Swanson was the one I decided to tell about the Word of Shaping, since he would no doubt be a better messenger to the City Council than I would be. He’d just brought me back from the gym to my room for the night, handed me my evening dose of pills, and was waiting around in the center of my small room to make sure I took them. Pills had been an upgrade from injections, since they flattened my mood just the same minus the needles, but no one trusted me with a bottle’s worth yet.
“So here’s something interesting,” I said, tossing the pills in my mouth. I took the plastic cup of water from him and swallowed before continuing. “Drey’s last words—well, not quite his last, but from when we were in Beijing—might give us a lead on Khaya.”
I didn’t miss the wince that flickered across Swanson’s face even though he tried to mask it. Drey had been his friend, or at least someone he’d once placed a lot of trust in, and so he was getting over my surrogate father’s death far more slowly than I was. Rather, I’d gotten over it almost instantly with the help of the drugs, and Swanson didn’t like discussing it at all, especially not casually.
“How so?” he asked.
Ignoring his reaction, I chucked my empty cup into the trash and sat down on my bed to yank off my gym sneakers. Pie took a break from her chew-toy in the corner to come try to scale the side of the bed. I lifted her up with me.
“When he killed Jiang,” I went on, “I was pissed because I thought my one chance to find Khaya was gone. But Drey said Cruithear knew a way to get a message to her, since Cruithear was in on Khaya’s escape plan.”
Swanson looked genuinely surprised. “She was? We questioned her, and she claimed to have no knowledge of it beforehand.”
I used my good arm—my other shoulder was better, but still healing—to play-fight with Pie as I spoke. “Of course she would tell you that. You people put a monitor in her brain, so I don’t blame her for not wanting to share much with you. Anyway, in Beijing, Drey said she could tell me how to contact Khaya, if the opportunity ever arose for me to talk to her or escape—actually escape. Don’t ask me how he knew this, because I don’t know. But he was obviously assuming I wouldn’t tell you, which is why I think it might be true.” I shrugged. “Then again, he was also probably assuming that the opportunity wouldn’t ever arise. He might have just been trying to make me feel better.”
A lie often sounded more believable seasoned with a little doubt, somehow.
Swanson’s expression turned considering … and then uneasy. “A conversation like this would require you to be alone with Cruithear.”
I nodded as if this were no big deal and scratched Pie’s tummy when she rolled over. It certainly didn’t feel like a big deal to me. “And it would require proof that no one can hear us, along with a convincing cover story, because she probably won’t tell me anything about Khaya if she thinks I’m going to turn around and get her captured.”
Swanson was pinching his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger—a habit I’d noticed he had when he was lost in thought. “You realize the City Council will suspect you of wanting to kill Cruithear, which would not only destroy decades of crucial planning, but also the last Word of Power.”
It would definitely be a huge loss. With Movement, Naming, and Time gone, the Words of Power were nigh extinct. Only the Tangible and Intangible Words would be left—still too many in the hands of the Godspeakers, in my opinion.
I rolled my eyes, and Pie yapped as if backing me up. “That’s why you would take all necessary precautions so I couldn’t get at her: restraints, a full Necron suit and gloves I can’t get off, etcetera.”
“And what would your cover story be, to present to Cruithear as a valid reason for being in her presence before you ‘betray’ us? As you say, she needs to think we didn’t send you.”
“I could say this was one of my conditions before I started cooperating with you guys—to be able to ask her for something of personal significance to me, like a sculpture of Drey or stories about Khaya’s childhood, whatever.” I waved my hand in dismissal and Pie leapt up from the blankets to try to tackle it. I caught her shoulders and tackled her instead. For a few seconds, I used both hands to tickle her, and then turned back to Swanson. “The point is, I supposedly don’t want to tell the City Council what it is, because I want privacy when I ask. I’ll tell her that’s what I told you, anyway. And then when we have some sort of proof that we’re not being listened to, I’ll ask her how to contact Khaya.”
In actuality, my fake lie was the truth. I would be asking Cruithear something I didn’t want the City Council to know about. There was no telling if she would grant my request, and I had no foreseeable way of taking it by force, but it was the only chance I had. She had to see reason.
She had to die.
Swanson rubbed his forehead. “I think I have a way to keep you two from being overheard, one that Cruithear will trust. I’ll let you know ahead of time once it’s finalized. But as far as everything else, I don’t know. In the past I would have been able to arrange this myself, but now my influence is limited. My role in the automaton project has downgraded from … well, leading it, to indefinite suspension.”
“You trust me, right … Eli?” I said hesitantly. “Can I call you Eli?”
He nodded. “Of course you can.” The touched expression looked foreign on his face.
I smiled. “Hell, Luft does, so I figure I can. Anyway, Eli, I only want things to get better for you. And if we can find Khaya … well, some of our past mistakes might be forgiven, right?”
I didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about manipulating him emotionally, mostly because I was incapable of feeling much remorse. Besides, after everything he’d done to me, this was nothing.
He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I’ll do my best to convince the City Council.”
