by Ari Marmell
“I’m so very delighted. Now, regarding that leaving me alone concept—”
“Not so fast.” Death strode to the edge of the dais, then knelt to examine one of the deceased constructs. “We share an enemy, old man. I need to know what you know of them.”
“I know that they are composed of stone and metal, and are very irritating.”
Death turned back to his host. “You really want to be left alone? Your best way to accomplish that is for me to find out who’s sending these soldiers, and cut them in half. To say nothing of the fact that you really don’t want me to have reason to keep pestering you, do you?”
“Hrmp. Fine.” The Old One drew himself up in his chair. “I truly do not yet know who sent them, Horseman, or how they even knew where to find my home! One of them told me—”
“They spoke to you?”
“Oh, yes. The first of them came as emissaries, not invaders. They wished to consult me on lore that nobody else had proved able to share with them.”
Death felt a chill, colder even than his own dark soul, flutter like one of the hermit’s crowfeathers against the back of his neck.
“I, of course, instructed them to depart immediately,” the Crowfather continued. “With results that you have just witnessed for yourself. I imagine they intended to force me to speak, or to abscond with what information they could once I was dead. How little they knew me …”
“I’ve never before known these things to communicate,” Death mused. “Could they have had a leader present? A sentient creature or a more advanced construct, giving orders? Speaking through them?”
“It’s … possible.” The Crowfather shifted, his robes and his mantle of feathers rustling. Had Death not known better, he’d almost have thought the Old One embarrassed. “I have not yet assimilated all the details of the intrusion. I see and know all that my crows do, and they observed far more of the battlefield than I. But they are many, and they are unaccustomed to violence of this magnitude. It may take me some time and concentration to sift through all their memories and impressions before I have all the facts in hand.”
“And here I thought you were supposed to be all-seeing and all-knowing,” Death taunted.
The Crowfather’s face folded in a scowl so fierce that his eyes and lips utterly vanished among the wrinkly crags of his face. “Why don’t you attempt omniscience for a while and see how easy it is for you to readily recall all the little details?”
Death wasn’t entirely certain if he was being ridiculed, or if the Crowfather actually meant it—and he decided that this probably wasn’t the best time to push the issue.
“You’ll let me know if you learn anything?” he asked instead.
“Of course,” the Crowfather said with a mocking bow. “I’ll send a message through Dust. I would hate for you to feel any pressing need to return. Ever.”
“And we were getting along so well.” The Horseman gazed almost wistfully over the broken carapaces. “Hundreds of the dead, and not a damn one I can speak with.”
“Oh?” For the first time, the hermit actually sounded interested. “They may be artificial, but they are living beings. Or they used to be, at any rate.”
“But these are lesser constructs; tools of a Maker, rather than children of one. They’ve no soul. Nothing for me to call back from the dark. My necromancies might return a temporary false life to one of them, for a few moments, but it would make no difference. With no mind or soul, it wouldn’t be able to do anything beyond lie there as though it were dead.”
Again the Crowfather began tapping his nails—this time on his crooked front teeth. “I am perhaps the eldest of my kind,” he said finally. “You know only a fraction of my power—and here, in my domain, that power is absolute.”
“Not even you can just cook up a soul,” Death protested. “Plants and animals, perhaps, but nothing sentient.”
“Correct. But …” The Crowfather rose from his throne with surprising energy. Death almost thought the old hermit looked excited. “I can create my children.” Here he waggled his twisted fingers at the crows overhead. “I customarily allow them to breed in the natural fashion, but I crafted them once, and I can do so again. To do that, to create not merely life but awareness, however animalistic, I must be able to manipulate the stuff of their own living spirit. Not souls, no, but perhaps near enough for our purposes.
“And as we were just discussing, my bond is such that I can commune with them despite their lack of sentience. So … We need one of those.”
