by Cam Baity
“Graz’go roh rohk-li-hee-hee!” laughed a squealing Rattletrap voice as she emerged into bright light. Something grabbed her costume, but she managed to pull free. A swollen face leered at her, pink and crinkled, with hideously warped features and squinty glaring eyes. It took Phoebe a second to realize that it was a mask. The figure spun away.
There was a group of these strange mehkans with oversized heads and baggy pink outfits. They were bumbling into one another, performing tricks, and taunting the crowd. A few got into a pretend fight, and one of them feigned striking the other. In a flamboyant display, the victim spewed a cascade of bright red streamers where he was hit, and the crowd burst into cheers. Next thing she knew, the play combatants were shedding sprays of confetti and foil in a festive shower of pretend blood.
Bleeders. They’re pretending to be us.
Mehkan spectators watched the crowd from gaping windows and tossed down spirals of sparkling red wire, obscuring the view. The rowdy mass plunged through another yawning tunnel, and as they emerged onto a main thoroughfare, Phoebe held her breath. The red crowd was spilling over a ledge into a crater the size of a sports arena. It was teeming with costumed mehkans so that the whole thing looked like a porcelain bowl filled with boiling blood.
Micah pulled Phoebe around a secluded corner.
“This is some shindig,” Micah remarked, leaning in close.
“And we’re the surprise guests,” she said over the noise.
“Let’s keep it that way. Pretty sure they wouldn’t want a couple of humans crashing their ‘kill all humans’ party.”
“So now what?” she asked.
They glanced at the massive crater. The crowd was headed to the far end of the basin, gathering around a brightly lit area that seemed to be the source of the tooth-rattling music. But Phoebe’s eye was drawn to a squat dome in the middle of the crater, barely visible beneath tinkling red banners.
Her skin tingled under the coat of prickly feathers.
“Heart of prayer,” she mumbled.
“Say what?”
“Make the descent. To the heart of prayer,” Phoebe called out to him, pointing to the dome down in the crater. It was undeniable—its roof was bisected with a jagged line.
A dynamo.
“That’s it. It has to be!” she called out.
“Has to?” Micah asked. “How you figure?”
“It fits what the Ona said, doesn’t it?”
“She said only we can make the descent. Looks like everyone can go down there but us. And besides,” he whispered, “what are the odds that the first place we stumble on just so happens to be the exact thing we’re looking for?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
After a moment, Micah shook his head.
“Besides…” she said distantly, looking back at the dynamo buried in banners below. “The gears turn in mysterious ways.”
“Go freshen this up,” ordered General Bertrand Moritz, holding out his coffee mug to Goodwin. The Deputy Manager glowered at the buzz-cut skin bulging out the back of the general’s hat, took the man’s mug, and handed it to a passing Watchman. Ol’ Bert and his three underlings were clearly savoring the former Chairman’s diminished position.
“Proceed,” Bert said to one of the military executives.
“Yes, sir. I vote we merge all three eastern platoons for a coordinated attack on our target near the Nhel K’taphen mines.”
“I second that, sir,” chimed another.
The chrome-tiled operations room in the Control Core was running at full speed. Bert and his lackeys were as giddy as Nature Scouts on their first rabbit hunt. This was the work they adored, the business of war, and they resented Goodwin tagging along. No wonder they had dismissed his every suggestion.
“Do it,” Bert said. “Now let’s talk air strikes.”
They were tinkering with their digital map of Mehk, drawing colored arrows like coaches planning a game play. They weren’t bad at their jobs. In fact, they knew details and figures that were beyond Goodwin. But swept up in their childish enthusiasm, the army boys had made a glaring oversight.
“Where do you want to station the Bloodtalons, sir?”
“I anticipate we’ll need maximal firepower along the Inro Coast,” Bert said, perusing the map.
A wave of whispers circulated. The officers looked up and stiffened. The directors had arrived.
Now was Goodwin’s time to act.
