Lightmaker

by Kevin Elliott

  Caliper’s torch splashed light over two cloth-swaddled chairs huddled in a corner. Two human skulls perched on each seat, and bones littered the floor and mixed with withered fabric strands. Her boot clinked against a curved metal sword with its point sheared away, and another half sword lurked behind a skull.

  Phos scooped up the sword stub and gazed at the clean cut; rust-coloured letters flowed across her helmet to circle the weapon. She twirled the sword and the characters followed.

  ‘How do you summon exploits, Caliper?’

  ‘Careful, Phos. The First isn’t for beginners.’

  ‘Remember your breathing trouble? Rastersen is fast, and he won’t come alone; he won’t underestimate you again. Can you handle him and his guards?’

  Caliper stayed silent.

  ‘Can you teach me? We might need to fight, and your exploits could give us an edge.’

  ‘It’s not a skill I can teach, Phos. My knowledge sits in my head, and there’s no explaining.’

  ‘But you call the exploit – it doesn’t just appear. Teach me the calling.’

  Doubt flared in his eyes, and his hands twitched before he bent to grab the other sword.

  ‘If we weren’t up against this man….’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve no skills in metal, but you’ll start with closed eyes. Can you think of a sound you only notice when it’s gone? Like a dripping pipe or a creaking bed – a sound that seeps into your mind without bothering your ears.’

  Phos nodded.

  ‘Hold your breath and listen for those murmurs, but keep your mind alert. Grip the sword in your left hand and push it forward, and now open your right. Don’t open your eyes, but imagine threads rushing from your right hand’s fingertips and into your target, and you’ll feel the iron’s bite chill your hand. Now draw your right hand back a fraction – a fingernail’s width. You’ll sense tugging, and sounds will trickle into your mind – do you hear the silence end? Eyes closed, Phos. Your left hand’s gripping the sword, so let your right hand play out those threads.’

  ‘There’s weight in my right hand.’

  ‘Left hand holds the target while the right studies shape and texture. Rock your left a touch, and learn the weight and balance. Use the right to stroke the texture, and learn the sword’s strains and flaws.’

  Phos screwed her eyes shut, and a memory crashed into her mind as if she’d remembered a long-lost doll. Hard to tell if she was seeing or remembering, but notches scarred the sword’s blunt edges, and hairline cracks scoured the blade. The handle came from a far older weapon.

  Caliper’s voice arrived as a distant whisper. ‘Your left hand should feel the heft. Swing the sword to learn the movement, and let your body reach into the blade, but keep those eyes shut. Does your hand know the weight?’

  ‘It’s there.’

  ‘That’s a mould for your thought, the idea of a sword. Now here’s the fun – ask a question.’

  ‘What?’ Phos squeezed her eyes together.

  ‘Ask your sword what it looked like before it had the slicing.’

  Phos hesitated. ‘You’re saying the sword knows its original shape?’

  ‘You’ve seen seeds, Phos; they spit out plants and trees. The plans wait inside. Go on, ask your question.’

  Phos chewed her lip.

  What was your original shape?

  ‘Keep those eyes closed one moment, Phos, but you’re grand. Your helmet’s answered your question. Fine – have a look.’

  A shock of colour came as she opened her eyes, and a set of giddy heartbeats passed before she understood. Her left hand still held the cropped sword, but her helmet had thrown washes of colour over her right hand: a sword’s portrait, a perfect curve of blade. She flicked her right wrist, and the helmet’s colours shifted to follow as if the sword were real. Her fingers wrapped a handle she could only see on her helmet, though weight nagged her right hand.

  ‘So I can see what the sword was. It’s great, but does it help?’

  Caliper shrugged. ‘Maybe the villages further around the bowl held tricks.’

  ‘We’re short of time. You mentioned seeds, and if the sword is a seed, can we ask the seed to grow again?’

  ‘Not now, Phos: I’ve had buildings collapse on me trying that.’

  ‘We need weapons, and these exploits need understanding.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Stand back.’ Phos closed her eyes and inhaled. The ghost sword still filled her right hand.

  ‘Don’t, Phos. No….’

  Can you grow back?