Although still more than a little unclear on what the Crowfather intended, Death waded through the detritus until he located a construct that remained at least mostly intact. Heaving the massive weight over his shoulder with barely a grunt, he trudged across the chamber once more and let it fall at the Old One’s feet.
“Excellent. Now, Horseman … Observe, and become wise. Or wiser, at any rate.”
The Crowfather closed his eyes, his lips moving in an inaudible mumble. At first, the only sounds in the great chamber were the grind and click of the orrery, and the occasional crack as dead constructs settled and split beneath their own weight. Until, eventually, a crow—initially indistinguishable from the thousands more who flocked above—dropped to land atop the hermit’s walking stick. It sat, head cocked to stare at its master with a single gleaming eye, while he continued to murmur.
As Death watched, his curiosity enflamed, he gradually noticed that this was not precisely like any other crow after all. Its feathers were ragged, many missing entirely. Its beak was scratched and worn, and one eye—the one it had turned away from the Crowfather—was partly hidden behind a milky sheen.
This crow was old, not long for the world. And Death finally began to understand what the Old One had in mind.
It had, to his knowledge, never before been tried—probably could not be tried anywhere but here, in the core of the Crowfather’s power. And certainly, Death reluctantly had to admit, it would never have occurred to him to make the attempt.
The bird bobbed its head once, in what the Horseman could have sworn was a deliberate nod. The Crowfather held up a hand, into which the crow hopped, and then cupped it tight in his other. His eyes squeezed more tightly still, until it seemed the lids must fuse, and then snapped wide open. A few feathers, all that could be seen of the bird he clutched, trembled once and lay still.
“Haste is essential now,” the Crowfather announced. “I can only hold the crow’s spirit a few moments before it must dissipate as any animal’s would. Weave your necromancies, Rider of the Charred Council. Summon life, however temporary, however meaningless, however mindless, to this artificial creature. And I will provide the necessary essence.”
Death had never practiced his magics on a soulless construct before. He’d never had cause; as he’d explained, without a spirit or a mind, there was precious little difference between dead metal or living metal. Still, the Crowfather was wise—if also eccentric, standoffish, rude, and overbearing—so it seemed sensible to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Besides, it wasn’t as though Death had any better ideas.
The magics coursed through him as they normally did—if anything about breaching the barriers between life and death could be called “normal.” He experienced the same sensations of cold and heat, fear and fury, that invariably accompanied his necromantic spells. It felt like it was working. He saw no reason it should not be working.
But he had no way to tell. Constructs did not breathe, did not bleed. Without a mind to tell it to act, it lay there precisely as it had when it was dead.
As Death neared the end of his incantation, the Crowfather knelt beside the construct, laying the little avian corpse on the ground behind him, and pressed a hand to the brass-coated rock of its chest. Death staggered as an unfamiliar magic intruded on his own, a second energy intertwining with the stuff of unlife.
“Keep your questions straightforward, Horseman. I may be able to commune with it, but it’s still the mi
nd of a crow. It may have difficulty with complex notions, or interpreting the memories of the construct.”
“I have only a few. Who sent you here?”
The Crowfather once more closed his eyes, willing the essence of the bird within the carapace of the automaton to understand. For some time, nothing happened, and Death had begun to believe their process, innovative as it was, had failed, when …
“Our creator,” the Crowfather intoned softly. “He says ‘our creator’ sent us.”
“And who is your creator?”
Another pause, as the spirit grappled with understanding. Then the Crowfather actually reached out and poked the body with a finger. “No, not me. The creator of the metal creature! Its memories still reside within; sense them, know them … Yes …
“Belisatra. Their creator is Belisatra.”
“I’m not familiar with that name,” Death said.
“She’s a Maker. A worker in stone and metal.” The scorn through which his words struggled and swam left little doubt how he felt about such “lesser” Old Ones.
“Yes, I know what a Maker is, thank you.”
“Well, how am I to know the limits of your ignorance? I’ve heard of her, but I’ve never felt any pressing need to study her.”