“Do you not see the pattern, gentlemen?” he broadcasted, approaching the map.
“Excuse me?” Bert said, cocking an eyebrow.
The room went quiet.
“A pattern. The attack on our compound in Sen Ta’rine, the unrest in Ahm’ral, this new celebration in Bhorquvaat—what do they have in common?”
Goodwin looked to Bert, who fixed him with a hard stare.
He could feel the room tense as everyone watched him. And his earpiece was silent, which meant he had the attention of the Board back in Meridian too.
“I shall put it more plainly,” Goodwin said like a patient schoolmaster. “What drives our enemy?”
“Get to your point,” Bert grumbled.
“Faith,” Goodwin announced. “At their root, the Covenant is a religious organization. Ahm’ral is their holiest city. Bhorquvaat contains a sacred landmark. Our compound in Sen Ta’rine is located in the old religious quarter.”
“So?” the general demanded.
“So by focusing on the Covenant camps—whose location I, incidentally, discovered—you only see half the problem.”
“What do you propose?” asked Director Santini.
Goodwin turned to acknowledge the directors, pleased to note that Obwilé was absent.
“Focus on their faith,” Goodwin said. “Occupy holy sites. Detain practitioners. Confiscate all evidence of the Way.”
“Hit their cities, and they will retaliate,” Bert warned.
“But if we light a fire under their religion, we will smoke out the Covenant,” Goodwin said, raising his voice.
“Do it, General Moritz,” ordered Director Santini.
“Report once you have mobilized,” said Director Malcolm.
“We knew you would eventually come through, James,” said a kindly voice in Goodwin’s earpiece.
“Your insight and skills are as keen as ever,” another said.
“James will oversee this new initiative,” Director Layton announced as she followed her colleagues out the door. Goodwin looked to Bert, whose eyes flashed beneath his cap.
A Watchman bearing a tray returned. Goodwin retrieved the steaming mug and handed it to the equally steaming general.
Phoebe was certain she was going to be trampled. The music blaring throughout the crater was whipping the revelers into a frenzy. The sea of red mehkans crashed around the costumed kids as they fought their way toward the banner-strewn dome. They pushed through dangling red draperies to feel for a door, but the walls were solid, burnished gold. The kids squeezed through the crowd, working around the structure, until they found a recessed walkway carved along its perimeter.
As they wound around the building and through an arched opening that led underground, the celebratory roar of the crowd died away behind them. The further down they went, the darker it became, until the walkway came to an abrupt stop.
“What is it?” Micah asked.
“The entrance, I hope.”
Phoebe poked her head out from under the costume to get a better look. A stained golden dynamo blocked their path. She felt around its edges but saw no way to open it.
Then she recalled the dynamo on the floor back in the Covenant camp, the one that led to the Hearth.
Phoebe pulled out her Multi-Edge. With a shove and a scrape, she wedged the blade into the dynamo’s jagged, gear-toothed line. She twisted the dial to the hammer icon, and the shaft of the tool thickened, parting the halves of the dynamo with a groan. Using it as a lever, she pried the door open.
Micah pitched in, crammin
g his hands into the gap and forcing it wider. Then he mashed his whole body into the opening and used his legs to thrust it wider still. She slipped in beneath him, and he released his hold to spill inside.
The echoing space was musty and cold, pitch black save for a gear-toothed scar of light from the dome above them.
“Hold on a sec,” Micah said. She heard a series of clicks, and the bright halogen beam atop his rifle flashed on.
Buzzing wings burst to life overhead. Micah waved his gun-mounted light frantically back and forth. Phoebe clutched her Multi-Edge.
“Whose idea was this again?” he said, scanning the shadows.
“It was probably just…” started Phoebe, trying to control her wavering voice, “bats?”
“Right,” Micah said, unconvinced.
The cold beam of light revealed this circular structure to be deceptively large. From the surface, the dome appeared small, but the walkway that wound around it must have led them deep underground because the ceiling was at least fifty feet overhead.
