And the Howling Earth earned its name.
Coheed had never given much thought to what constituted the energy of the Keywork itself. He had heard rumors, and there was all manner of speculation. Exploring the nature of the Keywork had been a major priority for scientists, but not much had been done along that line for two reasons. First, the energy’s composition defied any current technology’s efforts to break it down. Second, there were various religious factions who remained solidly opposed to such efforts because they believed the energy was supernatural in origin. That it was nothing less than human souls somehow being harnessed and tapped for energy as part of a vast machine crafted by the Creator because in this universe, nothing was ever wasted.
Hohenberger had laughed at such a notion. Coheed had heard him laughing.
If the Doctor could see and hear what Coheed was witnessing now, the laughter would have died in his throat.
The energy contained within the monoliths was ripping out in all directions, and it was howling like a thing alive. The screeches that filled the air were absolutely terrifying. There was no escaping the inevitable conclusion: the energy was alive. Human life, animal life, maybe even harnessed gods of some sort. But definitely alive.
And extremely pissed off.
One of the screaming phantoms circled directly in front of Coheed, cutting him off, and Coheed—who believed he feared nothing—felt his bowels clench and tighten and he thought his eyes were going to explode out of his head. The being’s form was amorphous, ever-shifting, but he thought for a moment he saw a face seized in a rictus of shrieking agony. It froze, and Coheed stared deeply into it even though he knew he shouldn’t, and he felt empty and alone and cold. And then it arced away from him, as if having considered annihilating him but ultimately deciding that it should not.
Others in the underground complex were less fortunate.
Screams of the energy beings mixed with the shrieks of those who would soon be nothing but spirits themselves. Coheed kept running and caught glimpses of the guardians of the damned, as the miners apparently had been, perhaps without even realizing it. He spotted one of the miners confronted by a glowing entity, and the miasma of energy leaped into the man’s wide-open mouth and into him. The man’s body spasmed and flailed around as if someone were jolting him with electricity, and then he exploded. Organs, bodily fluid, everything just blew out in all directions, spattering against any solid objects with an appalling, sickly sound. For half a heartbeat the only thing left of him was his skeleton, which actually stood there on its own, so utterly and abruptly had been the expelling of anything remotely fleshy in his body. Then the skeleton collapsed, clattering to the ground.
Coheed had inherited the natural scientists’ skepticism when it came to ascribing spiritual explanations for that which could be given a real world rationalization. What he was witnessing now defied that. He could not wait to tell the Doctor about it, presuming he and Cambria lived to do so.
Coheed kept running, every so often hearing more truncated screams followed by more wet explosions. But in short order they were drowned out by the cracking of the crystalline structure and now a rumbling from overhead. The structure was bringing the ceiling down with it.
He turned a series of corners, caught more writhing and exploding miners out of the corner of his eye, and then made it to the elevator that had brought them down, just in time to see the doors sliding shut. He caught a glimpse of a couple of miners within, looking terrified by everything that was going down, but one of them caught sight of Coheed and sneered at him just before the doors closed.
Coheed charged forward and unleashed a carefully timed blast at the doors. It smashed a hole and Coheed leaped through, clutching Cambria tightly as he did so. The elevator was just above him and moving fast. But there were trailing cables beneath it, and Coheed leaped upward, snagging one with his free hand. He retracted the blades even as he jumped, lest he inadvertently slice right through the cable and doom himself.
He held on as the elevator kept going, wrapping his legs around the cable as well for extra bracing. As he did, he heard a low moan from next to him. The rushing air from the elevator shaft was bringing Cambria around. Coheed felt a surge of relief. “Cam…you really need not to move right now—”
Cambria looked down at the yawning fall beneath her and automatically let out an alarmed shriek, thrashing about without realizing where she was or what was happening to her.
“Cambria! Stay still or I’ll lose my grip!”
Instantly Cambria wrapped her arms around him more tightly. “What the hell--?”
“The place is blowing up beneath us. You need to know more than that?”
“Not really.”
“What happened to you? Why did you pass out?”
“It was like…psychic feedback. When I tried to push myself into that guy’s mind, there was something inside…I don’t even know how to describe it. Who was he?”
“Mayo Deftinwolf.”
Even in the darkness, he could see her eyes widen. “The right arm of Wilhelm Ryan. We’re in it now.”
“He said much the same right after I kicked his ass.”
“Did you. Well…good. It’s what we were made for, after all. This day was going to come sooner or later. Might as well be sooner.” She hugged him tightly and he was sure he could feel the beating of her heart against his. “Thanks for saving me, by the way.”
“Had to. No one else quite treats me like dirt the way you do.”
She laughed.
No further words passed until the elevator ground to a halt. “I think we’re here,” said Cambria.
“Then let’s announce ourselves.”
He fired a single blast upward that ripped a hole in the elevator floor. There was a satisfying scream from within. He shoved Cambria upward and she scrambled up and out of sight. Moments later, she called, “All clear.” Her smiling face appeared in the hole as she reached down toward him. He gripped her hand firmly and seconds later he had been pulled up and out of the elevator. From far below him there was the distant sound of explosions getting progressively louder.
