by A. R. Knight
“The Warrens. We can check it out. How’s everything else?”
Bryce sighed. “If there was any hope that we could survive this by strength of arms, I’d have you stay. I’d have you fight with us and close as many breaches as you could. We’ve lost the forest. We’re facing more ghouls every day. On the other side, with Piotr gone, the peace talks are wavering. Nobody wants to give up their stake. While they argue, their armies keep fighting.”
Bryce spared a glance to the spark-filled sky.
“Carver, if you don’t succeed, we won’t hold out much longer. Neither will Riven.”
Chapter 25
Running through Riven felt familiar, and in a good way. The same back alleys, crumbling buildings, and ash strewn streets felt like home. No more canyons, no more identical jungle flora. Just hard stone and wood. Selena, Alec, and I made our way south from the clock tower and towards the Warrens.
“How’s the other side?” I asked Alec as we walked along.
“Chaotic as ever,” Alec said. “Chicago, it is a mess. All in a flurry trying to make things for this endless war. On top of that, everyone is sick. This disease continues its rampage. Everyone uses their masks now. Even inside.”
“Sounds like fun,” I said.
“I used to live like that.” Selena’s eyes stared into a distant past. “Wiley, my husband, he worked as a meat cutter. We never had clean air in that part of the city. Everyone wore their masks. Sometimes the purifiers would break and you’d wear them indoors too. Because anything could make you sick, we wore gloves all the time.”
“Yuck,” I said.
“Indeed, of the worlds we have, yours appears the most miserable,” Alec said.
“You’d think that,” Selena said. “Except we were so careful that few of us actually became ill. We were happy, healthy in our own way.”
“I would take a chance with disease in order to breathe out of my own mouth every once in a while,” Alec said. “When it’s hot out? Nobody wants a mask wrapped around their face.”
“The price you pay, I suppose,” Selena said.
“Is Ezra’s still around?” I said.
“Carver, you’ve been gone a week. The world hasn’t changed,” Alec said.
Fair enough. I hadn’t been dead for that long. Only it was hard to tell. Already it seemed like my memories of the time before, of Earth and walking the real streets, were fading. Like childhood or a boring day the next morning. Bits and pieces falling away and being replaced by the perennial gray. I didn’t know how to hold onto them. How to hold onto who I was.
We reached the Ghoul’s Gateway, the arch that led into the Warrens. Spirits were more common here, the tall, packed buildings providing plenty of space for them to cross in after their demise. Usually you’d find a few angry spirits running around, ready for wrangling. Now, there were guides patrolling in groups and nearly every spirit had already been pacified. Their eyes blank. None of the frightened curiosity you’d see in a spirit before the fire claimed them. No, all of these had been wrangled. If Riven had a scorched earth policy, the guides were employing it.
“Do you think it will ever go back?” I asked Alec. “Where you won’t have to walk every block with your hand on your weapon?”
“Can’t answer that question,” Alec said. “We can choose. If we succeed, then Riven may know some peace. If we fail, then we may know ours.”
After four more blocks we came across a large building, nearly a block long in and of itself. Seven stories high and serving as Anna’s crossing point. Her room, the place she and Laurence crossed over from their hideaway in Chicago, sat in its basement. We stood in front, looking into its entrance, and saw nothing.
“Should we go inside?” I said.
“Where could they be?” Alec peered up the building’s wide facade.
“Two choices,” I said. “Up or down. They cross into the basement, so I say we check there first.”
The three of us moved into the lobby, a spacious place that deserved to be decorated with potted plants and marble columns. A bronze desk with a receptionist, a doorman to tip his hat and greet you. Instead stains splattered the inside, faded reds and browns, the occasional black mark of fire. Holes punched in the floor and tears in the walls gave distant fights their due. Large rooms off the lobby on either side played homage to the life the apartment building was meant to have. Restaurants, perhaps. Or meeting spaces. Social clubs, as if Riven had ever had any. Towards the back of the lobby a wide stair opened up, going both down and towards the top.
