by Tim Akers
I pulled the pendant on over my head and tucked it into my shirt. It was warm against my breasts. I held my hand over it for a while, and stared out the window at the towers that moved us around the city of Ash.
The disassembled bullistic revolver shone golden in the heat of the forge. It was spread out on an anvil of trueiron, each piece set with ritual precision. A row of bullets lay below it, balanced on their casings, like tiny soldiers at attention. I had looked down at this spread a thousand times. At my side, my hands itched to go through the motions of assembly. Not yet.
Tomas stood behind the anvil, dressed in the leather robe of the Blacksmith. He held the ornate hammer of the role in both hands. We were both sweating hard. Tomas looked uncomfortable behind the anvil. This was usually Barnabas's job, but he wasn't around. Tomas lifted the hammer and weakly struck the anvil near the barrel of the weapon. Still, the metal pieces of the weapon jumped.
"Eva Forge, Paladin of Morgan, why have you come to the Blacksmith?" the old man intoned.
"To arm myself," I answered.
He struck the anvil again, a little harder.
"For battle?"
"Forever."
Again, hammer to anvil, again a little harder. The anvil sang and the pieces of the revolver jumped. They would have shifted if they had not been locked in place by ritual and rite.
"Do you swear yourself to the struggle of Morgan?"
"I swear myself to the battle, the blade, the bullet."
Hammer. Anvil. Light runes glowed faintly across the shell casings of the bullets. Lines of arcane light began to itch their way across the pieces of the revolver. My fingers ached to answer them.
"Do you swear yourself to your brothers of Morgan and to your sisters of the Champion?"
"I swear myself to the monastery, to the legions of the Warrior, until the grave."
Tomas lifted the hammer over his head and struck again. The room was filled with the music of the anvil, and the arcane lines of the revolver nearly outshone the molten gold of the forge behind him. When he struck I could feel the echo of it in my feet.
"Bind yourself now to this weapon, the Terrorfel of Morgan. With it, you must carry the battle, follow the hunt. You must serve the scions of Morgan-"
And I realized he was off script. I looked up. His eyes were full of furious rage. He stared through me, glaring with such hatred that I nearly staggered back.
"You must serve your Fratriarch, whatever the cost."
I was lost for a response. Words left me. I put a hand against the anvil to steady myself and was shocked at its chill in this place of fire.
"Forever," I finally managed.
He raised the hammer high above his head and struck as if he meant to shatter this anvil that had stood here for a thousand years. The head bounced off the smooth black surface, the shaft leaving Tomas's hands and rebounding to fly up and drag the hammer back up into the air. It scattered the pieces of my new revolver. The runes of binding screamed through the air as they were bound to my soul.
"Forever," he said, quietly, then walked out of the ritual chamber. I did my best to avoid Tomas after that. Not sure what his problem was, whether he was angry with me for failing the Fratriarch, or if he was trying to impress upon me the gravity of the situation. As if anyone understood it better than me. Then again, the more I looked into this whole thing, the less I understood. Bull on, I thought, and the clarity will come. Bull on.
I didn't like what I was finding with the Amonites. Everything about the Amonites' little hiding place was incompatible with a secret conspiracy committed to overthrowing the city's religious hierarchy. So while it was my first inclination to blame the Betrayer's feral children, I just didn't see it in that group. The only thing I wasn't sure about was that escape route. Awfully sophisticated. Even Scholars would be hard-pressed to throw together an impellor on the fly, especially one that could move people. Near as I knew, the technology didn't work like that. The monotrains had some kind of receiver in each car that was specially tuned to the impellor. You could feel the waves go by, but it wouldn't push you around. Not like that thing had.