“I think we should get the hell out of here,” she said.
“Good plan.”
The body of one dead miner was lying smeared all over the far wall. Coheed was reasonably sure it was the one who had sneered at him. Who’s sneering now, asshole? The doors were open; there was no evidence of anyone else there. Whoever else had been there had managed to get out and was long gone.
Coheed and Cambria emerged onto the surface of the Howling Earth. The ground was trembling beneath their feet, and Coheed activated his comm unit. “Grail Arbor! We need immediate extraction!”
“I read you, Coheed. Shuttlepod will rendezvous in thirty seconds.”
“Thirty seconds?”
“We picked up an energy surge. Had a feeling you’d be calling for an evac.”
Precisely thirty seconds later, the shuttlepod descended from overhead. It was a small, automatic vehicle, remote-controlled by the Grail Arbor orbiting from on high. Coheed and Cambria sprinted into it and were airborne so quickly that they didn’t even have time to belt in. The pod blasted upward as if it had been shot from a cannon.
Seconds later they approached the vast ship known as the Grail Arbor. The bulk of the vessel was cylindrical, with a gargantuan engine on the far end, and a pair of utility arms that extended in either direction. At the end of one of them was a satellite vessel, the Leo—Long-range Exploratory Orb—that was used for remote, extended exploration when the Arbor’s resources literally had to be in two places at once. The evac pod was part of the Orb, and it docked with the sort of smooth efficiency that only machines—or Inferno, which was much the same thing—could oversee.
A high-speed transport tunnel whisked Coheed and Cambria directly to Command and Control. The skeleton crew populating C&C nodded in acknowledgment of their presence. Inferno was seated serenely in his command chair, and the moment he saw Coheed a
nd Cambria, he said, “It took you long enough.”
“Your concern is appreciated.”
“And understandable. Your presence represents a significant investment of the Doctor’s time. Your demise or destruction would be a considerable setback.”
The Grail Arbor executed a midair turn and moved quickly away from the Howling Earth.
Inferno turned to face them. He was nearly a mirror image of Hohenberger, save for the 20 extra pounds of brawn and a mass of wild, obsidian facial hair. “So? What the hell happened down there?”
His attitude made him come across as if he were in some position of authority over Coheed, which was enough to annoy the living crap out of him. But he decided that now was not the time to push the point. Instead he told him as briskly as he could what had happened. Cambria said nothing, but merely nodded every so often in confirmation.
“What about the energy?” Inferno said. “We need to restore it to—”
“I wouldn’t be concerned about that,” said Coheed.
Inferno looked at him with interest. “Why not?”
“Just a feeling.”
“Sir!” said one of his men. “Picking up an energy spike! Massive!”
“Put the source up on the screen.”
The view screen flickered for a moment and then the Howling Earth appeared. A veritable geyser of energy was blasting forth, angling through space, hurtling straight toward the Keywork bridge that linked the Howling Earth to its neighbors.
“With the energy unfettered, it’s being drawn back to its source,” said Inferno.
“It’s more than that,” said Coheed. “It’s going home.”
“Home?” Inferno looked at him oddly. “You’re saying it’s sentient? That’s absurd.”
“You didn’t see what it was doing to the miners. I know what I saw.”
“You know what you thought you saw,” said Inferno.
“Every once in a while, Inferno, you can stop thinking like a scientist,” said Cambria drily. “I hear even scientists do it on occasion. I believe Coheed’s impressions are accurate.”
“You would.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Coheed wouldn’t have minded hearing Inferno answer that question. Instead he ignored it and said, “And it was Deftinwolf. You’re sure.”
“Oh yes. No question.”
“If that was Deftinwolf,” said Cambria, “if that was Ryan behind the attempt to drain Keywork energy…then—”
“Then Ryan’s going to know that we exist,” said Inferno. “He’s going to know there’s a threat to his power—Power he believes he’s earned, even if by sheer force. He’s going to be doing everything he can to discover who we are.”
“Good,” said Coheed grimly. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
In, and Somewhere Slightly Later than the Beginning…
Chapter 2
Cleanse This Useless Identity
The sky above Sinosure was bleeding.
Mage Covent Marth studied it carefully and decided, upon reflection, that it required more red.
The canvas was spread out before him, consuming much of the wall of his sanctum. He knew that other Mages had little patience for something as primitive as painting, far preferring to express their artistic side using holography or other light science. Marth, on the other hand, was enamored of the antiquated materials required for classic painting.
He blended the red paint meticulously with his brush until he was satisfied with the precise shade, and then carefully drew it across the sky. He had crafted the rift a day earlier but had not decided what was going to be emerging from it until several minutes earlier. Now he was carefully delineating every streak, every drop of the thick liquid as it oozed from on high. On the planet’s surface, people were fleeing in all directions. A Prise had been drifting upward to inspect the rift, and a gargantuan drop of blood had enveloped her and was in the process of burning away her flesh. In his head, he could hear her screaming. He hadn’t known she was going to wind up dying in his painting until he had reached that point. As soon as he was finished with the blood, he was going to have to go back and repaint her to depict her skin crisping and blackening and turning into ash, revealing her tissue and bones beneath. He wondered absently if he was going to have to determine exactly how her wings joined with the rest of her musculature, just so he could be accurate. Finally he decided that he would just incinerate her wings altogether and avoid the fuss.
