by Lou Anders
“I don't think the prisoner was Argul.”
“Then where is he?” Hoj put down the brandy glass, and rubbed his nose. “Anyway, did you see the brass flanges?”
“Excuse me?”
“In the hold ceiling. Folded-up grab claws. Some holds, you can lower things right down through the lower hull. Or raise things up, but that's not what Vul's going to do, is it?”
“You can't mean Vul's going to lay the Void Egg. But where? Why?”
“We're in the Clanking City,” said Hoj. “And what do we clank over? Neutral ground or demon land. Only two choices.”
“Oh. But…Demons haven't attacked for ten years, must be.”
“Twelve.” Hoj raised his glass, drank the last of the brandy, and shuddered. “And that was different demons, thousands of leagues back. But to bigots, all demons are the same.”
“Vul's no bigot,” muttered Peetro. He put his purple tea down untouched.
“He isn't?”
“No, he's bloody insane. Bigotry and fear are his tools.”
“Ah. Good idea.” Hoj picked up Peetro's cup, took a sip, and made a disgusted face. “Oh, TriGods. You got to stop drinking this stuff.”
“I just did. What do you mean, good idea?”
“Don't look so worried.”
“The last time you had a good idea—”
“Yeah, yeah. What I mean is, we're not sure about the prisoner, and we daren't go accusing Vul…”
“I know that, Hoj.”
“…but I did recognize one of the guards. I've just realized.” Hoj tapped his empty brandy glass. “Mostly ‘cause I've usually had a few of these when I've seen the bugger. His name is Riktor.”
“Oh.”
“And I know where he lives.” Hoj grinned, and his green eyes were bright and entirely sober. “You coming?”
“I don't—”
“And I also thought”—Hoj gestured to the closed door that led to the Busted Star's main bar, where raucous laughter sounded even at this late hour—“we might invite some of our rougher friends along.”
“Ah. Right.”
Three months after Yukiko's funeral, I roused myself from apathy long enough to book a flight to London.
There, I spent a morose evening in the Crescent Moon with Evelyn, trying to remember the good times but crying instead. I asked Evelyn whether I could see her medium friends, Jade and Helen. She said they'd not been around much, but gave me their numbers.
The next day, jet-lagged and feeling awful, I met Jade in a Camden coffee shop called Bug-Eyed and Sleepless. Over triple espressos Jada told me that she no longer did “that kind of thing.”
“But my singing career”—she smiled—“is taking off. I mean, what I always dreamed of. It's happening.”
“Oh. Good.”
“Ever since I went under your machine in the lab, my life just kept getting better. Is getting better.”
“Well…I'm really glad, Jade.”
It just wasn't what I'd flown to London to hear.
I'd left a vmail for Jade's friend Helen, gotten a text-only reply: an invitation to Helen's home in Swiss Cottage. The next morning, I turned up at ten.
It was a basement flat with a passageway, secured with a wrought-iron gate, that led through to a surprising, peaceful garden out back. There, sipping pineapple juice on the tiny patio while an orange cat watched with yellow-green eyes, Helen and I looked at each other for a long time.
Then I had to ask: “Is Yukiko there? In the spirit world?”
I was irrational. I was desperate to know.
Helen shook her head.
“Oh,” I said. “I…Oh.”
Then Helen reached over and touched my forehead.
“You'll see, Ryan.”
“What do you mean?”
But Helen shook her head, and I understood it was time for me to leave.
Inside the hold, the Void Egg pulsed sapphire blue. A platoon of the Viceroy's Own Guards kept watch. None of them looked up into the shadows cloaking the high metal ceiling, or noticed the small yellow cross-slitted eye that regarded the Void Egg, and slowly blinked.
After a long time, the small creature decided it had seen enough.
It scuttled upside-down across the ceiling, stopped before a metal grill, then spat hydrofluoric acid. In moments the metal was dissolving and the creature scrabbled through.
The tiny creature moved along the hollow duct, heading for the city's hull, where it could leave and make the journey back to its masters. They would be waiting for its report.
