Lightmaker

by Kevin Elliott

  She held a six-inch ring of hammered silver as wide as her thumb, a model of the Second Enclave. A parting gift; the heavy argument dragged down her arm.

  Christina faced the priests, and she towered above them, but without warning, her hair and robe bleached themselves a sandy off-white, and her figure collapsed like ash after a fire as powder flowed over the stairs. Caliper gasped and darted forward, but their disc was only ten yards from the remaining ceiling; the red filaments etched their road into the air.

  Mitch pointed. ‘Your friend.’

  Rastersen loped onto the balcony, and his men surged around him, but he stared upward at Phos. She shouldn’t have been able to see his eyes at this distance, but her body froze, and she couldn’t turn her gaze away until their disc slid through the ceiling and out into the wind-scrubbed sky above Morzenthal. For a heartbeat, she saw herself standing beside Rastersen to shelter behind his strength, but her guts twisted and she blinked – servants never asked their own questions. Her escape was temporary: she hurtled towards danger she couldn’t avoid, and Rastersen would plunder Morzenthal for weapons.

  Mitch faced her. ‘This disc returns tonight and rises tomorrow, right? We have one day until he follows.’

  They kept rising, but the disc’s milky edges turned glassy before curving upward to form a bowl, and the sides stretched higher and curved above their heads to wrap them inside a raindrop with a flattened bottom. The outside of the arena’s sliced-off dome appeared below, circled by a ring of rain-flecked stone pierced by windows, and Morzenthal showed as a set of stone rings stamped into the rolling moor. Smaller domes squatted on the outer ring, and ten black-robed figures clustered on the roof to stare as Rastersen had. Four towers formed a diamond around Morzenthal’s circles.

  The sun’s arch sat dawnward, a last dawn lighting their way. Dregs of night still blurred the plain, and the world’s floor bowed away both dawnward and eveward. The world walls were sharp in the chilled air, and the threads gripping their raindrop thickened as Phos stared out – strange to think of a cage offering freedom.

  Phos slid Christina’s hoop into her backpack before grabbing a helmet from a chest. ‘We’ll need these.’

  Caliper had stayed silent since Christina’s body had turned to powder, but now he stared upward. No grief there, so did he still sense Christina’s mind?

  He turned to Phos. ‘The First’s tiny machines have more guts than ours, and if I summon a horse up there, I’ll get a stampeding herd or worse. Weird times.’

  Phos grinned. ‘Weird stuff happens because you’re here.’

  ‘Why do I travel with you?’

  ‘Because you’re curious, but you’re right about the exploits. We think before speaking.’

  ‘And think before arguing.’ Caliper’s hands fumbled over a helmet he’d wrestled from a case. Their glass raindrop rose without judder, and they’d have a few minutes before the vault arrived.

  ‘What about these Heresies?’

  Frinelia’s shoulders sagged and she settled on a crate. ‘There’s a lifetime of learning to share. I can rattle off a thousand stories, but too much gristle wraps the meat, and many tales must be false.’

  ‘Keep watching when we arrive, and say if you recognise anything.’

  Mitch pressed his hands against the glass walls. Below, shadows ran from the rolling ridge of hills they’d climbed to reach Morzenthal. The river dawdled through squares of farmland, and clouds blanketed the eveward lands to cover Torzene’s scar. A few hours of freedom might lie above, but danger sat everywhere, and Rastersen was already preparing to chase.

  Chapter 20: stairway of raindrops

  Phos stared through the glassy walls at the curved ribbon of green hills and patches of forest lying below. The Second Enclave had been home, but each tree she’d climbed and each blade of grass she’d rolled over now faded into green smudges. The upward push against their feet eased. Crimson fibres still clutched their raindrop, but Phos imagined snapping threads and plummeting, and she flicked her head back to stare at the vault’s dark patch. Depth showed inside, so was it a tunnel? Others had ridden the air this way: builders had glimpsed a world they couldn’t survive while visiting children they’d have to abandon, and her fear echoed their grief as everything led to stillness and hushed breath.

  Caliper sat with closed eyes and clenched fists as his suit markings flowed into fresh patterns, and his chest showed a set of zigzags that might have been ferns. Their pearly disc glowed to make silhouettes of their feet, and bitter air stung her cheeks.

