by Eve Langlais
Blood? He had plenty of that leaking from him. Especially around the shaft of the arrow sticking out over his heart.
Before he could grasp his own intent, he snapped the tailed end from the arrow and slid the cog over the shaft. Nestled it right down to the bloody shirt.
“Under it,” she said. “It must touch blood and flesh at the same time.”
The shirt tore easily, and the metal pressed against his skin.
“Nothing is hap—Arrrgh.” The intense searing pain had him arching, the scream cutting off as his lungs seized.
Everything in his body went rigid as the gear burrowed its way into his body. He could feel it sinking into his flesh. Charring a path.
He closed his eyes against the pain. It flooded him, a brutal reminder that his obsession would kill him.
“I’m sorry, Onaria,” he whispered.
You aren’t dying today. You won’t be dying for a long time. Sleep while you are repaired. The voice still sounded like his wife, but it was within his own head. A part of him that had him shuttering his eyes, drifting to his final rest.
To his never-ending surprise, he woke. He wasn’t dead. A run of hands over his body showed no arrows sticking out of him, just tender spots, and in a disturbing twist, the arrows lay broken on the floor beside him, still covered in his blood. And was that a chunk of flesh?
He quickly turned his head and pushed himself into a sitting position, head dangling, which meant he got a good glimpse of his shirt crusted and brown with dried blood.
Surely too much of it had spilled from his flesh, yet he felt relatively good, and insanely curious.
The giddy historian in him wanted to scream, “I found it.” Jool Ius’verrn, the mighty explorer, discoverer of an ancient temple.
Holy temple, the only word apt enough to describe the majesty of the soaring room. The ceiling overhead stretched several stories and, while he saw no windows, was lit as if from the daylight outside.
The floor he sat on appeared to be an interesting mix of solid stone slab interspersed with opaque blocks of glass. All the better to see the machine under foot. Massive in size, the gears bigger than a man, it extended the entire expanse of the floor. Even ran up part of one wall, a clock with no face, and yet he somehow knew it was keeping time.
Upon standing, he became overwhelmed. There were too many things to see. From the pedestals with their strange treasures to the altar made of clear material that showed a machine inside.
“What does it do?” he breathed aloud.
Lie on it and find out.
The voice startled him enough that he glanced around. Already knowing he was alone and deserving of the mirth.
You are entertaining. But it is just us.
“Us being?”
We are bonded now. Until death.
The statement had him staring down at his chest, more specifically the gaping hole in his shirt where an arrow had skewered him. Almost in the heart.
What happened to the cog he vaguely recalled pressing against the wound?
He peeled and tossed the crusted shirt. There was no saving it.
He glanced down at his chest, as pale as he recalled but leaner, the softness of the city having been sculpted away by the muscle of a man.
There was damage still on his body. His lower belly sported an angry red pucker. Higher up, there was no wound, or remains of one. Instead, he had a cog embedded in his flesh.
It took a moment to filter. His felt the raised ridge of metal emerging from his skin with his fingers. The tips of his digits stroked it, noticing its warmth, slightly repulsed by its presence. Pushing at it only highlighted its unnatural meshing with his body.
A tug showed it firmly embedded. Bonded to his very flesh—like the monsters outside.
His gorge rose, and he almost retched.
Something stopped him. Stop the drama.
The voice no longer wore the tone of his wife. Its presence starkly alien and part of him.
He grabbed at his hair. “Oh no. I want you out of my head. Out of my body.” He slapped at the cog, because he suddenly had no doubt as to where the voice came from.
That gear saved your life.
“And I’m thankful. But I’d rather wear the cog on a chain.”
Impossible. Removing the gear will kill you.
Starkly presented. A little bit smug.
“What do you want from me?”
You came seeking us. The truth hissed. You wanted something to save your people. You found it.
“You can heal.” He glanced once more at his healing injuries, only scars at this point, as if he’d spent days recuperating. “How long was I asleep?”
Since the morning. It is now night.
Not even a day, then. If he could believe the voice in his head. “I feel weak.”
You lost a lot of fluid. It proved complicated to keep you balanced and alive. You should replenish your body.
“You mean eat?”
Liquids would be strongly advised that we might continue correcting the issues of your body.
“I’m still broken?” he said, pulling out his canteen and draining it.
The cog upgrades certain aspects of your flesh.
Cool and uncanny all at once. “Who are you?”
Who do you think I am?
“A ghost?” An echo of the person who’d owned the cog before him.
You heard your companion, Niimmo. This is a temple of the Mecha Gods.
“Gods don’t exist.” They were a fable like stories about aliens or vessels that could fly to the stars.
Such doubt and even after I healed you. I can do more. Look around.
He did and saw the many pieces of machine presented on pedestals, shiny treasures that whispered.
“What are they for?”
Each cog makes you greater. And there are even more hidden in the vaults. Here, under the temple, and I know of a few stashes your people haven’t yet found. Mecha parts to help you survive.
