by Tim Akers
"Who could do such a thing?" Owen asked, quietly.
I kicked at the stone-wrapped icon of the Betrayer, then looked up at the Justicar. "They have a history of it," I said, and walked off.
Behind me the whiteshirts started making plans to contain the Amonites, seal away the icon, and continue with the repair of the site. I walked over to the nervous pack of Amonites. There was an Alexian with them, his fist white around a jumble of those soul-chains. He was a thin man with a weak chin, but large, strong hands.
"Which one was it?" I asked.
He volunteered himself, before the whiteshirt could compel him forward. Another small man, though wide and strong. There was grease under his nails, and calluses on his hands. His skin was the color of worn leather. For all his strength, he quivered under his hood.
"You found the icon?"
"Yes, my lady."
"How?"
"I was ... I was repairing the cobbles, my lady. As ordered. I was clearing out that ditch there, and turned a stone. The icon was there."
"Did it call to you?"
"No, ma'am. I heard nothing from it. I'm not ... attuned to such things."
"You are a scion of the Scholar," I said. "You are attuned to his symbols."
"That aspect of the lord Brother ... of Amon ... such symbols are forbidden, as they have always been." He shuffled his feet. "And even if they weren't, I'm not ... gifted, my lady."
"You can't invoke?" I asked, surprised. Rare for someone to swear to one of the gods without showing some noetic talent. Rarer still for that someone to swear to Amon.
"No, my lady. I worship with my hands, and my back, and my mind."
I stood quietly in front of him, looking for some lie in his broad, sun-scrubbed face. There was fear, but who was to blame for that? I turned to his keeper and nodded. When I turned around, Owen was two steps behind me.
"Scaring the witnesses?" he asked.
"Questioning them. I believe that's your job, of course, but someone has to actually do it."
"It is my job, Eva. Leave it to me."
"If I had, Justicar, where would we be? Kicking our heels in that lovely station? Drinking coffee, perhaps? Maybe we would have been able to question this man there, after someone else had found him and brought him to us."
"Better that than rushing around the city all night," his voice was steadily rising, "chasing ghosts and digging through bodies. There are people for these jobs-"
"We are those people, Owen. I am that person. I let the old man down. I will not sit and wait."
"You're overexcited. It's time we were back at that station. There is much to report on," he said, and put his hand on my wrist. Oh, mistakes, mistakes. Such glorious mistakes.
I pulled his hand toward me, until his knuckles brushed my belly, then flipped my hand over and grasped his elbow. Rotate, hip-check, and then toss. He hit the ground like a sack of flour, and then I was past him, turning from his rapidly reddening face and walking briskly to the taped barricade. The crowd that had been gathering at the yellow tape line was staring at the furious Justicar and the Paladin who had put him on his ass. Not every day that you got to see the scions of god fight, not since Amon had been bound and burned and drowned. So they stood and gaped. I gave them a smile and a short salute, and let them have their look.
All but one of them. A girl, twisting her face quickly away from the barricade, slipping shoulder-ways into the press of bodies, squirming through. She was dirty-faced, skinny-armed, the thick matte mane of her dark hair pulled back in a messy tail that spilled in curls across her shoulders. Black robe, black hood pulled back, the sleeves torn away to disguise the garment's origin. She wore an Amonite's robe. The girl. Cassandra.
She was gone, and now the crowd was staring in horror at me, at the bully I had pulled and was now pointing at them, at the space where the girl had stood, my finger tight on the trigger. They began screaming. Understandable, considering the mad fury in my face. The murder in my eyes.
The Justicar ran up next to me and put a hand on my gun arm. Without thinking I shrugged my shoulder into his chest, cracking the hilt of the still-sheathed blade across his teeth, then hooked his flailing arm and hip-checked him into the crowd, all without thinking. Reaction, and my hunter-mind was finally smoothing through the shock and anger. I put a heel into Owen's chest as I jumped over him and into the seething crowd. In pursuit.
