Part 32 (1/2)
”Give me fifteen minutes.” Wolfram was bent over his staff, an apparition of ruin. ”I'll recover what I can.”
”Belamandris, give the witch five of your Anlki. It will speed things.” Corajidin paused, bent over with pain. Belamandris looked at his father in silence.
”My thanks.” Wolfram limped away with the Anlki in train.
”Father, can you make it to the wind-skiff, or should we arrange-”
”I will not be carried!” Corajidin bristled.
Corajidin heaved himself forward, though his limbs refused to obey as they should. It was strange, the silence, as if the city held its breath. He distrusted quiet. It was where half truths lurked in the gaps between honesty and outright lies.
”Belamandris?” The son looked to the father. ”Have your soldiers start the fires. Keep it simple. Keep it quiet. But make sure this place burns to the ground. Where is Thufan?”
”I gave orders for him to be taken to the skiff.” Belamandris looked to his father where he leaned, wheezing, against the wall. All Corajidin saw was a gold-and-ruby-tinted blur in the darkness as his son came closer.
”Lean on me. I'll see you to where you need to go.”
”What's that?” Hayden asked as they broke into the locked chamber.
The room was broad, with stairs leading up into the rooms above. There were a score more crates, differently sized, many of which had been opened. Books, tablets, sheets of parchment, and vellum were neatly stacked or shelved. The air was dry, though it smelled of old damp and rotten vegetation.
In the middle of the chamber there was a large armillary sphere, taller than a tall man. Wheels within wheels within wheels within wheels of tarnished bronze, bra.s.s, and different colors of gold. It reminded Indris somewhat of the Star Clock, though there was a metal chair suspended in the center, studded with gears and flywheels, cranks and levers. The device was smeared with a crust of old soil. Glyphs marked the interior of each of the wheels at regular intervals. Many of those, too, were caked with dirt and clay. Indris felt the tidal push of disentropy emanating from the artifact. The wheels moved almost imperceptibly of their own accord.
Shar glided ahead, hand extended to touch it. Indris leaned forward to grab her wrist. Shar's yellow eyes widened in surprise, and she scratched the tip of one of her long ears. ”Dangerous, then?”
”I think this may be the Destiny Engine,” Indris warned. ”Or at least most of one. There seem to be parts missing. We need to take this with us.”
”I got no cause to doubt what you say, and I ain't filled with such a curiosity to know more.” Hayden cast a glance around the chamber. ”But we're here for Omen. Besides, I can't fathom how we'd liberate said engine from here even if we wanted to. It's got some size to it.”
”We have to take it with us, secure it, or destroy it,” Indris said firmly. ”There are no other choices! It can't be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.”
”And by wrong you mean-”
”Almost anybody's,” he replied quietly. Destiny Engines were thankfully rare. The only ones he knew of were locked away by the Sq in their vaults in Amarqa, though there was one rumored to exist in the Forbidden City of Qahavel. ”Whoever manages to make the cursed thing work can mine through infinite futures, infinite destinies. To them, anything could be possible.”
”Can we destroy it?” Shar asked.
”Probably, though we'd need to get rid of the Entropic Sumps first and-”
”The second you did that, the witch would be bound to notice and make a fuss,” Hayden finished for him. ”And that would still leave Omen prisoner somewhere.”
”We can come back for this, Indris,” Shar suggested.
The door at the top of the stairs opened suddenly. They looked upward in surprise to see the equally shocked expression on Wolfram's face. A squad of Anlki stood behind the Angothic Witch. Hands flashed to the hilts of weapons.
Indris drew Changeling. Shar drew her serill blade. Hayden raised his rifle. Indris's voice almost broke around the Great Shout- Wolfram's staff struck the ground with a peal of thunder. Fragments of wood rose from the boards. Formed darts. Flew forward- Disentropy fragmented, pulled in different directions by the Entropic Sumps. Indris's shout rumbled into nothing. Wolfram's Thorns of the Ancient Tree fell apart. The two Ilhennim stared at each other for a moment, then Indris bolted up the stairs, Shar by his side.
Wolfram scrabbled backward as he snarled, ”Kill them!”
Hayden's storm-rifle coughed behind them. A bolt struck Wolfram in the shoulder. The witch bellowed in pain. He fell backward, eyes wide with disbelief. The Anlki charged forward, two by two.
Indris swept Changeling low. A savage cut. An Anlki parried. Metal shrieked. The enemy lashed out with his foot. Indris slid sideways. Grabbed the man's ankle. Pulled. The Anlki, overbalanced, fell forward. The storm-rifle fired and his opponent rattled down the stairs, dead. Another took his place.
