Immortal Architects

by Paige Orwin

  “Splendid.”

  A gesture; a shout; another sigh from Edmund–

  –and two dozen armored guardsmen (and possibly guardswomen) fell in before and behind them, gilded detailing flashing thin ribbons of light across sooty concrete. They marched with the steady rhythm of those long-trained, carrying their weapons to best show off their craftsmanship. None complained.

  They were all exhausted, of course, and the beat of their boots loud in Lord Kasimir’s bare halls, Lucy resignedly carrying a banner at their head… but if they were going to give Istvan titles in exchange for murder, well, let them treat him as grandly as they were able. Kasimir was, after all, just as mortal as the rest of them.

  A dead mockery hung from the ceiling in the warlord’s throne room.

  Their procession came to a halt just below it. Istvan peered upwards as the shout to halt echoed around the chamber. It was a great rusted-orange serpent, its “flesh” stripped away, strange glyphs carved along the length of its ribs. It didn’t resemble any machine of war Istvan recognized. It might have been only a small part of one of the greater monsters that now lay like mountains across the remnants of cities. He himself might have hewn it from its origin.

  The rest of the throne room was curiously bare. More concrete formed the walls. Black cables ran between banks of harsh reddish lights, with no effort made to conceal them. A dais occupied the far end, certainly, but it was simply a raised platform, three steps high with no ornamentation: a tattered banner hung behind it, and that was all. The throne was a simple block of stone without even a back to it.

  It was as though all of the splendor was reserved for Lord Kasimir himself.

  The warlord sat stiffly, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. A broadsword lay propped on the stone beside him. Like his men, he wore elaborate armor with golden filigree; shoulderplates with wholly impractical spikes; a scarlet cape over a long coat, itself placed over what might have been yet another coat buckled below a steel breastplate. His helmet boasted a long plume of horsehair and a faceplate fitted with what may have been the front of an actual human skull. Scarlet lights flickered behind his visor.

  If Istvan weren’t mistaken, he seemed rather… subdued, for a brutal despot. Wary. Nervous, even, with a verdant edge that suggested buried jealousy. Perhaps that siege was going more badly than he wanted to admit. Perhaps he saw in Istvan the kind of power he desperately desired to possess. The man had, after all, once contracted his forces to Barrio Libertad. He knew what had happened there.

  A single, somewhat less elaborately-clad warrior stood to his left, a sabre at his side. No one else guarded the dais.

  Lucy approached the edge of the dais and knelt, propping the banner-pole on the bare concrete floor. The rest of the procession divided itself once more into two lines, one on either side of Edmund and Istvan, likewise dropping to their knees.

  Istvan glanced at Edmund, who remained standing. Unhappy, but standing. Oh, good.

  “So,” he began.

  The man standing beside Kasimir held up a fist. “Hail, Devil’s Doctor, Lord of the Long War, Ravager of the Pale Beast, Ender of Complacency,” he boomed, his accented voice amplified and electronic. “Hail, Hour Thief, of the Twelfth Hour and its mysteries. The mighty Lord Kasimir has returned from the storm with dust on his boots and blood on his blade to welcome you to his domain, and once we have concluded here, to the storm he shall return.”

  The broadsword didn’t seem to have blood on it, but Istvan could forgive that much in the name of hygiene. “Well,” he said. He stepped forward to stand near Lucy, who still hadn’t risen. “I suppose I should thank you for having us.”

  Lucy’s helmet tilted fractionally, dismay filtering into her presence.

  Edmund edged closer to him. “Istvan–”

  “Where’s the fighting, then?” Istvan continued. “Where do you need us?”

  Lord Kasimir twitched two fingers. His spokesman swept an arm in a grand, demonstrative arc, his amplified voice only somewhat too loud for the space. “Our need is not so dire as to forego civility, Devil’s Doctor.”

  Lucy murmured something in the Triskelion tongue. A plea, perhaps. Kasimir’s spokesman fired back something else, channeling anger that Istvan knew he didn’t really feel. The exchange gave the distinct impression of two people who didn’t want to be there arguing for the benefit of someone else who also didn’t want to be there.

