by J M D Reid
The impact shook the concrete floor. Dust and rust sifted down from the pipes overhead. The shaking ground tripped up Ōbhin. He fell hard onto his side. He groaned, landing on the bruised thigh. The simmering pain soared to a sear. He growled while Bran seized his wrist and hauled him to his feet.
“The ruby jewelchine!” Dualayn shouted with excitement. “That has to be the power source driving the rest of it. The emeralds are giving it strength, and the amethyst gives it a natural warding.”
“I already figured that!” snarled Ōbhin. He darted to the right, a crystalline fist slamming down at him. Air rushed over him from the force of its passage. It hit the metal side of the carriage. Rust burst off the door and glass shards, clinging in the frame, crashed to the floor. “How do I destroy it? I can’t cut into it with my blade!”
“Come on, Dualayn,” Miguil said, hanging back by the older man. “Think!”
“I am trying, young man,” Dualayn snapped. “You work for me, so remember to—”
“I don’t work for you!” Miguil seized the front of Dualayn’s work shirt. “Give us a Black-cursed way to stop this!”
“Okay, okay!” Dualayn muttered, pushing back Miguil. “Let’s see . . . Brute force might do it.”
“What level of brute force?” Bran asked as he rushed in. He struck his binder against the crystalman’s torso. The metal hit with a resounding chime, the entire automaton seeming to vibrate.
“Well, the ceiling collapsing on it,” Dualayn said. “If we have some tuning forks set to the resonance frequency of an amethyst, and if they were sufficiently large, we could cause a harmonic shattering to destroy it.”
“Do we have those?” asked Ōbhin. The diamond eyes fell on him. He pushed himself from the carriage.
Metal crunched behind him as he rushed past the automaton. He roasted in his leather jerkin. Sweat spilled down his face. The back of his throat burned for water. Fatigue nibbled on the edges of his limbs. The hulk lumbered on.
“We do not,” said Dualayn. “I will keep considering options.”
“Yeah, do that,” muttered Dajouth.
Bran rushed forward, shouting, “Let’s see if this works.”
He moved fast, his scrawny legs carrying him beneath a swinging punch. He ducked low and slammed his binder into the crystalman’s right side. Purple energy sprang up and seized both of its legs. For a heartbeat, Ōbhin wondered if it would topple. The thing seemed to sway, its legs pulled tight together.
“PSADZEF ACHIE!” bellowed from the entire construct like the sound was produced by the crystalline structure vibrating in harmony.
The purple binding snapped as Bran struggled to get clear. The binding vanished from about the automaton as its leg kicked out. With sufficient strength, even a human could snap an amethyst binding. The automaton had no issue breaking free.
The foot connected with Bran before he could react.
Ōbhin screamed in horror as the young man flew upward and slammed into the ceiling with a bone-crunching impact. He slid across it for a cubit, thrown hard by the force of the kick, before rebounding and landing broken on the roof of a carriage. Metal dented from the impact. His body bounced. Spun. His arms and legs bent in unnatural ways. He fell off out of sight on the other side of the vehicle, landing near where Fingers attended to Avena.
“Bran!” Dajouth shouted in shocked horror.
Ōbhin swayed for a moment. The youth couldn’t survive such an impact. The force would have snapped his neck and broken every bone in his body. A sick feeling built in Ōbhin’s stomach. He’d have to tell Joayne that her youngest son had died because he hadn’t had the strength or knowledge to slay a legend.
Roaring in fury, Ōbhin whirled on the crystalman bearing down on him. He would find a way to destroy this thing.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Metal crunched.
Bran flopped off the side of the autonomous carriage and crashed into the hard floor behind Fingers. Avena clapped fuzzing hands over her mouth. For a moment, the shock of seeing the young man slam into the ground drove back the whispers interfering with her body’s control.
Bran spasmed. His head snapped around, his skin rippling white and pudgy. A new horror seized her as she witnessed the same doughy flesh molding back into Bran’s face. It was what she’d seen when Smiles hit the wall after Ust’s head-cracking punch. Bran’s broken limbs popped into place, straightening back into their proper shape.