Human men and women were running back and forth as well, their arms flailing, looking up and pointing and shrieking. Not that their shrieks could be heard in the painting, since it was entirely a silent medium. But Covent Marth’s desire was that the rendering be so realistic that simply looking at it would call up howls of agony in the mind of the viewer.
There were Mages as well. How could there not be Mages? They were depicted standing in a circle, their arms upraised in a combination of fear, supplication and awe. Splatters of blood were striking around them, but none of them were being hit.
Eleven Mages stood in that circle.
One more was in the middle.
There was a chime from the door of his sanctum. It was a spartan affair, needing nothing much except various books, charts, and other tools that were part of his perpetual contemplation of the universe. “Come,” he called, his voice gravelly.
The door hissed open and a dark figure stood within it. “Ah,” said Marth. “Ryan. Ryan, do come in.”
Wilhelm Ryan stood there for a moment, glancing left and right as if expecting some manner of trap that would ensnare him the moment he entered. Then he inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment of the invitation and entered. Marth made a sweeping gesture toward a nearby seat. Ryan made no move toward it.
“What think you of Sinosure?” said Marth as he continued to dabble on his easel. He took care to make every stroke of the brush just so.
“It is all that I have heard it to be and more besides.”
Marth cast a glance at him. “Your new face sits well upon you. You will become accustomed to it in short order, I imagine.”
“I am accustomed to it now.”
Wilhelm Ryan had looked different when he had first arrived on Sinosure, the world that was dead center of Heaven’s Fence. The process that a potential Mage underwent, however, when being elevated to official status, burned away everything that one was, remaking one into the sacred image of what one would be. It was a perfect example of an old tradition that existed simply because it had always been done. The more contemporary Mages, though happy to undergo the procedure, which unified their facial features, were free to regain subtle differences in their manner of dress and hair. Marth, an elder, expressed his own preoccupation with fine art by decorating the exposed veins spidering across his face with ebony paint.
“The Twelve,” Marth quietly mused. “We are twelve once again, for you have replaced Sundihar Jepp, the Mage of Sector 6. He lived to a grand age, one to which most can only aspire, and now you are here in his place.”
“Despite your best efforts.”
Ryan had spoken so softly that Marth could easily have chosen to ignore the comment, to pretend that he had not heard it. He chose not to do so. Instead, continuing not to look at Ryan but rather to focus on his painting, he said, “So we are to get down to it, are we?”
“You asked to see me, Covent Marth. Just as I would not dream of wasting your time, I would ask you to extend me the same courtesy of not wasting mine.”
“Of course, of course,” said Marth, his voice flat and passionless. “I asked to see you—”
“To explain yourself?”
Very slowly, Marth placed the brush down upon the palette. “You have a remarkable nerve for one so recently added to our numbers.”
“I have not had as long a period to become as pompous as you, so I am hastening to make up the time.”
Marth’s smile remained carefully fixed. Then he inclined his head slightly. “The other Mages
are most accepting of you, Ryan. They believe that becoming head of Sector 6 will provide you an opportunity to prove your abilities to us. As head of Sector 4, I represented only one vote, so even if I was against you—”
“Do not fence with me,” said Ryan. “We both know one Mage was opposed to my joining, and we both know it was you.”
“Such deliberations, decisions and votes are kept in the strictest of confidence.”
“I understand.” Ryan waited only a moment. “But it was you.”
“Yes. It was.”
“I would like to know why.”
“Very well,” said Marth softly. “I suppose you are entitled to that, at least. Come. Walk with me, if you will.”
Ryan looked suspicious, but then he simply nodded and followed Marth out of the room.
They stepped out into the Hub, the vast courtyard that represented the heart of Sinosure. A series of twelve walkways, each a different color, converged at a central point in the courtyard. At that juncture was a huge twelve-pointed red star, twenty feet from tip to tip; with each point representing one of the sectors that each of the Mages oversaw. Each of the walkways, in turn, led to an individual tower that housed the sanctum of each of the Mages. None were able to enter save by specific invitation of he who resided within.
Not long ago, Ryan had been standing in the middle of that star, being welcomed into the brotherhood of the Mages. “Possibilities,” said Marth as they walked to the center of the star.
“Pardon?”
“I said ‘possibilities.’”
“I heard you,” said Ryan, “but I do not pretend that I understood you.”
Marth was looking not at Ryan, but toward the heavens. “Tell me what you see when you look to the skies, Ryan.”
“I do not have time for games.”
“Perhaps not. But,” and there was an undercurrent of irony to his voice, “you will have time for me. What do you see?”
Ryan shrugged indifferently. “The stars. What else is there to see?”
“Do you see the spirit of the creator looking down upon us?”
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