I wake up in the forest, thinking they're going to die. I mean the whole Clanking City.
But it's just a dream.
I'm sitting on a damp fallen log.
A dream. Oh, really?
The log is patched with silvery algae and dark green moss. Everywhere, life grows. And before my eyes, fading now, is a remembered dream of a yellow-eyed creature with cross-slit eyes, bred by demon masters, ready to strike against those who plan to drop the Void Egg.
None of this can possibly be real.
The whole city…
Somehow I know about demon warriors and specially bred attack-lizards, their ultra-high-pressure sacs filled with hydrofluoric acid, incarcerated for the Poison Time, ready to awaken, to strike if humankind threatens them.
They'll destroy the Clanking City.
It's imaginary. It must be.
How can I warn the people about Vul's disastrous plans?
Taking a sabbatical from qRious Minds, I visited a series of quacks and spirit healers. With every new meeting, I wandered farther from rational pathways. I was so desperate for the touch of Yukiko's lips, just to hear her voice—
In the Sonoran Desert, or rather in Guru Gabriel's air-conditioned house, I sat with twelve fellow seekers on a wooden floor that smelled of beeswax-and-lemon polish. We each held a violet crystal while the guru told us to stare at the crystalline flaws, breathing slowly.
New Age music softly played.
“And it is no matter whether you see the flaw open now or in a moment as it forms a gap between the worlds…”
Suddenly Yukiko's features moved inside the crystal.
Ryan, this is wrong.
I blinked, dropping out of trance. The others remained unmoving. The guru continued intoning, watching me as I rose to my feet and backed out of the room.
Yukiko. You exist.
Dazed, I stumbled to the rental car, a silver WhisperGlide whose batteries thrummed as the gull-door rose and I climbed inside.
Somehow. You…
Did I pass out? Sob? Stare at the hot desert without thought?
Whatever happened, the car's onboard system detected vital signs beyond normal parameters. When I woke, two nurses were helping me out of the car, carrying me into a medical center.
“What happened to you?” asked a bright-faced young man called Dr. Davies, a few minutes later.
I surprised myself by telling Dr. Davies everything, starting with Yukiko's death, telling him we were deeply entangled, deeper than anyone else. He raised an eyebrow at that.
“I'm a researcher,” I told him, “for qRious Minds.”
“Ah.” And after a moment: “I think I see. And you know about trance states, neurochemically speaking?”
“Um, kind of.”
“So let me tell you about hypnotic inductions, how I use them for medical treatment…and how Guru Gabriel's words can lead people into seeing whatever they want to see.”
“Oh,” I said.
Dr. Davies remained silent, allowing me to think.
“Oh, shit,” I added.
“Precisely. Now you need to relax, Ryan, so I want you to close your eyes…”
Two days later I was back in New York, down in the lab, getting some kind of work done. The New Age quest was history.
In the back room of the Busted Star, Riktor sat on a hard-backed chair, his guard's uniform undone, blinking at Hoj and the hard-faced men behind him.
&nb
sp; “Is a disgrace,” said Riktor. “Wot they're doin’ to the prisoner.”
On a plain table stood a black bottle. Hoj passed it to Riktor.
“Thanks.” Riktor took a swig. “Ah—”
It was not Riktor's first bottle of the evening. He'd already reached this state before Hoj's friends took him back here.
Riktor burped.
“Gassy. Sorry.”
“This prisoner.” Hoj's copper hair fell over his eyes as he leaned forward. “Tell me more.”
“V-Vul.” Riktor took another swallow. “Bypass…bypassing procedures. Bastard.”
“Correct procedures are important, are they?”
“Damn straight.”
“So this prisoner…”
“Jolrood. Academ—Academician Jolrood. Poor bugger.”
Hoj frowned. Just then a tap sounded, and the metal door swung inwards. Hands moved towards sheathed knives, stopping as Peetro entered.
“Well met, my friends. What's happening?”
