Snap. Such a small sound, yet it echoed throughout the room. Shayna whirled; sobbing into Mykel’s waiting arms. “You did it. It was the right thing to do.”
Shayna’s eyes, rimmed with tears, locked the librarian’s gaze. “No. No it wasn’t.”
Mykel’s features crunched, trying to figure the best words to put upon this grieving girl. Nothing came. He had gained silver and even gold by spinning fictional letters of lust. He knew what words soothed; he could make girls swoon and boys recite poetry. But he could not calm one girl who had a lot more courage at first glance.
Finally, Shayna sobbed her last tear and reluctantly broke the embrace. “That was Andrew’s daughter, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” The same cheekbones, the same hue, the same eyes...no amount of internal pain could change the blood. That was Mary, Andrew’s daughter.
“We have to kill them.” Shayna’s voice became steel. “We have to kill them all.”
Mykel looked at her face and got a venomous glare in return, the glare of hooded adders, cold and unforgiving and merciless. It was shocking how the look seemed so natural upon her face. Too natural.
“There still might be survivors.”
The darkness was not a problem. With each step, a column of light burst into existence with a mechanical cough, scattering all the slimy, writhing things into one of the corridor’s many cubbyholes. A part of Mykel’s mind noticed the lack of surprise from Shayna; she didn’t give the mysterious light a second glance. He could feel the rage seething from her, as he knew was seething from him. Mykel had spent his life consoling to the fact that his path was a dark and lonely one, and while he made it his, he was certain that Shayna now walked the same path. He knew the juxtaposition of the parallels, and knew he was a hypocrite for splitting hairs, but the whole affair felt...fundamentally wrong. Such fates were not meant for those with so much love to give.
Mykel tabled the musing when finally the combined light filled the chamber, outlining the craggy path, a silent welcome to the intruders much like the smugness of a snake about to swallow the hypnotized bird for dinner. Mykel chafed the feeling of being the bird, and as a remedy, abandoned caution to the winds and marched straight into the newfound door before the potential dangers could freeze him completely.
The chamber unfolded in a kaleidoscopic frenzy of machinery. Belts of churning metal plates carried mutilated bodies into a farmer’s grinder, which in turn carried the small chunks into a tanner’s vat to boil in a noxious soup that sprouted in the telltale hiss of hungry acid. Behind him the librarian heard Shayna puking; he held her hair back until dry air rattled from her lungs, tingling with the sharp odor of rotting teeth. “Are you okay?” She nodded, too weak to speak. The librarian hooked her arm across the back of his neck and carried both further into the complex.
There were more cages lining the walls. At first Mykel thought them empty and thus paid them no mind. Then he heard a soft gurgle not unlike a baby’s whimper, and edged closer to pierce the haze of shadow...and recoiled at the sight laid before him.
Puddles. Puddles of flesh sizzled and popped upon the cold steel floor. Upon closer inspection, one could see the remnants of a face, an eye here, half an ear there. Some of the puddles bulged and expanded to voice the terrible agony they lacked the mouth to scream.
Some chambers were larger than others, some twice or thrice than normal. A rare few was separated from the rest with an elongated compartment, complete with a rectangular window. Within were rows of beds, confining people of various races with metallic strips binding throats, hands and feet. Aside each bed was a physician, as starkly white as the room they occupied. Each one was paired with a tall, pale-skinned man dressed all in black. Black...pale...Mykel’s breath caught in his throat as he pulled Shayna down to the knees. The look of utter fear cut her protest in half. What is it?
Myrrh. The man – the creatures, every one of them – are Myrrh. Good thing Shayna believed him; this was not the time for explanations. Together they peeked over the window’s bottom edge.
The horror unfolded in cold, calculated steps. Most of the “doctors” impaled the thin blue veins with a slender needle. From all the victims the flesh bulged outward, and bulged further as the injected poison flooded them with liquid agony. The librarian twitched in horror as eldritch energy flared from some victims.
