Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  “Which way?” Dekker asked.

  I picked a door almost at random. It showed a plain hallway. If I didn’t know this was a mine, it would look like any other subbasement, and with some renovation would remind me of the passages under Rockstead. The hallway came out in the back of a storage area - a storage area that was mostly empty shelves and a few scraps of ancient cardboard.

  “I smell burning,” Xiv said.

  Dekker sniffed at the air and shrugged. “I don’t smell anything but stale air and dirt.”

  “I’m sure Xiv smells that too,” I said, “but he also has a better sense of smell than we do, so whatever he’s picking up is probably not something we can detect.”

  “Could it be lingering soot from the boilers?” Icerazor asked.

  Xiv shook his head. “That was different, and this is stronger in here.”

  “All right. Everyone keep your eyes open,” I said. “I don’t know what this means, so be alert.”

  “This place looks dead,” Dekker said.

  “If it is, you get to say ‘I told you so,’” Icerazor said, “But if it isn’t we’ll get to point and laugh.”

  “That’s no way to treat a new guy,” I said.

  “We’d be breaking tradition then.”

  “One, he’s not a team member. Two, Blue Streak left the state, so we’re not going to treat new members like that anyway.”

  “Can we not stay here and argue?” Xiv asked quietly.

  Icerazor and I looked sheepishly in different directions.

  “Yes, let’s get moving again.”

  Part 22

  The entire lower floor looked to be support facilities - water processing, power, some of the ventilation systems. The amount of power this place could have produced must have rivaled commercial generation stations of the day. The deathly silence gripping the facility was broken only by noise we made. Even as we ascended into a residential area, I listened to our footsteps echoing into the auditory void. The housing facilities had simply been abandoned. There were still cans of food in the mess hall that had not been opened. Dishes in the cabinets were clean except for decades of dust. The beds were all neatly made, then left to rot. It was clearly put in a state that anticipated being put back into use before long. Just shy of heading back to the stairwell, we stopped at a door marked, ‘Lord Castel’.

  “If I remember correctly, this facility was the last place anyone has admitted to seeing him,” I said. “It makes me curious.”

  “I don’t think we’re getting out of here any time soon,” Icerazor said. “Besides, there might be documentation or something worth stopping for.”

  I opened the door. It was unlocked and moved easily. The room struck me as simple and utilitarian. There was a neatly made bed at the back, a simple desk to the left, and a wooden chest next to a set of drawers to the right. There were no decorations, no ornamentation. There were books on the desk. Reference texts of a sort I couldn’t understand, and in a multitude of languages. A metal-bound tome in the middle bore a sigil etched into the cover that made my skin crawl. Hesitantly, I opened the cover. The pages were embossed plaques that looked to be either made of gold or plated in it. I could not understand a single mark on any of them. Ignorance was little relief as I backed away from the desk and turned my attention to the furniture on the opposite wall.

  The drawers contained ordinary attire and basic grooming equipment. The contents of the chest were topped by a pair of rifles. Both had a rich burl wood stock and a quiet dignity. Their finish was slightly dulled by time, but it would not take a lot of effort to restore to proper luster. Under the rifles sat a row of books, all bound in the same red-brown leather. Each looked virtually identical. I picked one up at random. It had nothing on either cover, so I flipped to a page in the middle. There was a set of sketched schematics of a rifle before neat handwriting filled the page.

  “I was mortified. After the third shot fed cleanly, opening the bolt led to the entirety of the magazine leaping out of the mechanism and scattering over the bench. I spent the rest of the day fussing over the working until I found the problem. I’d broken the retaining catch firing the weapon. It was clear I’m over-thinking the design and making it too complicated.” Flipping to another page, I resumed reading. “Anne visited. It was good to get my mind off the fools in the ordinance office. Of course I couldn’t blame them after they’d just bought piles of Martini-Henry rifles.” I put that one back and pulled another. “The lift mechanisms for the airship worked in tests, but there is a loss of efficacy when linked together. It appears I missed a factor that will need to be addressed. I will start reviewing the matter come morning.”

  “They’re diaries,” I said, putting the second one back. Going over the lot I figured out that which was the most recent and picked it up.

  “The siting has been completed, and the most sensitive elements can be lifted to the location in the hold of the Roof of the World. Construction should be well underway before I arrive. With any luck, the Americans will not make a hash of it.”

  “They stop before he gets here,” I said.

  “That’s also the last page of that particular book,” Icerazor said. “I’m guessing those were the diaries he finished with and put in storage.”

  Looking at the book again, I figured Icerazor was right. “So, where’s the active diary?” I turned back to the desk, but there was no red-brown volume like those in the chest. The metal book still unnerved me.

  “So, did you find anything useful?” Dekker asked.

  Flipping a few pages back in the diary in my hands I found diagrams I couldn’t understand. “Maybe,” I held it out to the others. “Does this mean anything?”

  “They’re unlabeled drafts for whatever he was building,” Dekker said. “The lack of labels does make them less useful, but not useless.”