“At least the name’s a place to start. I—”
Death and the Crowfather shuddered as one at the sudden tug on their souls. “The spells are failing,” the Old One whispered.
“Noticed that, did you?”
“Ask your questions! Quickly, while there’s still time!”
“What was your purpose here? What did you seek from the Crowfather?”
It took so long for the avian spirit to wrap its mind around the concepts that Death was certain they must lose it before it could answer. Eventually, however, the Crowfather spoke again. “Some of the most ancient of lore. The means of awakening the relics of the Slaughtered Ones.”
Even had the magics not been failing already, they would have ended at that moment, for the Horseman’s concentration shattered like crystal on an anvil. It wasn’t a term he’d heard before, but given the crow’s limited vocabulary, he knew that the “Slaughtered Ones” could only mean his own people. The Nephilim.
I was right. Damn them all to Oblivion, I was right!
Death spun with an abrupt cry, hefting the construct—once again an empty, lifeless shell—and hurling it across the chamber. It crashed into one of the standing pillars, marring several of the ancient carvings.
The Crowfather’s teeth clenched so that his beard began to quiver. “The enemy hasn’t inflicted enough damage on my home? You feel the need to assist them?”
The Horseman stood, shoulders heaving. The need to lash out burned in his soul; Harvester was in his hand, and he couldn’t even recall summoning the weapon. Slowly, deliberately, he forced himself to calm.
Later. Plenty of time for anger later …
“What is it?” the Old One asked once Death had visibly composed himself.
“The Abomination Vault.” His voice was barely a whisper, as soft as the Crowfather had ever heard it. “They’re after the Abomination Vault.”
CHAPTER NINE
IT HAPPENED SO FAST THAT NEITHER THE ANGELIC SENTINELS circling above, nor the soldiers on the street, could do more than gape in utter astonishment. A fearsome cracking, not unlike the shattering of some great peak, echoed from down the street, followed by shocked and fearful cries. Angels scattered in all directions, on foot and on the wing, hurling themselves clear of some sudden danger. Many were already recovering their wits, reaching for weapons, but to little avail.
Before the echoes of that crack had faded away from between the massive walls nearby, it was replaced and overwhelmed by what seemed, at first, to be the dull rumble of rolling thunder. The roadway shook, so that dust and bits of detritus sifted out over the edges—along with the occasional angel who hadn’t yet taken to the air.
From the chaos charged War and his terrible mount. The flaming hooves of the beast seared their mark into the paving stones, and it was those swift, inexorable strides that shook the street beneath. Ruin galloped unrestrained, for the Horseman had no hand upon the reins. He held both high above his head, and with them he supported an inconceivable weight. The effigy of the lunging angel, larger than horse and Rider combined, carved of solid stone, would have required two or three of the White City’s mightiest to lift it off the ground—yet it seemed scarcely even to slow the fearsome pair who carried it now.
The first shots began to rain down as the angels circling above took aim with their halberds. Between Ruin’s speed and the intervening obstacles, however, only a few got through, and those accomplished little more than to dig chips from the statue. Only one or two of the guards on the street had shaken off their astonishment enough to open fire, and these had no success in penetrating either War’s armor or his mount’s toughened hide.
The building loomed before him, growing ever closer. War rose, standing in the stirrups. With a deep grunt he snapped his body forward, hurling the sculpture with all his unnatural strength. The massive projectile soared ahead of them to slam with devastating force, not against the door, but against the stone wall some few paces to the right of the entryway. The statue shattered into heavy chunks that bounced and skittered along the roadway. The wall itself was shot through with a cobweb of deep cracks and fissures, but it had proved thick enough to stand against the bombardment.
War didn’t so much as slow. Hooves pounded against the road, the wall was almost upon them …
And Ruin leapt.
