Mist, Metal, and Ash

by Gwendolyn Clare

  “Oh Lord I can’t look,” cried Porzia, and Leo had to agree it was horrifying to behold. The lizards latched on to the guards and rode them to the floor, a bloody mess of claws and teeth.

  “What is going on down there?” Aris’s voice at the top of the stairs. He stared over the banister for a moment, scowling down at the carnage, then rushed out of sight.

  Leo shouted, “He’s going for the editbook!”

  Faraz grabbed Elsa’s portal device, showed it to his tentacle beast, and said “Skandar, fetch!” then pointed in Aris’s direction.

  The creature shot up like a stone from Revan’s sling and darted through the doorway at the top of the staircase. Leo heard an electric bzzzt and a surprised shout, and Skandar came gliding serenely back to deliver Aris’s portal device to Faraz.

  Aris emerged a second later, massaging the cramps from his singed hand, his expression furious. “Cute trick,” he spat as he descended the stairs to them. “But if you think that’s enough to stop me, you’re sorely mistaken.”

  Leo held a hand up, signaling the others to hang back as he approached his brother, stepping carefully around the winged lizards feasting on guard corpses. “We have control of your monster army. It’s over, Aris.”

  “It’s over when I say it’s over.” Aris pulled his rapier from its sheath. “A few krakens in the canals is just the start of what’s in store for Venezia. They rioted, and our home burned, and Pasca nearly died—don’t you want vengeance for that?”

  Leo threw his arms wide. “Vengeance against an entire city to repay the actions of a few? No! No, that’s madness.”

  “We are Garibaldis: it is our kind of madness.” Aris brandished his rapier, whipping it through the air in an intricate, showy pattern. “I see you still haven’t learned your lessons, little brother.”

  Leo brought his own rapier to the ready position and let Aris step forward in a series of attacks. Deflect, deflect, deflect, but this was no practice session, and Leo had no reason to hold back anymore. His anger at the fate of Napoli gave him a sharp clarity of focus, and his movements flowed with an almost prescient precision, the rapier darting through the air like a living extension of his body. Leo saw his opening—slide, twist, and flick, and Aris’s rapier went flying from his hand.

  Aris stared at his empty palm as if it had betrayed him. “What … how…”

  Leo shook his head. “Oh, Aris, how could you forget? This was always the one thing I could do better than you.”

  Elsa, portal device in hand, slid past the now-disarmed Aris and took the stairs at a run, going after the editbook.

  “Revan,” said Leo, “would you care to take charge of restraining my brother?”

  “Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” Revan replied.

  After a minute, Elsa returned with the editbook open in her arms. “Okay, this is bad. He built an earthquake machine into the foundations of the city. There’s a trigger mechanism in the library room. You guys need to stop anyone from activating the machine until Porzia and I can figure out how to safely disable it.”

  Faraz nodded. “We’re on it.”

  Elsa passed her lab worldbook to Faraz, and she and Porzia vanished through a portal into her laboratory with the editbook.

  Leo said, “Come on, the library’s this way.”

  “Father will never accept defeat,” Aris declared, dragged along by Revan as they moved through the house.

  Faraz gave an eye roll worthy of Porzia. “Oh, do shut up.”

  “Who do you think you are, street-rat? You can’t talk to me that w—aaaah!” He yelped as Revan twisted his arm.

  Leo rested his left hand on the library door handle, bracing for a confrontation, then pushed the door open and slipped inside.

  Ricciotti stood at the old familiar library table, his back to the door, sorting through some papers. The tall bookshelves lining the walls seemed to lean in, turning the room oppressive, though Leo couldn’t be sure if the effect was real or simply the weight of the moment pressing in on his mind. Rising from the floor in the center of the room was a narrow pedestal with one large red button on top; that definitely was new.

  Without turning around, Garibaldi said, “Still no word from the city magistrate?”

  “Father, quick! Activate the—” Aris tried to yell, but Revan clapped a hand over his mouth to silence him.

  Ricciotti spun to face them, and Leo lifted his rapier in warning. “What’s wrong, Father? The Venetian government not capitulating to your demands as fast as you’d like?”

