by Tim Lebbon
As Mell crawled for him, he drew a throwing knife and launched it at her face. It pierced her left eye. In her right eye, as she died, he saw nothing of the Mell he knew.
The Stranger was gargling and croaking, blood spewing from its mouth and pulsing between the metal plates across its throat. It would die soon, and if he was still inside when it did …
There was at least one more outside.
Kel grabbed the thing’s projectile weapon, surprised at how light it was, knowing he was a fool even to try using it. But it was much more powerful than knives and bolts, and though the Strangers had their soft spots, he had many more.
The weapon was as long as his forearm, and the back of it expanded into a bubble the size of his fist, its surface hot and damp. The front part of the tube was thin and pointed. It had fired once, and he only hoped there were more projectiles inside. Did it take the Stranger’s magic to fire it? Was it a machine, like the thing building those huge columns, or a tool, like his crossbow?
He went outside to find out.
The other Stranger must have been patrolling around the chain compound when it heard its companion’s weapon discharging. It was running, close to the chains, and it fired at Kel as it moved. That saved him; he felt the projectile pass by his head, close enough to flick up a tuft of his hair.
Kel steadied the tube against his hip and pulled the curved metal trigger. It jerked in his arms and spat a gush of steam, and the Stranger tripped and fell. In the poor light from the floating light balls, he saw the jagged hole on the back of its metal-clad head.
Dead, he thought, then the change began.
It was close to the chain compound, and Kel could see the shadows of people moving in there as they came close to see. He glanced up at the ever-growing column arching over them, saw the machine still moving up there, and wondered who or what was controlling it.
“Get back!” he growled, running a wide circuit around the fallen Stranger. He waved at those behind the fence, gesturing for them to move away, but their pale faces showed no comprehension.
“Wood-carver?” he heard someone say, and he almost laughed out loud, thinking, Do I look like a fucking wood-carver?
From behind he heard the vicious wailings of the first dead Stranger’s wraith. And beside the compound, the metal man he had just shot burst open and the long limbs rose from its back, blue light sparking and arcing from tip to tip.
“Back!” he shouted again, retreating himself. He looked up at the tower again, and the machine up there seemed to have stopped, pausing on the edge as though gazing down. Kel ran up the slope, away from the compound and the rampaging wraiths. He could do nothing for those within the chained areas, not yet. Maybe when the mad wraiths went down …
The screaming began, and he fell to the heathers and covered his head.
KEL WATCHED WITH one eye. He had to, in case one of the wraiths came up the hillside after him. There was no way of telling whether the things had any memory of the existence they had so recently departed, but if they did, perhaps vengeance would be their prime motivators. But the one inside the building remained there, and the spectre outside raged and twisted and roared without apparent direction, as had all the others he had seen.
In the poor light, he saw those in the compound backing away from the mad thing. Good, he thought, let them know the fear.
Kel looked up at the flat top of the tower. The machine extruding the material to grow the tower remained motionless, and he knew that its controller must be watching from somewhere.
He scanned around the tower’s base, then back past the chained enclosure and the raving wraith to the low building he had so recently fled. Three dead in there, and one more outside, and suddenly the impact of his escape hit him. He’d killed four of them to get out, two almost-humans and two of the deadly Strangers. He actually smiled, and heard a voice telling him that they’d write songs about him. O’Peeria or Namior; he could not decide.
But he could still not see the Komadian controlling the building machine.
The wraith struck the chains. Insubstantial, fleeting, it passed through with little more than a fall of weak sparks. The prisoners screamed, darting left and right as the thing scored across the ground toward them. Kel could have shouted, but they no longer needed warning. For them it was all down to luck, and fate, and whichever gods they chose to call their own.
And then he saw movement at the base of the tower. A shadow parted from its influence and moved closer to the chains, watching the wraith as it raged its way out of this world.
Kel knew that he did not have long. Hidden by the night, he ran across the hillside, circling the small dip in the land and edging around behind the tower.
Somebody screamed. The wraith had found flesh and blood. It would take a few more beats to die.
He hoped that the Komadian was fascinated enough with the carnage to have lowered his or her guard.
Kel ran directly down the shallow slope to the rear of the tower. He touched its surface, then jerked away, repulsed, never wanting to touch it again. It was unnaturally smooth and warm, like the chitinous shells of the fist beetles, which sometimes drifted down onto the village from the plains above. And it throbbed with an alien energy that made no sense.
He heard the wraith’s final explosive demise, and more screams.
Edging around the base of the tower, cautious not to touch it, he came to the corner nearest the compound. Something steamed and spat on the ground within, and he wondered whether he had known him or her.
The Komadian was acting quite calmly. He took something long and thin from his pocket, waved it until a blue spark burst from one end, then brought it up to his mouth.
Kel placed the Komadian weapon carefully on the ground and buried his sword in the man’s neck.
The object fell from the Komadian’s hand, and Kel heard a voice crackling from it. He did not know the language, but he could sense the concern.
Shit! He stamped on the device and ground it into the dirt.
The man was still moving. Kel stood on his chest and pulled the sword free, and the Komadian cried out in pain.
