Corruption

by Adam Vine

  “Yes, Master? What is it?”

  “That I’m proud of you. The Vermin fight because we must, not because we wish to be honored. But don’t think I don’t see you, Katherine. The highest reward for a teacher is to watch a student reach their potential. And I know you will succeed where I failed. Because you are the fire.”

  The old man’s lips quivered. “When the Oppressor’s Dog stole your mother, I tried to get her back. She was my best student. How could I not? I climbed up the Echelon. Even got as far as the Palace of Dolls. It was the best I ever fought. He… was there. I fought him, Kat.”

  Her master motioned to his missing eye. “You never asked me how I got this. Thank you for that. Now, you shall never need to. He… defeated me. But he let me live, to shame me. To send a message to any other little Vermin who might get a big idea. To remind me of that day and what he, and the regime, were capable of. And to remind me of your mother.”

  An old ache stabbed in Katherine’s heart. She thought she might burst into tears, so she turned her face away and gazed up at the statue of her Prophet.

  A muffled crash drew her eyes back to the altar in time to see the old man ram it again, shoulder down with all his bodyweight. His claw-toed boots scrambled for purchase on the slick tiles of the floor.

  “Now help me… (huff)… move this… stupid… (puff)… eldritch… thing...”

  “Why?” she said.

  “Because if there’s treasure… (huff)… hidden in this… (puff)… church, (wheeze)… it will be buried here.”

  But even with both of them pushing, the altar wouldn’t move. When Katherine's muscles were nearly spent, she muttered "Piss on it," and used the ghost to slash a tiny wedge from the altar’s base. The heavy marble box groaned and gave easily with the next concerted push, revealing a deep hole falling away to blackness beneath the chapel floor.

  “Ho-hoo!”

  Voyciek lowered the torch, then threw it down. He followed it in, landing six feet below on the lid of the slender crystal box lying half-buried at the bottom. No, not a box. A coffin.

  A grave, Katherine realized. Someone was buried under the altar.

  The death mask painted on the coffin’s lid in ripples of brilliant, dancing light depicted a man with a long, plain face. There were dreadlocks in his hair and beard, and his robes were simple, but there was a penetrating humility to his face that caught Katherine off guard.

  The People of the Sun buried their kings and queens in grand crypts full of riches and splendor, and their priests in the walls of their churches. Why would they bury this man somewhere no one could honor him, without so much as a grave marker, or even a name?

  Vojciek knocked the loose dirt off the sarcophagus with the butt of his spear. “They grew these caskets from solarite crystal, you know. Grave robbing was considered a penultimate sin back then. You can tell from the death mask that this man had rich friends. Thankfully…” The old man slammed the blade of his spear down through the lid of the coffin. “…Wyvernwood was invented to beat solarite, so open sesame.”

  Katherine’s excitement turned to ash as the quincunx of cracks oozed down the crystalline surface, and Vojciek gave one last, powerful jerk to pry the lid free. The top half slid away, revealing the raggedy grin and dust-eaten cloth of the corpse inside.

  No buried treasure. No great secret that will win the war. There's nothing here but bones.

  “Who was he?” Katherine said, trying to hide her discontent.

  The old man shrugged. “No idea.”

  For the first time since setting foot in the cathedral, Katherine felt tired. Her eyelids grew heavy and hunger raked her insides. “Is that it? Is this what we came here for? These… bones?”

  Vojciek hopped out of the grave, using his spear to vault himself up, then stood next to her, brushing himself off. “Bones are bones are bones, Kat. They can mean nothing, or everything in the world.”

  “Master,” Katherine started to say, but was cut off by the echo of a door slamming somewhere else in the church.

  The ghost stung the inside of her palm. Katherine gasped and clenched her teeth shut to keep from crying out.

  “Hide,” Vojciek said.

  They both scrambled down behind the ruined altar.

  The view of the main door was blocked by the looming black mass of the ship, but there was a gap under it where Katherine could almost see who had come inside. There were no footsteps, only a soft, golden light slowly making its way across the floor toward where they were hiding.

