by Chad Queen
Cade leapt from the carriage as it crashed into the blockade at full speed, sending a shower of twisted wood and debris across the entire street. Cade’s gunmetal skin reflected the warm glow of the street lamps as a rain of focus-fired bullets bounced off him.
He approached the man at the front of the group when he heard a deafening explosion erupt from behind him. Wheeling around, he turned to see a building erupt into a maelstrom of fire. Though he could not see the building, he already knew which one it was.
The rendezvous.
He dropped to his knees as he watched the flames consume the remains of the building. Bullets continued to ricochet off him as they waited for his phantom to tire out.
Carlon’s voice once again echoed in his mind: You will fail them.
Cade, we need to keep moving, said Eos.
He stood and turned, eyes blazing with anger.
He leapt at the closest Interceptor as the man scrambled to reload his sidearm. Cade hooked him with an assisted punch, shattering the man’s skull.
Cade.
An officer tried to approach him from behind, so Cade kicked back, snapping the man’s leg and sending him to the ground before smashing the man’s ribcage under his boot.
Cade!
Cade spun around and wheeled his fist at the next attacker. His fist glanced off the man’s face, which had turned a dark silver.
This made him even angrier. He launched himself at the man, flaring lead and pinning him under his crushing weight. He encoded with diamond and proceed to hammer him with a flurry of powerful blows. The man’s skin became darker as he tried to encode more deeply, until his panic got the best of him. The man had overencoded, his face a permanent mask of terror.
Cade rose, scanning for his next target.
The world around him shattered, transporting him back to the plain. Eos pulsed red before him.
“Take me back,” Cade growled under gritted teeth.
“Your friends may be gone, but you can make sure their sacrifice was not wasted.”
Cade lunged at Eos, but he succeeded only in dissipating the apparition.
“Pick someone else,” he whispered.
“There is no time. It must be you.”
He sighed, his senses returning. He blinked and was on the street, as if not a moment had passed. He encoded to aluminum and bounded away into an alley as the Interceptors regrouped.
Where are we headed? he thought as he afforded one last glance at the flaming wreckage down the road.
The Thread, said Eos.
30
No Man
Brought in another wacko—sorry—“individual” raving on the streets and such about the Firmere. Says he just blacked out and was standing on some sort of plain of darkness. Went on and on about these moving points of light. A lot of people come in here saying they saw the Firmere. The thing that I always find interesting is that a lot of the stories are the same.
—From Toltaire Security Force Report, Sgt. Bront Cogmire
EonTas was one of the first casters forged and as such was almost entirely handmade. The key to its effectiveness is—
You will fail them. Carlon’s prophecy had come true.
Cade, I need you to pay attention, said Eos, interrupting him.
Cade sat on the train as it sailed north, his head buried in his hands. He kept Eos in its sheath, which he hid beneath his jacket to hide its subtle glow. Sensing his lack of interest, Eos fell silent. They had only been paired for a handful of hours, but Cade already missed being alone with his thoughts.
He had failed them. He never should have allowed them to split up. He could have protected them.
A tight cluster of worn buildings came into view. The “Old City” was what the affluent called the slums of Toltaire. Peppered between the ramshackle houses stood a handful of gleaming metal behemoths, permanent vestiges of the Ancients.
The buildings were a boon to those who could not afford their own housing. They were towering structures, some able to house hundreds of families. When the Wraiths activated the Thread, the buildings began regulating their own temperatures, which helped keep the inhabitants alive during the colder winters.
The aristocracy had long ago relinquished the Old City to the working class, opting for the newer and better-maintained buildings of the city outside the castle.
Cade stepped off the train, careful to keep his head down as the people filed out of the car. You’ll want to travel due east fifty yards and take a left from there, Eos instructed.
Cade nodded and then thought better of it. Eos couldn’t see his reaction…or could she? It was probably better not to make too many assumptions.
Can you see me? Cade practiced talking to Eos using his thoughts. He had addressed her a few times out loud on the train, which garnered him a host of suspicious stares from the passengers.
It depends on your definition. I have sensors that monitor you. I know your heart rate, where you are looking, what you are thinking, and even what you last ate. As far as actually seeing you, if you pass in front of any camera emplacements that are still active, I can see your physical form as you see it, yes.
Sorry I asked, he thought. Cade still had much to learn from Eos, but time was not on their side. Once an enchanting bauble for nobles to squabble over, it was now their last hope against the Wraiths. What other secrets lay within this faux sword?
Cade pushed those thoughts aside. Their mission was clear: deactivate the Thread using any means necessary.
I am still not clear why we must attack the Thread, he thought.
It’s hard to explain. The technology present there…it is not their own. It is what is allowing them to collect the phantoms.
But there is a missile the Foundation has built, he thought to Eos. We can help them take out the Thread.
You underestimate the Wraiths. The Wraith’s movements are increasing, and any large transports to the Thread would be obliterated from orbit.
