Ship of Smoke and Steel

by Django Wexler

  “Now, Isoka!”

  I summon the Melos spike, gathering power in my right hand, and dodge around him. Before the crab can pull its claw back for another swing, I jam the spike home, punching through its armor. Melos energy ripples into the limb, cracking chitin, and bursts of blue blood spray from the joints. The claw goes limp, dragging on the deck. The crab rears up, ripping its second claw free of the restraints and bringing it down; again, Zarun blocks it, and we repeat the process. With the beast effectively disarmed, a squad of Myrkai adepts steps up to close range to punch through its hide with firebolts.

  “Very neat,” Zarun says, approvingly.

  “Much less painful than last time,” I agree.

  They keep coming, though, and gradually the battle takes on the aspect of a nightmare. I work with Zarun to cut down another of the long-legged red variety, let Jack distract a bulbous, pseudopod-covered juggernaut while I slice my way to its heart, and stand between Thora and a thing like an enormous dandelion puff as she rips it to pieces with Tartak force. A rain of Myrkai fire from behind us blasts the things off the bridge or cooks them in their own juices.

  And it’s not enough. Zarun and I can only be in one place at once, fighting one enemy at a time. There are other adepts among the hunters, but we’re the strongest, and when we’re distracted it’s left to the others to engage the cart-sized monsters with fire, force, and spears. I hear screams from behind me, and the grisly crunch of breaking bodies, but I can’t spare the time to turn away. I’m breathing hard now, sweating freely, my hair matted and my skin tender with premonitions of powerburn. I kill, and kill, and kill, and it’s not enough.

  When we come to a platform or a stairway, I follow the gray thread in my chest, and the others follow me. Zarun doesn’t question, not now. The path leads us forward, but also down, taking spiral stairways and long ramps that lead steadily toward the base of Soliton. We’re going back to the Deeps.

  The rear guard is fighting hard, too. Once I hear shouts and blasts of flames halfway along the column, something that got through. There’s no time to investigate, and I can only hope that Meroe and the others have it handled. Once again, I find myself praying, as I haven’t since the first night they hauled me aboard.

  Blessed, if you’re listening, keep her safe. I can’t bear to lose her. Not now.

  * * *

  We’re getting close. Foot by foot, yard by bloody yard, we push down the bridges and stairs, until I’m certain we must be near the plain of white sand where Meroe and I landed. Instead, the last staircase leads to a broad expanse of deck, stretching into the darkness in every direction. There are no more of the star-like lights ahead of us, only behind. I can see something else, though, a softly glowing pillar, extending up and out of sight toward the deck so far above.

  “Now what?” Zarun says, when we pause for a moment. There are fewer crabs here, as though they don’t like the solid ground.

  “I think that’s it,” I say, pointing to the tower. He just blinks, confused, and I realize he can’t see it. The glow must be Eddica energy. Ordinarily, it’s only visible close up. Whatever’s out there must be absolutely thick with the stuff.

  “It’s going to be hard to hold the line here,” Zarun says, looking around. Unlike the narrow bridges, this flat deck leaves us open to attack from any direction. “But they seem to be thinning out—”

  “Deepwalker!” A boy runs up to us, gasping for breath. “They’re attacking the rear guard. There must be hundreds of them!”

  Blessed’s rotting balls. I grit my teeth, trying to think, but Zarun answers first.

  “I’ll go and help,” he says, then turns to me. “You say we’re close?”

  I nod.

  “Take half the vanguard and push forward. I’ll get the column running. The rest of us will bring up the rear.”

  No time to make a better plan. I nod again, and he hurries off, shouting instructions. Then he’s gone, pushing backward along the column with a group of hunters, as the remainder gather around me. He’s left me Jack and Thora, I’m glad to see.

  “We’re going to run for it,” I tell them. “Kill anything that gets in your way, but don’t stop. They’re coming in from behind, and Karakoa and Zarun won’t be able to keep them back for long.”

  Grim nods. I ignite my blades, crackle-hiss, and gesture. We form ourselves into a loose wedge, and charge into the darkness.

