by A. R. Knight
“Riven has unique physical properties,” Nicholas said into the silence. “I’m still learning how it works, but the possibilities are very interesting.”
“How hard is it to make more of those?” I said.
“Selena and I have been making expeditions. Finding the materials,” Nicholas said, glancing at the woman with a thankful smile. “So long as we continue, and Riven doesn’t get too dangerous, keeping you supplied shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Have you noticed more angry spirits way out here?” I asked.
Nicholas nodded. “I don’t go exploring as often anymore. There are voices on the wind. Spirits, loud ones, talking with each other. Making plans. The kinds of things they should not be doing.”
“Note them for me,” I said. “I’ll make sure they get taken care of.”
Nicholas handed me the crossbow and backed away a couple steps. I held it up, shifted the lever to the regular bolt and turned the crank. Ready to fire. Then I lowered it.
“This thing have a holster?” I asked.
“What do you think I am?” Nicholas replied. “An amateur?”
Chapter 14
The guides called it the Tar Pit. The part of Riven’s city made up of broken down factories. Containers, like the one Nicholas shot with the crossbow, littered the landscape and were full of unidentified sludges, liquids, or worse. After saying a brief goodbye to Nicholas and snagging a quick kiss from Selena, I went on into the Tar Pit to fill my quota.
Bryce and I needed to get ten, and we had wrangled three back in the Warrens. That left more than enough fun for me. The crossbow hung across my back, a new weight I wasn’t especially fond of, and I’d have to be careful about rolling anywhere with that thing, but if someone hands you an amazing weapon, it’s worth putting up with a few inconveniences.
Fifty yards into the Tar Pit and I was surrounded on all sides by the cracked, massive buildings. Tall and wide, the factories took up blocks at a time. Smokestacks, silent and ominous, lanced into the sky. Fences bordered dusty lots, their chain links as often splintered and unwound as they were together. All in all, it gave the impression of a war zone whose war had ended decades earlier.
It wasn’t a good place to be alone.
I kept my eyes scanning the windows, what few of them there were. My ears hunted for the sounds of spirits venting their rage. The resonator might have worked, but the thought of giving up a hand to hold the thing made me hesitate. Normally, the Tar Pit wasn’t a hard spot to find prey. Something about the desolate nature of the factories seemed to attract spirits who wanted space to rage.
I was so focused on the factories around me that I almost didn’t notice the spirit standing in the middle of the road. But when something has its eyes deadlocked on to you, you eventually feel the itch. Especially when it’s not friendly.
The spirit was a large one, a man standing tall and straight. A wide-brimmed, stovepipe hat sat on his head. Strands of scraggly hair leaked beneath the hat to below the man’s chin, collecting into the collar of his ragged suit. The gray jacket cloaked over a white undershirt and brown suspenders. In one hand, the spirit held a three foot-long hammer with a fixed spike driven into one end. On the other wrist was a gauntlet that vanished up the suit’s sleeve.
It was rare to see a spirit even notice the environment around it. Seeing one actually picking up weapons... that was a whole other level of dangerous. I stopped my walk ten yards away and stared at the man. The spirits eyes held no pale fire, no sign that it had given into the chaos.
“Strange place to stand,” I said.
“Any place here is strange, wouldn’t you say?” the spirit replied.
“Maybe. All the same, I’m wondering what you’re doing here.”
“That’s easy. I’m waiting for you.”
I moved my right hand to the lash and took it off the belt. “Heard that a lot today. Why?”
“What’s your name?” the spirit asked.
“Why?” I replied. The man shook his head.
“Because it’s what people do when they meet.”
I paused. Spirits normally didn’t ask questions. At least not beyond the usual set wondering where they were, how they got to Riven, how they could leave it. They definitely didn’t want to know who I was. Then, today had already been one for the surreal. Might as well keep riding that train.
“Carver. Carver Reed,” I said.
“You can call me Graham,” the spirit replied, though I hadn’t asked for his name. “Tell me, Carver, do you want to see the most amazing thing?”
“In Riven?”
“In anywhere.”
Graham was starting to really mess with my head. Spirits didn’t offer this kind of stuff. Didn’t play games. Whatever was going on here, I made up my mind to wrangle and send Graham to the Cycle. He wasn’t playing by the normal rules, which meant he was dangerous.
“Show me,” I said. Maybe Graham would give me some clues as to what made him who he was.
Graham half turned back down the street and gestured with the hammer. “It’s a short walk this way. You’re not too tired, are you?”
“Seeing strange spirits with hammers like yours has a way of waking me up,” I replied.
We walked and I kept my distance, always staying a few paces behind Graham. My eyes crawling around to make sure the spirit wasn’t setting me up for something worse.
“You ever think about what a terrible place this is?” Graham said.
“Not really.”
“Of course not. You get to run away. Go back to where you can feel the sunlight on your skin. Taste real coffee. Feel the world spin beneath your feet.”
“Pay real rent. Breathe terrible air.”
“Those are nothing,” Graham snapped, glancing over at me. “Any spirit that has to look around this place for more than an hour would take every disadvantage of your world for another chance at it.”
