayn in the alarmed shouts the jewelchine mind broadcasted. In them, he frantically sought to utilize some sort of interface. It was made of light, like the letters projected by the Recorder into the air. They were command options he was struggling to navigate, but he didn’t know which ones to press. He flailed at them.
“Avena!” Miguil shouted as she raced up the steps towards her friends, focusing her awareness back on the real world.
Dajouth grinned at her.
“Help Ōbhin!” she shouted. “Just keep them busy and please, please don’t die. Not even you, Dajouth.”
Dajouth knuckled his forehead. “I’d never die when a pretty girl wants me to live.”
A smile spread across her lips. If we survive today, you can shower me in all the compliments you want.
She darted into the building, following the echoes of the artificial brain. She entered pure darkness and moved by instinct. She could see a map of this place in the shouts. Her mind was interpreting it, like she was imagining the layout of Dualayn’s manor.
Only she’d never been here.
So much data plunged into her. It was amazing she was able to function at all in the ruins. It was so strong here. She was in the heart of it. The rest of the city had died, but the controls for the crystalmen had triplicate backups to keep them supplied with the resonating frequency they needed. She didn’t quite understand the specifics, but she understood the principal.
The artificial mind needed more tonal resonance than what naturally echoed through the universe. That background hums she’d heard just weren’t loud enough. The ancients had amplified it somehow to fuel their more powerful jewelchines.
She went left and right. Her boots kicked up dust. She smelled the decay in the air. In her mind, she could see the crystalmen approaching her father and lover. The two most important people in her life faced death head-on.
She couldn’t fail them.
She found stairs. Light spilled up them. It flickered, oscillating shades of purple mixed with the steady light of a diamond lantern. Dualayn’s mutters rose from below. She hurtled down the stairs, taking them two or even three at a time.
He’d opened a metal door, clearing the dust from the floor in a sweeping arc and leaving it piled behind the portal. The room beyond was surprisingly clean. She was shocked by how white it was. Dualayn’s boots had left thick tracks across the pristine surface towards the large diamond wrapped around the obsidian. Purple letters of light floated before him. He touched one.
“Mmm, that doesn’t seem to be it,” he muttered. He glanced down at a notebook he’d brought with him. “Pity, that seemed to be the right word.”
“Dualayn!” she shouted.
He whirled around and blinked. “Avena, child, this is a surprise. I had not expected to find you here, but I am heartened to see you’re alive. Is Bran with you?”
“Just get out of the way, I need to shut them down,” she said.
“That is what I am attempting to do,” he said. “If you think you know better than—”
“Yes, I do! Now step aside!”
He did, a look of shock at her brusque words.
*
The four crystalmen fanned out as they marched towards Ōbhin and the impostor, a skirmish line bearing down upon them. He drew his resonance blade, knowing it was a futile gesture. He glanced up at the ceiling illuminated by Fingers’s lantern. It now rested on a small rock and shone bright around them.
“No way to bring that down,” he said. There were no support columns like at the carriage house. “Is that glass above us?”
“Diamond,” muttered Fingers. “What else could be strong enough?”
Ōbhin glanced at the thing pretending to be his friend. Now wasn’t the time to hate it. He had to work with it. “Any ideas?”
Fingers shook his head. “We can run in circles until Avena does . . . whatever it is.”
“You don’t know what that building is she ran for, do you?”
“Nope.”
“So how does she know that’s where they can be turned off?” asked Ōbhin.
Fingers shrugged. “She’s a smart one.”
“No one’s that smart.” Ōbhin activated his blade. The humming gave him comfort, a false hope that he could somehow do anything about the death lumbering for them. Their diamond eyes all flicked on, focusing on him.
The ground around him was illuminated. The black, tar-like rock was marred by cracks. They would give treacherous footing. He couldn’t trip and fall. That would be the death of him. He slid his foot back as he fell into a guard stance out of habit.
The back of his foot slipped over one of those cracks. He heard pebbles spilling down into it. Struck metal.
Metal?
An idea kindling in his mind, he turned around and peered at the crack in the ground. The automaton’s diamond light shining down him spilled down through a small hole through the plaza into a space below. He could see a horseless carriage rotting below.
There’s only a cubit of stone between us and another level.
“Well, you want to run left or right?” Fingers asked. “They’re getting close. Probably the best thing we can do is split up.”
“Go left,” Ōbhin said and spun around. He slashed at the ground before him. His resonance blade sliced a long line through the black stone.
The ground shook. The crystalmen were almost upon him. Fear clutched his chest.
“Eh, Ōbhin?” asked Fingers, backing away. “This isn’t the time to attack the ground.”
“Run, Fingers!” Ōbhin snarled and slashed another line, forming a cross on the ground before him. He looked up to see the lead crystalman only cubits away and closing fast.
There was no time for him to escape. Shouts echoed behind him, Miguil and Dajouth crying warning. The crystalman stepped onto the ground where he’d cut, arm drawing back for a skull-crushing punch. Earth groaned. Rocks ground together. The thing took another step and raised its arm to crush him.
The plaza gave away.
The automaton dropped down into the carriage house below. It hit with a loud crash. Crystal shattered. A new alarm rang, a high-pitched screeching. It assaulted Ōbhin’s ears. Through billowing dust below, he could see the thing lying on its back, its legs shattered.
“Ōbhin!” Fingers exulted and slapped him on the shoulder. “Now let’s move! The others are on us!”
From Ōbhin’s right, a crystalman lumbered in and swung an amethyst fist at his head.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ōbhin shoved Fingers to his left before diving beneath the punch himself. The air howled over his head. The automaton shifted its stance while Ōbhin rolled from the trap he’d cut in the black ground. Fingers cursed and stumbled. Ōbhin gained his feet and took off at a run. The crystalman marched after him.
“Come on! Over here!” Miguil shouted from Ōbhin’s left. He threw a rock that crashed into a different crystalman, bouncing off the hulk without marring its surface. Miguil picked up another stone. “I’m right here! Come on!”
He hit it in the head.
Ōbhin glanced at the one chasing him while Miguil took off running, leading his away. In short sprints, Ōbhin could open up the distance between them. The crystalman had only one speed: inevitable. Eventually, a human—Ōbhin—would tire out. The mechanisms powering the crystalmen had functioned for three thousand years.
A large mound of debris cut short his flight. He whirled and judged there was enough room for him to make his trap. He attacked the ground. He drove his sword deep into the black stone and sliced his first line. He tried not to focus on the amethyst behemoth marching at him. The ground shook with its every step. The first done, he slashed the second one deep into the ground.