Glorious Angels

by Justina Robson

  ‘Open it,’ said Dahn’s voice, cool and sure, close to her head. A sweet scent of fresh air filled her nose and calmed her, drew her attention to the mageplate before her hands and eyes. The door itself, alight with charms in glowing cartouches, waiting only for her commands. ‘We’re perfectly safe here. I’m with you. I’m taking you inside to the others. To the science team. To your mother,’ Dahn said, relaxed and confident, encouraging. Her hold relented and the pain went away.

  Minna cued the mandalas to spin and recognised the lock type. She saw it was only closed, not locked at all. The spells merely held the door in a shut position so that a cue was required, there was no code on it. She turned as she heard shrieking, reeled as a man collapsed virtually in front of her, his tabard awry and body ripped open by a huge thing, like the dog, tearing at him as it in turn was assaulted savagely by their own form of dog, weak but still raking with claws and breaking with its hands. She heard Dahn give it an order, though she couldn’t have said what the words were.

  Minna pushed the door and it gave way. She fell with it, inwards, and Dahn with her. As the world spun gore and sky to blackness, she felt a sadness like nothing she’d ever known. There was no need to lock the door because nobody outside it knew how to open it anyway, even though they could have run in and saved themselves at any time. She’d never seen an animal butchered, let alone a human torn apart alive. These things combined, image on image, a spell that formed in her mind, cast on them from some master mage that meant they would do these things here, would suffer this way, would die this way, ignorant and isolated in their own worlds when the answers were so close they could be touched but would remain unknown.

  She landed on her back on metal flooring as Dahn sprang up and pushed the door closed against the sunlight, the silhouette of the city and the screams of the dying. The dog was left to die out there too, however things took it. Minna came to understand her odd position in things. She was like the dog, good as long as she was useful or until the battery ran out.

  ‘They were Glimshard soldiers,’ she said, sitting up, anger too hot to be held down.

  ‘Not many of them,’ Dahn said. ‘And many too many Karoo. This was our only chance. We would not have survived out there.’ She did look shaken and there was a ring of truth to the last words.

  ‘What about the dog?’

  ‘It was just a dog,’ Dahn said, uninterested. She looked sleek and full, like a cat well fed in the sun as she put her hand out and pulled Minna to her sore and aching feet.

  They stood on a tilted floor inside a small room. Bright light glowed from the lower parts of the walls, illuminating an obvious way through a door on to a ramp and, beyond that and over its rail, more halls and rooms in subtly different earth-toned colours. Long lines of cables, lightrope and stacked cubes of supply crates littered the area and the way as though something had lately gone through them all in a great hurry and left them where they fell. Minna could hear distant, muffled voices that seemed to be talking with animated excitement and fear. She looked at Dahn and saw her also listening, an expression of concentration on her face and her nostrils flared. Air moved slowly around them, strangely dry and scentless after the heat and saturation of the outdoors.

  She was taller than Minna, with a greater reach and much better strength and reflexes. Minna didn’t think she could outrun her but she glanced around quickly and saw other mage panels near the door. She paused to glance at her battery readout and saw it had shrunk a little.

  ‘All right,’ Dahn said. ‘You first. Let’s go.’

  Minna looked around and made a show of studying the inner door panel. She could see this door was some kind of seal and it was broken but others in its area still operated. There was an active major node a few halls down – clearly the source of the voices. She memorised the route and then walked on, her hand out in case she slid or tripped on the sloping panels. Behind her, Dahn was close. Minna went as slowly as she dared – which was not much of a ruse since her legs and feet hurt with every stride and quivered with exhaustion. However, she was really thinking about what she would say or do when she found the Glimshard engineering team – how could she tell them her suspicions about Dahn when she knew Dahn was still wearing a suit with a trigger on it?

  After a few turns, and the ever-increasing volume of the chatter, they came to a balcony which overlooked a huge space. At first Minna didn’t realise what it was, thinking it a decorated wall, but, as they moved, the parallax and shadows gave away the truth and she stopped, then moved across to the rail where it leaned out, her mouth hanging open.

