by Gage Lee
Worst of all, though, were the pale, wan faces of Samara and Augustus. A cursory examination of their channels showed me horrible burn damage. Black lines radiated from their cores like threads of rot in a tree trunk.
“How can I help them?” I asked quietly, struggling to keep my tone steady. The urge to hack Tycho in half with my fusion blade was overwhelming. If I’d been farther along in my quest, I wouldn’t have hesitated to end all this. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to go outlaw just yet.
The sage paused for a moment, his eyes flickering across my aura, then locked gazes with me. I didn’t know if he’d seen something suspicious or if I’d only imagined the pause. Had I cleared the anger aspects out of my aura in time?
“I’m afraid these students may have overexerted themselves again,” Tycho said with a tsk. His bald head gleamed in the overhead lights, and his serpentine eyes flickered between me and his clan members. The way the patients avoided my eyes after that warned me that the sage was keeping secrets. If he thought I knew them, I’d be in a world of hurt.
“I see,” I said, frowning. I stepped back from the table and gestured for Tycho to join me away from the other students. He rolled his eyes, but floated over to me. “Is there somewhere we can talk? In private?”
“What is the problem?” Tycho asked in a low voice.
“I’d rather not discuss the patients’ issues in front of them,” I said. “It might worry them, and that will make it more difficult for me to complete their treatment.”
Tycho considered my words, then nodded and glided toward the back of the room. He opened the door that had always been locked and gestured for me to enter. “Please don’t touch anything. The equipment in this area is very delicate.”
My shoes clicked against the polished tile floor beyond the door, echoes bouncing off the low ceiling and stark white walls. Tycho sealed the door behind us and floated ahead of me, not even bothering to look back to make sure I was following him.
As we headed down the corridor, it shifted like the School’s hallways. My ears popped, as if we’d just dramatically changed elevation, and my sense of balance felt off-kilter. The bite of antiseptic seeped into my nostrils, and my muscles tensed at the memories of the time I’d spent with the Inquisitors. I imagined Rachel trapped in this place, a victim of Tycho’s experiments, and the urge to smash the sage’s face intensified.
Tycho drifted to a stop, and I joined him in a small room lined with tall glass tubes filled with bubbling fluid. Each of the containers was as tall as I was, and the stands that supported them added a few feet to their height. Thin wires ran up from the bottom of each tube and were connected to bits of glass and metal bobbing in the translucent liquid.
A spherical metal case occupied the center of the room. It was five feet in diameter and rested atop a six-inch-thick obsidian slab. Copper tubes ran out of the bottom of the slab and connected to each of the containers around the room’s perimeter. Something about this chamber was familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what.
“What is this place?” I asked.
Tycho made an offhand gestured toward the chair across the room, and it floated over and landed in front of me. He crossed his legs, hovered in midair, and nodded toward the chair. “Take a seat, Jace. This conversation is long overdue.”
That didn’t sound good. I sat down and braced myself for whatever Tycho had to say.
“You’ve been very busy this year,” Tycho said. “What is it you hope to accomplish?”
This line of questioning took me off guard. In my heart, I’d known the sages and dragons would eventually figure out I was up to something. But Tycho had seemed happy enough that I kept his little project running and money flowing into his pockets to overlook my shenanigans. If I’d misjudged his interest, though, I was in deep trouble.
The weight of the sage’s attention bore down on me as I gathered my thoughts, prying, eager to get at my secrets.
A few weeks ago, he’d have cracked my mind open like an oyster and scooped out the pearl of my thoughts. But I was no longer a mere student. My venerable core was only one level lower than his. I pushed back against Tycho’s intrusion, and his eyes widened.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, quickly and efficiently cycling the aspects that might reveal deception from my aura. “I come here and work with you, I go to my classes, and that’s it. I don’t have time for anything else.”
The sage clasped his hands in his lap and nodded. “Then you weren’t responsible for that power flare on the Far Horizon?”
That question rattled me, and I struggled to keep the worry out of my aura. “Of course not,” I said. “How would I even get out there when the portal network is locked down for students?”
Tycho glided away from me, his legs still folded in a sitting position. He stopped in front of one of the tubes, his eyes fixed on the floating baubles and the wires attached to them. “The Grand Design is a truly impressive piece of work, isn’t it?”
The sage’s sudden topic shift threw me off balance for a beat. He was fishing for something, and if I wasn’t careful, he’d catch it.
“I guess,” I said, gathering my thoughts. “I don’t know that much about it.”
A deep breath cycled the deception out of my aura. Tycho wasn’t looking at me, but he was skilled enough to sense aspects at this close range. Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed my blatant lie.
“It’s in a state of flux right now,” Tycho continued. “Someone has tampered with the Empyrean Flame. We’ve traced the roots of these changes back to the blinding of the Seers.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feigning ignorance. “But I have no idea what any of that means.”
Tycho chuckled, a sound like oil oozing down a half-clogged drain. “It means reality is tearing itself into two different versions of the same thing.”
He tapped his knuckle against the tube’s glass and the floating metal shards suddenly jerked as if jolted by a blast of electricity.