I locked down the dozen questions that pushed for space in my brain. How the girl had escaped her chains. If she knew where the Fratriarch was, what had happened, if he was still alive. Why she came back to this place. Locked it down and ran.
The crowd thinned out after the immediate press around the barricade, but it was still a busy street in a busy city. Vendors and pedigears and carriages filled the streets, along with a loose river of pedestrians. Most of them were oblivious to the chase, only a few looking behind them in confusion as the girl ran past, wondering why she was in such a hurry. I pushed past them, following the invisible line of the Amonite's path through upset carts and startled citizens. I was as gentle as a tiger is to grass, as quiet as lightning before thunder's wake. I still had the bully out, barrel up, ready to snap forward should a shot present itself. Too many people, though. Too much interference. The girl stayed ahead, a glimpse of black robe or the bobbing cascade of ringlet hair the only sign that I had not lost my quarry.
One clear look, the girl rushing into an alleyway between two illmaintained buildings. I slid to a stop at the entrance. It was clogged with junk, and absolutely dark. A rapid hissing sound, then a thump. There were no other sounds of flight, no footsteps, no panicked breathing, no debris being shoved out of the way by a hurrying girl in the dark. Iron groaned in the blackness, and something fell from high up, dancing against metal as it dropped. Silence again.
I slid the bullistic into its holster and drew the blade, then stepped into the shadows and invoked the Torches of the Fellwater. My eyes began to glow with a pale, bluish white light that wisped in twisting tendrils across my cheekbones and into my hair. The bright street behind me washed out into brilliant light, but the alley resolved into blocky grays and blacks. I slid forward, sword at guard, looking for any sign of Cassandra.
The alley was cluttered with a carefully constrictive jungle of trash. The stone walls to either side were lost behind cardboard boxes and stacked iron pilings, tumbling down on the ground like a child's game of sticks. I stepped between them carefully, maneuvering between piles of junk, doing everything I could to keep the sword in a guard position. No sign of the girl. I looked up and saw that there were platforms above, suspended from a rough framework of metal tubing that was anchored into the hidden wall, behind piles of junk. A rope dangled loosely beside the rough structure, still slithering with recent movement. Quick climber, maybe.
"What is this place?" I asked myself quietly. This was not just a haphazard collection of trash in the crevices of the city. This had been built and hidden. Peering up into the alley's heights, I was momentarily blinded by the strip of early morning sky. I blinked the image away, startled into dropping the invokation of night sight. Darkness shrouded me, but in the few seconds before I lost my vision, I thought I saw a form flitting between platforms, high above.
Squinting, I felt my way to the rope and gave it a tug. It pulled down loosely in my hand. A pulley, or something. The end of the rope on the ground was heavily weighted. So it was some kind of escape route. One end of the rope was tied to the ground, the rest hooked over a pulley high above with the weight dangling from it. Run up to it, cut the rope, and hold on as the weight dragged you up. Simple, and completely oneway. I tugged the rope once more, hard, and the other end of it cleared the pulley high above and fell heavily to the ground. It was a lot of rope. She could be anywhere up there. Sighing, I felt my way to the nearest platform, then reluctantly put away the blade and started to climb.
The way was tough. It might have been easier with more light, but even then the handholds were irreg
ular and ramshackle. The Fellwater was very difficult to power up once it had been snuffed. There was something in the story about spies dousing the spare torches in swamp water, so that the army had been blinded when they tried to switch the blazes out. Details of history could be inconvenient sometimes. I cut my hands on raw iron, and scraped my cheek and shins on loose stone that slid free when I put my weight on it. The framework tower creaked and shifted around me.
Thirty feet up, I paused. I sat cross-legged on a platform, my tired hands resting on an iron pipe that served as the bottom rung of a rickety ladder. Still trying to convince myself that this ladder was worth climbing, that this was the way Cassandra had come. She could have cut the rope and then hidden, and how would I know? A false path, maybe? Or did the Amonites have some sort of technology that deadened the sound of a stack of lead smashing into the ground? Who knew? Who knew what those bastards were actually capable of doing?
