Could even say that I loved them.
Would’ve taken more than a second to admire them, only . . . I had enough anima in front of me to make the entire shop implode. Maybe even the entire shopping center. All the way out to Pocket and Jesus’ RV. Where I really hoped they’d finished by now, cuz three hours straight without a single break was a bit excessive, even by my standards.
Not that three hours straight working on an artifact was much better.
Just, so much to do.
Just, so close to being done.
The real problem with World-Breakers, even faking one of them, had to do with storing the anima while I worked. Usually you store anima in a vial and leave it there. You begin your journey of creation on paper, draw out diagrams on design documents. Next you double-check your conversion formulas on how much geo-anima you need for containment. Then you start with the shell or structure of the artifact itself. Plenty of arguments on what type of material you should use for what type of artifact, or based on what animas are in play, but we won’t bother with that.
Assuming everything looks good with that initial prototype, you add the geo-anima to coat your channels and storage apparatuses. After that’s done you can seal the artifact and leave it for as long as you wish, the only moment of ruin coming once you finally decide to add the other anima type into the coated channels. Had to be quick or else the geo-anima might escape or dissolve or evaporate, or whatever it was anima felt like doing at any particular moment, the annoying chaotic essence of magic that it is.
This process is why most artifacts keep to one anima type, perhaps two at most, surely not three of them. If you do have to get tricky, the best workaround is to compartmentalize sections limited to a single anima type that themselves interact with each other. That’s how Anima Detection Lenses work. Thirteen very flimsy artifacts stacked on top of one another, making a solid whole.
Amazing, yes, and I did make a pair by following the design documents, but more like building a Lego set than crafting a whole item out of the ether.
Even not having to worry about the Fakeshin Dim working, just getting the thirteen anima types into it was stretching me to my limits. Kept opening and closing the jade casing, injecting where I wanted the anima to go . . . then I had to do it again on the second half.
Used up more pools than I did in some fights. Surely more than anything outside of Geo Realm in this last week. Open the jade, insert anima, close the jade. Make sure pyro doesn’t touch hydro, make sure scio doesn’t touch spectro, etc. Tons of geo-anima to begin with, of course. Only I had to coat the whole and then coat certain individual ‘gears’ if you will. Twelve anima types, coated by geo-anima, five-minute per, doubled by the second half . . . fucking more math than I want to think about.
Do know it never would’ve been possible without the World-Breaker’s capacity to draw upon extra anima, to say nothing of the dozens of geo-anima vials I had in reserve from draining the World-Breaker weekly.
All that work just to fake it.
You couldn’t actually craft one this way.
I had to be missing something.
Had to be some trick to it or some technique that had been lost in time.
If a human even made the original.
Maybe it was some Black Elf.
Maybe even Meteyos.
Me, it was beyond my limit as an Artificer.
But I just had one thing left to do . . .
Needed fifteen minutes of geo-anima to do it.
Five minute usage to open each half.
Another five minute usage to bind them together.
And right in the middle of all that, down came Valentine Ward into my workshop for the first time since we broke up.
She came with a smirk on her twisting, laughing lips.
She came with her eyes-without-irises twinkling in the LED light.
She came with sunshine hair pulled up into a bun.
She came . . . with lunch.
My stomach gurgled, annoyed at my singular focus and how I had forgotten its needs since those measly Taco Bell whatever-the-fucks hours and hours ago. Wasn’t just my stomach that awoke, awoke not just at the sight of Val, but the smell of the food she brought.
My stomach, my stomach was the easiest part.
Was all the bruises from where I’d been smacked around by Salt and Pepper.
Was the twin burn spots where Paine had zapped me with my own SDR.
Was plain fatigue over not getting enough sleep in the last week, of hiking and geo-surfing through all them boulders and mushrooms trees.
Was the part of me connected to anima, maybe even call it my spirit. Worn by the whiplash. Anima ripped from it followed by overflowing with strength, a strength I used time and again.
