Riven

by A. R. Knight

  The ghoul was a slathering mass of arms and legs. A ball with appendages formed of other appendages, the result of sucking up countless spirits on its raging path through Riven. Eyes and mouths interspersed the spaces between the limbs, some of which held stones, wooden boards, and other rubble as weapons. Countless shards of ruined clothes, furniture, and other body parts roiled in the mass.

  Perhaps the worst part was the pulsing, the shuddering rhythm that shook through the ghoul’s body every two or three seconds. The limbs bounced when that happened, with occasional loose bits falling off the ghoul’s body to the ground, only to be grabbed by one of its passing arms and shoved back in.

  “That is, truly, the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” I said. “And I’ve seen some awful stuff.”

  “I must agree,” Alec replied. “I shall take no small amount of pleasure in ending its miserable existence.”

  Alec straightened his arms as the ghoul continued its orbit around The Palace towards us. The gauntlets Alec used changed when he snapped his wrists, sliding out metal plating to coat his forearms. Inch-long spikes shot out along the length of the weapons, each one glowing with wrangling fire. He reached into his coat and pulled out his mask, the Riven version of the thorny vine one he wore back in Chicago.

  I slipped my black and gold mask on, then reached over my back and pulled out the crossbow. Slid the lever to the blue wrangling bolt. I brought it up, turning the crank, and noticed Alec staring at the weapon.

  “That’s a nice piece of work,” Alec said. “After this, you will tell me who made it for you.”

  “A friend,” I replied. The bolt snapped into place. Ready to go. If the shot worked, the bolt should wrangle the ghoul just like any other spirit. “Let’s see if we can take the easy way out.”

  I pulled the trigger, sending the shot sprinting towards the ghoul as it came closer. The bolt struck the ghoul’s gross flesh and sank in, bursting into blue flame. The ghoul howled, an unearthly scream that ricocheted around my ears like the sound of rusty metals scraping against each other.

  Then the ghoul flailed, arms patting at its body, grasping for the bolt. One of the arms snagged it from the growing pit of pale fire and held the bolt away. Nicholas’s invention kept burning, sending searing blue lines down the ghoul’s arm. The creature dropped the bolt on the ground, still furiously batting at the burning area on its body.

  The blue fire died. Smothered out by the ghoul’s arms, or by its sheer size, I didn’t know. The lower left quarter of the ghoul’s body was a black ruin, another first. Normally the wrangling fire didn’t actually burn. At least, not physically.

  “Interesting,” Alec said. The ghoul shifted the burned area away from us, and, with its dozen mouths gnashing, charged. “Now the real fun begins.”

  “Your concept of fun needs work,” I said, but couldn’t deny that part of me was happy Nicholas’s bolt hadn’t ruined the ghoul. It would have been too easy.

  The ghoul’s charge was more of a shamble, catching itself on its mass of limbs and rolling forward. Arms cycling towards the top threw stones and rocks at us in an endless stream of projectiles. I sidestepped one, then two, while my arms worked the crossbow. I jumped the lever to the orange bolt, the fiery one, then noticed Alec was running towards the ghoul. If I used that, I’d burn him up. Back to the wrangling bolt.

  I felt the rock smash into my hands, a flash of white pain. The crossbow flew out of my grip, skipping across the stone. My right hand went numb. My left ached. Not a great start.

  Even though I couldn’t feel my fingers, I knew where my lash was. I drew it, then circled to the right of the ghoul. Alec, about ten yards in front of me, rolled beneath a pair of large thrown stones and then used his momentum to jump in the air. He struck the ghoul with a wild yell, his gauntlets catching hold. Then he began to tear the ghoul apart.

  One arm held on while Alec used his other to grab the ghoul’s many limbs and break them off, piece by piece. The spikes on his gauntlets drove into the ghoul, weakened the arm or leg Alec was grabbing, and then Alec ripped it off and flung it to the ground.