At the very least, I was curious where all this structure had come from, and where it led to. Curiosity was losing out to grim practicality, though. The girl could be anywhere by now. She could have kept running straight through the alley, past the false path of the elevator. She could have just hidden, waiting for me to get high enough before dashing back out into the street and away. Even if she was up here, if she had taken the makeshift elevator she could have gotten awfully high awfully fast. It just didn't seem likely I would catch up with her. I sighed and started preparing myself for the descent. Owen would be along soon, with his patrol and his wagon with its spotlights. We could surround the building and conduct a tedious, pointless search. Maybe even find some evidence that Cassandra had been here, hours ago. It was the best I could hope for, once the quarry had been lost.
I was considering if it would just be easier to shield up and jump when the girl's face resolved out of the shadows across the way like a half-moon sliding from behind the clouds. She was sitting on an intersection of iron braces, her legs tangled in the crossbars, her arms looping casually over her head. I jumped up into a low squat and went for the bully.
It was the fastest I had ever heard the Cant of Unmaking invoked. The girl whispered a heavy chant that rolled across the chasm in waves of power. The pistol began to come apart in my fingers even as it cleared the holster. Bolts shivered free of the weapon, jangling like loose change as they were joined by the cycling rod, the hammer, finally the cylinder itself. The barrel followed the quick trajectory of my draw, spinning like a knife across the alley and smacking into the girl's shoulder. Cassandra winced and stopped her cant, but all that I held was a loose collection of familiar pieces that wouldn't jigsaw back into a bullistic, no matter how tightly I gripped them. Let them go and drew the blade, yelling.
My first step found the weakness in the tower, my boot kicking free a bar of metal, quickly followed by an avalanche of metal pilings that shuffled into the yawning darkness below. I gasped, trying to steady myself, but everything I touched loosened and slid away. Across from me the girl looked terrified, her wide eyes watching each piece fall. Cassandra's own perch began to falter, and she scrambled higher. I was too busy with my own gravity issues to watch her go.
The Cant of Unmaking must have clipped the tower, because the structure that had supported me all the way up here now folded away like a magician's trick knot. My platform tipped and I was falling, dropping a few feet before I slapped against another platform which in turn clattered free. Soon I would be swallowed by an avalanche of loose boards and spinning pipes. I looked across the alley and saw that the other structure was still standing, its platforms and struts loose but in much better shape than my own tower. A long way, but no other choice. I screamed and jumped and fell and closed my eyes as the air whipped past my head and I was falling, falling, crunch.
My teeth sang with the impact of the tower. I crashed through a thin wooden railing and onto a platform several levels below where Cassandra had been sitting. Blood filled my mouth and the air left my lungs, but I pushed myself up to a kneeling position. Across the alley my former tower collapsed like a castle of dust, the roar of metal and wood deafening in the tight canyon between the two buildings. A cloud of debris swirled up from the ground, choking me and stinging my eyes. I covered my face and spat. The platform under my feet swayed but did not give way. I looked up for the girl.
The structure was starting to lose hold of itself. Bits of it clattered down into my face. Wooden planks folded and spun as the bolts that held them shriveled away. Through the rapidly growing openings above me, I could see a door into the building that had been left open. There was light. A pale hand slipped out and pulled the door closed, rusty hinges flaking as it squealed shut. The structure around me groaned and leaned into the open alleyway.
I scrambled higher, reaching the door in half the time I thought possible. There was a narrow iron balcony around the door. I stepped onto it, my fingers grasping the door's round handle. My boot wasn't off the ramshackle ladder for more than two panicked breaths when the structure shuddered and shuffled off into the darkness, collapsing in on itself in a horrible cacophony that roared in my head long after it had joined its fellow tower in the alley below.
I turned to the rusty door, laying my hand against the rust-spotted paint, listening. There were voices, many of them, yelling and arguing and making demands. Asking questions. I heard fear in those voices. I heard terror.
My hunter's heart roared to life, and I began to invoke the Rites of the Blade.