Fingers looked behind him. “Elohm’s blessed Colours, you alive?”
“Yes,” Bran croaked as he lay there. “I just . . . got the breath . . . kicked out of me . . .”
The traitor. The changeling. Poor Bran had joined Smiles, the boy lost in some ditch or anonymous grave, someplace where the body wouldn’t be found and spoil the impostor’s ruse. Hatred burned through Avena as she held the topaz to her shoulder.
Sweet, innocent, energetic Bran. Full of life, eager to go on an adventure. To show Ōbhin all his skill and prowess. All stolen away by that monstrous changeling. As Fingers went to help the thing masquerading as Bran, she wanted to snarl a warning.
The fuzziness struck her body hard. She gasped and swayed. Sagged against a rusting carriage door. Spots of darkness danced on her vision. Through it, she watched Fingers help Bran stand. The fake-youth flexed digits.
“You can’t be okay,” Fingers said. “That blow you took, boy . . . Let me get a healer on you.”
“Doesn’t need one,” she struggled to say, but her tongue grew numb. The signal interference worsened. She had to stop Fingers from helping the thing. She had to expose the vile creature. She struggled to stand.
*
Ōbhin swung his blade hard at the incoming attack. He struck the fist, deflecting it to the side. He flowed forward, now within the crystalman’s reach. He slashed with his sword, using all his strength and weight, to strike the automaton’s chest. He held tight to his hilt, not expecting his blade to cut through it. He landed hard, square on.
His blade didn’t so much as scratch it.
“Perhaps if we had diamond,” said Dualayn. “It’s harder than amethyst. It’s how we actually shape gems. Use smaller ones. Isn’t that fascinating?”
“Not really,” barked Miguil.
Ōbhin pivoted to his right to dodge a kick and ducked an elbow slamming down at his head, feet shifting. He cleared the crystalman’s reach and whirled around. As he backpedaled, he struggled to think through his boiling rage. Bran might have annoyed Ōbhin with pestering questions, but the youth had a bright future before him. Ōbhin would have gladly answered the youth’s every last query, patiently describe every last fight, just to let the boy have that unsoiled life.
Dajouth gripped his binder in two hands. Shouting, he slammed his weapon hard into the forearm of the crystalman. A loud chime rang through the carriage house. The energy bound the arm to the torso. It lasted not even a heartbeat before the crystalman broke the energy and lashed out.
The young man was already moving, but not fast enough.
The blow struck Dajouth’s arm. Bone snapped. A blood-stained shard thrust out his arm and through his gambeson. The impact spun him around. He hit the ground hard, screaming. Blood soaked red through the quilted armor.
“Dualayn!” Ōbhin barked. “Help him!”
“Right,” Dualayn said and darted forward.
Miguil picked up Dajouth’s binder and stood trembling as the crystalman advanced on Ōbhin. “I don’t know how much I’ll help, Ōbhin, but . . .”
“I appreciate it,” said Ōbhin. The groom had only a basic amount of training. He had courage, though.
Rage wasn’t helping Ōbhin. It burned through him, powering his attacks, but it also distracted him. He needed to focus. He couldn’t make any mistakes. He had to think. There had to be a way to kill this thing.
Brute force . . . Bring the ceiling down?
They were fighting near the ramp. There were three support columns that held up the roof near him. It was insane
. He could kill them all, bury them in rubble, but what choice did he have? He glanced over his shoulder to spy the nearest one.
He backed towards it as the crystalman thundered after him.
*
“Fyungerz,” Avena’s numb tongue slurred. Her lips felt as fuzzy as a yellow-spotted caterpillar.
She stood by, brazing her left shoulder against the carriage. Her legs quivered. Fingers dug around in his pack, searching for a healer. A loaf of hard bread spilled out. He scooped it up and shoved it back in.
“Fyungerz, hez nyot Byranj,” she struggled to say.
“What, Avena?” Fingers asked.
“I’m fine,” Bran protested. “Attend to Avena, she’s having trouble.”
“You are not fine, boy! Sometimes you don’t feel injuries right away.”
