Horsemen of Old

by Krishnarjun Bhattacharya

  ‘Destroyed,’ Gray said. Ash floating within a church, nothing left, the receding footsteps of Victor Sen and the Horseman.

  ‘You have travelled far, yes?’ the Keeper asked. He had still not moved.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All for naught,’ the Keeper said.

  Panic rose. Gray fought it. He saw Zabrielle about to say something, and he did not interrupt.

  ‘Will any corpse do? Any human body without its soul?’ she asked.

  The Keeper slowly turned to look at her, his eyes glowing. ‘Humans have never understood the art, the complexities. Neither have the Angels, the Creator’s own children, stuck in dementias of being saviours. But the Demons . . . I have always expected more from the creations he neglected, the ones he cast across the River. I have hoped, Zabrielle, that they will perhaps rise and prove him wrong. You betray my hope with your ignorance.’

  Zabrielle lowered her eyes. Gray spoke up. ‘Why? Why isn’t it possible?’

  ‘A body is not an empty cup, that you may pour liquid in from any jar,’ the Keeper replied. ‘Fools. Do you truly think that every soul, every carrying body is not unique? Yes, the body is the vessel, but it is not a vehicle. One cannot simply—engage a soul with a different body!’

  ‘Can a body be created?’ Fayne spoke for the first time. ‘I’ve heard the Druids in the north can create a human body from mere meat and bones.’ Their desperation was clear in the assassin’s question, and in the breaking of his silence. A solution. They had come all this way for a solution.

  ‘It would still not be his, not the soul’s own body. Even if the soul were to engage successfully, there is no guarantee of life. And even if life were somehow achieved, there would be no mind, no consciousness. You would be creating a mere puppet.’ The Keeper turned his eyes to Gray. ‘In the days of old, men and women would come to visit the library, consider it a pilgrimage of sorts. Disturb my peace. I dissuaded them often, and I continued to do so until they stopped. But they were better informed, even in their religious delusions. They knew what was possible and what was not. I am not the Creator, Spider Lord. I’m a librarian.’

  ‘Does-does the end of the world mean anything to you?’ Gray stuttered out.

  Silence.

  ‘The End of Days?’

  ‘Yes. Does it mean anything to you?’

  ‘It is my doing. As you have heard in the stories, no doubt, it was I who refused to keep the secret of creation in my library. I will be responsible for the Serpent’s rise, should he come. I am-I am responsible for the Horsemen of Old.’

  He was still speaking in their minds, but Gray felt the words echo across the library. Everyone had their own burdens to bear, and something raw stirred in voices which admitted shame.

  ‘That soul which she carries,’ Gray said, ‘is the key to stopping the Apocalypse. Tell me something, Keeper. Can you promise to keep it safe here, in your library, forever guarded from the Horsemen’s grasp?’

  ‘Myrkho,’ Fayne said softly. Gray ignored him. A gamble, a wild gamble, one that could cost them everything depending on the reply. The Keeper watched him closely, taking his time.

  ‘The Soul Library is not a place of war,’ he spoke finally. ‘I cannot make such commitments.’

  ‘Then,’ Gray said, gritting his teeth, ‘help us find a way to bring that soul back. Back in a moving, walking, talking body.’

  Silence. ‘You ask the impossible,’ the Keeper replied. ‘I cannot help you.’

  ‘Then it is the second time you are responsible for the End of Days,’ Gray said, ‘and I will have nothing more to say to you.’ Anger. He felt anger, over this creature, whatever it was, over its refusal. He must control the anger. He would be putting them in a corner. He must not—he must not think like Maya. The Keeper looked like he was about to say something, but Gray spoke again. ‘I am not asking you to solve our problem, Keeper. Simply show us a way. We need Adri Sen back.’

  If the Keeper was about to say something, he did not. The silence was broken by Daan. He had arrived, and he was behind them, having blinked or walked in silence. ‘It does not have to be a human body, Keeper,’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’ Gray exclaimed.

  The Keeper looked at the Darkchild. ‘You speak of those that were banished?’

  Daan nodded. ‘Think of what is at stake here, Keeper.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Keeper said finally. ‘An ugly possibility, but yes.’ He turned to Zabrielle. ‘Give me the soul.’ A hand stretched out from within the robe, a hand long, thin, and completely transparent. It was a human hand, but with millions of purple sparks that ran within, lighting it up like a lamp.

