Blaze of Embers

by Cam Baity

  A figure came rushing at them across the wide platform.

  Orei charged—Goodwin, Dollop, and the kids backpedaled.

  “Halt!”

  Phoebe recognized the Ona’s voice at once. It rang clear and pure, unnaturally amplified. The swirling planes of Orei’s body locked into place and brought her charge to an abrupt stop. Behind the kailiak, standing at the railing of the makeshift platform that faced Albright City, was the Ona, golden fins swirling like silk in the wind.

  “Come.” Her eerie voice resounded.

  Phoebe steadied herself and led the way. Micah hurried along beside her with Goodwin limping and leaning on his shoulder, Dollop and Orei following behind. As they approached, the atmosphere shifted in liquid patches, an indication that the warriors of the Aegis were here as well, though it was impossible to tell how many.

  The Ona turned to face them, beautiful and terrible, a golden angel swathed in veils that swelled and snapped in the ocean breeze. Gone was her molting serpent skin. The Ona’s flesh was now of the purest gold, so lustrous that it seemed to glow, seamlessly blending in with the regal mask of her Bearing.

  “You have failed Her, Overguard,” the Ona stated.

  Orei strode past Phoebe and the others, her rings in a whirl.

  “But, Prophet, I—” the kailiak started.

  “The Everseer is not interested in your excuses.”

  Orei’s apparatus slowed, and she bowed low in disgrace.

  “The Mother of Ore does not condemn failure,” the Ona continued calmly. “She does, however, punish Her Children when they deign to deceive Her.”

  Hands materialized, lunging out from the confines of camouflaged cloaks. Aegis warriors grabbed Orei and held her fast.

  “You will be dealt with accordingly,” the Ona said with a dismissive wave before drifting toward Phoebe, who struggled to keep from averting her eyes. “And you. Defiler. It appears that you have cheated rust yet again.”

  The harmonic tones of the Ona’s voice dropped an octave.

  “Are you prepared to face Her judgment?”

  Every boulevard downtown and along the coastline was being evacuated. Margaret had witnessed brutal clashes between citizens and police. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper, blaring with a symphony of drivers honking, frantically trying to flee.

  Everyone was terrified, and for good reason.

  In addition to the monster that had decimated Foundry Central, the combined forces of seven nations of the Quorum now occupied the sea and air with enough firepower to level Albright City. The enemy had arrived in battle formation, but they hadn’t fired a shot or acknowledged demands to withdraw. The Quorum hadn’t even issued a message to Meridian. They were just sitting there, watching the otherworldly invasion unfold. Waiting to see the capital go up in flames so they could finish the job.

  In a panicked mass, the frightened citizens had flocked to Paragon Park, where the expansive green lawns were packed shoulder to shoulder. Gathered at the heart of the gardens, set up around the enormous chrome statue of Creighton Albright, were all the major Televiewer networks. They had installed huge monitors to keep the anxious populace informed, and the crowds huddled in the light of the broadcasts, desperate for any information or a sliver of hope. The media outlets handed out free blankets and hot beverages, every mug and comforter emblazoned with the Foundry’s golden logo.

  How bizarre, Margaret thought, to see her employer’s optimistic logo embracing the frightened citizens and warming their bellies, despite the fact that Foundry Central was a smoking memory. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised. Faith in the Foundry’s vision of the future had always united Meridian, and in this terrifying moment, everyone was clinging to whatever warmth and comfort remained in it.

  A hard gust of wind ripped through the crowd as a news Aero-copter landed on a cleared patch of lawn nearby. Margaret watched as the crew leapt out of the aircraft and consulted with a team of their superiors.

  People quieted down, their attention focused on the giant Televiewers displaying Omnicam drone footage. There, standing atop the Crest of Dawn construction site, was that eerie golden figure that the cameras couldn’t get enough of, with the unfathomable monster looming behind it. But now there was another group of figures gathered on the soaring Crest’s balcony, and they seemed to be speaking with the golden one. The drone got as close as it dared, its lens zooming in.

  The crowd gasped. There were people up there. A man and two children.

  It couldn’t be….

