Rojan Dizon 03 - Last to Rise

by Francis Knight

  When I didn’t say anything, she carried on in a soft, almost bewildered voice. “Your blood, because when Pasha got you here you were covered in it. Out of your nose, out of your mouth, your ears. Your eyes, Rojan. Everywhere. Pasha said… it took him and Dendal everything they had to keep you here. They told me about this black, that you could fall in any time. That you probably will if you aren’t careful, and there’s only so much they can do.” She took a breath and then the Erlat I knew was back, teasing me, trying to get me to blush with a seductive smile and a taunt, and I thought maybe that was her wall, like mine was cynicism and Jake’s was her swords. This teasing, this pretend seduction, was Erlat’s wall to hide behind, and that made me wonder what it was she was hiding from.

  “Two days in my bed and still you won’t take me up on my offer. And you’re going to stay there too. I promised Dendal that I’d keep you here. Sadly, I also promised him I’d make sure you didn’t overdo anything as well. Or you’d be in big trouble, Mr Fancy-pants Mage. By the way, do you realise you’re only wearing a quite short shirt?”

  I’d managed not to blush through the first part out of long practice, but then I looked down and noticed that indeed the shirt was very short and I was naked underneath. I blushed enough that it felt like a volcano had sprouted on my nose, sat down before I fell down and grabbed for the sheet.

  Once I’d managed to calm my flaming forehead – tricky, in the face of Erlat’s delighted laugh – I managed to get out some questions. As much to change the subject from what was under my shirt than anything.

  “So, are you going to tell me what’s been going on? Did Lise get the engine? It was the engine I got out, wasn’t it? Is Pasha OK? What are the Storad up to? Did Halina get back all right? I kind of lost track…”

  Erlat turned away, but not before I saw a look of sudden fear that dropped a millstone into my stomach. She fiddled with two cups on the table, poured some fragrant tea, and when she turned back she was smooth again, no hint of anything but professional charm as she handed me a cup. Goddess only knew where she’d got it from – the only tasty thing Under, it’d been one of the first things to run out – but then Erlat had some very high-up and wealthy clients. I took a long slug and savoured it. The bacon smell was still there, driving my stomach into giddy knots of anticipation. I began to wonder if Erlat had some and was hiding it, or alternatively whether I was still imagining it.

  “Well?” I asked in the end, when it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything without me prodding.

  She wouldn’t look at me while she said it, and instead turned back to fiddle with the stupid cup. “Lise got what you sent her. Not all the engine, but enough to stop that machine from working. She says it might be enough metal to get another batch of guns, but… but that’s not going to help much.”

  “Why not?”

  Erlat concentrated on blowing steam from her tea. “After you came back, well, the Storad attacked the inner gate. They’ve got more than just guns, they’ve got things that will burn a man where he stands, or so Pasha said. It – we could hear the screams even from here.”

  That explained the odd smell of roasting meat, and what Pasha had persuaded the guards into doing – turning on each other, burning each other. Turned my stomach too.

  “Did they get inside?”

  “Not yet. Or not there. But we lost a lot of guards, a lot of Specials. They sent a load of their men up the tunnel too. And not just that one either, all the tunnels they could find. But there weren’t enough men left to defend the gate and the tunnels, even with them mostly blocked, so Perak sent in his personal guard. Jake knows the ’Pit better than any of Perak’s men, and she leads his guards, so…”

  She clutched her teacup like her life depended on it and I was surprised to see she was holding back tears. Surprised and afraid.

  “So?” I prompted as gently as I could, given the ice-pick that had just made a hole in my heart.

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this. Dendal said not to, that you should be resting, that you’ll overdo it otherwise. He said if you fall into the black properly, even he can’t save you. That you’ll die if you stay in there too long.”

  “Erlat, please. What about Jake?”