I had nothing else to do. Alexander's Chanters would do their weird little trick to Cassandra, and we'd know what she knew about the Fratriarch and the free scions of Amon. It wasn't the fastest process, and took a great deal of energy from the godking, so it was not a rite that was lightly used. Until I heard from them, though, I had no other leads to pursue. And the Fist of Elders was locked away in the Chamber. Well, three of them at least-I could hear voices behind the door, Simeon and Tomas and Isabel arguing and reasoning and just ... yelling. Elias was missing when I gave my initial report and the others had been in no mood to answer my questions. Wherever the hell he was, he doubtless had his reasons, and it didn't seem likely that the rest of them would grant me even a brief audience for a while.
Getting back to the cistern was easy. The whiteshirts were all over that hideout now, taking lithos and cataloging the debris. Not as much debris this time, though. The coldmen had come through here on their way to killing a bunch of Owen's men, and they had done their share of damage. The whiteshirts were heavily guarded, two guys with bullies for every one scratching in a notepad, and even then they looked nervous. I waved my way through and went downstairs.
The spiral staircase was dented and bloody. Everything smelled like blackpowder and burned metal. Where the hatch used to be there was a crosshatch of yellow opening out onto the water. Two guys in a collapsible raft were beginning to dredge for bodies. They came over at my signal. Probably glad to have a break from dragging the bodies of people they knew out of the water.
"What have you found so far?"
"Six of us, two of them," the guy with the hook said. "It's not as deep as we thought."
"What about the machine?"
"Keeps fouling the hook. Pushing it around in the water."
"You know where it is?" I asked.
"Sure," he said. "At least, I know where we're avoiding."
"Good enough. I want it up."
"The machine? That's, uh ..." He looked around at the raft, his length of rope, the crude, bloody hook. "That's a little more than we can manage with this equipment."
"Then get some better toys. I want that thing on the surface."
"Okay, okay. Soon as we get the rest of our boys up-"
"They'll still be dead, whether you fish them up now or let them marinate overnight. Get on the rig to your boss and get whatever equipment you need down here. That machine's going to be dry and tight in the next hour, or I'll know who to yell at."
"Lady, listen-" he started.
I stopped him. "No, no, not worth it. Trust me, it's not worth getting on my bad side. You're a tough guy, I get it. They don't give this kind of duty to a softie. But I'm the last Paladin of Morgan, and for now that's the highest authority you've got." I pointed at the water and then jerked my thumb in the air. "Up. Now."
He sighed, gave his partner a bitch look, then pulled the raft ashore and clomped up the stairs. The other guy looked at me for a while, then shrugged and lit a cigarette.
"I was tired of dragging up bodies," he said. "This is fine with me."
"Glad to be of service."
He laughed and nodded, then leaned back in the boat and closed his eyes.
"Anything's better than fishing for your friends, lady. Don't mind us.
It wasn't what I expected. They sent a couple divers down, hooked the machine, and then dragged it up onto a temporary platform of rafts, lashed together and anchored next to the ruined hatch. Owen must have heard my name going through the static of the communication rigs because he came down just as they were dragging it out of the water. The impellor waves kept fouling the lines, pushing the whole load into the wall. I stood on the slowly bobbing platform with my arms crossed, waiting.
"You cause a lot of trouble," Owen said.
I nodded. "I get things done, though. Covers for a lot of bad manners."
"If y
ou say so. But listen, maybe next time give me a call when you're going to change people's orders and requisition Alexian equipment," he said, standing next to me on the platform and watching the work. "I can get this stuff done without so many ruffled feathers."
"Is that your job, now? Make sure Eva doesn't piss off too many of your fellow Healers?"
He shrugged, and then we were quiet for a while as the machine was finally pulled free of the water. It spun crazily on the lines, like a bottle rocket on a string. With a little effort and a little luck, they got it down on the platform. The rafts immediately began tugging at their anchor. I stepped away from the stream of force echoing out from its side and moved closer for a better look. The impellor wave was rippling the air like a heat mirage.
