by A. R. Knight
I grabbed the spark tube from my belt as I slid onto my knees. Standing was too hard. I pressed the button on the tube’s end. Didn’t even watch the sparks fly high into the sky and burst.
“Unfortunately, Carver, you don’t have to be awake for this. Only alive. At first,” Graham said, coming close. “Or perhaps it is fortunate. I hear it’s much easier to die in one’s sleep.”
Chapter 34
Graham reached out, grabbed the hammer, and pulled the spike out of my chest. I slumped forward. For some reason, my body didn’t want to stand up. Didn’t want to do anything. There was pain, sure, but on top of it sat an overwhelming sense of defeat. Of being broken.
“Why’d you bring me to the factory?” I said. I wasn’t really talking, more wheezing out the question. “If you wanted me alone, you had me then.”
“The other guides were there,” Graham sounded annoyed. “That one that’s been trying to track me, he was following you. None of the spirits would have killed you, if they’d won. You would have been saved.”
Graham crouched in front of me, gripped my face with his hand and lifted it up. “The eyes are perfect. The hair, just like hers.”
“What?” I coughed.
“I wanted to be sure,” Graham said. “Now, we can begin.”
Graham grabbed my shoulder and pulled me forward, dragging me along the ground. In front of my eyes, Graham’s hammer swung low, bouncing off the surface with every step the man took. Tiny sparks flew with each contact. Mesmerizing.
And then Graham dropped me, right in the center of the courtyard. Turned me so my eyes faced Riven’s gray sky. Graham seemed to fall inside himself, as though thinking hard on something. Then his eyes snapped wide and he smiled at me.
“A little while longer and then everything will be ready,” Graham said. “I truly hope you’ve enjoyed your life, Carver, and that at the end you can feel well-lived.”
Truth was, I wasn’t paying attention to what Graham was nattering on about. That’s because, flashing in the open air above our heads was a series of blue sparks. A face appeared, looking over the edge. Graham, staring at me over his hammer, didn’t notice Alec.
Didn’t move until the guide slammed down on Graham from above, knocking the spirit down into the ash. Alec didn’t give Graham a moment to recover. Jabbing the spirit with his gauntlets, spikes digging in, Alec launched Graham across the courtyard. The spirit rolled to a stop near the edge.
“You are still alive, Carver?” Alec said to me. “I know we are late, but you choose the farthest places for your fights.”
“Sorry,” I said. The weakness in my voice killed Alec’s friendly grin. His eyes narrowed, and he looked over at Graham.
“We will get you home,” Alec said, all joking gone. “Hold on, my friend.”
I turned my head to follow Alec as he sprinted towards Graham. Alec led with a right jab, his left swooping for a deep upper-cut. Graham, recovering faster than Alec expected, twisted to his left, dodging the jab and putting Alec out of position. Graham kicked out with his leg, catching Alec in the stomach.
The guide took the blow and wrapped his arms around Graham’s leg, pushed up. Tried to break the spirit’s knee. Then I saw what the thing on Graham’s wrist was for.
Graham clenched his left hand into a fist and the gadget pumped. A short wire shot down the gauntlet, appearing to glow blue as it went, then flew off Graham’s wrist right into Alec’s neck. The wire snapped, choked Alec, and then crackled with pale fire. Alec dropped Graham’s leg and fell to the ground, rolling, trying to free himself.
Graham went back towards the hammer. Made it three steps before, with a whistling noise, a spear landed in the spirit’s chest. No, not a spear, half of Bryce’s voulge. Graham looked down at it, surprised.
“Graham!” Bryce called from the courtyard’s entrance. “It’s time for your mistake to end.”
Spirits couldn’t die a second death in Riven, but they could be hurt. Weakened and wrangled, sent to the Cycle. Graham reached for the voulge and pulled on it, breaking it free from his chest and letting it fall to the ground. I noticed, though, that he straightened slowly, his smile gone and his eyes lacking their manic sparkle.
