by Nathan Long
“Lhan! Are you alright?”
No answer. He didn’t even move.
I levered myself up and staggered forward, roaring and rage-blind, my sword dragging behind me. “You’re dead, motherfucker! Dead!”
Duru-Vau edged away, looking at his wrist like he was checking a watch. Was he late for a date? Did people on Waar even have watches? Why wasn’t he aiming another palm strike at me? He started backing up the stairs of a circular platform in the center of the room. Tall columns of light glowed though the smoke all around it.
“You cannot kill me here, demoness. This is my sanctuary. This is where I am the powerful one.”
“I thought you were the powerful one everywhere, big shot.” Anything to keep him talking and not shooting death spells at me.
“Soon enough, demoness. Soon enough.”
As I pushed through the smoke I started to see that the glowing columns around Duru-Vau weren’t actually columns. The platform he was on was in the middle of a ring of consoles covered in displays and flashing lights, and surrounding the consoles were six pedestals, on top of which were six see-through skyscraper shapes, each twelve feet high or more, and each with its guts exposed like a schematic. They were holograms, just like the one down in the jail, except these were the temples of the Seven, all glowing like ghosts in old movies!
Third from the left I recognized the stubby Temple of Modgalu, and there was a seventh one in the middle of the platform, bigger than all the rest—home sweet Temple of Ormolu. Little wisps of holographic smoke were trailing from its top floors like it was a guttering candle. I bet if I looked close enough, I’d be able to see myself up there, limping toward Duru-Vau with murder in my eyes.
I started up the stairs to the platform, stamping my feet to get the feeling back into my legs. Duru-Vau checked his wrist again, then cursed and started limping for the other side of the platform as fast as he could. I was grateful he wasn’t killing me and all, but what the fuck was he waiting for?
“Where’s all this power you were telling me about, jackass?”
“Doubt me at your peril, hellspawn!”
He dodged around the base of the Ormolu hologram’s pedestal, then kept going as I staggered onto the platform and started hop-running after him. I was gaining. My legs were coming back, but the burn he’d got from Lhan’s wand shot wasn’t gonna wear off. In fact he seemed to be limping worse now.
I snatched at him and missed as he threw himself at the furthest away console, slapping one of the glowing circles that covered its face. He spun to face me, a crazed smile on his face.
“Now you will understand!”
I rolled my eyes and raised my sword at him, but a metallic clicking stopped me. It sounded like a bunch of revolvers all being cocked at once all over the room. I looked around, waiting for secret doors to open and ninjas to come flooding out, or gun turrets to pop up out of nowhere. That didn’t happen. Actually, for a second it looked like nothing had happened, then I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and turned my head. It looked like one of the big silver statues was falling forward, but at the last second, it threw out one of its legs and caught itself, then stood straight and looked around. One by one, the rest of ’em did the same.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
ROBOTS!
“Jesus fuck. They’re robots!”
“They are the Servants of the Seven. And they are mine to command.” Duru-Vau pointed at me and raised his voice, shouting in a language the universal translator in my brain couldn’t make head nor tail of. That was okay. I translated it myself. He was saying, “Hey, robots! Kill the big redhead!”
There were seven of ’em, just like the seven temples, and they all turned their heads toward me at once, which was creepy, because they didn’t have any eyes that I could see, just the blank snail shell helmets, with little openings underneath where the snail’s head and neck woulda stuck out.
What actually stuck out was scarier. As they walked toward me with their weird backwards legs, black cables like electrical tape octopus tentacles snaked out and pointed at me, the tips of each tentacle glowing the same color as the wands of blue fire.
“Oh shit!”
You know, I thought my legs were all weak and wobbly. Turns out they were just fine. I jumped like a goddamn jackrabbit as those things shot at me. All the beams criss-crossed in the spot where I’d been a second ago and scorched the hell out of the platform and some of the consoles.
Duru-Vau shrieked again and threw himself in front of the machines. “No! Not the interface!” Then he repeated himself in robot lingo.
