The Horns of Ruin

by Tim Akers

  We took residence in an airship dock. It was a steel-frame tower, sheathed in metal cladding for a facade, perched on top of a middling height building on the edge of the outer horn of the city. An older building, but it afforded a grand view of the lake and the surrounding collar mountains. The dock wasn't built for people, but people had used it. There was a haphazardly constructed platform of wooden planks, allowing enough space for a half-dozen people to sleep, as long as they were friendly. Whoever had built the platform was long gone. It served the purpose we required: a place to sleep, to hide, to think about next moves. The constant docking and undocking of airships shook the tower, but no one came up to disturb us. It was ideal.

  The girl spent most of the first night huddled over her archive, the pale green light of its runes bathing her face. I slept with my back to her, my hand over my sword. It was cold this high up, even though the facade kept most of the wind away. I was restless, kept getting up to peer between the slats of the wall. The airship traffic was constant, their cylinders glowing a warm orange from the burners as they eased into the dock. Behind them, the sky was crystal black and clear, the moon like a chip of ivory. It would be peaceful, in other circumstances.

  "Where do you think they are?" Cassandra asked without looking up from the machine. "Your brothers of Morgan?"

  "Dead, mostly," I said. I hadn't told her about the rooms of bodies I had found. Didn't need to tell her. It was written on my face, I knew, and in the set of my shoulders. "Some may have made it out. Some of the Elders."

  "So there's hope. Your Cult will continue."

  "It's been dying for a long time. It will keep on dying, regardless of what we do."

  "Yeah, you Morganites have it real tough." She rubbed her eyes and cycled down the archive. It settled into itself, the runes flickering as they died. "Must be unbearable."

  I looked back at her, then leaned against an iron spar and crossed my arms.

  "There aren't many of us to bear it, that's for sure. And in case you haven't noticed, someone's trying to kill us off."

  "And those who remain are free to defend themselves, or to run away." She busied herself with putting the archive to bed, closing valves and tightening dials. "You may be dying off, but it's not for lack of the opportunity to defend yourselves."

  "You're talking about Amon. About the Library Desolate. Listen, you're the one who chose to enter the service of a fallen god. Not me."

  "It's time you started thinking of Amon as something other than the Betrayer." She finished with the archive and stood to face me. "And his servants as something other than murderers. Our gods were brothers before they were enemies. Something led them to that path, and maybe something else can lead them back."

  "One of them just killed my Fratriarch! Simeon is in the hospital with Betrayer steel in his guts. Elias and ... hell, and Tomas and Isabel, for all I know. There are rooms full of my dead brothers back in the Strength, all of them dead at Betrayer hands. And you're talking about forgiveness?"

  She watched me for a time, her eyes dark pools under her hood. Finally, she shrugged and went to the other side of the platform to lie down.

  "It is an Amonite who will save you, Eva. And the knowledge of Amon that will get us out of this. Whatever we are, those of us who have chosen the life of the Library Desolate, we are not murderers. We are not the scions of the Betrayer."

  With the light of the archive gone, the platform was very dark. I stared at the lump of her body, curled up at the edge of the platform. The wind and the passing of airships filled my ears, and in time I lay down and slept. My dreams were full of people I knew, people I had loved, and all of them were dead.

  was bored. Bored, bored, cooped up on a tiny platform in a tiny tower, listening to the wind and the airships and the girl and her archive, bored. When I woke up she was already at the feet of that machine, turning dials and muttering to herself, the crumbled remains of some of the flatbread I had stolen from a vendor cart scattered about her. All morning it had been like this. Dial, mutter, invoke, mutter, dial. I was going nuts.

  "So how do you know how to work that thing?" I asked while cleaning my revolver. Again. This was the eighth time, I think. Cleanest gun in all of Ash, and no one to shoot.

  "It's my nature," she said.

  Silence. Mutter. Dial.

  "Learned anything?"

  She didn't answer for a long time. When she did, it was like she was answering a different question.