  A harsh crack rang out and her feet jarred. Her hand dipped, and her grip on the invisible sword almost slipped, but her eyes snapped open. A whole blade nestled in her right hand, and a jagged foot-wide hole gaped in the stone floor. She scraped the new sword over the ground, and it clanked like metal.

  ‘Slow down, Phos. You stamped a hole in the earth; you could have hacked off your foot.’

  ‘Does that always happen?’

  ‘You’ve made iron but you’ve lost stone, and it all has to add up. I should have told you earlier, but your rushing….’

  Phos slid the blade against one of the chair backs to whittle away a sliver of wood. ‘The suit boosts my skills.’

  ‘You remade a sword, but will it help?’ Mitch took the sword from Phos’s hand. ‘Rastersen has worse.’

  ‘This world takes instruction, and its skills become our defence.’

  ‘Why can’t my suit do this? Can we swap suits?’

  ‘Keep breathing, Mitch; I’ll try another exploit.’

  ‘Watch it, Phos,’ Caliper said. ‘Too many exploits will frazzle you – take one bite at a time.’

  Phos smiled, and ten steps carried her back to the line of pebbles linking the two walls. She closed her eyes and let her mind cast out its threads, and new memories soaked into her thoughts. Phos saw days where plants draped themselves over the plaster walls, surfaces flaking over the endless years, and centuries of emptiness scouring the house’s delicate mechanisms. She pushed the memory back in time, and new images flowed across her mind. Panes of glass had linked these plaster walls, and a crystal roof blurred the evening sky. Shimmering ghosts flickered across a floor filled with chairs and sofas, a day’s motion crammed into a few heartbeats. Her question was ready.

  Can you grow back?

  Nothing. Only the faint crinkling of her suit. Phos opened her eyes, and a faint haze tinged the outside grass.

  ‘Look at the shelter,’ Frinelia said. The hut’s timbers had jutted past the line of stones, but the ends had sheared off to litter the soil. Caliper lobbed a stone between the plaster walls, but it bounced from the air, and Phos slid her fingers over a smooth surface she couldn’t see: nothing like glass, firm but not cold.

  ‘It’ll keep the weather out.’

  ‘Did you just lock us in?’

  ‘Not deliberately.’

  ‘Ah, so long as it’s an accident,’ Caliper said. ‘Can you accident our way out?’

  Phos spread her palm over the invisible wall.

  What can you do?

  A storm of blue letters swarmed around her fingers and swept across the sheet before finger-sized squares settled above the alien symbols like an invitation.

  Phos’s fingers dabbed one square, and the writing flowed into fresh patterns. She touched another, and another, and a fourth before the blue symbols winked out and her hand fell forward.

  Caliper chuckled. ‘What did we learn?’

  ‘We’re learning how the house works, and that’ll help us understand the First. The builders didn’t drag carts behind them, so we find out what they used, and we’ll move faster and learn how they defended themselves.’ Phos blinked; her vision blurred. ‘We also need rest.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s enough for now.’

  Other skills waited for her, but right now Rastersen and his gang were tearing through Morzenthal’s libraries. Elders would reel from his threats and bring him books, and Phos’s
arms and neck ached as the walls swayed around her.

  ***

  Fog wrapped their house as daylight dribbled away, and nearby trees scratched at the growing night’s mineral sheen, but Caliper pressed his palms against the window and lowered his face to hide the pain scuttling across his spine.

  Phos stood beside him and danced her fingers over the shapes she’d conjured. Frinelia dozed against the short wall as Mitch juggled three pebbles.

  ‘You want us to stay here tonight?’ Phos’s voice stayed faint as her gaze stayed fixed on her symbols.

  ‘There’s a maze of hedges past this house, and my scythe’s no help in the dark, and we need rest.’

  ‘My reckoning puts us a fifth of the way to the rim, and Rastersen will move faster than us. There’s something here about travelling.’ She tapped the window.

  ‘There’s no travel without sleep, and I’ll never sleep in this suit.’

  ‘If I change the air, you can peel your suit off,’ Phos said.

  ‘Change the air? Do I carve “Be careful” on your helmet?’

