by Paige Orwin
Edmund gave him a look.
“Even if he doesn’t,” Istvan continued, “I’m certain that Diego would. He’s still here, after all. He’s never not here.”
An easy thing to forget, perhaps, if one couldn’t taste the rage leaking from the walls at all hours. Barrio Libertad’s architect was omnipresent. If the very structure of the fortress itself was willing, at any moment, to go against the edicts of the elected People’s Council…
Istvan grinned to himself. Grace Wu was probably having fits.
Kyra looked back and forth between Edmund and Istvan.
“Go on,” said Edmund. “Contrary to popular belief, I can listen.”
Kyra closed his eyes. He wrapped his arms more tightly around his knees. Then, he let out a breath, released his grip and stood. “She knew how to do it,” he said. “Our Lady. It wasn’t the cult that learned it, or invented it. It’s her. She already knew how to bring herself back. That’s why–”
“But she’s dead,” said Istvan. “What would it matter, what she knew?”
Kyra fell silent. His fingers closed more tightly on the handrail behind him.
“Istvan,” said Edmund.
“What? I’m listening!”
Edmund rolled his eyes. “That’s why what, Kyra?”
The Conduit mumbled something.
“What?”
“’s why the monsters took me,” Kyra repeated. “I remember. I used to. All the… the things, how to do it. How to come back to life, if you got people to help you. It’s…” He looked down, closing his eyes again. “I remember a lot, and a lot of it is her. They took all the bits they wanted.”
Shattered. Kidnapped by monsters.
Shokat Anoushak’s creatures had cults of their own?
Istvan looked to Edmund, who had leaned back against the wall rather heavily.
“I know about the Susurration,” Kyra continued. “I know what it did. I know it had me, and that… that nothing was real. Ms Wu told me that.” He swallowed, hugging one arm around his middle. “Anyway, after my… after the Susurration went away, I woke up in this little town somewhere. I’m talking shacks. I was carrying water, and I spilled it everywhere. I don’t know how I got there. Me and like ten other people, going on about all these crazy things. We couldn’t figure out what happened. Some of them got into a fight, and I ran away, and… yeah. The monsters got me after that.”
“I’m sorry,” said Edmund.
The boy pressed his lips together, looking away from them. The hand that had clutched the rail crept up to his chest, as though grasping his heart. “It don’t matter,” he said.
Istvan thought back to his own sudden awakening. Not dead after all. Or, not as dead as he had expected. It was winter, and it hadn’t been winter, not last he knew, not before the terrible cries and the tearing, like claws. The snow fell through him as much as he stumbled through it, blinded, bombarded by flashes of places and experiences utterly foreign, unable to concentrate on what was before him amidst the chaos around and inside of him: an entire continent, newly at war, flooding into his head all at once.
What if those flashes – those experiences, those memories – had belonged to someone so old, so mad, so lost, that she hardly counted as human at all?
“But the monsters took some of it?” Istvan asked. “The monsters took some of those memories, the ones they wanted, so that they could learn how to resurrect her?”
Kyra wiped at his eyes. He turned back to them, blinking.
“You don’t have to answer that,” said Edmund. He had both hands in his pockets, now. The brass chain that hung from a bottom jacket button and then disappeared into the right pocket trembled. “It’s fine. We don’t have to know how she did it.”
“Statues,” whispered Kyra.
The elevator shuddered to a halt. A light blinked on above the doors. A tone sounded, low and harsh. “Caution,” said Diego.
None of them moved.
“I was an idiot,” said Edmund.
Istvan wondered if he’d heard correctly. That made no sense at all. How would a statue do that? Even if it sprang to life – much of Shokat Anoushak’s magic revolved around that sort of thing, after all – it wouldn’t be her, would it? Only a mockery, like the others.
Unless she could somehow move her soul, perhaps. Like a ghost. Like… well, him. But wouldn’t someone have seen her by now? Was it even possible, to become a ghost on purpose? He had never met any others.
“Statues?” he asked.