  "He wasn't asking the questions I would think of." She pushed back from the archive and pulled a tangle of hair out of her face. "I suppose that's what made him the Scholar."

  "This is the great secret that's gotten most of my Cult killed? That Amon asked strange questions?"

  She smiled and shook her head. "I suppose that's the heart of it. But I'm not sure what this has to do with ... anything else. You asked how I know how to operate the archive. Experience. We have one of these in the Library. Much larger, in fact. Our keepers tell us that it's the sum of Amon's knowledge, minus the profane knowledge that led to the Betrayal."

  "Is that what this is?" I asked, rising to my feet. "The profanity?"

  "I hope not. It would be the dullest blasphemy ever. Besides, everyone thinks Alexander keeps that close. If you show especial talent with the archive, with sorting it and plumbing its knowledge, the whiteshirts disappear you."

  "Doesn't sound like it would pay to be good at that," I said.

  "Who knows? We think they get taken off to a secret archive, hidden away. Something Alexander culled from the main body and kept for himself. Secret knowledge does have a certain appeal, doesn't it?"

  "So this archive here, it's part of that secret knowledge?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know all of the main archive, obviously. This doesn't seem like something you'd want to keep hidden." She turned the archive toward me, revealing a screen of garbled runes, flooding past like a waterfall. Images popped up, but they made no sense to me. "It's his research on the impellors. It looks like they're an offshoot of some kind of Feyr creation. When Amon wrote this, he was just beginning to apply the principle to the monotrains. Really, it's kind of dull, in a fascinatingly detailed sort of way. But I can't imagine there's anything here to justify ... you know."

  I paced around the archive, making one circuit before I stopped and sighed.

  "And that's it? That's all that's in there?"

  "Oh, gods no. I mean, it all seems to be related to this, but I've only just figured out the subject line. There are noetic pounds of knowledge in here-research, tangential investigations, technical drawings. It's a very thorough history of the process. And it's fascinating to see his mind at work. How he made the leap from the Feyr device to the monotrains."

  "The Feyr didn't use them for transport?" I asked.

  She shook her head, then leaned in to the machine and flittered through the text. "Near as I can tell, they just shot them up in the air. No idea why."

  "Hm. Well, how much longer do you think-"

  "I have no idea, woman. Knowledge is not something you can measure in time. It does not drip into our heads at a set rate. It comes suddenly, or not at all."

  I sighed and started taking off my armor. She squinted at me in puzzlement.

  "That won't make learning any faster."

  "I'm going out. I can't sit here while your knowledge doesn't come. And I can't wander around in the armor of a Morganite." With my armor off, I unclasped the dozen icons and emblems that marked me as a Paladin. Even my holster and the articulated sheath went away. My padded coat and linen pants were plain enough. I shuddered at the thought of being separated from my oath-bound blade, but I just couldn't risk carrying it. I tucked a knife into my boot, and the bully into my waistband. "So I'm going out, like this, before I go nuts."

  "Do you think that's wise?"

  "You're the Scholar. I'll leave wise to you."

  She didn't say anything else, and I climbed down the tower and through a garbage chute before ma
king my way to the street. By the time I was there I smelled like cabbage and looked like a bum. Nothing like a Paladin of Morgan.

  I bought a half-cape that buttoned down the front. It had a hood that hid my face without looking too much like I was trying to hide my face. And it let me keep a hand on my revolver without drawing attention. I had left the tower with no plan in mind, but as soon as I was on the street my boots turned toward the inner horn, and home. Toward the Strength.

  It amazed me how life kept going in the wake of my apocalypse. Vendors were selling food, pedigears cluttered the roads, civilians went to jobs and came home. The streets were alive. Just like any other day. I felt as if a barrier had come down between me and the city of Ash. They had their lives and their futures and their plans. And I was just this hunted creature, alive only to run. I didn't like that. It didn't feel natural.

  Of course, there were signs of change in the life of the city. There were more guards, especially anywhere there was open water. The canals looked like they'd been closed down. Patrol boats drifted lazily off the coast, and this was a city of many coasts. There were even valkyn in the air. There couldn't be more than, what, fifty of those beasts all told? It seemed crazy to have them on patrol. Then again, the city had been attacked. We had been attacked.

