“No. If I move so much as a pebble, that tunnel rat will know we’re down here.”
“I think we can fit,” Kiernan said, and with a grunt he pulled himself deeper into the tunnel. “Yes. I’m through. No one’s here. But…what is that?”
Ariel flowed swiftly through the tunnel after him, and Molly heard her gasp. “Ariel?” Molly called. “Kier? What is it?”
There was no answer. Molly’s father hurried forward. The tunnel was just barely wide enough for his shoulders, and Molly waited impatiently as he kicked and grunted his way through, finally emerging from it with Molly right on his heels.
She crawled out into a vast cavern with roughhewn walls. Not a single wind stirred. In the center of the cavern she could see the metal frame of the lift, though the lift platform itself wasn’t there. Molly could see a small patch of sky at the top of the shaft, but she was shocked by how far away it was. “We’re a long way down.”
The cavern walls were lit by a flickering golden glow. Molly searched for its source, and her eyes finally fell on the terric font. It was unmistakable, though it was unlike any font Molly had seen before. It had a jagged black center, like the beginning of a tunnel that led…not down, not any direction Molly could discern. Out, her subconscious suggested. It leads out. Around the edge of the opening, gold and silver sparks pulsed, shining like fire and then fading to a dull glow in a rhythm she could not quite follow but that spoke to her deeper mind like music.
There was something strange about the font, Molly realized. It commanded her attention, like it was the only real thing in the room, but at the same time it was as if it wasn’t there. It was solid and unmoving, but she could also see the bare stone beyond it. It wasn’t transparent. It was more like she was seeing with two sets of eyes, and one of them did not see the font at all.
“What is this?” Toves said beside her.
“I think there’s something wrong with the font,” she said.
“He is not referring to the font, Molly,” Ariel said from her other side.
Molly looked over at Toves. He was still having trouble holding himself upright, but his stones had hunched together, like an animal bristling. Molly finally looked past the font and saw a long rectangular machine with wires and pipes running its length. Closer to the font, a wide segmented tube protruded from the machine, its end ringed by small metal claws that reminded Molly of teeth.
Her stomach dropped. “No,” she said. “This can’t be here.”
“What is it?” Rory asked.
“It is something terrible,” Ariel said. “It is a harvester that pierces the fonts to extract spirits directly from the spirit world. I came to the human world to stop a machine like this more than a year ago.”
“We did stop it,” Molly said. “We brought the Gloria Mundi down to stop it. This can’t be here!”
“Well, it looks like someone forgot to tell these blokes the news,” Toves wheezed.
SIX
Molly rushed to the harvester, the font forgotten.
“You’re saying this is like that thing aboard the Gloria?” her father asked as he ran after her.
“It appears to be,” Ariel answered.
“That would explain the font looking so weird,” Molly said. “Remember, Ariel? The way the other harvester broke the fonts it used?”
“You can’t break a font,” Toves said.
“They have found a way, I assure you,” Ariel replied.
“But no one would do that. That would be insane.”
“Why?” Molly’s father asked. “What would that mean?”
“Our worlds rely on each other, feed each other,” Ariel said. “Cutting the worlds apart would be like removing all the water from an ecosystem. Everything would simply wither away. In both worlds, in the case of the fonts.”
“Bloody hell,” Toves said, rolling himself slowly forward, the light from the font washing over his stones.
“Not to mention all the spirits it will capture before the font collapses,” Kiernan said. Molly nodded.
“But you said that thing on the Gloria Mundi had a first-level spirit in it,” Rory said. “They can’t have captured another one so soon, can they? I mean, first-level spirits are huge.”
“Not one of the great ones in there,” Toves said. “Or a first level, or whatever you call it.” He moved up close to the machine, stopping just short of the iron walls. “It’s something big in here, a terric spirit like me. They must have found a way to do it with smaller spirits. But I can hardly feel this one. Think it’s almost dead.”
“But how?” Molly asked. Her heart was jumping, her skin crawling. “Ariel? How can they do this? We almost died to stop this thing!”
