‘We tell the church to stop its hard landing,’ Phos said.
Frinelia nodded. ‘I’ll find contacts. We’ll need strong proof, since many priests won’t appreciate food growing everywhere.’
‘Let’s have them visit here; they’ll tell stories with their own words.’
‘There’ll be months of chaos back home.’
‘Best time to change minds.’
Mitch’s voice leaked into the silence. ‘Phos, can you release my suit?’
She struggled to a crate and closed her eyes. Each heartbeat complicated the world; each story was a fine thread, but time tangled each braid into a massive knot. Could she manage without Mitch, and should she forget her world seed?
Christina’s voice returned. ‘This link can’t last, but there’s ancient machinery above that won’t fail. I see changes: hills emerge in the First; waterfalls stream over cliffs; and domes grow around the spires – a thousand facets of glass strung together. The First won’t abandon its birds, and we must hope it won’t forget us, but avoid the bowl for the next few days.’
‘Can I see my mother?’
‘I’ll find her,’ Christina said.
‘Do we wait here for days and days or keep climbing?’
Frinelia smiled. ‘For you, Phos, that’s not much of a choice.’
‘There’s a timeworn path towards the surface. It rises through several floors, and I sense a primitive version of the carrier field you rode with me. There are chambers far older than Morzenthal or the pyramid city, filled with scraps of life and energy, but seek solid versions of the screens you’ve touched here. I’ll keep watching….’ Hissing scrambled her voice. ‘…will seem primitive…earliest…the outside world….’
Christina’s voice faded, and Phos paced towards Mitch’s suit. Their eyes met before he glanced away. Dust trickled onto his body.
‘Do we take you, Mitch?’
‘Rastersen’s gone and my helmet’s clear, so don’t keep looking for threats. And there’s something missing from your searching: you miss details.’
‘Such as?’
‘Remember the rough shelter in the glass house? Someone built it for people our size. Remember the spinning icons that changed gravity and Rastersen’s helmet writing?’
‘I saw the writing,’ Phos said.
‘And you did nothing because you never saw the link. I’ll be your eyes and ears, and notice what you miss – no one is good at everything. Perhaps I’ll find your world seed. I’m sorry I scoffed, and you’re right, Caliper saved us all. I’ll never forgive myself for his death.’
Phos’s boot pressed onto his chest, and her threads flooded through Mitch’s suit. The bindings she’d wrapped across his limbs made an emerald net, and its strands shifted as the boy struggled. The net could stay, but she’d slacken the cords a little; if Mitch played with puppeteers he should expect strings.
Would she enjoy having him dance to her tune? Phos paused. Had Rastersen become Rastersen by wanting others to obey? Would she end up hurling out needless orders to earn the same reaction? And how many times had Rastersen burbled about a link between them? She damped Mitch’s green webbing into a dim glimmer.
Phos stepped back. ‘Get up.’
The boy paused before drawing his knees to his chest and rolling to one side. The floor clanged under his feet, and he faced her with hunched shoulders.
‘Walk towards me.’
One step, and another, and another – was he smiling? His eyes met hers before twitching away.
‘Keep going, Mitch.’ Phos brightened the webbing, and his suit stiffened to send him toppling forward.
‘You wanted me to share learning, Mitch, and there’s your lesson – your suit is mine. Yes, you can notice things, and yes, you can come with me, but cross me again, and you’ll hit the ground – gravity is a bitch.’
Mitch struggled up and scowled before sitting beside Frinelia, and Phos grimaced back. With practice, she might shape his suit into new forms and watch him wince, but she should stop herself climbing the stair; Mitch could walk in front, but she’d also watch herself.
‘We climb, and talk with Christina,’ Phos said.
‘More climbing.’
‘Everything gets older as we climb.’
‘Am I speaking to Phos, or Phos’s curiosity?’
‘We’ll face storms of questions when we re-enter the Second, so we need answers. Where did the builders come from, and is Christina telling us everything?’ Phos picked her way around the torn metal cluttering the floor and stroked Frinelia’s shoulder. ‘Will you come?’
