by Peter Newman
No thoughts run through Delta’s mind in the first years. She is carried in stronger currents of emotion than any of her siblings. They do not know what to do with her, torn between admiration of the depth of her love, envy of it and, in Gamma’s case, frustration.
Epsilon, Theta and Eta weep too. The thing they have waited for has come to pass and yet life continues. They are broken by it, saddened by it and also dissatisfied. Perhaps, the three think to themselves, this is only the beginning. And yet it feels so much like the end, they cannot fully believe it.
But something has to be done. The wishes of the creator must be respected and her body must be honoured.
The Seven set to work on the construction of a suitable tomb. A giant cube of metal, balanced on one corner and raised seventy feet into the air. Inside, the walls are covered in tapestries, detailing the life and works of Massassi. Every achievement made glorious through the filter of The Seven’s loving eyes, shining bright, eclipsing any ugliness.
It is the only thing The Seven create themselves.
So pleased are they with their work, that they decide to make a home there, a sanctum where they can be alone with their grief.
Massassi’s remains are stored within the cube, and an order is created to maintain it. Acolytes that live and die within the walls, unsullied by the outside world.
Hidden away in their chamber, The Seven find a measure of sanctuary. They share memories of a better time, singing of their creator and their love for her, unpicking every detail of the years blessed by her living presence.
Usually these reminiscences result in tears of liquid stone that harden in the air, forming a shell of sorts over silver bodies. A set of living tombs within a tomb.
Only the brave or the foolish interrupt them.
Peace-Fifteen is not sure which she is when she presents herself. She knows that her very presence disturbs them and yet she comes anyway. The Empire of the Winged Eye is falling apart and something must be done. The Seven must take action.
In gentle, humble language, Peace-Fifteen makes this clear. Her life has been spent dealing with an extremely difficult and dangerous old woman, and it surprises her how transferable her skills are to the immortals.
And so they take action.
Peace-Fifteen is elevated by them, turned into a bridge between the grieving Seven and humanity. Hair is stripped from her, removed at cellular level. Nails too, are taken, leaving her smooth skinned, unblemished just as Massassi was. She is cloaked in feathers and renamed Obeisance.
The role is an odd one, nursemaid, messenger and icon rolled into one. Obeisance takes to it quickly, and soon, Seraph Knights set out, bringing order to the world once more.
And slowly, the Empire recovers. Its people are not what they were. The old pride has gone from the outer colonies, replaced with deep fear and superstition. The vast armies have been reduced to a fraction of their former size, and many of the satellites that orbit the world are now empty shells. Even the watch on the Breach itself is reduced, an outpost standing where legions were before.
A status quo of decay establishes itself, the Empire’s decline incredibly slow, barely noticeable from one generation to the next, but there, worsening by fractions of degrees.
Obeisance is not allowed to die, the role taken over by one of the daughters of Peace-Fifteen, and then one of her granddaughters, and onwards. Each is trained by her predecessor, shaped to appear and act the same, a thread of continuity for The Seven to cling to.
While Alpha, Beta and Delta bury themselves in nostalgia, and Epsilon, Theta and Eta content themselves to wait, Gamma fumes, restless. Of all of them, she loves Massassi the least, is the most removed from her siblings.
And so, when Obeisance comes, it is often she who an-swers.
And when, a thousand years later, the Breach finally opens, it is she that rides out to meet the demons, alone.
And it is she alone that pays the price.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Vagrant sees his chance. Delta is advancing on Beta, furious, her hands pointing at Reela then spreading to encompass everything before stabbing towards Beta again.
The other immortal backs away, his replies uncertain. Clearly Beta is touched by her argument, his nature making him listen and consider before refuting.
Mazar remains on her knees, doing her best to stay small.
Briefly, the Vagrant looks at the girl lying on the floor, cradling the arm that Beta touched. Her face is screwed tight with pain and his own creases in sympathy before turning back to Beta.
