Soultaker

by Duperre, Robert J. ;

  “Ooh, those’re scary demons,” he heard Meesh laugh.

  Shade scowled over his shoulder. “Let’s see how funny that is when they start biting your ass.”

  “Good point.” Meesh sheathed his pistol, hopped off his horse, and was at Shade’s side a moment later.

  The dogs bolted right past the three brothers, innumerable mangy mutts with speckled fur and tails held low. Shade stood still and kept his Eldersword up, just in case, but he didn’t swing even though the Rush tried to force his hand. Beside him, Meesh’s eyes flicked from side to side in confusion.

  “What the hell’s going on?” the long-haired knight shouted over the deafening barks.

  It was only when the last of the dogs was gone that Shade eased his pose. He turned around and watched them sprint into the desert.

  “Why were they running?” Shade asked aloud.

  “Perhaps we spooked them,” Abe said, still atop his stallion.

  Shade spun around. “A fissure,” he said gravely. “One’s probably opened.” He faced the road leading further into the city, and a chill overtook him. “He’s doing it. I know he is.”

  “Who’s doing what?” Abe asked.

  “Cooper. He’s leaving traps. He knows we’re following him.”

  “Men haven’t been able to open gateways in centuries,” Meesh said.

  “But the Elders could.”

  “The Elders are gone, Shade,” Abe said.

  Shade grinded his teeth. “But their tools aren’t. Cooper figured it out. That must be it.”

  He didn’t wait for his brothers to respond, instead storming ahead, his blade’s crimson glow deepening with each step he took. His hatred for the man Ronan Cooper had nearly boiled over. “I’ll avenge you,” he whispered as Vera’s face appeared in his vision.

  His brothers followed without argument. The soaring, wasted buildings on either side of them became more common, and in the center of the city they butted right up against the road. The huge windows at the base of the towers had long been smashed, but many had sheets hung up in front of them. One of the sheets had fallen, revealing sets of tables and chairs arranged inside. An eatery, most likely. Many of the chairs were overturned, and there was still rotting food in plates sitting on the tables. Shade’s stomach turned.

  Whereas Breighton’s populace lived mainly along the two interlocking streets that quartered the city, most of their waking hours were spent in the city center. Rumor had it there was once an actual park here—a place with real trees, grass, and ponds, much like Sal Yaddo, or the Scourgers’ home—but now it was nothing but a huge expanse of drab beige sand fronted by an amphitheater. This was where concerts were held and public meetings took place. The knights themselves had performed in the amphitheater once, and every resident had arrived at Mitchell Hogan’s urging. It had been a grand spectacle, though a sober one; half the people who called the city home weren’t keen to cheer on the men who’d just ended their uprising.

  Shade’s boots clomped on the sandy ground while his sword hummed in his hand, expectant. There was something wrong here. He could just feel it.

  By the time he reached the middle of the sandy square, the amphitheater looming like a giant’s empty helmet above him, the buzz of anticipation in his mind reached its apex. He gazed up at the cone that rose fifty feet above the rear of the amphitheater’s covered stage. The Great Pine of Breighton. The spines circling the cone of the Tree spread outward to form branches, and at the end of each branch was a darkened crystal.

  Shade had never seen those crystals dark before.

  “I don’t get it,” Meesh said.

  “I do,” Abe said. “Someone took the Heartcubes from the Tree.”

  “Someone?” Shade grumbled.

  “Fine. Cooper.”

  “So what do we do?” Meesh asked.

  Shade spoke before Abe could respond. “We investigate. We walk right in there and see if they left any clues.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we go kill the bastard.”

  The knights circled around the amphitheater and its rows of wooden seats, until they reached the backside. There, twenty yards behind the stage, rose the base of the Great Pine. It was a building of solid metal, a hundred feet wide and thirty feet tall, with the Tree itself rising even higher; above the entrance was an engraving that had supposedly marked the Great Pine for centuries.

  “Enter Here All Who Seek Adventure.”

