A Binding of Echoes

by Kalyn Crowe

  "Why the oil?"

  "It's supposed to repel the acid and give the powder time to work in case the Capstone fails. I think it's why the council chose here for the Maw. The ancient Order built this part of the city over a chasm in the mountain."

  I whispered, "It's a trap."

  She looked confused but said nothing.

  A gust carried the cold scentless city air over us from the great courtyard of the Maw. I stayed back only a few hands from the edge of the tunnel.

  Leyla squished next to me.

  Kepi peeked out from my hood as it waved in the wind.

  The High Hall spread out to either side. Other buildings ahead towered over the retaining walls around the Maw. Soft blue radiated on the pale stone walls and glinted off window glass.

  As I peered down, vertigo hit, but it paled in comparison to the intense beauty of the seal.

  The Capstone seal stood as if the high sky wrapped itself into a hollow mountain — one completed by a perfect, sapphire peak. Six azure pillars sprung up and arched inward. They supported the central cone with buttresses of blue filaments. These also hung between them like spider webs of moonlight.

  This elaborate construct not only secured the Maw, but it also housed an enormous sphere. One so perfect and golden, it must have made the sun jealous.

  I tilted my head. The Apex sphere opened the Maw, but it also looked the right size to hold the Abyss Capstone. It would work as a counterbalance. Philomena needed the Grand Counterbalance for something else if I was right.

  My bones knew it existed.

  I looked skyward and then down again.

  Darkness pooled within the base of the Capstone.

  The Maw.

  Its edges bled in an imperfect circle under the sphere. The shape changed and shifted, but when I blinked, it stayed the same.

  The slightest hint of sea air drifted in an upward breeze and disappeared. I might have imagined the smell of that grave. We needed to stop whoever sewed the chaos; whoever killed our parents.

  I turned around. "Let's get Gunnar."

  We returned to the small courtyard and slipped into the other tunnel.

  Sweet and strange smells wafted from beyond — earthy, rotten.

  "A sewer?" I said.

  Leyla stopped and looked over her shoulder. Her scroll unfurled. "We should be above most of it."

  "Above?"

  "Because of the uneven mountain, part of the Hall is set on raised foundations." She crawled through the dark tunnel. Her words lit the way. "The Reliquary is huge and takes up most of the first floor except for the prison. There many basements, some supposedly deeper than the Maw's courtyard. I don't know what's in those."

  I swallowed hard. "I thought the old Order leveled the peak to build the city?"

  "They did, but drainage and I guess creepy deep sewer basements are necessary."

  I said, "Especially under prisons."

  She smiled over her shoulder, but then looked forward and stopped. "Here's a drop-off." Her scroll floated in front of her and turned back. "There's a ladder. I'm going to ramble so I can see." She pulled her legs around and stepped over the edge.

  "Keep the scroll close to you. I can see fine."

  She shot me another little grin and lowered down the ladder.

  I came to the edge. "Wow." It echoed, and the sound of water underscored my voice. A cavern of darkness opened in all directions. Small gaps of little lights showed in the distance.

  I climbed down the ladder.

  At the bottom, a thin strip of rough masonry created a walkway between natural stone levels. It arched over pipe openings in the foundation. Further in, it connected bridges over long, dark valleys.

  Leyla pointed above a two-story vertical ladder. "See that light up there?"

  "Yes."

  "It's a hatch into the lower prison."

  Leyla walked across one of the thin bridges without a single cautious step.

  I stood at the start of it. The drop on either side ended in a foggy nothing. Sewers should only scare people afraid of tiny spaces and gross things, not heights.

  Kepi peeked out, looked down, and then across. She cooed.

  "That's easy for you to say," I whispered.

  Leyla waited on the other side.

  I kept my focus on her and put one foot in front of the other.

  We crossed another three mortar bridges and reached the impossibly tall prison ladder.

  "Is that the lock Rhys mentioned? The hatch at the top?" I said.

