by Ari Marmell
Jace exhaled loudly, and the group moved on.
And so they progressed, protected by Jace's illusions and ignored by workers and guards alike, through the lower levels of the Consortium's mechanical heart. Guided by the memories and knowledge of the sleepwalker before them, Jace and Liliana inched ever nearer their ultimate goal, and not a soul was aware of their presence.
Jace knew better than to note, or even to think, that it was going too smoothly; he knew all too well it wouldn't last.
Indeed, it did not. They set foot upon a spiral stair, one that wound its way gradually up to a heavy door made not of steel or iron, but of ancient bronze. An array of multicolored stones, similar to those that had served as the controls for the alarm system, adorned the wall beside the ponderous portal.
Neither mage needed even to ask. They knew this must mark the entrance to the tower itself.
Though it was utterly unnecessary, thanks to his mental hold over the elven commander, Jace gave the squat soldier a curt nod. Irivan stepped forward, waved a hand over the gems, and the door rose into the ceiling with a low rumble and another hiss of steam.
Never mind their guises now; Jace and Liliana simply stared, utterly rooted to the floor.
If what they'd seen so far was mechanized chaos, this was mechanized madness. Half a dozen circular platforms of various sizes, held aloft by perfectly smooth cables as thick as tree trunks, rose and fell throughout the tower's hollow center, perhaps providing access to the areas above. At no point did the spire boast anything resembling an actual story; balconies, rooms, and structures that might even have been small buildings, had they stood on their own, protruded from the wall at various heights. Some were linked to others by more catwalks; others by stairs and smaller lifts that ran along the wall; and still others could be reached only by the central platforms. And those chambers and "partial floors" moved in turn, rotating around the tower's circumference, slowly sliding up or down, so that none remained at the same height for more than a few moments at a time. Between and around them, great pulleys and more rapidly pulsing orbs of light orchestrated the endless metal ballet that kept the tower in constant motion, yet somehow prevented so much as a single cable from becoming tangled with any other.
It made no sense, couldn't possibly make sense. Jace could imagine no purpose to it, no reason for someone to construct such a convoluted structure, unless…
Unless it wasn't a structure at all.
"It's an artifact," he whispered.
"What?" Liliana asked him, tearing her gaze from the slow dance above. "What is?"
"This. This place. The cables, the rising levels… The whole thing's an eldritch machine, Liliana. An artifact, not a building. It just happens to also have people in it."
She sucked in her breath, looking around her. "An artifact that does what? Surely this whole structure can't just be devoted to converting one type of mana into another."
Jace shrugged. "When we find Tezzeret, I'll be sure to ask him."
Shifting his attention from the apparatus above, Jace took a moment to examine his immediate surroundings. The floor was the same odd metal as the glowing spheres, and indeed it emanated a faint reddish pulse. It was a diabolical illumination, like a flame frozen solid, painting streaks of crimson across a series of round railings-present to keep people from stepping under the platforms and being crushed, Jace assumed. A number of doors, which could only lead to a relatively small array of rooms, surrounded the tower's perimeter. Those, and a perfectly smooth bronze spire standing roughly eight feet tall in the precise center of the tower, were the chamber's only obvious features.
"I, uh… I guess we head over and wait for one of the platforms," Jace offered halfheartedly. "Maybe there's a lever to summon one, or something."
Liliana had nothing better to offer, and Irivan had never been summoned into the heights of the tower itself, so that appeared to be their only option. Their footsteps resounded on the glowing floor, and their shadows flickered so rapidly in all directions, lit horribly from below, that it seemed they must detach from their masters and take independent flight.
The nearer they drew to the center of the room, the worse Jace's suspicions about the bronze pillar grew. When the entire device suddenly shuddered and split into ten insectoid legs of spindly bronze, topped by a "head" of clattering jutting, animated needles, Jace couldn't honestly claim to be even remotely surprised.
It skittered toward them, a hideous screech arising with each touch of its legs upon the metal below. As it neared, it no longer appeared to Jace as an insect, but almost as a pair of disembodied hands, joined at the wrists and scuttling on skeletal fingers.