Cade sighed. He knew the Thread would be well-guarded; getting in was not going to be easy. They would need more firepower. That meant caster shells, but those were in limited supply.
Take a right down this alleyway, look for this symbol, said Eos.
A symbol flashed in his mind. “Got it.” He cursed at himself, having said that last bit out loud.
Ancient text was rare to see, the Book of the Traveler being the largest known source of it. But there remained buildings that used the script to designate purpose. The script Eos now shared with him called out hidden military caches with equipment to fight the Wraiths. They soon found the symbol they were looking for, a small black triple chevron about two inches across. It was so worn and faded that Cade would have mistaken it for graffiti had he not known what he was looking for.
What are we supposed to do with it? I don’t see any entrance, he thought.
I’m unlocking it now, said Eos. After she spoke, Cade stumbled as the ground underneath him started to move. He stepped off what appeared to be a metal porthole, just large enough for a man. It slid out of sight, revealing a narrow ladder that led down below, and a light flickered on illuminating the way.
Move. We won’t have much time inside, Eos warned.
Why not?
Power in this area is routed from the Thread. The Wraiths will be able to detect that we have activated it. They will send proxies to investigate.
Proxies? Cade thought.
Skex. Pockets of them are installed in each city so they can be remotely activated and controlled.
Remotely controlled? Eos offered no reply as Cade made his way below using the ladder secured to the side of the tunnel. Once he cleared the entrance, the opening slid back into place and sealed them inside.
He followed the passageway to a large clearing. It was clean, immaculate even, considering how long it must have been sealed off from the world. Hundreds of shelves were lined up, two by two, filled with round metal canisters.
Take a canister from row one. I would
recommend also taking a canister from row 82, for EonCull.
Cade scratched his chin. “EonCull?” You mean one of the casters, right? Is that what the Ancients named it?
Correct. EonCull is the larger of your two casters, as we previously reviewed. It is a shotcaster. Though it can fire standard caster shells, specialized ammunition can make it effective in short-range crowd control.
Cade walked over to the first row and opened a canister. Packed inside were more caster shells than he had ever seen in one place. Hundreds of them. A single caster shell had enormous worth, and here they had found a room filled with them.
Cade shook his head and started to speak aloud. “How is this possible? Each one of these have been imprinted by someone?”
Imprinted?
“Imprinting is what we call it when a person passes and imprints their Song upon an object. Imprinting forged bullets is how we make caster shells.”
Ah, I see. There are other ways to make a caster shell, however, said Eos.
Cade remembered the strange shell casing he had found in Barnage. He began loading the shells from the canister into a brown leather rucksack.
To understand how caster shells work, it is imperative you understand how casters work. Casters are mechanically simple.
“How so?” he accidentally said aloud.
In the Veris, the physical plane you now inhabit, a caster has no mechanisms or processors. It is, for all intents and purposes, a chunk of metal.
That much Cade already knew. No scientist had been able to find out what made casters special, despite years of research. Copies were attempted, even still. The intricate etchings were also studied and painstakingly replicated, in case they played a role. Despite all these efforts, all Chalician-forged casters were nothing more than intricate paperweights.
Cade noticed another symbol at the far end of the underground cache and began making his way toward it to get a better look.
The truth of the caster lies within the Firmere, Eos continued.
Cade nodded, remembering the light of his casters when he had seen them in the Firmere.
As advanced as those who created me were, the Firmere was not always accessible to them. Not until the Traveler showed us the way.
He stopped loading the backpack. Who was the Traveler? he asked.
That is classified. I can tell you that the Traveler taught them how to use Rynthium, not as a fuel source, but as a way to manipulate the Firmere itself. Through his teaching, they bonded the technology of the Veris with the Firmere.
Cade hurried his way to the row with the shotcaster shells. “Why were casters needed?”
To kill Wraiths.
“So the casters were designed solely to kill the Wraiths,” he said. He had figured as much.
Yes, though they can be lethal to other beings. The shells, like the casters, have a counterpart forged in the Firmere. It is a machine designed to destroy entities within the Firmere.
Cade nodded, though he had even more questions.
Looking up, he noticed a symbol at the end of the warehouse. It was a circle, with three dots equidistant from each other in the center.
“Eos, what is this symbol?”
I do not have clearance to divulge that with my current security level. A pause. I am detecting Skex that are en route We must leave immediately.
She didn’t have to tell him twice. Cade rushed to the ladder and pulled himself out of the opened hatch. He was happy to be out. Even in the sizable warehouse, being underground with no natural light made him claustrophobic.
As they turned the corner out of the alleyway, Cade overheard the irregular scraping march of Skex nearby. He ran down the alley, careful not to make any more noise than necessary.
With Eos navigating, he retraced his steps to the railway station. All the railbuses operating out of Toltaire steered clear of the Thread, as part of the Accord. Fortunately, there was one railbus that still took the northern route, close to the Thread.