  She pressed her lips together as though she was desperately holding in some irrepressible thought, some vicious word, but finally she put the cup down and looked me in the eye at last. “Jake took Perak’s guards into the tunnels to stop any Storad coming through. She stopped them all right, but…”

  The hesitation almost had me screaming. I bit down on it – it wasn’t Erlat I wanted to scream at. “But what?”

  “Pigs. Pasha said the Storad have brought some with them, that they must have been planning this awhile, or why bring pigs, or have the machines ready? Sorry, I…They filled the tunnels with wood. Then they sent in the pigs and blocked them in and set fire to it all. Lise says pig fat burns at higher temperatures, higher than wood on its own. High enough to crack stone. Crack the tunnels.”

  “They burned pigs?” It explained why that was all I could smell though, why my stomach was doing back-flips at the thought of food, real food, dammit. Then a more sobering thought. “The tunnels – will they hold up? If they’re cracked, right under the castle, and the city is built over the castle…” Ridiculous as it might seem, the floor seemed to sway under me, as though the city was ready to fall down right now, crumple up like a rotten concertina. Going to the ’Pit in the lift had been bad enough. Going to it via several thousand tons of falling masonry and girders – I was very nearly sick again.

  “I… I don’t know.” There was something worse to come, I could feel it. “But that’s not – I mean, the tunnel collapsed behind Jake, behind all the guards. She’s trapped Outside, and there’s no way for her to get back in until we stop the Storad. And not just stop them, beat them.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Erlat tried to stop me, but I wasn’t having any of it. My allover was still wet, but Kersan managed to find a pair of trousers that one of Erlat’s clients had, bizarrely, left behind, presumably while in a bliss-like trance. The trousers were too short and way too big at the waist, but I was covered, which was the main thing, especially in the face of Erlat’s raised eyebrow.

  At least my coat had proved easier to clean. I needed it because night was falling, making the Buzz even darker than usual and dropping the temperature to somewhere around nose-hair-freezing levels. Snow had begun to dust its way down through the walkways. It made a change from rain anyway, made even Under look magical. Mainly because all the crap was covered up.

  It didn’t take long before I was holding myself up on a handrail. Dendal and Erlat had been right about me needing to rest, but I couldn’t. Jake was Outside, trapped there with a few thousand Storad who’d be more than happy to see her dead, actively searching for her, almost certainly. It was odd though. I wasn’t struggling my weak-kneed way along a swaying walkway freezing my knackers off for her, or not just for her. What really spurred me on was the remembered sound of Pasha’s worried murmur while I’d been out of it, of Perak’s shouted “I absolutely forbid it!” I had sudden visions of Pasha the mouse going all lion at the worst possible moment, of him going off on some damnfool suicide run to get her. And he would, I had no doubt, because he was that kind of guy, the kind that heroics come easy to.

  The lab windows shone in the dark like the sun, the Glow lights trapping grimy snowflakes in dizzying whirls that matched what was in my head. I staggered inside and the warmth hit me like a brick.

  What greeted me stunned me almost worse.

  It was chaos, even more so than the usual riot of cables and bits of machinery strewn over workbenches. Half a dozen young mages shivered in one corner and more than one was in tears. Halina was there, looking remarkably poised, all things considered, and she favoured me with a raised eyebrow and a curl of her lip. All cynics together.

  Allit stood with Lise, a comforting hand on her shoulder, while Dendal twittered
around in the background making vague soothing noises. I knew it was something bad because while Dendal is away with the fairies most of the time, at least he’s happy. I know I’m home when I can hear the scritch-scratch of pen on paper and him humming a cheerful tune to himself. He wasn’t humming now, and that was akin to the sun not coming up in the morning.

  Not as unnerving as the shouts that echoed out of the pain room, punctuated by a lower voice that was still firm, obstinate even as it held a tone of regret. It didn’t take much to work out that the shouter was Pasha and the obstinate one was Perak. I couldn’t decipher the words, but I reckoned I could figure the gist anyway.

