Etherwalker

by Cameron Dayton

  Hovering over the center of the table, however, was something interesting. It was an object made of light—a hologram. Enoch remembered the word from his time in Babel. The hologram was a sphere decorated with various symbols and colors, and other symbols spun around the sphere like flies circling a light.

  Enoch supposed it held some great meaning for whoever used to sit here, but he was almost glad that he had chosen the least interesting room here—now he had to get back to the reason he had come down here. He walked around the table, thoroughly unimpressed by the simplicity of this room. Rictus and Sera and G’Nor would come looking for him soon—

  And that’s when he saw the body. It was sitting in the chair with its back to the door, which was why Enoch hadn’t seen its occupant behind the tall back. Enoch grimaced—the body had been here for centuries and had withered into a slumped skeletal corpse, which had dried into a husk under endless years of cool, dry air whisked through the tireless ventilation system. There was no smell, no mess or rot. Just a dark, lonely little figure sitting patiently in front of the spinning hologram.

  A cave full of wondrous rooms, and I choose the one with a dead guy in it.

  Enoch turned to go, but something caught his eye—a glimmer on the thin wrist of the corpse. The light from the hologram had reflected on something. This was interesting—the clothing had dried and warped to become almost indistinguishable from the withered flesh of the corpse’s body, but there was bright, untarnished jewelry still adorning its wrists, throat, and a single ear. Maybe Enoch could bring something back for Sera? He blushed at the thought, but it emboldened him to approach the corpse. Just one little cadaver, right? After all, hadn’t Enoch waded through troll blood, mudman poison, and the guts of a regenerative monster?

  He decided on the bracelet, a beautifully crafted tracery of silver and steel that wrapped around the thin bones of the wrist like the wings of a bird. It felt beautiful and correct, much like Sera. Enoch smiled. Careful not to touch the dry, leathery skin, he grasped the bracelet and slid it from the corpse’s hand.

  All that time traveling with Rictus—who knew it was preparing me to be an unflinching grave robber?

  He lifted the bracelet up to his lamp to get a better look and gasped. The bracelet was a delicately rendered eagle, with a large ruby set as the eye.

  An eagle. On the right wrist.

  Enoch checked, and sure enough, there was another bracelet on the corpse’s left wrist that resembled a coiling serpent. The silver scales wound towards another ruby eye.

  Enoch regarded the corpse again, feeling a sort of pity. He knew that this place had been built by those wishing to oppose his kind, the Pensanden. It appeared that they could not help but imitate them as well, even wear their symbols. This person, whomever he had been, had wished to wear the Eagle and the Serpent. Had wished for what Enoch had.

  He almost returned the bracelets to the corpse, an act of guilt, but instead frowned and slid them onto his own wrists. Whoever this person had been, he was an enemy to the Pensanden. When living, this person and his people had created the monster that had almost killed Enoch and his friends. Enoch would wear the bracelets as a reminder of that. They fit his wrists perfectly, after all.

  And maybe Sera will wear the other one.

  The thought made him blush, and he liked the sensation.

  As Enoch left the room, the hologram winked out. The door slid closed behind him.

  Enoch wasn’t sure how long he continued down that hallway with endless rooms on either side that teased at mysteries beyond mysteries. It seemed like he continued for an hour before it eventually led down to another series of stairs, and then a pair of doors that were sealed with an enormous mechanical lock. The lock was easily dealt with, as Enoch’s afila nubla pushed the scrambled notches back into order. Pushing the actual door open was more difficult, as hinges that had been still for centuries squealed in protest.

  The next turn brought him to a massive open space, a cavernous room with a ceiling so distant that his lamp could not reach its height. And there was a breeze here, an artificial wafting of air that came from some circulation system in vents far above. Enoch had been walking for hours now, and the soft wind on his skin brought his mind back to his body. His mouth was dry, and his stomach growled.

