Construct

by Luke Matthews

  “Clever,” Bales hissed. “But I’ll break it, you know I will. Just like I broke your friend’s little protections. I’ll break this and have you anyway.”

  Around Bales’s side, Colton was on his feet; Pare on his knees before him, facing her. The silver-eyed man’s smug grin had returned, and she knew Pare was no longer under his own control.

  Her concentration slipped, only for a moment, and the blade of Bales’s knife dropped downward under his weight, the tip resting against the skin of her belly before she reinforced her defense. Bales said nothing, only staring into her eyes with a hate-filled gaze that filled her with terror. Their weight shifted, and she felt something dig into the muscles at the back of her right thigh.

  Her pistols.

  The belt on which they were holstered must have shifted when she fell, and now their only hope lay pinned under her leg. Bales bore down into her. Eriane felt his power clawing away at her construction. Any loss of concentration or movement of her hands would weaken the bump field that was keeping her alive. Bales understood all too well and removed the hand pinning hers to her chest to bear even more weight down on top of her. Spittle and sweat dripped down onto her cheek. He let out a strained little laugh. Under his weight and talent, her field was beginning to falter.

  Behind Bales, Pare struggled to his feet before Colton, his arms held to his side with unnatural stiffness. Colton had leaned in close and was whispering something in his ear. Every muscle in Pare's body vibrated and Eriane saw he was openly crying through gritted teeth, his tears cutting streams through the blood on his face. Colton was going to make Pare watch her die.

  Eriane brought her gaze back to meet Bales’s eyes. She stared right into them as she shifted her free hand away from the field and rolled her hips. Bales’s full weight dropped down onto the knife. At first, Eriane felt only pressure, the weight of him coming down on her abdomen. Her muscles froze. Then there was heat. An excruciating fire bloomed in her belly that overtook all her senses. Her eyes rolled back; Bales’s face slid out of her vision.

  Her muscles unlocked, and her hand fumbled around underneath her, groping to find the lump that dug into her thigh. Bales grunted and twisted the knife. Shockwaves of heat and pain threatened to wash away her thoughts, but she fought against it to keep herself focused. Her fingers found the worked-metal buttcap of a pistol handle, but under her weight she couldn’t pull it into her grip. Agony threatened to overtake consciousness as the knife dug into her gut, and the killer leaned his head beside hers to whisper in her ear.

  “Can you feel it? Your life, slipping away?” he said. “It’s all about to be over.”

  The slight shift in his weight was all she needed. His sickening voice snapped her back to her senses as the gun came free in her hand. Bales lifted his head to smile down at her, but his expression changed to one of confusion.

  “You’re right, it is over,” Eriane said, and pulled the trigger. She felt the muffled concussion against her chest, the heat of the blast. Something warm washed over her hand and Bales’s expression went blank. He convulsed once and a small trickle of blood dripped from his lower lip before he fell to the side onto the cobblestones, still staring at Eriane with unseeing eyes.

  The emotion struck her like a hammer. Terror, elation, regret, and confusion twisting her features and clawing at her focus. Her eyelids fluttered and she lay back, wanting nothing more than to close her eyes and wake from her nightmare. The world was deathly quiet, and every ounce of her being slipped toward sleep. A strangled grunt and pained sobs floated through her stupor. At first she thought it was her own, but the voice was not hers. It belonged to Pare.

  Her will came tumbling back, the crashing awareness of her surroundings also sharpening the burn of her injuries. She reached back again, the knife sliding loosely in her belly. The roll put strain on her leg and the pieces of her broken thighbone ground together, a blazing spear of agony that pierced through her hip and side and brought with it a prodding rush of adrenaline. Her second pistol came free in her blood-soaked hand and she rolled, dropping her wrist across Bales’s lifeless body.

  She shook, from head to toe, her effort at odds with her injuries and loss of blood, her body telling her it was time to shut down. Focus gathered around her like a swarm, pushing away the shock and exhaustion, stilling her hand and sharpening her vision. Colton’s dumbfounded stare bolstered her, filling her with satisfaction. His fist closed and Pare slammed to his knees. Confusion was replaced by shock, shock then by anger, and the silver-eyed man took a step toward her.

