Immortal Architects

by Paige Orwin

  “And where is that?”

  No response.

  Edmund tossed another magazine on the fire as a metallic scream echoed through the far end of the terminal. Great. He’d asked, earlier that morning, if she knew what she was doing. Oh, sure, she’d said. No problem. We just have to get there.

  This was the last time he took a fifteen year-old on their word. This was serious.

  “Kyra,” he said, “William wanted to help you. He came because he sympathized with your situation. He was not obligated in any way, shape, or form, but he came, anyway.”

  The Conduit drew her knees up on the chair, hugging them.

  “He wanted to help you,” Edmund repeated.

  “I know.” Her voice was a whisper.

  Edmund dusted his knees off and stood, reminding himself that getting angry wouldn’t solve anything. He should have grilled her more on the details before they left. He wasn’t used to working with kids. Kids shouldn’t be involved in things like this. “You stay here,” he said. “Istvan and I will figure out how to get William back.”

  Kyra looked uneasily out the window again. “Stay here?”

  “We won’t be long.”

  “But–”

  “No.”

  “But I can help!” She pulled her bag off the seat next to her and started to rummage through it. “I can try again! I won’t drop anyone this time, I promise!”

  “No,” Edmund repeated. “Istvan should be back any minute, and–”

  “I put this together!” said Kyra. “You can’t leave me here! He’ll know!”

  Edmund frowned. “Who?”

  Something slammed into the roof.

  Kyra yelped. Edmund reflexively sprang for her, meaning to get her out of the way if something fell. Instead, he received a blunt hammer to the chest – a sudden wind, out of nowhere – and discovered himself airborne for the second time in less than an hour.

  “Sorry!” called Kyra. “I’m sorry!”

  The light fixtures trembled. Dents punched themselves across its surface, two lines of them spread far apart.

  Edmund spent a moment to catch his breath and teleported back to the floor before he hit anything else, redirecting the momentum into a roll that, while undignified, did the job of preventing any further harm to his vitals. Getting back up was harder. That landing on the beach had been murder.

  Metal claws sliced through the roof, ripping it up and peeling it back. An angular shape reared stark against the snowfall, matte black, its blunt head and broad wings suggesting a bat made of folded paper. Origami, in the Japanese style. Headlights blazed down at them.

  Edmund forced himself back upright. Mockery. He’d never seen one like this before. Was it the same one that had been following them and screaming outside this whole time?

  A tooth-rattling scream confirmed that suspicion.

  “Go away!” yelled Kyra.

  Edmund grabbed at his hat before he lost it and grabbed hold of one of the benches just in case. The windows shattered. Burning magazines blew in all directions. The mockery snapped backwards, its lights cutting a path through the snowfall instead, black wings spread far past the hole it had made. It was huge; mostly wings, but huge.

  A ghostly horror shot through the falling glass. Istvan. Where had he been?

  “About time,” Edmund shouted.

  “Wait!” the ghost called. “Wait, it wasn’t hostile! Kyra, stop it!”

  “I am stopping it,” she yelled back.

  He held up his hands before him, beating against the wind. “No, stop attacking it!”

  Edmund gritted his teeth. This was the same Istvan who had massacred a fortress only two days ago. Now he decided to swing to the other extreme? After the thing had already torn up the roof? “What do you mean it wasn’t hostile?”

  Istvan landed next to him, crouching and folding his wings, poison streaming from him. “It was circling. I followed it. It didn’t land until just now, it didn’t do anything when I got closer to it, before, and it’s the same kind of mockery I saw crashed with the other one. The two that were fighting each other! I think I’ve seen it before!” He grabbed at Edmund’s shoulder. “If there’s some sort of monster war, we should see what this other side is, don’t you think?”

  “Istvan, the mockeries don’t think.”

  “Well, that’s what we thought about the Tyger, wasn’t it?”

  Edmund thought of William trapped in ice. “And look where that got him.”

  “Kyra,” Istvan shouted again, “Kyra, stop attacking it! Let’s see what it does!”

  The Conduit glanced from the mockery to them and then back to the mockery. She had managed to get a storm wind rushing up through the hole in the roof, around through the broken windows, and back up again, and now part of the terminal was on fire and the rest was rapidly filling up with snow. Edmund doubted her eyes could get any wider. The band around her head lit with traceries of bright blue.

  Istvan drew his knife. “If it tries to attack us, I’ll deal with it,” he said to Kyra. He gestured with the blade. “Now come over here next to Edmund and leave the creature be.”

  The mockery managed to hook a claw around one of the overhead beams, pulling itself down against the wind. That grating shriek tore at Edmund’s eardrums. Metal creaked and bent: how long could the roof hold this thing’s weight?

  “Give it a try, Kyra,” Edmund called.

  If Istvan was right, and two different kinds of mockery had been fighting each other… well, if worst came to worst, it would be no worse than things were now.

  The Conduit cast another fearful glance up at the mockery and then took a step backward. Cinders whirled past her. She winced, putting a hand to the side of her head. It seemed harder for her to stop storms than to start them – maybe there was something about them that wanted to be used, or channeled, just as Grace’s innate electricity sought to leap for metal.

  “There you are,” said Istvan. He started forward as the wind began to flag, one arm raised, interposing himself between Kyra and the creature above her.

  Edmund readied his pocket watch.

  The wind sputtered out. Kyra staggered. The roof groaned, now thoroughly misshapen. The mockery lowered itself down to peer through the hole it had made, its lights sweeping across Istvan and then to Kyra. It worked its wide angular jaws. Then, folding its wings in that strange paper-like fashion – they were metal, but attached to the rest of its body indistinguishably, as though the entire creature were wing – it pushed itself through the gap.