The robots paused and I kicked for the wall, trying to get behind one of ’em. It turned its head completely around and unloaded. Goddamn it! It didn’t have a behind! I dove between its legs, slashing at them backhanded as blue fire lit up the wall behind me. My blade shivered as I hit, and my hand stung like I’d swung a baseball bat at a fire hydrant, but my cut didn’t even leave a mark on those skinny metal legs.
Fuck!
I leapt for another one before it could turn and aimed for its head, hoping it would be more fragile than its legs.
Not so much.
The head rang like a bell and the robot staggered sideways as I bounced off and hit the ground, but just like before, the attack hadn’t done a damn thing. I’d cut through four guys at once with a swing like that. The robot didn’t have a scratch.
“Goddamn it.”
The other robots were turning toward me. I dove for the platform and saw for the first time that it was made of wood, and was just posts and crossbeams underneath. The priests musta built it so they could reach the controls of the consoles. All I cared about was it would give me a breather. I rolled under it as blue fire burned black marks into the floor behind me. Course I couldn’t stay down here for long. Fucking robots would smoke me out like a possum under the floorboards.
“Who the hell woke up my steel centurions? And what in tarnation is goin’ on down there? I got alarms going off all over the place!”
Wainwright’s voice boomed through the room, loud and harsh. I stopped, heart thudding. He was here too? I could kill ’em both! Then I realized he was talking over a speaker.
“Your prisoner has escaped, Wargod!” called Duru-Vau. “She has set the temple aflame!”
“Dang it all! I go to sleep for five minutes and all hell breaks loose. Round her up again!”
“No, I will not, Wargod! She must die!”
“What are you sayin’ to me, boy?”
“I say that your senility has cost us the greatest temple of Ora! Had you killed her as I suggested, we would not be burning!”
Well, I loved that mom and dad were fighting, but the robots weren’t one bit distracted. They were crouching down like skeletal spiders and bending their snail heads down so they could fry me. I had to move, like now!
I rolled out between two of ’em and vaulted on top of the platform in one motion, then launched straight at Duru-Vau, who was shaking his fists at the ceiling like he was shouting at god—which I guess he was, kinda.
“Your time is through, Wargod! It is my time now! I will be—Yie!”
That last yelp was him seeing me coming, sword high. He dove between two consoles and I chopped deep into a glowing plastic panel, smashing it, as he cowered from me.
“Get her! Get her!”
Wainwright bellowed over the intercom. “What was that? Goddamn it, boy! Stop what you’re doin’ right now! I’m comin’ down there and showin’ you the back of my hand.”
I pulled back for another stab at Duru-Vau, but the robots were rising again and snaking their tentacles toward me. As quick as I’d come up I jumped back down and rolled under the platform again. I felt like a mole in one of those Whack-A-Mole games, but no plan is ridiculous if it works, as my old Captain used to say.
The robots, being robots, did exactly the same thing they’d done the last time I’d gone to ground, but this time, as they folded their legs to look under the platfo
rm, I noticed something. I’d thought the skinny bastards were like the T1000, all smooth metal with no joints, but now that they were squatting, those backwards-facing legs were showing black cable at the knee joint.
“Okay, you tin-foil Achilles!”
Quick as a badger, I darted out and hacked at the nearest one’s exposed knee—and sheared straight through the black cable. Sparks spit and the robot twitched like it had touched a live wire, then crashed to the ground. But it still kept turning its head toward me. I howled and jumped on it, slashing down just as its tentacles slithered out of its hole. They sheared off too, and the blue light in their tips died.
Duru-Vau screeched at the robots as he tried to un-wedge himself from between the two consoles. “Kill her! Quickly! Hurry!”
I rolled back under the platform as they tried, inches ahead of the blue fire, then dove for the one that was closest to squatting down. Its head ducked under just as I scooted behind it, and I slashed left and right, severing both legs at the knee.