  ‘Helmets on, everyone.’ Phos slid a glass bowl over her head, and her hair untangled itself. The helmet jostled against her collar before sealing. Her air tasted of hot metal until a whispered breeze welled around her neck and tousled her hair.

  Mitch copied her. ‘How do we speak?’ Mitch’s words were sharp, but they’d picked up a buzz as if bees swarmed in his throat.

  ‘As normal – our helmets pass on our words.’

  Caliper hefted a helmet onto his head, and his hair scrambled over his face before settling into a thick cover for his scalp. His beard twitched before calming itself into a combed shadow of itself.

  ‘What’s happened to my hair?’

  ‘You nearly look smart,’ Phos said.

  ‘I’m not supposed to be smart.’

  Their disc slowed as the vault approached. The raindrop lined up with the tunnel, and the dark grey ceiling lowered itself over their heads. One last glance at the green and brown blurs below, and the tunnel walls slid around them. Rock squeezed daylight into a slender ring that narrowed until darkness fell.

  A cradle escaped. Mitch flicked on a torch, and faint speckles glinted on the encircling walls as they climbed. Danger sat everywhere; one wrong touch might snap her fingers, but not learning would kill. Even sitting and waiting might be lethal.

  Her body sagged, and she stumbled as sweat streamed over her face, but she grabbed a crate. Mitch teetered to his side, and Caliper peered at her.

  ‘You playing with these suits, Phos?’

  ‘Not me. Do you feel heavy?’

  ‘It’s not that big a change, so are you managing?’

  Phos nodded. ‘Christina mentioned gravity; it pulls us down, but something’s cranked it up.’

  Frinelia groaned. ‘I’ll need two sticks.’

  Phos stared upward but saw nothing but blackness. ‘Builders made this place for themselves, not us, and walking will be tough.’

  Their disc crept through the tunnel, and their underfoot light faded as the beam from Mitch’s torch slid into darkness.

  ‘There’s glinting far off.’

  An immense faceted pillar stood miles away, a vertical column of crystal, a ghost against the night, and cracks criss-crossed its surface where a colossal shard had splintered free. Glowing rubble hovered in the darkness beside the pillar, and Frinelia stood and gripped Phos’s shoulder.

  The humming deepened as their disc eased upward. Again the tunnel shrouded them for a few moments before they rose into a forest of ladders and rusting iron girders mangled into corkscrews. Spars and grids like waffles had crashed together to build a ragged hedge circling their raindrop. Far above, square lanterns spat out harsh white rays. Pools of shadow squatted beneath buckled metal sheets, and anyone peering from the wreckage would see their bodies. Walkways snaked between the debris to form rubbish-covered paths for people Christina’s size.

  ‘I’ve read about this chamber,’ Frinelia said. ‘They stored food and raw materials here for their final move.’

  The raindrop’s sides vanished, and the milky glow underfoot spread out onto the warehouse floor. Mitch flicked his torch beam over the wreckage, and huge shelves gleamed in the distance.

  Phos whistled. ‘This is a warehouse?’

  ‘I’ve seen drawings of trolleys carrying crates. What can you hear?’ Frinelia’s voice quavered.

  ‘Only your voice.’

  ‘I imagine these machines failed thousands of years ago
, so we should be safe.’

  ‘You’re sure? Most of Morzenthal still works.’

  Phos’s suit clicked and chirped as ripples flowed over her jacket. Caliper stomped up behind her. ‘Do you sense the voices, Phos?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The tiny machines. They’re listening as they were back home, but they’re listening harder now, and they’re stronger, so be careful what you think.’

  ‘What do you mean, listening harder?’

  ‘You can’t feel them listening? They’re there,’ Caliper said.

  Mitch ambled onto the surrounding floor and towards a walkway.

  ‘We’re at the bottom of Christina’s bowl, and we fight up to the map room,’ Phos said.

  ‘Fight?’

  ‘If needed. Don’t walk too far, Mitch.’

  Mitch stared ahead. ‘Can we breathe this air?’

  ‘Christina thought not, and we can’t risk—’

  Mitch gripped his helmet and flexed his neck, and the seal hissed.

  ‘Mitch, no.’ Frinelia heaved herself forward as Caliper leaped at Mitch, but the boy wrestled the globe from his head. Frinelia and Caliper froze with their hands stretched out.