  Margaret was paralyzed. Disbelief wrestled with fear. There was nothing she could do. She looked around desperately for something, anything.

  Wind from the Aero-copter rotors tossed her hair.

  It was madness. It was her only choice.

  She went for it.

  The news crew looked up from their emergency conference.

  “Hey! What the hell are you doing?!” cried the pilot as he realized that someone was in the cockpit of his Aero-copter. The crew ran toward it, screaming, alerting the police nearby. But before they could reach the aircraft, its rotor flared and the Aero-copter swept into the air with a blast of wind.

  Margaret steered toward Foundry Central.

  To save her brother.

  The Aegis made Mr. Pynch’s quills stand on end. He could nozzle them out with relative ease but didn’t much care for their shifty invisibility. He also didn’t much care for the prying eyes of the zealous horde. Mr. Pynch had seen the look they gave Fritz, and it didn’t bode well. But most importantly, he didn’t much care for Miss Phoebe, Master Micah, and Dollop headed to almost certain misfortune alone. That Goodwin bleeder, on the other hand, was more than welcome to meet the rust.

  Blinky-blinkery-flash?

  “Of course we not be permitting them to just scarper off,” the balvoor muttered, as if the mere suggestion were absurd.

  As nonchalantly as he could, Mr. Pynch meandered away from the Aegis and the reveling mehkans to lead his two companions behind some construction equipment. Once they were out of sight, the trio made a break for it, dashing off, circling around the outside of the massive support column. Mr. Pynch was determined to find a vantage point from which they could see what was happening up there.

  They squatted behind the smashed remains of vehicles that had once been lined up in neat rows, but were now accordioned together in a blackened bundle. The three of them peeked out from behind the column, with the pungent, crashing ocean on their left and the gargantuan arch high above them to the right.

  “Can you observate anything from hereabouts?” Mr. Pynch asked his partner. The Marquis placed a few diopters over his opticle and focused on the towering platform.

  Flickety-flicky-flash.

  Mr. Pynch cursed under his breath. Even if they did manage to spot Dollop and the kids from down here, he knew it wouldn’t be enough to ease his dome—not until they were safely back on the ground and out of harm’s way. After all, they were his best…investments. Yes, precisely—that’s why he was so anxious about their well-being.

  Mr. Pynch and his two cohorts scuttled around the wide bases of abandoned Over-cranes that stretched up into the night sky. He spotted the twisted bones of what might have once been a guard tower and led them to it.

  “Here, a prospect for better scrutinating,” Mr. Pynch said to the Marquis, pointing to the ravaged spire. “Escalate and opticalize, posthaste.”

  But the lumie put his hands on his hips and flickered back an irritated message.

  “Oh sure, now be a spectaculous opportunity for you to bemoan!” Mr. Pynch shot back. “If I had me a peeper of your rarified varietal, you can be guarantured that I—”

  The Marquis shut him up with another indignant strobe and looked back at the construction site. His stare lingered.

  “Don’t you curtail me entirely justified counter-quarrel!” He shook his fist in a blustery display of anger. Fritz stepped in front of Mr. Pynch and offered to bump the balvoor’s mitt just as Micah had ta
ught him.

  “Begone, ya derangered, besparkling heap o’—”

  The Marquis grabbed Mr. Pynch by the lapel, shoved one of his diopters in the balvoor’s face, and pointed.

  “What?!” Mr. Pynch barked. “I can’t espy a solitary mudging thing from down here.”

  Agitated, the Marquis elbowed him and pointed again. Not to the platform above, but off to the outside of the column. Now Mr. Pynch saw it—a distorted, climbing silhouette that dissolved into the shadows. Whatever the figure was, it was moving with purpose toward the top. Toward the kids.

  Blickety-blink-blonk?

  “I did indeed,” Mr. Pynch murmured. “And I don’t much care for the look of it.”

  Phoebe stared into the Ona’s pale, marbled eyes, trying to avoid the mesmeric glare of Makina’s light. Gathering strength from Micah and Dollop, Phoebe found her voice.

  “We didn’t have to come here,” she began. “We could have hidden from you, from all of this. But we chose to come. For my people and for your people too. For peace.”

