‘Broken,’ said Round Rob matter-of-factly.
Cormier looked at him.
‘So you decided to fix yourself,’ said Rob brightly.
Cormier gave him a wan smile and continued. ‘The Diviner became a means of bridging the gap between our world and the afterlife. There are lines, you see, fractures in the world that souls can be brought through. I found one of these cracks and I brought my grandson back.’
‘And did he know?’ asked Jack.
Cormier nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘But now he’s forgotten,’ said Estelle.
‘I’d gone to Ironhaven after the war machine experiment – Charles had pressured me into it, and after the disastrous result, I was sick of my own kind. I could only bear to be around Christopher. Hibbert knew he existed, but he let us be. I used to fix mechanicals. They came from all around, discarded and deserted and broken.’ Cormier shook his head and chuckled bitterly. ‘Imagine that. They came to me.’ He swallowed and straightened up. ‘Christopher used to help me and always insisted that we could do more, but I refused to let him work on his own. Always he kept at me, we could do more, he kept saying.’
Cormier lowered his head and closed his eyes.
‘One night he sneaked out. He just wanted to help others. I presume scavengers snatched him. A group of them had already been to the town and stolen some fuel and parts. They must have had an accident with the fuel, because there was an explosion on the road. Egbert and I found them.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘What was left of them. I thought Christopher had been destroyed.’
Jack spoke up. ‘Absalom said he found him in a ditch.’
‘He could have been there for years. Just lying dormant,’ said Estelle.
A ripple of anguish crossed Cormier’s face at the thought of it.
Jack felt sorry for Cormier, but he was still a little angry about all of this. Particularly about Cormier keeping so many secrets. ‘So you had a Diviner and you destroyed it, because you were afraid other people would use it?’
Cormier nodded.
‘But the Agency made their own,’ said Jack.
‘Presumably on the off-chance that some day Article Five might be repealed, and that the military would be permitted to create ensouled machines for fighting any future wars,’ said Cormier.
‘So in the absence of the Diviner, Blake took Christopher in the hope he might help him unlock the secret to Refined Propulsion,’ said Estelle.
‘Your friend Absalom obviously wasn’t discreet enough. Word of Christopher’s accident must have gotten out – you said he was hit by a car? As soon as Blake heard his description he must have known who he was,’ said Cormier.
Nobody said anything for a moment, as they all took everything in.
‘So, when are we escaping?’ asked Rob.
He looked around at their faces and frowned at the gloomy expressions he saw.
‘We are escaping, aren’t we?’ he said.
Cormier sighed again. The effort of talking seemed to have sapped the energy from him and he lay back on his bunk. Estelle gave him a look of contempt, then she turned back to Rob.
‘We are, Rob. Most definitely.’
The next morning they were taken down a grimy tunnel and out beyond the prison walls, into the graveyard.
Blake was waiting for them. Reeves stood behind him, hunched and cowed, looking like a whipped dog. His trembling right hand covered the exposed metal beneath his cheek. In his left hand he held the dormant Diviner.
About a dozen Berserkers encircled the graveyard. Their silver bodies gleamed in the pearly light. Each body was spiked and serrated, a combination of steel muscle, blades and guns.
In contrast, the graveyard was a small, squalid, cramped place with a broken wall. It was filled with lichen, moss and squat grey tombstones that looked like they’d been hammered deep into the earth. The surrounding area doubled as a scrapyard. Metal sheets and piping were littered everywhere. There were various Empties and the heads of dozens of discarded Mutes scattered around.
A raised platform loomed over the site. It was a solid-looking construction built from steel girders. A ten-foot metal spike stabbed upwards into the sky from each of its four corners.
‘Welcome, welcome one and all,’ Blake said, spreading his arms wide.
Cormier shook his head ruefully as he looked at the platform. ‘I see you’ve constructed a power node for amplifying the Diviner’s energy.’
‘It’s the best method for achieving psychonic adhesion of multiple vessels,’ said Blake.
‘I’d like to say I’m impressed, but really I think you’re insane, Richard, truly you are. Is this where you mean to harvest your souls?’