  Shade had always found that adage to be strangely misplaced given the Great Pine’s uses. Each of the Wasteland’s Sacred Trees had a practical objective, after all. All major settlements in the Wasteland had been built around one—such as the Stone Willow in Ramstable—and the Great Pine and Great Elm, positioned at the centers of Breighton and New Salem, respectively, were the largest of them all. Sacred Trees were complex, Heartcube-powered machines left behind by the Elders, and Abe was fond of saying that without them, there was no way people would have survived the Wasteland’s harsh climate. They had many purposes: the small Trees in places like Ramstable drew clean water from both the air and ground for consumption, along with creating ice for food preservation; the larger ones in places like Lemsberg and Sal Railen gave power to the engines that helped drive the local industries; and in Breighton, the Great Pine gave off enough energy to operate both the smelting plant and a whole power grid, which allowed every citizen access to electric light, running water, and cool, vented air.

  “Here goes nothing,” Shade whispered.

  He waited for Abe and Meesh to hobble their horses, then stepped up to the massive steel door. He grabbed the handle, half expecting it to be locked, but when he pushed down, the tumblers clicked and the door popped open with a sigh. Air that smelled vaguely of burning hair wafted from inside. Shade held the door, Rosetta braced against the frame for leverage. On the count of three, he yanked it open as hard as he could and jumped inside.

  The antechamber was empty. No lights twinkled, no motors hummed—the black mirrors that lined the walls, usually covered with a dizzying array of colored lights and glowing numbers, were dark. The cooling vents in the ceiling had gone silent. Shade went to one of the panels and ran a finger across the cold gray surface, finding only a thin layer of dust.

  “They haven’t been gone long,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  “How recent?” Abe called back.

  Shade lowered Rosetta, leaned toward one of the black mirrors, and squinted. Not much dust there, either. “I’d say two weeks. Maybe three.”

  “Huh.”

  “So what now?” Meesh asked.

  “The Heart of the Tree,” said Abe.

  This time Abe took the lead. The bald man lit a portable torch from his bag and walked along a narrow, curved hallway. Thick rubber tubes looped down from the ceiling. Their footfalls echoed off steel walls. The guttering light from Abe’s torch created demons everywhere. Shade had never experienced such terrifying emptiness before, not even in his own heart. He clutched both his sweaty hands around Rosetta to keep from trembling.

  The curved passage led to a propped open door, and when the knights stepped into the Heart of the Tree, Abe lifted his torch toward the Heart itself. They all stopped in place and stared, dumbfounded.

  Breighton’s Great Pine was given life by twenty-three Heartcubes embedded in a huge metal cylinder lined with wires. All but one of those cubes were gone, and that one had gone dark. Shade approached the Heart, reached his hand through the oval cut into its length, and touched the darkened Heartcube. Its surface was cold, and a worrisome, sinking feeling caused Shade’s heart to clench.

  “What the hell?” Meesh said.

  Shade glanced at Abe, and from the look on his face, the eldest brother was just as baffled as him. “This isn’t possible,” Abe said. “The Cubes are supposed to last forever.”

  Meesh gestured with the flat of his hand. “Well, someone was wrong.”

  “No,” Abe said, shaking his head. “That’s not likely.” />
  “You got another explanation?”

  Abe opened his mouth, shut it. He pressed his fist to his forehead and grimaced.

  “Should we get the Cubes we took from Quint and see if they work? Maybe it’s a problem with the Heart?”

  It seemed Abe didn’t have an answer. He just stood there, staring at nothing, lower lip quivering.

  Shade reached out and grabbed the torch from the eldest knight’s hand, and Abe didn’t resist him. Shade then walked along the curved wall. The chamber in which the Heart of the Tree resided encircled the central cylinder. There were even more black mirrors and machinery in here—dead, just like everything else—and three other doors besides the one they entered.

  Shade approached one of the doorways. It was ajar, and behind was a staircase leading down into blackness.

  He moved on and approached the next door, then the third. All were propped open. At the last door, Shade slipped inside to see a narrow staircase. The light from the torch died inches in front of him. He shivered and went to back out of the door, but a soft, feminine voice stopped him in his tracks.