“They have to be perfect,” Kyra said.
Edmund swallowed. “Let’s not talk about this here.” He stood up from the wall, adjusted his hat, and walked out of the elevator.
Istvan looked at Kyra. “That’s how you know that he’s a wizard.”
“I heard that,” said Edmund.
Istvan followed him out. It was just past midday now, and a cold breeze blew across the crater, carrying the smell of mud and rot. There seemed to be a rime of frost on the battlefield today. A hint, perhaps, of the other fronts. Russia. The Italian Alps. Would it change with the seasons? Would there be mountains here, someday?
It felt so right. He could sense it taking hold again: that sense of ease, of joy, of fierce and uncaring invincibility. Kyra didn’t have to be his problem. Neither did Edmund. If the world burned again, under a resurgent Shokat Anoushak, that would be simply more fighting, and an endless supply of targets.
It would be easier than being angry.
He turned, clapping his hands together. “So! Where are we going, then?”
Edmund checked his pocket watch. Kyra hadn’t even let go of the rail, yet, much less left the elevator, and merely hung back, eyes wide.
Istvan glanced behind himself. It was only trenches. Some smoke. The wreckage of what might have been a shelter, half-sunk in the mud, torn canvas fluttering. There weren’t even any bodies, and barbed wire only looped here and there in broken, orphaned segments: hardly a barrier to be feared.
“Is it… all like that?” asked Kyra.
“No,” said Edmund.
“Of course not,” said Istvan. “This is the only place like this. It’s my fault, really – there used to be nearly half a million people living here, but not since Edmund decided that the Great War would be a fine thing to pit against the Susurration.”
Kyra stared at him.
Edmund sighed. “Istvan–”
“They’re still alive! Most of them. They’ve moved into Barrio Libertad – that’s why there are so many people there. Didn’t they tell you? You aren’t the only person the Susurration took, not at all. Why, Edmund himself almost fell to it.”
Oh, that had been a travesty. Poor Lucy.
“Anyhow,” Istvan finished, “there are usually more ruins.”
“Oh,” said Kyra. He squeezed his eyes shut again, swaying slightly on his feet.
Istvan tilted his head. The boy knew, didn’t he? If he knew about Shokat Anoushak, how could he not know what she had done? Even if what he’d seen in Tornado Alley was more wilderness and spellscar than city, he couldn’t possibly deny that the world must be quite different from whatever he remembered. “What’s in Toronto, anyhow?”
Edmund strode between them, pocket watch in hand. “That’s enough. We’ll head to Niagara and sort this out from there.”
“Niagara?” asked Istvan. “Oughtn’t we go show the Magister that we’ve gotten Kyra back from Barrio Libertad?”
“No. We’re not showing Mercedes anything until we know what’s going on, and–” Edmund held up a hand before Istvan could interrupt, “–I like keeping my house intact, Istvan. We’re staying away from New Haven.”
The wizard snapped his pocket watch.
Niagara. A sullen rain drizzled from grey skies. They stood just in front of the peculiar little building atop one of the dams, a place that Istvan had flown over but not inspected.
Gunfire rattled from Kasimir’s camp.
“Ah!” said Istvan. “They were right! The
mockeries did–”
A twin-rotor helicopter plunged out of the sky with an unearthly shriek, struck the earth nose-first, and skidded thirty feet across concrete before catching fire.
“–come back.”
Kyra stumbled away with a cry. He tripped over his own feet, trying to watch the sky and the ground at the same time, and then bolted for the building.
“Dammit, Istvan,” snarled Edmund, uncovering his head. He propped an elbow on the grass where he’d flung himself prone. “Dammit,” he repeated.
The mockery slid off the edge of the dam.
“You could have said something,” Edmund added.
“You wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d stayed for the festivities instead of running off,” Istvan informed him. “I wanted to tour Niagara together. It’s your own fault.” He spread his wings. “Now, you watch Kyra, hm? You’re quite useless in the air, you know.”
He took flight before the wizard could respond.