Its torso fell face first under the platform, but its head started to revolve toward me, just like the other one. I snarled and jumped on its chest, then jammed my sword up its face-hole before the tentacles could come out. There was a loud pop and a fizzle and its limbs went limp.
Just like before, the other robots turned toward me and it was Whack-A-Mole time again, but then a blue bolt shot out of the darkness and hit the nearest one in the head, burning a bubbling black hole in its silver skin.
It was Lhan, leaning against the door like it had taken all his strength to stand, and firing from the hip.
“No, Lhan! They’ll kill you!”
Even as I shouted, I heard Duru-Vau shouting too. “Kill him! Take that wand! Stop him!”
As he repeated it in the other language, the robots stood and turned toward Lhan, forgetting me entirely now that they had new orders. I coulda dove out and attacked their joints, but by the time I’d cut down the first one, the rest woulda burned Lhan to a crisp. Instead I kicked past ’em to the door, slung him over my shoulder, then jumped for the platform as a couple dozen bolts of blue fire cut a tic-tac-toe into the door behind us.
The beams followed us as I sailed across the room, but cut off as soon as I got close to the consoles. Unfortunately, Duru-Vau was waiting for us at the far side of the platform—and he had his hand cocked back and ready to fire.
I did the only thing I could think of. I heaved Lhan like a shot put, and he hit the priest right in the numbers. They slammed against the consoles like a pair of rag-dolls and Lhan’s wand went spinning off the platform to the floor beyond. I sprang to them and rolled Lhan aside, then hauled Duru-Vau up and put my sword to his throat.
“Turn ’em off! Turn ’em off or I kill you!”
He sneered at me. “I am ready to meet my god.”
I grunted. More fucking fanatics. I swear. “Okay, well how about I don’t kill you.” I grabbed his hand, the one he shot the death spells with, and started twisting. “How about I just tear your fuckin’ hand off? How about I—?”
I stopped. He had something on his arm, under his sleeve. Something smooth. I looked at it. It looked like a strip of blue metallic tape, running down the underside of his arm to a glowing white gem on the inside of his wrist, and then continuing on to end in a transparent circle on his palm. I pulled back the sleeve. The tape went all the way up his arm to his shoulder.
“What the hell is this?”
“Jae-En! The metal men!” Lhan was pointing from the floor.
I spun around and saw they were all aiming at me. I jerked Duru-Vau up in front of me like a human shield, then stepped in front of Lhan. They stopped.
“Ha! Ready to die with us, asshole?”
I shook him again, and as I did, his hood fell back. It was the first time I’d ever seen his bald head. Lines of blue tape snaked all over it, each one ending in a miniature version of the clear plastic circle that was on his hand. It looked like printed circuits on a circuit board.
“So that’s how you do it! Well, son-of-a—”
I cut off as the robots spread left and right, looking for an angle to shoot me without hitting him. No more time to think about it. I squeezed his neck.
“Turn ’em off, you fuck!”
“Never!”
I grabbed for the line of tape that ran up the back of his skull and started to peel it off. It was really on there—like fused with his skin or something. He started screaming.
“No! You mustn’t! You mustn’t!”
“Then turn ’em off!”
“I will! I will!” He pointed right. “Take me to that panel.”
I lugged him to the panel, keeping him between me and the robots, and he reached for one particular circle. The panels were as white as everything else in the temple, and as bland. Just rows and rows of glowing white on white circles, like the world’s most boring touch-screen display. But then I saw something I’d been too busy jumping around to notice before. Near some of the buttons were little strips of paper. It looked like someone had stuck bits of cash register tape all over the panel, but when I looked closer I saw there were words written on them. English words.
“What the…?”
Duru-Vau was fumbling for a circle about halfway up the panel. There was a piece of paper next to it that said, in a flowery old-fashioned script, “Centurions—Wake—Sleep.”
