Chasm Walkers

by Raquel Byrnes

  “No,” Arecibo cut across him. He did not tell Dewar what he’d seen on that floating shanty town. That the answer to all of the difficulties with the program was hidden where he’d least expected. In the most delicate of packages. “She cannot hide forever. In fact, Blackburn cannot seem to stay away from those she cares for. We watch them for the moment. Besides, there is something important for us consider now.”

  “More important than retrieving the girl?”

  “Not more…we still need her, and I have made strides to secure her, but I discovered something in that sky settlement that may be the missing variable we’ve suspected.”

  “What is it?” Dewar looked at Arecibo with wide-eyed interest.

  “A breakthrough of the highest degree.”

  The muffled voices from within the chamber resonated, giving Arecibo a trill of anticipation. He adjusted his cloak, cleared his throat, and stepped through the door. “This is outrageous,” he roared as he swept into the vast assembly. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Madame Dupond, France’s representative, turned with a gasp as Arecibo descended the steps leading into the room. The rap of his cane punctuated the manner in which he met the gaze of everyone he passed in turn.

  Murmurs started around the room and rose to a full-scale cacophony, the derisive tones recognizable even if the foreign insults were lost in the clamor.

  The Minister Secretariat rapped his knuckles on the podium in front of him.

  “Who is that?” Baumton’s angry voice reverberated off the wood arches of the lavishly decorated chambers of the Council of Khent. “Do you dare interrupt these proceedings?”

  “Why not?” Arecibo snapped, facing the elaborately carved seat upon a dais. He frowned at twin marble cherubs flanking the platform. Their chubby hands held aloft perfectly carved bunches of grapes above their laughing smiles. Arecibo addressed the Minister Secretariat directly, despite being surrounded by almost forty of the council’s representatives from the ruling houses and governments of Europe and Asia. “You dared to hold this accord without the presence of The Order of the Sword and Scroll, Minister.”

  “Viceroy Arecibo.” Baumton’s face twisted with the words. “I should have known.” He waved back the approaching guards and folded his hands, leaning down to look at Arecibo. “It seems we have not ferreted out all of your spies after all.”

  “This coalition has no right to launch an offensive against the Peaceful Union. We order you to stand down this proposed invasion before—”

  Baumton’s wheezing laugh nearly sent Arecibo’s eye twitching.

  “You ‘order’ me?” Baumton cackled. “The Coalition of Khent has allowed The Order too much leeway in this matter as it is.”

  “Allowed us?” The translators whispered frantically to their masters, and Arecibo fought to keep the pulse pounding at his temples from driving him mad.

  “When those wretched American colonies nearly tore themselves apart during the States War, the whole of Europe stood by as your Order’s philosopher monks intervened for the North, promising innovation and stability.” Baumton raised his bony hands as if waiting for something.

  “And you had it,” Arecibo shot back. “They are the authors of countless advancements in both mechanica and medicine. In the past decade alone, the strides they have ushered in are breathtaking.”

  “Mi scusi,” a man to Arecibo’s right called out.

  “Signori Vataglia,” Baumton replied, pointing at the Italian representative. “What do you have to say on this matter?”

  Arecibo rolled his eyes as Vataglia rose, adjusted his lace cuffs dramatically, and babbled for quite some time before allowing his translator to chime in.

  “These breathtaking advances you speak of were essential to survive The Great Calamity, a disaster of their own doing. And a tragedy that left the rest of the world to deal with the consequences. Increasingly violent weather, the wasteland vapor that reaches our shores, the ruined seas.”

  Madame Dupond nodded her assent, chiming in, “And the Order stepped in, promising that division among city-states would make them easier to control. That ambition and greed among the governors would assure not one of the domes came to too much power.”

  “Viceroy Arecibo,” Baumton’s enormously bushy eyebrows appeared burnished in the light of the crystal chandeliers suspended over the floor of the gathering. Exceedingly wrinkled and dry, Baumton nearly collapsed in on himself like a dusty seed pod, the old man’s voice nonetheless held the sharp retort of an impatient school master.

  It grated on Arecibo’s nerves.

