by Conner, Jack
The three crewmen shared uneasy glances, and Avery knew they were about to do something reckless. At his nod, Janx, Hildra and Frederick withdrew their guns and held them on the men. Grimly Avery gagged and bound them while the voices of vun Cuvastaq and the official droned on. The conversation seemed to take forever, although it was surely only a few minutes, but at last it was done. Avery and the others waited for the footsteps of the soldiers to dwindle, then emerged onto the deck, sober and alert. Avery half-expected to walk out into an ambush, but vun Cuvastaq occupied the deck alone.
“It’s done,” he said with an exaggerated nod to Layanna. “We are officially docked. This is my normal berth, and that official and I are old friends.”
“Excellent,” Layanna said. “Once more, I’m indebted to you, Colonel.”
“The honor is mine, my Lady.”
“We need to gear up,” Janx said. “This yacht has weapons and equipment. We’ll need them.”
“Don’t forget uniforms,” Avery said. “The crewmen.”
Avery, Frederick, Hildra and Janx stripped the crewmen, armed themselves, then locked the men away in one of the storage rooms.
“We’ll have to put a watch on them,” Janx said, donning the largest of the uniforms. Even so it was a tight fit. “I checked the knots, but if they’re determined enough they’ll get loose.”
“We could just slit their throats,” Hildra said, shrugging on another uniform. Avery was donning the third. After a look at him, she added, “I don’t know why you’re all so squeamish. Besides, we’ve learned how to crew the ship ourselves now. We don’t need them.”
“I’ll keep watch,” Frederick offered. “It’s better than going with you into the Over-City. You’re all fucking mad, you know.”
“Thank you,” Layanna said, and there was gravity in her voice as she said it.
“Alright,” Janx said, “Everyone ready?”
“Yes,” Avery said, fastening a final button. He tried to suppress the quaver in his voice. “Let’s go and get the Device.”
* * *
Hairs prickled along Avery’s spine as they pushed through the halls. This is insane. Frederick was right about that much.
A storm of booted feet sounded down the hall, and a squad of uniformed troops appeared directly ahead.
“Keep going,” Janx said under his breath. “Don’t look suspicious.”
They slowed to let the troops pass, lowering their faces as they did. Avery’s heart smashed against his ribs. Sweat stuck his uniform to him under his armpits.
The troops passed without even glancing at the group, although they did salute Col. vun Cuvastaq, who was with them.
“Shit!” Hildra whispered when they were gone. She looked pale and sweaty. Doubtless she was imagining the Octunggen’s torture cells.
“Yeah,” said Janx, “and we’ve just left the hangar.”
Speaking past the lump in his throat, Avery said, “Let’s proceed.”
They moved through a large doorway onto an airfield, then moved across it toward an opening on the far side. Wind knocked Avery back and brought with it the tang of exhaust. A plane roared above, shockingly close, its landing gear just feet overhead, and sat down on the landing strip that ran between rearing buildings like a river between canyon walls. It happened so suddenly Avery barely had time to duck. With wide eyes, he watched the small fighter coast to a stop and the cockpit slide open, a pilot in a leather helmet and goggles emerging. People from the buildings were all over, helping him down and seeing to the plane.
Hildra laughed nervously. “That was close.”
“Don’t mind the planes,” said Col. vun Cuvastaq as they stepped indoors. “They’re a constant here.”
Indeed, Avery could hear the roar of numerous aircraft at all times as they made their way along, some motors whining as the planes neared him, some chugging as they moved away. Vun Cuvastaq was frowning, though, staring out at the planes each time the group crossed an airfield or passed an open area.
“Wait a moment,” he said at last. “I must talk with someone.”
“Why?” Avery said, alert for treachery.
“The formations of the ships are odd. I see active patrols—as if the enemy is nearby. We need to know whether or not to expect battle. That could change everything.” He moved off and consulted briefly with several fellow officers who had been going over clipboards, and they seemed to know him. “It’s as I feared,” he said upon his return. “We are out over Cumnalan waters.”