  I approached the Strength from on high. There were elevated walkways that brushed up against the monastery's round plaza, public routes that were usually crowded with tourists from the collar countries. Today they were more crowded than usual. Almost impassable. I climbed higher, thinking the extra stairs might thin out the crowds, but no luck. Even on the top tier it was shoulder to chest. I kept my arms under my cloak, crossed over the cold weight of the bully. Wouldn't be good to have someone brush up against that.

  It was a cloudy day, last night's clear skies betrayed by a low mass of pewter thunderheads that rumbled at the tips of the city's towers. My raised hood brought no comment as the first heavy drops of rain spattered down on the crowd. Even in the growing torrent, the crowds didn't thin. I worked my way forward slowly, listening to the gossip.

  And of course, they were talking about me. I had gained quite a reputation. By my hand, the Chanter's Isle had split, and at my command the dead had flooded the hidden heart of that strange sect of the Alexian Cult. It was whispered that I was apostate, that I (along with my Elders of Morgan) had declared for Amon the Betrayer, and was leading a secret war against the godking.

  None of it made sense. The whiteshirts had been helping us search for the Fratriarch, had lent us an Amonite, had guarded us against the attacks of the Betrayer and stormed out only at our command. We stood together against the Rethari. Why would we betray them? Why would they abandon us?

  When finally I reached sight of the Strength, I was horrified. They had great spotlights thrown up against its side, and armed barricades all around the plaza. Smoke stained the windows and doors, and all the glass was broken. The front door hung intact but open.

  "What in hell happened?" I whispered. But of course, in a crowd a whisper is a conversation. The man in front of me turned and answered.

  "They had to break on in, did the Alexians. Thank the Brother they did, too. That whole Cult had gone bad in the soul. After the Chanters' bloody sacrifice, trying to hold one of them at bay, Alexander sent his boys up. Tried to talk, but those damned sons of Morgan suck ered 'em in and killed a whole platoon. Whiteshirts had to go in in force. Burn the whole place out." He nodded to the wagons that were lining the promenade. "Still counting the bodies, they are."

  I felt sick in my stomach. I looked at the stacks of blackened bundles, bleeding ash in the rain. My brothers of Morgan, my sisters of the Warrior. Murdered, and now burned and accused of murder. Of rebellion. Apostate.

  A tinny voice echoed over the crowd, and I squinted in the direction of the main door. The voice was coming from a loudspeaker, erected on a stage. There were three platforms above it, hastily erected against the side of the Strength, and three spotlights on them. At first I had taken them for siege engines, but now I saw they were nothing but stationary wooden platforms. On the stage, a man was reading a list of accusations in a very proper, very precise voice. A familiar voice, distorted by the loudspeaker. I focused on him, and saw. And understood. Nathaniel, the man from the abandoned shrine of Alexander, the man Simeon had met with, the Betrayer. Hidden in the arms of Alexander. He was speaking accusations against the Cult of Morgan, gesturing widely up at the platforms above.

  And on each platform, an Elder. And on each Elder, a sentence of death.

  They stood chained, arms spread, their robes torn and heads shorn, blood on their faces and chests. A metal plaque had been struck with the ancient symbols of apostasy, the sigil of the godking as a blessing and a condemnation. Each of them stared down at the crowds in slack disbelief. Simeon. Isabel. Tomas.

  "They're going to kill them," I said.

  "Oh, they'll try them first. Then they'll kill them."

  I fell back into the crowd, shoving people out of my way as I ran. I had the bully in my hand, and damn it to hell if anyone tried to stop me.

  "We're out of time," I said as I rushed onto the hidden platform. "I need answers now."

  The girl was facing away from me, her hands loose in her lap, her eyes closed. The screen reflected her face in pale green brilliance. She didn't move when I entered, didn't show any sign of caring when I strode over and shook her shoulder.