  Crabs loom out of the shadows with startling suddenness. Scuttlers launch themselves from the sides—I intercept one on the edge of my blade, block another with my new Melos shield, and cast it aside. Myrkai fire and Tartak force rip them out of our way. Jack runs beside me, her hair spiky with sweat, her jaw set, no silly quips to be heard. Her shadow runs beside her, fluid black slipping over the deck without any source of light. She eludes the crabs, her body turning shadowy and shadow turning solid, gets behind them for a quick stab with a long blade, then runs on.

  The first big crab, a hammerhead, charges out of nowhere, bulling into the left flank of our formation. A big iceling boy gets caught in its jaws, his scream cut off abruptly. Without prompting, Thora and a dozen hunters peel off, surrounding the thing. Her Tartak bonds fix it in place, while the others close in with spears. The rest of us keep moving.

  This whole time, the tower has been growing, getting closer. It’s bigger than I thought, which means it’s farther away. In the soft ghost light of the Eddica current, I can see that it’s a cylindrical structure, much larger than the towers of the Upper Stations, rising out of the deck and stretching as far overhead as I can see. The line in my chest leads right to it.

  The Garden. This must be it.

  We’re close enough now that the others can see it, too. Real light glows from big square doors at the base of the thing, not firelight but something closer to sunshine. It looks warm and inviting, and the hunters fight harder the nearer we get, slashing and tearing through the crabs that throw themselves at us in a frenzy. A blueshell rears up and is cut down by a dozen blades, hunters taking wounds from its sword-tentacles and ignoring them in their hurry to kill it and move on. I barely have time to reach it and finish it with my armor-piercing spike. Then we’re past, and the glowing doors are just ahead. I pull up short, blinking in the sudden radiance, and the rest of the vanguard slowly comes to a halt around me.

  The tower is dark metal, like the rest of the ship. But through the doors, we can see another world.

  The light is sunlight, golden and warm. A shallow slope rises up from the doorway, a gentle hillside, made of rich brown earth, not steel. Tufts of grass at the edge give way to a solid carpet of green, tall stalks waving in a wind we can’t feel, dotted by clusters of trees and bushes. It’s a perfect park, in high summer, somehow dropped here in the depths of this steel leviathan.

  The Garden.

  I’m only a few feet short of the door, but it’s a moment before I can bring myself to cross the threshold. I walk forward, expecting a trick—invisible glass, a field of magical energy, something to keep me out. But I step past, and my boot sinks a little in the soil. New smells fill my nose, wind and grass and the aftertaste of rain. I look up, and the sun blazes in a cloudless blue sky.

  No. Not quite. The sky is there, and the sun, but I can see past them, to a ceiling only a couple of dozen yards overhead. It’s a fake, but a convincing fake. And the plants are real, the soil. I reach down, touch the grass, and shiver.

  Then I turn, and find pandemonium coming after me.

  The column has lost all semblance of order in this last, desperate sprint. The first wave of civilians is following directly behind the vanguard. They reach the doorway, halting briefly in confusion, but they’re pushed forward by those still coming from behind. A crowd develops, and I can see the situation threatening to spiral out of control.

  “Keep running!” I give it my best shout, cutting through the babel. “Into the Garden! Clear the way for the people behind you!” At the rear of the mass of humanity, I can see the glow a
nd flash of magic. “Vanguard, stay here, with me! We’re going to have to hold them back!”

  People pour past me, running flat out, not even pausing now on the edge of the sanctuary. I see Shiara, in a small bubble of calm maintained by a few of her own hunters. The Scholar hurries past, supported by his servants Erin and Arin. Scavengers and street vendors, servants, cooks, and porters, everyone who’d scraped a living in Soliton’s harsh streets. Children, in smart uniforms, silks, or tattered rags. The better part of a thousand people, rushing into the Garden.

  The rear guard comes into view as the press subsides. There’s been no sign of Meroe, and for a moment panic rises in my chest, but then I catch sight of her at the tail end of the column, just behind the fighters. Of course she would wait, let the others rush past. Aifin stands beside her, a blade in either hand, edged by a slight aura of golden Rhema light.