Twin trails of smoke marked his passage, sketching an impossible arc through the open air. The Horseman, still standing, whipped Chaoseater from his back. He spun it once, twice, and then leaned out over Ruin’s head, the great black blade jutting forward like a lance.
At the apex of Ruin’s flight, the split-tongued tip of Chaoseater seemed, almost gently, to kiss the already compromised wall.
Stone exploded inward in a billowing cloud of dust and jagged shrapnel. Angels, alerted by the sounds from outside and standing ready in the center of a great lobby, recoiled with a chorus of cries as they were briefly blinded, their exposed flesh slashed and bruised. A few fell under larger slabs of wall, crushed by enough weight that they would not rise again soon, if ever.
A couple of others were flattened by Ruin himself as he finally came down in the midst of the open chamber. Instantly he reared, hooves lashing out to crush cuirasses and helms, ribs and skulls. War laid about him to either side, wielding the massive Chaoseater as though it were a toy. Limbs, blood, wings, and feathers clattered and splashed across the walls.
Several of the angels opened up with their energy-spitting halberds, but between the clouds of dust and Ruin’s constant rearing and prancing, few came anywhere near the target. Those that did were once again deflected by War’s great armor. On occasion he would raise his left arm to shield his face from a particularly lucky shot, but otherwise he focused on killing.
A second fusillade nearly clipped him from behind, as the soldiers outside finally converged on the gaping hole in the building. At that same moment, from a balcony across the chamber, an angel took flight. This one carried not the small firearms War had faced so far, but one of the Redemption cannons for which the White City’s artillery divisions were so infamous.
War snapped an order, and Ruin again broke into a charge across the lengthy hall. The first blast of the cannon slammed into the floor where they had stood just an instant earlier, leaving a smoking crater.
Again Chaoseater spun, once, twice—and War hurled the blade like a javelin. It should never have flown straight, not shaped and weighted as it was, but by now none of the Horseman’s foes should have expected natural behavior from that awful blade. It sank through the angel’s chest, spraying blood from front and back. With a cry that swiftly devolved into a wet, bubbling gurgle, the soldier plummeted.
Carried by his galloping mount, the Horseman pa
ssed beneath him as he fell. War rose up, snatching Chaoseater from the wound and the Redemption cannon from the angel’s fists, and was gone before the body hit the floor.
“Stairs!” he barked, and Ruin obediently made for the broad and sweeping staircase against the far wall.
War slung Chaoseater across his back once more and slapped the butt end of the cannon to his shoulder. Left hand on the pommel of the saddle, he slipped his right foot from the stirrups and spun. He hung, now, off Ruin’s side, held fast by left foot and left hand, facing back the way they’d come. The Redemption cannon roared, again and again, and those angels who’d been entering through the shattered wall crumpled in smoking heaps.
With a satisfied nod, War threw his leg back over the saddle, returning to his proper position and transferring the cannon to its intended—and far less awkward—two-handed grip.
The steps, sturdy but never intended to withstand this sort of physical and mystical abuse, splintered beneath Ruin’s hooves. Horse and Rider swept up and around, following the curve of the staircase. War pumped shot after shot from the cannon either into the chamber below or toward the balcony above, wherever an enemy might appear. He wasn’t killing all of them, certainly, but those he missed were apparently wise enough to take cover rather than try shooting back.
The balcony opened up into a hallway with multiple rooms to either side. The Rider knew, from the proximity of the doors to one another, that the chambers to either side were small—almost certainly not the laboratory itself, or the home of the sacrament bomb. He put multiple cannon shots through each door as Ruin bolted past, just to be sure, but never once slowed the horse’s headlong flight.
It was not particularly defensible, this building. Large open rooms, straight corridors with no good choke points … Clearly, Abaddon had repurposed an existing structure, rather than building his own. And equally clearly, he’d been relying on secrecy and the laws of the White City as his primary defenses. Perhaps that made sense, given how determined he’d been to keep the entire project covert, but …