  “The Order’s experiment with what was left of America’s republic is a failure. Those people are erratic, reckless, and willfully unable to resist putting themselves in peril. So much so that a continent-wide affliction of Biblical proportions has taken hold of the entire region.”

  “Biblical, really?” Arecibo snapped, irritated. “It is a controllable situation, not the wrath of heaven.”

  “And now it is taking hold here,” Baumton continued, ignoring Arecibo’s remark. “Monstrous men and women with unholy strength and rotten bodies. This atrocity started in the bowels of that country.”

  Arecibo noted the rising flush on the old man’s neck and face and wondered if he might drop dead as they spoke. It would certainly save him the headache of assassinating him later.

  Vataglia rattled off another string of increasingly passionate utterings, and then the translator, in flat affect, said, “Time after time, they have brought themselves to the brink of destruction. Why should the rest of the world not give them the final push they need to be gone forever?”

  “Because the land is still salvageable with time. This Trembling Sickness will burn through eventually as did other…plagues, if you will, leaving the country ripe for restructure. There are hundreds of thousands of able-bodied subjects that, with the right kind of rule, would be a force to be reckoned with.”

  “That is the problem, is it not?” A woman rose in the back, her movements causing a ripple of murmurs to spread among the crowd. Long, chestnut hair worn in a braid at her shoulder, her gown rustled as she moved. Doña Christina, Spain’s second-born princess, called down from the seats behind Arecibo. “It is my country that fights to keep them from storming our shores with their affliction and their desperate poor. We demand this Outer City be destroyed. It is a launching point for their refugees. The blockades fail to keep them away. They swarm our streets like rats. For the sake of all of us, blow them from the skies.”

  “This is madness. That territory is under the protection of The Order of the Sword and Scroll!” Arecibo faced Baumton, his face a mask of anger. “Lest you forget, we have toppled rulers more entrenched than your infant coalition.”

  “Corrupt and divided,” Baumton said evenly. “The Order is not what it once was, and despite what you claim, is no longer able to do much of anything, Arecibo.”

  “How dare you speak of the very ones who put your family—”

  “Enough,” Baumton shouted, his voice surprisingly strong for someone so decrepit. “Send your ragged knights or what is left of them if you think it will do anything to stop this. The beauty of this coalition is that you may get to one of us. Or even ten of us. But the ruling families of Europe will not be stopped. Not by the Order and certainly not by an insignificant group of mechanics and scientist in a dying land.”

  “The governors convene…” Arecibo began.

  “Let them. What can they do against all of Europe?” Baumton sneered.

  “So you will raze the entire country, then?” Arecibo asked, his expression properly downcast.

  “Eventually, yes.” Baumton shrugged. “They are crippled militarily, and the destruction of Outer City will topple the country further. It is their silk road. Commerce and trade pass through there connecting all the still functioning domes. Once it is gone and, as you said, the affliction runs its course, this coalition will retake the colonies as they should have been a hundred y
ears ago.”

  “Very well,” Arecibo said, reaching into his pocket and retrieving the device. “If it is war you seek. Then you shall have it.” Releasing the tension coil, Arecibo tossed the impact grenade at Baumton and dove behind a marble cherub.

  The old man’s face registered disbelief a moment before the blast destroyed the entire dais. Rubble tore across the chamber, pelting the occupants who ran shouting for cover. In the dust and confusion, Arceibo ran for the stairs, pausing to knock Vataglia to his knees with a swipe of his cane. Pulling the handle from the shaft, Arecibo withdrew a dagger, leapt upon the screaming Italian, and plunged it to the hilt. Madame Dupond gasped, her attendants shielding her as her gaze fixed on Arecibo with terror.

  “That is two heads of the coalition serpent down,” he snarled before turning and taking the stairs two at a time.

  Dewar, quaking in the dark hallway, followed after him as Arecibo made his escape along the fence.

  “My Lord, why would you do that? They will surely attack now,” Dewar panted when they reached the lawn.

  “Yes.” Arecibo wiped the dagger on his cloak.

  “What…why?” Dewar stumbled next to him, his face pale and sweaty. “That is not what we were sent here to accomplish, sir.”