  The structure they were in was huge. She was looking across a space that was at least forty metres wide but as she looked down into it she saw that it grew rapidly much wider until she was staring across some enormous space. On the other side, balconies and walkways, rooms and halls diminished to a point where suddenly the light failed and nothing was visible at all.

  This thing was bigger inside than the Square of the Sun. Bigger than the entire University. She thought it was bigger even than Glimshard.

  She felt Dahn beside her and looked up to find her sharing the moment of surprise. Dahn’s face was mostly blank save for a hint of bafflement around the edges and she turned her head to look from different angles as if she didn’t believe what she saw. She might have spoken but at that moment they heard footsteps in the way behind them and turned together to find the Glimshard engineering team approaching them, waving and talking loudly all at once.

  The sight was so relieving and uplifting, or it could have been, except Minna knew that all this safety that was being offered to her now wasn’t real and could never be as long as Dahn was there, and this belt was on her. It was the most cruel joke instead, that she must play along with or risk them all being blown to pieces when Dahn lost her patience in the weird game she was playing.

  In spite of all her determination to get out of Dahn whatever there was to be had from her in payback for that, Minna found herself crying, so there was fresh humiliation to add to the total of the horrors. For some reason, it was the worst of them; to see so much in such a short time, to have colluded in the fabrication of your own death, to make it through the forest, to face the dog, to see what happened outside and to see it again and again as if it was etched in plain sight – to somehow survive all that and still function – and then this personal betrayal of the self.

  Hate and rage filled her until she felt nothing but their consuming burn. She missed the first few lines of conversational exchange that Dahn managed with the others, explaining the lies of their lucky escape from the mysteriously downed plane, their ordeal in the forest at the mercy of the wild Karoo and then their salvation with Minna’s heroic pushing open of an already open door. The replies were full of hope about power supplies and requests for news of the outside camp which Dahn skilfully avoided answering except to mention fighting.

  Minna didn’t hear her mother’s voice anywhere. ‘Hey, where’s Tralane Huntingore?’

  Her question broke through the chatter – having seen her and now identified her they were pleased to accept Dahn’s story. Minna knew they wouldn’t see her harness’ true nature unless they really looked. She decided that for this moment Dahn was better controlled by letting her carry on into the deception. If she told otherwise then they would all immediately have to dispose of her – killing Minna – or become prisoners alongside her. For now, let everyone keep what they’ve got. She looked at faces, saw excitement and fear.

  ‘She went down into the Print Room,’ one of the engineers said. He was an average height man, stocky and given to frowning, which he did now. She thought she’d seen him before and his name might be Rofelo. ‘It’s a walk from here. There’s another group at the Loom.’

  Minna didn’t know those words but it hardly mattered. Fine, there was a print room and a loom. They were far off. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘She is. The Empress’ Consort was with her… She, you can talk to her on the lin
ks. Come this way.’ Rofelo beckoned, his face full of the cheer he wanted to give her after the ordeal, and she went without a backward look, wondering what Dahn was going to do about it, if anything. So long as her mother was alive she felt there was some kind of chance.

  In the end everyone went, Dahn among them as if she was a woman with her job completed, like she said – ‘just waiting for the rest of the city to arrive now.’

  Minna was sat in one of the only decent chairs while the others brought her water and ration food. She took the disruptor out and looked at it, against her will – four hours. Then she caught the arm of Engineer Micklas as the woman bent to refill her cup. ‘I need a battery, for this.’

  Micklas, a strong woman with a lined face and lips thinned both by age and compression in thought, lofted her eyebrows and hunkered down to take a look at the device. Her overalls badge told Minna she was a weaver mage – someone who could fit devices and spells together. Micklas tried to take the small item but Minna held on to it, knuckles white. The older woman read the mandala slowly and then looked up into Minna’s face, her own expression gone from friendly to serious. Then her gaze roved slowly over Minna, taking in the flight suit and then the harness belt. She let go of the disruptor and her fingers carefully touched the harness and then turned part of it over so she could see underneath. Wires and thin lozenges showed for a moment.

