Ashes of the Sun

by Django Wexler

  Maya thought of Nicomidi, glaring down at her in her cell, casually threatening to have Beq killed. The rest of the Council, broken into warring camps, willing to turn a blind eye to anything that hurt their political enemies. Raskos Rottentooth, representing the Republic and the Order, feeding off the misery of thousands to stuff his coffers. She took a deep breath.

  “We’re all only human,” she said. “Centarchs as much as anyone. But the centarchs aren’t the Twilight Order, and neither are the Auxiliaries or the duxes. The Order is a principle. That those with power should defend those without.”

  “Defend them by swaddling them. Keeping them like infants, without any way to defend themselves, because that might mean they can stand up to you.”

  “And what exactly are you offering?” Maya shouted, gesturing with her haken at the vast bulk of the monstrous plaguespawn. “That?”

  “That is the power to overturn the order of the world,” Gyre said. But there was a moment of hesitation in his voice; she was certain of it.

  “Please, Gyre. Stop this.”

  “Take your friend and walk away.” Gyre glared at her, but something shifted in his mismatched eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Maya gritted her teeth. “You won’t.”

  She charged, and Gyre stood to receive her. Silver blade met blazing haken, and to Maya’s shock Gyre’s weapon stood up to the test, halting her blow inches from his face. He slipped away, disengaged, shockingly fast, and she had to parry as she fell back. Sparks flew and crackled whenever the weapons met, falling in showers around them. Maya gave ground, tried a riposte, but Gyre seemed to know where her sword was going before she did. He sidestepped, and his blade licked out, touching her shoulder. She waited for the panoply flare, the wave of cold, but it didn’t come—instead there was a crackle of discharging energy, and the point of the silver sword bit through her coat with a spike of pain. Maya jumped back, putting a hand to the wound, and it came away covered in fresh blood.

  Gyre waited, sword ready. He inclined his head. “Like I said. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Maya felt her heart lurch and sought for calm.

  Arcana. He’d found something, scavenging in the dark places under Deepfire. That eye, that sword. Apparently it could break a panoply and deflect deiat. Ghoul arcana. It must be. But it has to have limits.

  She glanced again at the titanic plaguespawn, and her resolve hardened. I can’t let anyone bring that into the world. Not even my brother.

  Maya shifted her grip on her haken and attacked.

  This time she moved cautiously, drawing on every lesson in swordsmanship Jaedia had ever drilled into her. Her mentor had insisted that she practice, blade against blade. Maya heard her voice, that lilting, musical accent, as haken and sword clashed again.

  “Most centarchs rely too much on their panoply. It’s a useful tool, but it can be a crutch. You need to be good enough to fight without one…”

  She’d done that once already, hazarding her bare skin against Tanax’s twisting deiat power. Whatever arcana Gyre had found, he had only a sword.

  Sparks exploded outward as they came together, clashed, and broke apart. Gyre was fast, and his accuracy was uncanny. Sometimes it was all Maya could do to match him. But she was better, trickier. Jaedia’s lessons ran through her, the haken feeling like an extension of her arm, flexing and striking and drawing back with a fluidity that Gyre couldn’t match. He nicked her again, on the leg, came close to landing a strike on her side. But she twisted out of the way and slammed home a counterattack he barely parried. She pressed him, not letting up. His blade wove a cage of silver and sparks around him, but he started to give ground, step-by-step.

  There was another difference between them. The power of deiat roared through Maya, driving her onward, filling her with the limitless fire of the sun. Whatever force animated Gyre’s arcana came from within. And that meant it would run out.

  Maya gave a savage grin. Ghoul weapons are no match for the might of the Chosen.

  The green glow in Gyre’s false eye flickered, dimmed. His movements faltered, just for a moment, and Maya pounced. She thrust, a simple attack, and he avoided it as she expected, slipping to one side. At the last moment, her haken twisted, catching his blade in a bind, and with an expert flip of her wrist she tore it from his grasp. The silver sword landed with a clang and skittered across the stones, and Gyre fell to his knees, her haken leveled at his throat. The green in his eye dimmed again, and he gasped for breath.

