Dark Iron King II: Arcadia Falls (Unreal Universe Book 5)

by Lee Bond

  “What’s your abrupt concern, Master Nickels?” Agnethea could feel sudden worry flowing from the man.

  “The … the suit.” Garth stammered, while Specter chuckled. “The arms, in particular. They … drink the Kingsblood in skin, siphon the hunger away until it’s … manageable. If I hadn’t been so foolish in Tinker Square, I wouldn’t even be here. I wouldn’t need to be. I’d be off on the next leg of my journey and you and I wouldn’t be dancing around whatever problem you have that only I can apparently solve.”

  “Whatever are you talking about?” Garth Nickels defied categorization. One second, Dark Iron fire burned across his face and through those eyes, a nightmarish collaboration of hunger and rage. The next … self-loathing and fear ruled the day. “A method of controlling Dark Iron. If there ever was or had been such a thing, Master Nickels, I would have discovered it my own self long ago. No. Once it is in you, it is always in you.”

  Yet, for all her certainty, there was no denying Garth had been exposed to Kingsblood, and traumatic amounts, at that. As most ancient Golem, she’d seen more than her fair share of the Ironed maniacs, and well knew the looks, the ticks, the … unbridled heat boiling from their skin, the unsavory stench of hot metal.

  Aye, Master Nickels had ‘sblood in him. He held all those traits and more besides. Held them, and controlled them. Not even the greyest of her distant cousins could do as the man before he was doing; instead of howling at a nonexistent moon and trying to pull the walls down around his head, he was sat on her leather chair, absentmindedly fiddling with the mechanisms of his armor.

  It was impossible to find the proper way of explaining what Dark Iron had done to him, to weave together an explanation that covered quadronium implants, the nanoparticulate and his Kin’kithal heritage. Garth looked at Agnethea where he imagined her eyes were and held them there until she understood he was going to say something extremely important. He licked his lips nervously, then began. “The arms are fueled by the Dark Iron in my skin. There are … hooks. Running from the armor into my flesh. They … pull the Iron through the machinery before putting it back in. That keeps … that lets me stay in control. Most of the time. The arms aren’t attached to the rest. Separate power sources. I wasn’t prepared for how swiftly Mickel and Harvard would move against me once they saw me. When I was working in Al’s shop, my arms… they drained me clean of Kingsblood. I was free. Well. Almost. But then … but then I realized they’d sent Ickfordian gearheads after me and I did what I had to do.”

  Agnethea nodded, understanding suddenly shining a light. “I begin to understand. If, as you claim,” Agnethea ignored Garth’s derisive snort most regally, “that Dark Iron found no true purchase in you and your arms, which are powered by the stuff, had succeeded in freeing you of the curse, then you were forced to take more so that you might protect yourself against my most voluble citizens. Your concern is that without them, you will cause me harm. Your concern is misplaced and e’en if it weren’t, I should still like to see how this affliction has played out within you.”

  “I … what?” There were so many weird things in what the Queen was saying that Garth didn’t really know where to begin, so he picked the craziest thing –her suggestion he take his armor off- and went on from there. “That ain’t gonna happen this side of Existence, sweetheart.”

  Agnethea smiled as warmly as she could, which she knew from previous attempts, really wasn’t all that warm. “Come now. Don’t be shy. I am ruler of Ickford. Most gearheads brave my castle to see if the legends of me are true, and all who do so learn in the fullness of time that there is nothing ‘tween these walls more horrific than myself. And should … the ‘sblood affliction have treated you unkindly ‘neath your armor…”

  “Are you suggesting I’ve got, like, eyeballs for nipples and a mouth where my bellybutton should be?” Images of some of the horrible mutations he’d seen while running through Ickford haunted him.

  A hand flew to Agnethea’s mouth, stifling the unlikeliest of laughs; crudey-crude afflictions were no laughing matter, and some of her citizens endured the cruelest of things. “Whatever your ailment may be, Master Nickels, I have seen worse and will be no judge. Besides all that, as I said, there is little you can do to harm me.”

  Garth narrowed his one good eye and stared hard at Agnethea. She was Queen of the most heavily concentrated population of gearheads anywhere in Arcade City. Meechy had lost his mind on the outside because of the Golems.