Edmund’s dismay and Kyra’s peculiar multifaceted panic, together… oh, having the boy along would be a joy. Istvan had never spent time around anyone both friendly and Shattered.
He climbed to a suitable altitude to assess the situation. Kasimir’s camp was in terrible condition, badly undermanned and with a great deal of their weaponry depleted or shipped away, but they had done their best: another mockery lay half-on and half-off the banks of transformers on the artificial lake’s central island, crackling and buzzing. Snapped power lines dangled from bent towers. Oil leaked into the water, swirling around wreckage that jutted up from somewhere near the turbine entrances. A plume of smoke rose from the woods.
More mockeries circled overhead. Strange beasts, most of them, patchwork creatures that didn’t look like they ought to fly at all. Some bore ugly seams, crushed sides, and discolored flanks. Many sparked with uncontrolled lightning. One of them even had canvas wings. Its frame looked to be taken from an automobile. The group wasn’t in formation but they did keep to much the same altitude: were they together?
Istvan squinted up at the clouds. Together, except for that one. A loner, so high up it was little more than a strange broad speck.
Ah, well. The others were closer.
A cheer rose from Kasimir’s camp as he came into view. He glanced down. Less than three dozen warriors remained there, now. Had this assault gone on all night? Had Edmund abandoned them to the beasts? That wouldn’t do.
He tossed them a wave. They were his people, according to Lucy, and so he couldn’t help but feel a certain responsibility for them. “Don’t worry!” he called, “I’ll cover your retreat!”
Another cheer. Oh, he could get used to that.
He charged.
The first mockery rather resembled a small airplane with propellers. Dozens of eyes stenciled in jagged lines blinked across its sides, glowing red and blue like hazard lights. It dipped to meet him, brandishing curved talons.
Istvan darted up and over it and cut off its left tail stabilizer.
It keened. Lightning streamed from the wound. It tried to turn to meet him again, but could only maneuver in one direction, wobbling along its flight path, and Istvan took the opportunity to slash at its sides as it keeled slowly over, tilting into a spiral that became a stall and then a sideways tumble. It wouldn’t hit the dams. Probably.
Istvan wheeled to find the next one… and discovered that there was no next one. The mockeries were gone. Fleeing. A single one of their number down, and they were all running away?
“I’m not finished!” he called after retreating specks. North. They were going north. He sped after them. Forest blurred below, a winding road following the river. The feverish haze of the spellscars simmered in the distance. It took him almost a full minute to catch up, even to the canvas-winged one, which would have been embarrassing if they weren’t magical.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked the nearest, drawing even beside it.
Its engine popped and sputtered. Formless mists gusted within its cockpit windows. It rolled away and dove at a surprisingly steep angle, vanishing into the mist that now seeped across the landscape.
“That isn’t going to work,” Istvan called after it. He rolled over himself, plunging into the mist – and somehow found himself over water. Endless water.
He pulled up, startled. The ocean? How could they have reached the ocean?
The mockery struck the water with a wing, wobbled, righted itself, and sped away. He let it go. How could there be… unless…
The lake. Was this Lake Ontario? It was that big? How far north had he gone?
Istvan turned around, orienting himself by the distant curve of the shoreline. Had it all been a diversion? Was the other mockery, the loner, still up there?
He climbed above the clouds to check, but it, too, seemed to have fled.
Hm. Perhaps it was just as well: now the mockeries could tell their friends that there was a new no-fly zone over the Niagara dams. Unlike Kasimir’s forces, Istvan never ran out of ammunition. And if the mockeries came back with reinforcements, well… it would be like the Wizard War all over again.
Both Edmund and Kyra were inside that small building when he returned. Istvan dropped through the roof. “I chased them all up towards the lake,” he announced, landing atop some sort of model display. He hopped off of it. “There’s a tremendous lake to the north of here, did you know that?”
“I’m aware,” Edmund replied sourly. He crouched near the door. The building seemed to be some sort of combination shop and museum, for tourists. “How many mockeries were there?”
