Immortal Architects

by Paige Orwin

  Istvan whirled back to Edmund. How? How could the man do this to anyone else, after two decades of visiting another prisoner trapped in this very same chamber?

  “Unchain him,” Istvan snapped. “Unchain him now.”

  “Uh,” said the first voice who had spoken. “Uh – uh…”

  Then – and only then – did Istvan notice an orderly he didn’t recognize cowering against the far wall, almost hidden behind the central pillar. One of the Twelfth Hour’s volunteers, probably.

  We can try to keep him dosed, he’d said.

  More tests, he’d said.

  He carried a bag sporting the red cross.

  Istvan stepped toward him. “Give me that.”

  The man dropped it like it had caught fire.

  “Now run.”

  The man hesitated.

  Istvan charged the pillar. “Run!”

  The fright was hardly worth it. Not comparable at all. Triskelion had been better. Triskelion had been marvelous.

  Istvan unzipped the bag.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” muttered Edmund. He wiped at his eyes.

  “You didn’t have to chain a boy up like a bloody animal,” Istvan retorted. He abandoned the bag in disgust – nothing more than basic first aid – and moved towards the young prisoner. “I want a proper kit,” he began, checking his pulse, “and I want Roberts here as soon as he’s able, and I want something to keep Kyra from hurting himself if he starts thrashing about.”

  “Kyra?” asked Edmund.

  The Magister adjusted one of the pens in her hair. “Dr Czernin, that boy is the most powerful Conduit anyone has ever seen, if Mr Templeton is correct. I don’t find his precautions unfitting.”

  “If we don’t keep him sedated–” Edmund began.

  “Get out,” Istvan told him.

  “He did something to you, didn’t he? That’s why you didn’t come back until now.” The wizard crouched beside him, a rush of black silk and regret Istvan wished he couldn’t detect. It would have been easier. “Istvan,” Edmund continued, “I know what you’re thinking, and I’m sorry, but he’s dangerous. We don’t know what more he can do, and Shattered or not, I didn’t want Barrio Libertad getting their hands on him.”

  Istvan lifted Kyra’s chin. Brown eyes stared through him, dully. The boy breathed like one asleep. Scrapes and cuts marred his skin, in places crusted with dried blood. The irons at his wrists were almost tight enough to cut off circulation.

  “Get out,” Istvan repeated.

  Edmund paused, then stood. He went to the door, and Istvan tried not to remember all those times, all those years, when he’d wished he could follow him. When he’d been stuck staring at the grain as it closed, the latch echoing.

  Twelve stone blocks away. Utterly unreachable.

  Twenty years.

  “I’ll consider you re-assigned,” said the Magister. “Keep ‘Kyra’ under.”

  Footsteps.

  The hinges, creaking.

  And then the latch.

  Istvan hadn’t wanted so badly to kill someone since less than an hour ago.

  * * *

  “The Demon’s Chamber isn’t designed to hold creatures like that boy,” said Mercedes as they started back up the stairs.

  Edmund glared at his feet. “I know it isn’t.”

  “And yet you bound him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you do the one with the gerbils?”

  “No.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  They climbed a full round in silence. Edmund had been up and down those stairs thousands of times – probably tens of thousands – and he let his feet carry him while he tried to erase the last few minutes from his mind. Tried to focus on something, anything other than the choking stench of chlorine.

  It didn’t matter how long they’d been friends: Istvan could still scare the living daylights out of him. Out of Mercedes, even. The specter had run roughshod over her without even realizing it. Without any effort at all.

  It was how he moved. What moved with him. Oppressive. Explosive. The dread certainty that he couldn’t be stopped and that he would always find you, no matter where you ran.

  Where had he been? What had happened to him?

  Had he hurt anyone?

  Edmund turned his pocket watch over and over in his fingers. No use wondering about help or forgiveness. After today, Istvan would be slow to accept or grant either, and Edmund couldn’t blame him.

  Worse: no one held grudges like the unquiet dead.