  Fresh memories of Young Luther stomping through his gearhead pate, a gore-soaked toddler dressed in stained white finery reminded him that there truly was more to Queen Agnethea than met the eye.

  He licked his lips.

  Climbing out of the armor, even for a second, was something he wanted quite desperately. To feel cool air on his skin, to just … feel free.

  The Queen decided the outsider was close to making a choice, and so she made one of her own; in order to get what she wanted, she was going to have to give Garth Nickels something in return.

  “While you prepare yourself for, ah, defrocking, Master Nickels, a brief explanation of the so-called Obsidian Golem phenomenon.”

  Agnethea gestured for Garth to begin disentangling himself from all the weapons he carried on his person, eyes widening slightly at the sight of the drum-fed shotgun and faintly thumping sniper rifle. Oh, she would give a pretty dollop of Iron to discover what the King had been thinking, letting an outsider craft such deadly dangerous weapons! It fell far out of the immortal being’s character to let anyone –Arcadian or otherwise- to forge e’en a single thing such as Garth owned, and the man possessed three! Oftentimes, upon discovering such new weapons or devices, the King smote first and didn’t bother asking questions.

  What had the sly old King been thinking? Dropping this man off on her doorstep and departing for his aerie so high above smacked of a deeper game, but she knew Barnabas of old. He wasn’t crafty enough to outthink someone who’d spent most of her life outwitting entire generations of Arcadian.

  “Where gearheads require a continual diet of Kingsblood to alternately stave off the worst effects and fuel their eternal thirst for more, Obsidian Golems have only ever been able to sip but twice. Where the change from wardog to gearhead is slow and steady but nevertheless undeniable and unstoppable, an Obsidian Golem becomes that which they would be destined to become immediately. Some … thing inside those who become Golems interacts weirdly with Dark Iron. Unlike our wretched cousins, we, the Golems, are virtually impossible to kill. This and other ‘perks’ make us one of the only true powers in the land. Our King is lucky there are truthfully so few of us and that we cannot abide each other’s presence overlong.”

  “You’re claiming immunity from additional Dark Iron poisoning.” Garth admitted, dropping the satchel full of Dark Iron cylinders onto the desk between him and Agnethea. “I call bullshit.”

  “Toss me one of those, if you please.” Agnethea held out a hand and repeated the question. “One of your cylinders, Master Nickels. If you please. If you feel the need to demand a replacement, I have more Iron than you can imagine. This is more … expeditious, not to mention dramatic. A good monarch does rely on drama, you know.”

  Doubtful of Agnethea’s claims as any man could be –especially in light of his deeper understanding of nanotech- but nevertheless curious to see if they were as true as she believed, Garth rooted through the satchel until a hand closed on one of the copper-and-glass cylinders. He tossed one to the Queen in a smooth gesture, which she caught in a move mirroring his own fluidity.

  How could anyone be immune to particulate? It had to be impossible.

  Agnethea twisted off the cap and slammed the contents down in one quick swallow, enjoying the look on Master’s Nickels face as she failed to fall to the ground, howling and shrieking like a beast.

  Whimsy overtook her and she did a neat little pirouette, hem of her skirt twirling out prettily.

  “Fascinating.” Unmindful of decorum or even somethi
ng as basic as wisdom, Garth stepped around the desk and right up to the reigning monarch of Ickford. She stood there, gesturing prettily with manicured hands towards her unaffected form.

  This close, so close he could feel gentle breath curling from Agnethea’s nostrils, Garth’s heart did a quick double-thump. For a moment, he thought he might weep with need, for not only was she a reflected image of a Kith’kineen, she, Agnethea the Vile, Obsidian Golem and terror in the night, had no odor!

  She was as fresh and as clean smelling as summer air, with just a faint tinge of orange blossom.

  It took every ounce of his being not to … indulge.

  Agnethea put the container up to her mouth and allowed the Dark Iron to slide out. As every time she did this little parlor trick, the foul stuff seemed unable to get out fast enough. Every last drop, every miniscule speck, gone. She screwed the cap back on, handed it back to Garth, and then wiped her mouth daintily with a lacy kerchief.

