Blightcross: A Novel

by C. A. Lang

  But where to go?

  Never mind—this hall only led in one direction.

  She startled at a freezing draft across her back. Spun around, ready to kill.

  “What the...” she muttered to herself.

  Since there appeared to be nothing there, she continued down the corridor. A drop of sweat stung her eye, and she cursed the heat. If only that cold breeze was real.

  The mirrors. She couldn’t escape them. Every two or three steps, they confronted her with polished clarity. What was their purpose? The other hall was decorated with romantic paintings of wars and revised history. These mirrors made no sense, and the strange feeling of being watched by these frames reminded her of the time she had fallen into Helverliss’ painting.

  A shriek screamed like nails across glass, and she clapped both hands to her ears. She jammed to a stop and turned around. Still, there was nothing. Nothing but a ringing in her ears, thanks to the deafening screech. Echoes of the unearthly sound raced through her skin as gooseflesh.

  That had to be something.

  When she turned to leave, the mirror showed something different. A dark female. Capra gasped and jumped back, only to realize that the other mirror showed the same thing.

  But it wasn’t just a dark female. It was Capra. A negative image, with ruby eyes glowing from some ungodly fire behind them.

  They had to be joking. What the hell was this? She was stuck between being sickened by the dark double and intrigued.

  She broke through her paralysis and bolted through the hall of mirrors. A pressing urge to blind herself, to not look anywhere near the mirrors. Ghouls, perverted images, all around.

  And now out of the mirror.

  Standing in the middle of the hall, the dark version of Capra grinned sardonically and played with a knife identical to hers.

  The real Capra skidded just shy of the ghoul. The living mirror image made her stomach clench.

  “What are you?”

  It didn’t answer. Instead, it switched the knife between its hands and gestured mockingly. And the encounter became another rip in the universe, another baffling experience, just as Helverliss’ painting had made her feel.

  Shit, this was probably his own work, or at least a derivative stolen by Sevari. And here she thought that the clock tower was impenetrable because it was full of guards. She could only dream of fighting tired watchmen now.

  The ghoul lunged and tackled her. Its only sound was a glassy shriek like before, and the jutting pain between her ears alone nearly disabled her. But when the ghoul stabbed for her throat, Capra caught its arms. She couldn’t overpower it, arms shaking against the attacker’s strength. The eyes, damned eyes, such a distraction, as if they knew everything about her...

  She slipped her knee into the ghoul’s hip and pushed it into the wall. Ghouls—how was she supposed to fight an apparition?

  Run.

  She took off down the hall. There had to be some kind of limitation to the mirrors, some effective range—

  Smack. Right into the ghoul, and for a second, she stood, chest touching her opponent’s, and stared into its gaze. It couldn’t be a person. It was a thing made living, an abomination, and it wanted to kill her.

  Goddamn you, Helverliss.

  She struck it across the jaw. It grinned, and planted a lazy kick right into her chest, sending her to the floor. It wasted no time in grabbing her by the collar and slamming her against the wall. Capra swallowed a mouthful of blood and slammed her knee into its gut. Its grip loosened some, but she still couldn’t rip free.

  It screeched at her, and underneath these aural claws Capra heard a whisper. Stupid selfish slut.

  Capra spat in its face. It licked the bloody mess from its mouth and grinned more.

  “You may look like me,” Capra said. She then tossed aside her attacker. “But you don’t know shit.” While the thing lay on the ground, writhing in confusion, she kicked it in the head.

  But she could kick and stab all night long. This was one of Helverliss’ creations, and it would only fall by some other means. All along the wall next to the mirror, she groped and pressed and tried to think of a way to disable this guardian-ghost.

  It was here that she found a diptych between two mirrors. One painting showed a red circle interlocked with a black one, and the companion picture showed a reverse image. It had to mean something. Sevari didn’t seem to appreciate decorative art.

  Before she could figure it out, the ghoul snatched her legs and yanked them from under her, and her jaw smacked on the floor. Her vision sparkled, and she cursed under her breath.

  She twisted free and rushed back to the wall. The ghoul slammed her into it, pressed her face against the stone which surprised her with its warmth. There had to be magic running through the walls.

  An icy breath beat on her neck. In the margins of her vision she saw the ghoul’s mouth open. Fangs, like a desert viper. She drove her elbow into its rib. Despite the reassuring crack, her attacker answered with hardly a flinch.

  The two little paintings—they had to be the key. If only she could reach them, but with her hand pinned and the thing’s teeth edging towards her face...

  There was no time. Whatever happened was going to happen, and so she cracked her attacker in the ribs once more to buy a few seconds. With the knife she slashed at the canvas, then tore it apart. She groped in the eviscerated picture frame and found a metal knob.

  A combination lock.

  “You have got to be kidding me. Fuck.”

  The ghoul’s grip tightened. Capra spun the knob at random, but her own scattered heartbeat made it impossible to feel out the clicks and work out the code. Ice against her neck. And claws. The thing had claws. They were now digging into her ribs.

  She yelped. Elbowed it again, and it staggered back. Leaped at it, plowed it with her shoulder into one of the mirrors. The next thing she knew, she smacked face-first into the mirror, leaving a greasy streak, and hit the ground.