  She nodded her hand.

  I'd have to pick the lock while on the upper rungs. I flexed my hands and stretched my fingers.

  Leyla rubbed my back. "You know, you're the timidest monster I've ever met."

  Kepi and I matched glances.

  Her ear twitched, then she looked up at the prison hatch.

  I sighed as loud as I could and climbed. Each rung higher stoked the fire in my arms and mind, but what I owed Gunnar, and everyone else, even myself, spurred me on.

  A thick metal grate a good eight hands across waited at the top. Rusty red caked the lattice of bars.

  No footsteps or sounds of any kind. "Kepi, check for me?"

  She crawled to the top of my head and peeked through one of the larger openings. Her little feet chilled my neck when she came back into the hood and cooed the all-clear.

  The middle beam of the grate housed six keyholes with a colored enamel ring around it for each Anima.

  I whispered, "Hide us just in case."

  She quietly cooed back.

  I gripped the top rung with one hand and reached upward and out for Form with the other. I spiraled the red filaments through the matched lock's keyhole and filled it. The pressure forced the Form imbued tumblers with a well-oiled click.

  They maintained the lock but left the grate rusted and dirty. Strange.

  I repeated the process for the other keyholes.

  Leyla stepped around the ladder and stood on the same rung with her feet interlaced with mine. "I'll help you lift this."

  So far up, yet under the immense structure of the Order's High Hall, her soft floral smell still eased my stress and fear. "All right, one more."

  Abyss filaments shot up from the depths and spiraled into the blue-rimmed lock.

  She glanced down. "Look."

  "Nope."

  She grinned. "They travel at least four stories down passed the bridges. Do they go all the way?"

  "To Abyss?"

  She nodded.

  "I don't know. Maybe from Phase, but the part near the Plane? The Animas always come from the same orientation. I've never thought about it, but I always know East by where Conduction and Spirit are. It's the same for West and From and Resistance. Just one set is above, and the other is below."

  She said, "But can you tell?"

  Kepi cocked her head.

  "My mother wrote about magnetism and Phase. Some people might sense that influence here, Weavers most acutely. I should read more of her notes." I finished with the lock.

  We hefted the grate up and over. The scrape of metal against stone gnawed my nerves. It was too loud.

  23 - Prisons

  We climbed up into a circular stone room. Low tables with neat rows of metal tools and knives lined the walls. Four or five white invoker coats hung by the only door. Some had glossy light teal trim along their edges and hems, while green decorated others.

  "This is an Inquisition room," I said nearly soundless. The red dust on the grate wasn't rust. It was blood.

  A large iron ring, like a chandelier missing the rest of its lamps, held one person-sized cage on a matched chain. Several more girded hooks waited empty. Failure would guide us to them.

  I don't know if I possessed Eda's strength, what if I betrayed everything I knew? If only I could seal away my memories, just in case.

  Kepi stood on my shoulder, and I glanced at the charm around her neck.

  I tried to dust my hands together, but the stain remained.
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  Leyla's scroll flared. "Do you know how Eda got out?"

  I looked at her and said, "No."

  "The duress clause Bora is using to protect Duri. The Order created it because of the confusion of horrible situations. A Spiritist can tell if a person is lying, but people are breakable. The person undergoing questioning might not know the truth. When the lies contradict because the person can no longer tell what is real, the questions must end. At least until they recuperate."

  "So can Spiritists ever be an accurate way of knowing anything? Even after a couple of days, Duri might calm down, but what his mind settled on might be wrong."

  Leyla kept her eyes away from the cage and tools. "It's imperfect, but it is what the Order uses. Eda probably knew more than she admitted, but she also knew she'd break." She smoothed her hair. "The Inquisitor couldn't make sense of her responses after they opened her up a third time. So they stopped."

  I could only stare at Leyla.