  Zabrielle looked at Gray, who nodded. She took off the chain with the soul gem and handed it over. The hand withdrew and the Keeper swooped off into an aisle, into the depths of his library.

  ‘Where is he—’ Gray started.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ Daan said.

  ‘And what is this solution you talk of?’ Zabrielle asked.

  ‘There is a race, a race long forgotten,’ Daan replied, lapsing into a violent series of coughs. ‘A race which betrayed their masters, went into exile. Their true name is forgotten, but they are remembered as the Sentient.’

  ‘The Sentient,’ Gray repeated, as if trying to memorise every detail.

  ‘They were machines, machines that were built from objects, metals, complicated mechanisms. They could talk, walk, fight. Then they developed their own consciousness, became self-aware, thinking for themselves, and realised they were captives.’

  ‘Machines that can think?’ Fayne asked harshly. ‘Zimakh. Machines are nuts and bolts, nothing more.’

  ‘And so thought their makers,’ Daan whispered, glaring back. ‘But it is said that Ernest Galvington was the first one who saw it. See, these machines, they had a part in the centre of the torso, beneath the primitive battery, called the well. The well was a storehouse, a reservoir for anything their makers wanted to transport. Food, messages, something valuable. But Ernest Galvington is convinced that one of his machines was the first Sentient—for when he gazed into the well of this machine, he saw a soul.’

  ‘A soul? A human soul?’ Gray asked, incredulous.

  ‘Therein lies the great question.’ Daan came close to a laugh. ‘Was the soul human? Did it come out of nowhere? Was it a replica, a trick? How could a machine, after all, have a soul? It did not go well after that. The Sentient refused to subject themselves to investigation, to dismantling as their masters demanded. They broke free and ran, killing quite a few masters in the process. They were banished, declared unlawful in the greatest of governments. The Sentient disappeared then.’

  ‘So Adri’s soul . . . in a machine? That’s the best we can do?’ Gray asked, partly horrified at the prospect.

  ‘The best we can hope to do,’ Daan corrected. ‘The Keeper has taught me much. He has a lot of Sentient souls in his custody, and they are different. The soul wires the body to the consciousness within the rules of a machine, with wiring, with cogs and gears, something the Sentient reverse engineered to bring about their existence. Technically speaking, it should work with a human soul as well.’

  ‘Where has the Keeper gone?’ Fayne asked.

  ‘If the soul stays in the gem, it cannot fit inside a Sentient,’ Daan explained. ‘It needs to be inside a special canister prepared for the Sentient’s empty body. The Keeper is transferring the soul.’

  Gray exhaled. Zabrielle looked at him. ‘It is the best option we have, young one,’ she said. He nodded, trying to take it in. Things were moving too fast.

  ‘Do you have an empty Sentient here?’ he asked Daan.

  ‘No,’ Daan said. ‘Nor do I know where they can be found. But the Keeper, he might know.’

  There was a pause then. Minutes ticked away slowly as they waited. Daan seemed to be getting restless, but he did not say anything.

  ‘Hey, where’s my shotgun?’ Gray asked suddenly.

  ‘Gone,’ Daan said. ‘I joi
ned the battle; the pack fled shortly after. I looked for your weapon later, but could not find it. You’re violin’s safe, in your bag.’

  Gray said nothing. More bad news. The loss of an arm was truly irreplaceable, and now the loss of his only weapon, a weapon with him since the beginning. The Sadhu’s Shotgun, the weapon with the strength of history, the only reminder of the Gunsmith he possessed. Now gone, gone within moments of its awakening. Probably taken by the Lich. Gray would need another weapon, but later, perhaps later. Right now he felt he wouldn’t need anything; he wouldn’t accept a weapon even if Daan were to offer him one.

  ‘We’ll find you something,’ Fayne said, reading his thoughts.

  ‘All I want is to find the Sentient,’ Gray said.

  ‘Not easy,’ a voice in his head said. The Keeper was gliding towards them. ‘The machine men keep to themselves and do not trust humans. There is a way, however, to call upon them. Whether they choose to answer or not is up to them.’

