Gearspire: Advent

by Jeremiah Reinmiller

  Lastrahn was still looking at him when the boy within Mirkther’s shattered body spoke again. “For freedom he will tell you of this place. For rest.” His breaths wheezed louder, harder.

  Lastrahn searched Ryle’s face for a long moment while he battled to pull his emotions under control. Finally, resolution formed in his eyes.

  He turned back to the thing that was once Mirkther. “Tell us of Gearspire. Tell us of how he got inside.”

  For once no anger blazed in the eye. The head went limp.

  A long time later, the eye focused on Lastrahn again.

  “Before the tower is a city,” the voice had changed again. A child imitating a voice Ryle once knew, the deep tones a struggle. It made every sentence all the more painful. “Within the city is a house of great size. Below the house is a small door.”

  The wheel turned, forcing Mirkther to draw a long rattling breath.

  “Go west within the house, until you stand where the setting sun falls upon your back. Once you have opened the door, descend to the gate of stone. There is a keyhole. No light will reveal it, only touch.”

  A labored breath. The body was no longer meant for speech, only screaming. “Without the key, abandon hope. The lock cannot be picked by any man alive.” His voice faded out then came back. “Two turns. To the left. Only the left.”

  A gasp and a wet sound in his chest. The wheel kept turning. The body shook a couple times, and the sound cleared. Each word tore at Ryle’s ears, at his soul. He focused on the hostage, on the realm. On every life that would be lost if the Praeters invaded.

  “The passage is beneath. Go to the bottom. Through. Up.”

  The information, felt hollow, useless. The voice spoke of a key they didn’t have, and a door nearly impossible to find, in place they couldn’t reach before the Harvest Moon. A hot weight rode his sternum.

  “Thank you—” Lastrahn began but the thing spoke again.

  “It will matter not. Matter not. You will perish inside. Perish. That place holds no solution.”

  “Explain.”

  The thing went silent as it labored for each breath. Even that endless wheel wasn’t helping any more. His body was too far gone. Mirkther’s head lulled again, eye swinging.

  “For her,” he heard Lastrahn say.

  “The place is ever changing. The solution never the same. No way. No way through. It watches. It watches all within.”

  “What do you mean?” Ryle asked. “What watches?”

  Panic exploded in his eye. The pupil contracted to a mere pinprick. The voice was a rough whisper against pain-filled fatigue. The thud of the wheel punctuated each word. “Gearspire. It watches. It’s alive.” The voice trailed off.

  Had Mirkther gone mad? The body’s chest shuddered, each breath ragged and wet.

  He was almost gone, spent, and Ryle thought Lastrahn had the answers he needed, but he did not. This might be his last chance to get the answer he badly needed. To be able to walk away and at least know it was over, even if he couldn’t see for himself.

  “I have one last question,” he said. Lastrahn dropped a hand on his shoulder and he shook it off. “I need to know about— There was another man, Kilgren. Did he die inside?”

  Mirkther’s dazed eye swung to Ryle, and for a moment, he thought the fog cleared. “You—” the voice cut out.

  Sweat broke out along Ryle’s neck. He felt his future poised on the edge of a knife.

  When the body spoke again, for first time, it was Mirkther’s voice. “Kilgren is always in control.” And then he was gone.

  No, please no! Ryle stepped toward him. But it was too late. When the voice returned, it was the boy’s once more. “He is spent. Keep your promise, let me out.”

  Ryle staggered away feeling as lost as ever.

  Lastrahn twisted the valve and Mirkther’s body shook with a terrible, retching cough. A forceful ripple passed through the liquid in the jar. Lastrahn twisted the valve again and that was it. Whatever they’d done was complete.

  Ryle’s cheeks were wet. He didn’t wipe them dry. More confusion and pain than he’d felt in years twisted inside. All of this work and suffering and he was no closer. He’d gained no solace. Kilgren might still be alive.

  Lastrahn undid the strap and pulled the mask free. The liquid along the edges of the mask smelled of ashes and solvent and something disturbingly sweet. Mirkther’s face was red and swollen where the mask had rested. His nose and mouth purpling with bruises.

  Hartvau had put this man here, but Ryle felt like the monster.