Shar and Indris wove a glittering web of gla.s.s and steel. A symphony of clas.h.i.+ng weapons filled the chamber. Swords flew. High. Low. Circled. Darted. Were denied. Cuts appeared on arms. Legs. A sword point flicked past to lick Shar's cheek. Indris felt another open the back of his hand.
Another Anlki fell at Indris's feet, throat cut and gus.h.i.+ng. A huge warrior barreled forward. Flesh and steel hammered into Indris like a breaker, lifting him from his feet. Indris part leaped, part fell backward. His heels slipped on one stair. Another. He started to overbalance. The sword of the last Anlki speared toward his abdomen- To be blocked by Shar's slender blade of blue-white gla.s.s. The weapon chimed. Light rippled down its length. Indris fell backward. His back struck the stairs as he rolled painfully downward. He saw the Anlki knock Shar off the top stair with a sweep of his arm. She teetered on the edge, then fell backward onto the hard edges of wood and metal crates.
The Anlki hurtled down the stairs- A blossom of red opened on the Anlki's brow. His body continued to fall forward. Indris scrambled out of the way. The warrior fell to the ground with a crash.
”Big men.” Hayden snorted. He stepped over Indris to where Shar was swearing amid the splinters of broken crates. ”Think they're d.a.m.ned unkillable. Remember Morne Hawkwood at that melee in Somanjara? I always wondered how the man managed to walk away, actual and whole, often as he did.”
”He's b.l.o.o.d.y good at what he does.” Indris groaned as he stood. ”Shar?”
”I'm well enough,” she said as Hayden helped her to her feet. ”Though something softer to land on would've been nice.”
The three companions ran up the stairs to a large room that had been converted to private chambers. A wide bed with yellowed linen dominated one wall; the others were crowded with half-filled bookshelves and scroll nooks. By the looks of it, the room had been partially cleared in a hurry. A trail of blood led across well-worn rugs and out of the room.
”I'm surprised Wolfram fled,” Shar observed.
”Salt-forged steel,” Hayden muttered. ”My last. It were made from one of them Corajidin used to shoot Indris.”
”We've talked about that, haven't we?” Indris said.
Hayden shrugged. ”You're alive, ain't you? The witch is gone. I'd be happy with the outcome, were I you.”
A large canvas sheet obscured several shapes. Hayden ripped the sheet away. Timeworn storm-pistols and storm-rifles, serill armor and weapons, gla.s.s tablets inscribed with delicate Seethe glyphs. There were arabesqued bronze and bra.s.s devices, also the polished kirion and silver clockwork of Avn crafters from the Bright Age of the height of the Awakened Empire.
”Indris!” Shar stood beside the glimmering heart of the Wraithjar. It was clouded jade and emerald green and gold. Tendrils of color and shape undulated across it like an octopus made of light.
”Omen?” Indris asked as he leaned closer. ”Are you there?”
”The witch would try to question me, of this and that and here and then, to find the things he could not be, a shallow shadow of better men.” Omen's voice was sepulchral. ”Of course I am here, Indris. Where else would I be?”
Hayden laughed as he wiped a tear from his eyes. Shar looked askance at the man, lips curved in a smile. ”We'll need to carry him out,” she observed.
”Would you and Hayden please get him out of here?” Indris's voice was bleak. Corajidin must be close. Indris felt the power of the Jahirojin in his bones. Winced at the way it made his hearts beat harder. Though his mind knew he was being manipulated, his soul seemed to not care. Worse, it welcomed the compulsion to do harm. Indris tried to master himself, yet control was elusive. ”There's more I need to do. Corajidin needs to be stopped.”
”Not this time, Indris,” Shar shook her head. She rested a blue-nailed hand on his arm.
”Corajidin and Wolfram can be stopped here. Now. You don't understand what Rosha's Jahirojin compels me to do!”
”Then fight it!” Shar snapped. ”I know you can. We've done what we came to do, which was to save a friend. If that thing in the cellar is what you suspect, it's too dangerous to leave behind, and we can't move it without you. Let the Erebus go! There're many of them and one of you.”
”I am Sq,” Indris stated, as if it was all the explanation necessary.
”You were Sq.” Shar's skin shone like the sun through mist. Her eyes were such a bright citrine they were almost hypnotic. ”A great one. But a better man. And there's no power in the world can make you do other than what you want.”
”The young miss is right, Indris,” Hayden said quietly.
”I've never asked anything of you, Indris,” Shar urged. ”But do this one thing for me? Not for duty, not for honor, not to sell your life to save hundreds. Certainly not to satisfy your cousin's needs. Just do this for me, because your death is more than I could stand.”