A dozen feet from them it halted, shifting side to side as though eager to pounce. The jagged mass atop the legs clicked and spat, spines protruding in and out, a sewing machine grown mad. A thin iris of bronze amid the gears slid open, revealing a lens of verdigris-tinted glass.
The damn thing was studying them!
Jace sent a frantic command, and Irivan snapped to attention. He and Liliana followed a split second later, and the trio stood ready for inspection.
Maybe it was the wrong response, but Jace didn't think so. He swore the thing looked right at him, lens seeming to bulge in surprise, before it lurched again into motion.
With an indifference possible only in a machine, it hurled Irivan aside as it rushed to engage its true target. Jace dived to his left, hitting the floor in a painful roll and rising once more to his feet, as it thrust its jagged head and pumping spines through the space where he'd previously stood. He flung a spear of telekinetic force from his outstretched hand even as Liliana moved in behind the construct and tried to surround it with the same mass of shadowy fragments that had carried away her attacker's blade back in the Bitter End. But the former hardly even staggered the mechanized beast, and the latter seemed to splatter like water as they closed around one artificial leg.
It kicked back at her, and now it was Liliana's turn to dive away lest she find herself crushed or impaled on the great bronze limb. In the same motion it leaped forward, spinning to land beside Jace once more. A desperate shield of force was all that saved him from bearing the brunt of another kick, and even through his protective spell the impact was enough to send him skidding. He groaned as the friction against the floor ripped cloth from his trousers and skin from his thigh. The blood threatened to glue his cloak to the injury as he staggered once more to his feet.
No illusions; no mind-control; no necromantic enervation; Jace and Liliana were fast running out of options. He had no doubt that either of them could summon something great enough to crush the mechanical monster, but doing so would take more power, more mana, than Jace felt they could afford to spend when they'd not yet even found Tezzeret. He gave ground steadily before the machine's relentless advance, feet threatening to slide out from under him on the perfectly smooth surface, and struggled desperately to come up with some other option.
And then he saw Liliana wave, saw where she stood and the lever at which she pointed, and nodded his understanding.
The construct took to the air once more, and Jace dived under it, rolling to his feet and sprinting as fast as his wounded leg would allow. The entire floor shuddered as the beast landed and took off in pursuit. Swiftly, all too swiftly, the vibrations beneath him grew stronger, and he knew the construct was gaining.
A third dive to the side, but the machine had learned to anticipate the trick. A leg lashed out, pinning the hem of Jace's cloak to the floor. Yanked backward in midair, choking through a bruised throat, he landed hard on his back and lay still as the tower spun dizzyingly above. Only the creak of metal, the image of the construct's bulk heaving into sight above him, spurred him to action once more. Tearing open the cloak's broach he rolled swiftly to his right. One leg, a second, a third pounded the floor mere inches behind him as he rolled-and then a fourth came down in front of him, and only a desperate heave that agonizingly pulled every muscle in his torso kept him
from barreling right into it.
Jace started to roll back to his left, but one of the bronze limbs thudded down there as well. He found himself staring upward, pinned by a cage of mechanical legs. Above him, the amalgamation of edges that was the golem's head plunged forward and down, as though along a hidden track, spines reaching thirstily for Jace's blood. Another telekinetic shield halted the assault inches from his flesh, and he could feel the weight, the strength of the monster, pressing on his mind.
He screamed beneath the strain, felt his bastion of force slowly start to give. A single spine, pressed forward by a piston of magic and steam, slowly sliced through his defenses and pressed deep into the muscle and flesh of his shoulder. Blood flowed, raining down between the slats onto the mechanisms below.
"Jace!" He scarcely heard her, over the creaking of the bronze and the pounding in his head. "Jace, now!"
Jace grinned up at the machine that threatened to kill him.
From behind them both, a fearsome roar shook the chamber. Jace all but sobbed in relief as the spike withdrew from his flesh, as the construct whipped its head around to see what new threat had emerged.