  “My love, he’s here.”

  It was Vera. Shade nearly screamed as he jumped back through the opening, his heart hammering out of control. Why are you here? his mind asked, but there was no answer. All he heard was his lover’s voice, whispering, pleading.

  “My love, he’s here.”

  “Brah, what’s up?” Meesh asked from inside the room. “You okay over there?”

  Hastily, Shade set down Rosetta and rifled through his rucksack. He pulled free his own torch and pulled the cord. Flames sputtered from the end. He bounded to his feet to give Abe back his torch, but the older man didn’t react. It was as if his brains had turned to mush. Shade grunted in frustration, handed it to Meesh instead.

  “What’s going on, brah?” the youngest brother asked as he took it.

  “The other doors are open. There might be people down there. We need to look.”

  That seemed to snap Abe from his malaise. “We should go together,” he murmured.

  “No,” Shade snapped. “Three doors, three of us. Folks might be in trouble. We need to be quick.”

  Shade ran headlong toward the door where he’d heard Vera call out to him and hopped down the steel staircase two steps at a time. His sweat-slathered palm slid along the handrail. Once he reached the bottom, he realized he’d forgotten Rosetta on the floor upstairs, next to his sack. For a brief moment, he considered going back up to fetch the gun, but then he heard Vera again—“My love…”—and took off in a sprint.

  The corridor he ran along twisted and turned, constantly sloping downward. Shade’s lungs burned, his ribcage ached. He came across one stairwell, then another, and skimmed down them both. “Shadrach, he’s here,” Vera said, and at the sound of his name, Shade pressed his legs to move even faster. He tripped over a stray pipe on the floor and almost fell. A dangling rubber tube nearly choked him. He ran so fast that the fire from his portable torch flickered backward, singeing his beard.

  “Vera, I’m coming!” he hollered.

  There was another stairwell ahead, and when he stumbled down it, the floor changed. Instead of smooth steel, he now ran along a slatted grate that clinked with every rapid stride. He darted without looking down, and his toe struck some unseen obstruction. Shade fell hard on both knees and scraped his palms bloody on the grate. His torch bounced away from him and disappeared.

  It was then he realized he was on a suspended catwalk that creaked as it gently swayed. He inched to the side and peered over the lip of the platform. His torch was somewhere down below, its light a mere dot from this height. Slowly Shade got to his feet while his knees, toes, and hands throbbed in pain. With no light to guide the way, it was like he had fallen into some inky abyss. He gingerly reached for his Eldersword.

  A soft blue radiance then flared to life up ahead, stilling his hand.

  The light at the end of the walkway took the form of a woman, facing away from him. Shade heard her hum a sweet tune Vera had often sung to him during their time together. He leaned on the railing for support and clanked along the walkway. Every part of him wanted to call out to her, but his mouth couldn’t form words.

  The closer he drew, the more he recognized Vera’s supple outline. Her glowing hair fell to the small of her back and she slowly rocked from side to side. “Vera,” Shade was able to croak out, and the apparition’s head turned. The ghost of his dead lover gazed at him with sad eyes; her hands dangled by her sides. She then pivoted around fully, and he saw that she was naked. The spirit lifted her arms and beckoned him closer.

  “Come.”

  Shade picked up his pace, his heart beating so rapidly he felt it in his throat. His feet ached with every step as the ghost continued to back away. “Vera,” he said, his tears starting to fall. “Vera, don’t go.”

  “I’m not going,” the spirit said. “But you must come.”

  Vera disappeared through a portal in the far wall. Her blessed light blinked out.

  “No!”

  With renewed vigor, Shade ripped his Eldersword from his belt and extended it. The Rush made his panic at losing Vera flare with new life, and the blade shone bright yellow to light his way. He stumbled along the last twenty feet of the walkway and lurched through the portal, where his shoulder hit the wall, hard. The Eldersword jostled with the impact, and he came close to severing off his own arm with the vibrating blade. Shade moaned as he rolled against the wall, and he saw that he was in another corridor that extended to either side of him. He peered both ways and, seeing a faint illumination to his right, started jogging that way. The blast of energy the sword had given him was quickly sapped by the terror of Vera leaving him again.