The Myrrh laid black gloves upon the victims, glowing at the touch, glowing with the light of the victims’ essence, capturing and manipulating the manna unto flat steel trays aside each of the beds. From there the Myrrh’s fingers glided upon the stolen essence with the lover’s intimacy. The contact shaved pieces from the liquid magic, which wobbled away to disperse into air. After minutes of delicate manipulation, the Myrrh released the eldritch power and hissed at it. The manna writhed like a living thing in agony, first in bursts, then twitches, then...nothing. Mykel released a breath he hadn’t known to be holding. There was some strange relief to know the victims found some peace from the hells they were put through.
Then the manna groaned into motion.
It happened with unparalleled speed. The manna...hardened. Crisps and cracks of rusted gears chopped the air as a cocoon swallowed the raped magic. Again, like the graceful touch of the Myrrh, portions of the shell were hacked away piece by piece in rapid succession, forming...forming...
Ifirit.
Mykel couldn’t breathe. Ifirit. It was the gauntlet’s twin, save for the char and rot. It was not the unholy manner of the shiisaa’s birth that paralyzed the librarian. Instead it was an aristocratic feeling of offense that such an inferior imitation should exist. From the corner of vision Mykel could see the revelation lighting Shayna’s eyes and calmed her with a look. The scene within was still unfolding.
The Myrrh was enraged. A wave of a hand and the faux-Ifirit flew across the room to shatter upon a wall. The physician fell to his knees with his hands clasped before the demon, wordless lips shaking for forgiveness. None was given. One touch at the forehead’s center and the doctor shook like a fish flopping upon dry land. The pair squeezed themselves into a shadow, tense and silent as the Myrrh stormed from the chamber and into a side corridor.
Shayna immediately went to the chamber to croon and cry over the bodies of the departed. Mykel went straight to the faux-Ifirit. A pathetic variation of the original, and a failure besides. Why else would the Myrrh hurl it away with such animosity? They haven’t the secret yet. But they would. Given enough time, they would succeed.
“What are they doing?” Shayna badgered. “What are they doing to these people?”
“I don’t know.” Mykel said. He twitched as another memory tripped over an item on the far shelf. Shayna followed him to the strange machine, ignorant to the thoughts speeding like arrows through his mind. A familiarity pulled curious fingers on panels chirping to life at his touch, and suddenly the fingers moved of their own will, dancing a rhythmic pattern as each marking was pushed and prodded. The dais-machine loosed a soothing hum, dotted here and there with various chirps. Heartbeats later a green light emerged from the pulpit. Another key pushed and white dialogue appeared, scrolling downward thanks to a knob-shaped thing whose wires descended into the depths of the machine. More tapping, and the line of podiums and platforms blazed to life. More tapping and words wrapped themselves around pictures hanging in mid-air.
Shayna looked on with disbelief. “How do you know –?”
“I don’t know.” Fingers moved as though possessed. Panels, panels, and more panels. Come on. Give me something I can use. Come on...come on...come on!
At the first image Mykel felt his heart turn to ice.
Ifirit. And shiisaa. Hundreds of them. The rest of the script made him shake with rage. “Mykel?”
“They’re making shiis
aa. They’re making shiisaa that can be used by endem.” The librarian turned a venomous gaze upon Shayna, inches away from fraying apart. “An army of men, each one using a shiisaa. The days of gaining position for a lone Weirwynd would be done. An inexhaustible resource of power. It would be the end of the world.”
“What do we do?”
“We stop them.” Again, his fingers were a harmony of sound upon the panel, leading past pages of script until finally...there. A trigger. Instant death for the lab and its’ denizens. The panel blinked. YES or NO?
YES.
TWENTY MINUTES UNTIL DESTRUCTION.
An eternity passed, and finally they spotted the labyrinth’s entrance at the far wall. Shayna was halfway to the door when she realized her fingers had left his. She whirled and saw him five paces behind, his eyes tight across the surroundings. What the hell is he looking at? A tiny tremor rippled across the ceiling, again and again, increasing in volume at each pass. Spikes dressing the ceiling quaked in their foundations as a thousand tiny pebbles slid down the creaks and cracks to the ground. And a thousand more at the next tremor.