  Lastrahn placed the jar back inside his coat. And turned for the door.

  “Lastrahn—” They still had one hard thing to do.

  “We’re leaving.”

  Emotion roared against the back of Ryle’s throat. The champion’s hand was on the door knob. Ryle grabbed his coat. “We can’t leave—”

  Lastrahn drove Ryle into the wall in the blink of an eye. A rock hard forearm across his throat pinned him in place. His master’s eyes drilled into his skull. “You forget yourself. We’re leaving. Now.”

  Ryle floundered. Lost, helpless. Empty and crumbling. After everything, they couldn’t end it like this. They couldn’t leave what remained of this man to Hartvau.

  Lastrahn’s eyes didn’t waver, didn’t blink. “Don’t speak again until we’re away from here.”

  Ryle’s eyes burned, his throat burned. He looked from Mirkther to Lastrahn. Hatred and loathing churned inside. But for naught. He added the face before him to the list of people he hated that day.

  “Yes, Sir,” he hissed.

  Lastrahn spun away, opened the door, and left. After a gasping moment, Ryle followed.

  Behind them, the wheel turned on, ruthless, relentless, unending.

  His promise was broken. Mirkther wasn’t free and neither was he. As he stepped into the dim hallway he added himself to his list.

  CHAPTER 39

  “Tell me it isn’t always like this, Sir.” Midnight was fast approaching, but down here on the Satin Road, partiers still filled the streets. Not to the extent Ryle had seen earlier in the evening, but the festivities had not burned themselves out yet. Windows and doors were thrown wide, spilling light, noise, and revelry into the street. The entire place screamed raucous joy and every bit of it grated across the angry pounding in his skull.

  “Say what you mean,” Lastrahn said as he stepped around a pair of stumbling, shirtless men.

  What did he mean? How about his hatred for the champion, for himself, and the entire blasted world? How about the crushing desire to give up and walk away from it all?

  Liquid splattered off his forehead. He blinked, looked up with irritation but couldn’t find the source. Another drop hit him in the eye. He angrily shook his head and swiped it away. He didn’t want to know where that had come from or what had just landed on him.

  He drew a breath, trying to force down the irritation, and smelled the stink of wine and sweat and coal smoke. “Like this night. Like Hartvau. He’s everything we’re supposed to fight against, and we’re making deals with him and capitulating and turning away from what he’s done. He’s the enemy! Sir.”

  “Every damn day we deal with the other side, dark characters and other ash sucking things I guarantee you haven’t even imagined.” Lastrahn’s drawn breath was something between a sigh and a growl. “The good guys don’t have all the answers. Sometimes the answers to the dark are in a deep, dark, shit hole like that.” He pointed back toward Hartvau’s.

  A sleeping drunk lay sprawled in the gutter. Thick scents of vomit wafted from him as they passed. Ryle drew a hot breath into his tight chest, and he winced even though he expected the wave of pain that struck him. The pain fit his mood.

  “You pick your battles and focus on the goal. We got the information we needed tonight. Remember that.”

  Precious information. They only had to trade death and pain, and a few broken promises. How much of that was worth it? “You’re saying the ends justify the m
eans?” It came out sharp, and bitter in the dark. Where had he heard that before?

  “Life is compromise. Get used to it. There’s no perfect technique for every situation. Not out here. You balance your actions against the need and move the hell on.”

  The feeling inside wasn’t dying down. This wasn’t what Ryle wanted. Wasn’t what he’d trained and sweated and bled for. He wanted, needed, to track down vicious men like his father and stop them. Not to leave people to their dark fates if they weren’t important enough. To cost people their lives. Too many people.

  Shelling. Patton. Mirkther. Others, further away, but in no less pain.

  Ryle couldn’t stop Kilgren’s face when it came then. His blasted smile. Death and delight wrapped up in a singular grin.

  Hex how Ryle hated him . . . and himself.

  A greasy brown trickle of water ran from an alley across the street. He stomped through it.

  Lastrahn must’ve seen something of it in his face. His voice hardened like a freezing lake. “Tell me our goal. Right now.”

