Where?
To one of their illicit hideouts, surely. Kidnapping was nothing new for the Machine, even if their motive in this instance was different from what it usually was.
Shirri’s legs buckled again, and she stumbled, catching herself on the remains of the couch. It creaked, the broken wood buckling, and she barely avoided a tumble into one of the piles of her sundered possessions. They were few, but those few had been precious, mementos …
And now they were gone. Like Mother.
Despair rolled down upon her like black thunderclouds, and Shirri stayed there, uneven, bent almost double. Her hand lay on that broken couch, though it offered no support. It was like her life here—empty, save for Mother. And now …
Now here she was, the Machine after her … and Mother was gone.
“What am I going to do?” she asked herself, though a tingling on the back of her scalp told her she already knew the answer.
She let out another long sigh. Those fools, then. The ones from the alleyway, the ones idiotic enough to interpose themselves between her and the Machine. No one who knew better would have dared.
But they’re not what they seem. This was firm, like conviction, in her mind. That man in black is not …
He can’t be.
“But maybe they could … help,” she whispered to the empty apartments.
It was as thin a hope as any she’d ever hung on, but somehow that faint wisp—like smoke from a fire long put out—got her to remove her unsteady hand from the wreckage of the couch, and place one foot in front of the other, up the stairs and back out into Reikonos, carrying her on unsteady legs back from whence she’d just come, seeking that faintest of hopes.
For it was all she had left.
7.
Cyrus
Cyrus’s breaths came in gasps, his wind having left him in the last exertions. His legs were splayed across the bed, his skin covered in perspiration, his long hair draped over the pillow which rested a few inches above his head. When they had finished, he had not quite managed to crawl back up to lay his crown upon it, instead collapsing where he was, his bride tucked against his side, her own head resting upon his chest as it rose and fell.
“That was … as good as any of our times in the old world,” Cyrus said, breaths still shallow. “Better, even, for being so long in the coming.”
“Yes,” Vara said, “it’s almost as though you’ve had none of this sort of companionship since your wife died.” She spoke with ringing irony, her eyes facing up, the beams hanging above them in the tower room. She reached a hand down and tweaked him, making him jump slightly. “Why, if one didn’t know better, I might say you’ve been entirely celibate for a thousand years and more, dear sir.”
“Oh, don’t pretend as though I were doing anything after your ‘death’ but pining for you and orchestrating revenge,” Cyrus said, brow puckering.
“So you told me in our ethereal interlude,” she said, strangely quiet. “But you also told me that Administrator Tiernan was possessed of a desire to—”
“She might have been possessed of it,” Cyrus said, trying to close this door before it opened too far and a titan came strutting out for a fight, “but I was not.”
“Hm,” Vara said. She didn’t seem impressed by his denial. “You are a strange man, then, not to find yourself possessed of fleshly desire in the absence of—well—in absence.”
“I don’t think I was possessed of much but a mourning spirit at that point,” Cyrus said, pulling her closer, his fingers brushing against the smooth flesh of her ribs as he dragged her up for a kiss. She did not protest, meeting his lips with equal pressure. “Surely you would have felt the same, had our roles been reversed,” he said once they’d parted.
“Hmm … perhaps,” she said, low and steady. “I would have mourned for an appropriate amount of time, given that we’d been together for two years before said event. I think at least a few days of grieving would have been in order before moving along.”
“A few days—” He started to rise, and caught a glimpse of the puckish smile ghosting her lips. “Oh, you devil—”
She laughed, leaning down to kiss him once more as she rose. He watched her in her nakedness as she froze, sitting on the side of the bed. “… Did you leave the door wide open?”
“Hm?” Cyrus sat up; down in the pit beneath the stairs that led out of the tower room, the door hung wide on its hinges. “Oops.”
“And the balconies thrown wide, no less,” she said, frowning as a breeze whipped through, stirring the curtains. There was little but a view of glowing lights to the horizon, city towers with lanterns in them in the distance to be seen, but nonetheless … “Anyone could have heard our … carrying on.”
“Well, I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did,” Cyrus said, settling back and dragging himself up to his pillow. It was soft, yet firm enough to allow his neck some rest. His body felt slack, the tension all bled out by battle and … this. He drew another deep breath and it flowed out, leaving him resting in comfort.
“I doubt it,” Vara said, frowning as she pulled the sheet around her and passed through the balcony curtains, into the darkness beyond. The sheet trailed behind her like a dress’s train.
“Where are you going?” Cyrus asked, watching her thin figure through the shears.
“I want to see this new world with my own eyes,” she called back. “To look upon it from above, not below, in that dark alley. I want to see what it’s become.”
Cyrus got up, the feather bed giving as he pushed against it. He poked his head through the curtains after her, and once he was satisfied that no one had an immediate view of them, he trailed after her, placing himself at her back, leaning against her thin figure as she leaned into the stone railing. “And what do you see?” he asked, kissing her neck.
“Smoke,” she said, pinching her nose with one hand and keeping the sheet snug about her with the other.