  The boy’s face flushed as he smiled, and his voice sounded fragile. ‘Funny air: all thin and icy.’

  ‘Put your helmet back on, Mitch.’ Frinelia struggled to keep her voice level. ‘Everything I’ve heard says this air won’t keep us alive. You’re needed – you’re part of the team.’

  ‘Let’s save the suits.’ Mitch’s breathing sped up, and his face shaded into an angry red. He buckled and bent forward before crumpling sideways onto the metal, and his helmet bounced over the floor. Caliper leaped to catch the bowl, and he swept back to Mitch in one fluid movement. His hands slid underneath Mitch, and a three-inch lift let Caliper slot the helmet back over the boy’s head. One faint click, and Phos darted forward to wrap her hands around Mitch’s torso and peer into his face.

  ‘Mitch? Mitch?’ His eyes opened.

  Frinelia’s foot prodded Mitch’s leg. ‘Did we learn? Breathing this air is like eating grass – it won’t kill, but it won’t keep you alive. We’re not supposed to be here, so secure your helmet.’

  Mitch knelt and coughed. His hand clutched Phos’s arm as she helped him sit. ‘It’s quiet outside – not like Morzenthal.’

  Caliper popped the covers off two crates. ‘Let’s stick together and get to work, except you, Mitch. You can help by sticking your arse on the floor.’ He lifted out a set of wooden boards, poles and wheels. Everything fitted together to shape a basic cart. Straps hooked onto the cart’s front, and Caliper slipped a black leather harness over his suit.

  ‘Want to stick your backpack on the cart, Phos?’

  ‘I’ll wear it for now.’

  Caliper tugged the cart before tapping a small hammer against a wheel. ‘It’s fine. What we need goes on the cart.’

  Sweat flooded Phos’s forehead. ‘Right now Rastersen is scouring Morzenthal for weapons and suits. We don’t know what he’ll find, but if we learn the First’s ways, we have half a chance.’

  Caliper tossed blankets over the crates stacked on their cart. ‘Best chance we have is outrunning him. This nanotech, whatever we call it, it’s all risk. Even with Christina’s help, I blacked out on my first time, so let’s put distance between us.’

  Phos stepped off the disc and her boots clanked. Six passageways spread out from the centre, littered with broken bottles and crumpled boxes. Fire-blackened girders surrounded each passage.

  ‘We’ll take this corridor and aim for the rim,’ Phos said. ‘We’re at the bowl’s bottom, so any direction works.’

  Rusted sheets rested against a girder. Her boot nudged one, and it shattered to spew metal shards across the floor. They passed the litter and the burnt ironwork, and Mitch’s torch picked out shelves. Fifty feet of brown crates towered above, with identical spaces between the boxes. Dust braided the floor, and Caliper pulled his trolley midway between the walls. Every few tens of yards they’d pass yawning, dark gulfs where alleyways snaked into the ironwork. Perhaps First Enclave survivors had clawed out homes inside this beehive, and answers might swarm on these shelves – you didn’t need cooks when walking through orchards. Phos looked behind; they’d stamped footprints across the dust.

  A table stood on their left without legs – a floating sheet. Phos waved her hand underneath but felt nothing. The sheet warmed her fingers but wouldn’t budge more than a few inches. No dust touched the surface, but hundreds of cogwheels and spindles hovered above the sheet, and she prodded an inch-long coiled spring.

  ‘Leave them, Phos: we must hurry,’ Caliper said.

  The spring drifted across the sheet like a pebble on ice, but once past the edge, the coil tumbled to the floor. Three nudges showed the pattern: gravity didn’t reach through the sheet, but push anything past the edge, and gravity remembered. Was gravity like light? Was this sheet a curtain?

  ‘Can we fit the sheet on the cart?’

  ‘Will it help you run faster? Let’s keep moving.’

  ‘Bet we can break this if we work hard,’ Mitch said.

  ‘Leave it.’

  Copper foil had spilled from a fallen crate. Phos reached for a sheet. The feathery material coated her hand to wrap each wrinkle in her glove. A faint glow still wafted from the floor, but the ground had buckled, and the tottering crates on her left creaked as she passed.

  No thirst or hunger now; perhaps the suit fed her and kept sleep at bay, but Rastersen would pillage Morzenthal for similar suits.