  Shells, maybe, or the Amber Guard… she tried to convince herself. But there were no sirens. No floodlights. No screaming spears of blue flame to root them out. There was only one creature in the service of the Crippled King who hunted his Vermin alone.

  A dizzying chill spread through her as she heard the clink, clink, clink of a heavy chain echo from the other side of the ship.

  A flood of terrified memories came rushing back to her all at once, some from the earliest moments of her childhood; memories of her mother, of losing sleep over stories of the man with the lamp and the iron chain, a monster who couldn’t be hit or killed, whose only joy in life was to take little Vermin like her to the Amber City so they could be turned into dolls.

  The old man rapped her on the shoulder, mouthing the words, “Go, Kat. You need to run. Use the ship. Not the door.”

  He pointed to the vast, black vessel on display in the center of the cathedral, so tall its masts nearly scraped the inside of the dome. “Climb up and find the stairs to the bell tower. Then rappel down the outside. Stay hidden. He cannot know you’re here. You must tell them what you found. And whatever happens, do not gaze into his lamp.”

  Katherine broke cover and sprinted, only stopping once she reached the nearest of the huge, crystal columns that held the ship aloft to try and catch a glimpse of their pursuer.

  Wait, where’s Voyciek? Then it hit her. The old fool meant to stay and fight.

  That hideous, golden glow was almost to her side of the ship now. She could see the tip of his chain, a horrid, bladed beak that snapped with each clinking bounce upon the floor. His boots were divided at the toe to hide the sound of his footfalls. His robe was a swirling nimbus of the color deeper than black.

  She couldn't see his mask, but she didn’t need to. For to gaze into the Ratkeeper’s mask meant a fate worse than death. His mask was what hypnotized you. Then his lamp would trap you with its terrible light, and your soul - your life as a free individual capable of thinking and making choices - was gone forever.

  The Ratkeeper. I’ve dreamt of this moment for so many years. But I can’t stop shaking. I need to run, live to fight another day-

  I’m not the fire at all. I’m nothing but a scared, little coward. Pathetic. What would mom think?

  She’d tell me to escape. To make the old man’s choice matter. To tell them what I found.

  Katherine climbed up through a jagged wound in the ship’s hull into the shadows of the lower deck. She stumbled through piles of char and the remnants of cargo whose contents had long since turned to ash to the tiny light of a porthole, where she pressed her eye against the murky glass and readied the ghost to fire.

  Despite its fogginess, the window gave a good view of the altar. She had barely settled when Voyciek’s slender shape stood from behind it and planted his Wyvernwood spear in the ground.

  “Remember me?” his voice drifted distantly through the glass. “I thought we might run into each other again here. I’ve found your beloved sovereign’s great secret, dog.”

  Another shape entered Katherine’s vision. The Ratkeeper advanced, seemingly unmoved by her master’s speech.

  The old man retreated up the dais, keeping just enough distance to stay out of reach of his enemy’s slowly twirling chain, until his back nearly touched the statue’s huge, crystal toes.

  “I know the terrible things he was trying to hide, the truth that will bring down your unholy regime.”

  He’s grandstanding. L
etting his enemy get close before springing the trap. Classic Voyciek. But will it work? And where is the trap…?

  “Come now. Try to take it from me, then. Before I scamper off and tell the whole world. Then you’ll be in a pickle, won’t you? Because you fear Him far more than we shall ever fear you.”

  Close enough. The old man ducked and the red tip of his spear slashed back in a wide arc as the Ratkeeper’s chain smashed into the wall where he’d been standing. The old man’s cut took the statue off at the knees. Voyciek tucked and rolled as the huge crystal statue crashed down on top of his enemy, filling the cathedral with billowing motes of dust and ruin that swallowed master, monster, and all.

  But that was only the start of it.

  Before the old man was back on his feet, the Ratkeeper reappeared next to him and struck. Voyciek was ready for it, and spear met chain with a harsh cry that raised discordant echoes through the dusty shadows.

  Pain lanced inside Katherine’s palm. The ghost begged her for release.

