by C. A. Bryers
“Not now, Irisce—”
“You’re being just as stupid as Joht was a whole five seconds ago, now listen to me!” she screamed.
Her command broke through his concentration at last. As he tugged Ota upright, arms locked about the thrashing man, Salla’s eyes fastened upon the ijau backing slowly away. Her terror-stricken gaze was frozen upon the stairwell leading down to them.
Spinning his head to look, Salla watched as a massive shadow blotted out the light from above. Something was there, slowly slithering and crawling down the stairs without making a sound. Some tentacles wrapped about railings while others reached, the small, hungry jaws opening and closing with ravenous anticipation of the feast to come.
A hiss escaped from somewhere within the rippling mass, aware now that it had been spotted. With a grating howl, the creature lunged down the remaining steps, railings and stairs bending this way and that under its weight.
Salla did the only thing he could think to do—he threw Ota directly into it. The Majdi simply disappeared inside the writhing throng of tentacles. Salla tugged Joht to his feet, bolting in Iriscent’s direction.
“Run!” he screamed to her, refusing to look back.
Though both feet seemed rooted to the floor for an instant, Iriscent spun about and began to sprint in the other direction. Salla and Joht were only a handful of paces behind, rounding the first corner of the cell block. Behind, there was no doubt that Lochmore—if the creature even retained any awareness of the man he had known—was still giving chase. It slammed into the corner behind them, the old stone blocks of the wall shattering apart upon impact. It did not slow the beast for a moment, as the preponderance of limbs steadied Lochmore within a millisecond so it could continue the hunt.
“Keep going!” he shouted as they rounded the next corner.
Joht sent a blind pulse behind him as he hurriedly limped alongside. But when Salla risked a glance back, he saw Ota had been right. Lochmore showed no sign that the blast had affected him one iota. It charged along, and this time Joht trained the blast up at the ceiling a few steps behind them. The air wavered and a few stone fragments cascaded down upon the grotesque, charging mass.
Joht howled a vehement curse, flinging the ineffectual bracer from his wrist.
But Joht’s attempt gave Salla an idea. Running fast, breathing hard, he watched an angled, jury-rigged segment of wooden support framing whip past overhead. A dozen feet down the corridor, another appeared. As they approached the third corner of the cell block, he aimed the bracer up at one of the supports.
Nothing happened.
Heat bloomed in his chest, frustration rising quickly to a boil. Concentrate. Concentrate.
Focusing every bit of his will upon making the Majdi device on his wrist work, Salla prepared himself to try again. He had only gotten one of these things to function a single time during his sparring match with Ciracelle. That one time would have to be practice enough, unless they wanted to run this circuit over and over until their legs gave out.
Spinning his head about for only a second, his eyes chose the support he would try to dislodge. All he could do was hope against hope that the power-restricted bracer had the capacity to knock it loose.
He felt a spark of something there in his mind, a power responding to his need. Then it was down his arm and hurtling from his fist a second later, crashing into the support. The degraded wood disintegrated into kindling that exploded like a bomb filled with nails. Wood and stone tumbled down, hammering into the swarm of limbs close upon their heels. He watched the creature crumple beneath the impact just as they rounded the last corner.
A maddened shriek pealed out through the corridor, but it came from in front of them, not behind. Halfway through turning his head to look, he felt something smash into him. A second later, he was on the floor. Eyes foggy and disoriented from the impact, Salla saw a figure…a woman standing there in the haze.
Santerre.
Using only her tephic, Lochmore’s prime assistant threw Joht against one wall and then the other. Then, Joht was fired straight upward as if from a cannon to crash into the ceiling with bone-cracking impact. His body returned to the floor with a heavy thud, and the big man lay motionless as if his skeleton had been reduced to powder.
With Iriscent further down the hall and Salla behind, Santerre straightened herself, looking between the two as if deciding which would become her next victim. She did not move to pursue either, however, as a wicked, satisfied grin spread wide across her lips.
“He will have you,” she purred, folding her arms in anticipation.