  Beyond her, hunters fling fire into the darkness. I see the green glow of a Melos blade moments before Karakoa appears, dragging a stumbling Zarun with one hand and brandishing his long, curved weapon with the other. There are too few in the rear guard, far too few considering how many Zarun took with him. I ignite my blades and hurry to Meroe’s side.

  “Isoka!” The relief on her face makes my heart stutter. “Is it safe inside?”

  “I think so.” I look past the hunters, into the dark. “What happened?”

  “A whole wave of them came at us at once.” Meroe’s face is ashen. “They broke right through the line. It was…” She swallows. “Zarun’s people stopped them, when they arrived.”

  “Are they still coming?”

  Meroe nods. “But we’ll be safe in the Garden. Won’t we?”

  The rear guard, falling back, has reached the doors. Now I can see the crabs advancing behind them, shadowy monsters with no eyes and too many limbs blending into a single, amorphous mass.

  A blueshell pushes ahead of the rest. It lunges forward, through the door, and its spindly feet dig into the soil of the Garden. I hold my breath, waiting for a bolt of energy to strike it down or drive it back, but nothing comes. One claw snaps out, grabbing for a young woman pouring a stream of Myrkai fire at another crab. Before it can reach her, Karakoa is there, leaving the panting Zarun on his knees. He swings his long blade with both hands, cutting through armor like it was cloth, and the blueshell rears back.

  “Isoka,” Meroe says. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know.” I look around frantically. “He said we’d be safe here.”

  “Well, rotting ask him!” Meroe says. “They’re going to get into the Garden!”

  “Hagan!” Over the chaos of battle, I doubt anyone but Meroe can hear. “Hagan, how do we stop them?”

  Eddica energy is all around me, here. The whole Garden is thick with it. He has to be able to hear me.

  Meroe grabs my arm. “The doors,” she says. “Look. See where they fold?”

  I follow her pointing finger. On the Garden wall, steel is folded up like a paper fan on either side of the huge doors. I imagine that metal flexing, straightening, blocking the entrance. She’s right; she has to be right. There has to be a way to close them. But there are no pulleys and cranks, nothing to grab on to, and the steel sections must weigh tons.

  Everything on this ship operates by Eddica power. I try reaching out for the doors, as I reached out for the dredwurm, but there’s nothing there to twist, no flow of energy.

  “There has to be something. Hagan!” I turn around, wildly. “Close the rotting doors!”

  There’s a tug at my chest, as though someone had yanked on the thread anchored there. For a moment, I hear Hagan’s voice in my ear, thick with pain and distortion.

  “Isoka, he’s here. You have to help; I’m trying, but I can’t get out—”

  It vanishes, abruptly.

  Oh, rot. Oh, rot rot rot.

  “Meroe, I have to find the Scholar.”

  “What?” She turns to me. “Why?”

  “No time. Just trust me.”

  “I—” She shakes her head. “Of course I trust you. Go!”

  I run, back toward the line. Karakoa is standing just inside the doorway, but the rest of the hunters are beginning to edge away. A few have already run into the Garden. I told them they’d be safe here, didn’t I? I can’t blame them for believing it.

  “Hold here!” I try to shout over the sound of battle, and I can barely hear myself. “You have to hold here!”

  I skid to a halt beside Karakoa. Thora, Jack, and the rest of the vanguard are gathered around, looking uncertain. The big Akemi looks down at me, blade purring softly in his hands.

  “This is the Garden?” he says. I can hear the doubt in his voice.

  “This is the Garden,” I say. “I’m going to get this door closed, and then the crabs will be locked out. But you have to hold here until I can. If they get in, it’s not going to matter!”

  For a moment, I think he’s going to argue. His jaw moves from side to side, as though trying to crack a nut in his teeth. I notice for the first time that he’s wounded, bloody cuts in several places on his arms and legs and the telltale scorch marks of powerburn on his shoulders. None of it seems to slow him down. Zarun, a few paces away, tries to get up off his knees and fails. He’s bleeding, too.

  Karakoa nods.

  “Go,” he says. “We will hold here, as long as we can.”

  “Thank you—” I start to say, but he’s already raised his voice into a bellow that cuts through the shouts and blasts like a trumpet.

  “Stay at the door! Do not let them pass!”