Phoebe and Micah shed their costumes and looked around. The dome was made of blackened gold, but the chamber itself had been carved out of bone-white ore. Age and neglect had taken their toll. It looked like a decaying tooth with a rotten golden crown. All around the huge room, gaping cavities spotted the walls beneath etched mehkan glyphs.
“I bet these words would tell us something useful,” Phoebe remarked. “What do you think they say?”
“Probably some holy mumbo jumbo,” Micah offered. Pale, carved pedestals poked up from the floor like headstones, punctuated here and there by empty metal crates. Other than glittering heaps of what looked like chain-link spiderwebs, the space was bare. “There’s nothin’ here, Plumm.”
“But there used to be,” she said, touching one of the alcoves. “Something sat here. Search them all. Look for a white star.”
“Like what the Ona said?”
“Exactly,” she said. “If one of these shelves has a star carved on the wall, maybe it will show us the way.”
“Kind of a stretch…” Micah said, scrunching up his face. But Phoebe marched intently around the chamber, and Micah had no choice but to follow her with his light.
Something rustled at Micah’s feet, and he leapt back, gun waving. A loose scrap of foil. Thinking of the bizarre langyls, he nudged it with his muzzle, not taking anything for granted.
Nope, it really was just a loose scrap of foil. He picked it up and saw that it was marked with more mehkan writing. The top had a blue insignia—a curved line arching over three dots. The same symbol was stamped on the crates scattered about.
“Over here!” called Phoebe.
She stood before a stout altar that was about chest high, its edges lined with gear teeth. Atop the worn and battered surface was a relief sculpture patterned in tarnished gold details. It showed a figure cloaked by delicate fins and encircled in veils, graceful arms raised in an exalted gesture. Its partially obscured face was depicted in an expression of rapture.
“The Ona,” Phoebe said.
“But she looks different.”
“Younger.”
The molten image of the Ona that had appeared to them in the Hearth had been hard to make out, but Phoebe had seen her eyes, and they were heavily wrinkled. This image of the Ona, on the other hand, showed a childlike face.
“You alone can. Make the descent,” Phoebe mumbled to herself. “To the heart of prayer.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to figure this out.”
Micah scratched his head. “I mean this is interesting and all, but we gotta keep moving.”
“There’s something here,” Phoebe insisted.
“What?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Like I was sayin’ before,” Micah said as he wandered over to his bulky red costume to put it back on. “No way we’re gonna find this thing with a buncha dumb luck.”
Phoebe glared at him.
“Face it, Plumm. This is a dead end.”
“But there might be a clue.”
“Doubt it,” he said with a groan as he took a seat. He detached the light mounted to his rifle and held it out to Phoebe. “You just let me know when you’re ready to split.”
She snatched the light from him.
“Thanks for nothing,” she said.
“Welcome,” he yawned.
Phoebe marched back to inspect the shrine.
But she, too, suspected that whatever clue might have led them to the Occulyth was either beyond their grasp or long gone.
Dollop paused beside a rusting tahnik to catch his breath.
“Und-derguard Cya?” he called out. “A-a-anyone?”
Again, he struck the salathyl prong that Orei had given him and plunged it into the ground. He waited, and he hoped. And again, there was no response.
He could see well enough in the dark, but night transformed the Hy’rekshi jungle into a frightening phantasmagoria. Luminescent pinpods grew everywhere, and when they puckered, they looked like blinking, glowing eyes. There was a djintra nearby too, its eerie, creaking groan like a restless demon.
How had he managed to screw everything up?
For a while Dollop had kept up with the search party, hobbling along using his elongated arm as a crutch. But on the uneven terrain, he hadn’t been able to keep up the pace, and before long, he had lost them. The Underguard had said they were planning to regroup, but he couldn’t recall where. Even if he knew the location, how would he ever manage to find it?
He was hopelessly turned around.