  Garth stared dumbfounded at the ampule in his hands.

  Could he be some kind of Golem? Now he was beginning to learn about what Golems truly were, it made a kind of twisted sense. It was possible his subatomic quadronium implants had prevented the particulate from completing his transformation into a gearhead, finding instead a solution in the Cloud’s template for Obsidian Golems.

  This far out on the fringe of hytech science, anything at all really was possible.

  “Dark Iron can find no grip in us, Master Nickels.” Agnethea said after washing her mouth out with a swallow of ice cold water. “To the King’s Will that drives it, we do not exist. To the things in this, what did you call it, pocket-sized Universe, we do not belong. To everything from gearheads to the beasts that prowl the wastelands and mountains and deep, dark caves, we are apex predators. We are stronger, faster, smarter, and invulnerable to nearly every single thing they may choose to bring against us. In our time, Master Nickels, we have taken down Kings singlehandedly. Though I suspect that is no longer a trick we can claim alone, yes?”

  Garth flushed and went back to the table he was using for his stuff. Mind whirling at the ramifications behind Cloud taking such a strange turn, he jammed the cylinder back in with the others and resumed. “You really can’t be killed?”

  “Oh, that is not entirely true, Master Nickels.” Agnethea sighed, a tad sadly. “We can indeed be killed. Our bodies can endure incomprehensible levels of damage, more than any one being or group of beings is capable of delivering before they themselves are done for. Like as not, if a Golem falls, either those doing the kill die from their own wounds or are promptly and swiftly executed by others of my kind before their tale is told…”

  “Or?” Garth quirked an eyebrow. His hostess’ tone suggested there was quite a bit more to the story.

  “Or,” Agnethea said heavily, “suicide. Life as a Golem may seem interesting and without difficulty … do not deny it, Master Nickels, I saw the circumspect look on your face. Our lives are not that simple. Unlike our gearheaded cousins, we are eternally surrounded by the heated rage of Kingsblood. Ironically, unlike gearheads, who stick to their own kind, we crave connection. With anyone. We all of us try to hide who we are, to blend in to the crowd, to make friends and take lovers. Sadly, we are always discovered. Then it ends in violence, tears and bloodshed. We learn to crush that lonely hunger soon enough.”

  Garth shrugged mentally; Agnethea’s revelations had made up his mind for him. With it being extremely unlikely that anyone this side of Arcadia had even the smallest clue how to pull the Iron out of him quicker than the method he already possessed, the notion of having the oldest Obsidian Golem in creation owing him a favor struck him as a fair compromise.

  More to the point, if her needs were what he’d already assumed they were –based solely on a single encounter and Eric’s summation of political stresses within Ickford- knowing how to do for the only things ‘neath The Dome that were harder to kill than he was was a thing of considerable value.

  Keeping his thoughts to himself, Garth continued emptying his pockets, dumping a surprising amount of weird things you could only pick up plying the trade of blacksmith. That done, he removed the tattered shreds of clothing he’d really stupidly imagined would disguise the nature of the armor he wore.

  Standing before Agnethea in all his armored glory, Garth gestured to the grandly whirring gears. “What do you think?”

  Agnethea wanted to do as Garth had done, to cross the barrier between them, only where he had kept his hands to himself, she longed to run her hands over the armor holding the beast at bay. It was … perfect. Every bit of it meshed perfectly with every other bit, a seamless spiral of ever-moving parts. Even from where she stood, the finest, subtlest of ticks and tocks could be heard as each piece moved.

  A soft sigh escaped her lips. “I think there has never been anything so well wrought in all of Arcade City, save perhaps the Platinum King in Arcadia.”

  “You certain you can take care of yourself if something goes wrong?” Garth held up a finger at Agnethea’s un-Queenly response. “On your own head be it. Now. Be careful. No … no sudden movements. Try not to act like an apex predator. Things can and will go south pretty quickly.”

  Garth spun a gear.