  Shade rounded another bend and there she was. Her radiant body leaned against a wall, her eyes staring into his. Shade went to approach her, but the ghost held up a hand, stopping him in his tracks.

  The muscles in his face slackened. “What? Why?” he asked in desperation.

  There was such sadness in Vera’s ethereal eyes. She put a finger to her lips, her eyelids fluttered shut.

  She disappeared into the wall.

  Shade let loose a yawp and ran up to where she had been. There was a door embedded in the thick steel, one with no handle and a small, useless set of buttons beside it. Shade pounded on the door. “Vera!” he screamed. “Vera, don’t leave! Just talk to me. TALK TO ME!”

  There was no answer.

  He stepped back and allowed the Rush to take control. His sword burned bright red as he plunged it into edge of the door. The blade easily cut through the steel, and smoke rose around him, burning his eyes. Shade heaved upward, and the metal screeched as it was torn open. Whatever mechanism locked the door in place was severed, and it swung inward, rocked for a moment, and then fell flat on the ground with a boom. Shade rushed inside.

  The room he entered was nearly empty and smelled vaguely of ammonia. He looked around frantically, but all he could see at first was a collection of mops and buckets that lined one of the walls. Then, from the corner of his eye, he caught a faint glow coming from beneath a pile of folded towels tucked into the far corner. “Vera!” he exclaimed, rushing to the pile and tossing the towels over his shoulder. The light shone brightly for one sparse moment, and then faded away completely. Shade ceased his frantic search and drew back, confused.

  What he had uncovered wasn’t a ghost, and certainly wasn’t Vera. It was a man, about middle aged and pale beyond measure, almost pure white. His bald head glimmered in the Eldersword’s glow, and he had deep circles ringing his closed eyes. He wore a heavy overcoat, and when Shade pulled the coat aside, he noticed the man was thin to the point of starvation. Shade leaned over and felt the man’s chest. The skin was cold. He then grabbed a wrist and searched for a pulse. He found one, albeit faint.

  Shade sat down on his haunches and stared at the nearly-dead man, and he remembered something Vera had said the last time her ghost visited
him. “The man I fell in love with was a man of duty, of honor.” Shade leaned back and stared at the ceiling. This was who he was. This was the man Vera wanted him to be.

  A man who saved people.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Shade wiped away his tears, collapsed his Eldersword, and wedged his hands beneath the unconscious man’s body. The man weighed almost nothing. “How long you been down here, bud?” Shade asked. The man’s shallow breathing was his only reply.

  Through the darkness he went, the flopping body in his arms. He was able to maneuver the path with relative ease now that his panic had subsided, and though his knees and hands still flared with pain, the message Vera had offered by bringing him to this survivor gave him strength. By the time he climbed the third flight of stairs and approached the Heart of the Tree, his muscles were virtually singing.

  “Abe! Meesh!” he shouted into the inky blackness. “I found one!”

  9

  “WE WERE SUPPOSED…TO BE HELPING PEOPLE…BUT HAVE WE EVER…?”

  —ABEDNEGO THE 21ST

  3 SECONDS BEFORE DEMISE

  Abe built a fire in a thick iron cistern he’d found in one of the ground floor eateries. When the scraps of discarded furniture inside took to flame, he stooped down to warm his sore hands. His knuckles creaked when he made a fist. I’m getting old, Abe thought.

  As he rose from his crouch, his knees popped. A sigh left his lips as he walked toward the window. The room the knights had chosen was located on the fourth floor of one of the gigantic towers overlooking the Great Pine and the amphitheater, and Abe felt a chill at the thought that there were still hundreds of feet of structure looming above him. What if it all comes tumbling down? That thought alone helped explain why Mitchell Hogan had deemed the towers uninhabitable.