  Istvan sighed. He had agreed to siege-breaking, not frivolities.

  He turned. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we can find the siege ourselves,” he said. “I’ve been there once, already. Come along, Edmund – we’ve work to do.”

  Edmund didn’t budge. “You wanted a parade,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s over with. Come on!”

  “Silence!” shouted Kasimir’s spokesman.

  Istvan looked back at him, allowing wings, bone, and poison to flicker into existence. Phantom artillery echoed through the throne room. The spokesman wavered on his feet.

  No one said anything for several moments. Silence, indeed.

  “That’s fine,” sighed Edmund. He walked past Istvan, ignoring the barbed wire that snagged at his pant legs. He carried himself as though he had been born a diplomat. He came to a stop just behind and to the right of Lucy, and then doffed his hat, holding it politely in both hands. “Lord Kasimir,” he continued, “if I may?”

  The warlord shifted on his block of stone, strands of his horsehair plume spilling over one shoulder as he leaned forward further. He gave a curt nod.

  “You may speak,” boomed his spokesman.

  Edmund took a breath. “Thank you. Before we do anything, I’d like to know just what it is that we can expect to gain from this deal. Where are these ‘vast tracts of land’ that you’re offering?”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea,” said Istvan. “Asking that.”

  Edmund’s mouth twitched.

  Istvan closed the distance to stand beside him, doing his best to restrain the worst of the thunder. He hadn’t thought to ask about the prize itself. He’d known that Kasimir had it, and that seemed fine enough. He and Edmund could go anywhere, after all. It hadn’t seemed to matter where it was.

  But, oh, if they were placed in an embattled position, or…

  “A land of seas, strung along a great river, lies to the east of dread Chicago,” the spokesman intoned. “Between two of these seas, along this river, there lies a city in ruin, a city raised around two mighty waterfalls which have fallen silent. The cunning Lord Kasimir saw fit to conquer the dams and generators of this city, three years ago. It is these that he will exchange for your service.”

  “Niagara?” asked Edmund. “Niagara Falls?”

  “If that is what you call this place of harnessed waters.” The spokesman nodded, gravely. “This is acceptable?”

  Edmund hesitated – it wasn’t really, Istvan knew; anything near those enormous lakes was much too far away to keep any sort of watch on Barrio Libertad – and then nodded back. “It will do.”

  Kasimir straightened, held out his hands in the same manner as one offering up a sword, and waited expectantly for Edmund to copy the gesture. When he did, the warlord stood, brusquely took up his sword, and strode out of the room with the air of a man who just wanted things to be over with. Lucy got to her feet again, along with the two rows of guardsmen.

  “See to your conveyance,” ordered Kasimir’s spokesman.

  Edmund shook his head. “I’m not riding again. We’ll find the place on our own, like Istvan said.”

  The spokesman and Lucy exchanged glances.

  “If it pleases you,” the spokesman said.

  “Oh, it does,” said Istvan. “It pleases us very much.”

  * * *

  It was all Edmund could do to keep up.

  Triskelion was unknown territory. He’d never had any reason to visit it before. The best he could do was follow Istvan, one short teleport after another, up and down sharp ridges and across cra
cked valley floors, boots crunching through dirt and alkali. It was hot – hotter than any mountains should have been at this time of year – and the smoke never seemed to settle. The region sat directly over Pennsylvania coal beds, and Edmund suspected at least some of them were on fire.

  His breath came hard. The air was almost orange in places, and it was too easy to imagine it eating through his skin.

  Istvan – being Istvan – flitted from ruin to ruin. Abandoned towers. Empty base camps. Mines with collapsed entrances. Coal towns with homes smashed to matchsticks, churches missing steeples, even the rubble stripped of anything metal or perishable. If anyone had survived there after the Wizard War, they didn’t anymore. It was best to pretend that they had fled.

  The working mines proved otherwise.

  “Oh, we’re close, now!” shouted Istvan, zipping past Edmund for the fourth or fifth time and looping back away, over another ridge.