Dollop had sworn to Orei that he would find Loaii and Micah. Nothing was more important, and he would give anything to bring them back. But he had already failed. What kind of imbecile could manage to lose a search party?
Who was he trying to fool? The Covenant didn’t need him. Despite every attempt to be useful, he was only a burden. They were better off without him.
He was about to try his salathyl prong once more, when he heard a rustling sound. Dollop leapt and almost fell to pieces. Was it the Foundry? Were they hiding out in the jungle, hoping to finish what they had started back in the camp? Or perhaps there was something even worse lurking in the shadows.
Uaxtu. He had heard nightmarish tales of the ember-reapers his whole life. It was said the ravenous specters haunted places of death, hunting for lost embers to devour.
Dollop had to get away. He scrambled through the tangled undergrowth. Once he was far from the fearsome Uaxtu phantoms, away from the ruthless Foundry, he would try again to summon a salathyl. But everywhere Dollop turned, he thought he saw ghosts. He felt their chill at his back. The jungle seemed to be writhing with them.
Why had Makina spared him? He thought of all the brave Covenant warriors who had gone to rust back in the camp. Yet somehow, undeserving Dollop had survived.
He knew he must honor his brethren. They were gone, but their embers would live on—the Way was quite clear on this matter. As he tried to recall the well-known verses, his mind cleared. The fear did not vanish entirely, but it did recede.
He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice a celebratory echo ringing from the white city, just around the next hill.
Aimlessly, he fled. Desperately, he prayed.
Makina adored Her creation, yet still was She not content, for Her children lived their limitless cycles without consequence. And lo, they did stray from Her, and there was cruelty and malice among them, and none would heed Her Way.
Again, She spake.
“RUST” was Her command, and so it was that Makina delivered death unto the world.
And thus did the Mother of Ore decree:
“Know this. Thy embers belong to Me eternally. And I shall tend to them in my Forge according to the merits of your spans.
“The wicked who revile their Mother, who sow fear and enmity, for thee there is no eternal home. I shall douse thy embers that they may vanish forever, that thy foul deeds may
be obliterated.
“The humble who strive to follow My Way, who long to find your function, those of My children for whom righteousness is an aim not always achieved, to thee I offer the mercy of another span. Thy embers shall be stirred, that ye may return to the Ore whence you came and live again to seek the light of My Way.
“And you, the vital components of My sacred machine, you who love My creation most of all, who spread interlocking harmony amongst My children—beyond the Shroud, My fires shall light for thee. Thy embers blaze eternal.”
With her decree, the Great Engineer did smite the Mirroring Sea, and from it rose a mighty wall of impenetrable mist. This She named the Shroud, for it hid the world of the dead from that of the living, home of embers, heart of Her Forge.
Thus, Makina created the Shroud, not to punish Her children with death, but that they might cherish their spans and those of their brethren. Their phases numbered, mehkans wasted not, but instead strove to find their functions.
For when their cycles were at an end, and the rust took them, their embers traveled beyond the Shroud, and the children returned to the eternal bosom of their Mother of Ore.
And lo, the Great Engineer was pleased.
Accord V: Edicts 01–06
Phoebe reluctantly gave up on the shrine and slipped back into the celebration with Micah. They fought through the throng, climbed out of the crater, and navigated the paths snaking among ivory bluffs.
Between the buildings, they saw the sparkle of the ocean. A placid plane of liquid silver stretched as far as the eye could see—and Phoebe didn’t want to see any more of it than absolutely necessary. That was easier said than done, as every other winding avenue seemed to end at a dock where hefty barges bobbed, their decks overflowing with revelers.
The city’s glaring whiteness reflected the lanterns a dozen times over, so that Phoebe forgot how late it was until she glanced at the sky, where vibrating threads of stars shimmered.
The kids stopped to rest beneath a quiet bridge stretching between two massive ripples. Micah lifted his puffball headdress away from his face and gasped for air.