by Danie Ware
He knew who she was, knew as if it’d been branded into his face like punishment…
‘Artifice.’ The word was a whisper.
Then the shine grew dazzling, and within it, another image swelled into focus…
An end to pain, an end to lies. An end to confusion and incomprehension. An end to being outcast and isolated, an end to being an inhuman freak. In the shine was the embrace of a family reunited, the love of his mother--
No.
With a wrench of horror, of sheer will, he staggered back in mind and body. Dazzled, overwhelmed by his perceptions, he smacked into the wall behind him and slid to the floor as if his legs were broken.
‘No.’
The denial was instinctive and pointless – even as the word passed his lips, the truth was so obvious. How the hells had he not known? Like every solution – so obvious when you realise the answer.
Lyss. His sister. Found curled in his lap by the post-fight Austen. The scars in his skin were from where he’d protected her as the fire had detonated.
And Austen had known. He’d lied to them all along, kept the full truth from them…
When I found you, you weren’t alone.
Lyss was really laughing now, looking down at where her brother was staring at his hands – at the ripple of light and life and colour and culture that ran through their skin, through his face and his flesh, at the truth and lies that had made him.
The fire, the hellspirit that Austen had fought – it had been Artifice herself. Or a part of her.
But her awareness had been fragmented. And those fragments had entered the three surviving summoners, giving them their skills: Raife’s metallurgy, Anatar’s charisma, Ganthar’s pure strength.
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
They showed me what I’ve been all along.
Himself, his sister – they had been there, curled on the outskirts.
And they, too, bore fragments, and the skills that went with them.
They were the Children of Artifice; they carried her abilities like parts of her soul, each one adapted to the needs of its host.
And now Raife was calling Artifice back, and she was coming to claim them all.
*
Caph had spoken to the greycoats, borrowed a heavy, manta-leather jacket. He had Proteus’s little bag of metal dust in one pocket, and his half-melted actuators in another, for all the good they might do. He had a lit smokereed between his lips. He’d found another route into the Torquar Theatre, an old crew-route. And he’d left the upper city and the ruins of his home to walk down into the waiting maw that was Cloudglass.
He didn’t have his father’s authority; he didn’t have his mother’s strength or power. But Raife had burned them both, burned Caph’s home. And Proteus had trusted him, had offered him everything.
Caph was going to tear Cloudglass to pieces.
And that was all there was to it.
The route to the old theatre was open, a mouth into blackness.
There was no guard, no ambush, no music. Nothing waiting for him. There was a scatter of rubbish and a single sodium lamp. It lit the walls to the colour of piss.
Caph paused. He exhaled a last plume of soft grey smoke, dropped the reed. Stood on it. Walked through the archway as if Raife would bring the molten stone down on him, too, and he just didn’t bloody care…
But the place was empty.
In the cold draft, dust sighed across the floor; the air smelled faintly of rust and bile. The room was grey; the balcony when Ganthar had been standing rode silent at its far end, a ship deserted. Sprays of dead glasslights hung over the stage, as pointless as dejection.
Between them, the great twist of the metal ouroboros stood cold. Listening to the faint, hollow echo of his own breathing, Caph watched it, almost as if he expected it to move. But it, too, was vacant; its dark thrill vanished with its prophets and worshippers.
Caph’s anger still surged, resolute. There were many side doors here, like the one that Anatar had locked him behind, but they were not what he wanted. His gaze followed the serpent’s metalwork, its struts and decorations. The ouroboros reared up to the vaulted ceiling, stretched back right against the wall. Behind it, only visible in the bright, yellow light, was a single, deeply-set doorway. It was almost a part of the sculpture itself.
And over it, the wall swallowed the sculpture whole.
*
Proteus had tried to turn away, to block the onslaught, but the images were everywhere – the fragments of the shattered hellspirit, tumbling in slowness…
The old water clock, hard and cold against the turmoil of sky…
The fire, detonating…
Burning, pain in his skin…
The shriek of the injured child…
Scars.
He had been there, he remembered more clearly now. Austen had picked up the crying Lyss, he’d crouched down to speak to Proteus. And he’d held the filthy, nail-bitten hand of the injured, scared little boy, and he’d taken the children to safety, to warmth and blankets and food…
But the fragments of the scattered Artifice – they’d found them first.
In a surge of something halfway between outrage and denial, Proteus hurled himself at his sister. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted – to shake her, to shake the piece of the Builder free from her, to make her realise who she really was, that he loved her, and that he wasn’t going to give this up…
But Lyss was as fast as she had ever been.
It was like she knew where he’d be, anticipated his movements. She was a ghost in the shadows, there-and-gone, as fast as thought, as formless as laughter. She danced out of his way, a dream lost at dawn.
‘You can’t catch me, Ro. You know that.’
His hands closed on air. He spun.
‘My blind brother.’ There was no warmth left in her now; her voice was cruel and cold. She was all white face and black hair; with her mad eyes, she looked like a ghoul. ‘Austen didn’t love us. Didn’t ever love us. He only rescued us to use us. And he’s used us all along.’