What Graham didn’t notice was that I was crawling, tugging my way through pain and agony towards Alec. I heard Bryce run through the courtyard behind me.
“You look familiar,” Graham said, his voice lead now. Dead with effort.
“What I look like doesn’t matter,” Bryce said. “What does is that you don’t belong anymore. The Cycle calls, spirit.”
In front of me, Alec writhed on the ground, his neck turning black where the fire burned. His hands, protected by the gauntlets, were trying to pull the wire off and failing. I grabbed the knife on Alec’s waist, and pulled it out of its holster.
“Be still, Alec,” I whispered. Alec obeyed, somehow calming his pain enough to stop struggling. I slipped the knife against the wire, a dark line coated with burning blue, and cut through it. As soon as the wire split, the fire vanished.
Metal clashed behind me and I turned to see Bryce engaging Graham in a deadly dance. Bryce had nabbed the half on the ground and, his voulge still in two parts, Bryce was a dervish, sidestepping, parrying, and getting under Graham’s longer hammer blows. I could see Graham was slower too, the injuries catching up to him.
The spirit wasn’t talking anymore either. No cocky asides or strange questions.
“No rest yet,” Alec muttered, massaging his charred neck. The guide rose, then turned to the fight.
Graham noticed, and as his eyes caught Alec, Bryce struck with the side of the voulge, knocking Graham in the head. When Graham straightened, Alec stood next to Bryce, ready.
“This is the end, spirit,” Bryce said, twisting the handles of his voulge. The weapon’s edges glowed with blue fire. At the same time, Alec twisted his wrists, his gauntlets wreathing themselves with the same flames.
Graham, leaning on his hammer, looked at the two guides. Then his mouth opened in what seemed like a silent scream.
I heard noises above, on the building’s second floor. The simultaneous pounding of feet. A spirit landed in the courtyard, then another. And a third. Jumping from the balconies lining the open space. Two landed between Bryce, Alec and Graham.
These weren’t normal spirits either. Like Cane and Spike, these had weapons. While they didn’t have the pale fire in their eyes, they had murder.
“Run!” I croaked at my friends. It wasn’t worth having them die for me. Especially as I was feeling worse. My body’s will to push through the injuries was fading, pain again overtaking my ability to do anything other than curl up.
Graham was the first to look at me, and I saw something in that sinister expression I did not expect. Concern.
“Carver cannot die here,” Graham said, speaking to Bryce and Alec. “An exchange. Your lives for his.”
“A deal we should take,” Alec said to Bryce. “As much as I hate admitting it, we are not favored in this match.”
“Agreed,” Bryce said.
The spirits parted, allowing the two guides to get to me. To life me up and carry me from the courtyard.
“Live, Carver!” Graham said as they carried me out. “Come back to me, and do what you were meant to.”
The words followed me into unconsciousness, chasing me into the dark of Riven’s oblivion as Bryce and Alec carried me through its gray streets.
Chapter 35
I hadn’t dreamed in decades, but when I saw the tree above me, its bare limbs stretching towards a ghost sky, I thought I’d found my way into one.
“Carver?” Selena’s voice stirred into my ear. “How are you here?”
I turned to look at her. Selena stood at the base of the tree, eyes wide.
“Selena?” was all I could think to say.
“Graham’s plan didn’t work, then?” Selena said to me, coming closer. “Or did it?”
Selena reached out a hand towards my chest. Her fing
ers touched the edge of my coat, the edge of my shirt, the edge of me, and passed through.
Selena raised her eyes to mine, drawing her hand out. “You’re not here. Not all the way.”
“I’m not dead,” I said. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“Not yet,” Selena said softly, her face looking down. “You’re close. Almost a spirit.”
“Where did you go?”
When Selena looked back at me, her eyes shone with tears. “I’m leaving, Carver. Going to where Graham can’t make me hurt you.”
“Make you?”
“You’ve seen it,” Selena looked behind her. I could see, in the far distance, the outlines of the Tar Pit smokestacks. “He can influence spirits, but that’s not all of it. I could have resisted. Could have pushed him back.”