On his knees now in the corner, Salla did not have to wonder long as to what she meant by that. The great thing Lochmore had become began to thrash beneath the weight pinning it down. Its dozens of appendages twisted about, wrapping around the heavy wooden beams and stone to extricate itself. With every second that passed, more of its bulk was wrestling free.
It climbed to its full, terrible height then, a bulb crashing to the floor with a pop as the writhing beast filled the entire passage. The creature began to move inexorably closer, taking its time now that its prize was trapped between itself and its most faithful follower.
What would it feel like when this thing, this monster, finally had him ensnared in all those razor-toothed limbs? Salla didn’t want to know. A tide of panic was surging up, washing away the haze that clouded his mind. He weighed his options. Santerre was the weaker of the two arms that threatened to crush him out of existence. If they had a chance to escape, it was through her.
As if reading his thoughts, Santerre took a step closer in warning. “Don’t think of moving, scrapper. Let it happen.”
But Salla had made up his mind. He rolled his body fast to the left, feeling the stiff tephic blow the woman shot forth hit the floor beside him. A second later he was on his feet, but was thrown back as if someone the size of Orrock had barreled into him. The impact against the wall crushed the air from his lungs, and he crumpled to his knees. Doubled over with his face an inch from the floor, Salla shifted his watery eyes to the right, toward Lochmore.
The monstrosity was so close it might as well have been on top of him, feasting upon him. His death was seconds away. But suddenly, he saw Santerre lurch forward, holding the side of her head with one hand. The other hand pawed at the nearest wall in a struggle to remain vertical.
Behind her, Iriscent stood with her chest heaving, eyes wide in stunned disbelief. She clutched a metal pipe—a cell bar that had likely fallen off one of the doors decades ago. With a flinch, she dropped the bar, sending it clanging hard against the stone floor.
“Salla!” she cried, extending both hands, her face instantly tightening into a grimace.
A look to his left revealed why. Lochmore surged forward against what seemed to be an invisible wall—a tephic barrier conjured forth by Iriscent. A frustrated, guttural roar erupted from somewhere within the monstrosity. The razor-mouthed limbs reached and snapped, and with dreadful certainty, Salla realized that Iriscent could not hold it back for much longer. The monster was inching closer, and at the same time, Santerre appeared to be recovering from the blow.
Salla leapt to his feet. Though unsteady for the moment, Santerre had demonstrated brutal, perhaps lethal skill with her tephic. He was not about to gamble with the chance his own paltry tephic might not immediately react. Clenching the bracer’s handbar tight, he swung the metal device, growling with the effort. It cracked hard against her head, and Lochmore’s prime assistant went down.
Beyond her, some dozen feet ahead, a shape on the floor stirred. Seemingly unwilling to lie down and die despite the blood loss, the exertion and the battery he had just received, Joht Tavross climbed gracelessly to his feet. The side of his face was a damp sheet of red, his mouth hanging open in exhaustion.
“Salla, we have to go!”
The voice was Iriscent’s. He saw her face, tears rolling from the corners of her eyes as she strained to maintain the waning force holding Lochmore at bay.
“Joht!” Salla shouted, bringing the injured man’s eyes to his. “Run!”
Whether the big man was able to run or not, they had no time left. Iriscent broke away from her efforts, spinning to dash alongside Salla. Ahead, Joht began with a pained, lumbering lope that quickly turned into a full-bore sprint.
The maddened shriek of the writhing colossus, freed at last, hounded them all down the final stretch of hallway. Ahead and to the right, the opening of the stairwell was in sight. They pounded up the twisted and warped stairs as if each step left behind was collapsing in their wake. As they rounded the turn onto the landing, the whole metal staircase shuddered at once as the weight and momentum of the beast hunting them slammed into it and began crawling with feverish purpose up behind them.
The stairwell spat them out into the corridor, and from there into the body-strewn foyer. The three of them streaked through, hurdling fallen students and assistants as they raced into Adjutu’s Path. But before the passage closed about them, Salla noticed something. The sounds of their pursuer’s relentless ferocity had gone silent once more. He slowed, panting hard, watching and waiting with dreadful anticipation for the hundred, perhaps even thousand-limbed creature to come launching from the opposite corridor.