I stared, then looked across all the other strips on the console, my eyes flicking over random words—“Ventilation” “Master Lock” “Alarm” “Observation” and a fuckload more. My heart started going pitter-pat.
“Holy. Shit.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
SUB-MENUS!
In a finger snap, I knew exactly what I was looking at. These were Wainwright’s notes on how everything on the panel worked. It must have taken him ages of trial and error to figure it all out, and he’d labeled it all so he wouldn’t forget. And he hadn’t had to put it all in code to keep it secret. Nobody else on Waar read English. Until now.
In another split second I realized I didn’t need Duru-Vau’s brain anymore. With everything labeled neat as you please, I could work the panel without his help. I also realized that he was stalling, reaching for the wrong button on purpose so that the robots would have time to get a clean shot on me. He didn’t think I couldn’t read it. Ha!
I knocked his fumbling hand away and stabbed the white circle marked “Sleep.” Instantly, the robots turned away from me and started walking back to their niches.
Duru-Vau stared up at me, stunned. “How… How did you…?”
I lifted my sword, ready to finish off the little fuck once and for all. He squealed and pulled out of my grip with crazy-person strength, then backed away, cocking his hand back like he was going to death strike me again.
“No you don’t, asshole.”
I slashed at his hand. He jerked back, but not quite fast enough. I sliced his wrist open with the very tip of the blade, spraying blood everywhere. He seemed more worried about the blue tape gizmo. He stared at the gem on the inside of his wrist, his eyes going wide as it got brighter and brighter.
“The reservoir. You cracked the—”
There was a noise that didn’t make a sound—the kind of thud you feel in your chest when some car with a boomin’ system drives by, but without the music—and the air in front of the gem shivered like water in a glass when somebody bumps the table—and Duru-Vau’s head imploded.
Literally.
His face caved in and squished his brain up against the back of his skull. Blood and bits of grey muck went everywhere and Lhan and I flinched back, gagging.
His body stood there for a full ten seconds before it finally realized it was dead, then it dropped to the ground like a bag of dirty laundry and lay there oozing stuff out its neck.
I looked away, a half-inch away from tossing my lunch, as Lhan picked himself up and wiped bits of priest off his shoulders and chest.
“It seems the gifts of the Seven are
not entirely without risk.”
“I wouldn’t call a goddamn single one of ’em a gift. Christ.”
I turned to the console and started reading all the little scraps of paper, trying to find one that said anything about shutting down the turbines. Lhan leaned wearily beside me.
“Can I assist in anyway, Mistress?”
“I really wish you could, Lhan, but unless you can read English, I’m—”
There was a banging on the door and the intercom squawked. “Duru-Vau! Open this door! You hear me?”
I raised my head. “Duru-Vau’s dead, Wainwright! But don’t worry, I turned off your ‘steel centurions.’”
“You what?” For a second it sounded like the Wargod was gargling broken glass, then he came on again. “Don’t you touch them controls, missy! You don’t know what yer doin’!”
I bent over the console again. “Sure I do. Everything’s labeled nice and clear.”
“Get away from there! I’m warnin’ you! Those things can’t be fixed!”
“You don’t like it, come in and stop me!”
“Don’t think I won’t! You’ll pay for this, you hoyden!”
The intercom shut off with another squawk, and Lhan raised an eyebrow.
“Forgive me, Mistress, but what was said?”
I hadn’t even realized we’d been speaking English. “Heh. He told me to stop messing with the buttons, and I told him to go fuck himself.”
“It did not sound as if he took kindly to the suggestion.”
“He’s a little steamed, alright. Hey! Here we go.”
I pointed at a circle that looked like all the rest. This one, though, had a little bit of paper next to it that said “M.G.”
“That’s either machine gun or moisture gatherer, and I’m betting on number two.”
Lhan nodded politely. “Ah.”
I stabbed the circle. All the circles around it on the console disappeared, and new ones showed up in a different configuration. I stared, panicked. What the fuck had I done? Everything had changed. Was it some kind of sub-menu?