“It means someone wants to change our world. The other sages and I have worked diligently to stop that.” Tycho pressed his palm flat against the glass. “These machines are part of that protection.”
Tycho peered intently at the tube’s contents. Their bobbing no longer seemed random. Each of the pieces of metal and glass shivered independently, as if terrified of the man standing outside their container.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “The reason I wanted to talk to you was because I’m worried about your clanmates. The damage they’ve sustained—”
“Is none of your concern,” Tycho said, his voice suddenly harsh. “They exist to serve my needs. The needs of the clan. And I need them to continue with the protocols I’ve developed.”
Tycho seemed distracted, agitated. He drifted towards another vessel, stared at it for a moment, then turned back to me. “Rachel and the others are part of the project to maintain the Grand Design in its current configuration. Their sacrifice stabilizes reality.”
Tycho’s words sent a chill down my spine. My thoughts raced to place the pieces he’d just laid out into the puzzle the Empyrean Flame had given me.
The sages had used my friends to create a divergence in the Design so Tycho and the other sages could maintain their hold on power. But how would damaging his clanmates help further his plan?
I couldn’t see the logic in it.
“None of that makes any sense,” I said honestly. “If you keep pushing your subjects, some of them will die.”
Tycho steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Their sacrifices will ensure the continuity of Empyreal society. The seers have seen how this plays out, Jace. My project comes to fruition. The Design stabilizes. Our enemies are defeated.”
Those last four words were aimed squarely at me. He peered into my eyes as he said them, and I felt the tentacles of his attention trying to worm past my defenses.
Tycho’s technique was powerful, but he wasn’t
used to dealing with others so near his strength. I imagined walls slamming closed around my mind and rejected his probing advances.
“And what if I stop treating your patients?” I asked. “I can’t stand by while you murder a bunch of kids.”
Tycho gave me a tooth-baring smile. “That is not an option. You’ve come a long way, Mr. Warin, but don’t presume to challenge me on this, or anything else. I have the authority to make your life extremely unpleasant. And if you have any foolish ideas about exposing my plan... to whom would you tell your little tale?”
The sage was right. The only powers greater than the sages were the Consul Triad, and Tycho had a relative embedded in that body. The Scaled Council might be able to put a stop to the insanity, but they’d likely start a war doing it, and that was even more insanity.
There was no one for me to go to that Tycho couldn’t shut down. My best option was to gather as much information as possible and use it to gut him like a fish when the time came.
If the time came.
“That’s all these tubes are in here?” I asked, turning the conversation away from my punishment. “Bits and pieces of machinery that help you see the future?”
Tycho laughed. “You of all people should know better. They don’t see the future. They are the future.”
A dark tremor ran through my thoughts. This sounded far too much like something my mother would’ve said. Tycho was insane. He’d risked everything to remain a sage. Even if that meant tampering with the Grand Design and upending everything the Flame stood for.
“You are using Machina,” I said quietly. “That’s what your protocols do. You’re trying to create a new generation of hollows.”
Tycho’s smirk faded a bit, and he gave me a slow, sarcastic clap. “Look at you,” he said. “So smart. And yet, so wrong. I learned my lesson, Jace. Working with your mother and the others on the Eclipse Project was only the beginning of my plan. I have no more use for hollows. This new phase is more stable, more predictable. More obedient.”
I activated the Vision of the Design, not to anticipate Tycho’s movements, but to see the truth surrounding me. Two black threads of fate led away from each of the bits of glass and metal floating in the tanks. At first I thought they were the usual strands that emanated from inanimate objects. But I soon realized that wasn’t true. They were too powerful for that, too alive.
There were people, or what was left of people, in those tanks.
My stomach lurched as I realized what he’d done. The machine at the heart of the chamber was the same one that had created hollows by splitting cores. Tycho had twisted even its dark use. It no longer sliced cores in half. It took pieces out of them. Pieces that now hovered in the tanks around me.
The damage I’d seen in the patients was caused by vast amounts of jinsei shoved into them to heal their cores so they could be used again. And as Tycho added more cores to his machines, he’d gain greater and greater influence over the Design.
“This is monstrous,” I murmured.
Tycho smiled and glided down to face me. He put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a squeeze, his fingers digging into my skin. “No, Jace,” he said, “this is beautiful. I’ve worked toward this for centuries. It’s finally in my grasp. Help me save the world. We’re so close.”
Tycho’s eyes burned into mine with a fanatic’s zeal. I was shocked to see he truly believed his feet were on a righteous path. A cold weight of fear and loathing settled in my stomach.
“You can’t defy the Flame,” I said. “You’re only human, Tycho. For all your power, for everything you know, you can’t control everything. You’ll make mistakes, then everything will fall apart.”
Tycho drifted back from me and folded his arms across his chest. He didn’t look angry, just disappointed. “That’s what you don’t understand, Jace. The Flame created a destiny for everyone. But is that really the best for mortals? Taking away our free will doesn’t make us any better than slaves. That’s what I want to change.”