Avena opened her mouth to speak when the lumbering crystalman drew her attention. It advanced on Ōbhin. He lay trapped against a support column. Primal terror rippled through her. She swayed and screamed out his slurred name.
The crystalman swung a powerful fist at her lover, a blurring streak of amethyst.
*
Ōbhin dived to his right.
It was a mistake.
The amethyst fist crashed into the support column behind him as he landed on his upper back, head tucked down, and rolled into the rotten wheel of a carriage. Metal bolts thrusting out of the rusting wheel jammed into his back through his leather jerkin, bruising skin. His head smacked into the metal fender. Flakes of rust burst off, bloody snow dusting his shoulders.
The column didn’t collapse. The crystalman’s punch left a small dent, hardly more than a chip. Some stone crumbled away, revealing a braided chord of steel running vertically in the column. The thing could punch it a dozen times and do nothing.
The crystalman turned to face him, diamond eyes shining. He had nowhere to go, trapped by the vehicle, the column, and the automaton. He scrambled to his feet, his back sliding up the frame of the vehicle. He felt an opening. The window was missing.
He dropped his resonance sword and squeezed himself into the carriage. He landed on a rotting seat. The leather burst beneath his touch, mildewed stuffing erupting along with metal springs. He coughed as the padding filled his mouth. He spat out the dusty filth while scrambling to the other side.
The crystalman seized the carriage and lifted it.
Ōbhin seized the other window with black-gloved hands. He gripped hard as he suddenly dangled from it. The crystalman lifted it over the carriage head, prepared to hurtle it. A burst of cold energy exploded through his veins, pumping frigid necessity through his body.
He hauled himself upward. The carriage was almost touching the ceiling. He pushed himself out of another window as the thing tossed the vehicle. He fell down the back of the crystalman. The concrete floor rushed up. He raised his left arm to brace himself.
Pain burst through his wrist. He rolled to his side as the vehicle hurtled through the carriage house. He seized his discarded sword, blade half-sunk into the floor, and scrabbled to his feet. Metal crashed behind him as he formed a new plan.
*
To Avena’s relief, Ōbhin spilled out of the back of the carriage before it hurtled out from the crystalman. Then she realized it soared in her direction. Perhaps the automaton had sensed her and wanted to kill them both. Perhaps it was bad luck. Her body struggled to move, but the numbing interference gripped her.
She couldn’t even scream.
Bran darted around Fingers in a blur of inhuman speed. He slammed into her and threw her back. She hurtled to the ground, landed hard. The topaz spilled out of her hand, rolling behind her, flashing orange light. Her vision swam, darkness pulling at her.
The carriage slammed into the vehicle she’d stood behind, bounced and struck Bran’s head. His neck snapped as he was thrown to the ground. The carriage tumbled past, crashing into the side of a third and pushing it into a fourth. Bran hit the floor, his flesh bleeding white.
Fingers let out a strangled cry as he witnessed Bran’s head snap back into place.
Avena fought to hold onto her body, but the interference won. The last thing she saw before being ripped from her body and thrust into her dreams was Bran standing up, his face white clay molding back into shape.
*
Ōbhin ignored his sprained wrist and slashed through the column the crystalman had punched. He sprinted past it, expecting the ceiling to crash down on it. He threw a look over his shoulder to see the automaton turning around and focusing diamond eyes on him.
The column remained standing.
“There’s too much weight for that to work!” Dualayn shouted. “You need to do more than cut through it. You have to do it in such a way that the weight causes it to buckle.”
The solution flashed through Ōbhin’s mind. “Like felling trees!”
He’d seen it enough growing up in the mountain valley. Lumberjacks didn’t cut through a tree, they cut a wedge into the trunk. That caused it to topple over in the direction they wanted. He pictured it in his mind. If he made two diagonal cuts, one slashing downward and the other upward, the force of the ceiling would shove the piece out to the side.
The crystalman advanced on him as he rushed towards the next column, closer to the ramp where Dualayn had dragged Dajouth. The older man pressed a healer onto the younger man’s broken arm. Miguil stood warily nearby, tracking the crystalman, looking for an opening.