  Dekker and I flinched back as Icerazor clicked on his light. Xiv didn’t flinch, but his nictitating membranes covered his eyes in pale blue. He looked the most alien I’d seen him in a long time as they slowly slid back open. Icerazor moved the goggles carefully to his forehead.

  “What did you do that for?” I asked.

  “These cheap goggles aren’t picking up the text.”

  “Warn people,” Dekker said. It was one of his few complaints that I agreed with. Icerazor didn’t comment, simply taking the diary and moving over to the desk. His attention was seized by the metal book. He forced himself to review the other pieces as well.

  “These books are priceless,” Icerazor said. “Some of them have less than half a dozen other copies in the world.”

  “So why were they left here?” Dekker asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “At this moment, is there much to be gained from them?” I asked.

  “Not yet, but we should keep this one.” He handed the diary to Dekker and clicked off the light. Colored blobs danced in front of my real eye as I blinked against the sudden darkness and my artificial eye resolved a green impression of the space. We headed out and moved up to the third floor. Here there were even fewer signs of deterioration. The ceilings were twice as high and the air devoid of many of the same aromas that lingered lower down. Except for the scent of smoke. Heavy electrical machinery filled many of the rooms around the perimeter of the level. Loops of electrical cabling sagged like sad vines from ceiling brackets. These all fed into the central chamber where they hooked into bizarre equipment and hulking banks of control panels. Crystalline-tipped arms spined with copper vanes reached from the outer ring of equipment, spearing towards the center of the room. Other, dish-like structures were arrayed near the bases of these arms. The space was huge compared to any other chamber we’d found down here so far.

  Flipping open the diary, Dekker began comparing the mechanisms to the diagrams. “It’s not quite the same,” he
said.

  Icerazor sniffed at the air. “I definitely smell something burning now.” I couldn’t deny it, nor could Dekker, as a look of concern crossed his features.

  “Where is it coming from?” I wondered aloud. A crumbling sound that could not be attributed to us echoed through the chamber.

  “They’re all around us,” Xiv said.

  A few glimmers of orange amidst indistinct movement shimmered in the lee of the hardware. The acrid stink grew immediately stronger. Switching my eye over to thermal, I startled back. The walls were awash in heat from white blobs that clawed their way out of the nooks and niches behind the equipment. A stab of light from Icerazor’s penlight fell on one of these things. I switched to normal vision. The heat source was a mass of ambulatory coal, glowing with internal fire as it dragged its ashen chunks along the concrete.

  “Cindergeists,” Icerazor said.

  “What are-” as the words passed my lips, the Cindergeists surged forward. Icerazor was the first to react. In a single motion, he drew his sword and split out his diamond double. His crystalline doppelganger met their charge head on, shouldering one aside and carving through another. The bisected Cindergeist broke apart into flaming coals and scattering embers. I kicked back the one closest to me. The plume of fire and backwash of heat as I sent it tumbling into the Cindergeist behind it told me that I did not want to end up in prolonged contact with any of them. Xiv yanked Dekker back as a pack of Cindergeists collided in the space he’d just been occupying. The collision released a plume of flame that lit up the room. The creatures appeared unharmed as they scrambled to disentangle their coals.

  “Just break their physical form,” Icerazor said through gritted teeth, his focus occupied with maintaining the diamond double. “It will send them back where they came from.”

  Perking up, Xiv breathed out a stream of frost at the heap of Cindergeists. The one closest to him shattered in thermal shock as the others scrambled to either side to swarm in. My own pack surged forward as well, and I wrapped myself in a force bubble. Cindergeists crashed against the crackle of red static like one of the waves on Molbrech’s island. Hissing, scrabbling, clawing, they fought to get at me. I heard the distinctive screech of the force bubble subjected to magical weapons. Before it could fail, I dismissed it and wrapped myself in shadow. With a bestial fury, I tore into the oncoming tide of burning embers. The flame whipping about me seared at the shadowstuff, but never got bright enough to burn it away. I clawed back at the furnace-hot heap, trusting Icerazor’s statement that we were not killing these creatures, even if they did seem like nothing more than mindless blobs of angry coal.

  There was no subtlety to my fight, no finesse. There were too many of them, and each was nothing but a pile of burning rocks. Burning being the operant term, as I felt as if I were cooking where I stood. I leapt straight up in search of a cooler strata. With the heat radiating off the Cindergeists, the chamber was rapidly becoming a giant oven. Higher air offered no relief for the simple truth that hot air rises. The first burst of cool breeze I got was the backwash from an invocation Icerazor unleashed against the horde. The outward wash of frost scattered those Cindergeists it didn’t outright shatter. I’d never seen him cast anything that powerful before, and the reason became painfully apparent as he doubled over and vomited up blood.