  Impossible. How could he-

  I saw it crush him-

  There’s no way he could-

  She couldn’t fire until she had a clear shot. But a clear shot never came.

  The old man cackled as the two combatants entered their death-dance and began circling crab-wise, spiraling ever closer as they checked and dodged each other’s blows. “Ho-hoo! You made an error letting me live. You of all people should know the way to hunt Vermin is to stamp them out with one, quick stroke. Let us linger, and we grow stronger, faster, until one day you are overrun.”

  The old man was fast, the blade and butt of his spear forming a blur of sanguine red. But his enemy moved like nothing Katherine had ever seen.

  At first she thought it was only a trick of the glass, but the longer she watched, the more convinced she became that it was no illusion.

  When the Ratkeeper dodged, he didn’t simply evade the old man’s attacks. He vanished and reappeared somewhere else, moving like something shuttering and demonic, something wholly unnatural.

  Try as he could, the old man couldn’t hit his target. Suddenly the sag of an arm. The old man was getting tired. The flashing guard of his spear dropped an inch.

  The Ratkeeper’s chain grabbed the old man's spear and yanked it away. His lamp brightened and Voyciek froze. Even through the ruddy filter of the porthole, Katherine could see golden light blooming in her master’s eye. The old man’s hands went limp, and he said a name.

  Everything was sick, and slow, and wrong. The old man wasn’t supposed to lose. Katherine whimpered.

  The Ratkeeper stopped his advance and looked up toward the porthole. Katherine ducked, praying he hadn’t seen her.

  I need to run. Mourn him later. Live now. Tell them. I am the fire.

  Katherine was already at the first landing of the stairs when she heard the scream. She paused, wiped the tears from her eyes and put her other hand out to steady herself. The walls of the ship were cold, full of crevices and forgotten, ancient knowledge. He should have been there with her. No. No time to think. She had to be fast. She had to be quiet.

  She took the stairs three at a time, the remains of the ship settling, creaking, and resettling with every step. She was almost at the airlock that led out to the main deck when she heard a voice calling to her from deep within the bowels of the ship.

  "Come out now, Kat. I slew the Oppressor’s Dog. We’re safe, dear Brave One. We can go home. Call to me so I know where you are.”

  The old man's voice had none of its usual candor. It was flat, lifeless, ragged, like tearing cloth.

  That’s not him. That’s not Voyciek.

  The old man’s calls echoed through the ship. “Don’t you want to feast on roasted meat and drink vodka next to the fire? Come out now, so we can go home…”

  No. Voyciek is gone. That thing is using his voice. Trying to lure me out.

  She tried opening the airlock, but her hands were trembling so violently she could barely grip the wheel, and the rusty, stubborn metal was not wont to move after ages of being sealed.

  The blood pounded in her chest and skull with each booming summon. He was getting closer. “I owe you a bottle, don’t I? Distilled it myself, you know…”

  I must run. I must tell them what I found.

  A creak, nearby. Someone was coming up the stairs. A voice like needles in the darkness. “Found you, Little Kat.”

  Katherine spun and fired the ghost into the black maw of the stairwell. The walls split like pieces of a cloven fruit. In the scattered matrix of light that fell through the perforations, she saw him step onto the landing beneath her.

  The Ratkeeper was using her master’s body as a lampshade. The old man had been draped over the lantern to hide its light. He didn’t move, only watched limp and lifeless from his perch with buried candles for his eyes.

  Katherine screamed and cut a long, vertical line down through the ship’s hull, reached back with her other hand, and pulled the airlock open.

  She exited onto the main deck as the two halves of the ship were beginning to split and fall away, scrambled up the nearest mast to the crow’s nest, which cracked and fell as the ship at last gave to the damage of her cut and collapsed.

  She rode the falling mast over to the inside of the dome, leapt and grabbed onto the lowest protruding ledge. Her feet kicked through empty air as they struggled to find purchase. They did, and she pulled herself up onto the dusty rim.

  She sat there, torn, bloody, and heaving. The dome’s interior had no doorway that she could see, only the bright falsity of the circling, painted heavens.