This had to work. Ōbhin could see no other way of getting out of this alive. The crystalman thudded after him. Not as fast, but relentless. It knocked a carriage out of the way, metal screeching. Ōbhin reached the column.
He made his first slash high on the column and cut at a downward angle, leaving a thin line just visible in the gray. Then he attacked low. The crystalman closed the distance. He sliced upward, creating a wedge that would pop out of the column and, hopefully, bring down the ceiling.
The column groaned. Stone ground together. The wedge barely shifted before its slide stopped. It was still held in place by the fast weight above. Ōbhin stared in shock at it, almost forgetting death bearing down at him for a moment. Why hadn’t it worked?
“You have to overcome the coefficient of friction!” Dualayn shouted. “You need to hit the column with sufficient force!”
The crystalman swung at Ōbhin.
He threw himself onto his belly out of desperation. The fist roared over his head and struck the column. The blow knocked the wedge a hand’s width to the side. Stone cracked overhead. A pipe burst as more of the wedge shifted out of the way. The ceiling sagged.
Ōbhin scrambled to his feet as the wedge popped out of the column. The weight of not just the ceiling, but the building above and the forest on top lost its support. It all came crashing down in a roar of hungry chaos.
Chunks of the ceiling broke free and hurtled down. The failure spread in a wave over him. A large piece crashed into the crystalman. He threw a look over his shoulder. Jagged slabs crushed carriages. Dust billowed. Fingers scooped up Avena and ran away from the devastation before they were lost to Ōbhin’s sight, obscured by the collapsing debris.
It rained around him and the crystalman. Pieces crashed on the floor beside him. Sharp fragments peppered his legs, knifing through his leather pants. Chimes rang as large chunks hit the automaton. The ground shook. The earth groaned. A cloud of chalk burst around him.
Ōbhin ran.
He took two steps when something slammed into his lower left leg. Pain exploded as he fell face first. The ceiling roared over him. The wave of destruction rushed at him. His ankle throbbed, twisted in the wrong direction.
Broken.
“Niszeh’s Black Tone!” he groaned as he struggled to stand.
“Ōbhin!” Miguil burst out of the dust and seized his arm. He pulled him upright. Ōbhin gripped the groom, leaning on him as he hopped on his good foot. They staggered for the ramp, death crashing down behind them.
A great rush of dirt poured down thro
ugh the ceiling, spilling from above. The scent of fresh loam and pine trees chased them as they rushed for the ramp. Dualayn dragged Dajouth up the sloping surface. The entire world shook and growled. New clouds of dust surged around them.
Miguil and Ōbhin reached the ramp, debris choking the world behind them. The groaning slowed and stopped. Miguil sank Ōbhin down. He stared back at the devastation. A mix of broken stone and dark soil separated them from Avena and Fingers.
A chill swept through Ōbhin as he gazed out at the terrifying sight. Fingers was the impostor. Dajouth broke his arm and didn’t heal. Bran was dead. That left only the older man. He was alone with Avena. He had her.
What would he do with her when he didn’t have to pretend?
How could Ōbhin find her and protect her now?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Beings of light stood around Avena as she dreamed.
They all glowed with a pure, white radiance. They were human-shaped, men and women both, with hair of liquid starlight. She stood amid them, her body vibrating with Honesty. It soared out of her and fed into the beings around her.
They must be devas, she thought.
Across from them, they faced nightmarish horrors. Insectoid demons, their bodies covered in waxy carapaces. They scuttled like ants but stood taller than Ōbhin. They held swords of hardened black, the air thick with an acrid reek. They writhed out of torn rents in reality and crashed into her army of light.
And hers weren’t the only armies fighting. They battled on a great plane. The sky overhead looked murky. No clouds, but the sun didn’t shine as bright. Falling stars burned across the gloom in flares of orange-red, always streaking from the east and south and flashing towards the west and north.
She cried out in a language Avena didn’t understand, giving orders, marshaling her troops. She was giving them power. It flowed out of her and gave them the strength to drive back the demonic ants. These foul insects.
Darklings? These are nothing like the lizard things we found in Koilon.