  Arecibo stifled a sneer at the man’s cowardice. “No. It was not.”

  “If there was any chance at staying their hand it is gone. W-why would you deliberately—”

  “It is the only way to wrestle the Americas from both Europe and The Order.”

  The fire of the torches lining the walls cast a strange shadow on them both, and in the quiet of the grounds, dawning passed behind the doctor’s eyes. “You want to rule. You…you want to be king of the Americas.” Dewar’s hand went to the pendant hanging at his chest. The emblem of the sword and scroll. “That is treason, my Lord. To plot against the Order is unforgivable.”

  Arecibo moved blindingly fast, striking at Dewar’s heart with the dagger in one fluid motion. The doctor fell without a sound. Stepping over his body, Arecibo smoothed the hairs at his nape and sheathed the blade in his cane.

  “Was that entirely necessary?” the soft voice behind Arecibo pulled a smile from his lips, and he turned.

  Doña Christina stepped from behind the pillar, her large, dark eyes fixed on Arecibo.

  He bowed, his gaze never leaving hers. “Your Highness.”

  “I was convincing, yes?” The amusement in her voice was far from the feigned anger and desperation she’d shown inside. “I actually said, ‘blow them from the skies.’”

  “Riveting.” Arecibo held out his hand, and she took it. He led her into the orangery and they stood beneath branches laden with ripe fruit. He picked one, biting through the bitter rind before handing it to her.

  She drank the juice, wiping the sweetness from her ruby lips as she held his gaze. “And now?” she asked.

  “And now we fight for our thrones.”

  16

  The dream came to me in flashes, like the flickering images of a zoetrope picture wheel. Jerking, frantic movements I knew I’d lived before. A man ran out in front of me on a flaming rooftop, his laboratory cloak streaming behind him as he glanced over his shoulder with terror on his face. Aero ship engines thrummed overhead.

  Get him, Blackburn. Bring him to me.

  The words snapped like a sharp pain across my mind surging fury through my chest. It drove me after the fleeing man. He moved as if in slow motion. His limping stride slowed him. White hair on his head shifted in the rising heat from the fire, and a flurry of embers swirled in the sky like racing stars. Fallen guards and rubble flitted by as I sprinted across the searing roof, gaining on him with ease.

  He fired over his shoulder wildly. I barely registered the lash of energy singeing my cheek. My baton flashed in the firelight as redoubled strength threaded through my veins. Vibrations of the crumbling floors below my feet pushed me to move faster.

  The top of the roof collapsed right in front of him in a furrow of seething flames and smoke. Rounding on me, he aimed, but I was faster, the disc already flying from my fingers. Spinning blades struck his outstretched hand, toppling his weapon to the roof in a spray of crimson. He screamed and held the valise in front of his chest like a shield. Panting, soot-covered, and bleeding from his nose, he winced with pain as he spoke. “Please, do not do this,” his voice fell away, eyes going wide as his gaze met my own black one. “You…you’re one of them.”

  “The case.” A buffeting wind blew across the roof whipping a flurry of glowing cinders between us. He backed up further, treading closer to the chasm in the tiles. The timber sagged under his weight.

  I took a step forward, my gaze on the case.

  “W-why would you do this?” His gaze went to the baton in my hand and the mechanica embedded in my skin. “W-what are you?”

  “The information,” I demanded with startling calm, despite the growing heat of the roof beneath my boots. It would collapse at any moment.

  “You can’t do this. You’ll sentence all of us to—” The roof gave beneath his feet in a torrent of flames and black smoke.

  I gasped, reached out, and then the world stopped, ticking by in frozen black and white images. The terror in his eyes, my hand closing over his, the flutter of his lab coat. Fighting to keep from sliding with him into the chasm, I twisted and flailed with my other arm for a hold. The mechanica in my hand fired jolts locking my fingers around a piece of pipe. I screamed for help, my gaze heavenward as an airship circled overhead.

  “Please don’t let go,” he gasped, his lip trembling.

  Just out of my reach, the valise teetered on the edge of the roof nearly toppling into the flames.