We fell into the typical silence that guides adopt when investigating a new area. A space where danger might be around any corner. The slightest sound, the quietest laughter could serve to drive a spirit angry. Not a chance we were willing to take. I led, the great sword in my hands. The stairway gave me enough room to swing, though I was less sure about the hallways beneath and above. Then again, these walls wouldn’t mind a few extra cuts.
The basement resembled a catacomb. I’d crossed over here with Anna more than a few times, but never alone. Always with her to lead me out. So I had to pull the floor plan from memory. Whether it was because we were standing right there, or because the thought concerned Riven, the layout came back clear.
Who needed memories of childhood when you could recall basement arrangements at will?
“It’s a grid,” I whispered to Selena and Alec. “We’re at the back middle. To the right, there are three main rooms. All square, I think maybe meant to hold supplies. On the left, it’s one large space. Ductwork. A lot of ruined stuff. Probably where power would’ve gone, if this had been Chicago. I say we start there.”
I didn’t say that the large room would make it easier to see each other. To cover corners and make sure we weren’t getting ambushed. Alec, Selena and I needed a warm-up. Needed to get back into the groove of clearing out rooms where angry spirits could hide behind anything. Could reach out from any shadow to grab your throat and tear it apart.
The door to the large room, a double affair, had been ripped away. On the other side, it was easy to see what had done it. A trio of slathering spirits stood at the far end of the long room, scrabbling at its back door. Pounding and tearing. What they were trying to get at, why they didn’t just come back out our door, I didn’t know. No reason, except that spirits tended to think in straight lines.
We crept into the room, stepping over pipes, rubble, and broken bits of wood. The spirits didn’t notice. So focused on that far end. On whatever was on the other side of that door. We made it within five feet of them before one turned, a middle-aged man whose eyes burned bright with that blue angry fire. He opened his mouth to scream and his fellows turned, and then I ended all of them with a single cut. A wide slice with the great sword, its blade wreathed in blue fire.
Each of the three cuts from my single slash ignited, burning the spirits and collapsing them to the ground. In a minute they would rise up again, no longer dangerous.
“Quite the weapon that,” Alec said. “For a second there I thought you would miss. Give that one an opening.”
“Glad you have faith in me,” I said.
“You’re recently dead,” Alec replied. “Figured you need some time to adapt. Might be a little slow.”
“Haven’t lost a step, believe me,” I said.
Selena stepped past us and lifted the door’s handle, an action the spirits hadn’t thought to take. The back of the basement sat on the other side, a dark empty hallway. We went out into it, and turned to the right. Towards the rooms on the other side of the basement. I recognized this place; Anna and I crossed over into the last room on this side. The door into it was shut, and when I tried the handle it didn’t move. Locked. So I did what no spirit would ever bother with.
I knocked.
Chapter 26
“Who’s out there?” I heard the voice on the other side. Recognized it.
“Laurence, it’s Carver. And some friends. We’re trying to find you, and Anna,” I answered.
The door clicked a moment later, and swung open to reveal Laurence, Anna’s fellow sneak and Chicago resident. He looked, to put it charitably, not good. His eyes were wide, and I noticed his mouth had picked up an unnerving twitch like he couldn’t decide whether to frown or open up into a chilling scream. Laurence, who hadn’t made any secret of his disdain for the guides, hugged me tight. So tight that I had to shift my arms up, keep the great sword out of the way as the man burrowed his head into my shoulder.
“I never thought we’d see another soul,” Laurence muttered as he stepped back from me. “I never thought I’d be able to get out of this basement. That Riven would be closed to me forever.”
“Seems kind of dire, doesn’t it?” I said. “It’s not like there aren’t a bunch of guides running around.”
“How many would come in here?” Laurence asked. “You can’t see the breach, not from the street. We realized that after the first day. It’s in the middle of the building, along with all the spirits. They weren’t making much noise when we came back here. Went up to the rooftop, and they caught our scent.”