  “I wish it could be so, child,” the Ona lamented, sounding surprisingly sincere. “But peace is the fruit of wisdom and compassion. You cannot expect to reap its bounty without the tending and the labor.”

  “You don’t know us,” Phoebe pleaded. “Humans aren’t perfect, but most of us are good. We care for each other—we try to at least.”

  “You care for yourselves alone,” the Ona said sadly. “When Albright first led your kind into Mehk, we embraced you. You were treated like brethren. We could have learned so much from one another. We would have shared with you Her Way.” The prophet’s tone turned hard. “But Albright was the Great Deceiver. He betrayed us, took us by surprise, and infected Her sacred machine with his CHAR. And now the Mother has returned to exact Her vengeance upon you.”

  “We can learn to be better,” Phoebe replied, “if you would only give us a chance.”

  “There can be no peace between us so long as the Foundry remains,” the Ona said.

  “The leaders of the Foundry are dead,” Micah announced.

  The Ona turned her potent gaze to him but said nothing.

  Phoebe pulled her collar open to display her shining seed.

  “Because of this,” she said. “This thing that gave me life. This thing that you told Orei to kill me for.” Phoebe saw the Overguard, still in the custody of the Aegis, flinch at her words. “This is what killed the leaders of the Foundry.” She felt the tendrils flex beneath her skin. “No…” she said softly, reconsidering her words. “I killed them.”

  The prophet turned to look into Makina’s amorphous golden eyes and stood for a moment in silent contemplation.

  “Her gears turn in mysterious ways,” said the Ona.

  “I didn’t ask to be brought back,” Phoebe insisted, voice breaking but eyes dry. “It was a gift, given to me by…by someone who loves me.”

  She looked at Micah, who swallowed and nodded.

  “When you named me Loaii,” Phoebe told the Ona, “I was convinced it was my destiny. But we both know that was a lie.”

  Phoebe lightly touched the prophet’s swimming veils. Two Aegis warriors swept forward, but the Ona halted them with a wave of her hand.

  “I was given another chance. Not to fulfill some destiny, not for any grand purpose.” Phoebe’s voice grew stronger. “My purpose is mine to choose, and I choose peace.”

  “You are wrong, child. Lost and cursed,” the Ona said sadly and grazed Phoebe’s cheek with feathery fingers.

  “Maybe,” Phoebe admitted. “The leaders of the Foundry died because of me. So maybe I am cursed….But I’m not evil.”

  “But the Board is gone all the same,” declared Goodwin, limping forward. The Ona shifted ever so slightly, her expressionless face tilting to assess him.

  “I know of you,” the prophet said, her tone dropping low.

  “I am James Goodwin, Chairman of the Foundry. And with the passing of the Board, I am its sole authority.”

  The Ona’s hands stretched out, four palms upturned.

  “And are you prepared to face Her judgment as well?”

  Goodwin showed no fear. “I am. But I have also come to beseech you, the leader of a liberated Mehk. The Board was guilty of crimes in both your world and ours. We have all suffered by their hand. I seek to end that suffering.”

  “You share our plight, do you?” the Ona scoffed.

  “No. We merely suffer by the same hand.”

  “And that’s why we’re here,” said Phoebe.

  “To make things right,” Micah added.

  The Ona folded her four hands in contemplative prayer. Her fins and veils swayed elegantly as she drifted to the side of the platform to face the Great Engineer.

  “I am the last of my kind,” she mused. “Epochs ago, we were admired for our vast knowledge, accumulated over the course of our infinite spans—a perpetual life cycle of dormancy and rebirth.”

  Phoebe watched as a mote of dead skin floated off the Ona like a golden snowflake and realized that was what they had been witnessing all along—the prophet was molting, shedding her ancient skin to emerge young once more. She must have done it throughout time, over and over and over again.

  “That was why we were feared by some—even despised,” the Ona continued. “There was a great slaughter. All of my kindred were exterminated. I alone was spared.”

  “By Ma-Makina.” It was Dollop who spoke, his voice frail in the night air.