  When I came in, Lise jumped to her feet and all but ran towards me, Allit a step behind. She was a study in frustration, her dark hair awry, her face streaked with dried tears but with that stubborn donkey line between her eyes that meant she was damned well determined to get her own way. She and Allit both started talking at the same time, rushed, garbled words that made no sense.

  “Calm down and start again,” I said and reached for her hand. She grabbed mine in a death-grip. Of the two, Allit seemed calmer, so I got him to explain.

  “It’s Perak. He says Lise has to destroy the new machine, the shield thing. He says if she can’t make it so we can at least test it safely then we need the metal, and he’s right, we do. Only Pasha says he wants to use it to help Jake.”

  “I can’t dismantle it, I won’t!” Lise burst out. “It’s one of the last things Dwarf designed. I know we can make it work, and if we do – if we do, then we won’t need guns. It’ll work, it will.”

  “And the mage involved?”

  She hesitated only a moment. “I can make it work, even that. I know I can. I just need time, and Perak won’t give me any and Pasha’s ready to use it anyway and he’s…”

  Pasha’s gone all lion, I said to myself. I’d known he would. I had to admire the guy’s zeal, always so ready to fight.

  “All right. Look, I’ll see what I can do. But even if I persuade Perak, you need to get it ready as soon as you can, OK?”

  Her shoulders relaxed and she nodded before scurrying off to a desk that was covered in incomprehensible drawings and bits of machine.

  Allit lingered, and a crash sounded from the pain room so that he flinched, but I waited and it didn’t take long for him to come out with it. Never could keep a thought inside, that boy.

  “I saw more. When I, you know. When I hurt myself. I’ve been practising like Pasha said I should. I – I don’t know, Pasha says he’s not sure if I see the now or past or future. I think maybe it’s all of them, because I’ve been trying to focus like you said and I know I’ve seen things that haven’t happened yet. Not all of them do happen either. When you went into the tunnel, I – I saw you die in there, and I tried to get Perak to call you back but it was too late, and then you didn’t die so I don’t know… But I saw – she’s out there, on her own. I saw that, and I saw Dench with her, stronger this time, maybe the strongest possibility? She’s on her own, no one to help her, but she’s not afraid. That’s Pasha. But I saw someone use Lise’s machine too. I think.”

  “And did it work?”

  His face screwed up in frustration. He was trying, and hard, to help but he was too new in his magic, still figuring it all out.

  “I don’t know! I only know that someone tries it, and then later – then later there are no Storad. But it’s all hazy, like maybe it might not happen if we don’t do it right? Does that make sense? Because I saw Storad in Top of the World too. Whatever, I don’t know if it’s because of the machine, or something else. I thought magic was going to be something useful! But all I can do is see things that might happen, or might be real, and I can’t tell one from the other! What’s the use in that?”

  He had a point, but even I wouldn’t say that to him. I was glad no one had told me he’d seen me die in the tunnel though. Really glad. I tried a bit of diplomacy – it came easier if I thought of it as lying, which I could do in my sleep. “You’ll find a use for it, I’m sure, find a way to make it work. You just have to think hard and practise a lot.”

  He nodded glumly. “All right. But you have to make the Archdeacon see, or I won’t get the chance because we’re screwed at the gates.”

  I told him I would, but I didn’t think I’d have much luck. From the sounds of it, Pasha was already trying very hard, but Perak’s got a donkey line too. I opened the door into the pain room, to find the pair of them glaring at each other.

  Pasha looked like shit. His eyes seemed sunken, his face more monkey-like than ever with a shrivelled look around his mouth as though he’d just bitten a lemon. Perak didn’t seem much better – he looked like if he shut his eyes he’d fall asleep on his feet. As soon as they saw me, they stopped glaring at each other and started glaring at me instead. Not much of an improvement.

  “What are you doing here?” Perak asked, the glare dissolving into a worried frown. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

  “Hopefully he’s come to knock some sense into you,” Pasha muttered. “Rojan, will you tell your brother we need to use the damned pulse machine, the shield thing? Jake – she’s… I told her not to go, told her to keep out of the tunnels, as far from Dench as she could. We have to use the machine. There’s no other way.”