  His hand revealed itself again and handed Zabrielle a canister slightly smaller than a lantern. It was made of some hard glass, sealed at the top and bottom with grooved metal. The soul, now no longer part of the gem, swam within. The Keeper turned to Gray.

  ‘In Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, there is a tower. It is called the Eiwa Jarwa, the Last Memory. You must climb it. A furnace on the top awaits. Set it alight, and see if the Sentient respond. Their leader, Brahms, had made a promise that they would, should the world ever need them back.’

  ‘Brahms?’

  ‘It is said they named themselves after awareness. Lovers of music, I would observe. But there is something else.’ The Keeper paused. ‘The Eiwa Jarwa stands in the middle of the Alabagus Grounds. I do not expect any of you to scale that tower alive.’

  Gray heard both Zabrielle and Fayne take in deep breaths. The heart-eaters. Everything was always true. Just hidden away. ‘But how do we even get to Jaisalmer now?’

  ‘There is an arrangement,’ Daan whispered.

  ‘There is also something else, Spider Lord,’ the Keeper continued. ‘This union hasn’t been attempted before. I do not know what the outcome might be.’

  ‘But it’s something. It’s a shot. Right?’

  A loud sound broke the whispers and the silence. It was an incredibly deep cracking noise, lightning fast, echoing through the walls, as if a force had suddenly rattled all the bricks and the mortar.

  ‘He’s here,’ Daan said, checking his pocket watch, the thin chain stretching. ‘I guess this is goodbye.’

  The Keeper looked at Gray, eyes radiating purple. ‘Surprise us, Spider Lord. Live,’ he said. He continued to look at them as they left, hurriedly following Daan out of the library, back through the Forgotten Door and into new pathways. Around them they heard the silent city reverberate with loud, loud cracking noises and poundings, ripping across the quiet like thunder.

  ‘Quickly, quickly,’ Daan urged.

  ‘How will you face him?’ Gray asked as they sprinted down a passage. ‘Death will kill you, you know that.’

  ‘I don’t intend to meet him,’ Daan panted huskily. ‘I will hide from him; he won’t dare attack the Keeper.’

  ‘How will you hide from Death?’

  ‘I am a Shade. I wouldn’t worry about it. This way.’

  They ran past long, slender statues of giant men and women. There was a door camouflaged as a wall, then a secret staircase, then yet another trapdoor into a tunnel heading away. They ran, and the vibrations grew duller as they covered ground. The walls were solid rock, rock which glistened with some kind of phosphorus, a dim glow in the darkness. They slipped often, there was mud beneath, and water trickled from the low ceiling. Then a rock slid aside, and they were out.

  Waves splashed before them. The sea. It was afternoon, the sun was high in the sky, shining weak. They looked around and saw a tall wall face behind them. The passage they had emerged from opened at the bottom. The coastline was visible in the distance, but it wasn’t Frozen Bombay. No, this was further north.

  ‘What now?’ Fayne asked. ‘I see no boat.’

  ‘Hold my hands,’ Daan murmured. ‘Hurry!’

  There was a second of hesitation, a mere second, then everyone was holding onto the Shade. He blinked, and they along with him. It was impossible, Gray thought—Zabrielle had said no one could blink this far, not all the way to the coast—but they had reached their destination before the thought could complete itself. Gray let go and staggered for a second, his brain relocating his present place. They were on the rocks right next to the coast, the water licking their heels. Daan did not seem exhausted from the jump; he checked his watch again.

  ‘On time,’ he said, slipping it back into his robes. He pointed. ‘That way. Walk. Fast. There are train tracks. Stop there. The Jaisalmer Express will cross. Get on board.’

  ‘The moving train?’ Gray’s eyebrows were beginning to climb.

  ‘It shall stop.’

  ‘How did you make plans for Jaisalmer so quickly if you did not know where we were headed?’ Zabrielle asked quietly.

  Daan looked at her. ‘The train has just changed its destination for you. Farewell.’ A burst of shadow in the daylight, a liquid, gaseous explosion of ink. Daan was gone. They did not waste words, they turned around and started walking. More rocks, and now the cold. Gray offered to take his backpack back from Zabrielle, but she shook her head politely. There were no other bags, no other weapons. The train tracks came soon, making their way out of Frozen Bombay in the distance and veering north, getting lost beyond. Gray observed the old, ill maintained tracks.

