by Monte Cook
They could come here and stay here, he thought. Breathing sugar. He and Aviend. He could go get her, before she entered Rillent’s life again, and bring her here. They could live here in this space. This place. A life in the light. A life without Rillent.
But he thought of Delgha and Thorme. Of Quenn and Vesi and even Ollie. Of those they’d rescued and those they hadn’t. He thought of her saying, “It’s a good plan.” And he knew what their lives would be if they gave up, if they left their world to the rot and ruin of Rillent. It would follow them here, he would follow them here. In person or in their minds, and so would the dark.
He would go to the kubric as planned and realign the controls. Of course he would. He checked the time tracker again and pulled up the disguise hood. Time to go.
In the end, he arrived at the wildness at the edge of town. This band of trees and rocks, of caves and hidden spaces, where he and Aviend had so often played, it was a part of him. As much as his hair and blood and bone. It was still wild here, more so now. The forest had taken back what was its own, and so had the tall grasses. He startled something dark and bounding, which in turn startled him as it skittered toward the woods.
There was no kubric in the field.
Of all the things he’d thought might happen when he came here, that was not one of them.
But even as he looked across the flat space, unable to find what he was seeking, he knew that couldn’t be true. They’d seen the bridge in the star, from kubric to kubric. It had to be here.
It took him a long time to find what he was looking for. He might have missed it completely if not for the ring of wolflilies that grew around it. Their scent, without the underlayer of death to cloy it, was softer. Pure. Honey and spice, sweet and warm. It was, he realized, the same as he’d smelled in the tunnel the first time they went through it. It was so different as to have been nearly unrecognizable then.
Inside the purple ring, the very top of the kubric where it lay still buried in the soil. As children, they’d thought it so big, such a mystery. A few feet of swirled purple and grey, so different from an ordinary stone. Looking at it now, so small, so unassuming, he felt deeply what it meant to be an adult, looking back on the child that he’d been. When there was promise in everything and nothing you loved had been razed.
If only he could take it back, that choice. Seventeen ways and what had he chosen? “Show me,” Rillent had said. “Show me where you saw the stone.” And Kyre had. It wasn’t his fault entirely; he wasn’t going to put that weight on his shoulders. Rillent had come to Ovinale knowing the kubrics were there, knowing already what he wanted and how to get it. It wasn’t his fault, but it had been his doing. “I’ll help you dig it up,” and Kyre felt like he’d been carrying that shovel, that metal weight, since that moment. He was ready to put it down, even if that meant picking up something else in its stead.
How was this possible? This place? He knew. It was possible because in this world, Kyre had never picked up that shovel.
It almost meant that there was no way to do what he needed. The unearthed kubric had been part of their lives so long they hadn’t even thought that it might not be so.
The map he carried in his pocket, detailed in Quenn’s careful handwriting, utterly useless. The whole plan. Here and there. Ended.
He fell down to his knees, all at once cowed by the futility of it. The weight of too many failures. A blue and white spider strung itself from a wolflily petal to one of the points of the kubric. It made fast work of it, weaving a trap while Kyre watched, bowed by his own heartbreak. Barely a moment later, a bright yellow moth fluttered into the invisible threads. It fought frantically, nearly brilliantly, a carefully controlled escape plan that got everything unstuck bit by bit. The moth lifted, opened its wings for a grand escape, and caught the edge of its wing in another thread. That single wing edge was enough. A streak of blue and white, a quick turn of threads, and it was over.
It wasn’t until the moth was wrapped and the spider back to work making repairs that Kyre broke apart. It wasn’t the death or even the futility. It was the careful planning, the intelligent and cautious near-escape – all undone by a single, hidden strand. He bent his head to his knee, his hands fisted down to the soil. The sound that came from him was a growl, a thing he hadn’t known he owned until this moment. He buried it in the back of his hand, and then when that wasn’t enough, in the fabric over his leg. The tendons in his neck were pulled tight enough that he could feel them straining against the leather wrapped there. He wanted to pull the collar off, tear it to bits and throw it to the ground. But he still thought that he might need it someday. Sooner than later, perhaps, and he would bear its pressure until that moment came.