  “I don’t want to hurt you either,” Maya said quietly. “You’re my big brother. You always protected me.”

  “Not always,” Gyre said. Sweat dripped from his forehead. “Not when it mattered.”

  “Why, Gyre? Why go this far? This is monstrous; you have to know that.”

  “The Order took everything from me,” Gyre said. “They took my eye. They took my family.” He looked up at her, real eye thick with tears. “They took my little sister, and they turned her into you.”

  For a long moment, Maya didn’t know what to say. Then, finally, it came to her, the words that would fix everything, that would bring her brother home again.

  She opened her mouth to speak, and searing pain lanced through her.

  Chapter 26

  They took my little sister,” Gyre said, “and they turned her into you.”

  He looked up at Maya. His little sister, gap-toothed and grinning, begging for apple pudding. A powerful young woman standing in front of him, sheathed in dried blood, her brilliant red hair hanging limp with sweat, breathing hard. And, between them, a bar of white fire, like a broken shard of the sun.

  His words had hurt her, he could see it in her face. She’d never been any good at hiding her feelings. He’d meant them to hurt, his hand still stinging where she’d disarmed him. He was on his knees in front of her, in spite of all he’d sacrificed, everyone he’d left broken and damaged in his wake, in spite of everything. Words didn’t matter, because she was strong and he was weak. But it was all he had, and he dredged for what he thought would hurt her most.

  I’m sorry. He wanted to say it, but his lips wouldn’t move. He could have apologized to his sister. But not to a centarch. His body felt heavy, slow, as the energy bottle at his side gave up the last dregs of its power.

  Maya looked down at him, gave a sudden smile, and then stiffened. The point of Gyre’s silver sword, crimson with blood and crackling with energy, emerged from her stomach. Maya blinked, eyes going very wide, and her haken slipped from her fingers, blade vanishing as it hit the stones. She followed it a moment later, collapsing first to her knees, then toppling sideways, red hair splayed out around her. The hilt of the silver sword stood out from her back. Behind her, Kit straightened up and smiled.

  Gyre wanted to scream, but he didn’t have the strength.

  “Sorry I took so long,” Kit said. “Had to pick my moment.” She looked down at Maya. “This is her, isn’t it? Your sister.”

  Gyre tried to move and nearly fell over, catching himself on his hands and knees. The energy bottle. Blocking so much deiat had drained it, drained him. He fumbled in his pack with one hand, searching for his last spare.

  “You’re looking for this, I imagine.” Kit held up the bottle in one hand. In the other, she had the remote trigger for the bomb he’d put in Naumoriel’s war-construct. “I’m sorry about this, Gyre, I really am.”

  “W…” Gyre’s mind felt blank. He tried to raise his head and instead found himself meeting Maya’s gaze, empty and staring. “What… are you…”

  “I really do like you, Gyre.” Kit set the energy bottle down carefully, well outside his reach. “I promise I’ll come and collect you on my way out. But Naumoriel was very clear that the Leviathan can only have one master, and it has to be me.” She bent over and kissed his cheek. “Just rest here for a minute. I’ll go blow up the old ghoul and collect my prize, and then we’ll be on our way, yeah?” She leaned a little closer and whispered in his ear. “And
if you thought fighting our way out of the Spike made me horny… well.” Kit straightened up, smiling brightly. “See you soon!”

  Her footsteps receded. Gyre’s legs gave way, and he slid down onto his belly. The energy bottle sat tauntingly on the floor, meters away. For all the strength he had left to him, it might as well have been on the moon. He stretched out an arm, straining, but even that brief effort was too much. The vision from his silver eye winked out, and shortly after the real one followed.

  Gyre woke with a splitting headache and a need to vomit. He managed to roll over before his stomach had its way, spewing a thin stream of bile onto the rock. Gyre turned away from it, gasping, and lay on his back breathing hard.

  He could see. Through both eyes. His hand went to his side and found an energy bottle, warm and humming with power. Strength was already returning to his limbs.

  “Good,” said a weak voice. “I hoped that would work.”