‘He saved us.’ The words were clear but his own doubts were clamouring, echoes in his skin like the visions from her eyesockets. He could see Ganthar kissing Caph, feel his own loss of control; could feel himself falling asleep, his face relaxing into trust and surrender. He could see the metal insects that had pinned Lyss to the bench. And he could feel them within himself, as if they had hatched under his skin. He could feel his back rippling with them; feel them running under his jawline and erupting out of his mouth.
‘Everything you understood has been a lie,’ Lyss said. ‘Everything Austen taught you is false.’
But he said, still fighting it, ‘Austen helped us.’ His voice was wrong, as if the insects writhed in his words. ‘He was there for us--!’
‘He wasn’t there, Ro. He was never there.’ She threw images like weapons, flashes of childhood all broken. ‘He only took us, trained us, so we would find Artifice for him when she came back. We were tools, nothing more. My senses would find her, and your infiltration would get close to her, and uncover her plans. Where do you think I got my name? Yours was simple, a laugh. You know what mine really is?’ Her tones were cruel. ‘He called me Katalyss – I was supposed to make it all happen.’ The words were vicious. ‘My name’s a joke too. Only mine’s not funny.’
The venom in her hurt him, made him sting. He could feel his skin beginning to shift, but he didn’t care – he wanted it as much as he’d wanted Caph, that same pure freedom of surrendering control.
Lyss had stepped back out of his reach, mocking. ‘Look at you, Ro. You’re pitiful. All that training and you’ve got no more discipline than you had as a child.’
Again he pounced after her, but she seemed to evaporate, to dissolve like smog in the sunlight.
‘He raised us,’ h
e said. ‘He taught us everything!’
‘He lied to us. We were detectors, nothing more. Canaries in the mine!’
‘He wouldn’t have done that to us!’
Somehow, he’d become strong enough to grab the light-post, to crumple the metal supports like paper, to throw fistfuls of sparkling glass-gems through the air and across the stone floor like scattered treasure. The tantrum-feel of it was good, welcome.
And Lyss was still laughing at him, brutal and deliberate; her eyes still reflected only his fakery, her taunts didn’t stop. ‘He set us up, Ro. All our lives. It was the only reason he saved us.’
‘That’s not true!’ The blood was pounding in his arms and face, the heat was pouring from his body. The room was smaller around him; the contortions of his face were unreal, alien. His voice was starting to twist. ‘He was… teaching us control!’
‘’Control’?’ Lyss spat laughter like mockery, superior and cruel. ‘Look at yourself!’ There was nothing left of her that Proteus recognised.
Nothing left of himself.
He could see his changes in her faceted eyes, but he didn’t want to look. He still tried, ‘So we knew… ourselves – so we had strength – so we could… help him…’
Lyss’s brittle humour vanished as she shot back, ‘We had no idea who we even were! We had no name, no family, nothing. We belonged to no-one, not until now--!’
‘Austen cared for us!’
‘He used us.’
‘He did not!’ With a roar, he coiled his legs under him and sprang, snarling, at his sister.
He missed.
Lyss was somewhere else, her eyes shining. She’d started laughing at him again.
Coiled, now, in fury and helplessness, a bullied child trying to reach a bag thrown by bigger classmates, Proteus spun, spitting, sprang again.
He missed.
And again.
He missed.
And Lyss was still laughing, her cold humour dancing through the air like the spangles of shining dust, echoing in the rumble of morning feet that echoed from the streets of Kier – a handspan and a lifetime away. Teasing, she was picking up idle pieces of debris and throwing them, bouncing them off her brother’s bulging skin as if she were trying to goad him, trying to make him even angrier.
On some level, he understood what she was doing, but he was past caring.
‘Austen played us.’ Another throw. ‘We’re nothing to him.’ Another. ‘We never were.’
Glass crunched underfoot.
‘If he wanted to save us, Ro, where is he? He didn’t love you. No-one could love you. Caphen didn’t love you. He just felt sorry for you. You freak.’
Taunt after taunt shredded Proteus’s skin. As Lyss used her twisted love, their entwined lives, to expose every raw nerve, to undermine every decision, to reinforce every doubt, to poison every memory of anything good…
Caphen didn’t love you. He just felt sorry for you.
You freak.
… so the rage closed over his vision, and everything else was lost
*
This was not what Caph had expected.
Pushing the heavy door open, ducking the huge bolts that riveted that bloody snake to the wall, he’d been ready for some vast and vaulted chamber, crumbling pillars and mouldering brickwork – or even to meet Ganthar’s highly-polished boot, aimed clean for his teeth…
…instead, he found himself tangled in a curtain.
The fabric was soft and heavy; it flowed over him like blood, dark and scarlet and inevitable. When he fought his way through it and pushed it aside, he found himself looking at some sort of…
…antechamber.
Bloody hells.
The words, the thought, were reflexive – but this room could have no other description.
It was roughly semi-circular, a short step in the ceiling where another room ran overhead. Deep, scarlet curtains flowed down the curved wall; between each of them, the steel supports had been polished to a blade-like shine, knives thrust hard into the cold stone floor.