  "She held on long enough to let the pain make her forget." She wiped her eyes. "Conrad petitioned for her pardon. His wife argued on Eda's behalf. The council took almost a week and only saw reason at the end when High Lord Travere intervened on Eda's behalf, too. Eda was in the hospital for a month, unconscious for most of it. The Nardovinos and Lord Travere helped her get custody of me after she recovered."

  I couldn't speak right away. It's one thing to know about horrible events, but to see how their pain forever echoes, it was awful. "I never asked how Conrad's wife knew Eda."

  Leyla said, "His wife, Matilda, argued against Inquisition until her death in Abyss, near the end of the war. She said torture reshapes the body and the mind."

  "Like when a nightmare is so real, you can't tell if you're awake or not?"

  "Yes. Matilda spoke about the templars with haunted memories and scared souls. She said they brought Abyss home. Eda." The scroll grew blank a few moments, and she covered her eyes. "Eda sleeps much better now."

  I put my arms around her.

  She rested her face onto my shoulder and cried, but her words showed clear. "Conrad, Eda, they've never made me feel like I owe them, but I do."

  I thought about what brought me here. How I felt I owed everyone, too. The confidence placed in me filled where I could find none of my own; everyone's risks pushed me. I started to pay them back when I began to trust in their judgment. "I think people who do things for other people do it because they have faith the person will make the most of it. They don't feel like they lose anything if the other person grows."

  Her breaths calmed. "The sun never asks for its light back from the trees." She fixed her eyes on the door.

  I said, "Let's get out of this pit."

  Leyla wiped her face. "Right." She slipped her scroll into the arming jacket. Then she pulled up my hood and tucked in Kepi's tail.

  I made sure my hair was away, too.

  She nodded and walked toward the door.

  It opened without issue, no lock, or even a bar across it.

  The hallway led us to a staircase. Its spiral shape eclipsed anything more than a few steps ahead.

  I tried not to sweat in this cold basement.

  The stairs ended with another door. I opened it a sliver and peeked out.

  This floor consisted of a vast hall with five open gates on the left-hand side. An orb of light floated between each and more mirrored their positions on the right — no way to hide.

  I ducked back behind the door. "You should lead, it's well lit, and there are several ways to go."

  She tightened her lips and pushed open the door like she owned the place.

  We turned down the first left.

  A guard dipped his head and yawned.

  The prisoners on either side paid us a glance at most.

  We turned at the end of this block, and another hall of cells glowed before us, identical to the first.

  This place was where the phylactery scroll took me.

  I glanced at my hand.

  Gunnar would get out alive.

  All the ragged faces ran together until we came upon one still on fire with anger.

  "So you're the new guards?" Gunnar got up from the floor and came closer.

  One black eye and a split lip swelled fresh on his face. His knuckles bruised.

  "What are you doing here?" He looked down the hall. "Leave before they find you."

  "That's the idea." I set to work on his cell's lock.

  "They can sense Anima casting here."

  "Not mine."

  "Yes, they can. You aren't-."

  "Gunnar, shut up, please and let me think."

  He frowned but stepped back.

  "Also, thank you for rescuing me." I finished with the lock and opened the door. "And for letting Kepi loose years ago."

  The hardness left his expression.

  I said, "Let's go then." The floor felt a bit soft for a moment.

  Gunnar caught me. "Consider us even. How many locks did you pick to get in here?"

  I blinked a few times.

  He huffed and made sure I balanced on my feet without help. "Leyla, lead us out."

  I noticed the bruises and scrapes on his wrists.

  Gunnar walked as if his hands were bound and followed Leyla.

  Kepi and I followed.

  The guard we passed watched but looked at the door we headed toward and lowered his eyes. From his point of view, only one possible explanation existed.

  We made it back downstairs and into the Inquisition chamber. Gunnar shut the door and pulled one of the tables in front of it. "Where are Kat and Rhys?"

  "Safe, with Eda. We're to meet them at the hideout."

  "What of Conrad?"

  I said, "Last we saw, he argued with Bora in the lobby.