“Anna’s on the roof?” Selena said. “Why?”
“We thought we could find a spot,” Laurence said. “This building is one of the tallest in all of the city. From the roof you can see across every neighborhood. You can spot breaches miles away. If we held it, and established a line of communication to Bryce and the rest of the guides, we could direct them to any breaches quickly.”
“So why are you down here, when she’s up there?” I said.
“We took the risk,” Laurence said. “Anna diverted their attention, and I made a run for it. We agreed that because she had a weapon, because she knows how to fight, that Anna should stay up top while I went down. I barely managed to trick the three spirits in the next room.”
“We found them,” I said. “They’re taken care of.”
“Pardon, I believe we should make a move up to the roof,” Alec said. “Any delay seems improper.”
“Yes, yes,” Laurence said. “I had planned to travel to Ezra’s. To tell you what happened. But now here you are.”
“Always arriving just in time, that’s us,” I said. Then we turned and ran up from the basement. Our feet pounded on the stairs, Laurence taking the back. Up to the lobby, and then to the second floor. Up to the third. And then we stopped.
You could hear it, the growls and knocks of crazed hands beating on the walls. The hissing and half-whispered rage. The breach was here.
“Is there another stair?” I said to Lawrence. I’d been up this apartment building once before, when Anna and I tried to talk to the spirits we bound over at the Mountain. We’d taken the central stair all the way up. She never mentioned if there was a back way, but it seemed strange these steps were so empty.
“Thin and treacherous,” Laurence said. “A fire escape. I never understood why one would need one of those in Riven?”
“There’s a long story about where this all came from,” I said. “I’ll tell you later. If the spirits aren’t running up this one, then they’ve got to be going the other way.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Selena said. “Fewer obstacles before we get to Anna?”
“Theoretically,” I replied.
“Hold on,” Alec said. “ I have a tablet. We can close the breach.”
“Alec and Selena,” I said. I pulled out my long knife, handed it to Laurence. “You too. Find the breach, close it. I’ll go after Anna.”
“You are sure?” Alec said. “We could split evenly?”
“The breach is more important,” I said, and then I held up the sword. “And have you seen this thing? I’ll be fine.”
Selena rolled her eyes. I gave her a wide grin. Spirits liked to play hero too.
The trio broke off, headed down the hallway one step at a time. I hefted the great sword in front of me, both hands wrapped around the hilt, and dashed up the stairs. Once again, I was aware of how a spirit’s endless stamina made running up floors holding a heavy weapon as easy as a light jog back in Chicago. I just hoped Anna would still be there for me to save.
Chapter 27
I hit the fourth floor and things became messy. A pair of spirits stood on the landing, snarling at each other. Fighting over who would get to go first. Two soldiers. Still sporting their ragged uniforms. I’d noticed as the war had gone on that the quality of gear worn by the spirits became thinner, shabbier. Used to be that they would cross over in clean colors, medals and ranks sewn into the sides. Now they wore barely more than rags. Whatever the countries could churn out fast enough to cloth their troops.
And yet, those simple uniforms sealed to the soldier’s identity so tight that when they died, those rags came over with them.
“I wish more people would fight over me like you’re fighting over those stairs,” I said, coming up to the landing.
The nearer soldier glared my way, those eyes burning blue fire. Turned and leapt towards me, hands outstretched. The stair’s height gave him plenty of reach, but proved little defense against my great sword. I swept it from right to left catching the spirit mid-jump and throwing him down the stairs as blue fire curled up and over him. Wherever the soldier landed, he would be walking to one place. The Cycle.
The second spirit tackled me back down the stairs, catching me before I could get the sword in position. We bounced off the wall, rolled over each other down the steps. Halfway back to the third floor. I kept rolling until I sat on top, level on a step. The spirit bit at me and I jammed the hilt of the great sword into his face. Knocked him back.