“You…?” Riktor blinked. “You his mates, is that it? Jolrood's mates?”
Peetro took a deep breath, biting his lip as if unsure he should remain. Riktor's glance slid to the hard men behind Hoj. Their hooked belt-knives were in plain view.
It seemed to Peetro that Riktor was more sober than he seemed, or at least more aware of danger.
“I could”—Riktor paused, then looked straight at Hoj—“get you in there, iffen you want.”
“When?”
“Er…Now?”
“Shadroth,” muttered Peetro.
“Let's go,” said Hoj.
I waken in darkness, check the floating red digits—01:27—and mumble, “Oh, Shadroth,” rubbing my face. I sit up on the edge of the bed, wondering why, if I'm so tired, I'm not still sleeping.
A faint trill sounds from somewhere.
Maybe a bird?
Somewhere inside the house.
Oh, for God's sake.
I stand up fast, feeling my muscles loosen, and the carpet is warm beneath my feet as I pad out to the kitchen, wondering whether I need a towel to wrap up a young bird that's fallen from its nest, or a knife to defend myself from—
The yellowish cocoon is split open, abandoned. I'd left it alone earlier, without quite knowing why.
By the TriGods…
“No. Stop that.”
My voice bounces harshly off the walls. Dreams and wakefulness are separate things. Only delusional schizophrenics merge the two.
Outside, the patio lights snap on, painfully white, and a small purple shape flits, startled, out of the light and into darkness. The moth, if that's what it is, moves fast.
Twelve-sided wings.
This cannot happen.
You saw it.
Impossible.
I spend a long time spent staring outside, then ask myself: What can I do? I drink some water and return to bed.
As the small party moved along grease-stained, rust-patched corridors that were overdue for maintenance, Peetro hung back to exchange muttered words with Hoj.
“Why are we doing this?”
“It was your idea, wasn't it?”
Ahead of them, Riktor was scarcely visible, ringed by eight toughs from the Busted Star.
“I don't know,” murmured Peetro. “But it doesn't—”
“We decided together.”
“When we thought Argul was the prisoner.”
The others were climbing over a mass of discarded pipes and broken flanges. Hoj pushed his copper hair back and said, “Oh.”
“Who is this guy we're breaking out?”
“Some academician. Jolrool or something.”
Hoj started to climb the pile of junk, but Peetro's fingers fastened on his sleeve. “We're sneaking into a cell to reach a prisoner under armed guard, and you're not even certain of his name?”
“Yeah.” Hoj looked down at the half-shattered pipe he was standing on, then grinned up at Peetro, his green eyes bright. “Bloody excellent, isn't it? Just like the old days.”
Shama opened the cupboard, smiling, then suddenly serious.
“What have you babies done?”
Inside the cupboard, over a pile of tasty black leaves, a pair of tiny dodecamoths warbled. From the room behind Shama, the mother dodecamoth sang back at her young.
There were two young moths. Not three.
“Oh…”
Blinking against tears, Shama saw yet scarcely processed the sight of the open cocoons that remained inside the cupboard, fastened against the ceiling.
The two cocoons that remained.
In a semidream state, I experience my moonlit bedroom as a misty chamber, the walls distant on every side, though it is a room of ordinary size.
I remember a yellow-eyed demon-creature, sneaking out of the city to inform its masters of the danger. And I hear the trill of a young dodecamoth, and realize it is back inside the house.
None of this makes any—
Vul's guards had chosen a location well away from the military holds that Core Palace officers, loyal to Prince Argul rather than Vul, might have inspected without warning.
But Hoj's cronies had decades-long experience of sneaking through rusty conduits to unlikely parts of the Clanking City. It took the best part of three hours to reach the corridor they needed, using a maintenance duct to bypass the hold proper, and reach the cell's rust-patched door.
“Ready, men,” said Hoj.
The regulars from the Busted Star arranged themselves at either end of the short corridor, drew weapons, then crouched or went down on one knee to present low targets.
“Shadroth.” Peetro shook his head. “I don't like this.”