  Gunnar noticed the coats by the door and took one much too small for him.

  Leyla put it back and grabbed the longest Conductist coat.

  He threw it on and buttoned it. "Damned dress."

  She smiled a little and straightened out her arming jacket.

  "Once we're out, push your hair over that eye." I tapped near my own. "Leave the bottom buttons open for now. We have a couple of ladders to climb."

  He frowned and did as I asked, then searched around the room. "Ladders? How in Abyss did you get in here?"

  ✽✽✽

  Outside, by the fountain between tunnels, I lifted the collar on Gunnar's coat. It hid his lip. Hopefully, it would be enough. "Where is this place? I have a scrap of paper here."

  "Don't look at it yet," he said, "It's a cellar in an old war warehouse. A good twenty blocks, past the Hunter HQ ruins, near the far outer wall."

  So we had half the city to sneak through. "Should we go through the sewer?"

  Leyla shook her head.

  Gunnar said, "It doesn't connect." He bowed his head to Leyla. "It is custom for the Lady Templar to lead again if she knows the way?"

  He sounded like an invoker.

  She nodded and pulled my hood a bit further over my face before she walked back to Mainway.

  Gunnar walked with his hands folded within the sleeves of the invoker coat.

  Clever.

  The faces in the courtyard changed. New groups milled about their daily routines. However, the same guards stood by.

  One of them gave us a long look.

  Gunnar said, "One must be most careful with Conduction experiments." He glared at me. "Next time, I will retrieve my materials myself."

  I cringed and lowered my head as much I could.

  The guard laughed. "Goodness, man, what an eye."

  The other said, "Too bad you Conductists get sicker if you get healed."

  "Is that right?" said the first. "Huh, well, I must admit it does my heart good to see you white coats get a bit roughed up. Go on then."

  The swelling disguised his face. Gunnar looked like an invoker, spoke like an invoker, what was to question?

  We carried on through the streets and walkways until a beacon shot up. It tower
ed between us and our destination.

  He looked up at it. "Green, and it looks like from the Hunter Square." He grimaced but chuckled. "They're clearing the way. Let's hurry."

  Leyla took us into the back alleys.

  Hooves and feet pounded the road on the other side of the buildings. Several groups of people rushed through an intersection.

  "I wouldn't call this clear," I said.

  "It's chaos." He winced and held his side. "Kat always told me it is the best kind of clear."

  We dipped out into the flow of people and rode the wave through the streets. That was until the acrid smell from the HQ's rubble marked our location.

  "Here." He left the majority of people and turned down the alley behind the HQ ruins. "This is where Ansgar and the Abyssite disappeared."

  Leyla watched the crowd.

  I scanned the alley. "A sewer grate. Like at the attack. But the creature wouldn't fit?"

  "Wouldn't have to one the Abyssist you controlled died or let it go. Then you could abduct Ansgar with your puppets." Gunnar huffed. "Damn it, why didn't I insist that Bora look into these people?"

  I scanned the sky. No birds, not yet. "We can talk later."

  He scowled but tucked back into his invoker persona.

  Four blocks later, we found ourselves in a deserted part of the city. We walked amongst identical, nearly featureless buildings. They towered along the deep-rutted, and empty, street. Wide double doors were the only feature on their face. Cellar entries sunk into the far side of every other.

  "What are these for?" I said.

  "Storage. Armaments. Old war-machines like broken ballistae and the equipment for undone repairs," he said.

  A metallic noise reverberated. The buildings' height and flat faces made the sound directionless.

  Gunnar held out his arm in front of us and pressed a finger to his lips. He slid along the building front.

  We followed.

  One of the cellar doors opened.

  Leyla pulled out the sword.

  A hand bow and a sharp set of eyes popped from the cellar.

  I held up my hand. "Fish dumplings."

  Leyla and Gunnar looked at me with crossed brows.

  Conrad lowered his bow and laughed. "I started to wonder how long you'd be." He walked up and out.