  I’ll need to cut a hole. But what if he follows me, and being trapped inside that wreckage didn’t kill him?

  Weren’t the ceilings of these old churches all made of plaster? Hadn’t one of Bookmother’s tomes said that?

  She let the ghost guide her hand in a 360-degree cut, taking the dome down in a deluge of priceless art that rained slow, pale ruin over the vastness of the church. That way, even if the Ratkeeper was still alive, he wouldn’t have the advantage of his vanishing trick. She’d be able to track his movements, to see him coming before he saw her. Katherine braced herself against the ledge and waited for the storm to pass.

  When the air was clear, she stood and brushed herself off, then hurried to the corkscrew stair winding up the inside of the tower. She half expected the Ratkeeper to be waiting for her at the top, but the cathedral was silent above as it was again below.

  Five hundred steps later, she entered the belfry.

  The belfry was a tiny room, empty save for two giant ropes and an ancient mattress. In the old churches, this was where the Acolytes slept, as it was their duty to ring the bells.

  Her first task was to get the window open. She didn’t try to find the latch, instead cutting a square portion large enough for her to crawl out of from the huge panels of stained glass. A burst of cold air rushed in, nearly knocking her to the floor.

  Why is it so cold? And where is this wind coming from? I’m a kilometer underground.

  Puzzled, Katherine poked her head out and looked down. Her heart sank to see a thick sheen of ice covering the outer façade of the church. In the short time she and her master had been inside, the entire exterior had been encased in frost.

  It would be impossible for her to climb down.

  Katherine shivered and sat down on the bed. He sealed us in a cage of ice. A maddened giggle escaped her lips. A cage of ice for little mice.

  He survived. Oh, he survived, all right. He foresaw our every move. He's taking his time. Playing with me. It'll be any moment, now.

  She decided she would commit suicide rather than be turned into a doll.

  She wanted the moment of her death to be peaceful, so she could ascend the Spiral without the baggage of hate. But she couldn’t get comfortable. Not only that, there was something hard poking her through the cloth. Something hidden.

  Katherine gasped and tore open the threadbare sheet, her pulse r
acing with newfound possibility. Could this be…?

  Yes. Her fingers found four distinct edges buried deep inside the rotten slag of the mattress. A book. She pulled it out and gently set it in her lap.

  The book was a mountain of thick vellum all bound carefully in stained glass. It was made by hand. The cover illustration showed twin crescent moons setting over a triangular plane. The vermillion pages cracked and whispered as she leafed through them. She was careful not to damage the delicate calfskin as she read-

  Or rather, tried to read. The book was written entirely in Old Ithic.

  Len could read this, she thought. I couldn’t translate a text this size even if I had time.

  Microscopic handwriting ran to the edge of every page, hundreds of thousands of words written in the forgotten language of the People of the Sun. There were countless diagrams and schematics depicting the stars and the mechanics of motion.

  Someone went to great lengths to keep this a secret, even before the Last Day of Sun, when the church was buried, and...

  This is it. Wanderer’s wisdom. This is his diary. This is the Crippled King’s dia-

  There was a clink, clink, clink outside the belfry door.

  Katherine closed the book and rose. The ghost burned agonizing spirals up her arm, tasting her fear and her hunger for vengeance. She held her palm to her forehead and prepared to fire. Then she realized how stupid that was. This was her chance. She could avenge the old man, avenge her mother, and all the other Vermin this butcher had killed.

  You can hit him. You can track him. Remember your training. You are the fire.

  Clink. Clink.

  Clink.

  The belfry door opened.

  Her cut bisected the door and some of the wall beyond at a perfect diagonal. Massive chunks of wood and stone slid away and the cold wind howled in. But the Ratkeeper wasn’t there.

  Before she knew what was happening, the wall was already on top of her.

  Crushing pressure. Blackness. A collapsing tunnel of red. Katherine tried to scream, but couldn’t. The thing biting her legs was too heavy to move. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. There was only the pressure, and the sick, sick red.