  The hunters who’d drifted away jerk to a halt, as though someone had tugged on their leashes. The vanguard who’d accompanied me throw themselves into the fight as well. With a narrower area to defend, they have a chance, even with thinned numbers. Karakoa wades forward, blade slashing, and Zarun finally clambers to his feet. His shirt hangs open, and there’s a bloody slash across his chest, washing his light brown skin with gore.

  “I’ll be back,” I tell him.

  He nods, too. I can’t tell if its belief or resignation on his face.

  I turn and run.

  * * *

  My first thought is to find someone who’d seen the Scholar, but the thread of gray energy in my chest is still tugging. It’s changed direction, leading not toward the center of the Garden, as before, but off to the side. Playing a hunch, I follow it, the springy grass unfamiliar under my feet after so much time walking on steel and mushrooms.

  Along the edge of the big circular chamber, there’s a staircase, hard to see from a distance. It ascends in a curve, following the wall, and passes through the fake sky. The thread leads me to the bottom, and I pound up it, boots clanging on grated metal steps.

  Above the sky, there’s a metal ceiling. The stairs cut through it, and onto another level. Instead of grassland, there’s forest, overgrown tree trunks stretching away as far as I can see. Something chitters from the canopy overhead. A fat raindrop lands on my arm.

  The thread stretches, the pull getting stronger. I sprint up the steps, gasping for breath, my thighs on fire. Another fake sky, another metal ceiling. And then—

  The pull of the thread shifts abruptly. The stairs continue, winding around and around the endless tower, but the thin line of gray light now points inward. This level has no soil, only ordinary metal deck. There’s a corridor, like the corridors all over Soliton. Here, though, no rust mars the metal. Brushed steel gleams as though it were polished yesterday, and pale, sourceless light washes out all shadows.

  I slow, leaning against the wall, straining to breathe. I force myself to walk, down the corridor and in the direction of the increasingly frantic tugs on the Eddica thread. The hallway continues, monotonous and featureless, until the exit has dwindled to a dot behind me. Then, ahead, another dot appears, expanding to a set of double doors, which stand open. There’s brighter light beyond. I start jogging again, gritting my teeth at the pain in my knees.

  Beyond the doors is
a huge circular chamber. The walls are a metal filigree, interwoven beams, pillars, and girders in a complex web. Between the larger pieces are smaller ones, metal rods the size of my arm, crisscrossing like threads in a loom, and then others smaller still. All of them glow bright with gray Eddica power, pulsing through the room in regular waves, like a heartbeat.

  In the center of the room is a circular pillar, about my height, with a flat top like an altar. Energy flows toward it, from the walls into the floor, and up from the floor into this single place. A beam of soft gray light rises from it, shining upward until it disappears into a matching pedestal extending down from the ceiling.

  Behind the pillar, there’s an enormous gray stone, like an egg the size of a small house. I ignore it for the moment, because in front of the altar-like structure stands the Scholar, one hand on his cane, the other holding the dredwurm’s eye over his head. The crystal glows a deep, sullen red, like a hot coal, and Eddica energy swirls around it.

  Erin and Arin, looking as tired as I feel, are on their knees on either side of their master. Hagan hangs over the altar, suspended in empty space with his dangling feet a yard above the metal. He’s spread-eagled, bands of gray energy wrapped around his wrists and ankles. As I enter, he screams. It’s not a human sound, half keening bird and half watchman’s whistle, sliding across the octaves and into weird modulations that scrape across my mind like fingernails on glass.

  “Stubborn,” says the Scholar. He looks over his shoulder and smiles at me. “Hello, Isoka. We’ve been expecting you.”

  27

  I step into the chamber. “What in the “Rot are you doing?”

  “Taking control of Soliton, as I told you I would,” the Scholar says. “This is a friend of yours, I take it? A dead one.”

  “Let him go.”

  “‘Him’?” The Scholar turns to me, spectacles slipping low on his nose, the eyes behind them full of fire. “There’s no him, Deepwalker. This thing isn’t human. It isn’t even alive. It’s a mistake, a broken cog, a stripped gear. A stray batch of memories you installed by accident.” He grins maliciously. “It’s been getting in my way, but I’ll have it removed in a moment, never fear.”