“We stopped one harvester. But an idea is much harder to kill.” Ariel’s voice was so low, Molly almost couldn’t hear her.
“Maybe this is why the files didn’t say anything about this font,” Kiernan said. “It’s an experiment, or they’re keeping it under wraps.”
Molly thought back to the files at Haviland Industries—the ones marked DEPLETED. Is that what it meant? Are all of those fonts they broke? There were so many…
“So what do we do?” Kiernan asked.
“We came to get Toves home,” Molly’s father said. “I say we send him home.”
“Too right,” Toves said, rolling his stone body toward the font.
“No, wait!” Molly said. “Toves, hold on!”
“Molly, keep your voice down,” Rory hissed at her. For a moment they all fell silent, listening. The lift creaked slightly, but they heard no other sound.
“I’m sorry,” Molly whispered. “But we have to shut this thing down. We might need your help.”
Toves groaned, and so did Molly’s father.
“She is right,” Ariel said. “This is a bigger problem.”
“There’s always a bigger problem,” Molly’s father said softly.
Toves had stopped, but he was silent. “Look, why don’t we just check it out?” Molly said. “If we can get the spirit free without your help, Toves, we’ll send you home right away. But please just hold on.”
“Fine, fine,” Toves hissed.
“Okay. So, um, if it’s like the Gloria Mundi’s machine, there has to be a feeding apparatus. Something they put traps in through.”
“Traps? They feed it other spirits?” Toves asked.
“Yeah. At least, they did on the Gloria Mundi.”
“Is there anything humans won’t do to us?” Toves asked.
“Let’s look for hatches, okay?” Molly said.
They all spread around the machine, examining it. Molly drew close to the machine’s clawed mouth, and it bent toward her. She stepped back. “We’re trying,” she whispered to it.
“Could this be it?” Kiernan asked from the far end of the cavern. Molly and the others ran over to him. Against the back wall sat a small cluster of empty traps. And there, set into the wall of the harvester, was a small hatch with a lever and a keyhole directly beside it. Molly tried the hatch’s handle, but it was locked.
“Damn it. Rory, can you pick the lock?”
“Really, Moll?” Rory said. “I know I can be irresponsible, but I’m not a bloody cat burglar. Of course I can’t pick the lock!”
“So how do we get it open?”
“I can do it,” Toves said softly. “I think I’ve got enough energy left to crack that door, if it’s not too thick. But if I do, the tunnel rat is going to be on us pretty quick.”
Molly stared up at the harvester. “You want to do it anyway, don’t you?” her father said at her side.
“Yeah. I think we should.”
“And you think we can still get away? Even with that ferratic after us?”
“If we can get the spirit out of here, it should cause a lot of chaos. We could get away while they’re still trying to get things under control.” She looked into his eyes. “We have to try, at least.”
Her father hung his head and said nothing. Molly looked a
round the room, and everyone nodded. “Okay. Toves?”
Molly and her family stepped back, and Toves sank low to the ground. A huge stone broke free from the cavern floor, and Toves sent it flying into the hatch. The hatch bent. More stones came, and the hatch gave way. “Keep going,” Molly said. “There will be a second hatch inside, like an air lock.” Toves kept throwing stones through the hole in the side of the machine until the opening was clogged with rock. Molly started shoveling the stones out of the way, her brothers and father helping at her sides. Beyond the stones she found the second hatch. It hung off its hinges.
“You did it,” she said. “We’re in.”
“Good,” Toves said. “’Cause we’ve got company coming. I can feel the tunnel rat digging its way down here.”
Molly was suddenly glad they were so far down. It might buy them a few moments.
She clambered in over the last of the stones and kicked at the broken hatch. It came loose and went clattering into the machine. Molly heard a soft breath from inside, but nothing else. She crawled through.
The interior was one large metal chamber, barely visible by the light leaking in from the hole. The bent hatch sat against the far wall.
