CHAPTER TWENTY
Evan
Thursday
6:03 am
40 hours, 46 minutes until the falling
"Why are your fingers bleeding?" Henri said.
"They're fine."
I'd just stepped onto the landing outside the Elusian. Henri's face was inches from mine, our bodies pressed together at the top of the narrow stairs. Holding her torch higher, she peered over my shoulder into the closet. I latched the door behind me. Pushing past, I headed down the stairs. The blackout had lasted six hours this time.
"No, they're not fine." She tried to grab my hand.
I pulled away.
"Forget about it."
Henri clenched her jaw.
I pushed a door open and passed into a wide hall. "What were you doing in her room last night?"
"Whose room?"
"You know who."
"Were you spying on me?"
"No, I just..." The last thing I remember, Henri snuck past me into Pearl's room. I woke six hours later in the Elusian. "Maybe I imagined it."
"Wouldn't be the first time."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Just forget it," Henri said.
"We should check on Pearl." I pictured the faces of Anabelle and the other girls. My eyes burned. "Did you see her rash last night?"
Henri didn't respond.
I gripped her shoulder. "Henri."
"What?"
"Did you see Pearl's skin?"
She pulled away from me. "I didn't see anything."
"What if she has the affliktion?"
Henri walked on. "You think there's some kind of pattern, but there isn't."
"A Rosling has died every night since Sunday."
No response. I imagined gears turning inside her replacing flesh and blood. The thought of wasting the next twelve hours in the Caldroen made me want to punch a hole in the wall. I wondered what would happen if I didn't show up. If I told them I wasn't working ever again. Could Ballard make me work still, or was I stronger than even him? If I practiced sapience, no one could ever make me do anything again.
You could be great, a voice said.
No. I had to resist. I had to slow the falling. But sapience was starting to boil inside me and I was holding the valve shut on the kettle. The pressure pulsed in my blood, my muscles, my brain. The constant migraine and aching and pain caused hallucinations. I thought I saw Little Saye walking through the Elusian this morning. I called to her, but she disappeared.
Henri had gotten ahead of me. I caught up to her. The Caldroen grew near. My stomach twisted. Would we find Pearl's body in the Caldroen? I peered down a shadowed hallway. For a moment, I heard a set of footsteps walking along side us. I felt someone watching.
We turned a corner. The Caldroen's thick iron door lay open at the end of the hall. Six passages like this led into the Caldroen, one on each of the tower's six levels—ten-inch-thick cast-iron doors with spinning combination locks and twenty locking bolts jutted out from all four sides. Mazol said the doors were for keeping the castle secure from explosions in the furnace.
Henri entered first. Her glasses fogged up from the pungent air that roiled inside. She wiped the glasses clear. I stepped over the threshold. Hairs stood up on my arms. Walking to the edge of the third level mezzanine, I leaned out and scanned the room from top to bottom. Nothing. We made our way up three narrow spiral staircases to the top level, careful not to fall through the missing and broken floor grates.
At every turn, I expected to find Pearl, seizing on the ground or foaming at the mouth or still as a limp fish. I made my way to the brass finishing clanker. Limping slowly around the machine, I checked gauges, dials, and levers. Henri stuck the torch in a wall mount. Slumping into a window seat, she stared outside.
When I finished my inspection, I began the eight-step process of cold-starting the clanker. Why hadn't anyone else arrived? The sun would be up soon. I pushed a melanoid button and pumped a foot switch several times. Turning a dial so it pointed to the number fifty, I stomped the foot switch three more times. When I took my finger off the black rubber button, the clanker rattled then sprang to life. Wheels and belts and gears ground against each other. I pushed the dial to seventy. The clanker picked up speed.
The hot belt whirred—oil reserves must be low. I stared up at the long, silver lever high above my head that released more oil from the storage tank. It would be so easy to turn the lever with sapience. And I wanted to.
I glanced at Henri; she wasn't watching. Just one flick with my finger and the lever would point straight up. How I knew this was possible, I couldn't explain. I just knew. Of course, I could accidentally destroy the whole machine if my finger flicked too far. Or strangle Henri if my thumb twitched the wrong direction.