“Shayna.” Mykel’s voice pierced the confusion. “Shayna. Get out of here. Now.” At her hesitation he snapped, “What are you waiting for? Go!” At those words, the Companion scurried back to safety, knelt so she would not meet unwary eyes. Mykel still stood at the chamber’s center, amidst all the pebbles and tremors, looking at something that wasn’t there. What in the hell –
The beast crashed through the ceiling, his landing created a fat ring of dust that flooded the chamber. The dust settled quickly, and Shayna’s gaze returned to the creature before them. It was tall, really tall. Nine feet, give or take an inch. It was a marvel of human perfection, from face to feet...except it was a perfection gone horribly wrong.
Those things on the beast’s muscles. They were faces. Hundreds, thousands of faces. Each one crying out in pain. They ghosted across the creature’s skin, distorting the head and eyes, flattening when the creature’s physique tightened and loosened. It let out a roar, and, when it saw the librarian unimpressed, reared back his head. A cry split the thin goo of its frame, and suddenly seven pseudopods burst from its body. Each tentacle fattened, twisted, and in the space of a breath took the form of the interloper. A golden-boned khatar appeared on Mykel’s arm. Ifirit. Mykel had told her of the weapon, but now was the first time she saw it. She also noticed the stark resemblance the weapon had to the thing the physician died over, but that was not the issue. She shivered, both in fear and relief. The weapon would take care of the beast.
The seven librarians charged, screams issuing from their ever-twisting mouths. Mykel smiled.
It wasn’t really killing, since his opponents were forged from alchemy and not flesh and blood. Death only existed where there was a loss; these things were the essence of nothing. A quick thought, floating on the white-hot current of his rage. He took solace from the fact even as his steel slashing about him, ripping pink flesh as easily as wet paper. And it was not the only thought alien to his mind. The current surged with unknown thoughts, voices that were not his own. Press the attack. The rock may crush an enemy, but a pebble can slip into places unknown. Be a pebble dancing on the wind. Be the steel that will never betray. Take flight.
Mykel took flight. Shayna watched, detached, as Ifirit flowed in an intricate dance, loosing backstrokes almost immediately after he parried. Defense and offense became one. Mykel ghosted past the hybrid’s defenses, attacked with techniques only known to steel-masters. But it was not as easy as it sounded.
Mykel threw himself aside to clear the mammoth fist that pounded into the rock a moment before. He came to one knee, slashing into the beast’s arm. Almost immediately the groove thinned as the beast’s energies replaced that had been wounded. Shayna’s heart dropped. How is he supposed to defeat a thing that revives from every attack?
When the imitations melted into puddles the librarian turned to the beast. Shayna watched as the monster’s gigantic shadow swallowed the room. Mykel leapt and darted from the monster’s attacks, Ifirit cutting into the creature at every pass. Ruins of fleshy limbs crashed to the ground only to melt and rush back into the flesh-creature. Mykel hacked off every limb at least twice, and still he was no farther in defeating the monstrosity than at the beginning of the melee.
This can’t be. It must have a weakness. Shayna’s eyes caught a small gleam hidden within the folds of pinkish fat. It was an orb, swiveling about to Mykel’s every motion. An eye, she realized abruptly. It was an eye. “Mykel!” she shouted. “Mykel! The eye! The eye!”
The shout cost the librarian. An automatic glance behind his shoulder, and the creature’s arm pinned the librarian to the ground. Shayna gasped. Oh no. The librarian writhed as the arm became liquid, drawing him deeper into the face-marked muck. No. The red orb glinted at her mockingly. No. He will not die today. Not here, not now. Shayna ran into the melee.
The monster started. What was this new thing, so small and yet its howls rebounded off the cavern walls? Growling the creature raised its other arm to slam into the ground. Shayna tensed. The thing was bigger up close. It was gargantuan. It was – Shayna saw the fist descending and leapt away a half-second before the monster carved a crater into the floor. The impact heightened her jump. Shayna’s fingers tensed as she raked the ground for a random shard of rock. This was it. The battle would end in the next few breaths. Or one of them would die. Not him. Not today.