‘Absolutely,’ smiled Blake. ‘Where better than the Crag’s graveyard? A graveyard for the most violent degenerates society has to offer. What type of soul could be more suited to the art of war?’
Estelle looked at the graveyard and the Berserkers with disgust. ‘I don’t understand.’
Cormier turned to her. ‘When it comes to extracting souls, the best place for it is a place of rest. It’s here where the barrier between life and death is at its most permeable.’
Blake smiled, but it was a thin-lipped smile, and he suddenly seemed to be struggling with some dark emotion. ‘It’s at moments like this that I think of my father.’ Tears started to well in his eyes. ‘Sometimes I think if he were here now, if he could see what I’ve accomplished, how proud he’d be,’ he said, his voice cracking momentarily.
Cormier shook his head. ‘There’s still time to stop this, Richard.’
Blake wiped his eyes with his sleeve and chuckled. Jack looked at him, and for one brief moment, despite everything, he seemed almost worthy of pity.
Blake took a deep breath in through his nostrils and tugged at the edges of his waistcoat. He stood as erect as possible. ‘I’m sorry, Philip. It’s too late to go back now.’ His eyes settled on Christopher, and the simmering anger that had momentarily evaporated from them returned. ‘I look at him, Philip, and I think – why was it you who could bring someone back. What made you so special?’
Cormier raised his chin. He had no answer for him.
At his master’s signal, Reeves handed the Diviner to Blake, head bowed. In the early morning light the shining sides of the instrument looked as fragile as tissue paper, as if there was no way such a delicate device could hold so much power.
Jack took the opportunity to edge closer to Christopher. He smiled at him, despite it all.
‘You came for me,’ whispered Christopher, a statement that was almost a sob.
Jack was still smiling. ‘Yes, we did.’
‘Thank you, Jack,’ said Christopher.
‘There’s no need to thank me,’ Jack said. ‘We’d have done it anyway, no matter what.’
Christopher gave a brief smile, then Jack saw his eyes fill with grief as he looked towards Cormier.
‘I don’t remember him,’ said Christopher. ‘I don’t remember any of it.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Jack, ‘it’ll all come back to you.’
Christopher’s eyes lit on Blake. ‘We have to stop him,’ he hissed.
‘We will,’ said Jack, and as he smiled he hoped the confidence he was faking was enough to convince Christopher, if even for just a moment.
‘Stop your yakking,’ growled Dunlop.
After conferring, Blake handed the Diviner to Cormier, who looked at his grandson with pain-filled eyes. Cormier’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed as he closed his eyes and moved his right hand over the Diviner. The instrument started to pulse with light. Blake took the Diviner reverently, and mimicked his movements. As Blake moved his hand over it, new glyphs started to solidify in the light. Blake’s eyes were hungry as he watched them form.
These were different glyphs to the ones they had seen on the Diviner before. They were jagged, ugly symbols and they moved across its surface with an angry restless energy, like ants ready to devour something.
Blake motioned for Cormier to step towards the platform with him. Cormier followed him over, his leather coat billowing behind him in the cold wind. The two men stood under the platform, gazing upwards. Blake held the Diviner in the air, and then let it go. It hovered at eye level and he closed his eyes and mouthed something. The Diviner levitated upwards, rising towards the centre of the platform. Both Cormier and Blake craned their necks as they watched it finally settle and hover a couple of feet above the centre of the platform. Suddenly the Diviner’s light flared sapphire blue. Four tendrils of blue lightning exploded outwards from its surface, each one intertwining around one of the four spikes that thrust upwards into the sky. The Diviner itself blazed brighter and started to revolve slowly.
Cormier lowered his head.
‘We haven’t got long, have we?’ said Christopher, standing by Jack’s shoulder.
Jack gazed up in wonder and fear and shook his head. He felt a flickering sense of hopelessness.
Round Rob, who was standing close to Jack, flinched suddenly. Jack saw his shoulder convulse and heard a loud chittering from George.
‘Stop it, George,’ said Rob.
