Shield and Crocus

by Michael R. Underwood

  First Sentinel chuckled, and the tension spilled over. “If you’re going to jump us, all I ask is that you do it now, so we don’t waste our time.”

  Dlella just looked at First Sentinel, still swaying back and forth. “Your paranoia may have kept you alive so far, but it’s not terribly endearing. We’re here for a deal, nothing more.”

  “Good. Where is the artifact?”

  Dlella produced a map and spread it out on the table before them. A bright-eyed Pronai boy appeared beside the table in a simple suit.

  “Can I interest anyone in a drink?” Dlella asked.

  “No, thank you,” First Sentinel said.

  Dlella sighs. “We’re not going to poison you.”

  “Not thirsty.”

  Sapphire ordered a dounmo tea. It’s not that she was more trusting than First Sentinel. If Dlella had poison strong enough to disable a Freithin, the Shields were doomed regardless.

  Dlella ordered blackberry liquor, and the serving boy disappeared in a flash of red. The Millrej then drew the Shields’ attention to the map. “The artifact is called the Rebirth engine. It’s kept in a guarded facility on the north end of Audec’s Bowels.” And that’s all we need to know for Blurred Fists to case the location. If we can string this out and get the explosives and more about Nevri’s hidden agendas, then all the better.

  She pointed at a building with a scaled finger. The building was located in the heart of the industrial district, high crime rate, no safehouses within an easy walk.

  We’ll have to stage out of the coffeehouse basement, or from The Rack, talk to Colni and her sisters. The Shields could move through the district undetected, but it wouldn’t be easy.

  “What else do you know?” First Sentinel asked.

  “Onyx leads a contingent of fifty Spark-touched guards that rotate on three shifts, starting at noon, eight, and four. Nevri recommends that you strike at the shift change at eight—that’s when Onyx takes his respite after two shifts on.”

  The middle of the evening. It wouldn’t even be true dark by then. It wasn’t the Shields’ usual operating hours, too exposed to patrols. But if they could gain an advantage on Onyx, catch him when he was fatigued, it might be worth it.

  The boy arrived with the drinks. Sapphire saluted the boy, and Dlella raised a toast, which Sapphire slowly returned.

  “What about the meet with Nevri? The explosives? Why can’t we just use a crate full of dynamite?” First Sentinel asked. “And why not give them to us now? Every extra meeting is a chance for us to be spotted by agents of Yema, the Smiling King, anyone.”

  Dlella shook her head. “Conventional explosives will not suffice. The Rebirth engine creates pure change—it is change. A special explosive will be required to destroy it. Luckily for you, the executor is procuring such a device as we speak.”

  The Millrej continued. “One week from today, Nevri will meet you in heart Station, at the platform for the Headtown vein. A train will be emptied for the meeting.” She took a small, controlled sip. “Nevri requires that you conduct your operation a week afterwards, on the night of the eighteenth of crooked elbow.”

  “Why wait? There could be another storm by then,” First Sentinel asked. It’s nearly a guarantee, in fact.

  Dlella stood taller on her tail. “Nevri will be working to make sure that your mission is not interrupted. The preparations are not yet complete. And she imagined that your people would require some time for your own planning.”

  Worry pricked at the base of First Sentinel’s skull. Maybe we should just call it here, try to do it on our own. he looked to Sapphire. She would feel his worry, since they’d shared the Freithin blood-bond. She was wary, eyes drifting to the corners every few moments.

  “Is there anything special about that date?” if she wanted to spring a trap, First Sentinel guessed Nevri might wait for the pickup, which is why he planned on leaving half of the team behind in reserve.

  Dlella gestured with her drink, the blue-red liquid swirling in the clear crystal glass. “It’s just a schedule, First Sentinel. I’m sure you understand how much Nevri values a well-kept schedule.”

  “If there’s another storm before then, so help me…” First Sentinel clenched his fists, lips curled into a snarl.

  Sapphire put a hand on First Sentinel’s shoulder, and he relaxed. “What else do you know about the device?”