  A third cart emerged from the blackness cut into the mountain, hitched to a spindly human shape bent over like a spider. The shaft wasn’t vertical, but it was close. The laborers crawled. Guards watched from rickety towers. The cart wasn’t adult-sized.

  Edmund turned away. Pretend that they had fled. Pretend that he was surprised. Barrio Libertad had worked with the warlords, contracting them out as mercenaries to find artifacts. He wondered if Grace had known.

  He heard the siege before he saw it.

  When he crested the last ridge, he realized he’d seen it before.

  Vast metal doors set into the side of a mountain. A road blasted into the rock of the opposite cliff face, carrying supplies and more men to the emplacements in the valley. Smoke billowing from baroque stacks. The flash of artillery rounds beating on defenders that refused to yield. Suspended wires running from peak to peak.

  He’d seen it in thread. Istvan had copied it faithfully. Istvan was, along with everything else, a remarkable artist in his own way.

  It smelled like cordite, tar, and burnt meat.

  Edmund swallowed.

  He’d agreed to this.

  Istvan landed beside him, grinning. A skull was always grinning. “You’ll follow me, then,” he said. He pointed at the doors and the tiny figures that swarmed up steep and jagged rock towards them. “If you can’t get through, I’ll make a way, and then you’re free to take what time you like from anyone. You won’t have any shortage after today!”

  Edmund’s fingers closed around his pocket watch. He’d told Mercedes he wouldn’t take time from targets she chose. He would never focus on specific populations.

  Yet here he was.

  Istvan drew closer to him. “Oh, don’t be like that, Edmund. We had to solve it one way or another, and besides, afterwards, you can go back to what you did before.” He chuckled. “Unless you take a liking to this, of course.”

  A skeletal hand reached out to caress the lapel of Edmund’s suit jacket. One finger slipped down to curl beneath his tie.

  Istvan wasn’t thinking straight. The fighting was getting to him. He got… strange, when he wasn’t thinking straight. It wasn’t his fault.

  “Just go,” Edmund managed.

  The ghost leaned even closer, bare teeth near to Edmund’s ear. “I’ll leave some for you,” he whispered conspiratorially. Then he turned, wings snapping open in a dark flurry, and sped off over the battlefield, leaving behind only wisps of poison and the unnerving memory of laughter.

  Edmund shuddered. Not his fault. That wasn’t the Istvan he knew. He wasn’t sure, anymore, if he’d ever known the real man at all.

  A faint cheer came up from the valley. Lord Kasimir’s men were expecting them.

  OK. OK.

  There was nothing else for it.

  Edmund eyed the doors, promised himself a night of oblivion, and snapped his pocket watch shut.

  * * *

  Istvan swooped low over the back line of artillery, zipping through plumes of smoke and up and over a trench line. Kasimir’s forces had just begun a fresh assault, likely to coincide with his own arrival, and the mountain fortress made a wonderful centerpiece. Forcing your enemies to fight uphill while you rained down fire was never a poor strategy.

  How long had this siege lasted? A month? Two? What would the warlords do once they ran out of precious heavy munitions? Those weren’t easy to make, especially now. Kasimir must be convinced that his enemies held something of immense value. Worth dying for? Oh, he had people for that.

  Istvan crossed the valley floor and swept up the embattled mountainside.Dust from the recent bombardment hazed the air. Climbers raised ice axes to him. Holes drilled to seat explosives pockmarked the rock. He rose higher. Scorched bunkers crouched along the narrow path upwards. Gunfire blazed at him as he approached.

  “Ah,” he called, laughing. “You’ve seen me! That’s good!”

  He darted towards the nearest. Shouting met him. Probing gun barrels protruded from rifle slits, their owners trying to fire upwards as best as they were able.

  Istvan dropped through the concrete and tore through the nearest body lengthwise like livestock, or perhaps a fish. There were four of them. Uneaten rations lay abandoned on a small table beside playing cards, a roll of tape, and an unfinished portrait etched into a shell casing. One of the defenders tried to stab him with a bayonet, which was quite brave.

  Istvan killed them all and moved on to the next.

