Lightmaker

by Kevin Elliott

  ‘I expect it’s the other way around, but the link’s complicated,’ Phos said. ‘Machines are waking; the builders might have changed the First Enclave’s air from here.’ She hauled herself onto the platform to face the bowl, and three rectangles of light sprang into life before her. Lanterns flickered above, though several stayed dark.

  Drag enough musicians into a room, and you’d need a man to keep order, but Phos had arrived with her twitching fingers.

  ‘Take it slow, Phos.’

  ‘Christina’s argument should fit here.’ Phos stroked one panel before dashing to another, and their walkway buzzed. Dust streamed from the dome and ceiling as her fingers slid over the rectangles of light, and letters flickered into view for a heartbeat before vanishing. She played these glowing instruments her way, her hands following rules he’d never fathom. Knowledge became dance as she leaped between the slices of light.

  Phos’s body froze, and she stared at him. ‘You’re hearing the voice?’

  ‘Rastersen?’

  ‘No. Different. You can’t hear it?’ Phos cocked her head. ‘It’s angry.’

  ‘You’ve upset someone you’ve never met? Very Phos of you,’ Frinelia said.

  ‘I tried to see how Christina’s argument fitted – I found stories inside the light, and I was close when the voice came….’

  Her voice faded, and Caliper remembered her cringing before Rastersen.

  ‘The voice said it would stop us, but it sounded like someone reading out words.’

  Mitch stepped behind. ‘Is the voice coming from Rastersen’s underground station?’

  ‘I don’t know. Does anyone else hear voices?’ Panic tainted her speech. As if in reply, a voice trickled into Caliper’s helmet, a whisper carried over a thousand miles of breeze, and Christina’s breathless words slunk into his mind.

  ‘Caliper – do you read me?’

  ‘Christina?’

  ‘Aren’t you two lucky with the voices?’ Frinelia said. ‘Mitch and I should mime.’

  Caliper raised his hand as Christina’s voice struggled through the crackling.

  ‘We’ve little time: your priest manipulates the nanotech. The builders made his suit for war, though it’s older than those you wear.’

  ‘What’s he after?’

  ‘His suit lets him sense Phos’s actions, and his own lust for learning pulls him closer. The birds in the First Enclave answer his calls. He takes risks and learns fast, and….’

  A shuddering noise rasped through his suit.

  ‘Christina? Christina?’ Could he wring words from silence? Caliper wheeled around, and Phos waved to him from the platform. Her mouth moved but he heard nothing.

  Frinelia sniffed. ‘Is our situation deteriorating?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  Phos cantered along the gantry towards him and raised her hand to make five fingers of invite. He clasped her fingers, and her voice buzzed through his helmet.

  ‘Rastersen’s damaged my suit, so you won’t hear me unless we touch.’

  ‘You’ll need both hands to work those lights,’ Caliper said.

  ‘I’ll work on the panels and raise my hands to speak.’ She grimaced. ‘Christina said builders made his suit for war, so what’s coming?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You are so completely, utterly, wonderfully hopeless. Every time, Caliper, you never fail.’

  ‘At least we have warning. Where would an attack come from? Can we close the patch?’

  ‘We can move back,’ Phos said. ‘The corridor behind the platform must run behind the huge wall we saw outside.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘We use Christina’s argument before we leave.’

  ‘You’re still curious, but shouldn’t we block the door?’

  ‘I’ll do that, and I’ll work out how the argument fits. The argument might slow Rastersen.’

  ‘I left the scythe behind. What’s your voice saying?’

  ‘It’s stopped, but it gabbled about infections. Are we the infection? Whatever. I need to sort out the argument. I’ll find you if we need to talk.’

  Phos slapped her backpack onto the stage and fished inside to hoist out the hoop, a memory of Christina in metal. She set it on the platform before rushing back to her glistening rectangles. Signs and coloured splotches stormed under her hands, and three spinning circles formed rainbows before her.