  Ricciotti stood still, folding his arms in a casual way that suggested he wasn’t about to feel threatened by a boy with a pointy stick. “They will accept the terms of surrender I’ve given them, or they will suffer the consequences.”

  “Venezia is built on islands of sand,” Leo said. “An earthquake would liquefy the ground and drop the entire city into the lagoon. The only thing your republic would gain is a giant underwater grave site.”

  “Exactly,” Ricciotti agreed. “After Napoli and Venezia, who would dare oppose me? We will have a unified Italian Republic by the end of the month.”

  Leo’s palm felt damp against the grip of his rapier. “If the idea of the Italian Republic is more important than the citizens who compose it, it is not a republic.”

  “Oh now you want to debate the philosophical ramifications? And here I thought the Order had successfully brainwashed you into eschewing politics altogether.” Ricciotti narrowed his eyes. “You’re stalling for time.”

  Desperate to keep his father’s attention, Leo played his trump card. “Did you know Aris kept Pasca alive in secret all these years? Despite all your manipulations, even Aris can sense how toxic you are.”

  For the first time that Leo could recall, Ricciotti went pale. “That’s a lie. Aris would never—”

  “Am I lying, brother?”

  “I’m not going to help you!” Aris spat when Revan allowed him to speak.

  Leo kept his gaze locked on Ricciotti. “That didn’t sound like a denial to me.”

  “You’re just fishing for distractions,” Ricciotti said with a sharp shake of his head. His usual confidence seemed to return. “What is Signorina Elsa up to, I wonder?”

  A cold panic washed through Leo as his father moved closer to the machine.

  “Don’t,” Leo growled, bringing the tip of his rapier near Ricciotti’s throat. He stared into his father’s eyes, searching for any sign of wavering resolve. “Father. Please. Don’t make me do this.”

  Ricciotti gave him a funny look, as if Leo were behaving like a foolish child. “Don’t be absurd. You’re not going to kill me, Leo.”

  He reached for the button.

  A hundred thousand citizens, Leo thought. Pasca had implored him to do what was right.

  The movements flowed easy as breathing. Appel to catch his attention, followed fast by advance, extension, and the soft resistance as the tip pierced his father’s throat.

  Ricciotti’s eyes flew wide, and he made a sound as if he were choking on the blade.

  Leo swallowed, his own throat turning tight and raw in sympathy. Quietly, he said, “I tried to tell you, Father: you don’t know me anymore.” Then he pulled the rapier out.

  “Noooo!” Aris shrieked. “Father! Father!”

  Ricciotti stumbled, grabbing his wound with one hand, blood gargling in his throat as he tried ineffectually to breathe. But as he collapsed to the floor, Ricciotti Garibaldi spent the last of his strength to reach out and hit the button.

  * * *

  Elsa sat at the writing desk in her laboratory world, poring over the editbook, while Porzia scribbled physics calculations on a blackboard.

  Elsa said, “So we’re agreed we can’t destroy the editbook now that it’s been used, right?”

  “Presuming that destruction would destabilize the reality of those regions most heavily affected by Aris’s editorial changes … hold on…” Porzia’s chalk flew across the board in mad strokes. “Yes, acc
ording to my calculations, it’s likely the instabilities would propagate outward and cause massive collapse of core physical properties.”

  Elsa tapped her pen against the desk. “And if we tried to just eliminate the earthquake machine with the editbook, we’d be running the risk of an internal contradiction in the text, which could have the same effect.”

  Porzia held up her palms like a pair of scales balancing. “Maybe a twenty percent chance instead of a sixty percent chance, but I’m not fond of the gamble either way.”

  “Okay, so our only option is to add something to the editbook that can counteract the effects of the earthquake without the script contradicting itself.”

  “I don’t love the idea of modifying reality even more than it already has been,” said Porzia, “but yes.”

  Elsa read through Aris’s edits again. His script was passable but a little clumsy—stealing the Veldanese spoken language hadn’t given him a perfect understanding of how to scribe in Veldanese, and he was missing some of the syntactic subtleties. The thought of Aris messing around with the most dangerous weapon ever created sent a wave of hot nausea through Elsa. In his overconfidence, he easily could have made a small but catastrophic mistake.