From behind, he heard a clatter of stones and footsteps. He wiped his face, the roughness of his sleeve hopefully scrubbing away at least some layers of dirt and wet and past. Rising, he turned to see a group of children engaged in a game that seemed to involve one child throwing a stone at a tree while the others ran in front of said tree. He couldn’t tell if the goal was to hit the runners, or not hit them. Based on the number of “ows” rising from the tree space, either the thrower had very bad aim or it was the former.
A girl broke herself away from the group and came toward him. Her smile was curious and instant, her eyes a deep brown flecked with gold. She wore a green-and-white striped mourning ribbon wrapped twice around her wrist.
“Oh,” she said when she got closer. She was looking at him with curiosity, but not fear. He saw she wore a pair of tiny black circles in her ears. “It’s all right to still be sad. I’m sad about him too.”
The moment choked him like a thread. Unseen and uncertain. He wanted to ask who him was, but couldn’t find a way to prepare himself for any of the possible answers. It was a question he did not ask, not even to himself, because even the smallest inkling of a possible answer was too ragged around the edges to hold on to.
The girl saved him from having to make a response. “What is that?” she asked.
He looked over his shoulder at the tip of the kubric. It shone and shifted, purpled and black. It’s the end of the world, he thought. Of the worlds.
“Nothing,” he said.
He could see she didn’t believe him. She bit the side of her lip and cocked her head as if waiting for him to tell her something closer to the truth.
When he didn’t, she said, “It’s part of the numer… numenera, isn’t it? The one we shouldn’t have dug to.”
He let those words sink through his brain for a breath and then into his bones for two more. Dug to. Were there tunnels here, after all? Could he find them in time?
“Do you know where Celedan Hall is?” he asked.
She continued to look at him sideways, tightening up her eyes. “Everyone knows that,” she said, and her words filled him with relief. “How come you don’t e-member how to get there? Is it the grief?” The words came out of her mouth with such soft, adult sincerity – the gweef – that he nearly fell. He could feel one knee buckle, then the other. Threatening to topple him. Like dispatching, he thought, only with your heart, and he managed to stay upright.
He couldn’t lie to her, but he was glad he still wore the disguise hood, could hide his emotions behind the fabric. “Yes,” he said. “It is the grief.”
The girl – “You can call me Niev” – took his hand as softly as anyone had ever taken it, leaving him no choice but to let her lest he break both their hearts by pulling away, and led him across the space as if he were not grieving, but blind, pointing out places he might fall or where the field floor changed to dirt and stone. “Those are the baddest boys,” she told him as they passed the group of children he’d watched earlier, without even thinking about lowering her voice. “And that’s the school where we learn stuff. I’m better at learning than the others, but I’m not supposed to say so. Nana says it’s not nice to make people feel bad.”
And then they were at the front door of the hall. He had forgotten how
big the building was, how sturdy the structure. When a thing falls and crumbles to dust and lays fallow for longer than your memory can rebuild it, you start to think it must have been flimsy and small to begin with. But now, there it is, the thick moss-grown walls that he’d once carved his and Aviend’s names in as a child.
Niev took two steps and stopped when their arms grew taut between them. In the sunlight, her hair took on a softly copper hue. “Well? Aren’t we going in?”
Was another Nuvinae in there? Another Aviend? Another himself? A Rillent? All of these things were possible. Probable even.
“Well?” she said again.
Well, indeed.
He got moving, not at all surprised to feel her move with him, still hand in hand.
The woman just inside the door was as regal as she’d ever been, if a bit stooped from time and age.
He knew her.
But of course, he didn’t. Not this Nuvinae. Not this Arch. Her long hair was wrapped high, pulled off her forehead, the blue-grey of the gloaming. She too wore a green-and-white striped ribbon around her wrist.