  Sitting back against one of the thick girders that supported this place, Enoch drank from his pouch. He shut off his lamp to conserve energy, finally accepting the fact that he was going to be down here for a while.

  Besides, it won’t take me too long to route some of that stored power into the light fixtures running through here. The vent system is still working—some filters set to ensure that this cavern stays dry and clean.

  Even without the lamp on, Enoch could “see” the motes of energy running through this place. Could sense the slowly turning fans, the dilating vents, the weight-bearing girders all around him. A measured and silent order that held reign.

  And that was when he heard the breathing.

  It was ragged and dim, but it was deep. It came from something big. Something close. Enoch froze, grateful that his light was off.

  That’s assuming this thing can’t see in the dark . . .

  Images of another shapeless monstrosity like Váli rose up in his mind, and Enoch shuddered.

  Constrain. Calm. Control.

  The words of command came more difficult than normal—he supposed the recent nightmarish battle had left some marks in his mind.

  Constrain. Calm. Control.

  The breathing hadn’t moved. And it seemed to be getting weaker. He recognized the nature of the sound from his days as a shepherd, taking care of animals that had been injured. The halting, wet noise of ruptured lungs.

  Whatever it is . . . it is dying.

  Emboldened, Enoch silently rose to his feet. He slid the lamp into his pocket and slowly drew his blades.

  Just like the front room back at the farmhouse—remember the layout. Slip through it like a fish.

  There had been another girder just ahead at the edge of the lamp’s light. Twenty-seven steps and Enoch’s toe felt the slight rise of the platform at its base. The breathing was closer. And weaker.

  Ten more steps, and whatever it was stopped breathing. Not a careful attempt at being silent, but a rattling, wheezing halt.

  Another ten steps.

  It is dead.

  Enoch counted a full minute.

  Constrain. Calm. Control.

  He sheathed his derech and pulled out the lamp. His thumb felt towards the smooth button on the side, and the light clicked on.

  Enoch gasped.

  It was a dead draconfly. Bulbous compound eyes, a mountain of black carapace, splayed segmented legs, and the insectile undeath of twitching antennae. One of the monsters that had brought the coldmen to his farm. The coldmen who had killed Master Gershom and cast Enoch’s life into the nightmare it had become.

  How did it get here? Was it from this place? Did my ancestors leave a draconfly nest buried here under all this sand?

  As soon as Enoch thought the question, he knew the answer. This creature was definitely not from here. Something this large would have left marks passing through the narrow hallways and doors he had just been through. This thing had arrived through some other entry—

  And . . . it was dead. A yellow ichor had pooled underneath the creature, and Enoch could see several worn fractures along its thorax and wings. It had been driven hard. Someone had raced here, heedless of the cost.

  “I knew you would come.”

  Enoch spun, dropping the lamp to draw his derech. The lamp bounced twice and landed at the feet of a large man only a few steps behind where Enoch stood.

  A coldman.

  The light angled up along his thick armored legs, as broad around as Enoch’s chest. This coldman was larger than the ones he had seen back at the farm. Taller than Rictus. The plates on his shoulders curved up into horns, and Enoch had to remember that fearsome armor was not worn, it was a par
t of the coldman just as the twitching antennae were part of the dead creature behind him.

  I must remember the corpse behind me. The floor slick with blood.

  Enoch had drawn his blades and instinctively began mouthing the pensa spada as he took a step backwards. The coldman didn’t move, just regarded Enoch with flat, hooded eyes that reflected the blue light from the lamp.

  “It has been so long.”

  Its voice was dry and coarse. Enoch didn’t respond.

  “I could have killed you as you stood there. I could have killed you when you sat to rest. I have been following you since you first entered this chamber.”

  It was not bragging, merely stating a fact. Now it took a step forward. Enoch held his ground.

  “You have some training, but you are too young. Far too young for this to have been a good Hunt. I had hoped for a chase across these sands, for blood and battle.”

  The coldman crushed the lamp underneath its heavy foot, and there was only blackness. “Sadly, it will end here. Now.”