“Not again, not again,” he pleaded, and Kel knelt down to stare into his face.
“I hope you never find peace,” he said.
The man blinked up at him, crying. Kel saw the terror in his eyes, and for a beat he felt pity. But only for a beat. “It hurts,” the man whispered. Kel checked the unwounded side of his neck for gills, found none, then slit his throat.
He wiped his sword in the heather and picked up the metal weapon. Walking away from another corpse, he felt a moment of sickness. But a cool memory grabbed his arm, and O’Peeria told him to be fucking strong, not weak.
Kel breathed deeply a few times, then looked up at the structure towering over him. He could not see its flattened top from there, but he was certain the machine atop it remained motionless. He could hear nothing other than the frightened whispers of his fellow villagers.
Doubts haunted him. He had killed Mell’s body, even though it had not been her mind controlling it. But was there anything left of her? Had she known, at the last, what he had done?
Feel no pity for your enemy, O’Peeria had always told him. That’s the Core way, and the only way we can win. No pity for them. Only rage.
But the enemy had never been like this. Kel looked back at the man he had just killed. He did not recognize him. The man had been terrified. No pity, he thought, but he was not so sure.
He began to shake, delayed shock stealing control of his muscles, but a shout from the compound brought him around.
“Kel Boon!” a woman called, and he knew that voice. “Is that you? Or are you something else in a wood-carver’s body?”
Kel went closer to the chains and looked through. A woman stood facing him, a group of people behind her, and it was Mygrette, Pavmouth Breaks’ oldest witch.
“They caught you?” Kel said.
“Aye, trying to escape this cursed place
. Not as fast as I used to be. Spit on them all! And you, Kel Boon?”
He ignored the loaded question. “I’ll try to get you out.”
“These things,” Mygrette said, waving at one of the boxes along the fence. “Chains came from out of them. Bastard machines, not honest ones like ours.”
“Then this will be poetic,” he said, hefting the metallic tube. “Stand away.” He waited until Mygrette had herded everyone to the end of the compound, then aimed at one of the boxes along the fence and fired.
The effect was not as severe as he’d expected. The projectile struck the box and seemed to be absorbed into it. The box sighed and slipped to the ground. A section of chain crumbled away, turning to grit and dust in the darkness, spitting a few sparks before fading to nothing.
When the prisoners filed out, they stood in small groups behind Mygrette. The old witch had sometimes been an object of ridicule, and even derision, but Kel was glad that they perceived her strength at a time like this.
“So tell me, wood-carver—” she began, but Kel cut in. An urgency had settled over him, inspired perhaps by the fight he had just won, but also prodding at him with a sense of time passing and doom closing with each breath.
“Not now,” he said. “Just believe me when I tell you I know some of what’s happening. The whole village is in danger, Mygrette.”
“Ha! There’s news.”
“Get far away, if you can.” There was a muttered chorus of disapproval.
“My husband!” someone said, and “My child!”
“Help is coming,” Kel said. “But you can’t go back, not now. It’s too dangerous. You’d never get to your loved ones, and if those things catch you again, they might just kill you. So run, hide on the plains, and you’ll see your families again soon.”
“When?” someone else asked.
Kel tried to hide his doubt, but it felt like a lie. “When it’s over.”
Mygrette stared at him for a few beats, and he felt like a sheebok being examined by its buyer. Then she grinned. “You never were the best carver I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m still practicing,” Kel said. He stepped closer to Mygrette and held out his hand. “Do something for me. When you’re far enough away, and you’re certain you hear the language of the land once more, breathe on this, plant it, and when the head grows warm, shatter it.”
Mygrette’s grin faded. “There’s much about what’s happened I don’t understand. But this, I don’t like.”
“It’s just to be sure.”
“That help is comin’?”
“It is coming,” Kel said, remembering the communicator shattering across the Komadian’s bloody back. “But there’s no harm making doubly sure.”
The old witch looked at the curled object in her hand. “Breathe, plant, smash.”
“That’s about it.”
“And you?”
“I have to go back. Slow them down, if I can.”
“Nothin’ to do with a woman you’ve left back there, then?”
And Kel’s sense of urgency suddenly formed into something else. Doors opened and closed in his mind, barriers fell, and some sort of understanding hit him. Core? Namior’s great-grandmother had asked. “Something to do with her, yes,” he said. “And the old woman who lives with her.”
Mygrette grabbed his hands. “There’s an old Voyager blessing I know,” she said. “Good travels.”
“Good travels, Mygrette.”
Kel watched the witch working her harsh charm over the others. Then they left, heading away from the coast, the only place they had ever called home, and the many loved ones they had left behind.
Help is coming, Kel thought. But he had a weight of dreadful responsibility resting heavy on his shoulders. And before it could crush him to the ground, he started to run.
Chapter Eleven
such sights
THE LIFE MOON lit his way, and with every step he expected to see it reflected from the armor of a waiting Stranger.
Kel moved quickly, working his way back over the small hill, across the plain and down into the valley of the River Pav. The lights of Pavmouth Breaks were still out of sight along the valley, but he could already smell the ruin that had been visited upon his village. Being away and coming back again had made the stench of mud and death even more oppressive.