  “Yes, little one. That was my destiny,” replied the Ona with a hard glance at Phoebe. “I ascended to the kingdom of Her Forge, and She spoke unto me. The Mother of Ore desired to unite Her Children and end the cruelty between them—cruelty which I knew all too well. That is why I was chosen. So the Great Engineer revealed to me the light of Her Way. She bestowed upon me a vital function—that I should be Her prophet and most devoted servant to help spread Her shining wisdom. And to aid me in my duty, She granted me divine protection from the petty weapons of Her enemies.”

  Phoebe’s face flickered with confusion. Could it be? Could that be how the Ona survived the CHAR attack on Emberhome?

  “And through the grace of Her Occulyth, I was able to commune with Makina and serve Her as She delivered salvation unto Mehk.” The prophet seemed to rise along with her voice, growing taller as her speech gathered power. “In righteous judgment did She return unto Her creation, formed from Her very own heart of Ore, with me by Her side. To Her Children did She give the Way. Those that embraced their Mother interlocked in harmony. Those that did not were purged.”

  The Ona turned to face Phoebe, more radiant than before. More terrible.

  “The Great Engineer cleansed the evil from Mehk,” spoke the prophet. “As She will do unto your world.”

  “Please, no,” Phoebe said.

  “It doesn’t have to be like that!” Micah protested.

  “The Foundry is guilty. I am guilty!” Goodwin argued, his ice-blue eyes flashing. “But our people are innocent.”

  “Yet for your sins,” said the Ona, “they shall be punished.”

  “O M-Makina, Divine Dynamo, Tender of—of the Forge.” Dollop recited the prayer, stepping slowly toward his creator.

  The prophet considered him.

  “Thou art the—the Everseer, our Mother of Ore. We that seek to find our f-function in Thy infinite and infallible plan shall through the W-W-Way become vital compo-ponents in Your sacred machine. As Th-Thy faithful creations, we praise Thee and bes-s-seech Thee to help us build interlocking unity in—in Your name, O Great Engineer, to cr-cr-create peace on Mehk and in the Shroud hereafter.”

  “Praise be Her name,” the Ona replied.

  “Wh-what the Foundry did was wrong,” Dollop said in a measured tone. “But wh-what you are doing is wrong too.”

  The Ona glided toward him, stooping to bring her face close to his.

  “I am but a vessel for Her commands, little one. Do you question Her wisdom?”

  “No, b
ut the—the B-Bond says it all,” proclaimed Dollop. “As Her Ch-Children, it’s our function to interl-l-lock with all of Her creation, to repair, to live and love as one.” Dollop fell to his knees. “Th-the Way is quite clear on this matter!”

  “Please,” Phoebe begged. “You can save us. You can bring peace. Help us make Makina understand.”

  The Ona’s entrancing eyes were kind again. She rose to her full height.

  “Peace is the fruit of wisdom and compassion,” spoke the prophet. “That which humanity shall never taste.”

  In a flash of gold, the Ona’s arms shot up into the air. A wave of blistering heat washed over them. It came from Makina, Her white-hot light growing even brighter. The molten golden pools of the Great Engineer’s eyes sizzled. Boiled.

  Phoebe and the others were blown back.

  The hurricane of god rolled forth.

  Mr. Pynch and the Marquis, along with every mehkan at Foundry Central, stood in rapt awe of Makina. They knew that this was history in the making, an unprecedented display of the power of Mehk. Future generations would hear of this moment and ask in disbelief if the tales were true. This cycle would become legend, turned to scripture, like the punishment delivered unto the ancient barbarians of Bhorquvaat.

  The Great Engineer’s clouds swirled, the purity of Her white form darkening into shadowed, ominous patches of violent storm. White fire rippled through Her body, a silent slash of brilliance that commanded attention. She powered forth with fearsome grace, enveloping the Crest. For several seconds, it was a total erasure, as if the soaring structure had been blotted from existence. Then Makina passed through it like a ghost, leaving the mighty arch unscathed.

  The god of Mehk rose into the air, a seething vortex of holy might. The cables of the suspension bridge sang as She swept to the side, heading straight for Albright City. As Makina hovered above the open bay, the flame within Her focused and intensified, brighter than any could bear to look at, the furious blaze of an erupting galaxy.