  The ghoul had flown through the other mirror, and was already recovering and ready to resume the fight.

  She hitched herself up and dashed to the combination lock. Now more than before, her body’s adrenaline scream silenced the finer senses she needed to unlock it. The next best thing—use the knife to unscrew the panel. At least Sevari had skimped on building materials. But what about the ghoul?

  An idea knocked into her head like so many cheap shots. It might work. It sounded stupid to her rattled brain, but it was all she had.

  She left her mechanical work for the time being and pressed her shoulder against a stone pedestal that sat against the wall. She grunted under its weight and slid it against the mirror. It reached about half-way up the glass. Once satisfied with its placement, she rushed to the ghoul and punched it in the throat. It reeled, and Capra let fly a kick, which sent it again into the far mirror. Just as she thought, the ghoul disappeared into the mirror. A second later, it came out of the one opposite, and tumbled over the pedestal Capra had placed there. She rushed to the dazed ghoul, and with all her strength toppled the pedestal. It fell across the ghoul’s chest.

  Then came the screeching, unlike any sound it had made before. Her head swam with vertigo, vision sparkled as though from a head injury. She hurried to the lock, began to unscrew the lock’s panel. Once this was done, she sawed through a cable with the serrated part of her dagger.

  From the walls came a ratchet-clatter, like gears pulling. The mirrors sank into the wall, and shutters clapped over the recesses.

  The ghoul stopped writhing on the ground. Capra approached it cautiously.

  The fire behind its eyes faded to a flicker.

  “See how much better it is to be original?”

  The thing vanished.

  As if this deranged booby trap weren’t enough, footsteps sounded down the hall. There had to be a door in this bloody place, a room, anything. Iron heels boomed and echoed in the cold stone hall, with angry voices bristling with words like “intruder” and
“entrails.” With the sounds quickly gaining on her, she found a door ajar, and slipped inside. It glided open silently, and she thanked whomever had forgotten to make sure it had closed properly, since it showed no handle on the outside.

  The smell—like sulphur and decayed meat. What was this place? There were rows of iron tables, racks of metal implements on wheels, and at the back stood four riveted iron tanks with circular windows and pipes fitted to their caps.

  It had to be one of the laboratories Vasi had mentioned. This meant that Rovan should be around, maybe hiding, if he were smart. She crept around the laboratory, taking short breaths through her mouth to avoid the reek. Around each lamp, a haze drifted and shifted, a strange fog.

  Louder voices outside. Looking for someone—thumping boots, running soldiers. Damn it all, she should never have given the hand-cannon to Alim.

  There was something on the iron table ahead. Not something. Someone.

  Capra rushed around the table, but there was nothing she could do. The table included a built-in vise. The person’s head was in the vise, the body hanging against the side of the table. She tried not to examine the head too closely, but could not help noticing its warped shape and protruding bones. Despite the bulging eyes and utter terror personified, there was no blood, no visceral reminder of the body’s gruesome death. What kind of experiment could require... this? It was barbaric, like something out of the history books in the chapter about backwards medical procedures. Only this was even more depraved. It took her a moment to look away, and this was when her stomach soured and tried to squeeze acid up her gorge, but her will to swallow was too strong.

  “Is there anybody here?” It was stupid, but now she shivered with an uneasiness she had never experienced in any of her previous jobs. Then again, this was hardly a cheery break-in on behalf of some rich benefactor. “Rovan? Your sister is worried. I’m going to get you out of here.”

  At the iron tanks, she peered through the windows of each, but couldn’t see anything through the coating of grit. “Rovan? Are you inside one of these things?”

  She spun the wheel on one of them and there was a rush of air. She lugged it open.

  Nothing.

  She tried the next one, though didn’t suppose the boy would be so stupid as to ignore an offer of help.

  There was someone in the next tank. A man, slumped against the back of it, whose head dripped blood from a perfect hole in his forehead. She recoiled and slammed shut the door. What kind of machine was this?

  The pipes led to a smaller, squat tank of iron, which then passed its pipes through a set of crystals, several containers of liquid, and ended in something that resembled a faucet. Obviously it was something involving magic, yet enhanced by Sevari’s industrial power.

  When she went to leave, the door had sunk into its frame. Only now did she notice that there was no handle. No handle, no studs on the wall, no levers...

  The Divine had to be kidding. The joke—only one way out, and it was through the window, assuming she could break it. And then what?

  She slammed her fist into the door. Now it was getting ridiculous.

  Why am I following these people?

  Alim had asked himself this question numerous times, but each time convinced himself that the man in black was leading him to Sevari, so he could take charge of what little troops remained and prove that he alone knew how to bring the city under the rule of order once again.

  “The exercise did you good, Alim. Last time I tried to convince you that we only wanted to ensure that you live out your chosen path, your freedom, you ran away and joined the enemy.”

  “I can’t recall what you mean. I was here to find Sevari. To tell him that you and your people should not be welcomed with gunfire. I must get him to shut off his machine...”

  Yes—the monstrosity that was laying waste to the shadow beings. Together they could defeat the fire giants, but the machine meant their inevitable defeat.