Was my mind, mind that needed sleep even more than my body. Mind kept dealing with what was ahead of it, Paine, Susan, protecting everyone hopefully, playing how the trade would go over and over, trying to foresee all the manipulations and twisted paths we could tumble down. Mind kept ignoring what it had already witnessed, holding off on cataloging all them memories, all that knowledge, especially the sights and smells of a few hundred dead Black Elves and the curdling realization that maybe, just maybe I enjoyed doing it, that whisper from beyond that in Annie B’s voice called me a monster. Such a good monster. Whole world of good monsters. Whole worlds of beautiful monsters like Meteyos.
Shadows.
Kept seeing shadows at the edge of my vision and not the ones that have Eva Reti jump out of them, preferably as naked as her birthday. Shadows that hide, shadows that say you’ve thought too long and too hard and some of this ain’t being recorded.
Had a cramp in one hand.
The other shook.
Sweat dripping down the middle of my back, beading on my brow, even above my lip. Cheeks itched, too long away from a razor. Mouth dry, no matter how often I’d been guzzling down a Dr. Pepper. Started every hour, was down to about every half hour. Too hot for coffee and I needed the caffeine, maybe needed more than caffeine. Needed forty-eight hours of sleep, not the forty-eight hours of awake I got. Needed to go right from the Geo Realm up to Seattle and fight Paine with none of this in-between. Different than the In-Between, but just as confusing to me.
Why battles have to have a lead up?
Was all different from the lead up to a fight.
Know how that was supposed to go down.
Cherished it.
Back in middle school, even before.
At the Ouroboros.
Knowing what I had to do, only my life on the line, doing it.
Ten lives on the line this time, even if you ignored all that prophecy Armageddon shit that the dragon was talking about. Ten lives assuming Paine don’t double-cross us, which he could. Ten lives not counting whatever my brother-in-law brings to the party. Ten thousand Coyotes in total, people whisper. Doubt I rated that highly. Didn’t know what I rated with him at all. Wouldn’t know until we found out where Paine wanted to kill me.
If I didn’t kill us first.
What with that little anima nuclear bomb I had in my hands.
Second hadn’t even gone by.
Had those two halves open.
Geo-anima pressing down smoothly on each, holding in the anima inside.
One hand shaking, one hand cramped, I somehow found the nerve to push those halves together. Even a centimeter wrong . . . wrong anima types touch . . . won’t be no lunch. Won’t be no kissing Val again. No holding her in my arms like I wanted to tonight. No getting a nod from Ceinwyn that the plan was good to go. No standing across from Paine. No rescuing Susan. No victory measure in life or blood.
World doomed without even a convergence.
No coin flip.
Just the coin melting.
Just the fingers being shot off.
Maybe it was just the lack of sleep and all them shadows turned hallucination, but I felt Fate’s hands reach out to steady mine. Felt her breath on my neck, her whisper i
nto my ear, “I won’t be denied my show, Dirt King. I won’t be denied the only escape I’m allowed. You and your precious struggle against inevitability will continue.”
The two halves of jade clopped together. Made me giggle, imagining Monty Python with their coconut galloping. It’s just a flesh wound . . . cuz if this explodes I won’t have no flesh . . .
I pulled on the anima that held the two halves still apart . . . magically speaking. Inch by inch, feeling each connection made as the correct channel found it’s dance partner. Couldn’t sense those other anima types, but in the way they reacted to the departing geo-anima I knew their touch. Pyro-anima, so rash and bold. Scio-anima, seeping into each corner, each fold. Cryo-anima, a lurching crystal connecting together. Fauna-anima and the way it pulsed like a heartbeat. More and more. All thirteen.
The geo-anima dripped down, cracking my worktable in a few places like the most metal of New Age art. I released what I had left, five-minutes of anima. Seemed so small these days. So common. Used to mean everything to me. Before I knew the lies and the truth they hid. Before I became the Greatest, when I was just Beyond.
Two halves of jade melded together and became one.
Finished.