Wings spread wide, mouth agape in her deafening cry, the cerulean sphinx Jace had summoned to his aid twice before slammed into the construct, lifting it, thrashing and twitching, into the air.
Hurry! he thought desperately to his feline ally. Jace knew that, given even a moment to recover, the machine could shred her like cobweb. Hurry!
Another cry, and the sphinx released her prey. Legs waving helplessly, it sailed across the chamber, slamming into, and through, one of the circular railings near the room's center.
Sparks flew, and the construct finally skidded to a halt on its back. Ten legs twisted, reversing their position; the head of gears slid upward through the body, emerging on what had been the underside; and the mechanized beast was on its feet once more.
Thankfully, fast as it was, it was much too late.
Even as it rose, its head struck the flat surface of the platform descending on top of it, the lift platform Liliana had summoned with the tug of a lever. Designed to haul dozens if not hundreds of tons from the floor of the tower, it was a weight and a pressure not even the construct could withstand. Thrashing wildly, bronze limbs bent and snapped beneath the weight of the lift. A groan, the final crack of rending metal, and the platform settled evenly to the floor, bits of bronze debris splayed out beside it. The sphinx lay sprawled atop the lift, a look of contentment on her face.
Jace and Liliana moved together, standing back to back, braced for another attack, but nothing came. The platforms continued their intricate dance, the cables twisted and turned, but nothing more.
Liliana looked at Jace, who could only shrug. "The walls are thick, and the machines are noisy," he theorized. "Maybe nobody heard?"
"I don't like it," Liliana told him bluntly. "You really think there are no guards inside this entire tower?"
"I think I'll take whatever luck falls my way," Jace told her. Then again, there was no telling how long it would take before some guard did wander through. "But, uh, let's get the wreckage out of sight, shall we?"
"Right, because nobody's going to notice the missing pillar," Liliana scoffed. Still, she moved to help with the smaller bits, even as the sphinx-her expression one of arrogant disdain-rose, stretched languidly, and began batting the larger ones across the floor.
It never occurred to either of them to wonder who else might have been watching through the construct's eye.
In the end, they found that several of the doors on the tower's perimeter led to supply closets, and chose one as the repository for the random bits of bronze, as well as the corpse of Irivan, who hadn't survived being brushed aside by the charging construct. With a nod of thanks for her help, Jace dismissed the sphinx; useful in battle as she was, she wasn't precisely inconspicuous.
He took a moment, stretching out the kinks in his back and flinging his tattered cloak back over his shoulders. "Stay here," he said then, fading into invisibility as he moved toward the door. "I want to take a quick look around, make absolutely certain that we haven't attracted any attention."
"Wait, what? Jace, hold on-" But he was already gone, the door drifting shut in his wake.
Liliana cursed, roundly and for several minutes. What was he thinking? The last thing they needed now was to get separated-and she definitely couldn't afford to lose track of what he was up to. They were so close now, she was so close, and yet this could still so easily go completely sideways.
As if to prove the point, the door creaked open, but it was not Jace Beleren standing therein.
"What by all the Eternities are you doing here?" Baltrice demanded, flames crackling between the fingers of her left hand.
Already on edge, Liliana felt the first stirrings of real panic. How much did Baltrice know? What had Tezzeret told her of their meeting? "Get out of here! You'll ruin everything!" she hissed desperately. "Damn it, go check with your boss! He'll tell you whose side I'm on!"
"No," Baltrice said, suddenly fading away into nothingness. "You've already done that."
Liliana's head fell, her eyes closing of their own accord. "Jace." She forced herself to look up, just in time to see him shimmer into being before her. "Jace, you don't understand. I-"
The breath rushed from her lungs as Jace wrapped his fists in her tunic and slammed her against the rear wall of the chamber.
"Damn you!" He literally shook her, somehow finding the strength in his slender form to hold her completely off the floor. Worse, she felt his anger not merely in his grip, but in her own mind, waves pounding against her thoughts, disorienting her until she wasn't certain she could even stand were he to let her go. "How could you do this to me?"