  The more they got her talking, the better chance they had of catching a glimpse into Nevri’s plan. Nevri never made fair bargains, and so far, this seemed too good to be true.

  Dlella sighed, casual. “Not much. From what we can tell, it’s not the origin of the storms, just makes them come more frequently and last longer. It’s more catalyst and accelerant than creator.”

  “How?” Sapphire asked.

  Dlella slid to the side, and reset her coiled tail beneath her. “Sadly, we don’t know that. The Smiling King’s always had a connection to the Spark and those it touches. It might be an elaborate focus for his power, refining his power over the Spark-touched into power over the Spark itself.”

  “Might?” First Sentinel asked, wondering where Nevri had gotten that information and just sat on it the whole time. Had she already tried to destroy it and failed? That might explain Dlella’s confidence about how conventional explosives wouldn’t work.

  Sapphire asked, “have you tried to destroy it before?”

  “Executor Nevri only learned of the device recently, and decided to go directly to you.” Dlella smiled, as if trying to build rapport. “Anything else?” How about Nevri’s head on a pike? Or Aria back from the grave?

  After a moment, First Sentinel grinned. “The money?” Dlella matched his expression as best as she could with her thin lips.

  “Executor Nevri has generously offered to pay half now, and half upon confirmation of the mission.”

  That way she gets her dirty work done and she can betray us afterward. Very tidy.

  “Half now, one-quarter when we get the explosives, the rest after.”

  Dlella’s smile faded. “The terms have already been given.”

  First Sentinel stood, and the guards flinched, taking a half-step forward. Dlella raised a hand and halted them. He shook his head. He’d been married to an attorney, he knew his way around a contract. “The deal isn’t sealed until we get the first payment. Negotiation of the details is still open. You know we want the device gone, so we’ll go after it. But if we take it out on your date, you pay on our schedule. Otherwise, we walk and do it ourselves, and whatever Nevri has planned for the night of the mission gets ruined.”

  “Very well,” Dlella answered. First Sentinel offered his hand, and the two shook. A shiver rippled down First Sentinel’s spine. He tried to tell himself it was just the coolness of Dlella’s scaled hand.

  Dlella pushed up to the ceiling and revealed a plain brown sack that had been covered by her tail. Using her tail, she pushed the sack to First Sentinel. He looked inside, checked the stack of bills. “Looks good.”

  First Sentinel nodded to the Millrej, keeping an eye on Sapphire. The big Freithin picked up the bag and slung it over her shoulder with ease.

  No one jumped them as they walked out, much to First Sentinel’s surprise. Maybe fortune was turning, after all. When things look like they’re going our way, I spend all my time wondering when it’s going to fall apart. But if we do this right, we save lives and put the screws to the Smiling King and Nevri both.

  First Sentinel rather preferred the consistency of tough luck and endless setbacks. It was more dependable.

  And now, to find my son.

  Twenty Years ago

  CHAPTER NINE

  First Sentinel

  Twenty Years ago

  At first, I was lost with Selweh. What was a bachelor artificer and revolutionary to do with a toddling mass of youth?

  “Mommy!” It was the only thing he would say. I suspected he knew more, but he was too young to grieve properly.

  Darkened circles rimm
ed my eyes. Patrols at night and sleepless days of interrupted work and attempts to learn parenting took a toll.

  He squirmed in my arms as I tried to feed him. We lived among piles of boxes and laboratory equipment and I had to be as vigilant keeping him from eating beakers as I did watching my back on the streets.

  I had to retrain my voice for compassion, separate the gruff warrior out and learn a new way talking, of living. “She’s gone, Selweh. But she loved you very much. Now it’s just you, me and the Shields. I’m Wonlar, remember? Wonlar.”

  Selweh threw a handful of applesauce at my face. “Wonner.”

  I smiled as I wiped off the food.