No one would know, a voice said.
The pressure boiled inside me.
It will be our little secret.
I clenched my fingers into a ball. Resist. You have to resist. I yanked a ladder from the wall, leaned it against the clanker. Wrenching the lever, it twisted off in my hand. A bead of oil dripped from the valve.
Hiding the lever behind me, I looked at Henri. She stared out the paned glass, arms wrapped around her knees. I breathed out. She twisted the dusky chain around her ankle, fumbled with the broken vialus base that hung from it. Rain streamed down the glass behind her. Somehow the rain always seemed to make Daemanhur feel even more huge and empty.
Over the rumble of my finisher, something clanked on the far side of the room. My eyes darted around the Caldroen. Nothing. Is paranoia a symptom of going crazy? Tension hung on the air like the smell of rotting meat. I moved toward Henri, sure something watched us from the mist. Henri smiled at me, the curve of her lips tinged with sadness. I saw a vision of gears turning inside her. Mazol stood at her control levers.
I opened my mouth to warn her of the danger I sensed, but stopped. Paranoia, I reminded myself, is surely a sign of insanity. And I was not going crazy. I was getting control. I was beating back the nightmare.
Laughter.
I smiled back at Henri. What a pair we made: a couple of pretenders. A strand of hair fell in front of her eyes. I wished I was close enough to brush it away.
A moment of silence filled the room. Beetles crawled under my skin.
Henri's sad smiled twisted with fear. "Evan, behind you!"
Icy fingers clasped around my ankle. Someone screamed. I fell face first to the platform, knocking the torchlight out of its mount. Darkness swallowed us.
A shadow flew over me. Something crushed my chest. I tried to flip over, but my hands were pinned. Breaking one free, I punched at the sunless mass above me but hit only air. I shoved my knee up. My attacker didn't budge. I reached for the broken lever, but it was inches out of my grasp.
Teeth sank into my shoulder. I yelled. Blood, warm and sticky, pooled beneath me. A glow flickered somewhere. I saw a dripping red mouth. And a mask. Yesler? Feet pounded up the spiral staircase behind us. My eyes blurred.
"Help him," Henri screamed.
Fists pounded my stomach. I curled in pain. "Take it back!" the man on top of me yelled. "I don't want it anymore. Take it back!" The voice sounded familiar, but thick and distorted. The shape was smaller than I thought possible from its weight. My attacker was about the same size as Yesler. Wore a mask like Yesler. But what was the source of his strength? Could he be a sapient?
Ballard appeared, ripping Yesler off of me. I struggled to maintain consciousness. Ballard yelled something. Yesler slipped free. I clasped my bleeding shoulder. One of my eyes swelled. Salty blood ran from my nose into my mouth. My head pounded as the room came back into focus.
A shadow flashed between two clankers twenty feet from where I lay.
"Over there." I pointed, coughing up blood.
The shadow darted past me. I saw his mask, different than any I'd seen Yesler wear before. I caught his arm, but he yanked away. Spinning, I fell on my face. I tried to get up, but my h
ead still turned.
Yesler charged at Henri. She moved to the stairs. He jumped at her, arms transforming to talons. Cornered, she froze.
Rising to my elbow, I swung my free arm. I imagined striking Yesler in the side of the gut. Thirty feet away, the blow connected. Yesler's body flew sideways. An empty-sounding thud echoed through the Caldroen.
A dozen pairs of eyes stared at me. The Roslings had all arrived. I scanned their faces. Where was Pearl? I recognized their fear. Just like when jungle animals get too close to the gates. They were looking at a monster.
I rose to my feet, limped to the misshapen mass on the floor. Something about Yesler's eyes didn't look right. And he had covered his face with a cut of cloth.
Someone appeared at my side with a torch.
I glanced sideways.
Yesler stood beside me.
I turned to the body at my feet. I wanted to fall asleep. To dream. To wake up as someone else.
Sinking to my knees, I forced myself to pull the cloth from my attacker's face.
Pearl.
Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-2 Page 22