  “How would an earthquake dampener even work?” Porzia was saying. “Oscillate at a frequency that cancels out the seismic waves? I wish we could consult a mechanist.”

  “No…,” Elsa said, starting to grin. “The solution is simpler than that—we can add an off switch to the machine that already exists!”

  “Are you sure?” Porzia abandoned the chalkboard to come look at the editbook, even though the script was unreadable to her.

  Elsa pointed at the page. “Yes! In this line right here, Aris used the wrong verb tense, which leaves this whole section of script open to further modification. It’ll definitely work!”

  “So do it!” Porzia replied, gesturing excitedly for her to begin.

  Elsa selected each word with precision and care, constantly aware that any mistake could have dire consequences. The finished lines of script were perfection. “There, it’s done. Let’s get back.”

  Porzia quickly opened a return portal to the palazzo. They came through into a disorienting assault on the senses, the whole library vibrating and the loud whine of the earthquake machine rising in frequency as it warmed up. Books rained down from the shelves, and beside her Faraz had his feet planted wide against the shaking floor. Elsa’s heart kicked against her ribs; were they too late to stop it?

  Only one way to find out. Elsa’s focus locked on the emergency shut-off lever that her script had added to the control panel. She dove for it and yanked it down, the vibrations threatening to dislodge her grip, but she clung to the lever and held it in place. Please, please work.

  Finally, the noise and the shaking faded. The machine was off; Elsa almost laughed with giddy relief.

  Only then did she realize the carpet beneath her boots was squishy with soaked-in blood. Ricciotti lay on the floor, motionless, a hole in his throat.

  Held fast in Revan’s grip, Aris was shouting, “Listen to me, Leo! There’s still time, I can fix him, it’s not too late…”

  Leo was not listening. He swept a dazed look over Elsa and the others as if they were invisible, or at least as if he did not see what he was looking for. His fingers relaxed and the bloody rapier dropped to the carpet with a muffled thump. He crouched suddenly and hid his face in his hands.

  Elsa didn’t quite believe this could have happened in her absence. “But … but I worked as fast as I could…”

  “Leo, Leo!” Aris’s eyes were wide and desperate. “We can make this right. We can put our family back together. Just let me go!”

  Slowly, Leo stood and faced his brother. “I’m so sorry, Aris, but I don’t want to fix him. Don’t you see? Nothing could ever make our family right.”

  Aris let out a wordless scream of rage and grief. Faraz closed the distance and wrapped his arms around Leo, and Leo sagged into the embrace as if it wearied him to stand on his own.

  A terrible guilt crept up on Elsa, and it felt as if it were pinching her heart. She had saved the city of Venezia, and potentially the rest of Earth, but she could not save Leo from this.

  24

  THE HOTTEST PLACES IN HELL ARE RESERVED FOR THOSE WHO, IN TIMES OF GREAT MORAL CRISIS, MAINTAIN THEIR NEUTRALITY.

  —Dante Alighieri

  Elsa went with Porzia into the worldbook scribed with invisible ink. Once, that might have made her nervous, but the trust she and Porzia shared had grown deep roots.

  They stood together in the square pavilion floating in a sea of Edgemist and shared a moment of silence. It was so quiet the absence of sound felt like cotton stuffed in Elsa’s ears.

  “Are you sure?” she said. “This isn’t exactly going to please the Order.”

  Porzia smiled wistfully. “I used to be so sure about everything. Now I wonder if living with doubt is the price of growing up.”

  Elsa couldn’t disagree. This editbook in her arms, with its eager pages and subtle Veldanese text—it felt like it belonged to her, like the book wanted her to use it. How could she not cling to her mother’s greatest scriptological accomplishment?

  How could she not shun the instrument of destruction that had killed thousands of people?

  In the center of the pavilion stood a stone pedestal topped with a sphere of blue lightning. Porzia gestured to it. “This last part is entirely up to you—only Veldanese can reach through the sphere.”

  Elsa felt a swell of shame for hesitating. After everything they’d gone through to stop Garibaldi, how could she even consider keeping it? The editbook belonged here, under lock and key. She shoved it onto the pedestal, her hands tingling as they passed through the energy sphere.

