by JM Guillen
“There she is!” The words came in a sibilant, echoing hiss from nothing human, and they reverberated from the shadows in every corner.
My head near twisted off my neck, I whipped it around so quick. I saw no one. Trying to distance myself from the bodiless voice, I poured on more speed. Nothing good could come if whatever made that sound caught me.
(—the Rite of the Moon’s Blood and can only be performed by the most defiled of clerics—)
“I don’t think I want to know that.” I slipped through the shadows.
(—is what they sought to begin with. They waited until the silver flame was awakened, knowing full well that the time of sacrifice was a delicate thing. They bound Royce to their will—)
“What?” I stopped in place, my eyes wide.
(—a device seemingly crafted from leather and gears but made through malicious glamour and dark ritual. There was never any way to remove it, neither by key nor craft—)
“Hold a nonce.” My eyes went wild. “Are you saying—?”
(—ensuring that, one way or the other, a new wyrd-blooded would not walk the—)
Slowly, my hand crept up to the collar around my neck, horror slipping through my veins.
“Never any way to remove it.” My heart beat against my ribs. What was I going to do? This thing would choke me to death!
The thought burned in me, then my fear gave way to fury. I trembled with impotent rage, and the talisma blossomed, warm on my hand.
No. Tears filled my eyes, but I refused to cry.
For a long moment, my mind drifted down every possible path. I already knew that it tightened if someone tried to jim the lock; the thing couldn’t become any tighter without choking me.
It wasn’t a necklace of wire, leather, and gears. It was wrought from sorcery.
There was nothing I could do.
“Fine then.” My voice grew tight as I spoke into the shadows. “But If I’m going to die like a choked cavy-rat, I’m taking each of you for a dance.”
When I resumed running, the lights continued their fizzing show, shedding sparks and clashing whispers as I passed, yet they cast less and less light. It was getting to be so dark that I needed to squint, and soon I had to slow to a walk in order not to smash myself to bits on some unseen obstacle.
“I see you,” a disembodied voice whispered in my ear, which buzzed and tingled thereafter.
I started at the stinging sound, but nothing reached out and grabbed me nor even brushed my clothing in passing.
I spun about, but no one was there. Just to be safe, I decided to step quickly. Perhaps that would put distance between me and the unknown cultist.
Wait.
I stopped in place, peering into the shadows. Up ahead, in the dimming gloom, a stripe of bright white light lay directly on the floor.
I crept cautiously to it and peered across. The ground dropped directly after, leaving me at the top of a deep chasm.
I crouched, overcome with vertigo.
It was a long way down to the shimmering water that waited below.
(—powered by that cascading water. Simply by its course, it sung eldritch plasm into the devices of the builders of th—)
A ladder had led down at one point; my fingers found the corroded metal, but after the first five rungs, the metal bars simply stopped, rust having eaten the rest away. Far below a latticework of metal grid walkways and ramps were covered in the cerulean-blue water that surged far deeper than I could spy out.
“Some back door.” I shuddered, wondering how deep those depths went.
I crouched there on the edge, searching the walls for anything of use, when I heard a scuff. I spun to see three large men, scraps of dirty white fabric binding their eyes, stepping around one of the abandoned hulks of machinery.
Good. I frowned. Just what I needed.
Their pace was slow and deliberate, the kind of gait that a man uses when he knows his quarry cannot escape. It was terrifying and absolute.
“Tup that,” I snarled. If I was going to be choked by this sorcery-wrought collar, then I would refuse to be quarry.
Dead either way, I might as well make these three suffer all I could.
I dashed around the nearest pile of mechanisms, greasy gears, and gimcrack, desperately searching for anything that might prove useful. My eye fell on the rough grabber of a wockl wrench.
“Good morning.” I grinned. Thick and heavy, it might make one all-fired improvement to those men’s smiles.
I hefted it and crouched, ready for whatever came next. As I waited, I let my mind settle on Royce and that yellowed smile of his. Anger, like banked coals, flared in my heart.
Discordant, horrific music danced through my mind.
Realizing that I’d squinted against the cacophony, I opened my eyes cautiously and saw the lead—what were they? Priests? Disciples? Bootlicking sycophants?—the lead scut-licker step around the corner of my ineffective shelter in perfect silence. His lips moved, but no sound emerged.
I frowned at him, brows furrowing as I carefully watched his lips. I couldn’t catch a word, but he did seem seven kinds of irate, his mouth working faster, opening wider as if he were in a silent screaming match as his hand rose.
The eye-shaped scar on his palm twisted and writhed, blinking and rolling its blood-tinged pupil around to stare at me. It was an ancient eye, an all-seeing vestige of inhumanity. It did more than look at me, it stared through me, laying bare every ill or shameful thing I had spoken or thought.
Every other thing fell quiet.
“Devoted forsaken,” I swore, my words falling like drops of water into a deep, still pond, the only sound in the world.
My fingers curled tightly around the wockl wrench, and I abruptly swung it into the man’s chin as I surged up from my crouch. The first sound I heard was his jaw shattering as the rest of the world burst to full volume.
He fell back, staggering, hands going to his face as I bolted around him, thinking to race back the way I’d come, only to come to a skidding stop.
