Blaze of Embers

by Cam Baity

  “I gotcha,” Micah said, holding her up as her knees buckled.

  They cautiously made their way across the pond, moving from one stepping-stone to the next. Leaning heavily on his shoulder, she managed to climb the bank on the other side and saw a landscape that she did not know.

  Peppering the slopes below were remnants of ancient buildings. Pillars leaned against one another like lovers, embraced by curling golden ivy. At first, Phoebe did not see the mehkans sitting motionless among them, since they were indistinguishable from the ruins. As the kids descended down a disjointed walkway, a few of the creatures turned to gaze passively at them and ring bells—no, the bells were their voices. The others simply sat, contemplating twinkling vesperfalls or the infinite silence of the gray fog that embraced them.

  She tried to walk on her own, but Micah kept right at her side.

  Pinpricks of memory poked through the blackness. There was a face, old and wise beyond measure. A loving smile. Then a breathless rush of fear.

  And the world faded, faded to nothing. The end.

  She knew now.

  But there were still pieces missing, jagged and dark.

  She looked at the gray haze that suffused everything, at the lonely souls that haunted this place. A thought struck her then—she stared at Micah and felt a hollow pang. No, he shouldn’t be here with her. It wasn’t fair, it was all her fault! Yet at the same time, selfishly, she was grateful for his presence. At least she would have someone to spend eternity with. She clung to him even more tightly, comforted but confused by how warm he felt.

  As they passed through toppled ruins held aloft by a few daring columns, Phoebe realized that they were not alone. A family of large mehkan birds nesting in a carpet of fluffy amber moss stirred, seemingly irritated by the unwelcome intruders. The creatures whistled through broad, sieve-like beaks, and their pearlescent bodies reflected rainbows as they ruffled magnificent plumage.

  So colorful. So…real.

  “We’re in the Shroud,” she whispered “We’re dead…aren’t we?”

  “What? No, no! But yes,” Micah insisted. “We’re alive! Phoebe, you’re alive.”

  Again, the entire world pivoted beneath her, and she felt lost and weightless.

  “You are now, at least,” he added awkwardly. “This is Rust Risen.”

  That name was familiar. More fragments of memory came back, drifting like the red and gold autumn leaves that surrounded them. Dollop—her friend Dollop. His fearful voice telling them about evil wraiths that haunted places of death. And the sickly mehkan called Tik, standing at the lip of a mass grave while recounting a story about this place. A story of murder, unholy acts, blasphemous resurrection. Resurrection…

  Micah’s words resounded. You’re back.

  Pain streaked through her head like lightning. A white-hot light flashed across her vision. She slipped from Micah’s grasp and crumpled to the ground in a heap.

  “Whoa! Whoa!” he yelped. “Easy, it’s okay! Please, don’t freak out.”

  Hyperventilating, Phoebe clumsily dragged her body along the ground and curled up against a column. Another pitchfork of pain, and Phoebe clutched her chest. She grazed something at the base of her throat, an object embedded deep in the flesh. Panic rising, she released a terrified moan and tried to look down at it. Whatever was there, she couldn’t see it, though she could tell it was emitting a yellow light. She prodded the mass, heart blasting—it was hard and smooth as a pearl. Beneath the skin, she could feel stiff cords branching off it, snaking up her neck, down her chest, and across her collarbone to her limbs.

  “What is this?” she sobbed helplessly. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothin’s wrong with you. That’s how they saved you,” he answered. “Some sort of seed they grow.”

  “They?” she wailed, knowing the answer, and sickened by it.

  He put his hands on Phoebe’s shoulders to soothe her.

  “The Uaxtu,” he said.

  “No, no, no!” she cried, clutching at her own throat.

  She convulsed with dread, but Micah held her until the violent shaking subsided. With a firm grip, he helped Phoebe back to her unsteady feet and led her across the shady enclosure. One of the agitated birds raised its tail, its elegant chrome plumage twirling like the blades of a fan, then settling to display keen lavender eyes blinking at the end of each feather. But Micah ignored the irritable birds and pointed between the columns to a rust-caked mehkan figure sitting in the distance, seemingly lost in a deep trance. Phoebe saw a glowing dot on the meditating creature’s forehead and touched the seed at her throat again.