  “You should have taken the boy to Barrio Libertad,” said Mercedes.

  Edmund gritted his teeth. Sure, tell him now. That would help. “I don’t know what I should have done, Mercedes, because anytime I do anything I’m interrupted and told to do something else.”

  “That must be frustrating,” came the reply.

  “Yesterday you gave me a talk on how the fortress is just about the worst thing that’s happened to us since the Wizard War. Today I’m supposed to have turned over this latest problem to them, no questions asked.”

  “You’ve always turned over the Shattered to them, Mr Templeton.”

  “Not like that.”

  “Even though you knew we didn’t have the facilities to deal with him?”

  Edmund thought of Grace, so confident that Barrio Libertad could hold a Conduit of such power. That Diego could solve anything with liberal application of who-knew-what. That everyone else living there would be perfectly fine with the arrival of such danger, just like they seemed perfectly fine with omnipresent surveillance and remote control of every surface within those walls.

  The Twelfth Hour had the Demon’s Chamber. And the high-security vault, but putting the kid, this “Kyra,” in the same place as confiscated artifacts and mysterious devices from up and down the seaboard seemed like a remarkably bad idea.

  “Mr Templeton?”

  Edmund grimaced. Couldn’t even spend a few moments to think. “Mercedes, if there’s one thing Diego doesn’t need, it’s more firepower.”

  “Which is why I’m considering what’s done to be done,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Mercedes stopped. She turned around, holding onto the rail. She was no taller than he was even two steps ahead. “Consider Kyra an addition to your merry band, Mr Templeton. Incentive to find a site, and find it quickly.”

  He stared at her.

  It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to drag him back into this leadership mess and then expect him to cover so many things at once with no time to do it all.

  “You pulled me out of a meeting,” he said. “To do just that.”

  “I was in the middle of yet another call about the repair of Oxus Station when it came up,” she replied, “and I have both the Magnolia Group and a general citzens’ strike to deal with once we’re done here. Were you aware that there’s a very vocal group of people who want us to open up the vault to everyone? Or that Lord Kasimir is now offering ‘wealth, esteem, and vast tracts of land’ to anyone willing to break a siege for him?”

  “That last I knew,” Edmund retorted.

  “Still not willing to teach your teleportation skills to anyone else?”

  “No.”

  She started back up the stairs. “Meetings can be rescheduled.”

  He caught her arm. “Why did you send us?”

  She looked at him. Her eyes were very dark, almost black, and still a little red-rimmed from the gas. She’d summoned the Susurration, a literal incarnation of control and stagnation, to end the Wizard War (which it had done by killing the most powerful wizard in history), and then she had proceeded to cannibalize every other magical cabal in Big East until the Twelfth Hour became the only authority on such matters worthy of note, laying claim to the entire seaboard as a protectorate. She was missing a finger and Edmund didn’t want to know why.

  He let go of her.

  “It was a demonstration,” she said. “Now, an asset.”

  “Did yo
u know the storm was a Conduit? Did you know the kid was Shattered?”

  “Of course not. The Twelfth Hour is dedicated to helping our allies whenever they call, and that’s the end of it.”

  Edmund gritted his teeth. “But–”

  “Despite,” she continued, “what Barrio Libertad might say. To us, to our allies, and to anyone else who will listen. You’re the Hour Thief, Mr Templeton. You and Dr Czernin fought a storm today, and won. Not everyone can say that.”

  They reached the top of the stairs. Mercedes took hold of the trapdoor latch.

  “What about the kid?” asked Edmund.

  A shrug. “It seems to me like you’re well on track for recruitment.”

  * * *

  Istvan finished wiping away the last of the grit and grime that he could reach. Face, neck, hands. The chains prevented removal of Kyra’s jacket, never mind arraying him in any sort of proper position for treatment.

  He suspected that the boy was rather thinner than was healthy. He hadn’t located any grievous injury or infection, but the drug that kept him so unaware and lethargic was a worrying matter: Istvan had encountered it before, in use by Barrio Libertad against other foes, and knew that it wouldn’t last nearly so long as the Magister hoped.