“Afraid of some hard work?” Hoj put his hands on the wheel. There was no combination lock, because the corridor itself was sealed by bolted hatches that led to the hold they'd managed to bypass. The hold where Peetro was sure a Void Egg shone.
“I wish we'd brought some oil.”
But the wheel turned easily. Peetro and Hoj swung the door inwards.
“No…” On the solitary steel bunk, a thin man flinched. “Please.”
“Why are you here?” asked Hoj.
“I—I don't know what you want me to say.”
“You're Jolroon, is that right?” asked Peetro. “A scholar.”
“Er, if you…I'm Belik Jolrood.”
“And why in all the tri-damned hells are you locked in here?”
“Because…Because Vul disagreed with me…”
“He bloody disagrees with me,” muttered Hoj. “Like raw rat stew.”
“…about the Void Egg.”
“Oh, bugger,” said Peetro. “He really is planning to—”
“Drop the Egg, and break the world in two.”
Shama knew she ought to wait one more night before the final annealing. But Master Teldrasso was due back in the morning, and besides…this was a perfect crystal. It was pure and strong enough to handle any shock, including the forced transition to its new state, locking in the patterns it must already have trapped.
She readied the platinum-coated tongs, set the harmonic plates into vibration, and—reaching on tiptoe from a stool—tugged down a heavy-handled switch. White beams shone from spherical lenses in every corner of the room—
The best crystal ever, Master.
—focusing on the crystal at the room's heart.
The crystal began to moan.
Something tugs at me; then a million things, a million barbed hooks, drag at my nerves, hauling me into agonized wakefulness.
“No…”
Yet I still hear strange harmonies, knowing that—
On his silver couch, Prince Argul's orange eyes snapped open. He shuddered, opened his mouth…and then his head lolled to one side, eyelids sliding shut.
—the danger is growing as I roll off the bed, onto the floor on my hands and knees. A silver web of pain and light is drawn across my skin as I pull myself upright and stagger to the bathroom.
T
he light comes on automatically. In front of the mirror, I blink hard against the brightness.
Blink my orange eyes.
Shama returned back to her room, full of elated knowledge, a feeling of power at her new understanding and ability. She was ready to face anything.
Even the sudden appearance of three baby dodecamoths inside the cupboard. The trio of abandoned, split cocoons hung in place. Their mother floated in circles around the room, gliding on her silklike purple twelve-edged wings, her high-pitched song of triumph made discordant by overtones of worry.
Shama forgot about the perfect crystal still shining in the casting chamber.
She held out her hands. The baby moths alighted on her fingers.
Inside his chambers, Vul wept. An amber surveillance globe swirled, its arcane network of silver lines forming a diagrammatic language only Vul could understand.
“I should have…calibrated.” Vul rubbed his face, then sobbed again. “To physical…location. Or sent the patrols out sooner.”
Because there was no way to backtrack. Somewhere in the Clanking City an annealed crystal had wholly trapped Prince Argul's mind. No power that Vul knew of could drag the prince back into conscious wakefulness while the crystal remained intact.
And if the crystal were simply to crack or shatter, so would the thoughts and memories that formed Prince Argul's identity.
Yesterday, Vul had assigned teams to check the quarters of every dreamweb maker and glassharp player in the city. Still there were jewelers and antique dealers who might have some artifact that bore such power…but Vul did not have enough men to check everywhere.
Now, it was too late.
Vul had never seen the need to correlate this scanner's measurements with physical location. He had never expected that such a crystal would appear, or that he would want to know exactly where it was.
Where his beloved Argul's mind was trapped.
For Vul adored Argul in a way he could never declare, even as he recognized that Argul was the barrier to all the power that he needed.
Finally, Vul wiped away his tears.
Oh, my darling Argul.
And shut down the amber globe display.
Thank you for giving me your city.
And I stumble out into the night, towards the dark forest, knowing the baby dodecamoth has gone back to the world it came from, safe from Connecticut owls and bats. But more…