His companions must have gathered some friends, for there were far more than two men in robes and blindfolds waiting for me. Five others had joined them, some with bandaged heads, others not, but one wore brilliant crimson robes and no headwrap. It was plain from the scarring across his face that his eyes had been removed quite
(—recently. Maris the Elder had gone long years before taking up the cause, but now he has proven to be the most devoted—)
As soon as I rounded the corner, every head snapped to face me, whether it had eyes to see or not.
“Oh. Delightful.” My mouth quirked to one side.
I dropped the wrench and spun, throwing myself into the fastest run I could manage.
A general howl set up then. Like a pack of hunting dogs that had finally caught the scent of their prey, the robed terrors took off after me. I could almost smell their foul breath on my neck as I poured on the speed.
I knew where I should flee to, terrifying or no.
I winced internally. Sorry about this, Captain. I hauled the heavy, metal, shoulder mantle over my head. But I can’t afford the weight.
“Her capture has been seen!” This was Maris, his screech high and wild. “He shall be honored who brings the witch to me!”
I lifted the mantle up and hurled it as well as I was able toward the pack of men, knowing my wild throw wouldn’t hit one.
Yet as I made that throw, I lent forth my anger as well, my secret rage coiled inside my heart. The talisma on my hand blossomed, and the mantle blasted through the air like a shot from a cannon.
With it went the miscellaneous piles of mechany scattered about.
The metal gewgaws tore into the cultists, and more than one cried as they fell back into a pool of scarlet. Maris, however, wasn’t struck, and neither was one of his fellows.
“Your blasphemy will be paid for three times, witch.” Maris’s voice was a sibilant whisper.
(—would live for days in the darkness
beneath the city, as the gift in my blood was drained from my body. Rape was a certainty, as each sought to carry away some of my power from the act—)
“Not today, Maris.” I gave him a wide smile, enjoying his discomfiture that I knew his name.
Then I ran.
The ledge loomed ahead, and I leapt, hurling myself over, doing my best to flatten out into a dive.
(—flows halfway across the continent, originating from the same chain of mountains that feeds the Er’meander River and the salt marshes of New Gijon—)
I hit the azure pool and plunged into its depths.
13
The water was refreshingly cool and perfectly clear. Within the pool, I could see half a city submerged in the blue. I peered at it curiously as I thrashed my way further, passing by perfectly preserved walkways and railings. They sailed by, serene as the light melody that seemed determined to pervade my head.
I peered at the walls that the walkways bounded, seeing shadowy, rectangular shapes. Were those doors?
I stroked closer.
Yes, they were doors, deep beneath the water. I didn’t think I should try to open one unless I didn’t have any choice, however. Who knew what lay on the other side? If it were water sealed, opening one could mean disaster. Unless a girl wanted to dash her pretty face on a solid stone floor. That seemed like a poor choice. On the other hand, if there were more water within, I could end up trapped in a watery tomb.
(Eld Calyptia stretched leagues beneath the ground, and many of her secrets—)
Hardly ideal.
I kicked harder, striving to get as much distance as I could before coming up for breath.
Finally I could take no more. Breaking the surface, I gasped for air, then glanced back the way I’d come. Nothing but calm, blue water and the spiraling rasp of woodwinds. I couldn’t even see the ledge I’d leapt from back in the distance.
“Just how far did I swim?” I gasped in my incredulity. I hadn’t ever swum more than a few lengths down the runnel that ran around the Fallen Gate at the foot of Calyptin Station Entrance Registrar Office Six. This was more than four times that distance!
Well, I had reason to be quick, and that was a fact.
I panted, suddenly exhausted. Thank my ancestors I ditched the metal pauldrons! I couldn’t imagine how tired I would be if I had tried to swim with it still on. It very well could have dragged me to the bottom—I glanced down—wherever the bottom might be. I hadn’t seen it yet.
“Get moving,” I scolded as I forced myself into a lazy stroke. It was all I could manage.
The waterway curved up ahead. I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed a little brighter as well. I swam on until I reached the bend. There the current picked up, carrying me a little faster than I’d managed on my own. I let it ferry me along, taking the opportunity to rest.
The lights that had been dancing near the top of the round tunnel had grown, spilling down the sides of the tube in faintly colored ribbons of light that pulsed and twisted, causing the shadows along the walls to writhe. In fact, they moved so much that I didn’t see the tiny ladder leading from the water up to a short ledge off to the right.
So I might consider myself lucky that I smashed right into it instead. My cursing was loud and most unladylike.
“That’s enough swimming.” I gripped the slippery metal with both hands before the current could drag me away from my prize. It took far longer than I liked to get to the top, but once there, I allowed myself the luxury of just sitting on the ledge, staring at my wet hands resting on my legs.
My fingers drifted to the collar about my neck. Was it possible that the water had fouled the clockwork? Or was the thing so sorcery-wrought that the gears didn’t actually matter?
It was a pleasant thought, but the awful thing didn’t seem mucked up in any way.
“No time, Ysabel, move.” I dragged myself to my feet and shuffled forward.