  “I can’t let you!” Perak’s face seemed to crack at that. “Look, Lise doesn’t know what will happen to the mage that tries it. There’s a good chance it’ll take everything he’s got and more. I need you. Mahala needs you, every last one of you. Especially you, Pasha, until Rojan recovers. You two are the only ones who can put anywhere near enough power into the generator. It’s only been two days without Rojan, and look at you, you’re in almost as bad shape as he is; we’ve had to shut three factories down and the heating’s gone in some places. Without power we’re sunk, and you know it.”

  “But Jake – what else can we do? Because we’re fucking well going to do something. Besides, all the men that have died so far – we could stop it. Stop the Storad right in their tracks, stop them bringing in more men, more machines. Cut the ones already here off from those on their way. Then we’d have a chance. Rojan, tell him.”

  I was starting to wish I’d stayed in bed. I sat on the pain rig and scrubbed my good hand over my face. Why was it that the further I ran from responsibility, the more it dropped in my lap?

  “Look, why don’t you tell me everything first?”

  So they did, and at least they’d stopped shouting. But the pinch on Perak’s face when he told me how the Storad had used their flame machines, had burned so many of his guards and Specials down by the tunnels and where they’d tried to defend the gate, burned them like kindling, the clench of Pasha’s jaw as he told me how he’d heard Jake in his head when the tunnel collapsed behind her, I’d almost have rather had the shouts.

  “And the machines coming in through the pass,” Perak said. “They’re slow, but the men with them aren’t. They’re coming on ahead. Be here by morning, I should think. They’ve already got twice as many men here as we have guards and Specials left. More, perhaps. When the reinforcements arrive, we’ll be hopelessly outnumbered. I’m not sure we can even man the gates properly, let alone keep them out of the tunnels if they manage to get through. The machine you twisted – the first one – they’re busy trying to repair it, and when they do they’ll have those gates down and there’ll be almost nothing left to do.”

  “What about guns? How many have we got? Things to fling over the wall, I’m sure we’ve got plenty to give them pause. There must be something.” Because I had an idea, but I didn’t think either of them was going to like it much. “We could unblock one of the other tunnels?”

  “No good,” Pasha muttered. “Dench has got his men spread out and looking – we’re pretty sure he’s found the entrances to at least two, and they might be blocked but the Storad have come prepared. They cracked those two tunnels, collapsed them, who says they won’t manage to get in this time? If
they get through, we’re done for – once the Storad are in the ’Pit there’s no way to stop them spreading out, no place to really hole them up, stop them. We’ve got nowhere near enough men to fight both in the ’Pit and at the gates. And if Dench can’t get through, he’ll probably try to crack those like he did the others, and if he cracks enough maybe there won’t be a city left. We’re screwed – unless we use the pulse machine.”

  “Well, we’ve got more guns than guards now,” Perak said. “And Factory Three should be ready with the next lot – the last lot unless we cannibalise that machine – in the next few hours. We’ve got enough bullets for now, but what we got from the engine you sent wasn’t anywhere near enough to last in any sort of sustained attack. It’s metal we need, and people.”

  “Right then.” I pushed myself up off the chair. “I think it’s fairly clear. We’ve got plenty of people. You just need to arm them.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got more people than you can feed, Perak. A whole teeming mass of them Under. Upsiders, Downsiders, mostly fighting each other. Make them fight something else instead.”

  “But the guards were all trained and they still died, and all the cardinals will —”

  “All the cardinals can kiss my rosy red butt cheeks. Perak, send someone down to No-Hope, or Boundary. I guarantee in under ten minutes you could find a hundred people who can fight just as well as any guard. Better, even. Certainly dirtier.”

  Perak’s eyes were wider than the gaps in my conscience. “And you want me to give them guns?”