‘I can’t run again, Phos.’
‘We’ll help and we’ll go slow.’
‘No, I can’t leave. This is where my anger stops. Revenge is a wild beast I’ve ridden for too long; I’ve seethed and fought when I should have listened, and it stops here. I’ll spit out my regret.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Frinelia clutched Phos’s hand. ‘You’re young; you won’t know the words, but our customs cover a child’s death. The mother stands watch beside the body for a full day.’
‘“Staying to ease the passing,”’ Phos said. ‘“Staying to let the silent know they are loved, and to bring peace to the speaking. The passing of the days will bring an easing of the pain to hold the passing years in their courses.”’
‘You know the words.’
‘I’ve read the words of passing, but I’m not sure I know them, not as you do.’
‘My daughter, Phos, my reason to live. Her last breath lingered on my cheek for an eternity, but when her eyes stilled, I couldn’t look at her face: my trust in the church meant I’d failed her, and I couldn’t give her watch. They buried her without me while I buried myself in work, and it took me years to scrape together enough strength to visit her grave.’
Frinelia stared upward.
‘Part of me wanted to strike the church that day, but I knew time would sharpen my anger. I controlled my fury. Each day, I learned more of the church’s ways, and each day, I won more power. I told myself stories of a day of revenge, a day drawing closer with each heartbeat. But I paused. I lingered and dallied and found excuses. I told myself I needed more strength and one more exploit. I waited until my hair turned grey and my skin wrinkled, and still I waited even as our world withered.’
Frinelia tottered to Caliper’s body. She bent and sat beside his head, and her fingers stroked his helmet. ‘I’d have delayed forever if Caliper hadn’t appeared. He destroyed his home and risked torture because he loved, so why did I loiter? He shamed me into action: a miller showed strength when priests failed.’
She threaded her fingers between his. ‘He wasn’t what I planned, but he was what I needed, and I must let the silent know they are loved. Caliper isn’t my son, but he brought me life and let me act, and now he’s with my daughter.’
A few steps carried Phos towards Caliper’s body. His expression stayed set under glass, his eyes open as if searching.
Frinelia bent her head. ‘I’ll stand watch with him; it may be enough to still my anger. Keep talking with Christina, Phos, and find your world seed.’
‘What do we take?’
‘Leave it to me,’ Mitch said. ‘You never know until you lack.’
Phos reached inside her backpack for her ruined doll – a memory wrapped in frayed linen. She placed it on Caliper’s chest and took three steps back before pausing.
‘We’ll not go far, Frinelia. We’ll find a small room where we can change out of our suits, and we’ll find you. We’ll rest before we re-enter the First.’
‘Would anything keep you here, Phos? Even if I recounted stories of dangers above?’
‘No one’s been past this point for thousands of years, and if I’d always taken the safe path, we’d never have met.’
Frinelia nodded. ‘Knowledge is the only thing we ever truly own, and if you seek more learning, you’re right to voyage further. Take care, Phos.’
Phos embraced Frin
elia before walking with Mitch into the corridor behind the stage. She paused and looked back at the wrecked platform and its torn metal sheets. Frinelia’s hunched figure nestled beside Caliper’s body, a mute end to their conversation. This parting meant she’d have to survive without Frinelia’s wisdom and without Caliper’s strength.
Chapter 27: numbers as high as you like
Mitch strode into the shadowed corridor behind the stage. She caught up and her suit lights blinked on. This floor sounded hollow, a wafer-thin bridge over unseen space. It creaked and swayed under their feet, and her lights skittered over the gaping holes piercing the corroded floor. Empty spaces yawned each side as their walkway became a ribbon bridging a black gulf, and rusty poles stabbed the bridge’s edges – too far apart to stop humans tumbling into the darkness. Mitch grabbed a pole and leaned over the edge.
‘I didn’t bring a rock. Do you have one, or can you shine your lights?’
‘Aren’t your suit lights working?’
‘You’ve got the touch, Phos.’
‘Here.’ Her hands snaked across his waist as her mind brushed the filaments weaving through his suit. A simple tweak flooded his helmet with light.