I am outside of myself in moments like this. The deeper I dig into the heart of Morgan, the more of his life and his story I let flow through my blood, the less Eva I feel. The less ... civilized. There is a raw fire in it, the invokations wrapping around my bones and burning through my flesh as the heart of my god flares into me. It's like dying of joy.
I wreathed myself in Everice, the Hundred Wounds, the Rites of the Winter War. Smoke and sparks of red and hate roiled off me. I chanted the warrior's dedication, and the steel framework of the balcony sang as the air collapsed around me, hardening in coils of power. Hunter's Heart grabbed me, and I howled in perfect happiness. The sword was in my hands, the enemy was before me. But first, the door.
Steel splintered and brick tore under my boot. The passageway beyond was narrow and dark. The force of my passage dug runnels in the walls, and waves of angry light whipped in my wake. The voices had become ... urgent. I pushed through the hall and into the cheap wood-frame door at the end. It burst like a dry leaf. They were beyond it. Screaming.
Amonites, all of them. They had ditched the robes and chains, but I could tell. I could smell them. Could smell the grease under their fingernails, the oily smoke of burnsaws in their hair and clothes. The fear. Mostly, I could smell the fear.
The room was a tight labyrinth of head-high walls that ended long before they reached the ceiling. They looked cobbled together, made from bits of junk that only coupled under an Amonite's careful hand. The air smelled of sweat and burned food. It smelled like a crowded home, like diapers and stale sheets. I stood in the foyer of their hovel and flared my shields. A wave of force puffed out from my core, scattering paper and pottery. The Scholars were running. As they should.
"I am here for the girl!" I boomed, my voice distorted and fey through so many invokations. "What runs will be run down! What hides will be dug out!"
A scattering of shots sparked off my armor, children with handguns firing from the corners of the trash-built home. I pushed at them, weaving my sword through an invokation of force that crumpled the walls and splintered their bones. I was burning it way too hot, but Morgan was on me and vengeance had taken my heart. All I could think of was the old man, and not letting him down again. I was a little blood-sick from yesterday's fight, but I just rode it out.
I stepped over the bodies, scooping up and holstering a discarded revolver as I went, and shoved through a flimsy wall. It fell into a kitchen and toppled a pot of boiling liquid, then caught fire against the heating element. Soup hissed as it
steamed away, filling the air with the smell of fried meat. A pocket of Scholars scampered from cover, crossing the rapidly burning kitchen and diving through a door across the way. The last one turned to spit a cant into the room. The stove tumbled open, its tank spilling thick, heavy flames onto the floor. I laughed and followed, the fire whimpering to a halt at the edge of my shielding. More shots banged off me from behind, but they were light caliber. Nothing to worry about. I was on the path, and they were just trying to distract me.
"The girl, Cassandra! She is all I ask of you, Betrayers!"
The first real resistance came from a trio of older men, still wearing the tired remnants of their robes, their belts of service tight across their chests and jangling with tools. They fell in around me and began to unmake the room, throwing together half-realized constructs and hurling them to die at my blade. They dropped a cage of pipes around my shoulders, tightening it until it clenched the articulated sheath like a lover. My blade thudded dully into the steel, suddenly harder than any building's conduit had the right to be. Runes writhed across the surface of the metal as one of the Amonites chanted a rite of strength.
I rolled against the cage, slipping one shoulder between the bars, regretting it as the metal pinched closed against my pauldron. A whirlwind flurry of tiny automatons buzzed across the floor, scampering up my legs in tiny, razor-barbed steps, cutting their way to my face. I screamed, flaring a shield that crisped the toys but left my larger defenses weakened. The cage tightened again, and now I was staring at the tip of my own blade as it was crushed against my chest. The trio of Betrayers was chanting, tighter and tighter, my breath coming in grunts and starts. Forcing my hand.
I burst, spiking hard into Morgan's power, the wreath of his incarnation manifesting in blue and black fire. The cage held for half a breath and then it was gone, and along with it most of my invokations. My sword fell to the smoldering floor and I dropped to my knees, drawing the bully as I crumpled. The trio closed in.