Cyrus sniffed. A sulphuric smell like rotten eggs filled the air, different than the simple stink of the open sewers and cast-off chamberpots of Reikonos of old. Chimneys belched black clouds, blotting out the sky, and another of those flying ships passed overhead a few miles to his left, churning through the air toward some distant point by the waterfront.
“Truly?” Cyrus asked, letting his nose remain unclasped. He would adjust to the stink, he was sure; he certainly had with the pungent aroma of Old Reikonos. Surely the new was not that different. Time and exposure would do the trick, but he had to gut it out in the meantime.
“Yes, I truly see smoke,” Vara said dryly, not bothering to turn around. She did, however, unclasp her nose. “I expect that unless your Eagle Eye spell has worn off, you would see it, too.”
“I do see the smoke,” he said, staring into the haze of the distance. “But I also see … familiar sights.” He pointed around her to the Citadel, standing tall in the center of the city. “And new … wonders,” he shifted his finger to the airship chugging along in the distance. He let his gaze fall to where it should be—ah, there it was. “And the places of old.”
She followed his pointed finger. “Reikonos Square. It’s still there.”
“Indeed,” Cyrus said. “But so much else has changed …” He let his finger drift over the horizon, the buildings so different in their jumbled arrangements than how they had looked in his day. “You know, I think we’re not far from the old markets.”
“Indeed,” Vara whispered. She shivered, and he could feel her back move subtly against his chest.
“You’re thinking of Isabelle, aren’t you?” Cyrus asked.
“She could—and should—still be alive,” Vara said with a sigh. “Though it’s doubtful she is here in Reikonos if what you said about her when last you saw her was true.”
“I think she’d left Endeavor for good,” Cyrus said. “She was living in your parents’ house in Termina when last I met her. It was a brief encounter, and I was … out of sorts, but I doubt she came back here.”
“You probably have the right of it,” Vara said. “She was always more connected to the family than I was. To lose our parents, and then me … I doubt it was easy for her after that.”
“I expect not,” Cyrus said, pressing closer to her. “Perhaps we can go see her.” He hesitated. “Is it just her you’re curious about out there?”
“No,” Vara said quietly. “When we were in that alleyway, one of those idiots said that there wasn’t an elven kingdom anymore. It makes me curious … about the state of things west of the Perda. Of how my people are doing.”
“But there wasn’t a kingdom before we left,” Cyrus said. “We saw to that, remember?”
“It would be difficult to forget,” she said, turning her gaze away. “But nonetheless, I wish to know—was the curse of our kind broken with the death of Bellarum? Do my people have a viable state … or …” and here she looked at him again, and there was a dark hesitation behind her eyes, “… did losing me actually cost them their last hope?”
“I’m sure they’re fine. The elves are a resilient people. But we’ll have to go, of course. See for ourselves.” His eyes drifted across the horizon to where the airship moved in the shadows, the torches on its deck making it easy for him to follow, its outline shadowed against the clouds of black smoke that hung hazy over the city. “On one of those. You know, once we’ve gotten the lay of the land here.”
“Or we could teleport,” Vara said. “Provided it still works. Personally, I wouldn’t care to trust that I could become ethereal on command just yet, should one of those come crashing to the earth with us upon it.”
“Or that we could be resurrected from such a fate,” Cyrus said, frowning. “How do you think it is that magic is so … hobbled in these days?”
“I don’t know.” She leaned back against him, the bare flesh of her shoulders pressing against his chest and causing him to stand just a little straighter in response. “The world seems closed in like the city with these clouds around it. So much is mystery to us. So much remains to be learned about what has changed. So much to be seen.” She rounded on him. “And we shan’t be experiencing it here, in the confines of our bedchamber.”
He paused, eyes flitting about as he searched out a response to that. “No … but … uhm …” Words failed him.
“Come, let us go and see this new world with our own eyes,” she said, brushing past him with a lazy trace of the hands through his chest hair. It tickled, causing him to tense.
“Right now?” he asked as she walked back inside leaving him exposed to the world. He followed after, a few steps behind, his bare arse tensing further as the wind blew through.
“There is no time like the present,” she said, removing the sheet and tossing it back upon the bed as she traced a path back to her armor. She paused there, naked, stiffening as though she could detect some other scent in the air. “Unless you have … some other notion in mind?”
“I’d like to see this new world,” he agreed, doing a little stiffening of his own as he watched her—she was just standing there, and yet … “But …”
She inclined her head slightly, and turned, and he could see the hint of a smile she tried to conceal. A tease, then; she knew what he was thinking. She padded across the floor gracefully, stopping to touch his face with one hand, to give him a long, lovely kiss as she drew his cheek down with it while the other …
Cyrus smiled, then twitched as she found home with it.
When she broke from the kiss, it was to a wide grin. “We shall go and see this new world, then.”
“Sure,” Cyrus said, a little hoarsely, his mind firmly fixed within these walls now.
“In twenty minutes, perhaps,” Vara said, bringing his lips to hers while her other hand … wandered … She broke once more, and now she was grinning. “Maybe thirty,” she said, as he lifted her and she giggled, so very unlike her, at least with anyone else, and they fell back into the bed and left the new world and all its mystery and majesty safely outside, for later.
8.