  The Twelfth Hour had only limited supplies of something similar.

  “Never mind the side-effects,” he muttered. “Keep him in a bloody coma while hung by his wrists, oh, that’s a fine way to do it.”

  Did anyone realize how dangerous this could be to him?

  Did anyone care?

  Lock a fifteen year-old boy in the Demon’s Chamber. Bloody wizards.

  Bloody Edmund.

  “Doctor? I came as quickly as I…” Roberts paused in the doorway, “…could.”

  Istvan got to his feet, barbed wire looping around chain links. The other man looked as though he would barely fit through the door. “Didn’t they tell you?”

  “They did, but then I had to convince Lucy that this was a single-man gig and that you had asked for me specifically, and that took a while.” Roberts turned sideways, hefting a rather more substantial bag of supplies than the one already present, and threaded himself into the room. He set the bag down. “It’s… it’s a little different, seeing it.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing, really, Edmund just took a boy down here and chained him to a pillar and put magic on. Did you see the salt?”

  Roberts unzipped the bag. It held syringes, saline, tubing, vials of what anesthetics the Twelfth Hour possessed, alcohol swabs, catheters, tourniquets, gauze, scissors, tape, a blanket, and other sundries. It wasn’t quite up to modern standard but neither was Istvan; nothing was, anymore.

  They began setting up for fluids.

  “I can’t believe it,” Istvan muttered. “I can’t bloody believe it. Twenty years, seeing me like that, and now he does this. At least I had a reputation, Roberts. At least I’d killed people of my own bloody volition.”

  Roberts unrolled a length of tubing, and said nothing. Istvan had selected him as his primary assistant after the Wizard War due to the man’s steadiness, dependability, and ability to manhandle what Istvan couldn’t. He’d seen a lot since then. Tackled some of it.

  He still seemed shaken.

  “Ought to have taken him to Barrio Libertad,” Istvan repeated. “Ought to have done anything else.”

  “What did the kid do, exactly?” asked Roberts.

  Istvan drove a needle home. “Dragged a storm about. Caused a ruckus. Tore me apart when I got too close.”

  Roberts’ eyes went wide.

  “But he didn’t mean any of it! He’s Shattered, Roberts! God only knows how long he was in thrall. Years, maybe. Half his life, who knows? How am I supposed to help with that? What happens when he wakes up? I spoke to him before we caught him – he may have escaped a Shokat Anoushak cult, and we don’t know anything at all about what’s been done to him!”

  He tore at a cotton ball. “But no, I’m not to allow him to wake at all. Never mind what he must have been through. Never mind that keeping him like this is cruel and inhuman, and Edmund ought to have known better.”

  Istvan finished fixing the IV in place and sat back, fuming at it.

  “The kid tore you apart,” said Roberts.

  “I’m back now, aren’t I?” Istvan retorted.

  “Doctor–”

  “Everyone is so bloody worried about what he can do that no one is worried about him. Take him, chain him, leave him to rot. He isn’t a weapon, for God’s sake!”

  Roberts blinked at him.

  Istvan busied himself with the bag again. Had to figure out dosage. Had to determine that nothing would interact poorly with the Barrio Libertad cocktail.

  He wished he knew where Kyra had come from. If there were more like him. If Conduits weren’t so uncommon as everyone had thought, but sequestered. Stolen away at the conclusion of the Wizard War. Stockpiled.

  Kyra shifted dully in his chains, eyelids fluttering.

  Istvan withdrew a vial. He hoped the boy wouldn’t remember any of this.

  He wished he could try talking to him again.

  Roberts drew closer, a knot of apprehension swathed in forced calm. “Doctor, have you maybe considered that you’re taking this… I don’t know…”

  “Personally?”

  A shrug.

  Istvan pointed at the pillar. “Twenty years.”