I would’ve loved to have had my long knife. To grab it with my left hand, take a quick jab to finish the fight. The great sword didn’t do much in close quarters. So I did what I could. Raised the hilt again and jabbed the thing in the face a second time. Bought myself a moment of stunned confusion. Used it to bring up my knee and plant my foot on the spirit’s stomach. Stood myself up and climbed back a couple of steps. The spirit rolled up after me, grabbing at my ankles. Fine. I rotated the sword in my hands and jabbed it straight downward. Right into the middle of the spirit. Sent him away with a burst of blue.
I went up the stairs, past the fourth floor to the fifth. I could hear the noises at the far end of the floor. Towards where Laurence said there might be a back stair. I had a choice. I could go that way, engage spirits here and fight my way up. Or take these stairs, the easiest route to get to the roof.
I favored the path of least resistance.
Up to the sixth floor and then the seventh. Or rather, to the door opening onto the rooftop. I listened before twisting the handle, but heard nothing on the other side. No clashing metal, no growls, no fighting. If Anna still lived, she’d cleared herself plenty of room.
I used my shoulder, pushed the door open with the sword held ready to stab forward into anything on the other side. Only I didn’t see anyone. Not a soul on the entire rooftop. Empty stones and the wide expanse of the city beyond the edge.
“Anna?” I shouted. “Where are you?”
“Carver!” I heard Anna’s voice, off the side of the building. Down below the roof. I ran over, stomping across the flat stones. Stared over the edge and saw that Laurence had been right. A second stair clung to the building, black iron climbing up the side in a crisscrossing pattern. On top of that escape, holding a long line of gnashing and thrashing spirits at bay, stood Anna. She wielded the flail Nicholas had made for her in both hands, crushing it down on a spirit as it attempted to climb its way to her. Anna swung slowly, and I noticed she bled from plenty of cuts. Particularly a long gash above her left eye.
“Mind switching spots?” Anna said without looking up at me. Her voice was layered with exhaustion. “I’ve been here for a long time now.”
“Give me some room,” I said. Anna backed up, allowing a pair of spirits to gain a few more steps without her flail sweeping out in front of her. That was a mistake. I dropped off the rooftop, slamming the great sword in front
of me as I fell. I caught the platform at the top of the stairs, and brought the sword down on both of the spirits. As I cleaved into the pair, I realized why Anna had chosen to fight here, rather than on the broader base of the rooftop.
The spirits that I’d wrangled stood there for a moment on the stairs, blocking the path forward for the angry ones behind. Confused and lost. Buying us time.
“Not a bad plan,” I said. “Though, why didn’t you use your sparker? That’s what they’re for.”
“We did,” Anna said, slumping back against the railing. “I used every spark I had. Only the sky is too crowded. So many lights now that it’s impossible to know which ones truly need help. Or maybe nobody even noticed.”
Coming back into Riven from Mali’s canyons, I’d noticed the same thing. The sky a changing rainbow of colors as endless sparks splashed against the fog. Our main method of communicating became less effective the more we used it. If there were sparks everywhere, we couldn’t tell which required the first, or any, response.
“So you were trapped up here?” I said.
“No, I stayed because I felt like it,” Anna retorted. “Doesn’t it seem like fun?”
“Sorry, bad question,” I replied. The two spirits shuffled back through the line of angry ones and I took Anna’s spot. Waved my blade at the grasping hands of the next wave, kept them at bay. And if they came too close, carved them in two.
“Did you find Laurence?” Anna said.
“He was enjoying the basement,” I said. Jabbed at a spirit and sent him reeling back down the stairs, burning away. “You have to teach that guy how to fight.”
“I will, with all that extra time we have,” Anna said, then she perked up. “But if we can take this building, then I think it will help. Bryce doesn’t know where to send his forces. We’re responding, not being proactive. The more breaches we catch early, the less ghouls we have to deal with.”