Several things. I had never seen an impellor this small. The enormous devices that ran the monotrains were as big as houses, where this one was maybe fifteen feet long and half that in width. They were also immensely complicated machines, sprouting conduit and gears and various ... flashing things. Machinery wasn't my strong point. But they looked like big machines.
This did not. This didn't look anything like what I expected. It was almost organic, like a smooth seashell, rippled and furled, with whorled apertures of some glossy, fluted material that was colored with the deepest blues and reds I had ever seen. It was a beautiful engine, if it was an engine at all.
I put my hand against its side. The surface was cool and soft to the touch, denting slightly from the pressure. My skin began to vibrate in time with the waves of impellor force.
"Is there a control panel somewhere?" Owen asked.
I blinked and turned to him, then looked around the smooth shell of the impellor.
"No, nothing I can see. It looks alive, doesn't it?"
"It started talking to you, Eva?" He smirked, circling carefully around the artifact. He paused and then put his hand against it, standing opposite me. "Here we go."
I felt a momentary surge of panic along my spine, and then the impellor waves fell out of rhythm and subsided. The artifact lay there on the platform, inert, like an instrument just put aside by a master. I stepped back and crossed my arms, fighting a chill.
"Any idea what it is?" I asked.
"An impellor, isn't it? Sure felt like one." Owen rubbed the hand he'd touched to the device. I walked around and saw what he'd activated. It was some kind of indentation in the side of the artifact, almost like a handprint but somehow wrong. Too small, and the fingers were ... strange.
"Maybe some kind of new design," I said. "Might be these runaway Scholars have more resources than I thought, if they're cooking up stuff like this."
"It is the oldest design," a voice said behind me. I turned and saw that a couple of Owen's boys were bringing an Amonite onto the platform. It was the same guy who had sealed the hatch for us.
"You survived," I said. "Hope you didn't have to fight or anything inconvenient like that. Or did your dogs know not to bite one of their master's boys?"
He ignored me and went to the artifact. His hands trailed along the flutes of the apertures like an artist tracing a line in a painting. When he was done communing with the thing, he turned to Owen, sparing me the briefest look.
"It is not a made thing. Or at least, not made by the Scholar's Cant."
"So it's something they found?" I asked. "Or something they stole?"
"Something they stole," he answered, still not looking at me. "Or perhaps something they bought. This is a Feyr device."
"The Feyr make impellors?" Owen asked.
"The Feyr can make anything, if they decide to. Or they could. The time of the great Feyr fabricators ended when the Brothers Immortal destroyed this city and cast down their gods. But yes, at one time, this was made by the Feyr."
"So it's old. Maybe something they dug up out of the city. Any ideas where they would have found a thing like this?" I asked, walking to stand in front of the Amonite. I plucked the hem of his hood, so he couldn't avoid looking at me.
"That is not what you are asking. You are asking if I have any ideas about where they might have gone, or where you might find others of their kind. In this, you know as much as I do," he said. His eyes were lined with dark concern, and he nodded up toward the abandoned hideout, far above. "You have seen that place, as have I. Where do you think they might be, now that you have turned them out of their home?"
I grimaced, and put my hand on the artifact. It was cold now, the skin stiff. I paced around it, examining it, running my hand across it.
"The Feyr, huh? It's an interesting lead. Can't imagine it has anything to do with the Fratriarch, though." I looked up to see the Amonite's eyes still following me. Creepy bastard. I shrugged at him, then motioned Owen's people over. "He's not being helpful. Get him out of here."
They led him away, leaving me alone with Owen and the artifact.
"This mean anything to you?" I asked him. "That they had a Feyr device like this?"
"Like you said-probably something they just found. What do you want me to do with it?"
"You guys probably have some kind of warehouse for stuff like this, huh? Why don't you put it there?"
I paused as I heard footsteps hammering down the stairs behind me. Some problem with the Amonite? Turning, I saw one of the whiteshirts push aside the barrier tape and jump down onto the platform. When he saw me, the guy's face went white and he averted his eyes, then made a beeline to the Justicar.