Hearing my own thoughts spilling from Tycho’s mouth made me wonder if I’d made a terrible mistake. I agreed with what he said. People should be allowed to choose their own destiny. No one should be tied to an unchanging fate that they don’t understand or want.
But there was a critical difference between Tycho and me. “You don’t want people to be free to choose. You want to choose for them. You’re a tyrant, Tycho, not a liberator.”
“You’re wrong,” Tycho said. “Mortals need shepherds. The sages will provide guidance and ensure the world operates in a safe and orderly manner. That is our highest calling, our most sacred duty.”
Arguing with Tycho would get me nowhere. He was locked into his vision of how things should be, and no argument from me would change his mind. What the sage wanted was to be at the top of the heap, and his mind would twist itself in knots to make that seem like a righteous and just goal.
I couldn’t defeat him here, but I could gain ammunition to use against him. The longer he talked, the more I learned.
“Why show this to me?” I asked.
Tycho floated above the machine at the heart of the chamber. He raised his hands to the ceiling and looked up as if searching for divine guidance. When he looked down at me, his eyes glowed with a fervor I’d never seen before. This was the real Tycho, the zealot chasing a dream of divinity into the jaws of an inferno of his own making.
“I wanted you to know what was at stake. I felt your doubt, Jace. Fighting you has caused us both a great deal of pain in the past.” Tycho looked down at me with a strange mixture of sadness and pride stamped into his features. “I hoped if you understood what I intended, if you truly comprehended how close we were to success, you’d work with me. There’s a place for you in the world that’s coming. All you have to do is accept it.”
My skin crawled at the thought of that future. I’d caught a glimpse of myself as a dictator, and it had soured me on the idea of ruling forever. I wasn’t fit to pick my own clothes, much less someone else’s life.
But I couldn’t let Tycho see that. He needed me, but the sage wouldn’t let anyone endanger the plan burning in his heart. My only way out of here was to convince him I’d at least consider his offer.
“I don’t know if I can do what you want,” I said with a heavyhearted sigh and downcast eyes. It was critical that Tycho believe I could be convinced, but it wouldn’t be easy. If he suspected I was playing him, he’d come up with some way to force me to obey.
“All I require is that you continue to keep my students—scratch that—my clanmates operational,” he said, as if discussing machines in need of repair.
Tycho watched me carefully, searching for signs of deception in my aura. I tried to come up with a lie that would convince him I was on his side, something that would get me close enough to the inner circle to destroy him and his allies.
But the sage was smarter than that. I had to give him the truth.
“I don’t believe in what you’re doing,” I said. “But I won’t let those kids die. Promise me you’ll do everything you can to save their lives, and I’ll do the same. But if any of them die, the deal’s off.”
Tycho glared at me, but didn’t say a word. Long seconds ticked past as he weighed my words against his plans. He knew he couldn’t trust me, but that was old news. If I’d suddenly become a true believer, he’d have become wary of me. Defiance served my interests better here.
“Very well,” Tycho said. “But know that I’ll be watching you. Step out of line, oppose my goals, and the punishment will be severe.”
“I understand,” I said.
As Tycho led me back to his laboratory, I did my best to remain calm. I was running out of time. He was close to finishing his project, and if he anchored the Design before I could, the world was doomed to an eternity under his heel.
“Oh,” the sage said, his voice suddenly cheerful. “You should know that Rachel will be traveling to a secure location after today’s treatment. Somewhere she’ll
be safe. Remember that before you try anything stupid.”
The Temple
I WENT THROUGH THE rest of that day distracted and confused. Every procedure took longer to complete than necessary, and I had to repeat the process to get patients in good enough shape to go back to class. The combination kept me working long into the night, until my eyes burned and my core felt like someone had taken a sandblaster to it.
“You seem troubled,” Hahen said after the last patient had left. “What happened between you and Tycho?”
Spilling my guts to my mentor would have felt good. But unburdening myself on Hahen wouldn’t have helped. If anything, knowing the truth about Tycho would endanger the rat spirit.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. “Tycho is so sure he’s doing the right thing, that the Empyrean Flame has been wrong all this time. But I can’t believe this entire quest has been a wild goose chase.”
My words weren’t the whole truth, but they encapsulated the internal argument I’d had with myself. Things would be so much simpler if Tycho was right. My work with him would provide security for me and my friends, even if the rest of the world turned into a despotic cesspool.
Fighting the sages might bring on a better world.
It might also kill me and everyone I loved.
“You should go see Abi,” Hahen said. “Perhaps he can guide you to the peace you so desperately need. At the very least, the mountain air will help clear your thoughts.”
“Not today,” I said. “I’m too wiped out to use the Gate of the Design. I’ll end up in the bottom of a volcano. Or worse.”
But the days kept ticking past, each one worse than the last. The flow of patients through Tycho’s laboratory became an endless tide of misery. There were new students and old ones, all of them looking at me with desperate eyes begging for help.
It broke my heart that the best I could do was patch them up and send them back for more torture. But, at the same time, I wasn’t helpless. Too exhausted to go see Abi, I still moved forward on my plans, a little each day.