The Fakeshin Dim was finished.
Don’t feel so fake when you almost die to make it.
I sat it down on the metal table next to the Jinshin Ken, happy to see they were both identical twins.
It’s big brother I picked up, placing it back in my coat pocket sewed specifically to keep it there. A foot of jade, harder to hide on your person than even a glass-metal knife.
Pretty sure it was the real one . . .
King Henry Price? Yeah, dumbass died cuz he mixed which one was the fake, just handed the wrong one right on over to the Curator.
Felt exhaustion peak and crest over me, threatening to send me to my knees.
And here was Val again, just like during Massey’s hearing where she kept me together. No chili or coffee, but she did set down a plate of pizza and another Dr. Pepper. Eyes-without-irises weren’t twinkling so much, just concerned for me. So concerned she was the one who opened with a joke to cheer me up, “I’m okay with having to see you naked and the sex isn’t bad, but waiting hand-and-foot on you by bringing your meals is really making the modern woman in me shiver in indignation.”
“That the same modern woman gets off on being powerless in the Geo Realm?” I teased her right back. “Might not be shivering in anger, might just be your clit revving up the RPMs in anticipation.”
Val pushed the pizza towards me across the same metal worktable I’d been slowly killing myself at these last few hours. “Anticipation of what? You falling over? You look horrible, King Henry.”
“Yeah well, you got enough pretty for both of us combined, so I get to look like shit and it averages out,” I muttered, picking up a pizza and blasting open the Dr. Pepper can with my last bit of geo-anima. Paine attacks today and I’ll just roll over and die. He was smart enough to plan that, in fact, but his pride would never let him. Lording his superiority over me like in the Pit at foreseeing my reactions, yeah, but an actual sneak attack? Never.
Staying secret all these years must have made him gnash his teeth in rage. Not that Paine needed much reason to rage. But there was a part of him that needed this. Just like he needed me to escape him, reveal the mask of the Curator to the whole supernatural world. Sit up in Vancouver and just wait for all comers. Daring them.
It’s time. Right now. He needs to cast off the shroud.
It was me all along, Austin!
It was Obadiah Paine!
And I’m gonna crush you all with what I’ve built!
First this pretender to my crown and then the rest!
Your castoffs, your forgotten, your sick, tired, and lonely outcasts, they’re biting back and They. Will. Draw. Blood!
Val took a turn around the workshop while I somehow found the energy to eat. Fakeshin Dim just sat there on the table, next to the pizza. Lot of trouble for another jade dildo, wasn’t it? Still . . . would pass the Ceinwyn Test. Paine Test too, just for how long was the question. Long enough he decides it’s a good trade and pulls back his forces while I get to escape with Susan I hope. Me and Val. Needed to tell her about that little decision, but was too tired to find the words now.
“You’ve expanded so much in so little time,” she whispered, touching one of the little assembly tables I had set up for my product lines.
“Did a reassessment and retooling after the Ouroboros. At the very least, the names got better.”
“Adamantine Coat Mk 2 Experimental,” Val read from a tag I stuck on a brown geomancer’s coat hanging from a stand. After she touched it, her eyes squinted. “Still trying to become bulletproof?”
Second piece of pizza. Starting to feel a bit of energy from all that mixed meat and veggie goodness. “Don’t like guns, so never could see why I should let other people use them against me.”
She smiled at the sentiment, which was pretty common among mancers. “I seem to remember the Mk 1 of this design. When you turn it on do you still lock in one place, unable to move?”
“Nope. Uses plates like medieval armor actually, except for steel it’s made out of threaded geo-laced aluminum webbing. Still limited, but I’m getting there. Be all unbreakable as Bruce Willis one day.”
Tour complete, Valentine headed back over to me, reaching out to put a hand on my neck. “Going to wear it wherever we’re heading?”
That hand felt too good for a touch so small and casual. “Don’t think bullets will be what’s flying at us,” I grunted around the last piece of pizza.