“I don’t see anything,” she said. She peered around, and in the silence she heard a faint hissing coming from the hatch. She frowned and crept closer. Where the hatch rested against the wall, a thin trail of smoke was rising. Molly gasped, then scrambled forward and snatched the hatch away. What she had taken for the back wall of the chamber was made of stone, not metal, and where the hatch had been, there was a dark spot burned into it.
“Hello?” Molly whispered. She placed her hand against the stone. It was warm. This close, she could see that strange curlicues were carved into it, and dim golden lights ran through them.
She heard a scraping sound, and above her something shifted. She looked up and saw two dark eyes staring down at her.
“Oh. Um, hi.”
The stone she was touching slid across the ground as the huge spirit pulled itself up onto four craggy legs, each larger than Molly. It loomed over her, and she stumbled back. The patterns of light on its skin brightened as it stirred, save on its underbelly, where it had been resting against the iron floor. The stone was burned black there.
“My God,” Molly said. “We’ll get you out of here.” She looked back toward the open hatch and up again at the huge spirit. How the hell are we going to get that thing out? “Can you, I don’t know, make yourself smaller or something? The opening is small.”
The spirit stepped forward, wobbling precariously over Molly. Each time it took a step on the iron floor, it let out a grunt that sounded like skittering rocks. It pressed itself against the open hatch, releasing a gout of smoke and a smell like burning tar. It grunted again and bellowed so loud that Molly covered her ears. The iron walls creaked but did not move, and the creature collapsed backward. Molly jumped away before it could crush her.
She looked again at the hatch and at the huge spirit. She could see it better now, closer to the light. A head like a boulder, broken only by two eyes and a crack for its mouth. Legs made of thick oval stones that somehow bent without breaking when it moved. It looked like a cliffside come to life. It looked big enough, and strong enough, to break the metal walls, if only the iron didn’t burn it, if only it hadn’t been trapped in here, growing weaker by the moment.
“Earth,” she muttered, and scrambled to the opening. “Toves, we need something in here to feed it! It’s too weak. It needs—”
Several stones flew through the opening, and Molly jumped back. More poured in, like water flowing through a hole in the hull of a ship, until stones covered the ground to the far wall and were piled against the spirit where it lay. The spirit turned its head and nuzzled into the stones, eyes closed.
“Okay, stop, stop!” Molly shouted. “I need some help in here. We have to pile the stones against the wall, give it a buffer so it can break its way out!” Kiernan and Rory scuttled inside, and a moment later Ariel flowed in, contracting herself carefully to avoid the iron. Molly pointed to the wall next to the broken hatch. “Here. Pile them up here.”
Ariel used bursts of air to move the stones across the chamber while Molly and her brothers piled them up against the wall. As they worked, the spirit behind them pulled itself up onto its feet and opened its eyes, watching them. They piled the stones as high as they could and then moved out of the way. Molly gestured to the stones.
“There,” she said to the spirit. “Do you think you can—” The spirit raised one of its front legs and slammed it into the stones. The stones shattered into powder and fell away, revealing a long crack in the iron wall.
“Good. Again,” Molly said. “Toves! More stone!”
“Better hurry,” Toves said. “The tunnel rat’s almost here!”
More stones poured in, and they bent to work again. Molly could feel sweat running down the nape of her neck and tickling her back. She shoved the stones up into the crack in armfuls, moving as fast as she could. As soon as she was done, she jumped out of the way, and the spirit hit the wall again. The crack widened, but the wall did not split. The spirit rumbled angrily and tried to hit it again, but its skin hissed and blackened on contact.
“It’s okay,” Molly said. “We’ll do it agai—”
There was a crash from outside the machine, and a squeal like metal on metal. “It’s here!” her father shouted. There was another crash, closer this time, and something slammed against the side of the harvester. Her father cried out.
“Da!” Kiernan shouted, scrambling through the open hatch. Rory started forward, but Molly grabbed his arm.
“Stay and help Ariel get the spirit free. I’ll go and see if we can distract it.”