“We knew that,” Hildra said. “But Cumnal’s taken. Occupied. Where’s the danger?”
“Need I remind you, your own Ghenisa is just north of here. It has dispatched a large naval battle group to assault the Cumnal ports—and the Octunggen ships being built there. They cannot allow Octung to develop a new naval base so close to them, especially as many Ghenisans are being forced out onto the Qixat Islands, abandoning the mainland.” His face was stern. “We don’t want to be in the midst of a battle. We must accomplish our goal quickly and get out.”
“Battle might give us just the kind of chaos we could use,” Janx argued, but the colonel did not look convinced.
The group pushed on, and Avery stared about him, eyeing a bank of zeppelins overhead. Birds nested in roosts all along them, and they swept hither and thither about the great silver bodies, shrieking and calling out, their voices echoing shrilly across the enormous spaces. The group crossed a bridge between two great platforms, and Avery tried not to look down where the sea boomed far below. They passed many astounding sights as they went, but Avery could barely focus on them. Behind it all, he could not resist the constant thought that somewhere on this monstrosity was his daughter. Even now Ani might be staring out a window of some building watching the same planes he was, or the same configuration of clouds. Shake it off, he told himself. Focus on the task at hand.
Vun Cuvastaq led them to a cable car and they climbed aboard. Apparently the Over-City was so large that means of mass transit were required. The cable car rattled as it left the docking station and passed through great open spaces like metal abysses, revealing the splendor of the Over-City in every direction. Sunlight glinted on the mighty buildings, and Avery felt awed all over again, although he tried not to show it. He also tried not to meet the eyes of the soldiers and workers that pressed against him. The train stopped several times, letting people on and off, but Col. vun Cuvastaq made no move to disembark.
Below winked the lights of various sectors of the city, and smoke from many factories belched upward. Curiously, one sector looked black, all its lights and power turned off. When Avery asked about it, vun Cuvastaq said, “Ah, yes. That’s the haunted quarter.”
“Haunted?” Hildra said.
“A group of extradimensional processors there overloaded, so we believe. This was early in the development of the Over-City, and we were still experimenting. At any rate, something went wrong. Reality shifted.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Avery said.
“Workers would simply vanish. Most never returned, but some did, driven mad by what they’d seen—other worlds, they said, those that could still reason. Things grew worse. There were reports of ... beings ... emerging from the shifted areas. The whole sector was shut down. Abandoned. To this day no one will venture there, and for good reason. The Over-City is amazing, yes, but it was built with technology we’re still grappling with, and it is dangerous also.”
The train reached its last stop before swinging back around, and vun Cuvastaq led the group onto a broad platform.
“Welcome to the heart of the Over-City,” he said, gesturing grandly at a massive structure that loomed ahead, obviously a temple. They stood in an open space, a sort of plaza with shops and restaurants alive with commerce. Government buildings hunched nearby, and beyond them, rising like a mountain behind foothills, was that great temple. Purplish towers heaved against the sky, lightning arcing from spire to spire in a crackling and ever-shifting spiderweb of extradi
mensional energy. Avery wondered if the display served some purpose, perhaps defensive, or was purely to inspire awe; either way, it was amazing. And in the center of it all lurked a thousand-faceted dome, its panes of glass, if it was glass, stained the same shade of purple as the towers.
“Behold the Temple of the Air,” vun Cuvastaq said. “The lair of Lord Uthua.”
“Impressive,” Avery said. He glanced at Layanna. She stared at the Temple with an expression he couldn’t read, but he sensed a certain nervousness. “Can you feel the Device?” he asked her. “Is it in there?”
She frowned, then shook her head. “I think so. It’s hard to tell. There’s so much extradimensional background interference here. But yes, it should be there. They will be working on it still.”
To vun Cuvastaq, Avery said, “Can you get us in?”