  “Ember-reapers,” Phoebe choked. “But they’re…they’re evil!”

  “No,” he insisted. “I know what everyone said, about them killing their own kids and stealing souls and stuff, but they ain’t like that.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because they helped me. They brought you back to life, Phoebe. When I saw the blue mountain with a red top like in Tik’s story, I knew it was your only chance.”

  Still, her mind churned. Shattered images and sensations collided, shards coming together to form a disjointed mosaic.

  “I…died,” she said, trying to make sense of it. “And they…brought me back?”

  Micah gave a weak nod.

  “Which means…you brought me here?” she wondered. Her mind was awhirl, attempting to assemble an explanation that made coherent sense. “But what if they really were demons? How did you know it would work?”

  “I didn’t,” he said with a shrug. “Didn’t care what happened to me. I’d have let them kill me if it meant bringing you back.”

  He couldn’t meet her eyes. Another electric spasm jolted through her arm. Phoebe watched her hand jitter as if charged by a motor. She grasped her wrist tightly to try and steady it. Then another sliver of her broken memory slid back into place.

  “There was nothing,” she said at last, looking at him with hard eyes. “When I died, I mean. No tunnel of light, no other side. Not even blackness. Just…absence.”

  He stared back at her, confused.

  “None of it’s true,” she continued softly. “My parents weren’t waiting for me. There is no Forge. There is no Makina.”

  Micah’s face brightened with a look of maniacal fervor.

  “You’re wrong there,” he said, almost giddily. “I seen Her.”

  “What?”

  “She came out of the Shroud. Came down and smashed the Foundry to bits. I barely made it out alive!” Micah was laughing again, his words stumbling over each other in a mad rush to escape his mouth. “Don’t you see? Makina’s returned! Everything’s going to be okay now.”

  “How do you know it was Her?”

  “I…” His wild, unswollen eye darted. “I just know, is all.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” she insisted as she found her strength. “It’s all lies. None of it’s real. Look around you. We’re beyond the Shroud. This isn’t the afterlife, like the Way said. It’s just another place. There isn’t any Makina.”

  “You’ll see,” he said confidently. “Then we can go home.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know.” His expression was elated as he looked into her eyes. “We’ll figure it out, like we always done before. I only wish we could stay to watch Her squish Goodwin like a bug for what he did to you.”

  “Goodwin?” His stern face materialized in her mind. “What do you mean?”

  Micah’s joy vanished in an instant.

  “Phoebe. He’s the one that killed you.”

  She felt the seed at her throat burn bright. Another piece snapped into place.

  The mosaic was complete. She remembered.

  “Listen to me,” Phoebe said.

  She reached out to Micah and gently held his face in her hands as the fading sunlight raked across the ruins, reflecting in his one good hazel eye. Vibrating bells echoed throughout Rust Risen as the Uaxtu created a hauntingly beautiful
chorus, and the plumed birds nesting nearby joined their whistling calls to the song.

  The suns were sinking. The day was done.

  “It was the Ona. The Ona killed me,” Phoebe said. “And we have to stop her.”

  “Breach in three…two…” shouted the marauders from the elevated command deck. Mr. Pynch could hear them clanging their weapons and smelled their bloodthirsty anticipation.

  “One!”

  Slaves braced for impact.

  BANG!

  The vessel lurched violently as the wryl speared the belly of another barge—their fourth in under a cycle. An unseen hatch up above burst open, and with a piercing battle cry, the marauders stormed their prey.

  Ashamed, Mr. Pynch breathed a sigh of relief. Though innocent mehkies on the surface were dying at that moment—or worse, being enslaved—the attack also meant that he had twenty ticks of recharge before he would be forced to resume his labor. As the slaves stopped pumping the axles, the mind-control mechanism at the back of the enclosure powered down. The rusted rotors and grimy pistons buried in the wryl’s brain squelched to a stop, and the beast slipped into a deep slumber.

  Mr. Pynch was just about to close his wonky eyes when he heard a commotion. Two volmerid slaves in front of him were locked in a fierce struggle. They grappled and smashed each other with their oversized fists. Others joined in the brawl, growling and pounding at one another.

  “Enough!” bellowed the overseer, viciously hacking at the slaves with his barbed lash while two more marauders shoved their way into the melee to break it up.