Istvan looked around for Kyra. “Perhaps a dozen. I expect that they’ll be back soon enough.”
“Great,” said Edmund. The wizard rose to his feet, shaking only slightly.
Ah, Kyra seemed to be behind the teller’s counter. Terror rolled from him… and was that a light dusting of shock, intermingled with confusion and dismay and perhaps a sweet, if muddied, hint of anger? Oh, the boy was realizing the magnitude of his mistake, now. Too late. No going back.
“What were you expecting, Kyra?” called Istvan. “Roses?”
No response.
Istvan found himself grinning. First the altercation in the elevator, then the battlefield, then the monsters. It wasn’t going to get any better. “A parade, perhaps?”
Edmund elbowed past him. “Cut it out.”
Istvan pressed a hand to his breast. “He needs to know, Edmund! It’s a cruel world out here. He’s Shattered, remember? Everything he knows isn’t real and never was. Rochester is gone, isn’t it? Buried under spellscars?” Edmund crossed into the gift shop; Istvan followed, skipping over the low divider that separated them. “The Susurration probably invented his family, invented friends and parties, gave him happy memories of love… and now there’s nothing but monsters waiting for him. You and me and those mockeries, Edmund.” Istvan chuckled. “The sooner we beat it out of him the better.”
A rack of keychains trembled.
Istvan stepped around the teller’s counter. Kyra huddled in a ball behind it. Istvan tutted. “We aren’t going to let him keep wearing that, are we?”
Kyra raised his head from his knees. “Hey!”
Ah, yes. That was anger, now. Sharp, and raw, so little of the weariness so common among most. The boy was still so young, and even his abrupt introduction to reality hadn’t yet darkened him. It was such a striking contrast to Edmund.
“My dear Kyra,” Istvan said, “I did tell you that we’re the worst.”
“Ignore him,” said Edmund, drawing up behind him. “He’s–”
Kyra bared his teeth. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it!”
Istvan blinked. He looked at the boy a moment – his determined grimace, his scarred neck, his wild mass of hair, his absurd dress – and then he broke up laughing.
Don’t be a jerk? That was all he could say to the spirit of the Great War? A complaint, for a child; a child who had foolishly chosen to escape relativ
e safety in favor of allying with his own erstwhile captor; a child who thought he could extract promises from a man who drew power from language, who had studied law, who didn’t want to believe that anything that he said was true; a child who didn’t fear ghosts the way he ought.
Oh, things would only grow worse before they ever grew better. The boy had so much to learn, and so little chance of surviving it. The mockeries might return at any moment.
“Stop it,” said Kyra.
Istvan took off his glasses to wipe at his eyes, still laughing.
Edmund swore, glancing from Kyra to the museum and back to Kyra again. He gripped the brim of his hat. “Istvan, if you can’t–”
Kyra struck the floor with a fist. “Stop it!”
The door blew open. A rack of ornamental glassware shattered. Cracks spidered across one of the windows. A vicious wind ripped through both museum and gift shop, catching up layered dust, handkerchiefs, scarves, hats, dry leaves, and bits of shotglass, hurling them in every direction as keychains toppled from stands and hanging pictures fell from the walls. Another door elsewhere in the building slammed. The roof creaked.
Istvan immediately regretted laughing at a child who had once torn him to pieces and scattered him to the winds. “Er–”
The Conduit shouted over him. “You’re afraid of me now, huh?” He got to his feet, holding onto the side of his dress as the building itself began to shake. “You going to attack me now, huh?”
“I wasn’t–”
“You weren’t what? You weren’t what? You’re a doctor! I know you’re a doctor! You aren’t supposed to be like this! I don’t remember you acting like this! You were… I thought I could trust you! I thought I’d… I thought we could–”
Edmund interposed himself between them, still holding onto his hat, cape flapping wildly. “Istvan, get out.”
“What?” Istvan said.
“Get out,” Edmund repeated.
“What about the mockeries?”
“I don’t care about the mockeries. Don’t come back until you’re ready to be civil.”