  His or the champion’s? He’d thought for a while they were the same. He’d even told himself that. Sure, he wanted to save the realm, but deep down, they’d never aligned. Not really. The longer he rode with Lastrahn, the more certain it became. He’d thought his answer lay here. His ending. Until now. Mirkther’s words had thrown his goal far into the west. His father had last been seen alive within Gearspire. In that blasted invincible tower that Lastrahn sought for his own dark reasons.

  Ryle shoved aside the raging in his skull, the sound of a rough laugh in the dark. “To reach Gearspire,” he said quietly. “To free Vastroth’s hostage.”

  “So, you tell me. You balance the scales. Her life for his hanging in that cell. Choose.”

  Ryle’s stomach churned thinking of Mirkther, of other lives lost. “We don’t have to choose. We could’ve saved them both,” he said.

  “You must have a hell of a plan to handle Hartvau.”

  “Screw Hartvau!” Ryle’s voice echoed off the dirty stone facades around them. The shout drew stares. Bleary eyes tried to focus in their direction. He ignored them while he fought down his anger and lowered his voice. “It would be worth it to save that man from years of suffering. I’d face Hartvau for that.”

  “This is the Del. Word spreads like a bad wind. Explain how we can rescue the hostage, and save the realm when everyone knows Hartvau’s forces are after us and no one will come within a league of our asses. Tell me who we will help when we’re facing Hartvau and Vastroth and we’re all alone.”

  A drunk girl in a pink dress swinging around a broken light post giggled and waved at them.

  Anger boiled Ryle’s brain, but Lastrahn’s cold logic poured in, smothering the flames. He hated his master even more for it.

  “Saving that man wouldn’t balance the scales,” Lastrahn said. “What happened to him was horrific, but he was an ash sucking thief who brought it on himself.”

  Disgust and rage mixed in Ryle’s chest. What would Lastrahn think if he knew the truth? If he knew he and Mirkther had ridden side by side. That he’d ruined just as many lives as the man Lastrahn considered not worth saving.

  Lastrahn looked away into the night. A tight moment passed. “You know what Vastroth will do with the Praeters behind him.”

  Helador. Only a thousand times worse.

  What could he say against that? What argument could he make? A realm versus the life of one man. Make a choice.

  Shame burned out what anger remained, and the last of his energy followed. Suddenly his head was too heavy, his wounds too painful. He wrapped an arm around his injured side then flinched when his arm hurt.

  He and Lastrahn pushed their way through a pack of men in white robes who carried one of their brethren on their shoulders. The man up top flung flowers to the passersby. Somewhere in the distance, water was falling, splashing across stones and dripping down into the dark.

  A huge ancient building emerged from the shadows on their right. Cracked pillars, once ivory, now smeared black, rose up into the dark. Lanterns, hung around each pillar, cast stark shadows across the street. Nothing around Ryle looked familiar, but he hoped they’d climb back up top soon and return to the inn. He wouldn’t last much longer.

  He grasped at what few embers remained. Too exhausted to care anymore. “What really happened at Helador, Sir?” The words slipped between Ryle’s lips on their own, like a final wish taking flight.

  A passing street lamp illuminated Lastrahn’s face. He stared ahead, his gaze vacant as if he were a thousand leagues away.

  “We tried to save the world. To cement a peace. We thought we had everything under control, but we were arrogant. We didn’t understand the depths of the darkness we faced.” Lastrahn sighed heavily. “We were so close.”

  “And then I ruined everything.” The words didn’t come from Lastrahn, but from the blackened pillars to their right.

  Ryle’s skin tightened like he’d been doused in icy water. He stumbled to a stop. The voice rose from his nightmares, sharp, commanding. A tall, bald figure in a long coat stepped from behind a pillar.

  “Isn’t that right, champion?” Lantern light illuminated his lean, angular face. His sharp chin. He looked the same as he had on the rooftop, and on that night years before, when he’d slaughtered the crew of Ryle’s mother without a whit of concern, as if analyzing tiny insects as he killed them.

  The drunken crowd flowed past, oblivious to the threat in their midst.

  “Hello, Abaal,” Lastrahn said. “Wondered when your ass would stop skulking about.”

  After five years, Ryle finally had a name to go with his chaff sucking face.