  His new understanding still baffled him. Epiphanies burst into his thoughts—sciences, mystical truths, and all as if he had known them since time immemorial. He understood the power of the shadows, and the savagery of the giants.

  Everything that had happened prior had just been falsehood. His alliance with Capra, who he would now take great pleasure in disemboweling, and his idea that ending the great battle was the best course of action, all of it lies just to get him to this point of taking control. Already those falsehoods were dropping from his memory like dead leaves.

  The shadow man led him up the stairwell, and they passed several guards. They entered the halls on the museum floor. The shadow man halted in the middle of the hall, some ways from the museum entrance.

  “Why are we going here?”

  The shadow man spoke in a measured voice. “Mr. Helverliss needs company.”

  With a hot wind beating her face, Capra’s hands clawed at the stone, and she was thankful that Sevari’s delusions had driven him to reproduce a classical architecture overflowing with decorative stonework and designs—a few of them perfect handholds. This was a first. She had never before climbed to such a height, and she knew enough to avoid glancing at the ground.

  The height tended to deceive a person. Tightrope walkers really didn’t do much at all—any person could walk a straight line on the ground. In theory, it would be no different a mile above the city.

  In theory.

  She did not need to look down to see the giant war machine. It blotted out much of the skyline, and its engine roar dominated the insanity below. She could only wonder what it must be like in the streets, or in the work camp.

  The machine fired every five or ten seconds, and its flames constantly licked at the swarm of shadows flitting about its head.

  Capra grunted and strained under her own hanging weight. Twice she tried to pull herself over the ledge, and her body gave more noise than strength. In the corner of her view she saw the great hulk of a fire giant collapse. Its legs shook, and it cried out in a keening that Capra would never be able to erase from her memory. And underneath it were several rows of brick town homes, which crumbled underneath the beast’s death throes. Brick flew, dust rose to form a pall over the block.

  It was the reminder she needed to summon the strength to overcome the ledge. A pressure crushed around her neck, her face flooded with hot blood, and there was a hammering at her temples. Once she hoisted herself onto the ledge, she sat against the wall to recuperate. She couldn’t help indulging in a smug grin as she gasped.

  There was a window next to her, and once her heart settled, she peered through it. Once again, she found a coating of grease and grit, which she scraped away with her knife like a dirty frost.

  Glass cases, paintings on the wall...

  There might have been guards inside, but she raised her boot anyway and plowed it through the glass. Finesse and patience? Luxuries.

  Once she landed on the soft purple carpet, she readied her knife and prepared to deal with the guards. But the place was quiet and still, as a museum ought to be.

  Against the wall she found Helverliss. She rushed to him and began to work at the chains with her picks. “Are you okay?”

  He raised his head a little, half-gazed at her with his eyelids sagging over bloodshot eyes. “You? What happened?”

  “I came to get you out of here.” She leafed through the tools frantically. “Damn it, what kind of locks does that maniac use?”

  He made a strange gasp. “You shouldn’t be here. You should have left.”

  Right, he was a downer even on a good day. She shook her head and kept working the locks.

  “You look like shit, Capra.” He coughed and she heard him spit across the room.

  “Thanks.”

  “You really need to get out.”

  One of the manacles clicked, and Helverliss’ arm dropped from the wall. “Yeah, and you’re coming with me. We’re going to stop this stupidity Sevari started, and you’re going to pay me double for this.” She grazed
an already chewed-up knuckle against a chain and winced. “Oh yeah, and thanks a lot for designing those creepy mirrors whose reflections try to kill you. Sevari seems to have found a good use for them.” She showed him a gash on her arm.

  Helverliss fell into a hacking fit. “What?”

  “Nearly killed me on the way up here. A double of myself. Only stronger and darker.”

  “The bastard. I never thought he would even broach such secrets.”

  “So it really was your invention?” If it weren’t for his frail state, she might have slapped him.

  Before he could answer, there was another click. Not from unlocking manacles, but one that sounded at the museum’s entrance.

  “It’s over, Capra.”

  She whirled round. Staring right back at her—Alim’s hand-cannon.

  “Alim? Help me free him so we can get out of here.” She went back to the locks.

  “I said it’s over. Now turn around.”

  That fear about him, that feeling crawling in the back of her mind, now appeared justified. She hadn’t wanted to fully accept the likelihood as she had watched Alim walk away; the likelihood that she had known deep inside but refused to acknowledge.

  “Alim, what did they tell you?”

  “They told me the truth.”

  The hand-cannon hardly fazed her. She drew her knife, advanced slowly.

  “They told me that I was a unique human.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “They told me that I ought to be writing our destiny, not blindly following.”

  She shifted her stance, brandished the knife. It must have weighed a sixteenth of the big weapon Alim held in his jittering hand. “You think Jas would approve?” Bad idea... too late.

  Alim growled and now his hand held the cannon with a steeled grip, the barrel straight and levelled to her forehead. “This is why the shadows are superior. They would never have abandoned their rules, their laws, like you had. They are truth. They are exactly what they say they are. If you were more like the shadows, Jas would be alive.”