Leaving the dead behind, Kel started to feel good. He had abandoned the Komadian weapon by that tower, and he was glad. His sword felt good back on his belt, the weight of his crossbow familiar. His heart hurried, his senses were heightened and alert, and he felt like a shadow moving through the night. He had killed, but they had been the enemy. The invaders. The body stealers. And when the occasional doubts still intruded, he remembered Mell’s undamaged eye when she had died, and the certainty that there was nothing of her there. He had killed an invader inside his friend.
Mell was dead. So was Trakis. Murdered for their bodies, viciously and without any regard for the fate of their wraiths. He should entertain no guilt.
He saw the glow of Pavmouth Breaks farther along the valley, a haze in the darkness that indicated where people still dug through the hardened muck of the flood. He was not certain why the Komadians still allowed the search, but he saw it as a good sign. With them trying to keep up their pretense in the village, the opportunity for him to move about and talk to the people who mattered still existed.
That would not last. Perhaps the Komadians in command already knew of what he had done at the compound, but if not, he was certain that they would find out very soon. That tall tower had stopped growing, and whatever arcane use it was intended for had been delayed, at least for a while.
Moments beat by, and every beat carried the village and its people closer to their doom. If Kel knew the Komadians’ plans, he could try to avert them. But for the moment, even though he knew more than anyone else, it would be like shooting in the dark. All he could do was disrupt them as much as possible until help arrived.
Unless Namior’s great-grandmother was aware of more than she had suggested. She knew of the Core, at least. And even without that to draw him there, Namior’s home was where he needed to begin.
HE USED HIS knowledge of Pavmouth Breaks’ geography to keep himself safe. There were Strangers on the streets, but he heard their movements from many steps away and always had time to hide in a garden, doorway or side street.
The darkness was his ally, and when he moved through several areas where cold air sighed past him, he knew how troubled the village was that night. As well as Strangers, wraiths haunted its byways. He hoped that the time would come when a Mourner could chant them down.
He still heard voices crying out here and there, a sad song of the missing. Perhaps their loved ones were being held in other chained compounds elsewhere outside the valley. Or maybe they had already been taken across to the island, like Trakis and Mell. The order of things confused him, and the processes being carried out, and Kel was desperate to find out more. The more he knew, the more was mysterious to him. Knowledge would give him power. And when the Core arrived, he needed to tell them everything there was to know.
From the Moon Temple, where Namior had worked to heal the injured just the day before, Kel could see across the river to the harbor.
One of the big Komadian ships was moored at the mole. Its sails were stowed, and a score of light balls floated above the ship, mole and harborfront, shedding their flat illumination across the whole area. A few people still dug, though from what he saw, he was quite sure that they were all villagers. It seemed that the Komadians had tired of search and rescue.
But what turned him cold was what he saw along the mole. A line of people, maybe thirty in total, were waiting to board the ship. It was too distant to recognize anyone, but Kel could tell for sure that they were all Noreelan; stooped, tired, dirty and beaten, residents of Pavmouth Breaks who were willingly undertaking a journey to their doom. And some of them seemed to be laughing.
Keera Kashoomie, the Koma
dian emissary, stood at the bottom of the boarding ramp with several guards, shaking hands, swapping words and doing her best to lift their spirits. Kel wondered what she was telling them. Just for a while, a break from the ruin, and we have such sights to show you.
“Surely this can’t go on!” he whispered. He wanted to run down to the bridge the Komadians had helped repair, rush across to the harbor and shout a warning. Some would believe him, perhaps, though many would not. But at least a few could fight against the horror awaiting them. And if a few fought, the rumors of their fight would spread like a contagion. Pavmouth Breaks could stand and rail against what the invaders were doing instead of queuing up with a smile and a nod.
But though Kel might manage to seed a rebellion, he would be killed in its first real fight. And he was not about to sacrifice himself needlessly.
Not wishing to see any more, he edged his way through a narrow opening between buildings, kicking a gaggle of rats aside as he did so. He stepped through whatever it was they had been eating, and it stank. He tried to persuade himself it was a dead dog.
When he reached Namior’s small, uneven street, he watched her house for a while. The soft glow of candlelight showed around the edges of curtains, and the place felt warm and welcoming, not dangerous.
“Please be alive,” he spoke to the darkness, pleading with the Black. “Please.”
Even before he knocked, Namior’s great-grandmother swung the door open. Kel held his breath—he waited for the mad laughter, the confused tears. But her eye, though still bloodshot, had changed. “Been wondering when you’d be back,” she said.
“Namior?”
“Alive.”
“She’ll be well?”
The old woman smiled, but it was humorless. “For now.”
“I need to ask you—”
“In from the street, boy!” she said, waving him inside. “There’s no knowing what’s walking the darkness these days.”
“Don’t you know?”
The woman did not respond. Instead she went back into the main room and sat slowly by the groundstone, shrugging a blanket around her shoulders again, seeming to shrink down into herself. Kel watched for the craze, but the old woman was more in control than he had ever seen her.