  Any attack would come through their dark patch. Caliper ripped open a packing case and rummaged through stacks of black metal ingots. Underneath sat a vast toolbox he couldn’t budge. Stacked boxes sat on higher shelves. He tugged one forward and swerved to avoid its fall. It burst to spill out brass rods a yard long and blunt at both ends. He heaved one upward, but the mass would only slow him.

  Another box crashed down and spewed out thin grey rods, chill to the touch and longer than his arm, with enough whip to let him hope. Again Christina’s words stroked his ear.

  ‘Did you…the birds are heading towards…breathe different air…together….’

  ‘That’s not enough.’

  Frinelia coughed. ‘Christina again?’

  ‘Any word on closing the door, Phos?’ The girl hunched over her windows of light, and her hands still scythed the air. Caliper glanced at Mitch and Frinelia. ‘Those birds are approaching, so tell me what needs clobbering – you’ll never meet a miller who can’t fight.’

  Mitch stared at the walkway and the black patch. ‘They’re smart animals, Caliper, and the walkway’s a circle, so what if they burst through the patch and split up?’

  Worry dirtied Phos’s face as pictures of curving landscapes swam through her lights. A necklace of brilliant dots sprang over the bowl. She lifted her arm, and Caliper galloped towards her platform and gripped her hand; her voice burst into his helmet.

  ‘Rastersen’s learning like lightning, but he’s not touched your suit – let me see how it talks.’ Phos snatched his other hand and closed her eyes. Ripples surged across his suit for a heartbeat before her eyes snapped open and she tugged her hands away. ‘Can everyone hear me?’

  Caliper nodded and Phos pointed at the bowl.

  ‘Those are the underground stations. They create new air and push out water, and they need to see Christina’s argument. If they agree with her ideas, they’ll forge new nanotech for the Second – we have a chance.’

  ‘About this door, Phos…’ Caliper said.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I closed it, but it needs testing. This world will change too.’

  ‘Should we worry?’

  ‘Change may help us, since the birds are part nanotech; their bodies switched when this world changed, and they can’t breathe our air.’

  Mitch stepped up behind Phos. ‘Find another way: we can’t kill those birds.’

  ‘They’re animals,’ Phos said.

  ‘So are we.’

  ‘We can talk to each other and write words and learn from what happened centuries ago. I never met my granddad, but I know what he learned about repotting plants. We learn why things happen. We show plays and play music and tell stories. The birds can’t.’

  ‘The birds might do more on their spires,’ Mitch said.

  ‘Our world changed, and we acted and escaped. We learned why it was dying, and we have half a chance of healing it. How would animals react if their world failed?’

  ‘They’d die.’

  ‘And there’s the difference: learning means surviving the storm. I don’t know; maybe these birds can link with the nanotech here and adapt, but we must use the argument.’

  Phos and Mitch stared at each other – had they argued before? Caliper shunted crates into a barrier.

  ‘There’s one path,’ Phos said. ‘Our house grew windows that held back the air, so can we make larger windows to house the birds in their spires?’

  ‘How do we shepherd the birds inside?’

  ‘Birds in the Second nest in trees at night, and it might be the same here.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Mitch sa
id. ‘You make stuff up and pretend it’s real.’

  ‘Yes, I make stuff up, and that’s why we’re not choking on smoke in the Second. One man was the first man to imagine a house. There was a first forge and a first windmill. Thought creates worlds.’ Phos returned to her gleaming squares of light, and her hands raced over the twisting shapes. ‘I don’t know how to build windows big enough, but we can try, and we need to use Christina’s argument.’

  ‘How do the birds manage between you changing the air and you building these windows? Hold their breath?’

  ‘It’s our only plan,’ Phos said. ‘Not knowing everything doesn’t mean you sit on your backside.’

  Caliper slid a crate into a gap to finish his wall and turned. ‘I could have mouldered on my arse in my windmill while our world rotted, but I came with you lot. Given our games in the muddy river and those tentacles and our scrapping birds, I might have made the right choice; sometimes you’ve no option but change. If a tool’s wrong for the job, change your tool – we use the argument.’

  ‘They built the Second Enclave to last,’ Phos said. ‘They built the First for speed, so it’s a spinning top and always ready to tumble. The birds may die even if we do nothing.’

