Children of Artifice

by Danie Ware

  But the pain in Proteus’s body was already fading, the bruises thinning even as they formed. His flesh shifted to cure them and anger was still blazing-clear, pure and calculated. He was close now, and he would finish this.

  Raife said, ‘Anatar.’

  The woman was smiling. She came to stand in front of Raife, her back to him, her eyes alight.

  Tense, aware of Ganthar’s searing breath on the back of his neck, Proteus understood that they had come to the final moments - that, whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it soon.

  There was silence, edged with expectation.

  From behind, Raife closed his hand round Anatar’s throat. Her eyes were closed; she was shivering.

  No blade, no cut, no dramatic slash – his touch was enough to make her skin flush, her breath short and eager. As Proteus stared at her, her lips parted, her head went back, her shuddering redoubled…

  …and then there was red steam in her hair, bleeding out from under her eyelids, it rose like a wraith from the collar of her shirt, haloed Raife’s hand for a moment. When she sighed, her breath was hot and bubbling-bloody – as though she were simply dissolving from the inside out. Even as Proteus watched, the line of jaw began to blur and the steam poured higher.

  When she opened her eyes, they were empty. Fluid ran down her cheeks.

  She gave no impression of pain.

  Horrified, Proteus had no words, nothing that would express the dismay and nausea in his throat. He didn’t gag but, torn between pity and disbelief and ghoulish fascination, he stared as though he could do nothing else.

  Proteus watched the fragment leave, watched it wind itself round Caphen and settle like condensation on his skin.

  ‘Hells.’ He had no idea he’d spoken aloud. ‘By every hell and spirit.’

  As the steam touched him, Caph seemed to swell; he was massing up, larger in form and presence. The look on his face was sparkling, exultant…

  A sweet and sickly smell stole through the air. As it eddied and swirled Proteus could see that Anatar’s flesh was opening in places, softening and falling gently from the bone.

  The steam from her death rose up into the vaults and balconies above, misting the madness.

  And then, through it all, there came the music of the living stone, all sung by the metal of the serpent.

  *

  Over their heads, the great writhe of snake was thrumming like a plucked chord, like a zanyar, layers of vibrations rising one upon another into a sound that Proteus could feel in his teeth, in the bones behind his ears. As the roots wound and thrust through and broke the stonework, so the music they produced was complex and atonal, half-notes and semi-tones that made him shudder to his stomach.

  Artifice – Caph – was playing the great serpent like he’d once played his zanyar for the families Elect of City Hall.

  Dust began to shiver from the ceiling.

  Caph was eyes closed. His unbroken, metal-gloved hands were raised as if the knotwork were their instrument and extension; his lips were parted with the music in his heart and in his voice. He controlled the metal, and the stone, with years of Academy training.

  And then, the knot began to move. Expand.

  Peeling back.

  Cracking the walls.

  The dust became fragments, then falling pieces; no-one moved.

  No-one but Proteus.

  The layered, shifting resonances came through his ears, through his jaw and bones and the sides of his skull. It was momentarily deafening, the rising roar of the great instrument, the vibrations that tore through the heart of the city, the crumble of stonework and of collapsing buildings, the screaming of the tramlines.

  Proteus had no idea how far the thing had enmeshed itself through the city’s foundations – no idea how long Cloudglass had been… Cloudglass and Raife had been feeding it, building it, letting it grow.

  It was too much, the noise was squeezing his skull into splinters, he wanted to claw his hands over his ears and shut out the thrum and song of Caph’s playing.

  But he needed to stay focused. He understood that Artifice would gain power with every new fragment she absorbed. Understood that Raife was the key and the master. Understood that, like Austen had told him, he had to stop it rebuilding.

  Austen – who was not here.

  Who had lied to him all his life.

  But Proteus was away from Ganthar, past where Lyss was remembering everything with her eyes of stone. His feet sure, the music haloing him in sound, he turned to slam one fist into Raife’s elegantly bearded face.