  Gyre sat up, ignoring the pounding in his head. Maya lay on her side across from him, propped on one elbow. The silver sword was on the ground behind her, trailing a slick of crimson. She’d wound a strip of cloth around her middle, but blood was already soaking through. As he watched, her arm gave way, and he lunged forward to catch her before her head hit the stone. He lowered her to the ground gently, and she smiled up at him.

  “What are you so upset about, big brother?” she said. “You were trying to kill me a minute ago.”

  Gyre’s throat felt like it had swollen shut. A sob wracked him, doubling him over, and tears ran down his cheeks and dripped off his chin onto Maya’s forehead. She brought one hand up to wipe them away, the other pressed against the wound in her stomach.

  “Gyre,” she said. “Gyre, please. Listen to me.” When he swallowed hard and looked down at her again, she opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue at him. He saw the chewed mess of a couple of waxy quickheal tablets. “Emergency supplies. Should be enough to stop the bleeding. Beq has other things. I’m not going to die.” She swallowed, and for a moment her brave smile faltered. “Probably. Maybe.” Maya hesitated. “Unless you kill me.”

  “I can’t,” Gyre said. “You know I can’t. You’re…” His throat felt choked again, this time with everything he wanted to say, as though it were all trying to escape at once. “My little sister.”

  “You have to stop them.” Maya turned to look at the huge shape of Leviathan. “That woman, and whoever else is up there. You can’t let them use that thing.”

  “I…” Gyre paused, looking down at her, and found himself smiling. “That’s not fair.”

  “I know you hate us. The Order. The Republic. And we’re… not perfect.” Maya turned back to him. “But the answer can’t be to destroy what little humanity has left. You have to see that. Whatever you believe about us, there has to be a better way.” She swallowed and looked pained. “That kind of power… is best left sleeping.”

  “It may be too late,” Gyre muttered.

  “Try. Please.” Maya closed her eyes. “I think… I’m going… to pass out now. Beq is… at the bottom of the tunnel. Call to her. She’ll… help us. You…” She let out a shuddering breath. “You know what you need to do.”

  “I…” Gyre shook his head. “Maya?”

  She didn’t respond. Heart pounding, he bent over to check her breathing and found it shallow but steady.

  Painfully, Gyre got to his feet. Leaving Maya where she lay, he walked back to the arched doorway. He felt like he was moving in a dream. At the top of the ramp, among the destroyed constructs, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted.

  “Beq!” His voice echoed off the stone. “Can you hear me?”

  Silence for a moment. Then a voice called back, “Who’s there?”

  “Maya’s up here,” Gyre said. “And her friend. They’re alive, but they need help.”

  “What?” Beq said. “Who are you—”

  There wasn’t time for more. Gyre turned and jogged back along the dock. He scooped up the silver sword, still sticky with his sister’s blood, and returned it to its sheath. The fatigue and cramps were burning away in the stream of fresh power, and he felt light again, though a lingering weariness in his bones warned him there would be a price to pay. And there’s no spare bottle, this time.

  The tower with the lifter in it was just ahead, and Kit had left the door open. Gyre stepped into the tiny chamber, and it started upward at once, accelerating smoothly until it reached the bridge over the top of Leviathan. This was a long, curving walkway, and Gyre pounded down it at a run. Beneath his feet, he knew, were the vast plates of the construct’s back.

  The bridge ended in a short ramp downward to a broad steel plain. It was impossible not to think of the plating as a deck, as though Leviathan were a ship or a skyfortress instead of a muscular creature animated by dhaka. Spurs protruded from it, huge flanges like the spiked ends of vertebrae, armored in steel, running in two parallel rows. Between them, some distance away, he could see the hulking shape of Naumoriel’s war-construct, with the tiny figure of Kit kneeling in front of it.

  Gyre crept down the ramp, taking cover behind one of the lines of spurs. He moved forward, watching through the gaps, until he was close enough to hear. There was a hole in the deck between the ghoul and the human, a deep, square pit, and around the edges something moved. Constructs, Gyre realized, a swarm of the little spiderlike things they’d seen inert in the complex, now animate and in furious motion. They crawled in and out of the pit, carrying bits and pieces both metal and organic—plates, cylinders, bones, and strips of meat. Spare parts?