"Something to report?" Owen asked. The man nodded, then looked back at me. "Something private?"
"No, sir. Not private. Just ... she's not going to like it."
"You think you can possibly tell me something that's going to make my day any worse than it already is, son?" I asked.
Owen held up a hand. From the stairs there was a quiet peal of sound, a clamoring that echoed down the steel and stone from the street above.
Sirens. To hear it down here, the world must be screaming with sirens.
has was a gardener. A strange enough thing in the Cult of Morgan the Warrior, and stranger because he had practiced this art since childhood. On campaign as a sergeant in the god's army, the mud in front of his tent was groomed and raked, accented by potted plants and lines of tumbled stone. His barrack post crawled with vines. Even on watch, he took time to prune the hedges on his route. And now, as an Elder of the god, he kept a terrace on the tall, wind-wracked heights of the monastery, the stone floor crowded with loamy planters and ivy-covered trellises. He slept between rows of dirt, his bed under a canvas roof, the mud under his nails fresh.
When he woke up that morning, it was to stiffness and pain. It had been a late night. Arguing with Tomas, arguing with Isabel. Trying to get Simeon to take a side or at least express an opinion. Missing Barnabas. Missing his voice in the argument, his leadership, his strength. Mostly, though, just missing his old friend.
Outside his simple room, the wind whipped coldly over the terrace. The sun was a white disk of hammered silver behind the clouds. It wouldn't rain today, but it felt like it should. Like the air needed cleaning. Elias shivered as he slipped from his morning robe, stretching strong, wrinkled arms in the chill air as he assumed the poses of the warrior. When he was done with the morning ritual, the old man put on loose pants and a leather jerkin, and began the daily rite of weeding and tilling that would settle his mind and gird his spirit.
He was there, kneeling beside a planter of herringheart, trowel in one hand and a fist of dirt in the other, when they came for him. That they would find him here was inevitable. It was where Elias was, at this hour, on these days.
That they would strike him here, high up in the Strength of Morgan, steps from the Chamber of the Fist, on the holy stones of the Warrior god. That was unthinkable.
He fought. Even caught unawares, even unarmed, unarmored, uninvoked. With nothing but the hammer-strength of his old, wrinkled hands, hands that had planted and nurtured and struck stone and metal and bone. He fought, and he killed. There was more blood here
than belonged to an aging Elder of the Cult. There was enough blood here for three men, soaking into the mud of the crawling vines, slicking the water of the artificial pond. More than enough blood. But only one body.
He lay where he had fallen, the trowel still in his hand. Its edge was dull and nicked. Bloody. His fists were pulverized. The bones of his face lay haphazardly under the skin. Deep cuts traced across his chest, his arms, his legs. He had fought, and he had lost.
I knelt beside him. It had been hours before they found him, and hours more until they had gotten word to me. Alexander's men stood nervously around the monastery. They had failed. The other Elders gathered to take the body into the quiet halls of the Warrior's Rest. I helped them carry, along with a couple whiteshirts. Afterward, we met in the Chamber of the Fist. Tomas was furious. Divinely furious.
"We agreed to stay because you said the Cult of Alexander would protect us," he said, his voice a hammering monotone, the fury just under the surface. "We agreed to stay because you said we would be safe."
"Since when do Morganites do the safe thing?" I asked, quietly. It wasn't my place, but there weren't many people left whose place it was. "Why are we hiding under a blanket of white?"
Tomas didn't answer me directly, but Simeon and Isabel drew back uncomfortably nonetheless. There were whiteshirts present: the two who had helped carry Elias's body to the Rest, a couple patrol-level authority figures, and the Elector of our district. Guy named Nathaniel. His armor was pearl white and trimmed with gold and silver. He looked glorious, for a nursemaid. All of them sat behind a table, the third side of the Council's usual triune arrangement. There were enough empty seats, now, that we could afford the space.