  Raife was no fighter. Proteus smashed his nose across his cheek.

  The man staggered back. In a moment, though, he was upright again, his flesh mending even as Proteus’s could do, and death blazing from his dark eyes.

  Ganthar had pounced after him, was grappling to reach him as he bent to pick up a fallen stone. He had one shot – one shot to slam the thing round the side of Raife’s head, shatter his skull. It was the best idea he had.

  That – or kill Caph.

  And Caph, his arms still raised to the instrument above him, was involved only in the glory of the music.

  *

  When the greycoats released them, throwing the doors open and just letting them all free, Jay was already wide-eyed. He could feel the stone shaking, feel the cracks as if they were in his own flesh. He wanted to ask the lieutenant what the hells was happening, but her face was drawn and closed, and she and her squad all reeked of fear. Stumbling, blinking in the sudden rise of light, Jay came to the entrance of the Justice Hall, and looked up.

  Just in time to see the pillars of City Hall come down.

  Silhouetted against the red glow on the morning sky, against the bulbous rise of the sun past the edge of the crater, they came down like a child’s bricks, tumbling one into another in a rumble of noise and dust. He was a distance away from them here, though still in the upper city – and from the streets came shouting, the beginnings of screams. The air was filling with grit and terror, with the stumbling fear of the people.

  ‘What the hells is happening?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ the lieutenant said. ‘But they say the city will fall. Just get out of here – all of you – if you can.’

  Some of the others, dirty and pale, were stumbling away. Jay glanced towards the gate and the stairway – the thought of going down the long stairs with the stone trembling under him and everyone pushing and panicking… he didn’t want to think about it. He wondered if Ebi was safe, sent a thought to her and wished that she could hear it…

  He had to find her, shaky steps or not.

  Wishing he’d learned a little of her faith, he took a breath and ran for the district gate.

  Bectar came to the Hospital’s doors in time to see the streets run with panic. The greycoats were shouting, trying to keep order, but they had no more idea than anyone else, and the force of the crowd was sweeping them along. Here and there, one tried for calm, called instructions, but the seethe of people paid them no heed. The gates were being overwhelmed. People were climbing the walls, cutting themselves on the spikes, tumbling, shrieking, off the other side. She saw several lose their grip and didn’t want to think about the result.

  ‘The pillars have fallen!’ The crowd had taken it up like a litany, an omen of coming doom. ‘The pillars have fallen!’

  The stone shaking, Bectar held her ground, thinking. She had no desire to scramble down the steps with the rest of the hysterically shoving people – and she wasn’t leaving Darrah. And Bec’s education had been every bit as good as her brother’s, complemented by a solid core of sense. Weighing the odds, she thought there was little likelihood of the upper city actually toppling over.

  She made the decision to risk it, to go back into the Hospital, and to stay there – to barricade herself and Darrah in, if she had to.

 
But not before she saw the first of the Builders’ ancient, metal guards rumble out of the ruin of the City Hall.

  *

  Raife was still struggling to his feet; Ganthar was too far behind him.

  The person who got in Proteus’s way was Lyss.

  Crystal eyes shining against her white skin, her hair as glossy as death, Katalyss was aglow with a righteous fervour, sparkling as sharp as Proteus had ever seen. She said, ‘Please,’ and the word glittered in the music that played over them. ‘Please, Ro. Stop fighting. Be a part of this.’

  For a just a moment, Proteus looked at her sister, his soul-mate, his best friend and childhood companion. The small child that had been curled in his lap; the grown woman he’d not been able to save.

  He said. ‘You’re bloody joking.’

  Raife laid a hand on Lyss’ shoulder, extended the other to Proteus. ‘Listen to her.’ He was smiling like their father, like…

  He said, ‘I will stop you.’

  Raife laughed at him, a deep and rich noise that blended bass into the edged twist of notes that still rose over them. ‘Why would you want to?’ he said. ‘We’re family. Real family.’