‘Stop it.’
‘Stop squirming.’ Metal creaked underfoot as Mitch bucked back, but she dimmed his glowing lights.
‘Can’t see much,’ Mitch said, and Phos pointed ahead.
The metal ribbon screeched as they walked. Phos remembered playing with egg shells, but ahead the walkway slotted back inside a corridor. Fog licked at holes in the walls, and smaller walkways branched left and right to create pools of darkness that swallowed her light. She had Mitch walk ahead.
‘Watch for holes in the floor.’
‘We continue?’
‘No other choice.’
Shadows danced ahead as their lights caught tears in the walls; buckled sheets of rusted iron thrust jagged edges into their walkway. Time had bitten metal from the path’s left-hand side to leave a ten-inch-wide strip of pitted floor above the blackness, and Phos took the lead with Mitch clasping her shoulder. Beyond, the path emerged into a colossal space, a bloated version of Morzenthal’s arena.
Remote walls of tarnished silver circled them as if they’d stumbled into the bottom of a mile-wide well. The floor was a buckled, rust-stained disc, and five caves dotted the walls like shadowy pools. Gloom shaded the far sides. Hundreds of yards above, a dark circle gobbled their suits’ lights.
Phos edged forward onto the disc. Centuries past, an immense column had crashed to stamp a chasm into the iron. Her helmet showed twisted wheels tangled with cables below – damage enough to stop their journey.
Mitch kept clutching her shoulder. ‘Even for builders this place is huge, but does this chamber touch the surface?’
‘Hope so, but I’m not sure how we climb.’
Parallel lines scraped the rust, cart tracks, but any cart would be twenty feet wide. She imagined monstrous horses hauling immense carts, but this world forged weapons from rock and boats from thinking sand, so she needed fresh thoughts. The far wall was twenty minutes’ walk away, and wheeled boxes sat where wall met disc.
Her suit twitched, and her helmet rushed her vision forward. Phos staggered but stayed upright; now she seemed to hover a hundred yards from the carts. Their wheels sagged as if they’d melted over the floor, and dents covered the sides, but iron chairs still studded the topsides and waited for builders.
‘This disc lifted heavy machinery, but those carts shunted light loads.’
‘Wonderful, Phos, but look again at the floor. Who made those footprints?’
Weren’t those rust patterns random? No. Mitch’s finger pointed out a blurred lane winding into a cave, a route worn by ghosts from past centuries. Her suit etched faint lines above the cave entrance – a narrow tube skulked behind the wall.
‘There’s a tiny shaft inside the entrance, which might help us climb.’
Scars ran across the wall, and faded signs she couldn’t read plastered her helmet as she studied the entrance. They shuffled over the battered metal until they reached the cave. Inside sat a tunnel with a gentle incline and rough chiselled walls. The passage ended in a grey iron door scrawled with faded yellow letters. A central wheel invited her hands. It resisted for a moment before grating into a reluctant rotation, and the door scraped open one inch.
‘We’re going the right way.’ Phos and Mitch pulled, and red triangles splurged over her visor as the door jammed into the ground. She gritted her teeth, and her suit gripped her arms to lend her strength. Vibration hummed through her hands, and one final tug burst the door open.
They’d found a tiny cell with walls made from woven metal. Someone had escaped from the inside by heaving apart the walls. Buttons covered one side; not the cube’s glowing icons but discoloured paintings daubed onto yellowed squares. She looked up, and images of cables trickled over her visor.
Phos stroked a square but felt nothing. She pushed harder, the square shunted back, and their door snicked shut. Four more pokes did nothing, but she pressed the topmost picture, and their cell scraped against the metal outside. New red triangles sprang onto her helmet as they rose.
Mitch crashed against her. His arms skated over her chest, and Phos toppled against a wall and raised her hands – was he stealing skills? She stared, and his eyes glinted for a heartbeat before a sheepish grin soaked his face.
‘Crowded in here, isn’t it?’ He backed off, and his hands sank back to his sides. Phos checked his webbing; nothing seemed askew, but she watched his hands – one of Rastersen’s exploits might linger in his suit. Their cell jerked and paused before crawling higher, and metal scraped metal as the buckled cell walls scoured the shaft.