  Mitch coughed. ‘I still say we talk.’

  Frinelia pointed. ‘Here’s your chance.’

  Caliper and Phos turned together. A bird’s head poked through the black patch. Its feathered skull twitched and glistened as it studied their room, and the animal strutted forward as a second bird appeared.

  ‘Phos – the door….’

  A third entered, and the trio swaggered left to pluck a path over the walkway’s debris while staring at Caliper. Hunting birds could tear rabbits apart, and these birds were huge.

  ‘Phos?’

  ‘I’m trying. I thought I’d closed it, but….’

  A fourth creature stepped through the patch and barged into the others. As one, the animals unfurled their wings. Phos froze before pawing her lights.

  ‘Behind me.’ Caliper raised the rod he’d found, but the flimsy wire quivered. He’d stacked enough boxes to block both approaches to the platform, but the birds strode forward, and their eyes never left his. He’d never raise an exploit in this metal cage, and if they used the other gantry….

  Caliper drummed out a rhythm against the floor with his stick. Their bodies paused before surging towards him.

  ‘Back, you buggers’ he roared. Ten feet away, and his fragile boxes wouldn’t stop a child. ‘Phos, tell Fat Boy to call off his pets. Mitch and Frinelia – keep back.’

  The lead bird raised one wing and sliced through a box. Their wings worked like razors; fine for harvesting, but they’d slash his suit open and leave him choking, and leave Phos helpless. The animal’s neck pounced through the gap it had carved, but Caliper lunged forward and stabbed his rod into the bird’s throat. Blood gushed out as the animal screamed, and its head flailed back. He twisted the rod free, and the bird’s eyes glazed over. It slumped, and the other birds shimmied back.

  ‘Keep working the door, Phos. We need it closed. You two find me a club.’

  These birds would out-think any tavern brawler; they’d not repeat a failed attack. Razor wings and spear beaks, cold stares flicked between them and Phos. If the birds split up, he’d never shield her.

  The two rear birds launched upward and wheeled above the bowl towards Phos. If he rushed to her side, he’d leave the front animal free.

  ‘No, no…. Hide, Phos; don’t let them get close….’

  She scrambled under the platform and lay flat. Her sheets of light winked out as the two flyers swooped onto the stage to rake their talons over the metal before jumping from platform to floor and scratching underneath. Phos slithered away from the edges.

  Rattling came from behind; his bird had knocked three boxes from his wall’s top, and its blue-coated body barged through the rest. The animal’s beak smacked into his helmet. Caliper heaved his arm forward, and his rod pierced the animal’s feathered neck. The stick shattered, but the beast screamed and recoiled, and he waded forward to seize the bird’s throat.

  They wrestled as a furious roar fountained through the bird’s neck. Its legs kicked, and those razor wings tried to envelop him, but he stayed close and swore as the beak cuffed his helmet again. No chance of throttling this beast: muscled slabs ran under those feathers. He stumbled over the first bird’s body, and his enemy bucked and screamed. Caliper and the bird swung around as the other two animals clawed the metal from Phos’s platform.

  Mitch rushed forward, and Caliper’s bird lurched at him, but Caliper hauled the animal back as pain raked his chest.

  ‘Get back, Mitch.’

  ‘I found a blade.’

  The bird writhed, and cramp screamed through Caliper’s fingers. ‘Give me the—’

  A dagger glinted in Mitch’s hand, and the boy slipped the blade into the bird’s neck. A desperate squirm almost ripped the knife away, but the bird’s throat rattled, and their fight became a gentle lowering as the three sank to the floor. The beast’s wings quivered as blood dripped through the floor’s metal grille. Pain growled over Caliper’s left arm.

  Mitch handed Caliper the tiny dagger, and Frinelia scrabbled through a crate. Phos still hid under the platform though her two birds had peeled half the metal away. One jumped to the floor to scratch for her body, but she twisted her legs away.

  Tavern rules were painful to learn but hard to forget, and tavern rules said get a bigger weapon. Metal shards littered the floor, sharp and impossible to handle, and the box’s rods had skittled through the gantry floor. He grasped a wooden pole but it crumbled.