“Well done, Denieva,” she said to the girl, whose smile inched up toward her ears at the praise. “Come in,” she said. “I don’t imagine you have very much time.”
If having a dead woman welcome him into a demolished hall in a razed town was not surreal enough, then seeing Aviend – not really Aviend – standing at the back of the clave’s hall, robed in the blues and greys of Ovinale’s Aeon Priests, certainly was. But it was fine, it was all right. Until his hand was empty and the footsteps in front of him were running toward those robes saying, “Look who I brought, Mama.”
“I see,” she said. And when she lifted her gaze from the girl to Kyre and smiled, it was her. Exactly her. It wasn’t love he saw there, but an ache so deep he didn’t think anyone had ever had words for such a thing. Even through the disguise, she saw him, knew him. She made a gesture, thumb to cheek, and a glance at the girl. Keep your disguise on. For her.
He knew then, who they were grieving the loss of. And he cupped his palms to his opposite elbows and learned how hard it was to say coruscates with so many tears at the back of his tongue.
“We’re glad you’re here,” Aviend-not-Aviend said. “Let’s get you where you need to go.”
When hunting a monster, use live bait. For most monsters, Aviend supposes that live bait would be more akin to a goat or a yol. Tied up somewhere, bleating its fool head off, alerting every meat-craving creature for miles around of its whereabouts.
For this monster, the live bait is her.
Rillent had always been too sure of himself, too sure of his hold on her. His belief in his own power had always been bigger than any truth she could have told him. She will not mislead him. Much. But she will hope that all of the things she knew about him then are still true, and tenfold so.
Aviend pulls her hood up, tucking her hair back into the fabric and tightening it around her face. Everything she is wearing is hued a blue-grey-black color that sucks in light and reflects nothing back. It has no name that she knows of. It’s her favorite color. She thinks at the end of this, perhaps she will name it, once and for all.
She has her blades buried against the front of each wrist. The sheaths are embedded in her very skin, a heavy and welcome heft. Metal and mesh that Delgha promised she would be able to extract once this is all done. It’s a risky setup, because it leaves her no out should she need to change tactics. But it’s also, she believes, necessary. She needs to act like she’s walking in there with one plan, and enact another.
Kyre should be here with her. She understands why he’s not, why he can’t be, and there’s a part of her that’s grateful he’s not about to re-enter the kubric, not even with her at his side. But there’s a part that feels his missing weight like a hollow in her lungs.
It’s Quenn’s job to help everyone get out. She knows “everyone” is too lofty of a goal, but she refuses to say anything else in her mind. So everyone it is. It’s her job to turn the lever and then create the distraction.
First, they have to get in without getting caught.
This thick metal wall, half dug from the earth, is that way in. Or will be soon enough.
“Ready?” she says to Quenn.
She feels him nod beside her. His breath is nervous. She wants to ease it for him, but this he needs to do himself. Her saying something is a temporary salve. It would come back to bite them when her words wear off.
Aviend can feel the cyphers in her pockets starting to interact, bouncing off each other. Nothing serious. Not yet, but cyphers are fickle creatures. They won’t take long to do something stupid.
She finds the small canister in her back pocket. Metal death, Delgha calls it.
Let’s hope so, she thinks as she presses down. Foam shoots out in a sudden stream, strong enough to nearly splatter back on her. She leans back, tries again. Softer. The foam covers the metal wall, spreads. If she doesn’t get it just right, it won’t transform a big enough space for them to get inside. If it’s too big, it won’t fully transform the material. That’s the hard part about cyphers; it’s not like you can practice with them. One and done, as Delgha always reminds them.
When the last of the foam sputters out of the can, she steps back.
“How do we know when it’s ready?” Quenn asks.
She taps the once-metal with her gloved fist. Nothing happens, other than a dull thud of materials coming together.
“It’s not ready,” she says. After a moment, “All right, you try.”
Quenn follows suit, rapping his bare knuckles lightly against the metal. If there’s a thud of materials connecting, it’s drowned out by the sound of metal cracking every which way, long runners that spread through the material as if it were ice or glass. She gives the center a poke, and the pieces splinter and rain down around their feet. There’s a hole in the middle of the metal, big enough for them to crawl through.