It did not. He could hear it moving, but those sounds were but shadows of the cacophonous barreling of limbs that had given chase only moments prior. With his heart thundering in his chest, Salla watched and waited. A few tentacles slithered into view, followed by a dozen more. The bulk of the creature lumbered into the center of the foyer, masses of appendages reaching out to coil about the nearest body.
“Hungry again,” he said aloud, wondering if perhaps the seemingly indestructible creature might now at last be vulnerable.
Looking down at his bracer, Salla knew they were not equipped to kill it, even if it was in a weakened state. All he had now was a chance, a small window of opportunity to get into the Adjutu’s quarters and disengage the lockdown mechanism. Without wasting another moment, he ran to join the others.
As he neared the corridor’s terminus, it was as if Salla had run straight into a wall. He stared at the open door of Lochmore’s office, pangs of pain and sorrow shooting through his chest like knives.
He remembered something. Something terrible.
Rainne. She’s there. In that room.
He did not want to see her lying there, some lifeless, dried-out husk like those bodies Lochmore had spat out in the commissary. He wanted to remember her as she was, an intelligent, beautiful woman with the warmest of souls, an adoptive daughter whose very heart beat so her beloved Afa could survive a little longer.
“Salla!” he heard Iriscent call out from within the office, followed by another voice.
“I thought you knew where this thing was!”
“I do know it’s in here, you big, dumb biff. Where in here it is, I have…”
The distant argument fell to silence and the invisible wall holding him fast still stood. Salla wondered if death was preferable to tainting Rainne’s memory. On the surface, the notion was absurd; there should be no contest. But Ota had been right. He was going to die anyway. They all were. By coming to unlock the gates of the House of Falling Rain, they had pinned themselves into a corner from which they would not escape. When the thing that used to be Lochmore regained its strength, it would come and destroy them all.
Despite the fact the internal war would have killed him in time, Salla wished he hadn’t buried the power of the Eyes of the One. Perhaps just this once they would come to his rescue with a vision of some method through which they might break free of this old prison with their lives. But that was just a hope, and an empty one at that. After coming into contact with the Magsem, the conflict between the two energies had made the power of the Eyes as unreliable as Natke Orino had once thought Salla himself to be.
In the echoes of his thoughts, doubts and fears, Salla vaguely heard Iriscent cry out for him again.
Rainne, he thought, closing his eyes, steeling his resolve. That isn’t you anymore in that room. Who you were, I won’t forget.
Opening his eyes again, Salla strode forth with purpose. Whether they lived or died in this corridor or in that room, what mattered was that he did not give up. He had wanted to give up too many times in his life—when he and Natke’s expedition team were wiped out, when the mutiny of the Mayla Rose had left him washed up on the shores of Costa Ojo, and the many times the warring energies inside had sought to break him to pieces from within. No more. He was going to live, or die trying to survive.
He was running now, watching the doorway loom closer with each stride. But as soon as he broke the threshold, his resolve crumbled like broken glass falling to pieces. His eyes could look nowhere but down at the body on the floor, and it felt as though someone had gouged out a great handful of his heart.
At his feet, Rainne was curled with legs bent as if simply sleeping on her side, the scarf she always wore mercifully swept across her face. Salla’s wounded heart was a savage, pounding hammer in his chest.
He barely noticed the books thrown from the shelves, spinning through the air, the drawers of the old, broken desk being torn from their seatings and emptied across the floor for some sign, some clue as to where the lockdown controls were hidden. There was only the woman before him, and without thinking, Salla dropped to his knees. He set his hands on her side, but retracted them instantly as if burned.
Now, his heart began to gallop. He reached out and pulled back the veil cast over her face, a small hope surging up in his chest, growing larger with each breath taken. Beneath the scarf was soft, smooth skin, not some sallow, withered remains sucked clean of life. Cradling her in his arms now, he patted her on the cheek, daring to hope she might yet be alive.