  When she woke up, it was as if I hadn't been gone at all. Like a machine turning back on.

  "You're back?" she asked.

  "What the hell was that? I thought you were dead!"

  "Yeah, pretty much. The forms of these machines can be tricky. Easy to get lost inside." She stood up and stretched, then noticed the look on my face and the revolver in my hand. "What's wrong? What's happened?"

  "They've burned the Strength and declared the Cult apostate."

  "We knew that-"

  "They have the Elders. They're going to kill them. They say we, that I ... that we're trying to overthrow the godking."

  "Again, that's nothing new. We-"

  I grabbed her by the collar and pulled her toward me. "Listen. To. Me. The man who tried to kill Simeon, the damned Betrayer-he's there. He's in charge of the operation. Right now he's reading the accusations against the Elders. He means to kill them."

  She held my gaze with hers, trying to burrow into my head with her stare.

  "That sounded an awful lot like an accusation."

  "The Betrayer has infiltrated Alexander. He knew. He's the one who knew that the Fratriarch was at the Library Desolate. That I was his only guard. Where he was going. He stood guard while Elias was killed. Had Owen follow me around, keeping tabs on the Paladin. Gods know what else he learned, what Simeon or Tomas was telling the Alexians behind our backs. And now he has us falsely accused and on the run. And the people believe him! They're anxious for the trial, anxious to see the Cult of Morgan put down. They believe him!"

  She peeled my hand off her cloak, one finger at a time, then pushed the bully away from her belly.

  "Are you ready to trust an Amonite now?"

  "I'm not ready to trust anyone, anywhere. Tell me what you've found, or get out."

  She sighed and sat down by her damned machine. "Where did this thing come from?" she asked.

  "We don't know. Just appeared in the Strength one day."

  "That's what your Elders told you, at least. Fair enough. And you don't know who sent it to you?"

  "I said as much."

  She nodded. "Someone is trying to send you a message. A warning, really. They could have been more direct about it, but I don't think you would have trusted them if they had been."

  "Who? And what message?"

  "I don't know who. And I'm not sure of the message."

  I spat. "You're being a hell of a lot of help here. Do you have anything that will help me prove the Elders are innocent? Anything that will save their lives?"

  She turned a
nd powered down the archive, then folded her arms and leaned back against the machine.

  "It's a matter of belief, Eva. You're being led on a path, by some hidden agency. I don't know if they're the ones killing your friends, or if someone is doing that to drive you away. I don't know why I was the one chosen to interpret this device, why Barnabas gave his life to protect me. I think he knew what the device meant, but couldn't decipher it. Couldn't bear the message."

  "Yeah, I'm going to barrel out of here and start shooting whiteshirts if you don't hurry the hell up."

  She smiled and nodded. "Okay, okay. Let me explain, and then you can decide who needs shooting. I get the feeling it's going to be more people than even you're comfortable with."

  "You'd be surprised."

  She stood and fished out the cylinder of cigarettes. I hadn't seen her smoke since we'd left the Strength. When she was lit, she paced in a slow arc across the platform, trailing a blue haze.

  "Amon discovered the Feyr device that we think of as the impellor, in the days after this city had been taken from the Feyr. Like I said, it appeared that the Feyr were just shooting them up into the sky. No real apparent purpose. Most of the devices were destroyed, or had shot down into the lake when their towers collapsed in the fighting. Amon retrieved what he could, and began to study them." She paused and toked a couple times, her hands shaking with the nicotine rush. "What do you know about godhood?"

  "That there were three gods, and that we're down to one."

  "And before us, before the Brothers Immortal rose up from their humble childhoods and led the tribes of man against the Feyr-who was god then?"

  "There was no god. Just stories of gods, from ancient days."

  "Yes and no. The ancient gods were from the race of the Titans. In their time, the Titans were just people, and a few among them ascended to godhood. Just like the Brothers, in their own way. They had more than three gods, so many in fact that most people don't realize there were regular Titans as well. Only the names of the gods come to us through history, and the mythologies of the Feyr."