  “And the Order?” Naumoriel was saying, his voice distorted by the construct.

  “Dealt with,” Kit said. “Though Gyre was injured. I left him below.”

  “Good.” Naumoriel waved a clawed limb. “As you can see, the Core Analytica is in place. Leviathan’s swarm has awoken. We stand above the primary motivators, and once the swarm has repaired them, Leviathan will be ready.” He waved his smaller limb, still carrying the code-key. “And then the world will tremble.”

  “It certainly will,” Kit said, grinning. “But that means I don’t need you anymore.”

  She raised the tablet, flipping up the grille and pressing her thumb against the crystal switch. Gyre flattened himself against the metal spur, waiting for the blast. A heartbeat, then two. Nothing.

  Kit looked up in time to see Naumoriel’s huge claw impale her.

  It took her in the stomach, lifting her entirely off the ground, so she hung bleeding from the arm of his war-construct. Her hands scrabbled along the smooth surface of it, and she coughed, blood spraying from her lips. Her dangling legs kicked frantically.

  “I imagine you’re looking for this.” One of Naumoriel’s smaller limbs snaked over, holding a familiar clay cylinder, scored on one side where the ghoul had cut into it. “I found it at once, of course. Poor fool. Did you really think this would work?”

  He dropped the bomb to the deck. Kit could only cough again in answer, blood drooling down her chin.

  “I should have killed you on the spot, of course. But I reasoned you might still be useful to help reach this place, and so it has proved.” The war-construct moved forward, and Naumoriel tossed the code-key aside and ground it under a steel foot. “Not that I would ever trust you with all my secrets, of course. There is no master key to Leviathan. My father was far beyond such crude methods.”

  One of the spurs, just beside the pit, started to open, the sides folding outward. Inside the cavity thus revealed was a metal chair, set in a complex web of silver wire and gleaming crystal. Naumoriel came to a halt beside it.

  “For all its power, the Core Analytica cannot control Leviathan alone,” Naumoriel said. “Only a living mind can do that. That is what I have lived for, since I learned the truth of what my father had created. I will shed this flimsy body and become a god, a titan of steel and its attendant swarm. And I have you to thank, Kitsraea. I would never have found all the pieces without you.”r />
  Naumoriel’s claw twitched, casting Kit aside as a man might flick a bit of grit from his collar. She hit a nearby spur with bone-cracking force and slid down it in a long streak of blood, lying limp and motionless at the bottom. The war-construct knelt, and the canopy swung open, limbs turning inward to lift the old ghoul out of his seat.

  Gyre slipped out from behind his spur as soon as the ghoul turned the other way. The bomb had rolled across the deck, and he snatched it up. Turning the cylinder over, he found where Naumoriel had cut the fuse. It was easy enough to reconnect, and he tossed it over the heads of the little constructs and down the hole. The primary motivators sound important. Let’s hope. Moving as quietly as he could, he skirted Naumoriel and slipped to Kit’s side.

  She lay slumped against the metal spur, one arm obviously broken, glistening bits of torn gut visible through the huge rent in her stomach. Her chin was coated in blood, but her eyes were open, and as he knelt beside her, she stirred enough to look at him. Her lips curled in a smile.

  “Can’t… keep… you down, eh?” Her words were the barest whisper.

  “Try to hold on,” he said, grabbing the remote trigger from her limp hand.

  Kit laughed, a horrible sound that brought another gout of blood from her lips. “Fuck. You.” She leaned her head back against the metal. “Just… kill me. For… old times’… sake.” Her hands moved against her stomach, squishing wetly. “This… really fucking hurts.”

  The war-construct shifted with a whirr, tentacles holding Naumoriel halfway to the arcana-shrouded chair. The old ghoul was looking right at them, and Gyre slowly straightened up.

  “Fine,” Kit said, her voice fading. “Have it. Your way. Slow and painful… it is.”

  “Boy,” Naumoriel said. “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Putting a stop to this,” Gyre said.

  “Too late for that,” the old ghoul said, ears quivering. “Besides, I’m only going to grant you what you wanted. The destruction of the Order and the Republic.”