George’s legs were spasming and he was making a high-pitched shrieking sound now, dashing around Rob’s neck.
‘Shut that thing up!’ roared Dunlop.
‘His name is George!’ Rob shouted.
Dunlop advanced towards him, waving his stun gun, but was stopped dead in his tracks by a sound that made all of them turn.
It was a low hum, building in volume. All eyes turned to the horizon and the hill that swept down towards the graveyard.
The background hum suddenly became a metallic shrieking. It sounded like thousands of knives being sharpened simultaneously. Dunlop clutched his ears and everyone else followed suit as the shrieking intensified. The only person not clamping their hands to their ears was Cormier. He was too busy grinning.
Over the horizon came hundreds of metallic spiders, streaming down the hill towards the graveyard in a great wave of liquid silver.
Chittering, shrieking, gleaming – they came in a furious torrent. A steady rumble of tiny legs. A wall of vicious gleaming eyes. George shrieked back at them in response.
Blake stood there with his mouth open in shock.
Jack smiled.
Cormier turned towards Blake. He reached inside his coat and took out a small black box with buttons. ‘I call it “remote control”,’ he said. ‘Just to let you know, I get dibs on the name.’
There was a thunderous metallic crunch as the spiders hit the low wall, then they were tumbling over it like floodwater.
That was the moment Blake seemed to regain control of his senses. He ran straight for the platform. ‘Protect the Diviner!’ he shrieked. Reeves didn’t move, paralysed by terror and indecision. He turned slowly, as if trying to remember how to use his legs, and followed his master. Jack had been so busy watching the spiders he’d forgotten Dunlop.
It was a drilling shriek behind him that reminded him that the thug was there. Jack turned to locate the source of the animalistic sound, and his eyes widened when he saw a silver-limbed figure twisting manically across the graveyard in a doomed effort to escape. It was Dunlop being consumed by a swirling mass of silver spiders.
Another seething mass of spiders rushed towards the platform, and Jack gave silent thanks that they were on his side. He nodded at Estelle, Rob and Christopher, and they all followed Cormier to the foot of the platform.
‘He’s doing something with the Diviner,’ said Rob, squinting upwards.
At the summit of the platform, Blake was inscribing symbols in the air in front of the Diviner. Nothing seemed to be happening, until suddenly it flared to a brightness that almost blinded them. There was a tremendous crack, like the sound of lightning ripping through air, and a great beam of blue light shot out from the Diviner, coming to a stop just over the centre of the graveyard. There was a thunderous whirring sound like that of a giant drill boring through the earth, and great, blue luminous fractures started to radiate out from the spot where the shaft of light terminated.
All the air around them seemed to roar and rush to that one point. It felt like a hole was being punched through the world.
‘It’s fully activated. He’s going to initiate psychonic adhesion,’ said Cormier fearfully.
Rob turned and looked at him, bemused.
‘He’s going to ensoul his machines,’ Cormier simplified.
The air was split by a new sound – a terrible howling. It sounded like a creature in torment and it reverberated across the graveyard, making the air itself tremble with its anguish.
‘Look,’ said Rob, pointing towards the source of the fractures.
Something black and smoky was pulsing along one of the veins of light. It spiralled around the twisting bolt, and then, as if propelled by some unseen force, it accelerated straight for one of the Berserkers standing at the edge of the graveyard.
The air vibrated, and there was a sound of shearing metal. The shadow made a whoomph sound as it passed through the armoured chest.
The Berserker twitched. Its eyes glowed an icy blue. And it convulsed into life.
The creature lifted its arms and gazed at its clawed hands, then it threw its head back and roared at the sky.
Jack spotted another shadow curling around a blue tendril of light. He pointed at it, unable to speak.
‘We don’t have much time,’ said Cormier.
‘What can we do?’ Rob shouted over the din and roar.
Cormier turned and looked up at the platform, his face grim and determined. He whipped his head back round when he heard a great metallic groaning – the first Berserker was swivelling towards them. As it started its advance, there was another whoomph as the second soul found its mark, and another Berserker started to waken.