  Enoch fought the panic brought by the dark, by the words of this killer. He closed his eyes, retraced the distances around him.

  Hear.

  The coldman was quiet, but he was large. The air would move around it and betray any swift movements. Enoch realized that it must be standing still. It was watching him. He slid into a simple defensive position and waited.

  The voice, when it came, was behind him. “I am the Mosk d’Abaddon. I am the Hiveking.”

  Enoch whirled, but too late. Something heavy and sharp drove into his shoulder and sent him tumbling across the floor.

  “I was bred to kill your kind. I have slain your kin to extinction—we thought them all dead after the Baroness fell.”

  Enoch pulled himself up on his elbows, despairing. The coldman was moving slowly, deliberately. Noiselessly. It could see in the dark. It knew his moves before he made them. He was dead.

  Try and sense it another way.

  “I don’t know anything about this hunt. Or this woman.”

  Enoch laid his face against the cold plastic floor. Maybe he would be able to feel the heavy footsteps. Blood ran down his shoulder, his arm, pooled on the floor around his elbows.

  “I was raised on a farm. I’m not what you think I am.”

  The kick whistled through the air, again too fast to avoid and from an unexpected angle. It thudded into his ribs with an audible crack, and Enoch rolled across the cold floor. He was gasping.

  “I know where you were raised. I know of the blademaster who raised you. I dug his body from the ground and tasted your hands in the soil of his grave.”

  Enoch had kept his swords in hand. Somehow. But he was dead. He could not see his enemy. He could not hear his enemy. He could not even feel his enemy’s footsteps rippling in his own blood. A last act of numb defiance, Enoch refused to let this killer enjoy this torture. Refused to put up a fight. He lay back in the pooling blood and waited for the final blow.

  The Hiveking did not laugh. But there was something like dark humor in its voice.

  “Why else would I confront a jier’anden here, of all places? Only if I knew of the cripplingly primitive way he was blooded. Your blademaster hid you by severing your power, young one. In keeping you safe amongst shepherds, he hobbled you like one of your lambs. No amount of swordplay can replace what he took from you.”

  It was standing over him now. The dry voice drew terrifyingly close to his face. Enoch held his breath. He paused.

  How do you defend against what you cannot see?

  “How fitting that the last Pensanden should die in the home of his first primitive foes.”

  You turn on the lights.

  And suddenly the chamber was bathed with light. It coursed from the massive panels overhead as power roared through circuits long dead. Enoch pulled it from the generators that still held life, from the forgotten corners of this complex that still held charge. The light bore down from the ceiling high above, and it struck the coldman’s lidless eyes without mercy.

  He staggered back, hissing. “But you cannot know how to—”

  His words were cut short as Enoch’s derech drove into his right eye. The Hiveking hissed and struck out, knocking Enoch back to the ground. Enoch, bleeding and broken, groaned as he crawled to his feet.

  The Hiveking hissed again and turned to regard Enoch with his one eye. The other was shattered and dripping pale ichor that glistened in the bright light. In the full illumination, Enoch could see that this Hiveking was as different from a man in armor as he was from the smaller coldmen Enoch had witnessed on that fateful night.

  The Hiveking did not bear a sword. He wore no armor. His weapons and defense came from the bladed shell carapace that covered his body. His shoulders and forearms bore curving spikes, like ebony spurs. His thick fingers ended in claws, and as Enoch watched, the Hiveking reached down to pull the plates over his ribcage apart . . . only it wasn’t a ribcage. It was another pair of arms, folded tight under its thoracic shell. The arms were thinner and did not end in clawed fingers—each arm tapered to a curving, scythe appendage that resembled the talons of a mantis. One of them snapped forward, faster than Enoch could blink.

  No human reflex is that fast. This is how he kills the Nahuati.

  The Hiveking hissed again, spreading his arms out to a lethal range. His mouthparts separated, opening toothy segments as the hiss became a roar that sprayed ichor in a wet arc.

