by J M D Reid
“Ōbhin!” Dajouth shouted. “Watch out!”
“I’m fine!” Ōbhin called, hating this part. If he retreated, the automaton might miss stepping on his trap. He focused on the crystalman plodding at him. Its eyebeams blinded Ōbhin. He almost couldn’t see anything else now.
“No, no, from your left!” Dajouth shouted.
Left?
He glanced over. Through the shining glare of the diamond beams falling on his face, he made out a shadowy shape. The fourth crystalman had followed him, too. It came at him from another direction. It had flanked him with its diamonds off.
Now, it was right on top of him.
*
Avena followed the whispers.
“How are you reading that?” Dualayn asked as she tapped the glowing letters hovering before her. They had a tactile presence, like touching something spun of spider silk. Delicate. Too much pressure, and they would shatter.
“I’m not,” she said, hitting the next option, knowing she was working through a menu even if she didn’t understand it.
She had to go faster. Two were cornering Ōbhin. He was in danger of being killed. She couldn’t let that happen. But it wasn’t easy as just turning off a switch. The power came from a sealed basement that was held behind a heavy, locked door. It transmitted a higher amplitude of tonal energy through the world without any wires. The power was broadcasted like her thoughts were from her brain in the chest back at their camp. Nor could she damage the artificial mind with any tool she had on hand. Diamond surrounded the mind. She could shatter brittle obsidian, but not reach it.
She had to deactivate it, and that meant inputting codes. They sang in her mind. She shouldn’t have access to them, but the mind was broadcasting too much information. More than it should. She swayed, her hands moving on their own, almost directed by the words whispering through her thoughts.
Her body felt alien. A puppet.
“Avena,” whispered Dualayn in awe.
“Hush,” she said and closed her eyes. Her mind interfaced with sounds. Her fingers acted, mere devices. An extension of a mechanism responding to her inputs. Her breathing slowed. Her heartbeat dwindled. The feel of her body faded, her connection tenuous. Too deep, and she’d lose all control of her body.
So much to do, and death was coming for Ōbhin. She could see him from two different angles. Two different crystalmen closing in for the kill. The artificial mind had lured her lover into a trap. Ōbhin had fixated on one automaton, thinking no will directed them as a unit.
That it couldn’t learn from his first trap and thus would blunder into his second.
She couldn’t do it in time. He’d boxed himself in. He was turning as the flanking crystalman’s fist fell. It hurtled in, too fast for Ōbhin to dodge clear.
“No!” Avena shouted.
*
Ōbhin saw death coming for him.
Understanding fell upon him in that instant of clarity, as time seemed to stop before the fist crushed his head. He’d let himself get cornered. The crystalmen had set an ambush of their own using the first as a distraction, keeping him half-blinded with the lights. Even now, it was flanking around the trap to cut off Ōbhin’s retreat. He shouldn’t have stopped by the rubble pile.
He pivoted anyways, attempting to flee. He had to escape. For Avena. He didn’t want to lose her. He was prepared to die to save her, but in that desperate moment facing his end, he realized he’d rather live and save her. To survive with her. She shone with diamond hope. The energy surged through his limbs as his body moved.
Too slow. He felt trapped, like there was heavy snow around him, an avalanche that had swept over him and pinned him in place. The amethyst fist plunged at his head. Avena’s smiling face appeared in his mind, her hair in a long braid, her irises adorned with those flecks of gold.
A blur streaked before him. Something moving too fast. A figure. Slender. The amethyst fist crashed into the figure’s skull instead of hitting Ōbhin. The loud crack of bone snapping resounded. The head snapped to the right, spittle flying from a mouth.
Bran’s mouth.
The youth caught the wrist of the automaton even as the force of the blow pushed him back into Ōbhin. Confusion rippled through Ōbhin as he stumbled towards the other crystalmen circling around his trap. He scrambled to stand.
Bran shouted, a deep and primal roar. A bellow, full of fury. His head had twisted around too far not to snap his neck. The skin around his throat bunched up, broken vertebrae poking at his flesh. His skin rippled pasty white.