“You wanted to cross,” I said the words knowing they were true and yet not blaming her for it. Not hating her for wanting to go back to life.
“I did,” Selena said. “I still do. That makes me dangerous. I tried to help, when Graham was focused on you. I found your friends. Led them towards the fight.”
Selena passed her hand through my own. I didn’t feel anything other than a cool otherness, a sense that my body and mind were in two different places.
“They saved me,” I said. “You saved me.”
“I don’t know,” Selena replied. “If you’re here, then it might be too late. If you die, then I won’t be bound. I’ve done enough hurt, Carver. I’m done with it.”
“Where will you go?”
“To the Cycle,” Selena said. “It’s always there, you know. Like a song my daughter used to sing in the summers. Easy to ignore, but if you listen, you can find it.”
Selena leaned in, her lips searching for mine. And when they met, I felt nothing. Selena’s face passed into mine, and then drew back. She laughed.
“Appropriate, don’t you think?” Selena said. “For a last kiss between ghosts?”
“Don’t leave,” I started. “It’s not your fault—”
“Stop,” Selena said. “Focus. Stay alive,” She took a step back. “When you wake up, try to remember me.”
Selena left me there. I tried to follow, but my legs weren’t listening. The dream state left me stuck beneath the tree, able only to look after her as Selena went through the barren park and over a hill.
I felt a tug, like a heavy wind pulling at my back. The edges of everything blurred. The dead grass flowed together. I tried to focus on Selena as she went further and further away. As she vanished.
Then a mar. A dark spot in the fading scene. Another person.
Following Selena through the park, moving slow. The spirit from before, in Nicholas’s lab. Dark and banded, her hair flickering in the wind. I tried to yell, to say something, but my mouth didn’t work. My body wasn’t there. The world was pulling away.
At the last, the dark spirit turned and stared at me. I could see her eyes, the roiling heat burning in her gaze. As she turned back towards Selena, I woke up.
Chapter 36
“Come back, Carver,” Bryce said as he slapped my face in the clock tower. “Pull it together.”
My eyes flickered open and brought with them a thousand aches. It was getting really old waking up this way. Deserving to die.
“Good,” Bryce said, then he looked behind me to someone else. “Alec, bring the salt.”
As I groaned, lying there pathetic in the bed, Alec came over with a small bowl. In it, clumped, was the dried up essence of Riven’s non-water.
“Inhale,” Bryce said as Alec put the bowl beneath my nose.
When I breathed the crystals in, my chest expanded with an icy chill. The freezing sensation went throughout my body, stretching to the ends of my fingers and my face. Every instant of pain obliterated in the face of that cold.
“Now, cross,” Bryce said. “Don’t wait.”
At first I thought the cold itself would prevent me from focusing on anything, but I embraced the chill. Used it. Sank into the numbing ice. In that frozen bath, I found my apartment and fell towards it.
I woke up for the third time in an hour, only this time I was in my own bed. In Chicago. In the real world. To be sure, I stood up, raised my arms to test if my body listened. I looked outside the window and counted the zeppelins coasting by in the sky, which was an emphatic blue. Early morning.
My chest still hurt. While washing myself off in the cramped bath I shared with others on my floor, I traced the bruising around my lungs. A particularly dark circle where the hammer’s spike had pierced. Every breath carried with it a sting.
But I was alive.
I showed up at Ezra’s close to lunch time. A couple of hours later than usual, but I figured Bryce would be understanding. What I didn’t expect, though, was to see Piotr sitting at our table. Having coffee and chatting with Bryce. Alec there as well, looking exhausted and wearing a shirt with a high collar that hid his neck.
Piotr was a giant of a man. Tall, thick, and coated with long white hair to go with a full, snowy beard, the leader of the guides complemented his physical stature with a deep navy cloak. Gold-lined tracings of the guide logo, that circle and incomplete square, appeared at random on the outfit. Looking at the man gave me a sense of power, of stature, and his warm smile as he saw me made the inspiring whole come together.