  Phos’s hands capered, and symbols curled around her fingers before jumping onto her helmet while Mitch rasped a stick over the wall to spray plaster over his suit. Caliper’s brief schooldays had mixed punches with punishment, and they’d never help now.

  He pointed at the twirling letters. ‘Can you read that scribble?’

  ‘These pictures mean furniture.’ Phos tapped the icons. ‘Table, chair, light, and there’s a place to watch stuff happen elsewhere. They’re ideas, but these ideas can become real.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think, and my suit listens to me and talks with the house. Thoughts become real.’ Phos’s cheeks flushed pink beneath her glass helmet.

  ‘It’s late, so can you wheel out some beds?’

  ‘Tweak gravity, and we might not need beds.’

  ‘Phos, beds work, but your fiddling….’

  ‘We’ll never outrun Rastersen, but imagine using gravity against him.’

  ‘You’re teaching yourself gravity?’

  ‘I’ve a way to learn,’ Phos said. ‘Seeds grow when they’re watered, so seeds have instructions inside that say, “Sprout when there’s water.”’ Phos’s fingers flicked a group of four symbols, and they glided over her window like marbles before grinding to a halt. She pinned one letter with her index finger and dragged it over another. The two symbols shook for a heartbeat, and a curly squiggle sprang out. ‘Breaking open a seed shows us nothing: we can’t read the instructions, but what if you change their world? What if you swapped the water with cider?’

  ‘Funny use for cider.’

  ‘It’s worth trying. Start with an idea. I don’t know…. You say cider gets the seeds drunk, so they can’t read their instructions. Try growing seeds in cider; if the plants come up wonky, your idea might be true. Do new tests with new liquids; each test might hint at what’s inside the seeds.’

  ‘And if your seeds don’t grow?’

  ‘You can say cider stops the instructions and kills the seeds.’

  ‘Or puts them to sleep,’ Caliper said.

  ‘I’m not expecting answers to come tumbling out, but if learning’s hidden, this gives us small steps towards the light. It works no matter what books the church burns. I got stuck for ages because I could think up tons of ideas, but if you rank your ideas and test the best ones first….’ Phos traced blue lines over her window, a plan of their house. She coaxed out another blocky symbol before jabbing her finger at a spiral inside a box.

  ‘This controls gravity, and it’ll let us sleep in mid-air.’

  ‘The cart has blankets. Warm, thick blankets.’

  She nudged the spiral towards an empty corner of her map. He could grab her arms, but he’d never bind her all night. ‘Leave it, Phos: you’re tired and light’s failing.’

  Her hand flicked another letter, and their ceiling rained a white glare, but she still shunted her pictures. ‘I’ll only affect the corner; I’ll take care.’

  ‘You don’t know the word.’ Their room quivered, and Caliper turned as dust and gravel fountains spewed from the far corner’s floor to rattle against the ceiling.

  Mitch lobbed a pebble into the gushing dust, and the stone rushed upward to clack into the ceiling. ‘Want us to sleep up there?’

  ‘Needs adjusting.’ Phos twirled two overlapping symbols and glanced back.

  Caliper sighed. ‘You’re a menace. Put it back before it spreads.’

  ‘Leave it, Phos.’ Frinelia rapped her stick against the floor.

  The corner’s light faded, and the girl strode forward to thrust her hand into the dust plume. ‘It feels light but I’m not sure…. I expected blue light….’ She stepped into the corner and faced him.

  Mitch’s voice rang out. ‘Check your letters.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re spinning.’

  Light dimmed, and the square of roof above Phos burst open. Stones sprayed upward into darkness, and her arms flailed. Her body tilted backwards before rising. Her eyes closed and her mouth hung open as her limbs hung at her sides. Frinelia screamed as Caliper lunged forward. He planted his feet outside the corner and grabbed her knees – too slippery. His hands slid over fabric; without his grip, she’d hurtle upward into the night. Caliper’s fingertips won a frail grip on her left boot, and Phos dangled in the air with outspread arms. She shuddered as her head rolled back.

  ‘Caliper, what’s—?’

  ‘Stay still, Phos. You blacked out. Don’t move.’