“Thanks,” I said, then rolled back on the bed to full-body wrestle with Pie. She was already pouncing on my chest and licking my face half off before the door closed and re-bolted behind Swanson.
He definitely did his best to get the Council’s attention, because he brought word from them before noon the next day.
They would let me see her. But I’d have to go to her work area, because she didn’t often leave. She wasn’t allowed to, rather, and her rooms deep under the hospital were equipped to emit some kind of electrical impulse that would trigger the monitor in her brain and knock her out if she tried. It was the only reliable way to hold her.
For me, they went beyond restraints and a Necron suit, giving me a death-proof straitjacket and a stiff face mask so I couldn’t even resort to biting, like I’d tried with Ryse. There was literally no part of my skin that was exposed once Swanson helped me get it all on. And before he did, he gave me an injection of a mild sedative, which joined the mood-flattening drugs swimming in my system.
“It’ll make you a lot weaker, and tired, but still coherent enough to speak,” he said. “It’s just a precaution.”
I was only wearing a black undershirt and Necron pants at this point, but I held out my arm and let him stick me anyway. I no longer had the IV needle installed and would probably miss my vein if I tried to do it on my own. Once I was all dressed, he had to help me into the straps of the wheelchair, since my arms were securely wrapped around my back and I was a little dizzy.
“I’m going to get so hot in this,” I muttered through the mask as he tightened the belts of the chair around my chest, waist, and ankles. “And I look like a serial killer. I mean, I guess I am, but Cruithear is supposed to want to trust me.”
Pie was watching me warily from the bed. Not even she wanted to get near me in this outfit.
“This was the only way the Council would trust you,” Swanson said, straightening. “And they were more important to win over, since without them you wouldn’t even have the chance to talk to her.”
“Fine, but please tell me yo
u have a way for Cruithear and me to speak privately that they approve of. She has to trust that we’re not being overheard.” So did I, but I didn’t add that.
Swanson moved behind my wheelchair and backed me toward the door. He knocked for it to be opened. “Remember when I first spoke to you at the lake about … about being your father?” He sounded as if he still wasn’t quite used to saying it out loud.
“Ah,” I said, remembering. “Luft’s trick. He made some sort of sound barrier.”
The bolt slid open and the door opened. Sure enough, Luft and Carlin were out in the hallway, along with a whole team of security guards.
“Hey,” I said to Luft through the mask, completely unconcerned about how I looked. “And while you’re here, you can also suffocate me if I get any funny ideas.”
Luft’s blue eyes were sharp as he stared down at me over folded arms. He was shirtless, while I was covered from head to foot. “How are you doing?” he practically demanded. “I’ve been worried about you, and so has Brehan. They wouldn’t let us see you.”
“That’s probably for the best,” I said, nodding down at myself.
“Tavin, I’m so sorry about Drey—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I interrupted. “I’m not.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are they giving you?”
I shrugged, or at least I tried to. “Not sure. I don’t mind, though.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.” He let out an exasperated breath. “I think that’s sort of the point.”
Carlin put a hand on his shoulder, and I noticed the slight squeeze and the emotion in his eyes as he exchanged a glance with Luft. Luft looked angry, but he stepped back and shut his mouth. So that was all his Godspeaker had to do to get him back in line.
Illicit relationships with the Words seemed more effective than the standard kind. Maybe the City Council should have lifted the ban on them long ago. I almost said that out loud before I remembered I was supposed to be on my best behavior.
Swanson began pushing my wheelchair down the hallway and our entourage followed. Some of the security guards moved up to flank us as an escort.
Cruithear’s quarters were actually a lot closer than I thought they’d be. Since I was back in the hospital and stuffed down in some dark corner of its basement, we were practically neighbors in what was, essentially, an underground fortress beneath the Athenaeum’s medical center.
As Swanson pushed me through the white hallways and down one floor in an elevator, I pondered whether I hated hospitals. I was pretty sure I did. I didn’t feel the hatred, precisely, but I figured it was lurking around inside me somewhere.
The floor below mine was built out of solid concrete, without the white walls as even a pretense. It looked like we’d entered a military base. Cruithear’s quarters were sealed off behind steel doors that made the Death Factory’s look tame. The guards positioned themselves in the hallway around the doors while Luft and Carlin stood behind me and Swanson.
“After you take him in, I’ll make the sound barrier,” Luft told Swanson.
Swanson nodded, swiped a keycard, and the doors opened. As he wheeled me into the white-tiled space, he said, “Cruithear, please don’t move beyond the center of the room or toward Tavin at all. If you do, we’ll have to interfere.” He rightly assumed I couldn’t move an inch.
A girl I’d never seen before stood looking at me curiously from across a long steel table in the center of the room. It was similar to the table in the Death Factory but full of all sorts of things, from raw chunks of plastics, metals, and clay to complex gadgets and sculptures. Eerily, there were several human bodies in miniature that almost looked real rather than like dolls. They hadn’t bothered restraining her, since no restraints could hold her—other than the room, I supposed.