  ‘It was so I didn’t escape,’ Minna said. ‘It won’t open. I already tried that.’ She could hardly stop herself from breaking down as Micklas stared at her with hollow eyes and then glanced around. ‘Dahn knows but don’t tell the others. They might try to get it off.’

  Micklas’ voice was whispered as she replied, ‘You can’t wear it for ever.’

  ‘I might be able to work out a way,’ Minna said. ‘But I need time. It’s on a double failsafe. If this signal stops it will go off. Can you find me something?’

  Micklas took a small multitool out of her pocket and gently took the inspection plate of the blocker off, looking at the nested crystalline battery inside it. ‘Disconnecting this looks bugged too. We could recharge the crystal maybe without cutting the energy flow. Best bet. Wait here and rest, I’ll look for the right parts. Power’s not something we’re short of right now.’ She gave a smile, strong and confident, and replaced the plate exactly as it had been with great care. ‘You should speak to your mother. I’ll check and see if Rofelo has the pane set up.’

  ‘Don’t tell her about this,’ Minna said, still gripping Micklas’ wrist. ‘Please.’ She couldn’t stand it if anyone knew, especially Tralane. She didn’t want to worry her when there was so much going on.

  Micklas nodded after a moment’s hesitation and then Minna let her go. She tried to eat but she felt so tight inside that nothing would go down except the first meagre bite. Her guts were twisted in a huge, hot knot that filled every bit of space. She pretended to cut up the food as she watched Dahn, who drank also but didn’t eat. Dahn glanced at her across the room but Minna couldn’t read the information in the long look they shared and she broke it first, afraid that she’d already given her hate away.

  Dahn reached up to her collar and brushed her thumb to the spot that the Spire officer had indicated – the detonator point. Minna realised she could have fixed that when she found the flightsuit hanging on the tree, if she’d had any brains, but the chance was gone now. Would the pilot have one? She didn’t know and had to assume so. Would it override the disruptor? Again, no way to know for sure. Let’s say so, to be on the safe side, she thought and the phrase made her mouth smile all on its own.

  Dahn frowned and turned to stare at what the engineers were doing, the huge arrays of spell lights that filled the room like turning star systems in the air, the crystal panes of foggy colours that tried to display places that weren’t connected, or never had been.

  Minna’s eyes automatically read what she saw. Slowly she put down her plate and cup and although her legs screamed at her not to she stood up and went to see the smaller of the three panes, where a diagram was laid out, with markings in arcane, ancient hieroglyphs; a schematic. Here they were – she put her finger on the glowing spot, saw the flow of energy in the conduits there. And here was another lit room, something to do with weave – it must mean loom, this cartouche, she realised. Where everything was put together. And this other room then, that was makings or perhaps something like production or growing –what they had called the print room. Her mother was in the print room. Where she was, and the loom and the print room were all in the first third of the whole – but she could see that this in turn was only a small section of something much larger.

  She found herself reading the edges of the schematic until she found the symbols that looked correct for moving out into a larger view. She touched them and then thought she had made a mistake, went back, went out again. Engineer Micklas came up as she was flicking through the change and looked over her shoulder. ‘Now, child, are you sure you can read that… Ah, of course, Sircene, you can read it all, I should have thought… What are you looking at?’

  ‘I think this must be broken,’ Minna said. ‘But—’ She held her hand still over the pane.

  ‘Ah, yes, we thought that too,’ Micklas agreed.

  Minna turned to her. ‘Nothing is that big. This is the size of the whole of Hadirath, or more.’ She couldn’t imagine a device the size of an entire country. ‘And this would be like some tiny piece.’ She looked at the schematic which put her in one of twenty different lesser sections arranged around the much larger central spine of whatever it was. Most of it was displayed in flat grey with only the portions she had seen in lit up white characters. ‘All this.’ She sketched the grey mass.