  A particularly long, thin arm went for Alec’s head and I snapped the lash. It snaked out, wrapped around the arm, and its blue-tinged tip bit into the wrist. I yanked, and the lash’s pale fire burned the limb away. Its charred remnants broke from the ghoul and landed on the ground.

  The creature howled again, this time its screech inflected with pain, but not panic. Not fear. Not yet.

  The ghoul rolled, bringing Alec towards the ground. Where the guide would be smothered beneath the creature.

  “Jump!” I shouted, as if Alec couldn’t tell what was happening. He was trying to scramble up the front of the ghoul, but couldn’t move fast enough. At the last moment, just before vanishing beneath the ghoul’s bulk, Alec grabbed a passing leg and swung himself out of the way, rolling across the stone courtyard.

  I snapped the lash again, decimating the leg Alec had just used to save himself, but the ghoul didn’t even notice. It started to reverse direction, rolling towards where I stood.

  “We need a new plan!” I said. “There’s too much of it to take apart!”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Alec said, picking himself up. “I like that crossbow of yours. Try it again?”

  “I’ll need cover,” I said, ducking another thrown stone.

  “Consider it given,” Alec replied.

  I broke into a run, getting out of the ghoul’s way. Alec sidestepped the mass, then jumped on the ghoul again, pulling up the creatures side and leaving charred scars.

  In three long strides, I made it back to the crossbow. Somehow, the weapon still worked. Whatever Nicholas had used to make it, the man knew his stuff. I slid the lever back to the wrangling blue bolts. Then I heard a scream.

  The ghoul had Alec lifted in the air, a trio of long arms holding the guide’s gauntlets wide, while more arms and legs kicked and punched Alec’s body. One vicious swipe raked long, broken fingernails across Alec’s face, leaving a trail of bloody marks.

  There wasn’t time to take chances.

  I shoved the lever to the orange bolts, turned the crank as Alec struggled. Another rock hit me on the shoulder, but I ignored the pain. It wasn’t dislocated, I could still hold the crossbow, and that’s what mattered. I raised the weapon, aimed it beneath the ghoul, and fired.

  The bolt struck the ground at the ghoul’s feet, expanding in an orange bloom. Rays reached out and latched onto the ghoul’s legs and dangling arms, climbing them to the creature’s body. As I’d seen the bolt do to the container in the Tar Pit, the blazing rays disintegrated every part of the ghoul they touched.

  When the ghoul roared again, mixed in with the noise was a new tone - fear. As its bottom legs were eaten away, the ghoul collapsed. Its arms still held Alec as the ghoul dropped into the expanding flames. I’d hoped the bolt’s blast wouldn’t extend far enough to get Alec, but with the ghoul literally falling apart, bringing Alec closer... I broke into a run, dropping the crossbow.

  “Carver!” Alec yelled as the fire came closer. “I can’t get out!”

  “On it!” I replied. Because the rays focused the fire on whatever they could grab rather than burning freely, the ghoul had become a pillar of burning orange light. I ran close, close enough to try something stupid.

  With the flames burning up, brushing the bottom of Alec’s coat as the last of the ghoul disappeared into the writhing heat, I cracked the lash. It flew, wrapping itself around Alec, and jabbing its pointed end into the fabric of the guide’s coat.

  “Roll!” I said, and then twisted and pulled, yanking Alec free of the ghoul’s melting arms. I braced myself as Alec fell, using my legs to push us both away from the fire. The lash held, hopefully giving Alec enough momentum to clear the flames. When I felt the lash start to drag, I turned back to see if I’d torched Alec alive.

  Chapter 27

  My lash still wound around Alec’s body. Filaments of smoke curled up from beneath
the guide, but the man’s breathing chest gave away that he lived.

  “So, that was your plan?” Alec said, still lying on the ground. “Burn the ghoul and I in one go? Make it look like an accident?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, gripping Alec’s hand and pulling him to his feet. “Nobody would ever suspect a thing.”

  “Au contraire, they would, because who could ever believe you would be able to kill a ghoul, much less moi?”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re insufferable?” I said, winding up the lash and sticking it back in its holster.