Almost immediately, my path split. Practically identical, I stared at the two archways, trying to determine the slightest detail that might set them apart and make my choice easier. There was no true—
(—these walls were hewn from the bones of the world. They stood as civilizations arose, grew, teetered, and collapsed. They have never known the touch of wind or sun, but they know the rhythms of the stars. They know these rhythms more surely than the tiny beings that had finally taught them the strength of steel and will—)
I shook my head, dislodging the thought as my hand reached to the divider. The smooth, gray, stone felt nearly slippery under my fingertips as I brushed over the featureless rock. The stonework sang a song as ancient as the door to my temporary cell had, a low, greasy-smooth sound that vibrated up my spine and made my skin shiver and shake.
“Wait.” I frowned and removed my fingers from the unknown ore before it could sing more of its history to me. It had felt… dirty, as if I had rolled around in pig grease that had sat for days in the sun.
My nose wrinkled, and I glared at the offending rock. What could possibly have happened to befoul the very stones that surrounded me?
No. Keep moving.
The dark at the other end of the left tunnel beckoned with all the secrets shadows could hold.
(These halls knew things, powerful things that could make men listen to what I had to say and do my will, whether they wanted to or—)
I blinked. What had happened here? What secret memories lay in this place?
(There were mysteries lurking in the very walls that no one left living in this world could know. Except for me. I could learn them, use them, bring them back from the grasping hold of the dead so that I could rule over this land and shape it to my—)
I stumbled back from the archway.
I didn’t want to rule any land much less this piece of taint-drenched waste.
“That decides it.” My feet passed through the right archway before I could blink.
In the quiet, the cool shadows enfolded me in a soft blanket that soothed my troubled mind. Those halls remained silent, offering nothing so much as a glimmer of what might lay ahead. The lights that had guided me here had not branched off this way. Instead they had continued down the waterway that still burbled behind me, leaving me to darkness and faint hope. I edged down, through the gloom, tracing one hand along the wall, searching for any other passages or doorways. The wall, far rougher than the walls of the left passage, abraded my fingers as I took step after slowing step.
I drifted along, ghosting through the hallway at about the speed of a tortoss crawling through treacle. My fingers skimmed the unending stone wall.
Until it fell away.
My breath hissed through my teeth in irritation. It was still too dark to see. Darker even.
“Fine,” I spoke aloud to the nothing in front of me. “That’s dandy, right there.”
I took a step back and found the wall again. Then I felt around it. My hand found where the wall became a corner, cutting back to open into a wider space. A room, perhaps?
Rooms typically meant furnishings. Furnishings like chairs and tables and, more importantly, candles and lanterns. Near the entrance, perhaps? I crouched down on my knees and began feeling about the smooth floor with both hands like a near-blind oldster looking for her optics.
At last my groping fingers found something that felt exactly like a wooden table leg.
I felt my way up the leg and reached a flat surface. As I patted around it, my fingers connected with a cold, metal surface. Frantically I felt around, learning its shape with my hands. A tall, metal and glass box with a handle on top.
A lantern! It had to be.
I pawed at the bottom until I felt the telltale ridges of a strike-slide. A wild grin capered on my face as I slid the mechanism swiftly from one side to the other. I listened to the familiar rasp and click as the striker did its work. A flickering, yellow glow emanated within the thick glass case.
It was, indeed, an old lantern. Very old. So old that I wondered that it still produced a glow
.
“Not that I’m complaining.” Light was light. I sighed with satisfaction and stood, turning to gaze around the room.
It must have been marvelous once. The jet black floor had been polished to a smooth sheen that even years of neglect hadn’t been able to entirely dull. The gleaming walls and ceiling had been rounded out so that I stood in a bubble of stone, thrice my height at its pinnacle. A perfectly white pillar stood in the exact center of the room spiraling up to waist height. It must have been much taller once, for the majority of it lay on the floor, cracked in twain. A few scraps of graying fabric lay twisted up underneath it.
There were no doors. This spherical room was a dead end.
(It gathered plasm of a kind unknown to men today. The ancients built entire cities that were also machines, great things that used the very wind as breath—)
“This doesn’t help me now.” I sighed.
I had no choice but to retrace my steps and take the other tunnel.
Clutching the lantern, I left the room, my heart heavy in my chest.
Returning down the hallway took far less time with the lantern. I arrived at the tunnel mouth. Facing the tunnel I hadn’t traveled, I glared at it.
It glared back, balefully.
“Fine,” I told it. “If that’s the way it’s gonna be, fine.” I stepped inside.
The lantern swung gently in my death-grip, the flickering light painting moving figures in the shadows that loomed and threatened and disappeared in the space of a breath.
I tried to ignore the spectral figures, but they caught my peripheral, beckoning, begging for closer perusal. They whispered soft strains I couldn’t quite grasp, things of blood and power and pain.
My heart pounded fast and faster, my wind shortening with anxiety.
The shades of deeds past danced, whirling around me in a wicked reel.
(The fall of Eld Calyptia was far more than an act of war. It was a rottenness that wormed into the hearts of the women who governed her—)
The stories bobbed and weaved their malefaction. They sang to me of loss, of shame unearned, of pride and its folly.