“Sadly, only those with higher clearance than I have can come and go freely from the Temple. The rest of us are only permitted there on holy days, and then simply to honor the Revered. We’re not permitted past the room of worship.”
“Well, they won’t be keeping the Device in the room of worship,” Janx said. “So how are we gonna go deeper? Is there a holy day soon? We could sneak off once we’re in.”
“The Sabat was yesterday,” vun Cuvastaq said. “We would have to wait another week. Even then I doubt we’d get beyond the room of worship. Security is very strict.”
Hildra hiked her thumb at Layanna. “She could get us in, if it came to it. Just rip the guards apart, right?”
Layanna narrowed her eyes, just a fraction. “The idea is to get in and get out without being noticed. We can’t take the whole city on, Hildra.”
“I’ll do it,” Avery said. “I was able to infiltrate the Great Temple in Lusterqal. This one should be similar.”
“Unfortunately, that is not possible,” Col. vun Cuvastaq said. “After that rather notorious event—and yes, I know all about it—security was upgraded at all temples. Especially this temple. Now only high-level priests imprinted with a certain mark, which gives off an extradimensional signature, can gain access to the inner layers of the temple. And the flesh on which the mark is imprinted must be living, so don’t think of waylaying some clergyman and sawing off his arm.”
“They must bring in sacrifices,” Avery reasoned.
“All sacrifices brought past the room of worship are now rendered brain-dead.”
“What?”
“A device is pressed to their heads and activated, permanently scrambling their brains. A sort of non-invasive lobotomy. No, I’m afraid there is no way to duplicate your previous success—quite deliberately, I might add.”
“There must be some way to get in,” Hildra said.
“If there is, I do not know it.”
“Well, shit.”
To Layanna, Avery said, “Do you have any ideas?”
She was staring at the Temple intensely, as if trying to pry it open with her eyes. At last she sighed. “No.”
Avery turned to Janx and Hildra only to find them staring expectantly, hopefully, at him. There was no answer there.
He returned his gaze to the Temple. Within that structure rested the fate of the world. He noticed that it stood apart from the other buildings, floating on its own platform buoyed up by a score of zeppelins and a host of other-dimensional technology. Thus there was a makeshift moat around the Temple, a gulf that plunged down into the darkness of the bowels of the Over-City, and then nothingness all the way to the sea thousands of feet below. Only a few bridges led across the gap, and those were heavily guarded. And the crackling energy above would deter any airship.
Suddenly, Avery stiffened. The others noticed and turned where he was looking. A man in silver robes, escorted by half a dozen clergy, rounded a corner and strode down the main concourse toward the Temple. Avery saw the hawk-like nose and intense blue eyes and whispered, “Sartrand.”
“What’s he doing here?” Hildra said.
“Come to observe the activation of the Device, surely,” Layanna said. “Most of my kind will be at war, but a few will have come to bear witness ...” She studied Avery. “Does this impact our plan?”
He rubbed his chin. “Yes, it just might. I need time to work it out.” He shook himself. Thoughts of the Muugist could wait. “We still need to find a way into the Temple or it’s all for nothing. We’ll have to do some reconnaissance. Layanna and Hildra, why don’t you take the right. Janx and I will go left. We’ll meet back here when we’re done. Maybe someone will have seen something useful.”
“I don’t know if splitting up is such a hot idea,” Hildra said.
Janx smiled wryly. “Darlin’, if they catch us here it won’t matter if there’s a hundred of us. Two more won’t make a difference.”
“Fine,” Layanna said, then raised her eyebrows at Hildra. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Col. vun Cuvastaq straightened. “I go with my Lady.”
Avery had already known that. The three moved right, beginning their exploration of the area around the Temple in that direction. Avery and Janx shared a look and wordlessly set off, edging left around the Temple.
Before they had gone far, a strange creature walked by, all white franges and frills, obscene, drooling orifices gaping in its sides. Avery had to suppress a shudder.
“Pre-human,” Janx muttered. “Must be.”
“Yes. Or familiars of the Collossum, from their own set of planes.”