  Tension shivered across her body, and the girl’s arms thrashed. He tugged at her boots, but her floating body was stuck in the air. Caliper heaved, and her body pivoted around her waist to tip backwards, but his fingers slithered off her boots, and he clutched emptiness. Phos fell and slammed onto the floor as gravel pinged around her.

  ‘The symbols,’ Mitch said. ‘I stopped them spinning and put them back as they were.’

  Frinelia knelt and clutched Phos’s shoulders. ‘Can you hear?’

  The girl twitched and raised her head before rolling to her left. ‘The symbols must talk to each other.’ Dust spilled from her helmet as she glanced up; her work had bitten a square hole through their ceiling. She paused. ‘Good work, everyone.’

  ‘You complete arse. What does acting the maggot teach you?’

  She looked away. ‘I learned we’re sleeping on blankets.’

  ‘No more tampering tonight. This world’s tagged us as invaders, and right now it’s working out the best way to kill us, and it won’t need your help. At least talk before trying new tricks – do we agree?’ He crouched to touch her shoulder – replace a gearwheel’s stripped teeth, and one stubborn stump always argued against sliding out, but sweat, and it would spring.

  A silent nod. ‘I ran too fast. Should I fish bedding from the cart?’

  ‘Sit and recover. I’ll grab blankets and food.’

  ‘Thanks for the rescue.’

  Frinelia stood with her hands clasped behind her back and stared at the square of dark blue stamped into their ceiling; light still trickled from the remaining roof. ‘No one wants to punch a hole in their ceiling, so these machines have broken.’

  ‘So we leave them alone. I’ll get our stuff.’ Caliper walked to the window and stopped. ‘You’ll draw me a door first, but take care.’

  Phos gazed at the window’s letters. ‘The people here wouldn’t have walked to the window every time they needed work done, and there’re traces of….’ She closed her eyes and raised her arms. Her fingers fluttered, and she pushed her palms together before easing them apart. A scribble of lines and pictures flickered between her hands.

  Phos brought change like a summer storm, but confidence didn’t mean wisdom, and he should speak more – shield her until she could train herself.

  ‘Didn’t we agree you’d stay off the exploits? Rastersen’s coming to play, but try easy stuff first.’

  Movement outside. A feathered scramble j
olted onto the ground ten yards away, and a twilight-coloured body glinted in their house light. The bird stalked closer, and its wings licked the air for balance as its icy eyes stared into his.

  Chapter 22: travel as the ancients

  The bird ran its gaze over Phos before studying the rest of their room and stared at the damaged corner for several heartbeats. The animal’s wings swished as its head held steady, and blue feathers hugged its torso to suggest muscles.

  Phos flicked a symbol onto the house map, and white lines scored the glass to suggest a doorway. She stepped into the night. Caliper followed, but she wanted to approach alone, and flicking her hand sealed the doorway.

  She neared the bird, but Caliper banged the window, and his voice rasped through her helmet. ‘Open this door, or it’s going arseways.’

  The animal hopped sideways as if blocking the path to their cart, and its head twitched. She raised one hand, and the bird’s talons pawed dust.

  ‘Don’t face him alone, Phos. Christina asked me….’

  Phos pressed her hands together to create another crystal slate. Icons burbled up to describe their air, and the bird scanned the writing before snapping its gaze back to her. Caliper still yelled. She’d learn little here, and she retreated – one touch opened the door.

  Spittle flecked the inside of the miller’s helmet. ‘How many times, Phos? You said you’d watch your rambling.’

  ‘We must learn.’

  ‘What does prancing with birds teach you?’

  ‘There’s learning everywhere, so keep calm.’

  ‘What would you learn if it sticks its beak through your helmet?’

  ‘We don’t know it’s violent,’ Phos said.

  ‘I promised Christina I’d protect you – should I stick you on a leash?’

  ‘I’ll choose my path, so don’t threaten me.’

  ‘You need threats if you don’t listen.’

  The floor cracked and hissed, and Phos’s fingers juddered and curled themselves around cool metal as weight dragged at her left hand. A dagger nestled in her grip. Its curved handle swept into four inches of blade. Caliper gasped, and Frinelia raised her hands and scuttled forward.