  The other man nodded. “I know. But–”

  “I couldn’t move for twenty years, Roberts! I went months without anyone speaking to me! I was a… a trophy, a curiosity to be brought up over dinner! ‘Oh, yes, the ghost, would you like to see him? He’s restrained, don’t worry.’” His fingers slipped through the vial, incapable of breaking it. “How could I not take this bloody personally?”

  Roberts reached over, retrieved the vial, and placed it gently on the stone. Then he set a large hand approximately on Istvan’s shoulder. “Did you ever have kids, Doctor?”

  Istvan stared down at Kyra. “No. I didn’t.”

  Should have.

  “Then let me tell you something,” said Roberts, apprehension giving way to something else, “I had a daughter, Doctor. Before the Wizard War. And it kills me to see a kid like this – any kid, doesn’t matter whose – but in this case I think Mr Templeton and the Magister have cause.”

  A daughter?

  How old? How…

  Istvan shook his head, dully. He hadn’t known. He’d had no idea. “I’m sorry.”

  “Listen to me,” Roberts continued. “Was this place the best place to take him? No. Barrio Libertad would have been better. But he’s here now and this is the safest place we’ve got. For us, and maybe for him. If he’s that powerful – if he can control storms, rip up the countryside – then I think it would have been irresponsible to put him anywhere else.”

  Roberts backed away, picking up the vial again. “I don’t like it, and he won’t like it, but not everyone can just come back from being torn apart. It’s a little more permanent for the rest of us.”

  Istvan sat there as the other man rummaged through the bag, checking labels, an old, distant pain echoing behind each motion. Istvan hadn’t thought anything of that. So many people carried that, now. Almost everyone had lost someone to the Wizard War.

  That didn’t mean the lost weren’t of note.

  Istvan looked at Kyra again. What dream was the boy living? Who was present in it that hadn’t survived 2012?

  More permanent for the rest of us.

  Had Istvan truly lost so much perspective? Of course they feared Kyra. Of course the Twelfth Hour couldn’t keep him anywhere else. Couldn’t move him, for the terror.

  He had hurt Istvan, after all, and everyone knew Istvan couldn’t be hurt.

  Istvan was invincible.

  “Roberts,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’ll do our best. He’ll have the very best care we can give him, despite it all.”

  The other man nodded. “T
hat’s what we do.”

  Istvan realized he was rubbing at his wrists again. He took hold of a chain instead, iron that for once imprisoned someone who didn’t deserve it. A challenge. Think of it as a challenge. “Let’s set him up for airway control,” he said. “If we’re to keep him under, we’ll do it right.”

  Chapter Nine

  Edmund went home. It was getting late, he was exhausted, and he wanted a chance to finally change his clothes.

  He needed to find someone who could make suit jackets and wasn’t Barrio Libertad. The Magnolia Group, maybe. If he set up a site “in their vicinity.” If they wouldn’t mind a Conduit who could destroy entire counties as a neighbor.

  He was going to have a lot of adjusting to do for the next meeting. Was he ever. When Janet Justice heard about this…

  Edmund pulled off his goggles and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

  There was a paper stuck to the outside of his living room window.

  He squinted at it for a while, trying to read what was on the other side backwards. His vision kept swimming. When was the last time he’d eaten?

  Later. Get the note later.

  Beldam headbutted him as he hung up coat and hat. There seemed to be even more paper strewn about than usual, which was strange given that he’d put at least half of it in that box. Some of his books had been knocked off the coffee table, too…

  The cat yowled and shot into the kitchen. Edmund followed, wondering if he had any potatoes left, and then immediately found something else to occupy his mind.

  Water all over the floor. Tea tin knocked over. Loose leaves floating in the water. Broken glass scattered before one of the cabinets, together with four or five pieces of plate. Wet paper tracked into both the living room and the hall.

  Beldam.

  He’d forgotten to feed Beldam.

  Dammit.

  The cat headbutted him again, meowing what was probably a snide and vociferous commentary on his competence, parentage, and upbringing.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “Something came up.”

  She wasn’t having it.