  At this distance, her pistol’s accuracy would have been suspect in the hands of any other. But every intricacy of the action was known to her. Every interaction from the trigger’s pull to the hammer’s fall to the ignition of the powder to the propulsion of the lead ball was known to her. Every wisp of breeze and change in air density was known to her. She adjusted her aim to compensate for the inadequacies of the imperfect weapon, and bent her talent into funneling the projectile to its target. She pulled the trigger.

  In that moment, that fraction of a second, Colton’s confusion turned to abject fear. A ripple of cold light wavered in front of him as the bullet passed through a hasty construction of khet, but his effort could not slow the projectile nor shift it from its path.

  Colton’s left eye exploded sideways and tore away his temple, spinning him around on his feet and showering Pare in a spray of blood. The silver-eyed killer landed hard on the cobblestone street. Pare’s muscles went limp and he dropped to his knees next to Colton’s twisted form. Blood began to fill the spaces between the stones, expanding outward from where Colton had fallen.

  The world crashed back together. Eriane took a deep, painful breath. Through the smoke from the muzzle of her pistol Pare stared, his expression unreadable. The mob outside the dome dropped into a delirious frenzy, throwing themselves against the barrier with renewed vehemence, the release of Colton’s control leaving them locked in mindless bloodlust. The clatter of their attacks didn’t seem to register with Pare, whose eyes never left Eriane and the pistol in her hand. His jaw and lower lip began to shake.

  Eriane dropped the gun when she saw Samuel begin to stir. Every breath was agony, Bales’s knife still buried in her abdomen. She held Pare’s gaze and mustered the strength to speak. “Pare?” was all she could say.

  Pare didn’t respond. He struggled to his feet, never turning his head or moving his eyes. With a breath, he steadied his expression, and whatever emotion had been there before was gone. Backing away, he held Eriane in his now blank stare.

  “Pare, no,” Eriane said, fresh tears of her own welling up. “Please, no.” If he heard her, he made no indication. Pare tore his eyes away from her, taking halting steps toward the edge of the dome. His movement stuttered when Samuel said something Eriane couldn’t hear, but he kept walking. When he reached the edge of the circle he raised a hand to rest on the bump field.

  On the other side, the people of the Grotto struck the barrier where Pare stood, like wild dogs trying to get at prey behind a fence. Pare lowered his head and begin gathering khet; but for what, she couldn’t fathom. “Pare!” she yelled, but he did not turn. “Pariadnus, please!”

  What Eriane saw next stripped her of her breath. The throng outside the barrier slowly shifted their attention away from Pare. Their bloodshot eyes, once fixed on the closest prey, now turned toward Eriane and Samuel, ignoring Pare as though he didn’t exist. Outside the bubble they separated to either side, just like they had for Colton.

  “Pare?” Eriane said, so weak she couldn’t even yell, barely getting the word out as she began to cry.

  The bump field wavered, a shimmering disruption that rolled outward from Pare’s outstretched hand. He raised his head in silence and, without looking back, stepped through the bump field, out into the lane that had opened for him in the Grotto and walked away.

  Eriane wailed, an incoherent sound that rose above the din in the square as the mass of people closed
down until she could no longer see any trace of Pare amongst them. She rolled onto her back and cried as the world faded away to blackness.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  * * *

  The echo of the shot was the first thing Samuel heard as his hearing returned. Colton’s body dropped to the street and Pare slumped. Samuel tried to speak but couldn’t. He was only just beginning to move. Pare’s expression had gone from rage to confusion to sadness and back, and as the boy stood Samuel saw nothing behind his eyes; a blank stare stripped of all emotion.

  Unable to turn, Samuel couldn’t see if Eriane was all right. Pare’s feet backed away from him, and he heard her voice carry weakly through the noise in the Grotto, crying Pare’s name. Regaining some small amount of mobility, Samuel planted the palm of his hand on the street so he could move to see where Pare was going.