"Jace-"
"I trusted you, Liliana! I loved you!" His eyes glowed a cobalt blue to light up the entire chamber, and the necromancer could feel the power gathering within his soul. He'd been so sure, so certain that he was imagining things, that his suspicions were nothing but paranoia. His test, his illusion, they'd been meant to assuage his worries before moving on, not…
Not this.
"Jace," she tried again, placing one hand atop his own, feeling the muscles and tendons flexing within, "I swear to you, I can explain. But not now, not when we're so close! This isn't the time!"
"Actually," Tezzeret's oily voice oozed from the open doorway, "I think it's the perfect time."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The tower's great bronze door blew completely off its frame like a cork shooting from a bottle. Rending metal pierced the ears and bits of jagged shrapnel dug furrows into the walls. Helpless as a rag doll, Tezzeret landed on his back in the twisted wreckage, blinking to clear his head, wiping blood and particulates from his face.
A cloud of dust filled the chamber beyond, tinged red by the fires below, billowing and rolling to shame the storm. His tattered cloak undulating behind, his eyes tunnels of endless crackling blue, Jace Beleren strode through the cloud, bearing down on the startled artificer. Above him resounded the thunder of mighty wings as the enormous drake that had hurled Tezzeret through the door circled menacingly, dropping ever lower at its master's call. Its scales gleamed even in the diffuse, abysmal light.
Propping himself up on his etherium hand, Tezzeret scrambled to his feet, initiating a spell of his own. The younger mage never slowed, never broke stride. He merely bowed his head, allowing the plummeting drake just enough room to tuck its wings to its sides and burst through the doorway. Shrieking its primal rage, it slammed into Tezzeret once more, bowling him farther down the hall, claws and teeth raking furiously against a protective barrier the artificer only barely erected in time.
Again Tezzeret found himself flat on his back, struggling to ward off the drake that crouched above him, digging at his shields. Around him, guards came running, swords held aloft, only to be forced back by bone-chilling waves of piercing cold that wafted against them as they approached, freezing solid
flesh and blood and bone.
Abandoned and betrayed, face to face with the architect of everything his life had become, Jace Beleren's rage overpowered any sympathy he may have felt for the guards as they fell before his murderous spells. They wanted to serve the artificer? They could die with him.
Tezzeret, caught utterly off guard by the mind-reader's fury, allowed himself the duration of a single indrawn breath to marvel at the power he faced, to grow wroth that the power he had fostered in Jace was now being levied against him.
Looking up, he stared into the maw of the chrome-scaled drake, and thrust both hands outward.
A swarm of tiny projectiles pierced the air, and each was a single tip of a triple-forked bolt of lightning. Scales and flesh blackening beneath the assault, the drake slammed upward to collide with a bone-breaking crunch against the metallic ceiling. Booming thunder rolled down the hall, dispersing the dust and knocking Jace off his feet.
In unison Jace and Tezzeret scrambled upright, each glaring at the other across the twitching drake and frost-coated steel. Even as the beast struggled to rise, the artificer clenched his fist. From both walls an array of cables and pipes burst from their sockets, slamming into the wounded creature's flesh, releasing bursts of steam to boil the scales from its body. The drake shuddered one last time and was gone. But the protrusions from the wall remained, writhing blindly like the tendrils of some obscene jellyfish.
Jace shouted, his words incomprehensible, and gestured. From the floor behind him, the shards of the shattered door rose and spun down the hall, scything blades aimed at Tezzeret's flesh. But telekinesis still was not Jace's strongest suit, and the few projectiles that wove their way through the barrier of metal tentacles were easily repelled by the artificer's personal shield.
He had only just begun to laugh, to mock the feebleness of the assault, when Jace's true attack struck. Pain blossomed through Tezzeret's head, sunk its tendrils deep into his thoughts. His vision blurred, his stomach heaved, and worst of all, his concentration wavered.