The immortal is on the defensive, distracted by Delta.
Circling round, trying to keep out of Beta’s eye-line and the eye-line of his living sword, the Vagrant advances. He moves closer, getting within a few paces of his weapon’s reach.
Carefully, he goes, carefully, then a sudden rush of movement, a step, two, pulling back Delta’s sword, singing out, swinging hard for Beta’s unguarded back.
Beta’s sword notices too late, its eye swivelling in shock, transmitting the warning to Beta via their essence link. There is the beginning of the motion that would become a parry, if there were just a few more precious seconds.
But Delta’s sword does not ring with the Vagrant’s song, the blade stiff in his hands. It holds itself rigid, so that the sound smacks dully along it, sapping the energy. Silver wings strain against his swing, forcing the Vagrant to drag it down.
When the blow lands, it is without force, a tap on the back, impolite.
The Vagrant has time to look surprised, then angry, at Delta’s sword before Beta has turned, his own blade rising with indignation.
Delta tries to intervene, reaching out to her brother, her hand cupping his face, guiding it back. Whatever she is about to say is cut off however, the palace shaking from multiple impacts.
There is a pause, long enough to register the vibrations in the floor and wonder what causes them, and then there is a groan from outside. A not-quite-human sound that comes from the walls and the agents that bond buildings together, stretched, tortured.
Slowly at first, the Vagrant begins to slide away from Beta. He frowns, looking down at innocent feet. As his momentum increases, the Vagrant leans forward, arms waving for balance.
Something is pulling at the sky palace, rotating it. The floor tilts dramatically, becoming a hill, steep. Beta and Delta automatically step up, their wings holding them stationary as everything revolves around them.
The Vagrant is not so lucky.
He flails, falls onto his front. There is nothing to grab onto but the toes of his boots squeak on the polished floor, finding purchase.
Mazar spreads herself flat, an armoured starfish sliding slowly away.
Reela rolls past him. He misses her but she manages to get hold of his ankle, causing them both to slip a few more feet.
Briefly, the floor tilts back again, not quite level but enough for the Vagrant to stand. He helps Reela up. Sweat runs cold on her face, one arm pressed close to her side, a few wisps still smoking up from the back of her hand.
Delta and Beta turn together, towards the wall, both appearing to see something shocking.
The Vagrant looks the same way, squinting, Reela copying.
They see nothing strange about the wall, it is as it has always been, a smooth canvas decorated in silver. Miniature figures remain as they were, innocent, frozen in their telling of ancient history.
Beta and Delta continue to stare, and so the Vagrant and Reela continue as well. He is about to turn away when there is a boom, loud and close, and the head of a bone lance erupts into the hallway. A sharp cone, like a giant arrowhead, five feet across. As they watch, four lines become visible along its length, allowing the cone to split apart, anchoring itself to the wall. A dark tunnel is revealed in its centre that appears the bastard child of a chute and a throat, lined in muscle and grey flesh.
Reela grips the Vagrant’s hand a little harder.
The tunnel convulses, the end t
hey can see braced firmly as the rest of it bucks. A gurgling, retching noise bubbles from the depths and then it spits out a body onto the floor.
It is one of the stilted warriors from Slake. As she hauls herself upright, another of their number is disgorged, then another, the hallway rapidly filling with slime-covered fighters, armed and ready.
Around Beta, the air begins to hum. He points his sword at the tunnel and, with a single beat of his wings, surges towards it.
Blue light crackles into being, forming a nimbus that covers Beta from the tip of his sword to the top of his shoulders, as wide as his wings at the base.
Partway through the charge, Delta’s hand flashes out, hard fingers locking about a silver ankle. She pivots in the air, taking the power of Beta’s movement, transferring it sideways, so that he completes a rapid orbit of her, a sparking, singing satellite.
Delta lets go, launching her brother down the hallway. It is a brief flight, followed by an impressive crash. Instantly, Delta gives chase, leaving the Vagrant, Mazar, Reela and the warriors alone.