Vaste
“This new world is simply terrible,” Vaste muttered as he wandered down a street, looking at the buildings. He kept his cowl over his head, shadowing his face and hiding under the eaves. Lamps burned on every corner and he wondered what oil powered them; they didn’t smell like the ones of Old Reikonos, that was certain. These had a stranger scent, more full and slightly less acrid.
Not that there wasn’t stench enough as it was, even by the standards of someone born in the swamps as Vaste had been. Chamberpot leavings still remained in the streets, though now they were more likely to cover cobblestones, like in the elvish cities he’d been to, rather than the dirt that had lined most of the streets in Reikonos and the Human Confederation in his day. There was even an effort to differentiate the road, with its cobbles, from walkways along either side, where pedestrians could move.
No carriages rolled along, not at this hour, and Vaste wondered at that. Old Reikonos ran twenty four hours a day. This new Reikonos though, at least the part he was in, seemed quite asleep now. Perhaps there were markets somewhere still active, but for now he encountered only a few people, all of whom seemed quite content to stay far away from him and his mammoth frame, even hidden as it was under a cloak.
And the way the few people he’d seen had dressed … Gone were the tunics of old. Now most people seemed to wear cloth shirts of the sort worn only by the trendiest types in the days before. He even saw one in some strange suit of black with only a shirt beneath for a white highlight. It made him shudder, some strange association with Cyrus and his armored garb brought to mind. Who else could stomach that much ebony in their wardrobe?
No one. No one save for Cyrus.
The new lamps cast more light. But that wasn’t necessarily to his benefit, Vaste thought as he passed one, feeling exposed under its glow. The shadows were his ally, especially given what he’d heard from that alleyway tough.
“And what the hell are you supposed to be?” he’d asked.
As though he didn’t know what a troll was. Absurd! Who could possibly not know a troll when they saw one …
A nagging feeling in his stomach persisted nonetheless. Reikonos was changed, and change, mysterious as it was, was a form of uncertainty. Uncertainty bred doubt, and doubt had settled in Vaste’s belly like curdled milk. He needed to know the shape of things in order to eliminate it. Perhaps things had just changed too much in the time they’d been gone. He’d known the shape of the world when they’d gone away. Arkaria had been well-defined, clear from corner to corner. All threats were vanquished, all troubles put at end.
But now … now it felt like darkness had crept in like this smoke that lingered overhead and deposited its ash everywhere. There were gangsters in this very city, some mysterious “Machine” that Shirri, the strange human who’d apparently summoned them here, was terrified of. That hadn’t been the state of Reikonos when they’d left. It had its crimes, certainly, but … tyrants run rampant? Hardly.
Now, though …
Vaste slowed as a square loomed ahead. Statues rose over the buildings that seemed to grow taller the closer he got to it. He could see the road detour in a wide circle around it. It was not Reikonos Square, but some smaller plaza, perhaps what had once been a green for feeding animals. Now the space was taken up by the two statues, stories tall, taller than the buildings around them, which was no mean feat.
He shuffled closer to the sidewalk, peering into the darkness. The right-hand statue held a torch in hand, and wore flowing robes. It was a kingly figure, crowned, and standing almost equal in size to the lefthand figure, which …
Was much more familiar.
The statue was of an armored man, and as Vaste stared up at it, he counted the height—seven, eight stories high. Taller than any of the buildings in old Reikonos, but here it was only slightly taller than those in this area. Others rose in the distance, much higher than this. But here the statues dominated the area. And the armored one
…
It lacked only for a helmet, its long hair, open stance, and sword extended skyward capturing the likeness perfectly.
“Son of a whore,” Vaste breathed, staring at it. Damned if he knew who the cloaked and crowned one on the right was, but this—the armored one? There was no mystery for him there. The face even looked like him—mostly.
It was Cyrus Davidon, in all his glory, staring out over the city of Reikonos—or at least this section of it.
Vaste just stood there, trying to catch his breath, until it soured in his nose, like everything else, and he finally knew how he felt about it.
“To hell with this new world,” he said, not caring if anyone heard him. “I want to go back to the old one, where they worshipped megalomaniacs I could kill without feeling guilty about it.” And with a long sigh, he stared up at the likeness of his friend, wondering what the hell else was wrong with this place that he couldn’t presently see.
9.
Cyrus
“Where did everybody go?” Cyrus asked as he tromped down the narrower staircase, the smaller foyer waiting before him as he rounded the last spiral.
“Perhaps they decided not to wait for us,” Vara said, a step ahead of him. The sweet smell of smoke now permeated the foyer once more; the hearth to their left was burning as they emerged, the pop and crack of the flames casting just enough heat to make Cyrus feel warm in the slightly chill air.
“Or perhaps they simply couldn’t deal with the caterwauling coming from upstairs,” Curatio’s clear voice, tinged with amusement, echoed from the lounge.
Cyrus made his way over to find the healer sitting languidly in a chair. “Apparently you didn’t have a problem with it,” he said.
Curatio merely raised a platinum eyebrow. “I have heard worse. But also better.” The corner of his mouth quirked up in silent judgment. “Vaste, I believe, has gone on.”
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