  Porzia sighed. “That’s one problem sorted.”

  “On to the next,” said Elsa.

  They emerged from the worldbook back into the Venetian palazzo, which was more or less how they left it, except that Aris was now gagged and his wrists tied together—which Revan looked rather smug about. Leo stood at a window overlooking the Grand Canal, seemingly unaware of the rest of them, while Faraz wiped Garibaldi’s blood off the rapier.

  Pitching her voice low, Elsa asked, “How is he?”

  “In shock, I think,” said Faraz. “Must we really go to Firenze right away?”

  Porzia said, “Turning Aris over immediately is the only way we’ll convince the Order that Leo and Elsa aren’t traitors.”

  Elsa glanced at Aris. Even considering the gag, he was too quiet, his eyes narrow and calculating. “It has to be now. We can’t risk him getting away from us.”

  Unexpectedly, Leo announced, “The canals are still full of krakens.”

  Faraz passed him the cleaned rapier to sheathe. “A problem for another day, my friend.”

  Revan said, “So are we ready to get out of this nightmare of a city, or what?”

  Faraz whistled for Skandar, Revan marched Aris over, and they all took a doorbook portal to the headquarters of the Order of Archimedes in Firenze.

  They stepped through into a cavernous lobby on the main level with a dark flagstone floor, leather armchairs arranged in a sitting area, and several tall sentry bots standing at attention, scattered around the space like decorative suits of armor. A bell chimed, announcing their arrival, and they were met by a small group of pazzerellones who looked them over with varying degrees of curiosity and suspicion. At the front of the group was a woman with steel-gray hair and an aquiline nose, whom Porzia seemed surprised to see.

  “Signora Veratti, where is Signor Righi?” she asked.

  “My, you have been out of touch, haven’t you?” Veratti said. “Righi is dead—I hope you weren’t close—and I’ve resumed my position as head of the Order until a more permanent replacement can be appointed.”

  Porzia took the news in stride, apparently refusing to let it shake her confidence, and launched into an explanation of all that had transpired. Elsa di
dn’t know enough about the Order to guess what this shift in leadership meant for herself and Leo, but he was scowling as if it was cause for concern.

  The revelation of Aris’s identity elicited a wave of gasps and mutterings from the observers, and Veratti ordered a pair of bots to take him to be locked up. Leo voiced no protest, but Elsa could practically feel the tension vibrating off him as he watched his brother being led away.

  She took his hand and whispered, “No day will ever be harder than this.”

  “I can only pray that’s true,” he muttered back.

  Porzia embellished the truth somewhat, turning Leo into a kidnapping victim and Elsa into a rescuer. She made no mention of Vincenzo or the Carbonari at all—a carefully crafted omission, Elsa could only assume.

  Veratti turned to Leo. “Can you swear off your father’s political cause, and reaffirm your loyalty to the Order?”

  Voice rough, Leo replied, “I killed him. So that’s about as final a decision as one can make.”

  Veratti gave a solemn nod, accepting his answer. “And you, Signorina da Veldana?”

  “Me?” Elsa echoed.

  “You were reported for defection.”

  Porzia jumped in. “That was for Garibaldi’s benefit. All part of the plan, you see.”

  Veratti’s eyes darted to Porzia, and then back to Elsa, considering. “So then you swear off any association with the Carbonari?”

  Elsa swallowed nervously. The Order’s stance of political neutrality was a theoretical impossibility—avoidance was a choice that affected the world with as much significance as involvement would have. After a moment of indecision, she shook her head. “I regret to inform you that I do not.”

  Porzia muttered to her, “Shh, keep quiet and let me smooth this over.”

  “Thank you, Porzia, but no,” Elsa said. “I will not pretend to agree with the Order’s refusal to act.” The Carbonari were not mad for power and vengeance like Garibaldi—they were simply people trying to build a better world for their fellow citizens. The same as what Elsa wished for the Veldanese.

  Signora Veratti bristled. “You’re saying you intend to keep actively assisting the Carbonari with their political agenda?”