They share a look before heading off in the opposite direction.
Vesper pauses by a window, looking out on the battle taking place across the sky palace. Wonderland has come alongside now, multicoloured tower-tops peeking over the battlements of Alpha’s palace. Though the living city is lower down, it is not out of reach. Many of the city’s vertebrae-legs have curled upwards, snakelike, to reach up, puncturing the sides of the palace. As more and more attach themselves, they begin to flex together, pulling the palace down to Wonderland’s level.
The great engines of the sky palace pull back, making everything shake, alarming, managing to lock it in the air at a strange angle.
Turning from the window, Vesper rushes on, stepping out into the open. With the palace off-balance, people roll like bits of litter, scattering downwards. A lucky few dangle from pillars or posts, or dive into nearby doorways.
Vesper dares the sloping streets, the sword held out to one side, wings catching the currents, holding her steady. Part gliding, part bounding, she races along, fixed on her destination.
Though she is fast, she cannot match Theta of The Seven for speed. The immortal swoops down from some higher place to fly alongside, keeping pace easily. Theta points her sword at Vesper, singing a note of outrage, simple, that launches light, blazing and blue, straight at her.
Vesper brings the sword round with a counter-note, splitting the fire, moving through the gap. However, the sword cannot parry and guide at the same time and Vesper’s stride loses momentum.
Theta attacks again, forcing another parry, forcing Vesper to abandon herself to the mercy of gravity. She slides down the palace on her back, sword held up, diverting the angry song before it can touch her, while Theta follows, keeping on the pressure, waiting for the opening that will surely come.
Vesper slides further down, batting away another strike, barely, the power of Theta taxing her voice and muscles to their limits.
At first, neither notice one of the giant bone-legs of Wonderland rising to meet them. Tendrils twitch along the upper half, translucent worms tasting the air, and the cone- shaped head flickers in Vesper’s direction, then splits open like a four-fingered hand, to snatch her mid-fall, pulling her away and into the air.
A second leg lashes out for Theta, a giant spider swatting at a silver fly. The immortal tucks in her wings, corkscrewing to safety. Meanwhile Vesper dangles from the first limb, like a prize in a fair.
Above her, the sky stretches in unbroken glory, the suns glaring down at her like a pair of mismatched, angry eyes. Below, she sees her feet dangling, and past them, the angled floor of the palace, and the judder of battlements, half a jaw of wide-spaced teeth, blunt, square. Through them, she catches a view of Wonderland and the ground, far, far beneath.
The sword stares at the limb, seeing the essence of the First, whole again, radiating an alien majesty. Vesper ignores its misgivings, too busy trying to catch her breath to worry about the future.
Abruptly, the view is snatched away as she is swung back towards the palace, deposited carefully on the side of a building that juts out like a ramp from the tilting streets.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
There is a sense of being regarded, and then the bone-limb retreats, joining the other one as it tries to smash Theta out of the sky.
Vesper doesn’t wait to see the result. She lowers herself off the side of the building, climbing through an open doorway.
From there, the sword leads her on, finding ways deeper into the palace, where the grinding of machinery can be heard, and the heart of the floating fortress beats.
Down stairwells and along passageways she goes, all spotless, generously sized. Few venture this deep inside the palace, a series of doors standing between would-be explorers and the inner chambers. Each one is four inches thick, heavy slabs without handle or keyhole, and there are many of them.
As Vesper approaches, the sword acts as a key and they spiral open, vanishing into the walls without trace.
The last door swishes away to reveal a large chamber, spherical, nearly half a mile across. Most of it is filled by another globe, the light drive that works hard to keep gravity at bay. Walkways line the edges, allowing access to different parts of the great engine.
A handful of robed engineers scurry from place to place, their worried faces caught in the glow, ghostlike, scowling. The fact that the palace is leaning does not matter here, clever gyroscopes keeping the chamber level regardless. But despite this, and their best efforts, the engines are struggling.