When her eyes opened, green irises still sparkling and vibrant, Salla felt almost dizzy, clutching her to him as if to loosen his grip would mean an end to this beautiful mirage. But moments passed, and a tired smile rose to her lips.
She was no mirage. She was alive.
32
“I thought you were dead. I was sure you were dead.”
Her eyes cast about her surroundings from underneath heavy lids. “Where am I?”
“Lochmore’s office. Joht said—”
Her eyes flashed with alarm. “Where is he?”
“Out there. Coming.” The words were a reminder of the unspeakable horror intent upon destroying them. Salla’s eyes darted to Joht and Iriscent. “I need to help them. We need to find the way to unlock this place.”
Rainne grasped at his arm. Her grip was weak, but it had the intended effect of keeping him from leaving her. “You have to know something, Salla. Lochmore…he knows his time here is over. But he will not leave this place until he has what he wants.”
Salla nodded impatiently. “All of us dead, I know.”
“No, Salla. He is after you.”
He went cold. “What?”
“That is the truth. I could not break free of him. I could not even resist giving in to him when he came for me. But when it happened, something opened between us. I saw into him, saw the truth of what he really is.” Her eyes were tired, but they were also frightened as she spoke. “But he saw into me as well. He knows the reason you are here, Salla. He has known since he got his hands on that Iriscent girl. He knows what is inside you. I felt him crave it like—I do not think he has wanted anything the way he wants what you have inside.”
“Well, well, well,” a weary voice said, followed by an equally hollow laugh. “Look what I found.”
Iriscent shot from the back room, tripping and stumbling over piles of books and other possessions of the Adjutu. “You found them? The controls?”
Kneeling beside a chest in the corner of the room, Joht held something smooth and metal in his hand with a vaguely cylindrical shape to it that narrowed slightly at one end.
Iriscent gave it one look before climbing back into Lochmore’s bedroom. “Quit messing around, Joht
. We’re not looking for your little toys.”
“What is it?” asked Salla.
Joht grinned. “Tephic bracer. A prototype I had my rho smuggle in to me so Ciracelle could use it on…well, you. Santerre confiscated it and must’ve stuffed it in here.” He shrugged with a wince, slipping it onto his wrist. “More importantly, it’s not a training bracer. It has absolutely zero restrictions built into its design.”
“Joht, I’m so happy for you. Now help me find the controls!” Iriscent howled from the rear living compartment.
Joht shambled across the room, but stopped just behind Salla and Rainne. He stared through the open door, his pale, bloodied face slack. After a single deep sigh of resignation, he walked through the open doorway and into the hall.
Iriscent noticed his absence almost immediately. “Get back here! Where are you going?”
But Salla knew. He was right in front of the doorway, watching as Joht took a few weak steps down Adjutu’s Path and planted his feet. Beyond the swaying, ashen-faced Majdi, he could see the dark, monstrous shape of Lochmore encroaching steadily closer. For brief moments at a time, his terrible, myriad-limbed body became awash in splashes of sickly yellow illumination as it passed beneath each overhead light. Each time it fell into shadow and slithered beneath the next light, it seemed to double in size.
Salla started to his feet. “I have to help him.”
Joht swung a heavy-lidded glance over his shoulder. “Stay in there. Help Iriscent find the controls and unlock this junk pile of a place.”
“Fighting that thing is not a good idea, Joht,” Salla said with a shake of his head.
“They say an archsentinel holds no mercy for his enemies in his heart, nor does he ask for mercy. Looks like I’ll never know for sure.” He faced the approaching abomination, a pair of oval-shaped lenses on the bracer flaring an incandescent blue. “This is for Ciracelle, you ugly bundle of worms.”
Salla scrambled to his feet, dashing to the shelving unit Joht had been heading toward. He dumped everything off the shelves, and when he saw nothing behind the old books and stacks of paper, he tore it from the wall. Nothing. Then, the sound of a heavy clunk and something falling spun him about.