There were other inhuman beings, too, Avery saw, some like the one that had just passed by, others spined or gilled, one floating off the ground. It was like entering a different world. Even the air blurred and crackled, and Avery wondered if there were other, unseen things all around them.
“Can’t believe we’re actually in the Over-City,” Janx said. “I mean, talk about the fortress of the enemy! We ain’t so much trying to snatch meat out of a lion’s jaws as walking down the bastard’s gullet and stealin’ it from his stomach. Hell of a thing.”
Avery nodded, feeling a wave of guilt come over him suddenly. He and Janx still hadn’t spoken about the events in Golna, and he knew the big man was still angry with him, for many things ... but primarily one.
“I’m so sorry you and the others must go through this, Janx. So sorry about everything. Hildra, Ayu ...”
“You didn’t cause Ayu, Doc.”
“Didn’t I? If I hadn’t kidnapped Sheridan, we’d have the Device. We might even have activated it already. We’d be close, anyway.”
“Mebbe.” It was clear Janx had more to say about it but was holding it in. He must have been holding it for quite some time.
Avery stopped at a railing and leaned against it. Below ran another concourse, another series of platforms and shops and businesses. A tide of people passed across a bridge that arced out over nothingness.
“No maybe,” Avery said. “It’s true, and it’s my doing. I just wanted to say, in case anything happens, I accept responsibility for it. And I’m sorry.”
“I’m not a priest, Doc.”
“I know.” Your opinion matters more.
Janx remained silent, and Avery was tempted to face him, just to see what he was thinking, but he was afraid to.
Unexpectedly, Avery felt the big man’s hand grip his shoulder and give it a squeeze. For some reason, the gesture almost brought tears to Avery’s eyes.
“It’s all right, Doc,” Janx said, his voice sounding tired. “I get it. It was your daughter. I ... hells, I might’ve done the same thing.”
“You would’ve?”
Avery glanced sideways to see the whaler ponder the question, then put it to the side. “That’s not important,” Janx said. “What’s important is fixing things. Look forward, not back.” He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.
“Tell me,” Avery said.
“I just wanted to know, what would you have done with her—Sheridan? If she hadn’t broken out. Would you have worked out some deal to
get Ani back?”
“You mean, in trade for the Device? No. No, I wouldn’t have. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I wanted that option. I might never have jumped over that particular precipice, but I wanted to look. And that look has nearly undone the world.”
“Well, it was Sheridan. She is a snake.”
That was surprisingly generous of Janx. “She is,” Avery agreed.
“She could talk a baby out of its lollipop.”
Avery blinked. “She doubtlessly practices it regularly.”
Janx cracked a smile. It was so unexpected that Avery smiled, too.
“Well—” he started.
Janx looked at him queerly, waiting for him to go on, but Avery just stood there, mouth agape, staring downward.
Whatever words he had been about to say were lost to him. All that he could think of at the moment was contained in that small shape bobbing across the bridge below—a small, frail shape, shoulders hunched against a sudden updraft from the abyss at her feet, large eyes wide and darting all around, black hair whipping in the wind. A monkey with wide eyes hunched on her shoulder eating what looked like a peanut, though it was too far to tell for certain. The girl reached up and fed it another.
“Ani,” Avery choked, feeling his eyes burn. He seemed to lose all strength in his knees, and it was only by gripping the guardrail that he managed to keep his feet. “It’s Ani ...”
Chapter 5
Ani was being escorted by two uniformed troops across the bridge. She looked so small and vulnerable against their military efficiency, and Avery knew, in that moment, no matter what he’d just told Janx, no matter anything, he would do whatever was in his power to save his daughter.
“Shit,” Janx was saying, shaking his head and looking grim. “No, Doc. No way. No no no ...”
Avery barely heard him. He cast about, searching for a staircase, something that led down to the level of the bridge.
“Why now?” Janx said, as if to himself. “Doc, you can’t go after her.”
Avery saw a staircase and started toward it.