  The champion’s voice remained casual, but his eyes looked pinched, maybe not scared, but wary.

  “I see you have a new protégé,” Abaal said, and turning his eyes on Ryle.

  It took every bit of his will to stay upright and meet the Praeter’s dark gaze.

  “And what an interesting choice you have with this one. I wonder if you know who stands by your side.”

  In an instant, Abaal had plucked the one thread that could tear Ryle’s new life apart. He had no doubt the Praeter would pull it. Not after Ryle had killed his partner that night. Terror poured through him like cold water.

  “Say what you came to stay,” Lastrahn said.

  “I hope your chat with Mirkther was illuminating.”

  Ryle’s skull exploded into a rampaging maelstrom. The Praeters not only knew of Lastrahn’s mission, but why he was in Del’atre. Down to the very name of the man they’d come to find. A name not even Lastrahn had possessed. Just how closely had this bastard been watching them?

  “You can keep on wondering,” Lastrahn said.

  “Oh, I think I’ve waited long enough. Fields and fords. Ancient harpies and backwater towns. Pyhrec and Del’atre. It’s been quite the trip, but I hope you got what you came for. Otherwise it would’ve been an awful waste to let you escape.”

  Lastrahn stiffened. His eyes burned.

  Ryle felt loose, unhinged.

  One of the men stumbling by stared and pointed at Abaal as he passed. To the man’s good fortune, the Praeter ignored him. “What? You think you really escaped on your own? From us? Please. When we dragged you half-dead from Helador, you should’ve known you’d never see the Dawnland again unless we wanted you to.” His lips curled into that chilling smile Ryle remembered. “Why else would we keep you alive this long. We’re not usually in the habit of slaying dirty local guards, or concerning ourselves with two bit fences.”

  Ryle couldn’t breathe or think. It was impossible, and yet . . . that strange smell from Taggerloft came back to him. The sight of all those soldiers inexplicably felled while Lastrahn was practically unconscious. The way he’d somehow gained ground on Ogrif even though he’d nearly fallen to his death.

  Muck, muck, muck.

  Lastrahn growled, “You won’t learn a damn thing.”

  Abaal stood relax
ed, hands in his coat pockets, still smiling. Ryle didn’t spot any weapons, but he knew that had to be an illusion.

  “Of all people, I think you should know that we get answers to the questions we ask. Even if it takes months, and months, to get them.”

  Lastrahn’s hand trembled, and fear shot through Ryle. What the hex had happened in the Blasts after Helador? What in the blasted hex had they done to him? What would scare Lastrahn?

  “So why don’t you tell me what you know, and we can skip the rest. We’re going to take her one way or another. And not you, or her mother, or that traitor Vastroth is going to stop us.” The soft menace in his words bit into Ryle’s throat. Never in his life had he more badly wanted a sword at his hip.

  “Why don’t you die screaming like your brother,” Lastrahn spit.

  Abaal’s smile faded. “Before dawn you’ll beg me to kill you,” the Praeter said. “Just like your little Renault.”

  “I’ll remember that when you’re bleeding out, Lagaan.”

  Abaal’s eyes blazed in the dark. A burning Ryle had seen only once before. Sudden fear filled him like a cold wind as invisible pressure boiled off the Praeter. He gasped, and shivered to his bones. His soul felt torn, his limbs quaked. Decimation shone in Abaal’s hard face.

  The crowd around them, most unaware of anything, suddenly gasped en masse as the Praeter’s influence touched them, and then a woman screamed. Her cry pierced through the street, rebounded off the stone buildings and was taken up by another scream, and then another.

  People stumbled to a stop, like stunned sheep. Babbling, screaming, and moaning. Ryle glimpsed panic in the face of one. Sheer terror in another. He knew each look because the same feeling was clawing its way up the inside of his throat.

  Lastrahn stepped between Ryle and Abaal. “Take your kenten.”

  Ryle’s lips felt thick and numb. “Sir?” In his mind He saw only Abaal’s gleaming eyes. They kept boring into his mind, grinding through his strength.

  Footsteps approached, somehow loud amidst the screams of the crowd.

  “Now, dammit!”