“More?” He ran his hand over the wound in his middle, the red pucker fading since he’d woken. “Can they heal anyone?” Could it heal Onaria?
Yes.
“I need to get one of these sprockets or fly wheels to my wife. Which one is best?” He strode from pedestal to pedestal, admiring the many pieces, stopping in front of a gold one, the filigree on it paper-thin. Intricate and beautiful. Like his wife. He grabbed it and kept going, only stopping when he reached a pair of huge sarcophagi.
“Is this a coffin?” He ran his hands over the strange material carved with symbols. The only one he recognized being a set of gears. “Who’s inside?” He shoved at the lid. It didn’t budge.
To open it you’ll need a gear for strength.
The voice didn’t answer the question.
“Who’s inside? Because I thought gods couldn’t die.”
While long-lived, gears will eventually wear out.
“What happens when they do?”
No reply, but the coffin kind of explained it.
“So which of these gears is the one to be strong?” He changed the subject, for now. He couldn’t let his fascination with history slow him down. Speed was of the essence.
Instinct—and the cog he wore—guided his steps as he grabbed more mecha parts. One for strength, another for agility, a third that appeared to be multi-purpose, plus one more just in case.
Why do you place them in your bag?
“I’ve got to take some to Onaria.” Already he’d been gone too long.
“You can’t leave. We’ve waited a long time for your arrival. Demand that she to come to you.”
The very idea of Onaria crossing the mountains on her own was laughable.
She is weak. The voice didn’t seem impressed.
“Only because she’s sick. Once I get a gear inside her, you’ll see how clever she is. We’ll return together.” If he managed to get past Niimmo and his monsters.
The voice said nothing as he found the last shirt in his
pack and put it on. He then armed himself as well as he could before slinging it over his shoulder.
He marched off to battle, ignoring the temptation the temple posed with its side passageways and promises of more treasure. Time enough to discover more when he returned with his wife.
While he didn’t recall his journey through this massive place, it proved simple to retrace his steps back to the front of the temple. He just had to follow the trail of blood. So much blood. He should have died. His hand rested atop his shirt, over the gear that saved him. A miracle.
The cog warmed.
Only as he reached the massive double doors did that new inner presence speak.
Don’t go out there. Your enemy awaits you. There is another path.
A shortcut, as it turned out, through the mountains, concealed behind doorways that only opened when he bled on them. With the cog of agility making him spry, he moved quickly.
Hold on, Onaria.
13
How much longer could she hold on?
More than thirty-nine days he’d been gone. A long time when the world was breathing its last.
Every morning Onaria woke was now a surprise because she knew her days were numbered. It made her angry and sad. Sad for what could have been.
Her hand drifted down to her belly, and she prayed, to no one. The gods didn’t exist. Those who turned to them in their final hours found themselves disappointed. There was no higher power out there that could help.
But how she wished there was. She’d give anything to offer the life sprouting in her belly a chance to survive.
The moment she’d realized she carried his child was clouded in hysteria. She’d just finished throwing up, realized she’d not gotten her menses, and in between the joy of realizing she was pregnant, she cried because she knew the chances of it being born were slim.
Giving up, though, was never an option. She’d fight. Fight for herself and her child. She chose to also believe that Jool lived. He would return.
However, every day that Jool didn’t return that seemed less and less likely. She’d run out of the metal powder and had been coughing blood for three days now. Between the coughing and the nausea, she’d lost weight. She barely had the strength to walk outside and look at the mountains.
Where are you, husband? The logical part of her wanted to insist he was dead. Her heart, however, still claimed to feel a connection to him.
She even had an inner voice that kept whispering, Don’t give up. It had more faith than she did.
A bad fit of coughing sent her back to bed, and the next morning, Onaria almost didn’t rise. It took every ounce of strength to get up, and she never suspected it was to be the last time she slept in that bed.
14
Taking too long. He was taking too damned long to cross the mountains. And all the while, he heard a voice.
You should have taken more upgrades.
He already had two. Which, the voice argued, wasn’t enough. Yet he didn’t dare use any of the ones in his pack. What if he’d brought the wrong one? Or needed several to help his wife?
He wouldn’t take the chance. He just had to survive long enough to return, and then he could get as many upgrades as he liked.
But don’t forget to share.
The voice seemed rather insistent on that point. It didn’t want him to hoard the wealth. Which was fine with him. He’d gone looking in the jungle for a solution to their planet’s crisis. He might have found a way to ensure they didn’t become extinct.
However, he would do better with this second chance. Only those Jool deemed truly worthy to continue would get a cog. And since he’d discovered it, he would decide.
Niimmo? Not getting any.
The nice neighbor who used to bring Onaria eggs? She would live.
As for the bureaucrat in the city who refused to believe? He could die along with those who helped forge the disaster.
As Jool raced back to Onaria, he wondered if Niimmo still camped outside the temple. Let him. He’d been keeping the secret to their salvation this entire time. Watched as the world died and did nothing to stop it.