  ‘One did not know the inter-city trains were still running,’ Zabrielle said.

  ‘They stopped decades ago, khushmakas’ Fayne said. He wasn’t looking at the tracks. Zaleb Hel occupied his entire attention. Gray wondered what on earth they would do if they saw Death galloping their way. It was a dark thought. No, he must look down the tracks instead. For the train.

  It came soon. It was impossible to miss even in the far distance because of the steam, the black clouds of thickness the engine spat out, a small train of three coaches that rushed their way with alarming and impressive speed. When it came close it braked, a loud, inhuman screech adding to the rhythmic puffs and clanks. The engine was a monster with over eighteen wheels and chimneys, looking for all the world like a snowy, metallic battering ram than a vehicle.

  The door on the first coach opened with a deep hiss and a discharge of gas, and Gray saw a figure standing in the doorway, one he had seen eons ago, and all the memories associated with the man before him rushed to Gray, nostalgia and thoughts of Maya and Adri Sen.

  The Driver looked at them, face still in shadow, the blue uniform clean as ever. ‘Get in the damn train,’ he growled.

  Part II

  When The Darkness Talks

  23

  Looking back, Maya did not know what had really happened. Was it a culmination of all the happenings that caused her to snap, or was it something else? Was it the Kahuna, or the conversation with Victor Sen? Or was it simply seeing her brother suffer, struggle, become tougher than he ever wanted to be? Or would the storytellers later call it Maya’s destiny, the path of shadow which she would walk?

  Charles Ward had been right about one thing: Maya was afraid. She was afraid of many things, but she had changed in her process of defence. She was truly somebody else now, she had gotten the chance at a fresh start, at actually hitting a half-hearted reset button of sorts. She was no one’s puppet, not even the Tantric in the soul gem who still seemed to control everyone and everything. She would have to listen to no one. She would well and truly follow her path, learn the things she wanted to. And perhaps she would just be able to live her own life if Gray and Adri and Fayne and Zabrielle somehow managed to put an end to Victor Sen’s plans.

  Sometimes Maya thought about home. She was glad there was no photo of Gray with her—she often wanted to see his face in her moments of weakness. Months had passed, and she was slo
wly beginning to forget what he exactly looked like. The white hair, of course, the slight stubble, but the face, the face escaped. Ward’s face would come to mind in her desperation. There had to be some way to find out how Gray was. She could send a dragonfly. But that would weaken her. And he hadn’t sent a dragonfly either. After all, it had been months.

  ‘I want to kill something,’ Maya whispered to herself, as she often did when these thoughts hit. She felt lonely then, and Ward, Ward was someone who seemed to care more than the rest. She hated to think she needed him, but part of her knew she did. Her heart, it was still beating, she was still human. She hated it. She hated it.

  Drowning sorrows in bottles was easy, especially at the Pit where no one ever, ever bothered her. The path had been hidden all along, nowhere near the brick wall, and once there, they had not found the Arab. Maya loved the Pit, however, and became a regular. The Pit ascended a shade of madness when compared to any joint she had been to in Frozen Bombay. It was a place with a desperate sense of diversity; it was a place for hunted rogues and licensed cutthroats, for banished Templar and cursed kings, for Fairchildren and monstrosities. The air literally screamed of magic, crackled—Maya could detect, feel a hundred different flavours of magic, it felt like a candy shop. She wanted to run to these people and beg each one of them to teach her until someone agreed, then she would learn something more, then she would grow in her power. But she saw the casual violence in the Pit soon, the way fights would erupt and blades and spells would fly. There would be pools of blood and the corpses would be dragged away by the cleaners afterwards. The Pit did not have bouncers or guards—if one started a fight there, one would have to see it to the end.

  Maya also saw items for sale that were simply too illegal to sell elsewhere. In the Pit, one could simply spread one’s wares on any table and start selling. There were plenty of curious articles to be seen, all hers for the right price. The owners of these objects interested Maya more, all of them shifty, some enjoying the act of describing these curios and weapons, ranting about the previous owners and the histories these objects had enjoyed, while others simply sold these objects without bothering about stories and origins.