  Agnethea nodded, her face wreathed with bemusement. Honestly, the quarter-gallon part of the story was –no pun intended- very hard to swallow. That kind of excess would leave horrific physical scars across the man’s entire body and it was more likely that –regardless of claims matched by a story sung by a terrified minstrel- that such awful transmogrifications were the sole reason for the ornate armor than any fear of monstrous beasts lurking in his heart.

  Intent on grilling him more closely about the evening in question while Master Nickels began the no doubt quite laborious process of divesting himself of such grand armor, Agnethea could only watch on he spun something and … everything … began …

  With all her years ‘neath The Dome, Queen Agnethea the Vile could not credit what she was seeing!

  It was poetry. Clicking and clacking and hissing and popping, the arms expanded like … metallic balloons until they were three times their size and nearly skeletal in appearance. A dizzyingly complex arrangement of spinning gears, cogs, pistons and … and … needles driven deep into the skin were revealed then.

  Agnethea hissed at the pain his arms must feel, but the task was not yet complete; Garth’s metal hands clicked and clacked and traveled backwards along the skeletal framework of the wrists, pulling the cruel barbs from the man’s flesh, skin literally bulging outwards until she thought his arms would rupture into blood, bone, and Iron.

  Each time she grew more certain, though, following a truly heart-pounding moment, each razor-sharp hollow tube pulled free at the very last second.

  Glistening sickly, the thin tendrils of Kingsblood trailing from the nozzle-end of each barb seemed almost reluctant to burrow back ‘neath the skin.

  “W-well.” Agnethea began, admiration never more evident than right then, “that was quite…”

  Garth laughed. “As the late, great, never-was Bachman Turner Overdrive once sang, milady, ‘you ain’t see nothin’ yet, b-b-baby.”

  The Kin’kithal stepped backwards so he could spread his arms wide. everything was locked into second position, the shoulders began unclamping from the main chest harness with noisy pop-hisses, which –once the clamps were locked and slotted open- itself began moving wildly in place, turning first three-hundred sixty degrees to begin the unlocking process of the back pieces, then one hundred-eighty degrees back to realign the locking pegs for the lower back and legs, then finally forward two hundred-fifty degrees to finally decouple the feet.

  Agnethea gasped and took an involuntary step back. Whoever or … or whatever he was, however he had come by the knowledge he possessed –this was nearer to the King’s skill than e’en the King could want- and with such mastery … all, all this filled her with a sudden and unshakeable knowledge that King Barnabas Blake had lied thr
ough his rotten teeth that he cared not what happed to the outsider!

  This sudden awareness changed the play a bit; where before she may have allowed the man in nearly godlike armor to languish idly in her fair city e’en if he chose to decline her offer, now, should he choose not to assist, he would be sent packing within the hour. For now that she’d seen what Nickels could do, there was little room left in her for doubt that One and Only would do all he could, no matter what, to be free of the outsider.

  Then … then everything really started moving. Every bit of worked machinery spun and whirled and recalibrated itself into a basic standing model of the armor, a cross-figured shape that would allow Garth, should he decide he wanted to, to simply step backwards into it. The process continued this way for another two minutes, he, waiting patiently –half-afraid something would go wrong and rip him into pieces- she, standing there, mouth agape.

  Garth stood there, breathing deeply and calmly, reminding himself that no matter what the Queen did or said, causing her any kind of physical or emotional trauma at any point would do him absolutely no fucking good whatsoever.

  Freed from the constraints of the armor, Specter howled raucous laughter across his soul. A Kin’kithal. Practicing restraint. How … unbelievable.

  “Well?” Garth demanded huskily. Freed from imprisonment for the first time in a long while, sensation was returning to his arms. The need for something so simple as contact with another being –Golem or otherwise- grew as the pins and needles flared. Even Specter was daunted by this strange hunger. “What do you think?”

  “Who are you?” Agnethea asked as she rose from her desk. It wasn’t until she got around to the front that she realized that what she’d thought at first was a very serious devotion to tattooing was, in fact, something else entirely. She froze where she was, hand locked into an outreaching grasp. “What are you?”

  Garth was afraid to look at the whirling gear tattoos, afraid of being confronted with what he already knew to be true; that the fresh infusion of Dark Iron had driven the inky sigils across his entire body.