  It was a start.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Aegis

  Aegis strained against the chains that bound him to the examining table. They hadn’t budged any of the last hundred times he tried, or the hundred before that, but still he pulled. The third link on his left arm seemed to be weakening under the pressure. Every time he strained, the chain shocked him. He was burned and exhausted, but one of the links was almost broken.

  He’d been imprisoned for five days, he was sure of it. Thanks to his father’s lessons, he could keep time in his mind without a clock, without the sun.

  The room was cast in darkness while COBALT-3 was gone, the lamps doused, and no windows to speak of. She’s very big on efficiency and thoroughness. If she were on our side, I’d admire it.

  He pulled again, felt the pinching heat of the shock. The third link seemed to stretch a bit more. By morning, he could have it broken. But then COBALT-3 would come again and replace it.

  Try harder, Selweh.

  His father’s voice spoke up in his head in response to his own thoughts. Selweh could almost see his father shaking his head, chiding but amused. Don’t try harder. Try smarter.

  Selweh had never known his birth father. He’d been some lover of his mother’s that Wonlar never spoke about and who disappeared before Selweh’s birth.

  All of Selweh’s memories of a father came from the stern but loving man who raised him on tales of a fallen republic and his mother’s heroism. To hear Wonlar describe her, she was the perfect woman, loving, strong, intelligent, and driven. Wonlar had taken Selweh as his own, though a shadow passed over his father’s face sometimes when the old hero looked at him.

  Aegis took a breath, cleared his mind, and remembered his father’s lessons, hearing Wonlar’s voice again: Imagine the room as if it were lit, the items clear in your mind.

  He brought up a mental picture of the room, drawn precisely each day when the light was turned on. If I break the chain, I can get a link out. What can I do with one link of chain and a free hand in this room that will get me out?

  The room was twenty feet to a side, square. The ceiling was twelve feet tall. The walls, floor and ceiling were made of greystone, the table he was tied to was forged from high-grade steel and angled thirty degrees from the floor. Gravity was on his side to pull against the chains; his weight had been hanging on them since he was put in the laboratory days ago. His wrists had the cuts and sores to prove it. There were three lamps—one at the door, one suspended overhead, one in the far corner on the desk. At the desk there were scalpels, medical tools, and pattern machines for computation.

  And below the desk was the source box for the chains, cables running under the floor. That’s it.

  Aegis strained against the chain again, pushing against the table with his legs, one arm and his back. The chain on his arm pulled up and away. Electricity coursed through his body, and he bit back a scream as he pulled. But the chain bent, then broke with a loud snap. The sound reverberated through the room, loud enough to echo into the hallway.

  I don’t care if you heard, guard, just give me one more minute, and I’ll be ready for you. Aegis looped the few links still attached to the manacle around his wrist and took the broken chain in his hand.

  A mechanical voice called, “Unknown Sound. Investigating,” The lamp at the door flickered on and through the door stepped one of COBALT-3’s automata guards, all chrome and brass. It pointed a halberd at Aegis and said “Stop.”

  “Too late, rusty.” The light was just enough to illuminate the source box. Aegis hurled the broken chainlink like a knife, imbedding straight into the device that electrified the chains. As the box sparked and the guard charged, Aegis burst the deactivated chains.

  And now, the fun begins. Aegis reached out with his unchained hand and grabbed the haft of the halberd. He pulled the automata into a waiting fist, knocking the guard’s head off of the struts of its neck. The head clattered against the wall, and the automata fell to the ground in a heap of clangs. Grabbing the halberd as it fell, Aegis snatched the lantern off the table. He flipped on the lantern and adjusted to the light.

  Without his father’s shimmercrab goggles, he needed the electric light to navigate his way out of COBALT-3’s labyrinthine compound. Aegis thanked the City Mother for the android’s simplicity in design. Why design automata that see in the dark when your lighting system is so efficient?

  Aegis had no clue where in the compound he was, or even which laboratory this was. It was probably the main facility in Bent Knee, but she could have laboratories even the Shields didn’t know about.