The straight wall bore a painting, something angular and unsettling. It was a shattered picture of some sort of fight, angles and slants and darkly rich colours. A great metal sculpture reared up from some dark, cloaked creature that was springing at flame, smashing it into many hard-edged fragments.
He had no bloody clue.
But the painting was not what was dominated the room.
Turning slowly, as if Kei himself were standing behind him, Caph looked up at the spreading metal might of the ouroboros.
And he realised that the fragment of it visible in the theatre was only the very tip of its power.
The snake-twist had become a metallurgical tree, a three-dimensional representation of the one in his mother’s table. It grew out from the wall, upwards into the room and across the ceiling, twists and coils and claws spreading wider and arching over the watcher below. It wove through the stonework, melding rock and metal into something new, something…
Hells. The thought was a chilling one. How far do the roots of this thing go?
Not only that but, What will it do?
For a moment, the memory of Jularn’s empty eyes writhed in Caph’s gut and he wanted to puke, to back down and to run for his life – out from this whole damned district and never, ever come back to this place again… but his anger had not abated, and the metal-stink felt like courage.
Come on then. I know you’re here.
About him, the room was warm, blood-warm, clammy; warm with a heat beyond flesh. Sweat sliding under his jacket, Caph moved to look at the painting – saw that there were metal benches here, resting against the wall. Then, with a tight grin that was a gathering of his defiance, he lit a second reed.
As he did so, a shadow moved on the wall.
Big, powerful.
Familiar.
And so very welcome.
With the reed between his lips, Caph pulled the powder out of his top pocket, eased the little bag open.
He took the hit.
And he waited for his blood to explode.
CHAPTER 19: GANTHAR
‘Tal.’
Unsurprised, Caph blew a lungful of smoke into the sweating air. His blood was igniting with the contents of the vial, his veins thundering with exultation, with dreams about to be fulfilled. As the hit spread down though his shoulders and chest – as it slammed into his heart and began to hammer…
He said, ‘I knew you’d be waiting.’
Ganthar was watching him. ‘And I’m glad you came.’ His voice was amused, oddly affectionate. ‘I’ve missed you, Tal.’ He came forward; for a moment Caph thought Molly was actually going to kiss him.
But he didn’t back away. Instead, he said, right in the man’s face, ‘I’m not here to reminisce.’ Smoke emerged in wisps and trails as he spoke. ‘I’m here about my family.’
He trembled with the anger of it. The anticipation of revenge.
Molly grinned, that oddly endearing half-smile that he remembered all too well. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I liked your Mum, I always have. But you told your father, Tal, about everything – about Cloudglass, the Torquar. Raife didn’t kill them. You did.’
Caph’s calm was absolute. ‘Nice, but that’s not why Raife killed them and you know it. Try something new.’
‘C’mon, Tal – you’ve lost everything.’ Ganthar put a hand on Caph’s shoulder, thumb stroking his jaw. ‘I knew you’d come. You and I – we can do anything.’
Caph had an odd, momentary flash – that long first kiss, outside the party, his hands pinned to the wall above his head, his body surging with the rush of it – but the image burned as quickly as it manifest. His blood was roaring with injected fire. He said, his voice alight, ‘You’ll pay for all of it, Ganthar. Every single thing you’ve done.’
&nb
sp; Molly’s expression flickered, narrowed; the light reflecting from the side of the sculpture gave his skin an odd, mosaic-like appearance. ‘You belong here – just like the rest of us.’ His touch was almost gentle. ‘Tal, please. I love you. I always have.’
In the odd, red light, he looked younger. His sincerity was startling and his presence absurdly strong. The sculpture – snake, tree, whatever it was – framed him with authority. And twisted in amongst it were the memories of that kiss, of how good it had once been.
Molly’s smile spread. Under his white silk shirt, his body must be as perfect as Caph remembered; his hand was still touching Caph’s cheek. The light on his face shimmered like scales--
The moment shattered.
With every flicker of bitterness and rage that he’d carried over the last two years, with every fantasy of revenge he’d ever had, with every flash of the drug in his system, with every bloody ounce of strength he could muster…
…Caph slammed the broken fingers of his right fist into Ganthar’s face, smashing his front teeth. Red, the rich colour of the curtains, ran over his lip and chin. It was a dream realised, and if Raife’s alloy made such dreams come true, then this was a moment he’d long, long waited for.
Molly staggered, shaking his head, spitting.
‘You bastard.’ Caph’s voice was soft with vindication and righteous wrath; his blood and muscle roared with it, it rang in his ears like his bloody zanyar. ‘Raife burned my family.’ He paced forwards, backhanded Ganthar hard enough to knock him sideways. ‘And you’ll pay for all of it.’
‘Will I,’ Ganthar said. He caught Caph’s next blow with a hand like a cranked metal vice. Then he stood up, twisting Caph’s arm down and around, bending his shoulder sideways and back. His expression was smouldering with absolute white-cold fury. He said softly, ‘I gave you your chance, Talmar. We could’ve had it all. Now we do this—’