  “My mother, every day since I was born,” Alec said. “But enough talk. We killed a ghoul, Carver! That is worth celebrating! I say we head back, go to Ezra’s, and regale the masses with our tale of victory.”

  “This really went to your head, didn’t it?”

  “I prefer to work alone for many reasons, Carver, but I would be lying if I didn’t say one of them was keeping the glory for myself.”

  Alec continued singing his own praises, with the occasional mention of me, during the walk back to the clock tower. Eventually I tuned him out. Replayed the fight in my mind. We’d been lucky. Without that crossbow, the ghoul would have torn us apart. I’d have to thank Nicholas.

  “So I will see you at Ezra’s?” Alec said as we slipped into the beds in the clock tower.

  “You might have to take this one on your own,” I said. “I’ve got plans tonight.”

  “Plans, eh?” Alec said. “What could be better than celebrating our victory?”

  Before I could reply, Alec held up his hand. “Don’t tell me. It will only make me pity you all the more.”

  “Always a pleasure, Alec,” I said. The guide grinned at me, then collapsed on his pillow. I followed, and crossed a minute later.

  A cloudy afternoon gave me a moment’s surprise. I thought I was still in Riven, the gray making the two worlds come a little too close together. I turned over, saw my minuscule apartment and knew I was home.

  As had been the trend, I took stock of the mail stack and found a package sitting on top the usual pile of bills and ads. On the flimsy box was a note, pinned several times to make sure it wouldn’t fall off on the vent ride up.

  You didn’t tell me it was local! Finding Selena was easy - plenty of headlines. I’ve included some here for you.

  You owe me at least three juicy quotes for this!

  - Opperman

  Inside the package were a set of articles. All of them from Opperman’s paper and written over a series of days. I took the longest one, the last one, out first.

  Revenge of the Ruined

  Selena Kairis isn’t known to many of you, but rest assured, by the time this article is over, you will feel nothing if not sympathy for this doomed woman. She was killed by her last husband, who wielded a cleaver in making an end of his wife. Selena did not go quietly, however, as she delivered her own fatal stab to her husband’s back. A discerning reader might wonder which attack came first. With Selena, there is no question.

  Kairis was Selena’s maiden name, and it remains hers despite three marriages. And, before this last one, two other likely murders. Both of them in Chicago, and both of them declared accidents. The first husband, a Matthias Ferber, found squashed on the ground beneath their tenth story apartment. Alcohol was blamed, broken bottles throughout the place. Selena, sobbing in the living room, given the innocence due a properly weeping widow.

  The second, Bruce Evers, of an apparent heart attack at the old age of thirty-three. Selena again at the scene, again describing a mess of a marriage full of drink and drugs. Of failed business and failed love. Whether Bruce committed a secret suicide or Selena assisted, it didn’t matter. Our Selena was set free.

  The third looked like it would stick. Wiley Rose, a stable butcher that, by all accounts, found himself in love with Selena’s sad story. Two children later and it seemed Selena’s bad luck had disappeared. Until both mother and father turned up dead in bloody fashion.

  Wiley, it turned out, was not nearly so stable as he appeared. Friends had driven the man into debt, and the growing pollution in Chicago was forcing expensive adjustments to keep his meat pure. Selena responded to the stress in the same way this reporter, and the Chicago police, now believe she acted in every other situation. Remove it by means of untimely demise. Except Wiley wasn’t a drinker. Wasn’t a drug user. Their house had no second story to fall from. So Selena turned to more direct means.

  I put down the article. The implications were clear. Selena had murdered her husbands, had escaped punishment, until the last one proved harder to kill.

  When I’d met Selena, it was in a side street not that far from the clock tower. I’d been hunting an angry spirit in the area, the resonator taking me right to it. The spirit had been a hulking man, the pale fire of rage in his eyes. Selena had been backing away as the man went towards her.

  “How could you ruin everything?” the man had said as Selena retreated down the street. I unfurled the lash, walking towards them. “Things weren’t perfect, but they were going to get better!”