Vesper’s arrival soon gets their attention. Though their duties keep them isolated, the engineers know who Vesper is. They know the sword as well, and they have no idea what to do about either of them.
Like sheep, they scatter as she approaches, stopping at a safe distance to watch, nervous.
She works her way up until she is running across the top of the engine on a path that ends, abrupt, like a diving board above a soft-glowing star.
Once there, she and the sword start to sing. Not the battle song of the Seraph that hardens sound into a weapon, but the gentle hum of a parent helping their child to sleep at night.
It is a simple four-note refrain that rises and falls, repeating, calming.
In response the engines cease their groaning, their radiance reducing, their efforts easing. Vesper continues her work, lulling the light drives to sleep.
Alpha’s sky palace stops fighting the pull of Wonderland. As a result, it floats level once more, and begins a stately descent into the embrace of the living city.
Meanwhile, the armies of Crucible swarm forward, collected by the strange bone-limbs of Wonderland. Each one is part of a necrotic transport system, sucking up individuals into the inner workings of the city, transferring them from pipe to pipe, until they reach one of the bone-limbs already anchored to the palace above and are regurgitated. Many are inserted this way, bolstering the numbers that originally came by sky-ship and turning the tide of battle. Those less fond of travel by necro-pipe, and those augmented for climbing, make their way to the base of the palace, firing ropes or webbing, or in some cases, simply jumping the dis-tance with superhuman prowess.
These brave invaders scale the outer walls, hoping to find a way in before the defenders notice them.
The Vagrant emerges onto one of the battlements, Mazar and Reela close behind. The fighters from Slake overtake them with ease, their curved stilts propelling them forward in bouncing strides. Each one carries a length of cable, coiled, that they unspool over the side, a lifeline for others to climb.
While they work, amber eyes take in the situation.
Fierce fighting goes on all over the palace, the Empire struggling to hold back the forces of Crucible. As more and more people pour into the palace, the odds move ever in Crucible’s favour.
But there is another story unfolding above, as four of The Seven battle their way towards Wonderland’s heart. The bone
-limbs fight together, orchestrated by the First’s will, an unrelenting assault of stabbing and slashing, with each lining up ready to take over as soon as the one before is done.
Theta, Eta and Epsilon match this display of coordination, flying together, each covering the other, alternately flying over and under limbs, lashing out with their swords and song. It is like watching a group hack its way through an angry forest. The going is slow but there will be only one result.
Alpha is more direct. A single swing of his sword takes the head from one of the limbs. Blue flames burn around the wound, tinting green as the infernal essence catches at the stump. Briefly, the limb flails, miserable, before the flames snuff out, something cutting off the flow of essence from the rest of Wonderland. This saves the First from further pain but leaves the limb to flop, dead and useless.
The other nearby limbs hesitate, standing upright, paralysed snakes that allow Alpha to proceed unhindered.
If Alpha can reach inside the shell of the city, he will be able kill the First, and without Wonderland, the forces of Crucible are lost.
The Vagrant frowns. He taps Mazar’s rifle and then points at Alpha.
‘No way,’ she replies. ‘You can’t ask me to do that. Delta wouldn’t want me to.’
There is a hint of questioning in her voice but there is no time for the Vagrant to argue. Alpha is diving lower. Soon he will be lost amid the sparkling towers.
The Vagrant looks at Delta’s sword, nods towards Alpha. An eye meets his gaze, frightened but steady, and he takes one of the silver wings in his free hand.
Mazar begins shaking her head. ‘Don’t do it,’ she urges.
The Vagrant releases the wing, kissing the tips of his fingers and touching them to Reela’s forehead.
She wraps her uninjured arm around his leg, holding tight.
Gently, he unpeels it, pushing her away. Clearly, the girl intends to contest the issue but Mazar drags her back. ‘Don’t do it,’ she says again.