  ‘All that is lost, gone. This bit—’ Micklas cued the original back. ‘Is all that remains, and in fact we think most of this is gone too, only the very bright parts with the yellowed star marks are whole and functional. You can see why we wanted it so badly now though. You almost never find anything as good as this. Nothing like as good as this. If this is correct we could potentially fit all our archaeology for the last two centuries somewhere into this map.’

  Minna was aware of Dahn loitering near them, watching. ‘I don’t believe it.’ She did. Her mind was buzzing with it, her nerves electrified with the excitement of what she had seen and what it meant.

  ‘Well, it will take a lot of studying,’ Micklas said and held out the small boxed kit towards her. ‘Can you work this out for yourself or do you want help with it?’

  Minna opened the case and looked. ‘I can manage it. Thank you.’

  Micklas smiled warmly, ‘You’re welcome. We nearly have connection to the print room too. A minute or two should sort it. If you have any trouble, I’m right over here.’ She pointed to her station.

  Her confidence was touching. Minna saw her turn and her expression fall however. Who could blame anyone for that in the circumstances? She thought it best if she limit the potential for disaster and made some excuse about going where there was better light. Dahn followed her out of the room and back towards the balcony. The light was worse if anything. Minna sat down and opened the kit out carefully, saying nothing as Dahn lounged at the rail, looking at the astonishing view.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ Dahn asked, when they were quite alone.

  Minna opened the back of the disruptor box. It had occurred to her that it might be a fake, or the belt was a fake, or everything was a hoax. But she pretended not. How could she know? She didn’t know an explosive from mud. Anyone could be fooled with so little. ‘I might be able to.’ She deliberately didn’t look up. She had lost interest in Dahn for the time being. She concentrated instead on locating connectors and trying to match the resonance of the Spire power crystal to the assorted battery components Micklas had found from the Glimshard supplies. She wondered if Dahn had been fooled by her too, if she had read Minna’s real anger and resentment and tantrums and thought they were all due to the circumstances and that as far as Minna was concerned
Dahn really was nothing other than a good Glimshard agent doing her job. After all, there was no reason to think that Tzaban had not given special information out about Karoo, that dogs were merely – controllable things. Only, if they were, why was everyone outside so very dead?

  ‘How did you get this anyway?’ she asked, holding up the disruptor. ‘How did you know they’d do that to me?’

  ‘It’s a standard Spire tactic when they use anyone who isn’t in their elite forces,’ Dahn said. ‘The unit captain had the disruptor on him. They always carry them.’

  Minna scowled, working on building a circuit up. That sounded true to her, and plausible. She had to keep remembering the dog. With the kit open, she began to see other possibilities beyond a simple recharge. Her fingers worked steadily, clipping, trimming wire, soldering, spellsmithing the components with symbols and cues that any engineer could use.

  Dahn watched her and sighed. ‘I see nothing in these things.’

  ‘Minnabar! The pane is connected. Come, come, your mother is waiting!’

  It was Micklas. Minna packed up the kit and went obediently, slipping the slender box into the long leg pocket of her flight suit and sealing it there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  TRALANE

  Tralane stood, surrounded on all sides by the intricate astral light glyphs of a machine so intricately manufactured, so beautifully spellbound, she was at a loss for anything but awe. Awe had to be smothered however, to speed the interpretation and reading of what she had called up after the power had been restored by the weavers. As before, the language of the glyphs was both familiar and new to her, not only filled with archaisms but formulations she had never seen before and which she had to puzzle out one radical at a time until she was able to make educated guesses of the meaning and the function. In her hand, her small, worn magepane felt as if it too was struggling to cope with the influx. She had not been able to form any working connection between it and this incredible room so she had to copy the symbols by hand into it and the going was slow. It was so absorbing, however, that she soon lost track of everything else around her as she delved into one spell after another, each a phrase or melody fragment of a vast concert. Gradually, things began to form into sense, but the more she saw the more of a chill she felt. Around her, she was vaguely aware of Carlyn and the other two mages for a time, until they too ceased to register and only the white language of the starlight remained. It was like swimming in a new ocean of unimagined vastness, limitless potential. She forgot everything but the rapture of discovery.