Tried to kill Jool.
Not usually a violent man, he found himself rather offended by it. They’d hunted together. Camped. Shared food.
It seemed wrong that someone he’d thought a friend turned out to be his enemy. And for what? Some metal artifacts that could heal.
We are capable of more than that.
It bothered him the way the voice liked to listen in on his thoughts and chime in. What resided in him now? Another spirit?
We are one.
What about if he wanted to just be himself?
We are one ’til the end of time.
It had an ominous ring to it.
It took him a fraction of the time to return, and yet he cursed as he crested the last peak and smelled the smoke. Something burned. He raced down the mountain, trying to see through the smog that hovered, blocking his sight. When he did finally get close enough, he beheld the house, razed to the ground.
A smoldering ruin. Where was Onaria?
He couldn’t descend fast enough down to the ground, but once there, his steps slowed. He shuffled to the blackened ruins, the wind whipping ash at his face, and yet he made no move to shield his eyes. Let the proof of his failure stain his skin. Mix with his tears.
Too late. He’d left her alone. Unprotected. And now it was too late.
“Onaria.” He wailed her name. “Onaria!” He screamed it to the sky. This was his fault.
His fault she’d died. He should have been there for her. Should have brought her with him. Something.
Anything.
He sobbed, on the ground, and didn’t hear her at first.
“Jool? Is that really you?”
“Don’t tease me,” he moaned. “I know she’s dead.” He couldn’t take the voice pretending to be her.
“Oh, husband. I’m not dead.”
He thought at first it was a dream again. Another mirage and didn’t believe it until she tackled him, taking him to the ground and exclaiming through sobs, “You came back.”
“I told you I would.” Spoken through a throat thick with emotion.
“I missed you,” she whispered against his neck.
He could only hug her tight. “What happened to the house?”
“Fire—” The cough started as she tried to explain. She rolled off him and remained on her hands and knees, her body wracked with pain, the ground in front of her red with spattered blood.
Even once it subsided, she wheezed. Tried to speak.
He put a finger on her lips. “Shhh. Don’t talk yet. Give me a chance to fix this.”
At the sight of his knife, her eyes widened, and she scuttled out of reach.
“No,” she rasped. “I am not ready to die.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” he exclaimed, utterly aghast. “We need blood for it to work.” He fished into his sack and pulled forth a gear. A pretty one, dainty in its notches, thin plated, unlike his thick one.
“You found one.” Her lips wobbled in a teary smile. “Tea time?”
“No need to boil water. There’s a better way of using them when they’re whole. This one needs to go over your ribcage.”
“Like a necklace?”
“Not exactly. It needs to be pressed against your skin and given a little bit of blood to activate.”
“I don’t understand.”
He pulled open his shirt to show her, the cog almost even with his flesh now, sinking further all the time.
The sight had her gaping. “You put one in your body?”
“I had to, or I would have died.” He quickly explained what happened at the temple, his injuries, and how the gear cured him.
She remained skeptical, even as he pointed out the spots that had healed and left only the slightest scar. Might have protested longer if she’d not coughed again.
It took her a while to regain her breath, her head pillowed in
his lap.
“Please, Onaria. I can fix this.” He brushed the hair from her temple. “Let me heal you. You can’t die. I need you.” Loved her. Couldn’t stand a world without her in it.
“Will it hurt?”
Rather than lie, he sidestepped. “You’ll feel like a new person after.”
She nodded her assent, and the voice within rejoiced.
All hail the newest keeper of a gear.
15
The cut Jool made in her chest stung, the flesh parting on the blade of his knife, bleeding freely. He quickly pressed the delicate cog to it.
She lay stiff as a board while he hovered over her, holding her hand, murmuring, “You’ll be fine. You have to be. It promised.”
What promised?
Onaria wasn’t sure what to expect. He’d told her the metal gear needed to be touching her skin and required blood. What he didn’t warn about was the pain. Much worse than the time she took that first too large dose of the powder.
She sucked in a breath and held it, mostly because all her muscles locked and wouldn’t relax no matter what. The pain turned into a cold heat, an oxymoron, and yet she felt as if she burned because of an intense chill.
But it soon eased into euphoria as the dull ache that had become her constant companion eased. The tightness in her lungs dissipated. She took a deep breath, the first in a long time, without feeling needles stabbing inside.
She felt good. Better than good.
She sat up and heaved a few breaths.
Still felt fine.
“What magic is this?” she said, feeling the metal on her skin. She poked at it, but it didn’t move.
“It’s a leftover talisman from the Mecha Gods.”
“The who?” She blinked. “Gods don’t exist.”
“Because they left a long time ago. But their temple still exists. I’ve found it and been inside. There are treasures in there. Treasures that can save the people of our world.”
“Enough for everyone?” She couldn’t help a skeptical note.
“I don’t know. But the good news is, not everyone has to die.”
Which meant…Her hand drifted to her belly, only he didn’t see as he’d stood to look around the devastated farmstead.