“They had their chance. Some live a long life before they come here. What’s your point?”
“You and your brothers and sisters drive spirits to be cycled. Force them out of this place and into nothing. Why not go the other way? Bring them back?”
In front of us, the street ended in a large building with a curving roof. It took up more space than Union Station. The doors facing us spanned half a block, standing one after another waiting for a crowd. Graham went right for them.
“Even if we could. Even if we could bring every dead spirit out and make them alive again, that would be chaos,” I said. “So many spirits don’t even retain their identities. What would you do with them?”
“I would give them another chance,” Graham said. He grasped the handle on one of the doors and pulled it open.
Unlike the sliding door back in the Warrens, this one screeched in protest as old joints ground against each other. Inside, there was nothing more than darkness. Graham stepped into it and disappeared. I waited for a minute, and then a flickering light burst out of nothing. Graham, now holding a torch, showed up back in the doorway.
“We’re almost there,” Graham said.
“Can’t wait.”
I followed Graham into the building. Images of Felix, torn apart on that kitchen island flitted about my mind. This is exactly what Bryce was saying not to do. Go alone with a strange spirit into an area where you could be trapped.
We walked deeper down a wide hallway, until Graham’s torch stopped fluttering off the walls and its light disappeared into a blackness too thick to overcome. Graham paused, turned to look at me.
“When was the first time you felt that?” Graham said. “The feeling that you’re not just like the rest of them?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Carver Reed. Where’d you get that family name?”
“It was told to me. I kept it.”
My right hand gripped the lash tighter and my left moved towards the long knife.
“Ask them,” Graham said. “Ask them where your name came from.”
>
“Ask who?” I replied, but Graham didn’t seem to be listening. He’d turned back to the wide open dark.
“And when you do,” Graham said. “Tell them that the dead are ready.”
Graham leaned back and threw the torch. It whirled through the air, spinning into the dark. As it rose, the torch’s light bounced off of girders and bars holding up the ceiling, and that light reflected into the corners of the factory.
Standing there, standing everywhere, were spirits. Dozens. Hundreds. As one, the torch still flying in its arc, the spirits turned to look at me. Pale blue fire roaring in their eyes. Then the torch hit the ground, broke apart and died.
In the darkness I heard the screams of the spirits as their feet pounded against the ground. Graham’s cackling laugh echoed off the walls as the damned descended upon me.
Chapter 15
As my heart jumped into my throat and my eyes bugged out at the sight the pale fire streaming towards me, training took over. My left hand abandoned the long knife and grabbed the sparker. I spun to where I thought we’d come from and pressed the button, holding the tube out in front of me.
A blue spark launched out through the dark. It went down the corridor, and exploded against the line of closed doors. I ran after it. Behind me, Graham’s laugh fell away and the only noise was the growling chase of the spirits.
I was five paces away from the doors when the first spirit grabbed my coat. I nearly fell, the sudden jerk stopping me and dragging me sideways as the spirit’s own momentum kept it moving left. I turned with the motion, trying to keep upright, and faced back down the corridor. In the dying embers of the blue spark, all I could see was an endless line of pale fire eyes. Some stood on top of each other, crawling over the other spirits or crashing them to the ground. A stampede for my blood.
I backpedaled and, a moment later, smashed the spirit on my back through the doors and out into the Riven street. The Tar Pit loomed around me again, the sight of Riven’s cold light bringing me just a bit of hope. At least until the spirit dragged me down.
The spirit crushed itself beneath my body, the crossbow digging into it, but its arms were still tearing at my clothes. More were coming, leaking out through the door and charging at me. With my right arm, I flicked the lash at the oncoming wave. The lash wrapped itself around the leading spirit and I jerked its feet out from under it. The spirit collapsed and the ones immediately behind it tripped over its body. Bought me a second of time.
I rolled off of the spirit, tearing myself from its grasp, and scrambled away. Pulled up to a crouch just in time to catch the spirit’s swing. The spirit looked like an old woman, wearing a ragged dress, but she swung with plenty of rage. The fist struck me in the chin and knocked me to the ground. Beneath me, the crossbow made an angry crunch as it struck the stone street.
As fights went, this one wasn’t going very well.
The spirit closed again, her wild old eyes matching her manic grin as she went for my face. Only now I’d had time to grab my long knife. I stabbed it up as I rose, taking the spirit’s punch on my forearm as I drove the blade in. The knife’s blue flame swept up and into the spirit, driving the rage out of her eyes. The old woman slumped forward as I pulled the knife free.
Then I looked up, and wished I hadn’t.
Surrounding me was a line of spirits easily three or four deep with more streaming out of the factory every moment. Dead was too nice of a word for what I was going to be.
“Carver! Getting a little brave over there?” a voice from up the street shouted.
I couldn’t see the speaker, but I knew that accent. Alec. “A few more than I expected!” I shouted back.
Some of the spirits started to turn, but they weren’t fast enough. Alec crashed into the outer line, and I saw spirits fly, their bodies wreathed in blue wrangling fire. Too many wrangled for just one guide, even Alec. Then I saw the other guides wading in, throwing knives, axes, spears. He’d brought friends.