  Losing an eye only made him angry.

  Enoch crawled to his feet, swords drawn, and backed away. The Hiveking let loose with another roar, and one of the light fixtures overhead exploded in a shower of sparks. The roar was a challenge, and Mosk pointed at Enoch’s wrist.

  “You found the Eurym! But it cannot help you here, larva. She cannot hear you this deep!”

  What? Who is She? He’s gone mad . . . The light is all I can control here. I have to take him deeper.

  Enoch turned and ran. Not out the way he came, but past the Hiveking and towards a series of four doors which were in a line along the wall several dozen meters to his back. There were bright lines there. There was motion. Things that Enoch could use.

  The footsteps hammering behind him attested to the fact that his pursuer was no longer attempting to be quiet. The Hiveking was in a rage, a passion that had slept for a decade. The hunter had stepped outside of his training, outside of his patterns—and that had saved Enoch’s life. Enoch wasn’t sure why the creature had chosen to go against the behavior that had worked to such deadly effect for so long, why he had chosen to be melancholy and reflective and human at such a critical point, but Enoch had used the flaw to his advantage.

  He wouldn’t be able to surprise the Hiveking like that again.

  Faster.

  Enoch’s side raged with pain, each footstep sending an agonizing blast of fire. But the footsteps were getting closer. He had to go faster.

  There was a whistle, and a sharp line of pain laced across his back. Enoch saw the door ahead, triggered the mechanism that opened it. The Hiveking drew even closer, saw that Enoch was hoping to reach the opening and close it behind him.

  At the last second, Enoch leapt—but not at the open door. He dove through the door next to it, a door that he had also unlocked but left closed until the last second. The Hiveking had too much mass to change course now, and he slid through the other door entirely with a roar. Enoch pushed as he came to his feet, slamming both doors shut and sealing the locks.

  He knew that he didn’t have a lot of time. Already, the Hiveking was pounding on the door beside him. Powerful blows that shook the air. Enoch turned and ran, his mind reaching out to the architecture around him.

  This room was cold, and there was a distinctive sound of dripping coming from above. But no machinery. Nothing that he could use.

  Enoch found a gantry connected to a staircase that ran along some massive pipes. He began climbing the staircase, which circled around a tall shaft lifting up into the darkness ab
ove. And suddenly Enoch realized where he was.

  If I can climb high enough . . . I might have a chance.

  The lights in here flickered, were not as robust as those from the wide chamber he had just left. But at least he could see here. At least he could fight. He remembered that the derech and iskeyar were meant to kill coldmen. That the shifting patterns of straight and curved blades were too complex for their minds.

  But he also remembered that even his Master had been overpowered. And this was the Hiveking, who had already bloodied him and broken his rib.

  I just need to hold him off and stay alive long enough to get higher.

  With a roar, the Hiveking smashed through the door below and charged into the pool of flickering light at the base of the stairs. He cast around for a second, raging at the limited sight his one eye offered, but spied Enoch already on the third level above. The Hiveking hissed and turned to face the boy, crouching.

  He cannot possibly think to—

  In one tremendous leap, the coldman bounded from the ground up to the second floor just under Enoch’s feet. He grabbed onto the railing with his scythe claws and pulled himself onto the slatted floor below. Enoch could see him from between the slats under his own feet. He had less time than he thought. The Hiveking spun and leapt onto the railing next to Enoch.

  I’ve made him angry and careless. The Hiveking has been out of practice, and I can use that against him.

  Enoch chopped down with his iskeyar, lopping off the tip of one scythe claw that held the monster to the railing. The Hiveking roared again and lashed out with another scythe, a flash of movement that tore across the boy’s chest. Enoch stumbled back, even now horrified at the thing’s inhuman speed. Hissing, the Hiveking scrambled over the railing and faced Enoch, who continued moving up the staircase with sidesteps, his swords aimed at his assailant. He began chanting the litania eteria. Everything came into focus.