  Pain. Incredible, blinding pain, erupted in my mind, and I could focus on only one thing. The information. I had get the information at all costs. His grip slipped to my fingers and he flailed frantically. The edge of the case dipped further into the chasm, the leather at the corners blackening as the heat seared it.

  “Please!” he screamed. “Pull me up.”

  A series of crashes shook the roof behind me, men with swords and armor landing in a crouch as they leapt from the airship above. They rose, stalking toward me.

  Then the noise started—a tempest that filled my head, blocking out everything else. I gritted my teeth, stifling a moan as the world narrowed to nothing but pain and light. My arm jerked. The scientist fell, his screams echoing as the billowing black smoke swallowed him. I lunged, catching the handle of the case, my heart in my throat. No. Gathering myself, forcing the emotion from my face, I fought to breathe. Rising, I faced the approaching knights. The lead one slowed, his hand to the hilt of his sword, gaze wary. I tossed the case to him and he relaxed. “He was the last of them,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Fall back.”

  The knight shivered as he nodded to me, rattling in his armor, a moan escaping his ragged blue lips. A Trembler Knight. One of Arecibo’s monsters. One of my men.

  The roof shifted, sending my heart racing as it collapsed in a torrent of flying sparks and smoke. As I ran from the widening rift, I caught sight of the deep scratches on my wrist from the scientist’s grip. I had not felt them.

  Following the others, I leapt for a lowered rope dangling from the vessel. We banked away, and I stared at the fire and smoke engulfing what was left of the building. Through the numb of my body and the fury of my mind, despite the piercing wave of pain that muffled my thoughts, the darkness of panic squeezed my heart.

  What had I done?

  I had to fix it. I had to stop it. I struggled to leap back onto the roof. Tangled somehow in the rope, I could not move. Then his face was in front of mine. The tight skin of his malicious grin turned my stomach. Arecibo loomed over me, pinning me to the deck, his cold stare boring into me.

  “Stop it. What are you doing?”

  The grip on my arms was so tight, I couldn’t break free. He held me to the ground and I howled, desperate to get to the scientist. If th
ere was a chance he had survived… “You did this!” I screamed with fury. Lashing out I struck Arecibo, bloodying his lip.

  “Charlie, please.” Arecibo’s voice changed, lowered as it vibrated in my chest. “Wake up!”

  The familiarity made me freeze and I blinked, unable to understand, and then the face that struck dread in my heart transformed into Ashton’s before my eyes. My gaze locked onto the smear of crimson at the corner of his mouth, and all the fight and hate flooded out of me in a single breath. “Ash?” I croaked. The train cabin of the Stygian melted into view, and the stench of smoke faded.

  “Charlie?” He sat astride my body, pinning me with his hands at my wrists. Wind howled in through the open door of the Stygian whipping through the cabin. His hair flared around his head, papers flew, and the cracked windows shuddered in their frames. “Are you back?” Slowly, cautiously, he released his grip and sat back on his heels, looking down at me.

  “Back?” Palms to my cheeks, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to quiet the thrum of pain at my temples.

  “It was a night terror, I believe. A waking dream.” Ashton moved, helping me to my feet and closing the door of the train car. He locked it, leaning against it as he wiped at the split in his lip. He regarded me with quiet stillness, his gaze filled with worry. “You tried to jump out.”

  “I-I wanted to save him.” Even as I said this, I knew it was not what I had done in the moment.

  “A nightmare, Charlie. After what you endured. It is no wonder—” Ashton reached for me, tried to pull me close, but I stepped away, the heaviness in my soul weighing me down.

  “Not a nightmare.” Rubbing my wrists, I shook my head and paced the small space near the doorway. Fine ridges on my skin caught my gaze, and I pulled up the sleeve of my blouse. There on my wrist, faint scars trailed down toward my hand. “A memory.”

  Ashton took my hand in his, and the tremor that moved through me was not lost on him. He kissed my wrist and soothed the skin with his fingertips. His lips were warm, soft, and I wanted so desperately to sink into him. To let his words melt away the images still clinging to the ragged edges of my mind, but I knew I could not escape the things that I had done.