‘Up again – isn’t variety fun?’ Mitch said. ‘Why not use Morzenthal’s blue light?’
‘Builders made this first and learned more as they dug. Their world was dying, and getting in trouble teaches more.’
‘That’s why you always kicked off at school.’
The box rasped against the shaft again, and Phos’s teeth ached from the shaking. Their walls wouldn’t answer her suit’s threads; nanotech bathed the First, but this machinery had a morgue’s quiet. Nudity didn’t bother her, but this silence meant nakedness. If it stopped here, she’d be trapped with this boy and those hands.
Fog clotted across Mitch’s face, and he flapped his arms as cloudy streamers followed his fingers. Frost pricked her neck, and breathing pulled frozen daggers into her throat, but Phos’s visor threw new symbols before her eyes, warnings of scalding heat outside her suit, hot as any forge. The cloud hid Mitch, and her fingers burned with frost.
Why was her suit freezing? Was it hearing lies? The fabric should fit the outside temperature – she’d seen the mechanisms, and she’d nudged Caliper’s suit into matching the map room’s chill – but this writhing fog confused it, and spots of heat blistered her back. Phos couldn’t avoid the fog, but she could make things simpler and tell her suit to overlook the outside and stop trying to adapt. Her helmet whirred as warmth slunk through her limbs, and Mitch shivered at her touch.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Your suit thinks this fog is white-hot when it isn’t.’
Their helmets touched, and her hands circled his waist again. Her thoughts lingered in his suit as she reset his heating. She checked his webbing, still untouched, but bile surged in her throat.
‘You’ll survive.’
The fog drained through the door, and her whole suit swelled to constrict her body. The rasping sound faded even though their cell still climbed - had her suit gone deaf? The box doddered to a halt, and Mitch faced Phos.
‘Will the door open?’
She pressed a button, but nothing happened. She stabbed each picture, but the box stayed dead.
‘Fancy brute force?’
Phos stuck her boot against the far wall and set her back against the door. She strained as Mitch pushed alongside. The wall buckled, but their
door shuddered open three inches, and a final heave bought space to squeeze out.
Her suit lights shone over a vast circular room with a domed ceiling. Rows of desks had lined the walls, but chaos had scattered the tables and chairs, and broken glass littered the floor. A black slab perched on a desk, while others had fallen and splintered, and wires trailed over the frost covered floor. Time had peeled panels from the walls to expose segments of glittering machines. Scraps of paper clung to the slabs and desks.
Mitch’s words broke the silence. ‘Can we raise Christina?’
Phos called but heard nothing. She prodded a black slab, but her threads slid through it. She lumbered forward and found a new gait to handle her swollen suit, and symbols swam across her helmet. The symbol for air bumped into the symbol for nothing.
‘There’s no air,’ Phos said.
‘There’s always air – you can’t have no air.’
‘Does the fog hold it back?’
‘It’s hard to test for no air, and no, I won’t undo my helmet.’
Phos had felt weight waiting to crush her in Morzenthal’s underground. Walls still enveloped her, and her suit still swaddled her body, but now a sense of release fluttered inside her chest, like the joy you’d feel in a freshly unchained dog.
No windows anywhere; the dark blue ceiling curved gently, but she imagined panic-fed builder people gouging strips from the wall panels. Phos strolled past an upturned desk and stepped onto a pair of bodies. She gasped but Mitch stayed silent. Taller than any human, builders wearing bleached overalls; their facial skin had stretched and dried, though their hands touched to form a caress lasting through dark centuries. The man was bald, but grey hair still curled across the woman’s face.
‘They’re not wearing suits, so there was air here once,’ Mitch said.
Phos held her breath and stepped over the man’s legs. Ahead, ice-covered metal ribbons and wires spilled from the walls to fray into a thousand threads. Two huge doors stood to the side, and she ran her hands over the left-hand door and tapped the metal to learn its thickness. It teetered, and she lurched back as it toppled away to slam against the ground.
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