  ‘Here, Caliper.’ Frinelia lobbed a ball at him, and he snatched it from the air, a tangled mass of sliding fibres, a net. He raced towards Phos’s platform and let the net dangle from his hands and rammed it over the bird’s head. The animal screamed, but mesh pinned its wings.

  ‘Not met nets before, have you?’

  The bird scraped its head over the floor, and its wings flailed. The other animal glanced up but returned to ripping Phos’s shield. This net had been plant life once, and tension surged through Caliper’s fingers. He gripped the fibres and let his threads caper. Heat flared across the mesh, hot enough to brand the bird’s feathers and sear his netting fast. The animal bellowed and shook as the net tightened until the fibres squeezed silence from its body.

  ‘Any more nets?’

  ‘None left,’ Frinelia said.

  The last bird stopped to stare, its eyes twin beads of vicious skill. A year ago Caliper had spilled lamp oil during a tavern scrap, and a slippery floor meant you didn’t need to fight standing. His fingers gripped Mitch’s blade – a flyer couldn’t be armoured everywhere. He ran forward and jumped and flew feet first until his back crashed onto the floor. He slid forward to hurtle between the bird’s talons.

  Blue feathers streaked above as he coasted over the freezing metal, and Caliper raised his arm to slice into the bird’s belly. His hand shook as the bird roared, and blood splattered over his helmet. His body ground to a halt as the bird collapsed behind him. He’d done neater slaughter jobs, but this would do.

  Caliper breathed out as pain lashed over him. Something held him back, but he didn’t need to rush.

  ‘Caliper?’ Phos clutched his hand, but her voice sounded distant. His answer wouldn’t come, though he had a memory of having won somewhere, even if the victory had brought him this suffocating cloud of darkness. Too much to remember.

  Words coasted past, spoken words he could only follow by clearing his mind. Any memory of meaning faded the instant new words arrived. Hands raised his head and fluttered across his suit. Questions poured over him, and answers pooled in his mind but stayed unspoken. Nothing relieved the crushing weight pressing on his chest; nothing helped him breathe.

  One thought lingered in his mind: a steady beacon in a howling gale. He’d kept his vow to keep Phos safe even as her words streamed past him, and Christina�
�s face turned to his as a smile danced on her lips. Despite those endless years of rejection, he sat beside her now – the one who always returned to speak with him. Caliper couldn’t follow her words, but he’d never forget the richness of her tones. Now they played deep inside his mind, a voice that would never leave, soft words from the one woman who had never forgotten him.

  Chapter 26: the tipping edge

  Phos wasn’t sure when the moment had arrived. When had she realised her panicked words weren’t being heard? When had she known their suits weren’t linking? When had she admitted she’d lost Caliper?

  Tears came unbidden. Memories hurt; his face and his voice’s deep burr, his ease in lifting the heaviest burden, even his smile. Pain came with each thought. He’d often sat with his head bowed, thinking through what she’d said while waiting for words to come, but now any silence would spawn memories of his silences.

  Caliper’s body rested on the woven metal floor, flat on his back, arms resting at his sides and his open eyes pointing at the ceiling. Blood spattered his suit, but the droplets faded into pink before vanishing. Phos gasped as the inky-blue curves and rings on his arms and chest narrowed and disappeared; her fingers clutched his wrist, but his suit returned to its satin blankness.

  Frinelia sat on Caliper’s other side and splayed her hands over his chest as if hunting for any fleeting signs of warmth. ‘We should have fought alongside him, Phos, given him a moment’s rest.’

  Phos glanced at Caliper’s last target; the bird glared as its wing twitched. ‘We’re still not safe: it’s trying to rise. Do I use Caliper’s knife?’

  ‘No. Let me: taking life needs poise; everyone leaves a mess their first time.’ Frinelia uncurled Caliper’s fingers to take his blade. She glided forward and stooped to slash the bird’s throat without breaking step, and blood vanished from the blade.

  Mitch stepped back from Caliper’s body and mumbled as yellow words streamed over his helmet.