It was, however, no ordinary railbus. When the Wraiths turned on the Thread, all the railbuses the Ancients had built powered up and could be run by an operator. But one third-generation train, which earned itself the name No Man, ran entirely autonomously, never stopping at any of the stations in Chalice.
Can’t you stop the railbus? he asked.
Even if I could, it would arouse suspicion. It will be arriving on platform two, said Eos.
Cade cursed under his breath, wringing his hands as he walked up to the platform. He positioned himself near the track, trying to appear nonchalant. He failed at that as the other passengers looked at him.
So much for trying to keep a low profile, he thought. It couldn’t be helped. This was the only railbus to the Thread not controlled by the Wraiths, and it was by far the fastest way to travel.
He saw it as it crested the hill. The No Man hurtled toward the station at maximum speed and the cars began to flash by him one after another.
Cade inhaled deeply, counting the cars as they passed. Twenty…twenty-one…twenty-two…
Now, instructed Eos.
He encoded to the railing on the last train car as it sped past. The encoding held, and Cade glided through the air to the car itself. Just as he had a hand on the rail, the phantom gave out. Encoding to anything you weren’t already touching would exhaust a phantom quickly.
Cade anticipated this and had already prepared a second encoding with his remaining phantom. He caught the edge of the railing, and his body slammed into the rear of the car. He felt his foot brush the ground, kicking up the gravel between the tracks, and he pulled up before it could catch on anything. Using the last bit of energy from his phantom, he was able to hoist himself up and onto the car’s platform.
He dusted himself off and couldn’t help but turn around to see people at the station pointing and talking with the other travelers.
News of his hitchhiking would surely get to the wrong people. They would have to move fast.
31
The Baker
‘Arti-hacking’ is now coming into its own, helping revolutionize industries within Chalice. With the power supplied by the Wraiths through the Thread, arti-hackers take artifacts and adapt them to work within existing industries, from metalworking to even food preparation.
—From The Toltaire Times
Ashlyn covered her mouth and nose with a scrap of clothing and tried to squint through the dark smoke that now poured through the thick lead door Jace had opened.
Jace turned to her and Elon. “It worked! Taking the combustion generator outside of the reaction chamber does create a compounded explosion!”
The chamber was small, but it had been big enough to hold all three of them. It happened to also be strong enough to shield against the blast from the Ancient device Jace had rigged.
Elon wasted no time. “Let’s move. There will be more.”
They pushed through the bits of charred wreckage. The superstructure of the building burned bright, making the remains of the interior unbearably hot.
A beam cracked overhead and hurtled toward them. “Watch out!” Jace screamed. Ashlyn could see it was going to hit Elon. She dashed forward, but she knew she could not cover the distance in time. “No!” Ashlyn screamed, horrified.
Through the smoke, Ashlyn continued forward, clawing through the wreckage. “No…no…” she said, not accepting what had just happened. She pulled back a scrap of sheet metal and gasped.
Standing tall, arms holding back the massive steel beam, was Elon. The young woman was straining, and Ashlyn could just make out the unmistakable color of dark silver upon her skin. “A little…help?” was all Elon said.
Ashlyn encoded to diamond and shoved the great beam off to the side. Elon collapsed back onto her chair, out of breath. Ashlyn stared at her sister, not knowing what to say.
Jace broke the silence. “Sorry to interrupt, princesses, but we have to move!”
They exited through the service bay of the lower level, which dep
osited them in the back alley of the factory as the massive smokestack toppled over, crushing the remains of the building.
They escaped through the backstreets of Toltaire, trying to put as much distance as they could between them and the smoldering factory. They ducked into an alleyway untouched by the light of the streetlamps. Ashlyn and Jace sat and tried to catch their breath. She looked at Elon again.
Elon sighed, not meeting her eyes. “When Mother died, Father got worse, if you can imagine that. He was never good to begin with. I don’t think he was meant to lead, despite what he thinks. I could see the pressure on him, the persistent burden that wore on him every moment of the day. I believe it changed him somehow, broke his mind. His insistence on me being a boy was evidence of that. He needed someone to share his burden, someone who could free him. He made me into what he needed. But by the time I could help him, he was too far gone. He still managed to show tenderness at times. But once Mother was gone, so was he.”
Ashlyn could see Elon fighting to hold back tears. “How…?”
“I felt Father’s burden, the one he was forcing upon me. Without Mother, I feared I would become just like him. Despite Father’s growing madness, Mother was always strong. You remember, don’t you? I wanted to be strong, like her. I started reading books about phantoms.”
Ashlyn’s eyes grew even wider. “Mother?”
Elon looked at Ashlyn, expression somber, and nodded. “I’ve been bearing mother’s phantom for a few months now. I practiced in my room, in secret, because it was the only place I could do it and not be seen. With her phantom…I can walk.” She held up her hand, and Ashlyn noticed for the first time her sister wore more rings than would be considered fashionable in Toltaire. She had been blind not to notice.