  “Pare, wait,” he said, surprising himself that his voice had returned. Pare didn’t respond. The boy’s hand moved against the bump field, and once again Samuel felt the gathering power. The mob outside had turned their attentions away, and Samuel had never been more afraid of, and afraid for, Pare before. “Pare, don’t go. Eriane and I need you.”

  Samuel, strength rolling back into his frame, pushed himself up onto his hands. “Pare?” He said, one last time, before the boy pushed through the barrier without a word and vanished into the crowd beyond. Samuel stared at the spot where Pare had just been, unable to process what had just happened. A rising wail pierced the air of the Grotto, snapping Samuel back to reality.

  Bales lay on his side next to Eriane, whose body convulsed as she sobbed. He willed his legs to work, getting to his feet and stumbling to her side. As his line of sight cleared Bales’s body her twisted leg came into view and he saw a knife handle protruding from her belly. Time stopped for him as she lost consciousness and he scrambled to his knees at her side.

  “No, no, no, no, no. Don’t do this, Eri, don’t die on me.” He lifted her shoulders and her head lolled to one side, but when he leaned down he could still hear her breathing. “Come on, Eri, come back to me, okay?” He shook her face and tapped her cheeks as lightly as he could manage, but she didn’t respond. Laying her back on the ground he leaned over her face. “I don’t know what to do, Eriane. I don’t know how to help. Please wake up.”

  Panic overtook him. Eriane had stuck by his side through everything. She’d had no reason to follow him or to trust him, and yet she poured herself into helping him, and now he was about to lose her. She wasn’t responding to his calls. Her breathing began to slow as the blood poured around the knife in her abdomen. Without thinking, Samuel tore a section of fabric from the edge of Bales’s cloak and balled it up. He pulled the knife out of Eriane’s belly to a torrent of fresh blood and pressed the wad of fabric into the wound.

  Eriane screamed and opened her eyes. With one hand, Samuel kept the fabric pressed to the wound, and with the other, pulled her shoulders up onto his lap and supported her head. Her breathing was thin and her eyes glazed over her as she looked up at him.

  “I don’t know what to do, Eriane,” he said. “I need you to stay awake. I need your help.”

  Eriane made a weak attempt to shake her head. “No… no way… out,” she whispered.

  Samuel froze, but then nodded. “I know,” was all he could say. There was no way out of the bump field now. They were unable to break through the mob even when Pare was with them. With him gone and Eriane injured, Samuel wouldn’t be able to hold them off by himself, even if he could bring down the dome. Hopelessness took hold as he realized there was nothing he could do for her. He would sit here, helpless, and watch this brave girl die in his arms.

  “There has to be some way,” he said, to no one in particular.

  “It’s okay, S…Samuel,” Eriane said. “They can’t…get you now.” Her whispers were growing quieter with each word. Samuel’s insides felt like they were being torn apart, and all he wanted to do was scream. She closed her eyes and drifted back into unconsciousness.

  Samuel just looked down at her and held her, shaking his head. “No, Eri.”

  “Samuel.”

  The whispered word found its way past Samuel’s grief, but he couldn’t find its origin. Eriane was unconscious, still slipping away.

  “Samuel!”

  It was louder this time, but Samuel shrugged it away as he looked down upon Eriane. Whatever he was hearing, he was convinced it couldn’t be real.

  “SAMUEL!”

  This time, he recognized the voice. The noise drew the attention of the people outside the barrier, some of whom began splitting off toward one of the buildings at the edge of the square, confirming the voice was not, in fact, in Samuel’s head.

  “Samuel, up here!” Jacob looked down on him from the top of the building where he’d been thrown. The side of his head was caked in blood, one of his eyes was swollen shut, and he cradled one of his arms. Injured though he was, he was alive.

  “Samuel, you have to drop the field,” Jacob said.

  Was this some sort of trick? “The field is the only thing protecting us!” he said.

  “Samuel, I can get us out of here, but I can’t translocate through the field,” Jacob said. “What’s holding it up?”