Cormier put two fingers in his mouth and gave a whistle so piercing it made Estelle’s eyes water. He clicked his fingers, snapped his wrist, and gestured at the spiders. The great mass split in two, and a silver swell flowed towards the first Berserker. Those at the forefront were crunched under the Berserker’s feet. Those behind climbed over their fallen comrades and started to crawl up the Berserker’s legs, chittering and shrieking as they ascended.
Jack frowned at Cormier. ‘You didn’t use your remote control thing. How can they attack like that?’
Cormier nodded, and waggled his remote control. ‘This only calls them.’
‘So they have souls?’ said Christopher.
‘That’s right. How do you think they could take care of Dunlop?’ said Cormier, his eyes lighting up as he watched his charges go to work.
‘Where did you get so many souls?’ asked Estelle.
‘Rats,’ said Cormier matter-of-factly.
Estelle went slightly pale and held a hand to her mouth.
‘Come on,’ said Cormier. Giving a great sweeping motion with his arm, he grabbed a steel rod from the pile of scrap and charged towards the platform.
Some of the spiders from the second group were already climbing the struts, spinning upwards in ferocious lines. Cormier reached the ladder and had just touched the side of the frame when the whole platform crackled with energy and lines of blue lightning arced and fizzed along the metal. The engineer was thrown backwards and a rain of silver spiders fell around him, as they too were blasted from the platform.
Christopher was first to Cormier. He grabbed him by the wrists and they both looked at the red, raw bumps of wet flesh that now lined Cormier’s left palm.
‘It’s nothing!’ he shouted above the noise, and despite his pain his eyes were filled with hope as they met Christopher’s. ‘The platform . . . it doesn’t like Flesh.’
‘What do we need to do?’ Jack asked Cormier, Rob at his side. Christopher helped Cormier sit up.
‘You have to destroy the Diviner,’ said Cormier. ‘Once the pillar of light is broken all souls that have been released by it will be sucked back where they ca
me from. The Diviner itself can contain great power, but its surface is essentially fragile. You’ll have to smash it with something metal.’
He handed the steel rod to Christopher, who nodded and slipped it through his belt.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Jack.
As he got to his feet, Cormier fixed Jack with a grizzled look and smiled. ‘We’re going to stand and fight,’ he said, winking at Estelle. He started to laugh his big gravelly laugh. Rob joined in, and soon they were both egging each other on. Jack rolled his eyes, but despite everything he found he couldn’t help smiling.
‘Now go!’ shouted Cormier.
They didn’t need to be told twice. Jack led the charge towards the platform, with Christopher following and a wild-eyed Rob bringing up the rear.
The day had darkened, as if the Diviner was sucking the light out of the world. Or perhaps the world was filling with shadows, Jack thought, as they reached the ladder at the foot of the platform. A crumping sound followed by an angry bellow told him that another Berserker had been ensouled.
The platform was under assault from a new wave of spiders. They pounced and leapt – some of them thrown back fizzing as the coruscating energy hit them. A few had reached the lip of the platform but were being kicked back over the edge by a frantic Blake. One look at them suddenly jogged Rob’s memory.
‘Where’s George?’ he shrieked, feeling around his neck.
‘Never mind that now,’ Jack shouted. ‘We’ll find him later.’
But would there be a later? Jack wondered. He pushed the thought away and gripped the first strut. He could feel the energy bolts course along his arm and through his body. The ladder itself was also shaking, and he didn’t like the way the hooks which held it in place at the top of the platform were hopping with the vibrations.
‘We can do this,’ he shouted through gritted teeth.
He prayed that he could hold on and started to climb. Christopher followed him, then Rob.
Jack could see the graveyard laid out below him as he climbed. Three Berserkers were now fully animated. Two were crawling with spiders, and they were flinging them off in all directions. The weight of them on the legs of one Berserker made it look as if it was wading through mud. It howled in protest. Another was having more success and was stamping and smashing its way towards the platform. A fourth Berserker was stirring and turning to look at the platform.
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