The impostor had saved Ōbhin’s life.
Gripping the automaton’s fist, Bran pivoted. In a feat of strength that should be beyond what any human being could accomplish, Bran heaved the automaton over his shoulder. The impostor’s legs snapped from the weight placed on them. Bone shards speared out through his trousers. He collapsed beneath the bulk of the crystalman but finished his swing.
As Ōbhin scrambled to gain his balance, the automaton crashed to the ground right on his trap. The stone shattered into four triangular slabs. The crystalman rang as its hands struggled to purchase on the edge before it plunged down into the carriage house in a resounding crash. Fragments of amethyst and chunks of black stone burst in all directions, pinging against rusting carriages.
The thing posing as Bran collapsed to the ground in a cry of pain, legs bent the wrong way in three or four spots. Behind Ōbhin, the other crystalmen advanced. A boil of confused emotions beset Ōbhin—shock, rage, fear, more—but he didn’t have time to process them.
The crystalman threw its punch.
Ōbhin’s feet found purchase. He threw out a desperate parry with his tulwar. He struck the automaton’s inner wrist with his resonance blade with a hard slash. The energy of his deflecting attack was just enough to knock the fist a fraction off-target. Ōbhin’s training to dodge severed weapons gave him the reflexes to twist his head the rest of the way clear.
The attack slammed past him. Wind rippled over his hair. His back slammed into the rubble pile that trapped him. The crystalman recovered from its missed attack, swinging its arm like a club now, a sideways blow to crush his head.
“Go low!” the impostor shouted.
Ōbhin understood, his body already moving in that desperate motion. He dived forward, thumb deactivating his resonance blade. He hit the ground before the hulk. The crystalman struck the rubble as he rolled between its feet. Its legs moved; its heel struck Ōbhin’s hip.
Sent him rolling.
He cursed as he tumbled for the hole his trap had made. His legs fell over it. He dropped his sword as he scrambled to seize something. Anything. He slid over the edge, the weight of his lower half dragging him down towards a twenty-cubit drop onto the ruins below.
He snagged a crack. His black leather gloves gripped it while the crystalman turned around. Bright eyes fell upon him. A heavy foot rose to crush his arms. Better broken legs than a crushed skull, he thought and let go.
*
“No!” Avena screamed.
She had to shut it down. She was so close. She put in the last code as she witnessed Ōbhin hanging, about to fall into the hole. She slammed her fingers down on the light buttons as the crystalman’s foot stomped down at his skull.
She hit the deactivate button.
Ōbhin let go and fell.
Avena’s stomach dropped with him. Then the whispers in her mind died. The artificial mind turned off. The characters of glowing light before her winked out of existence. She lurched back, knowing she hadn’t been in time.
“Ōbhin!” she shouted and whirled around to race for the stairs, terrified at what she would find.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The moment Ōbhin let go, the crystalman’s glow died. A deep darkness fell on him as his belly slid across the stone. He was a heartbeat from dropping to his possible death. Fear surged through him. The crystalman creaked as it toppled above him in the murk.
Avena had shut it down a heartbeat too late.
Something rushed above him. A hand seized him. Iron fingers crushed his wrist. A grunt of pain. Agony flared in Ōbhin’s right shoulder socket; his fall halted. The groan of the toppling crystalman grew. Then a loud crash. The wind of its passage as it hurtled past him into the hole whipped over him. An arm, or perhaps a leg, struck his right foot, sending him swinging. The automaton shattered beneath him, mixing with the fragments of its brethren.
It would have landed right on me, thought Ōbhin.
“Come on,” the pain-filled voice of the person holding his arm groaned. With a loud grunt, Ōbhin was yanked out of the hole and deposited on the ground. His savior fell down beside him.
“Who?” Ōbhin asked. “Fingers?”
“No,” the voice answered. Through the pain, Ōbhin recognized it.