  “Eriane has a guilestone.” Samuel replied. “I can’t drop the field without her.”

  “You can. You have to destroy the guilestone.” There was a crash inside the building at one of the lower levels. “Look, Samuel, you have plenty of reason to distrust me, but if there’s any chance at all of saving Eriane, you have to do this quick. They’re coming for me, and I don’t have much time left up here!”

  Samuel didn’t have the time to be torn. Jacob was right: this was Eriane’s only chance, and Samuel wasn’t about to be the one to squander it. He knelt down and gently picked her up, her broken leg dangling at a sickening angle, and rushed over to where the guilestone lay between the cobblestones.

  Another crash. “Just smash it, Samuel. That’s all you need to do.”

  Samuel took one last look down at the small polished stone, then looked back up at Jacob, still unsure of whether or not he could trust the man who’d already betrayed his confidence, but his indecision was inconsequential. Samuel crushed the guilestone under his heel.

  At first, the bump field seemed like it would hold, but then it flickered and dissipated into the musty air of the Grotto. It took a moment for the mob outside to realize the barrier was gone. Just as they rushed in, Samuel once again felt the horrible falling sensation as Jacob slipped them away.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  * * *

  Samuel’s gaze rose from the slab on which he sat as the door to the back room opened. Much to his chagrin only Jacob emerged, his movements slowed by a distinct limp. The blood had been cleaned from his face and he’d been given some fresh clothes, a merchant’s smock that made him look enough like Sorrell to make Samuel a little uncomfortable. Jacob’s hand gripped his injured shoulder, his left arm pressed against his abdomen by a tight sling. Their eyes met and Jacob returned the look with a shrug and a shake of his head.

  He hadn’t spoken much to Jacob since their escape from the Grotto. A mix of emotions Samuel wasn’t used to dealing with seized his voice every time he thought to speak. It was Jacob who had effected their escape and found them refuge at the home of Jo Tellis, the woman whom they’d been tasked to find by Mane in the first place. How he’d known where to find her was a mystery to Samuel, but he wasn’t going to fret over their good fortune.

  Jacob slid down next to Samuel on the bench. Neither of them spoke. Jacob’s breathing was irregular, punctuated by stoppages and deep inhalations every time he moved a certain way. Phrase after phrase danced across Samuel’s mind, from admonitions to questions to statements having little or nothing to do with their relationship or predicament. As the words swung by his emotions caught onto them, eliciting everything from gratitude to rage, and none of it felt quite right. After what felt like hours, Jacob spoke fi
rst.

  “Who were they?” he asked.

  The question seemed strange to Samuel, but at least it was an opening. “Killers,” was all he said.

  Jacob nodded. “That’s the obvious point. Why were they after us?”

  “They weren’t after us,” Samuel said. “They were after me. Something I’d seen; another construct’s memories.”

  “So it’s true, then?” Jacob asked. “You’re a Chronicler?”

  Samuel nodded.

  “Your memories?” Jacob asked. “Did Acthemenius…?”

  Samuel shook his head.

  Jacob ran his fingers through his hair and rested his hand on the back of his neck. “And what was it they were after you for having seen?”

  “Bales killed the Queen Consort.” Samuel said.

  Jacob whistled a note of surprise. “So they weren’t just trying to cover for someone else. But now that Bales is dead, it’s over. Isn’t it?”

  “Bales may have killed her,” Samuel said. “But that doesn’t mean he’s responsible. I know there’s more to this. There’s still a lot to sort out.”

  Jacob just nodded, massaging his neck. His discomfort had become palpable, as though he were wrestling with an internal struggle. Minutes ticked away without either saying another word until Jacob finally stood. “I need some sleep,” he said. “You’ll…you’ll let me know if…?”

  Samuel didn’t move or look up, and couldn’t bring himself to respond. He had no right or reason to expect Jacob’s help, but knowing he likely wouldn’t see Jacob again didn’t make it any easier to accept. Footsteps and a closing door indicated Jacob had retired to his room, leaving Samuel alone in the hall, with nothing to do but wait.

  • • • • •