  “Enough, you rot-poxy rhkytor lickers!” the overseer snarled. “Filthy scraps of—”

  In a choreographed instant, the brawlers turned on their captors. The mob snapped shut around the marauders like the jaws of a savage beast. The overseer and his cohorts didn’t even have a chance to scream. They were sucked into a sea of choking chains and stomping feet. After a few quick and brutal moments, it was done.

  Mr. Pynch put his head in his chained hands. He didn’t want this. Just the labor of the crank, the punishment he had earned—not this. Now Tchiock would surely send them all to the rust. The eyes of the prisoners gleamed ferociously as they suppressed the urge to howl with victory, careful to not alert the marauders up above. The slaves stripped their fallen captors of weapons and snatched up the overseer’s needlekey.

  “She comes,” they chanted low. “She comes.”

  The captives passed around the hooked syringe and injected serum into the knurler locks to loosen the bonds. One by one, the slaves cast their chains aside, rubbing chafed wrists and ankles as they murmured prayers of thanks.

  “She comes,” whispered the backwater Waybound vol next to Mr. Pynch, offering him the needlekey.

  The balvoor was too dazed, too distraught to react. The vol freed him before joining the rest of the captives, who were busy wrapping chains around their fists and breaking off axle handles to make crude weapons.

  “She comes! She comes!” was their quiet chant as they crept across the underdeck, then swept up the ladder to the command deck. After the muffled sounds of a brief struggle above, Mr. Pynch could hear the slaves swarm across the vessel to take the marauders by surprise.

  He sat alone in the underdeck, catatonic. He knew he should do something—try and get away at the very least—but he hadn’t the will. He hadn’t the will to do anything. Sounds and scents of battle drifted down from above. The slaves were brave but stupid, stupid but brave.

  And what was he? What was Hieromylous T. R. Pynch made of?

  Ichor-curdling screams erupted abovedeck. The slaves were hardy sailors, but they were no match for the ruthless, combat-tested marauders. It wouldn’t be long until—

  A body slammed down onto the underdeck floor. Pynch whirled around.

  It was his neighbor, the idiot vol. Atop him, with serrated copper forearms buried in the slave’s back, was Tchiock.

  “You,” rasped the wretched hiveling, pus-white eyes blazing at Mr. Pynch, snouts sputtering acid. “This is your doing.” Tchiock sprang, vicious blades arcing down.

  Mr. Pynch’s core throttled, instincts overrode his dome. With a mighty breath, the balvoor ballooned his inflatable body. He rolled away as the hiveling crashed down, cleaving the bench in half. Tchiock kept coming with cross slashes. Mr. Pynch tried to scramble to his feet, but his enemy pressed the advantage.

  The balvoor flailed for a weapon. Anything. He lashed out at the hiveling’s legs with a length of chain. Tchiock dodged. Mr. Pynch overturned broken benches, but the marauder carved through the obstacles with ease.

  Tchiock lunged forward with a powerful thrust. Mr. Pynch deflated and wriggled away like a flattened baby drebbling. He slapped the nearest axle, and the spinning handle cracked into the hiveling’s nauseating face, knocking him back.

  It wasn’t enough. Tchiock was driving him back into a corner.

  Mr. Pynch stumbled over a bench. Vaulted over axles. Dodged another slice of the hiveling’s blades. He tumbled to the rear of the galley, beside the mess of exposed viscera that was the wryl’s brain. Tchiock landed atop him, drooling acid on the balvoor’s chusk overcoat.

  “You are done.” The fiend jabbed at his prisoner with the tip of a bladed arm. “No longer a thorn in my side.”

  One of Mr. Pynch’s eyes stayed fixed on Tchiock, but the other scanned desperately. Beside him was a series of long, snaking ducts and cables that stretched across the length of the underdeck and plugged into the mind-control mechanism.

  A thorn, eh?

  Mr. Pynch inflated, popping out his arsenal of jabbing quills. Tchiock reeled back, giving the balvoor just enough time. With lightning speed, Mr. Pynch grabbed a duct and held it protectively before him. Tchiock snarled and brought his serrated arms down to deal the deathblow.

  The hiveling’s blades sliced through the duct, releasing a spurt of foul-smelling fluid. Mr. Pynch aimed the severed tube at his adversary, coating him in the oily muck. The mechanism squealed, crippled. The entire vessel convulsed.