His stomach tightened. He scrambled back from the impostor. His hands swept across the dark, grimy ground for his dropped sword. Fury burst through him. The thing who had killed his two friends now had saved his life twice.
That thought bubbled through the anger.
Ōbhin froze. He fixated on the sounds of the thing’s breathing. His eyes adjusted to the dim light shining from the diamond lanterns sitting on the steps of the sheriff building. In it, he made out the impostor standing on Bran’s legs. They were still bent and broken, its unnatural flesh supporting its weight. There was a pop and a crack. The figure jerked. As Ōbhin’s vision grew better, he witnessed those legs straighten.
Become whole.
Can anything kill this thing?
“You murdered Bran,” Ōbhin said, struggling with his emotions. “And Smiles.”
“I became them,” the figure answered in Bran’s voice. The pain was gone. “Healing bones takes the longest. It always hurts, though.”
“Becoming them isn’t being them,” said Ōbhin. “They’re dead, right? Buried in some shallow grave or dumped in the lake?”
“I—Bran—liked the ducks swimming on the lake. I asked my handler to bury him by it.” Sadness brimmed in the impostor’s voice.
“And Smiles?” Ōbhin asked, emotion tightening his voice. As his vision sharpened, he spotted his sword. He snagged it and rose, facing the impostor.
“My handler took him away to a pigpen.” Bran rolled his right shoulder. “His body can't be found.”
Ōbhin’s sword shook. “I see.”
“I have my mission.” Bran’s earnest, youthful face stared pleadingly at Ōbhin. “I must protect Dualayn.”
“You didn’t have to save me just now.”
“You’re my friend, Ōbhin.” The thing pretending to be Bran stepped forward. “I—”
“You killed my friend!” The resonance blade hummed to life, emerald light flaring from the pommel.
Bran’s face fell. “Avena said the same thing. Perhaps I am not allowed to have friends.”
“Who are you really?” Ōbhin had to know. “Did Dje’awsa make you?”
“I’m No One,” Bran said after a moment. He raised his hands and backed away into the darkness. “I will keep my distance. I know you need to keep Dualayn alive until he fixes Avena. You won’t hurt him. I’m not a threat. For now.”
The thing calling itself No One fled into the swallowing black of Koilon’s ruins. Ōbhin’s entire body trembled. Rage suffused him. He would find a way to put down Dje’awsa’s foul creation. Next time. When he hasn’t just saved my life.
*
Avena burst out of the building onto the steps. The lantern light shone around her. She scanned around, struggling to gain her bearings. The last image of Ōbhin she’d received from the artificial mind seared in her thoughts. Terror lashed her heart to painful ribbons.
“You did it!” an excited Miguil shouted. He and Dajouth stood twenty cubits or so away over a collapsed crystalman.
“Where’s Ōbhin?” she demanded.
“Went that way,” grunted the weary voice of her father. Fingers trudged into the light, breathing heavily, sweat cutting streaks through the grime coating his face. “Chased by two . . . of those . . . Black-cursed bastards.”
Avena looked in that direction, clutching her hands tight together. She opened her mouth to shout when green flared in the darkness to her right. Ōbhin’s sword.
She darted in that direction, the glow of her earthen gauntlet spilling enough light before her to see where she stepped. He stood by himself facing the darkness. She cried his name as she ran. He turned to face her. She caught a glimpse of his face spreading with joy.
Then his blade went out. He became a shadow flowing towards her. They came together. Arms went around the other. She clutched him with desperate need. He was alive. He hadn’t fallen like she feared. She’d been in time. She pressed her face into his leather jerkin and trembled.
They had found each other in the dark.
He kissed her forehead and whispered comfort to her. In that moment, she knew everything would be fine. They would find the antenna. She would adjust to the cursed thing shoved into her skull. Just like her brain had adjusted to the artificial mind’s broadcast.
She would make a life.
Avena wouldn’t let the butchery Dualayn had committed stop her from moving forward. She had a second chance at love. That hollow pit in her heart was almost filled. All that remained was the absence her dead loved ones had left in her life.