  ‘Are we hells.’

  As Lyss was wreathed in steam and glory, as she surrendered herself, as Caph-Artifice played the almighty creature over them, Proteus tried to fight for the life of his sister.

  He took her arms; he pitted his will, his flesh-crafting, against Raife’s.

  He wasn’t enough; the only flesh he could control was his own.

  And he watched her die, her skin dissolving from her bones.

  Lyss!

  The music grew louder, the notes beginning to mesh now, to set up reverberations in the stonework that had the stone shuddering around them.

  Whole chunks of masonry began to fall, shattering into fragments.

  Then a voice in the back of the chamber cut through the tumult like the crash of a cymbal, like the hard-sprung kick of a foot.

  ‘Artifice!’

  Caph dropped his arms, his blazing steel gaze. With a twist to his face that was pure, cold humour, he said, ‘So, my husband. You came after all.’

  The music boomed with force.

  And it welcomed Austen, his eyes pure scarlet and the darkness rising from him like a cloak.

  CHAPTER 21: BUILDER

  Proteus heard Caph-Artifice say it, ‘You came after all.’ Heard the words rip through the metal that wove over them; heard it shudder and the music rise again. The great knotwork was straining now, the noise being spat back down with each falling stone, with each chunk that hit the floor and smashed into a thousand pieces.

  Shrapnel cut flesh, hard and biting.

  Now, the ripple of notes was coming more swiftly, the music was increasing in intensity until it felt like it would tear the very city apart.

  Over them, a hole in the stonework was beginning to rip open.

  The roof was coming down. Up there, somewhere, there was a glimpse of the red-streaked morning sky.

  In a moment, the real destruction would begin.

  Under it, his tall frame covered in dust, Caph-Artifice was laughing at his own power. The motions of his hands redoubled, and the serpent sang on, exultant and shimmering.

  The dark shape that was Austen had landed in a half-crouch. His hands were curled into claws; his eyes were red with blood and fire. He seemed younger, stronger, than Proteus had ever seen him – like the very city around him was his home and raiment and heartbeat.

  Ganthar and Raife were both moving. Hugely powerful, they blocked Austen’s route to Artifice.

  ‘Austen…’ There was so much that Proteus wanted to tell him – that Lyss was dead and that she’d died in horror and that the city was opening to a raw wound that would tear out its heart and that he hadn’t ever doubted him, not really… but one word was all he had time for. ‘Austen…’

  ‘I know, lad.’ His scarlet eyes flashed a glance that gave him every reassurance he’d ever needed. ‘You’ve got more bloody courage than I’ve ever seen. Stand strong, Ro. We can finish this.

  Proteus needed to ask him something. ‘Can you save him? And Lyss…?’

  But Austen went for Raife; faster than Proteus could follow, he was a flashing of feet and an agility that Proteus could barely believe. The dust wreathed him like smoke, reluctant to be parted from him.

  ‘I remember you.’ Raife’s smile was a slash of bloodied, white teeth. ‘You failed before, and we were all younger then.’ He made no attempt to evade Austen’s assault; he just stood there, and let the violence come. ‘We didn’t understand.’

  As if it couldn’t touch him.

  Ganthar, defending the exultant body of Caph, turned to Proteus. As if he were the very focus of the violence that exploded around them, that screamed through the strings and that gutted the city like a coring-blade, he grinned. He beckoned Proteus with a whetted gesture that said, Come on, then. Let’s finish this.

  And Proteus was only too happy.

  Austen was fighting an impossible battle.

  Every wound he inflicted, every slash and bruise, was healing even as he withdrew, came back for another strike, another kick. He was a blur of dirt and motion; smoke ghosting his movements with after-images that hung in the shafts of sunlight before they dissolved.

  Opposite him, Raife was still wound in streamers of bloodied steam. The floor under his feet was slick with the destruction of his siblings; yet he stood as if it empowered him, as if Artifice’s increasing strength was manifest in his skin also.