“As you know, Tavin wishes to speak with you—
privately,” Swanson emphasized. “You’re safe, and we’ll be right outside in any case.” He set the brake on my chair and headed out the door. It sealed closed behind him.
Before long, I felt the odd change in air pressure, which made my ears pop. I focused on Cruithear then.
She had red hair, long and curly, but woven together in the most intricate pattern I’d ever seen in hair. She must have shaped it. Incredibly green eyes peered out at me from a pale face, so pale it was like she’d never seen the sunlight. And maybe she hadn’t, locked up down here. At some other time, maybe, that would have made me sad. She was a girl Khaya’s age, who’d worked closely with her, and she was as innocent as Khaya was.
But I was here to kill her.
“Cruithear,” I said from behind my mask, “I’m not sure where to begin. But I’m Tavin … Death … and I need to talk to you about something incredibly important.”
She only looked at me.
“They can’t hear us, I can promise you that. Here, let’s test. You think I’m here for some stupid personal request, but that’s not true. I’m actually supposed to ask you how to
contact Khaya, and report what I learn to the Council. That isn’t going to happen either. I’m pretending to lie to them so I can supposedly lie to you, but I’m actually lying to them—anyway, long story short, I have no intention of lying to you or asking where Khaya is. I’m sure you don’t even know, and what I want is for her to be left alone anyway.”
I waited, looking at the door through the eye-holes of my mask. No one came bursting through.
“See?” I said. “I’m pretty sure they’d have had me out of here in no time if they’d heard that.”
Cruithear gazed at me as if I were a mildly difficult puzzle she was piecing together. Her voice was quiet when she finally spoke. “You could have just asked me if Luft’s sound barrier is secure. It is. I can feel the shape of it.”
“Oh.” I tried to shift to a more comfortable position in the chair and failed. “Right.”
“If you’re not here for any of that,” she said, cocking her head, “why are you here?”
I didn’t hesitate or stumble. “You need to let me kill you.”
Her green eyes widened. To her credit, she didn’t start waving her arms at the cameras for help.
“I can’t reach you myself,” I continued, “or else, I’m sorry, I would just kill you. You have to stop this, Cruithear. Your creations—these bodies you shape—are going to devastate the world once they carry the Words. You can’t let that happen.”
Her eyes wandered off to the side, as if she were looking at something next to me that wasn’t there. “The bodies I shape,” she murmured. “I follow the chain. Molecules to cells, cells to organs, organs to bodies, bodies to death, to fly apart, to bleed, to cry … ”
“Cruithear,” I said, trying to get her attention.
She blinked and looked back at me. “Sometimes I shape my memories, so it all runs together and I don’t remember how long I’ve been doing this. But it’s only a superficial change. Part of me still knows.”
She closed her eyes, and part of me wished I could feel bad for her, like the part of her that still remembered underneath all of her memory modification.
“But what can I do to stop it?” she finished quietly.
“You have to let me kill you. That’s the only way. If it was me in your place, I would happily die, but I’m not the important one.” I nodded at her to the extent that I could. “It’s you. These Words shouldn’t be with us anymore. We don’t … people don’t know how to use them. So the only thing we can do is take them away. Mørke, Brehan, and the rest could eventually escape from those who would use us, but you can’t, and you’ll doom everyone else if you don’t let me do this.”
She held my eyes for a long time. The green of them bore into me, and somehow I saw endless gardens taking shape inside of them. Not growing and dying, just … interweaving, forever.
I had no idea what she saw in my eyes, which was about al
l of me she could really see through this black mask. Probably only death. And who would want to agree to that?
But then she said, “I believe you.”
I felt lightheaded. Not happy, or nervous, or terrified that this was finally happening; only the physical effect.
I exhaled. “Good. You have to reach me somehow. If they see you, they’ll try to stop you, but we can think of something.”
“It hurts to shape a body. So many cells stuck together, blood vessels, nerves … ”
“I know. I’m sure it’s terrible to be down here, doing this … ” I tried to improvise some sympathy.
Her voice was less soft, like she knew I was full of shit. “No, I mean to reshape my body.”
“Oh … can you?” I asked with what was nearly hope—and then doubt. “You can reach me from there?” She was a good fifteen feet away, on the other side of the table.
“I can only reshape small or superficial areas or I’ll go into shock … and they’ll know.” She nodded upward, as if at the ceiling. But she probably meant to indicate the monitor in her brain.
“You’ll try, though, right?” I held her eyes so she wouldn’t lose her focus. “You’ll let me do this?”
She squinted at me, more like through me, and I worried she was going to drift off again anyway. “I can feel the shape. To rebuild, the end must be the beginning. Death was last, and now it’s first.”
“I’m … not sure what you mean,” I said, as patiently as I could manage. “I’m sorry, but we need to hurry.”
She put her hands on the table and stared straight ahead. “A God spoke the Word of Naming to create the universe and everything else to come into it thereafter, naming himself Day and naming the God of Night as a balance.”
Gods, she was quoting scripture at me?
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