“Now it’s ready,” she says.
Aviend goes first. She made the hole as smooth as she could, but the foam spread in jags and jigs, and there are points sharp enough to scrape off the skin. Inside, it’s darker than dark, made more so by the hole that’s filled with light. It smells like death and metal. Decayed yet clean.
Aviend hands Quenn the vial. Two cyphers down. “Catseyes,” she said. “You’ll need it in the dark. Step out of the light and drink up.”
He does so without question. This trust is something Aviend has come to terms with. Quenn isn’t blind-following. Even with Rillent he wasn’t. And he certainly isn’t with her. He tells her when she’s wrong, or when she’s asking something he doesn’t want to do. He trusts her because she’s earned it. Because she will try to keep earning it.
He’s going to be their eyes.
She can hear the crinkle as Quenn pulls the map out of his pocket. He doesn’t need it – he built it, after all – but she thinks its feel is reassuring to him. The way the weight of the pendant around her neck is reassuring to her.
“This is the blast conduit,” he says. “We’re right where we should be.”
They move forward. She wants to put her hand out, feel the wall that she knows is pressing close, touch the ceiling that is only over her head because she’s crouching. But she knows already that the walls would burn her flesh, not with heat, but with chemicals, and so she keeps her hands in her pockets and crouches low and trusts Quenn in return.
“First trap,” he says a moment later.
He slides back to let her through and she crouches down lower. These are the traps Rillent has placed in all the conduits. Trying to keep his people in. They’re aimed the other way, which is the only thing that’s making this break-in possible.
It’s a good trap. She marvels at Kyre’s handiwork even as she begins to dismantle the hateful thing by feel. If he hadn’t walked her through the breakdown step-by-step, she would just be hammering at the thing. But she thinks of his hands, showing her how to perform the motio
ns, and she mimics them. Smooth. Soon, they’re pieces of a dangerous thing going into her pack.
When she’s done, she and Quenn switch places. Stay crouched there until, from far away, they hear two chimes.
Onward until Quenn says, “Second trap.” And again until he says, “Third.” By the time they finish the fourth and last trap, her bag is tugging on her shoulders, sending an ache through her hips.
“Kyre did say getting in would be the easy part,” she says. There’s already a tiredness in her voice that she wants to pretend she can’t hear.
The end of the tunnel is a big box. The sudden stretch of space makes her feel off balance. There’s enough light here to see by. Three entryways. Not the same as the ones in the star, but close enough. Triangle. Tall box. Low box.
She lets the pack slide down off her shoulders and hands it to Quenn. He hoists it onto his back, letting the pieces inside settle.
Aviend points to the triangle, and they move that way side-by-side. Now that there’s room and light, she casts a glance at him. Makes sure he’s all right. He seems to be. Moving, having a focus. Quenn’s good in those spaces.
They step into the triangle and through it, as though it were no more than a projection. It isn’t, but close enough. An illusion, designed to create a sense of barrier where there is none. The ground slipslides under their feet. Aviend’s stomach drops and rises. She has the sensation that everything’s sinking away beneath her.
With a soft thud and a shudder, they’re in a common hall. Not as common as some of the others that Quenn proposed. But still too well-used for her liking. There’s a benefit to Rillent’s need for control, though, and that’s his need for even people to have a schedule. The chimes go off every two hours, Quenn had said. No more, no less. And that’s when everyone comes through.
Aviend lifts the small tool in her hand. It bores through the metal mirror in a matter of moments. No light or heat. Just a quick circle and the middle of the mirror falls out. She catches it with a magnet glove. Pulls it toward her. The plate is heavier than they’d anticipated, the magnets in the gloves less strong against the pull. It sways, threatens to drop. Quenn reaches a hand out, steadies it. It doesn’t fall. In a moment, he takes it from her. The gloves demagnetize automatically.