Rory nodded, and Molly ducked through the hatch before she had time to second-guess herself.
There was a new hole in the roof of the cavern, next to the mine shaft, and the stone floor was torn and cracked where something had landed. Molly cast her eyes around and saw her father slumped against the harvester, hurt but still moving. Kiernan was at his side. Across from them, only a few yards from the font, was the tunnel rat. Its huge metal body was bent low, its head to the ground, tearing at the stone with its teeth.
“Where’s Toves?” Molly called to her father. He gestured to the tunnel rat. Molly looked at it again and realized that the stones around the ferratic’s jaws were moving, feebly trying to break free as the machine chewed into them. “No!”
She picked up a loose stone and hurled it at the tunnel rat. The stone clanged off its shoulder. Fire-bright eyes turned toward her, and a mouth the size of her head bared its teeth. Molly reached up and called for the wind, hoping against hope that she could find some this deep underground. A small silver glimmer answered from the mine shaft, swirling down and around her shoulders. I hope it’s enough. She grabbed another stone and threw it at the machine. The stone hit its head, and the ferratic flinched and started loping toward her, mouth gaping open. Oh hell.
It crossed the cavern so fast Molly barely had time to react. As it bore down on her, she brought the wind close and thought, Up. The wind thrust her skyward, fading as it expended its energy. Molly rose into the air, then fell back down. The tunnel rat stood directly below her. She aimed her feet and landed hard on its back, wrapping her hands around the steel plates of its shoulders.
The tunnel rat reared up, but it couldn’t reach her where she perched. It began thrashing around, and she held on tightly as the metal body beneath her bucked. Her toes found a gap they could fit inside as the machine bounded around the cavern, Molly clinging to its back.
Can I do some damage from here? she wondered. She looked to the iron plates below her hands, but they were fit so tightly against each other that they squealed when they moved. There was a long piston just below her right hand that contracted and hissed. She reached over and pulled at it, but it was too strong for her to break with her bare hands. She looked down at the gap where h
er toes rested. She could see a hint of wires and gears there, the inner workings of the machine. There! She let go of the rat’s shoulder with one hand and crouched down to dig her fingers inside.
The ferratic leapt up suddenly and slammed itself sideways against the wall. Molly came loose, hitting the wall and rolling down. Beside her, the tunnel rat raised itself back onto its feet.
“Molly!” someone shouted. She turned her head and saw Ariel just outside the harvester. “Call the wind!”
The tunnel rat raised its claws, and Molly scrambled out of the way just as they came down. “I can’t! There’s no wind down here!”
“The font!”
Molly dove to the side as the tunnel rat pounced at her. Her shoulder banged painfully against the ground, and then she rolled back to her feet. She spun around, trying to get her bearings. There was the font, just beside her. “What do I—”
“Call the wind!” Ariel shouted again. Molly sprinted to the font. Can I do that? She called the wind, but nothing came. The tunnel rat was moving toward her again, rising onto its rear legs, its claws bearing down on her.
She thrust her hand into the font. It felt like rubber for a moment, resisting her, and then her fingers broke through and she felt cold air on her skin. She called the wind again, pointing her other arm toward the tunnel rat.
A fountain of wind burst through the font, bending around her. It was like no wind she had ever seen. It glowed a dark purple, and where it brushed against her arms it felt as solid as stone. It slammed into the tunnel rat’s chest and threw the beast backward against the wall. There was a loud clang, and one of the pistons on its legs swung loose. It slid down the wall and slumped into a pile of jagged metal.
The purple spirit-world wind quickly unraveled, withering into nothing. Only a few small breezes were left to skid around the cavern. Molly pulled her hand from the font, eyes on the ferratic. Please don’t get up. Please don’t get up.
The tunnel rat’s legs twitched. It raised itself back onto its haunches, crackling and growling as it moved. One of its arms hung limp, but the other came forward and gripped the ground, and it stood, eyes on Molly.
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