  Austen was fighting nothing, fighting a phantom that wouldn’t fight back; striking a wall that would simply yield to the blow, and reform. Raife’s laughter was a bass thunder, a roll of velvet-dark death. He was beyond injury and he knew it.

  Yet behind him, Artifice was faltering.

  Something in Caph’s stance had lessened; some fraction of his control was slipping. Over him, the ripping wound in the city’s stone was slowing, and the ear-rending scream was meshing into something… else… the rise of a melody.

  Somewhere under Artifice’s control, Caph was still there.

  His face contorted, a savage effort of discipline. His metal hands were starting to knot, to whiten to hard-knuckled fists.

  He said, ‘Proteus…’ The word forced past gritted teeth.

  But Proteus was the wrong side of the city’s finest combatant, and Ganthar was not letting him go.

  A hand at his throat, a fist in his face, again and again, relentless and terrible. He was turning into a bloodied mess, pulped under the merciless onslaught of Ganthar at full power. He was holding onto his consciousness – just – but his own ability to heal his flesh came with the shifts in his form, and he just couldn’t keep pace with this.

  Slam, his nose flattened across his face.

  Slam, his front teeth breaking.

  Slam, mouth full of blood and splinters, no way to see though the pain.

  Slam, and the world was growing dark and the edges and failure was only an impact away.

  ‘Proteus…!’

  The word was more solid that time; there was sunlight on his face, its warmth miraculous, glorious. Then, though the pain, he heard a voice that was distinctly Caph, and presumably aimed at Ganthar, ‘No mercy, not this time.’

  Yes! It gave him the rush he needed.

  With every last fragment of his consciousness, he blocked Ganthar’s blow with both hands, and threw him back; he placed all his energy into one kick, one foot hammering sideways into his iron-flat stomach.

  He couldn’t see through the bloodied ruin of his own face.

  But the strike was true; Ganthar spluttered, stumbled.

  He stumbled far enough back to let Proteus stagger to his feet, struggle to focus on what was spinning round him.

  At his side and almost in the sam
e moment, Austen became a whirl of smoke and darkness and sprang at Raife, raining violence down on him from an impossible, angled leap. Raife, throwing up his hands to cover his face, found himself staggering back.

  Back, out of Austen’s reach.

  Back, into where Artifice and Caph fought for possession of the musician’s flesh.

  Even as his vision cleared, though, Proteus wondered what the hells Austen had done. He dashed the blood from his eyes. And he realised…

  No, no, no…!

  Caph’s metallic hands closed on Raife’s elegant shoulders, on his bearded throat. Raife’s sudden grin slashed his face into victory.

  And the internal struggle was over.

  There was no steam, this time, no dissolving of flesh and bone – perhaps Raife was simply too powerful. Instead, there was just noise.

  Around them, the steel strings all screamed together, triumphant with influx; they shook with power and resonance and the notes were wrong and twisted. Proteus found his hands over his ears, was screaming himself to try and drown out the sound. Austen! What did you do? The rumble of the stonework increased, and the hole in the roof tearing wide as huge chunks of stone fell smashing to the floor. Raife collapsed, unmoving.

  But more was now tumbling through the hole over their heads.

  Supported only by the shifting, rasping steel limbs of the creature, the entire theatre was collapsing around them. The screaming of metal was the creature, was the tramlines, was the city’s wrought gates, all buckling and twisting above them.

  But Caph was gone.

  Only last night, that long and sensitive hand had been buried in Proteus’s hair.

  Then, it had been broken, fingers twisted but still agile. In the half-light of his rooms, its touch had been everything. A moment out of time.

  Now those fingers were straight, their agility returned, but the passion in them lost.

  In Caph’s Builder-red eyes, there was no recognition, no last wisps of connection or determination, no fragment still fighting back. In him, Proteus could see only Artifice, almost complete now, overwhelming and drowning him, terrifying in her inhumanity, her power and wildness and intensity.