“Here’s the missing man,” Piotr announced when I came in. “Carver, Bryce tells me that you had a close call last night.”
“Wasn’t my best hunt, sir,” I said.
“Any hunt you live through is a good one in my book,” Piotr replied.
I was about to sit down when Piotr stood and looked towards Bryce, who gestured towards our private room in the back. It was so much easier to get service out here that we didn’t use it except for calls. Or meetings that we wanted kept secret.
The four of us crowded into the small chamber and I grabbed my own mug of the dark stuff. The taste of something hot and real was a wonderful sensation. Especially when, for much of last night, I’d thought I was never going to experience it again.
“Thanks,” I said before Piotr could get started. “Both of you. For everything.”
“If you keep ignoring my rule about going alone,” Bryce said. “I’m going to let Graham have you.”
“What I’m curious about is how we found you,” Alec said. “Eventually we saw your sparks, but before that there was this beautiful voice. It kept saying you were in trouble.”
“Strange,” I lied. “I don’t know what that would’ve been.”
“Riven has its peculiarities,” Piotr interjected. Alec looked like he wanted to press the point, but Piotr ignored the guide. “I’m here to talk to you about one of them.
“There’s a tower on the southwest side of the city, at the very edge of the Warrens. A number of guides have gone near the area and disappeared. What I’d like to know is what’s going on. Is it a ghoul, a breach? Or something worse?”
“You want us to take a look?” Bryce said.
“With the recent casualties, there aren’t many full city complements left. Much less ones with your level of experience,” Piotr said. “Consider it a favor to me. If the tower is indeed a problem, don’t engage. Report back and we’ll organize a large effort.”
We spent the next hour talking over the tower’s precise location, the identities of the missing guides, and when we’d go on the trek. Piotr pushed for doing it that night and Bryce agreed. My mentor’s words about guides never getting vacations buzzed in the back of my mind. Here I was, barely scraping through, and they wanted to throw me into the fire again.
Still, this was the path I’d chosen. If I didn’t want to walk it, I could get blinded from Riven and set loose. Which wasn’t going to happen.
After Ezra delivered sandwiches and we’d devoured them, Piotr stood up.
“I think I’ve said all that needs saying,” Piotr said. “I’ll be back in the morning to see how it went.”
Then the leader of th
e guides turned to me. Stuck out his hand. I shook it, hesitating a second.
“Carver Reed,” Piotr said. “It’s been a long time.”
Piotr walked out of the room. Bryce and Alec followed soon after. I sipped the rest of the coffee, confused.
I’d never met Piotr before in my life.
Chapter 37
“You’re late,” Anna said to me as I walked into the apartment. Back in Riven, my injuries were gone. Physically, anyway. Mentally, hah, let’s not talk about it.
“It was a busy morning,” I replied. Walked past her into the noisy mess of the living room. When Nicholas went full on into a project, his sense of cleanliness vanished. Most of the machines were churning away, and Nicholas himself was bent over a workbench.
“Nicholas?” I said, raising my voice over the noise. “Is Selena here?”
I hadn’t seen her in the bedroom or through the window on the balcony. I remembered the vision from the night before, but had no idea if that was real.
“I have seen no sign of her since she left with you,” Nicholas replied without looking up. “Have you lost her?”
“She left,” I said. I felt heavier. Selena was gone. Once she made it to the Cycle, everything that she was would be erased. Everything we had shared in this gray city of the dead would only live in my memories.
Nicholas stood up from the workbench, turned around holding a two-foot long metal rod in his hands. At one end was that beige sphere, locked into the rod.
“She left?” Nicholas echoed. “Not what I would have expected from her. She seemed so hopeful after yesterday.”
“It was an impossible dream,” I said. I could feel Anna’s eyes on my back, and Nicholas waited for more, but I didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to get into Graham and all the rest. That wasn’t what we were here for.
“Anyway,” Nicholas said after a too-long silence. “I’m finished early. This is your weapon, Anna. It is a mace, with a special flourish.”