  Six bunkers later, he reached the fortress’s vast and improbable doors. They were made of some metal that remained bright and gleaming despite all of the punishment it had endured, pressed into peculiar patterned waves and whorls. Part of their frame protruded from the rock, blown away by artillery, revealing sunken support beams. Fallen rubble lay heaped man-high before them. No obstacle. Not to a ghost. Not to the Great War.

  But to Edmund! Oh, it would do no good at all, forcing Edmund to find his own way, when a perfectly serviceable way could be made. Then he and Istvan wouldn’t be fighting together, and that would ruin the poetry.

  Istvan touched the doors. The metal tingled, its pressed patterns seeming to ripple outwards from his fingers. He drew back and peered up at where a direct strike had gouged a shallow cave just over the frame. That would do. He leapt, hovered, and then dove through shattered rock.

  The hall beyond had its defenders: they hid behind dozens of stacked bulwarks placed for that purpose, and they made a fine attempt at covering fire. They even had a medic.

  Istvan flicked bile and stomach acid onto one of the odd mosaics that lined the walls. “You do have water with you, don’t you?” he asked.

  The medic slid down against the wall, hugging his bag to his chest. His armor was blue, probably; it was difficult to tell.

  “They will be asking for water,” Istvan told him, just loud enough to be heard over pained wheezing and moans, the faint scraping of armor plate against stone, and a mumbled strain of what might have been prayer. “Sepsis is rather difficult to treat, I’m afraid. I wish you the very best of luck.”

  Shouting came from down below.

  * * *

  Istvan inspected the doors again, barred as they were with two great beams. They seemed to open using a chain-winch mechanism he was certain he couldn’t budge. The hinges, however…

  The first door struck a corner on the ground with a thunderous boom, twisting on its axis. Istvan cut through another hinge, started on the second door, and then darted out of the way as both multi-ton panels toppled inwards. Wounded men cried out. Dust billowed across pools of blood.

  “Go on, then,” Istvan encouraged the medic, “get started!”

  He looked around for a way down – such a strange building, like a monastery more than a fortress – and then darted for a likely annex. “Oh,” he called over his shoulder, “and if you see a man in black, tell him I took the left stairwell!”

  Perhaps they would have flamethrowers. He should like to fight someone with a flamethrower again. It had been so long. They were wonderful in close quarters.

 
* * *

  The doors were warded. No design Edmund had seen before, which meant it was powerful magic: those long ago put into common use were little good as anything more than decorative elements even when they did work, plagued by interference. All modern cities had come to bear a morass of traditional protections, the vast majority incorrectly drawn and denied the sacrifices required to satisfy them.

  These must have taken several lives to place, to resist an artillery bombardment.

  They hadn’t helped against Istvan.

  It took a moment for Edmund’s eyes to adjust. His nose needed no such thing. His stomach twisted; the urge to vomit held back only by the knowledge that doing so wouldn’t make it smell any better.

  His boot slipped. He looked down. A severed gauntlet still clutched the grip of half a rifle, blood pooling beneath splintered bone. The person it belonged to lay not far away, curled in a twitching ball. Behind him, someone else sat staring dully down at their own intestines. More blood seeped from beneath the fallen doors.

  The entire hall was littered with still-moving bodies.

  I’ll leave some for you.

  Edmund retched. He retreated, back into the smog-choked air and the light, and slammed his back against rock, not caring if something hit him.

  Istvan hadn’t killed all those people. He had maimed them. He had left them dying slowly, abandoned them without a second thought, crushed those that couldn’t escape to clear the way to the rest. Istvan knew that Edmund needed time, and had left as many defenders alive as possible so that Edmund could finish the job. Even the dying still had time. Some of them might linger for weeks, or months, if given care. It wasn’t over until it was over.

  Carrion crows, too, wore black.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Niagara Falls,” said Mercedes. She peered over the edge of the dam, where water trickled into the sluggish river far, far below. The collapsed span of a pedestrian bridge blocked part of the flow, one of many obstacles that would need to be dredged out of the way eventually. The city of Niagara Falls itself – both the US and the Canadian side – lay out of sight further upstream, together with the famous landmark. “I knew you would find something once you put your mind to it, Mr Templeton.”