Her thumb massaged my neck as she reached across and hefted the Fakeshin Dim in the other. “Weighs the same. Looks the same.”
I nodded at my Lenses still on the table, eyes mostly closed as I just focused in on that finger. Fucking humans, why we built to need all this contact? Made for the strings and chains, just can’t help ourselves. Even me, even how much I fought and here I am, only chance at surviving the next couple days thanks to the people willing to fight beside and behind me.
Val took the hint and slipped on the Lenses, even if they were a little big for her. Might be taller than me, but as has been noted by numerous people, I got a big head. “Anima is the same too . . . this doesn’t really work, right?”
“Nah. I mean, it has a switch, but I wouldn’t push it.”
“Too big a boom even for Boomworm?” she teased.
“Worse. Got no idea what will happen.”
“Fear of the unknown, not very King Henry like . . .”
“Oh, I’m plenty interested in what will happen, just the other side of me knows if it wants to keep on keeping on then it needs to have the knowledge to plan a path through the minefield before it takes another step.”
Val’s thumb stopped as she returned the Fakeshin Dim to the table. A small smirk formed on her lips as she heard my sigh of frustration. “Oh, now you want me to rub all your toils away like I’m some geisha too, is that it?”
“Nah, no need for geisha dress-up, prefer you do it naked . . . I’m a man with simple tastes, after all.”
“There’s plenty of ways to describe you, King Henry, but ‘simple’ has never been one of them.” She nodded at my empty plate, “Want some more?”
“Nah, the beast is sated. And yeah, probably too tired to ravish of his maiden fair, no matter how much her tender bits are buzzing or how happy he is to see her away from the Pit.”
She leaned over to sit half in my lap, arms swinging around the back of my neck. “How was the Geo Realm this time?”
“Burnt and bloody,” I told her the truth instead of keeping up the quips.
“Poug okay?” she asked, concerned both about the Black Elf and about me if Poug wasn’t okay.
“He’s fine. Off to spread word of my miracles, no doubt.”
Val squinted. “Does that make him the prophet’s prophet?”
“I can’t wait until you g
et to meet the Fire Dragon and she’s ten times as annoying as Meteyos is,” I decided.
“Need to make me a World-Breaker first . . . one that works.”
“Never. Fake one almost killed me as is.”
“I’m glad it didn’t,” she whispered into my ear before giving me a peck on the lips.
“Pizza kiss, do I know romance or what?”
“T-Bone, Pocket, and Jesus seem to be taking all this well,” Val said, “no screaming or muttering breakdowns at least.”
“Take it Ceinwyn was very enjoyable to be stuck on a plane with for twelve hours?”
“Lots of pacing.”
“Finally getting mad at me now that her protective instincts are wearing off?’
“A little,” Val admitted, “Mostly her mumbling about how she wants to drop another boulder on the Curator though.”
I chuckled over the mental imagine. “Obadiah might see it coming this time around, but it’s always a backup plan if we fuck things up too much.”
“Obadiah,” Val whispered in thought. “You’re so familiar with him.”
“He hates it.”
“Ah,” she said, like that explained everything.
“And . . . we are similar. Same type of geomancer loves artifacts above everything else. Relationships with Ceinwyn, granted a little different. Same goal to stop Anima Madness turning into something else, something bigger than both of us. Both broken, both monsters, just . . . he’s every bad, troubled part of me magnified times ten. I got just enough left to care about the people closest to me, to me and mine, Paine don’t even got that. All about him. If you’re my example of what I’d like to work towards, Val, then he’s the example of what I’m fighting to keep myself from becoming.”
Earned another peck on the lips for some reason, pizza breath or not. “Keep putting me on that pedestal and I’m going to disappoint you one of these days.”
“Oh, you have. Remember that whole dumping me for a job thing? Sound familiar? Six months ago? Was pretty disappointing.”
Her head found my shoulder as she leaned into me harder. “How long must I apologize for that mistake?”
“Bit longer,” I told her, “at least until we’re living together.”
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 65