At the apex of her leap the handmaiden saw the red orb follow her path from within the grimy folds in its head. Now. Arm drawn back like a javelin-man the Companion hurled the shard into the monster’s eye.
The monster screamed from a lipless mouth. The sharp rock struck the red eye. A small thing, but the monster’s arms wheeled about to draw the weapon out. It was too late for that. A web-work of jagged black lightning grew like a fungus at all sides, thickening until it devoured the wailing faces, then the beast itself. Mykel fell from a lifeless fist, flipping and rolling to expend enough energy, to shorten the fall’s haste. A shock rang through the librarian as his shoulder carried him across the marble in a roll.
“Mykel!” Shayna came to the librarian’s side in three strides and hugged him so tight one might have thought the librarian had cause to run. “Mykel, I am so sorry. I –”
Words died in her throat as he loosened himself from the hug, as he turned and locked gazes with her. The brown eyes, almost black, filled Shayna with a sense of loathing and anger. She stepped back a pace, unable to break free. “Mykel?” Alarms rang in her head. There was some mistake between them, and the Companion would rather let it fade and be forgotten than keeping it alive with silly questions. It was in this dark and brooding silence that the pair made their escape.
Mykel knew something was wrong the minute they cleared the mines. Not a squawk of birds overhead, not a shattering of stone against hammer, not even an instrument tearing through dirt. All there was a chill to the air, flat and dead. Something made the librarian head to the town gate. Shayna followed, gasping when she saw what he saw.
They were statutes of sand, bound by magic to imitate people. Yet as Mykel went from statute to statute, he noted features too finely crafted to be wrought from mortal hands. The curve of nose and jaw, from screaming in fear and raised arms in useless shielding, was too finely molded. Sand could not be made into this. “They’re not statutes,” he heard himself say.
“What?”
“They are not statutes. They were human.” It was an impossible conclusion, but after what he had seen these past few months scoured any doubt he once had. This was the result of the fleshy creature, Mykel suspected, drained of life to create the mine’s guardian. Shayna gave another strangled gasp, but Mykel was not listening. There was a pillar in the center of town, white and sharpened
to a point as though meant to pierce the sky. A band of small skeletons ringed the pillar, darkening the marble with fans of blood. The blood was sprayed in an ancient pattern, meant only for his eyes.
Running a high tally, aren’t you, boy? Leave the gauntlet and no one else will be killed.
Mykel’s dead fist quivered with violence. Leave the gauntlet? Why? It’s mine, you damned bastard. Mine! I found it, I took it. It belongs to me!
“Mykel? Mykel, are you okay?” Soft words penetrated the boiling hate, followed by slim fingers turning his head to better meet his gaze. “Calm down, you fool. You’ll retain some black-blood.” A slight pause. “Can you read the inscription?” Silence thickened with wordless answers. “Does it have anything to do with this?”
Mykel jerked the dead arm forward to evade her cotton-like touch. He didn’t even know Ifirit was awake until he saw the gold through the weaving of the sleeve. I didn’t call you. Retreat. The ruby darkened to blood; in Mykel’s mind, he could feel the khatar’s resentment. Retreat. Now. The gold reshaped itself into the iron bracer that kept the dead wrist straight since childhood. “I’m okay, Shayna. I’m fine.”
They met Lazarus on the edge of the town, and off to the side was an ashen-faced Andrew. John and his rangers were nowhere in sight. “Kalam is in a state of panic.” Lazarus began, pinning the librarian’s obvious question to rest. “It seems he owes many debts, and all of them have been cashed today.” A smug grin indicated some masterminding behind the coincidental occurrence. “He won’t be bothering with us.”
The thunderous crash ripped the air in twain. The group watched as a blanket of soot and ash squirmed its way across the town, swallowing everything in its wake. Again, Shayna showed no hint of mercy, and Mykel worried the darkness coiled about the Companion’s heart had firmer substance through the various ordeals, and that the innocence that marked her was a long time in returning. If it was returning at all.
Chased By War Page 32