  But before anything else, he had to retrieve the Aegis. More than being the source of his powers, the shield was the symbol of the city’s desire for freedom, their struggle against the oligarchs’ control. Plus, Wonlar would kill me if I lost it. He might actually kill me.

  Luckily, since he had been chosen, Selweh had always been able to find his way back to the shield.

  He closed his eyes, shut out the sounds and sights, and reached outward with his mind, feeling the familiar presence some hundred feet away.

  That made sense. COBALT-3 would want to keep close enough that she could tinker and play with it on her own. She’d been trying to unlock its power, learn how it might be wielded by someone other than the chosen bearer. Since it appeared in the hands of the first Aegis fifty years ago, the Aegis and its power had been usable only by the champion of Audec-Hal.

  The shield had appeared beside his bed one morning, without warning. I never expected it would come to me. Why not Wonlar, or Bira? They’d been fighting for so long.

  But it had chosen and he couldn’t deny the call. Even if it meant he’d have an early grave, like every Aegis that had come before him. Like his mother.

  Aegis followed the feeling down the hall, started near the lab, looking up and down the long antiseptic-white walls. The next door was six inches of thick steel and locked. Without the shield in hand, he couldn’t force it, and he didn’t want to attract more attention by trying.

  Across the marbled hall, he tried another door as the feeling got stronger. This room was nearly identical to the one he’d left. The operating table was covered in the orange blood of an Ikanollo. Where’d they take the patient? Was he or she dead, or had the experiment been a success? COBALT-3 had kidnapped City Mother only knew how many citizens for her lab rats over the years. This has to stop now.

  With the shield, he could free the subjects and start a great uprising against COBALT-3. He saw himself leading the charge in front of a hundred weary but enraged test subjects, the compound in flames and the city one step closer to freedom.

  Aegis chuckled at the fantasy. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Selweh. Shield first.

  He looked around the corner into the next hall, hoping that he’d be able to loop around to the shield, having exhausted the shortest routes. He saw no one, heard no telltale clattering of brass on marble. He turned the corner, crept down the hall, the feeling of closeness getting stronger all the while, then rounded another corner and tried the first door. As he stepped inside, he lit the door lantern.

  City Mother be praised. Pale yellow light filled the room, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the Aegis, picking it out of a hundred objects set in the labeled shelves of artifacts. The heater shield reflected the lantern’s pal
e light, intensifying it until the room was as bright as a summer afternoon. Green and white swirled on the face of the shield, silver trim tracing out thick knots, a design reminiscent of the City Mother’s threads, before the tyrants.

  In the darkest times, Aegis swore he could hear the shield talking to him. When he asked Wonlar about the voices, his father had shrugged.

  “I can’t tell you if it’s real, son. But if you believe it, if it gives you strength, then it’s real.” wishful thinking or not, he liked to imagine the voices were his mother, guiding him from beyond. That way she was with him, always.

  He bound across the room and snatched the shield from its resting place. He slipped his left hand and arm through the straps and set the Aegis in its proper place.

  As he wrapped his hand around the steel handle, he felt the strength of Audec return, filling his blood and bones with familiar warmth. He took a long breath, and scanned the shelves for his belt, filled with tools and artifacts made by his father.

  He should race home, tell the others what he’d learned, the eavesdropping that had gotten him caught.

  The summit was happening, and they’d be changing their meeting place every day, to thwart the Shields. Based on the terms Nevri was offering, the picture her messenger had painted of what the summit would allow, they had to stop it before it could start. Nevri was practically bending backward to get the tyrants to come to the table.

  But now, I’m going to free every single person here, he told himself, his blood stirring.

  A familiar voice filled the room, cold and hollow. “Observation: That took longer than expected. Hypothesis: You are an inferior successor to the mantle of Aegis. Hypothesis must be tested, you will comply.”

  Of course it’s a trap. Aegis sighed as he turned to see COBALT-3 filling the doorway. The android woman was as tall as a mature Freithin but more elegant. Her limbs were supple tubes of interlocking rings, impossibly flexible. Her head drooped, cocked to the side like a doll held up by its strings.