Evane was the largest, but she realized Chames had dug his own place in her heart, and even her mother was there. Not the woman who’d been driven mad by the Black, but the smiling woman she’d been most days. The bright woman her father had loved.
She had lost too much in her life to lose anything else.
*
As Ōbhin held Avena, he felt the black gloves around his hands. A prison he donned every morning. A declaration not only to the world, but to himself, that he was worthless. Today, he had wanted to do more than just protect.
He had wanted to live.
He’d been willing to die to save Avena, but he found he would rather live with her. Ōbhin had found value in his life once more. The last time he’d gone underground, he had believed himself to be a noble man. A proud warrior. He had emerged a murderer. A broken man.
That dark, twisted version of himself had entered this darkness and died. The old one reborn. He was ready. Finally ready to remove these gloves and wear proper ones. Purple gloves, the color of protection, of a man who wanted to protect those he loved. And with circles on them the color of flame. A declaration of his love, his burning passion for someone else.
The person he wanted to protect most of all.
Avena had promised they would escape the grime and darkness. She’d kept her word. As he held her, he whispered the three words burning in his heart. The three words that had transformed him once more.
“I love you.”
Avena’s faced lifted. Her lips met his. He wouldn’t be a coward this time.
*
Avena felt a great deal of energetic joy as they resumed their search through the ruins. The crystalmen were gone. The only dangers left to them were collapsing debris. The impostor, No One as they settled on calling it, lurked out in the dark. She could feel it watching, but it stayed away.
It took hours yet, but they reached the Hall of Communications. The building, like many others, was half-collapsed, crushed by whatever cataclysm had buried Koilon. As near as Dualayn could tell, the destruction of the Wave Transference Station had unleashed the ruby transformation. That appeared to have unleashed the invasion of the strange demons with their still-warm bones. Perhaps they were birthed in the destructive energies unleashed at the moment of the Shattering. They were different from the ant-like demons she’d witnessed in her dreams of the White Lady’s past.
Different breeds of demons? Are darklings one? Are other monsters among them?
At some point, someone named Ozsor had sealed the Ruby Nodule which might have meant setting up a Warding. It was the last event chronicled in the Recorder. The Warding must have buried th
e city, perhaps banishing the living demons back to wherever they’d come from.
Maybe she would never know the truth of the ancient past.
The search of the Hall of Communication’s ruins led them to a storeroom full of the antennae. They were all made of obsidian. They looked like slender shafts of smoky black the thickness of two of her digits.
“Look at them all,” Dualayn said after giving her the first one. “They are beautiful. Their shape is extraordinary. See the minute detail of their construction. The one I made for you is such a crude thing in comparison. My deepest apologies, Avena.”
“That’s what you’re apologizing for?” grunted Fingers. She still thought of her father as Fingers. He continued to keep his distance, perhaps unwilling to face that he had abandoned her that day.
The hardest thing to do is forgive yourself, she thought. It was something Daughter Heana had told her as a child during her many attempts to coach Avena to speak again. Back then, she’d had trouble accepting it wasn’t her fault that Evane had died. She didn’t even need forgiveness yet couldn’t give it to herself for so long.
She would be patient with her father.
“Look at the craftsmanship,” Dualayn said, picking up a second. “If I can figure out how to grow the crystals like the ancients di—”
Ōbhin’s sword whipped from his sheath and activated. Before Dualayn could react, the blade sliced through the antenna. The tip fell to the floor and shattered. Obsidian was the most brittle of the eight gems.
Proof of its corrupted nature, she thought. In that second dream, though, obsidian had seemed like the other gems until it had melted during the catastrophe.
“Why did you do that?” Dualayn roared. He glared at Ōbhin, but the easterner was already moving. His sword slashed across the shelves, cutting through the stockpile of antennae. Dualayn went to grab Ōbhin.
She seized the man’s wrist and yanked him back. “You are not going to butcher another person like you did me.”