  Rationally, I knew it was likely only his lunch, but that didn’t make it look any less distressing. I dropped down next to Icerazor and intercepted the handful of spirits bounding forward to exploit his weakness. Smashing apart their brittle forms, I scattered their embers across the concrete. Casting about for more enemies to face, I was taken aback by the snarling, growling, lupine form amidst the orange glow. Mostly humanoid in shape, it had digitigrade feet, clawed hands, and an elongated snout full of sharp teeth. The sandy brown fur visible to me was smoldering with wisps of smoke curling off of it. I tensed up, then paused as I realized it was wearing a hero suit. Black and gold, with the sigil of a stylized jackal wearing sunglasses on the sleeve. A moment after that I realized his eyes still glowed electric purple. Blinking in surprise at the sight of the transformed Dekker, I almost didn’t notice Icerazor rise to his feet. I dismissed my shadowstuff. A dull orange glow still filled the room, but it appeared to be only the dying embers of the shattered Cindergeists.

  His breathing hoarse, Dekker clutched his head and backed away from us. Bumping into one of the control consoles, he slid to the floor. Trembling, he growled as the fur receded and his form slowly came back to that of a young man. Slumping where he sat, Dekker’s face was drenched in sweat from more than just the ambient heat. He looked down at his now-normal hands, the purple glow from his eyes subtly shifting their hue.

  “Six months ago, I was normal,” Dekker said.

  “Six months ago, you were a Morlock,” I shot back without thinking. I got several dirty looks.

  “I dropped the diary,” Dekker said, changing the subject.

  “You put it on the console,” I said.

  “No, he didn’t,” Xiv said, “I picked it up.” I looked up at the ceiling where Xiv stood, holding the book in question.

  “Then what’s this?” I asked, picking up the book on the console.

  “Open it and find out,” Dekker said. It was the painfully obvious solution, so I sheepishly did so. Most of the pages were empty. I flipped to the front and found Edward Castel’s handwriting. Stopping on a random page, I read.

  “I must be going soft. Rookhound was squarely in my gunsights, and I could not pull the trigger. The only thing that went through my mind was what that forty-four caliber slug would be destroying if I let the hammer fall. So, even as he wreaked havoc within my operation, I could not pull the trigger.” Furrowing my brow, I looked for more context. All I got were the events of the film reel from Edward’s perspective. It didn’t say why he thought shooting Felix would have more significance than anyone else he’d shot. I flipped through the pages until I found the last entry.

  “The timing issue has been resolved. It took the annoying step of re-cabling the entire power distribution network so that each capacitance bank fed its emitter through an identical length of copper. I also slaved all of the circuits to a single physical switch. It was not the most elegant fix I could devise, but it was the fastest solution. Now that I know it works, I’ve been left to ruminate. Until now, I’d been content with the idea of letting someone else take the monumental first step across the threshold. I was secure in the knowledge that this project was the culmination of a lifetime of scientific achievement. But now, I have begun to notice that I am very much alone. Oh, there are still people around me. The boilermen to keep the power going, the staff running the basic operations of the base, the Ironcaps. But nobody who really mattered to me is here.

  “Anne is gone. Sir George is gone. My Mother is gone. My children will not speak to me. Kriegg is gone. Even Blackridge and the bastard Henry are gone. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that I should be the one to first step across the threshold. And once I do, what reason do I have to ever look back?”

  The diary ended, with only page after page of blank space until the back cover.

  “It’s the last active diary,” I said.

  “That’s all well and good, but I’d like to know what that wolf crap was,” Icerazor said.

  “Technically, it was a jackal hybrid form.” Dekker’s expression sagged. “It’s the downside of the process by which I got back in my body after Serar impaled me.” He looked down at the cooling embers. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Compose yourself as best you can. We still have to figure out if we’ve found anything.”

  “What are Cindergeists?” Xiv asked, coming down from the ceiling to hand over the diary he had. I took the book since Dekker hadn’t gotten himself together yet.

  “I’m not the expert on spirits,” Ic
erazor said, “But, if they’re not strong enough, they can’t manifest a physical form in this reality. So they have to attach to something here. Cindergeists are weak spirits that attached to the burned down remnants of a fire. In this case, I’m guessing the remnants of the coals in the boilers we passed earlier.”

  “That must have been a shock to the people working the boilers,” I said.

  “Enough to bug out and just lock the doors behind them, probably.”

  Satisfied that there was, in fact, something worth having specialists dissect in detail, we left the mine and headed back towards civilization. We got as far as Pickman’s crossing when the constellation of flashing lights filling a parking lot caught my attention. A moment later, I realized that the building at the end of the lot was missing its front wall. I could see the neat rows of shelving and hanging signs that swayed in the breeze. I turned into the lot, much to the annoyance of the officers on crowd control. I rolled down my window as the closest one approached.

  “In case you can’t tell, the store is closed,” the officer said before he got a good look at us.

  “I’m more interested in what happened to close it,” I said.

  The patrolman paused, his eyes skittered from one occupant of our car to another. “Right,” he said slowly. “You got any blue cards?” I produced my BHA card, but he didn’t even look at it. “I think you should ask the captain. If you would leave your car here, he’s by the tape line.”

  The captain was a man who looked like someone more accustomed to desk time than field work. He had a beer-keg gut and loose jowls. His short white hair had been buzzed to bristles on his scalp. The name tag below his badge read “Hare.”

  “Where were you tights an hour ago?” Captain Hare asked.