  The wryl they rode upon was awakening.

  Tchiock was caught off guard, but Mr. Pynch had anticipated the response of the behemoth mehkan. He sprang past the hiveling, who slipped and slithered in the goo. With a pop, Mr. Pynch expanded and bounced up the ladder. He hauled himself up, rung by rung, climbing to the command deck, and then out the top hatch.

  “PYNCH!” Tchiock cried from below.

  The glimmering night stars greeted the balvoor as he emerged.

  The wryl shuddered violently. Mr. Pynch lost his footing. He slid down the exterior of the vessel affixed to the leviathan’s head, scrabbling to cling on. Out on the boarded barge, the marauders, their most recent victims, and the rebelling slaves looked up from their fearsome battle. Freed from the cruel mind-control machine, the enormous wryl exposed tiers of jaws and let loose a wild, bubbling yowl. Flux churned. Beams cracked. Debris flew.

  The monster wrenched its tusks free from the barge, sending warriors flying. It thrashed to free itself from the marauders’ vessel attached to its head—the very same contraption that Mr. Pynch clung to for dear life. The wryl’s massive bladed sail fins snapped open and flapped like mad, sending up a vortex of flux spray and wind.

  The beast blasted out another roar, deafening the balvoor.

  The vicious gale tore at Mr. Pynch’s grip.

  Blown free, he plummeted into the tumult of the Mirroring Sea.

  Neither Dollop nor the Marquis were made for climbing, and their meager progress proved it. They had been at it all day, struggling their way higher and higher, until night smothered the world around them. They were deep into the forest, the drone of wind blowing through pipework trees and the clink of wind-chime leaves everywhere.

  Blinky-flickaflashery.

  Dollop had stopped wondering what the Marquis was trying to say, but he imagined the lumie was accusing Dollop of getting them lost—which was only partially true. With his wide nocturnal eyes, Dollop could see
that the woven cables hung in abundance up here, dangling from the branches in thick clusters.

  He didn’t know their exact location, but he didn’t need to.

  Dollop was extending his arm to reach for the next branch when he got that old familiar tingle on the back of his neck. He stopped, turned, and bowed his head. The Marquis shone his opticle into the trees—nothing there.

  “I—I beg entry into the great Ch-Chokarai,” Dollop pronounced. “I am ally and s-servant to the Riders-of-the-Wind.”

  The Marquis waved a gloved hand in front of Dollop’s face, but the little mehkan did not look up or move. The lumie scratched his head and took another glance around, scanning the forest with his light.

  This time dozens of beady black eyes gleamed back, surrounding them.

  Lithe simian shapes with long, muscular arms hung between trunks and dangled from cables spooled from chests. Crests of earblades flared out threateningly. Pointed muzzles snorted fumes from pleated vents into the cold night air.

  The chraida.

  “Thought you rusted,” one growled, baring jagged metal fangs.

  “Not welcome,” barked another above them. He shot a cable down with the short spring-loaded limbs on either side of the spool in his chest. Using the wheels embedded in his hands, he zipped down it toward the Marquis in a threatening lunge. “Or this one, who dare come to Chokarai in bleeder hide.”

  The Marquis looked down at his Durall tuxedo and flickered back a panicked reply.

  “Yet I ha-have returned,” Dollop said, his voice confident and assured. “You t-took me in once before and I—I served you. Now I need your help a-again.”

  A shadow tore through the trees and slammed down onto the branch next to Dollop. The Marquis backpedaled and clung to the foliage to keep from falling. The chraida warrior was a glowering, hulking thing, decorated with colorful tin plumage, rows of rings piercing the vents along his snout, and crisscrossed scars of battle.

  “No speak,” he barked. “No words from you, Little Lump.”

  That nickname. Dollop had nearly forgotten it. Phases ago, when the Foundry had slaughtered the gentle band of nomadic kulha who adopted him, Dollop had fled to the Chokarai. This tribe of chraida, or Riders-of-the-Wind, as they called themselves, had spared him, but showed little kindness beyond that. They made Dollop serve them and subjected him to endless mockery for his clumsiness. The misery of those cycles had dulled in Dollop’s memory ever since Loaii and Micah came and freed him—until now.