  Grey-green mottling infected these shelves; five-pointed leaves like ivy drooped from the shelf edges. Phos stroked the leaves, and the heavy cold of iron leaked through her gloves, so these couldn’t be plants. Had a builder tied fakes here, or had nanotech tricked these girders into growing like plants? Buds showed further along the shelf. More leaves festered further down. Vines and branches sprouted from shelves, and whole gantries had collapsed; her girder crumbled under her fingers.

  ‘First Enclave nanotech,’ Phos said. ‘Seeds landed here by mistake, and their plans worked on the metal.’

  ‘But metal isn’t soil, is it?’

  ‘It isn’t in our world.’

  ‘You and your seeds, Phos. Let your mouth rest.’ Mitch flicked a leaf.

  Frinelia’s fingers traced the crumbling girder. ‘We mustn’t linger.’

  Phos gripped a leaf and tugged it towards her.

  ‘Don’t touch: we don’t know how this spreads.’

  ‘Just looking.’ Something squeezed her left sleeve.

  ‘Your arm, Phos, look at your arm.’ Caliper grabbed her shoulders and hauled her back as vines burst from her sleeve and curled along her arm. She ran her right hand over the tendrils, but new shoots budded between her fingers.

  ‘How do I shake them off?’

  ‘I’ve exploits for clearing weeds, but these aren’t plants.’

  Phos’s hands itched and her suit pulsed. Flecks of light surged across her helmet. Thicker vines sprouted from her forearm, and her hands shook.

  Caliper’s hands clamped her left arm, and she held still as his breathing slowed. ‘I’m not used to metal, but this stuff thinks it’s ivy.’

  A few of the thinner wire vines withered, and their leaves shrivelled. Her suit hummed, and she sensed a net of threads scrambling through her sleeve, streams of energy. Was the nanotech obeying Caliper?

  Syllables flowed into her mind; even delivered without breath, they held the miller’s throaty ruggedness. ‘Not working, Phos. I’ve not enough. These roots are stuck fast.’

  New visions swept into her mind: a thousand tiny metal hairs squirmed into her sleeve and tried to rip open her suit, and each one stood fast against Caliper’s threads.

  She’d grown up knowing how to grip and lift, but these metallic plants were alien, and she had to learn again. Phos let her mind nuzzle Caliper’s threads, and his design was clear. Frost killed plants, and their mille
r planned to copy a harsh winter morning, but ice never hurt metal. She tapped into his threads and remembered visions of flames melting wires as her mind poured the idea of burning into Caliper’s exploit.

  Their miller yowled and staggered back, and the vines slithered from her arm to slump onto the floor. The invading creepers had bleached her suit’s arm white, but her swirling red letters grew back – quiet tattoos of victory.

  Caliper clamped his hand under his arm. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I thought threads were running through my suit – was that your exploit?’

  ‘Was that you with the burning? Hold your hands back, Phos: these exploits will have your arms off.’

  Mitch tapped his foot on the floor. ‘After attention, are we, Phos? Are you going to prod everything we find? This strangeness will eat us.’

  Phos scowled. How could she learn when a single touch dragged poison into her suit? ‘I’m sure ignorance won’t help.’

  ‘Maybe so, Phos, but don’t hoard your learning.’

  ‘I’ll share, but wait until we rest.’

  Caliper coughed twice before stepping into his harness to heave their cart forward, but he paused and stared.

  ‘There’s green light flickering ahead.’

  Rays trickled down the passageway and picked out veils of scattered dust. Bushes of metallic leaves curled around the buckled struts ahead. Whole sections of shelves had collapsed to scatter crates across their path, and the boxes had burst to scatter wonders over the dust, suits Christina’s size, curls of metal that might be tools; coils of rope and dusty black balls spilled from ripped black sacks. Contorted vines had stripped out several shelves, and dense thickets of iron leaves erupted from the ground.

  ‘How do we pass?’

  Caliper inched up to the leaves. ‘We can’t cross these without touching them, but let me.’

  ‘Caliper, no.’

  ‘There’s no staying here, but keep your burning thoughts ready.’ He stepped into the dull grey plants. Phos held her breath, but his boots stayed clean. No shelves left now; thorny grey bushes sprouted from tangled girders, and the remaining struts had buckled and twisted like branches while a few crushed crates perched above.