  The man broke into a run at Selena, who turned and saw me.

  That moment is one I hope I’ll remember forever. Her eyes lighting on me and her mouth dropping open in a yell for help, her face crying with what I thought was fear. Now, I think, it was the last goodbye to a life she’d chosen to end.

  I closed the distance and, as the man reached out to grab Selena, my lash struck. Wrapped around his chest and pierced into his stomach. My blue fire washed his away, and a moment later the man stood stock still and stupid.

  “What did you do?” Selena asked me.

  “Gave him what he wanted,” I said. “Peace.”

  The man turned and walked away, towards the Cycle. Selena held my arm. A murderer clinging to one more victim.

  Chapter 28

  Part of me wanted to go right back into Riven, find Selena, and talk to her. Confront her with the article and get her story straight. Learn if the only thing she wanted was another person to get close to and, when things took a turn, end.

  But it was getting towards the evening and I had another mystery that still needed solving. Barrington had said my mother was a guide. Had died a strange death. If there was anyone that might have more information, it was Anna. And now was prime time for the Broken Beaker.

  The Lab District at sunset wasn’t quite the madhouse it would turn into later. For one, too many people were still pushing papers and bubbling brews in their buildings for the streets to be too crowded. For another, the alcohol hadn’t been flowing long enough.

  Anna met me in the back room. Or, I should say, I found her there. At the bar, taking a long slug of something dark with an empty glass beside her.

  “Rough day?” I said, pulling off my mask and sitting.

  “You think being a sneak is easy, don’t you?” Anna said, leaning her head on her elbow and turning to me.

  “Never said that,” I replied.

  “Sorry,” Anna said. “I’m just looking for a target.”

  “Me too. You can go first, if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “It’s nothing. A nice client that’s going to get a bad end,” Anna said. “She was paying to see what happened to her father, and I could see that she wanted to believe that he hadn’t died in the war.”

  “You found him?”

  “Running around the Tar Pit. Which, by the way, is turning into a disaster area.”

  “Avoid it,” I said. “We closed a breach there yesterday.”

  “Not everybody has the luxury of playing by your rules,” Anna said. “I saw the pale fire in his eyes, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I’m going to meet with the girl tomorrow, tell her that her father’s in there.”

  “You’re going to tell her that he’s a mindless, enraged ghost?”

  “I’m going to tell her that he’s at peace, making his way to the Cycle,” Anna said, taking another pull.

  “I could make
that happen,” I said. Thought that was the right thing to do; offer to wrangle the spirit. All it got me was a glare.

  “You can. I can’t,” Anna said. “That’s what’s messed up about this situation.”

  I was about to speak, but Anna kept going, bowling me over with a string of words, slurs sliding in here and there as the drinks she took caught up with her. “They never tested me. My parents kept it hidden. Ignored it when I told them about my nighttime walks on the other side.”

  “That’s illegal.”

  “Thanks, I know that,” Anna said. “I think they believed I’d grow out of it if I wasn’t trained. That I’d have a shot at a normal life lived in this world. Except it doesn’t stop. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll still cross over. It’s dangerous.”

  “The guides have clinics for people who flunk out or retire. They’ll train you how to avoid Riven,” I ordered my own beer. Something about the direction of the conversation told me it’d be better with a drink.

  “I didn’t want to avoid it,” Anna said. “Like all of you guides say: getting to see the truth is a gift. Why give that up? Only, I couldn’t find much else to do, until I found the sneaks.”

  “But now?”

  “Riven’s getting more dangerous,” Anna said. “You see that. You know it. Bet you’re all laughing there with your gear thinking about all the sneaks getting taken out by spirits. Chewed to pieces in that gray mess.”

  “That sounds like us. Laughing as others die,” I said.

  “Then why don’t you help us?” Anna said. “Do more than just warn us away.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” I said and Anna bit off her next remark in surprise. Gave me a wary look. “I can’t make you a guide. Not yet, anyway. But I can help you.”