The spirits weren’t done. They were rage incarnate, and they came at me anyway. The three closest to me rushed forward, hands outstretched. Clawing for my face. I cracked the lash wide, sending that blue tip in an arc around the three of them, biting into the right shoulder of the far one. I ran after the swing, tightening the lash around the three as its fire cleansed the first spirit.
With the lash keeping them from moving, I finished the last two spirits with the knife. I looked around and saw a true battlefield. At least a dozen, and maybe more, guides were sweeping by me, led by Alec. They hacked, slashed, and burned their way through the disorganized spirits.
Or they did, until some whistle we couldn’t hear, some call that only the spirits could answer, caused the horde to turn away and run. To scatter back through the Tar Pit and leave us panting and standing amid a crowd of wrangled spirits waiting to walk to the Cycle.
Not all the guides had made it through unscathed. Some were scratched, others held arms or favored legs that bled from more vicious strikes. Yet all of us appeared to be alive.
“Where is Bryce?” Alec said. “I only saw you go in there.”
“Long story,” I said, then blinked. “Are you following me?”
Alec shook his head. “Graham. That’s the spirit’s name, right?”
I nodded.
“I’ve been tracking him for weeks now. I’ve seen traces of this, this gathering, but never so many spirits in one place.”
“You think he’s the one behind it?” I replied.
Alec looked back at the factory. “I don’t know if it’s just him, but he has an agenda. He’s not corrupted. Not enraged.”
I relayed what Graham had told me, but left out the part about my name. The part about asking the guides who I was. I wanted to ask Bryce first and get his opinion.
Most of the guides, including Alec and I, went back to the clock tower or other bases. The time was drawing late, and I had a lot of questions. Questions that Riven couldn’t answer.
Chapter 16
My eyes opened to catch the last glimpse of the sun setting on west Chicago. Even the last few minutes of blaze orange and violet clouds were such a different palette than Riven that I laid there and soaked in the color. After hours in Riven, I tended to think I wouldn't see anything other than ashy gray again.
Then my eyes fell on the small stand of collected mail shot in by the overhead pipe. On top of the usual assortment of bills and advertisements sat an envelope with my name on it. Inside were three pieces of paper. The first one a note:
Carver,
Enclosed you'll find a list of people we're looking for. Names and brief descriptions. If you happen to find any while wandering Riven, if you wrangle them or notice they're on their way to being cycled, let me know and I'll be grateful. You can find me most evenings at the Broken Beaker in the lab district.
I know you're probably thinking that helping sneaks doesn't fall in with your normal mode of doing things. I'm hoping I can persuade you otherwise. As a sign of good faith, I've included a little bit more about your mother in this envelope. I hope we can work together.
Anna
The second page was the list of names and descriptions. Children, wives, husbands, the list was long. I shook my head as I looked at it. Spirits weren't exactly the talkative type, you had to catch them in the right mood. You had to get lucky. And Riven was a big place. It wasn't like I could just stroll down the street and call out some names and they'd come running. I folded it up and stuck it in my pocket anyway.
The last sheet was a surprise. It was a formal paper, thick white with the letterhead of the main Chicago medical center across the top - the Spire of Humanity set into a red aid cross. Immediately beneath, in thick letters, were the words Notice of Death.
Katherine Reed was found dead this morning in her room, having apparently passed in her sleep overnight. Prior to this incident, Katherine had expressed difficulties with her recent pregnancy and childbirth and had been admitted to the psychiatric ward after repeated as
sertions that she was being threatened.
Beneath the note were some signatures of doctors and the medical examiner. And beneath those, a scrawled line.
I couldn't find the rest of her records. The hospital said they were lost.
-Anna
Died in her sleep. An answer to a question I'd never bothered to ask. At least now I knew she wasn't out there somewhere. I hadn't been abandoned at birth.
I sat down on the bed and reread the certificate. Took in the doctors' names. People to find later, perhaps. Now, though, I had more urgent problems. The spirit named Graham had a death wish for me and an army at his back. I needed to talk to Bryce.
If anyone knew how to tackle Graham, he would.
Chapter 17
We met at Ezra’s, as usual. When I got there, Bryce was already a couple rounds in. His face and its dead frown said as much about his day as did the empty glasses in front of him.
“They don’t care,” Bryce said. “Piotr says too many guides are dying to bother with the particulars for each one. That nobody has the time anymore.”
“I hate to say it, but I kind of agree with Piotr on this,” I said, taking the first sip of an amber ale. I found the malty flavor played well with the lingering aftertaste of Chicago pollution. A frothy, stinging drink. “I nearly died this afternoon.”
Bryce looked up, slanted his head in a questioning look.
“Went hunting the Tar Pit and found a spirit. He was holding a hammer, and he talked to me.”
“Holding a hammer?” Bryce said.
“Yeah, one with a spike in it. Had something on his wrist too, but I never found out what that was. A goofy outfit with a top hat.”