  The claw that settled on the floor was almost as large as Edmund. It was single, bat-wise. The rest of the mockery that followed filled the terminal, a mass of black angles and shielded antennae, indistinct shapes swirling through a useless cockpit… and he finally realized what it was. Or, rather, what it was modeled after.

  A stealth bomber.

  No wonder they had never seen one before.

  Edmund winced as it turned its brilliant gaze on him. This could go badly very quickly. “Evening,” he said, feeling a little foolish.

  The mockery opened its mouth.

  * * *

  Lights poured out. Hundreds of tiny, twinkling lights, like fireflies.

  Istvan tensed. He’d seen lights like these in the Wizard War: great clouds of them, swirling around and into supposedly safe structures, setting everything that burned alight and melting through barriers with a touch. They weren’t something he could kill, or even slow; in those days, barring a ward set up by one of the wizards, the best recourse had been simply to run.

  “What are those?” asked Kyra, backing away. Snow billowed through the broken windows, tumbling more sideways than it ought; the flames licking at the corners of the terminal flickered.

  The cloud danced around Istvan a moment, and then darted towards the window in a rush like a school of fish. The mockery closed its jaws, raised its head up on its almost nonexistent neck, and made a deep thrumming noise.

  That still wasn’t a
n attack. It hadn’t attacked anything but the roof, so far. That was vastly different than most mockeries, wasn’t it?

  “I found your twin,” Istvan told it.

  It settled itself more comfortably on the tile. It didn’t seem to have rear legs: only a rear strut, like a tail but jointed. The mist inside its cockpit roiled, flashing with traceries of green. Its headlights fastened themselves on him.

  Istvan glanced at Edmund. The wizard looked as though he intended to bolt at any moment. It had been Edmund’s idea to try to capture one of these creatures, not so long ago, and it had been Edmund who killed it; was it so awful to actually try something other than violence? Istvan had done enough killing in recent days. Never mind how much Lucy might want him to go back.

  Never mind how much he might want to go back.

  He made a show of sheathing his knife in the glare, squinting up at the mockery. He held up his hands. “We’re only here for answers,” he said.

  The headlights snapped off. The glittering cloud swept back around before the mockery, forming a shifting curtain of light that rolled like waves. A circle rotated across it, with a gap in the center – where one mote remained stationary, and three others circled around it.

  “Hey,” said Kyra.

  A shape that very much resembled a pair of jaws closed on the circle. It spun apart, sending the four motes in all directions. The curtain collapsed into a cloud that rushed upwards, the headlights switched back on, and the mockery stared at Istvan expectantly.

  He frowned. “Well.”

  “That’s us,” said Kyra. “That’s us. It’s like it was above us, like a weather map. Did you know they could do that?”

  “No,” said Edmund.

  Istvan thought of William and his screen. Pictures? This mockery could make pictures? Had they always been smart enough to do that, or was it only this type?

  Kyra set her bag on the floor and dug through it. “I’ll make a picture,” she said. “I brought markers.”

  “Make a picture on what?” asked Istvan.

  “The floor, I guess. They’re permanent.”

  The mockery turned its gaze towards her, drifting snow glittering in the beam. Istvan couldn’t make out much of anything from it: none of the mockeries seemed to have emotions like those of living creatures. He knew that Edmund couldn’t take time from them. How intelligent could something like that be?

  Diego, too, was a machine…

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” he asked.

  It glanced at him, then returned its attention to Kyra as she set about scribbling some monstrosity on the tile.

  Istvan looked to Edmund.

  The wizard shrugged. “I don’t think it does.” He nodded at the cloud of lights. “I wonder if this kind might have been the delivery mechanism for the fireswarms. They always did seem to come from somewhere high up.”

  “But using them to communicate?” asked Istvan.

  “Maybe Shokat Anoushak wanted reports.”

  The mockery emitted a grating shriek and pinned its gaze on Edmund. Its wings shifted and stretched, one crashing into a terminal wall. The cloud above whirled into a tight spin, flaring red with sudden heat. The mists in the cockpit coiled over what seemed to be flashes of teeth and eyes.

  “My mistake,” said Edmund, backing up.

  Istvan stepped between it and him, knowing that it would do little good but feeling better about it regardless.

  Kyra sat up on her knees and waved both arms. “No,” she shouted. “Over here. Look over here. Look at this.” She pointed at the tile.

  The mockery made a sound like popping metal, not taking its headlights from Edmund.

  A cold wind buffeted it. “Hey! Look!”

  It snapped its head around – and paused.

  Istvan tried to get a better look at what Kyra had drawn. Snakes? A sort of… knot of snakes? Perhaps dragons, of the Eastern sort? Two of them had horns. They were terribly crude, hasty single-line figures, tangled into each other and put in a circle with odd markings scribbled beneath it.

  A jolt of surprise and dread to his left suggested that Edmund knew what it was.

  “Edmund–” Istvan began.

  The mockery screamed. It crouched as though to lunge.

  Kyra draw a line through the shape.

  The mockery stopped screaming.

  Kyra scribbled the shape out entirely, then sat back up again. She pointed at Istvan and Edmund, then jerked a thumb at herself, and finally slammed a fist down on top of the mess she had created. “If you got a leader,” she said, “take us to it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Istvan couldn’t recall the last time he had ridden anything that flew. He had ridden horses before – long ago, in the Boer War – but he didn’t remember ever trying anything similar with a mockery. Standard procedure had been simply to be rid of them. The mockeries had been flying roadblocks, really; not nearly so entertaining as foes that lived.

  Well. Things did change.

  This mockery even had something like saddles along its metal back: a row of them, shrugged into the metal once it accepted them aboard. Shokat Anoushak’s people had been horseman, nomadic raiders, fearsome mounted archers, and she herself was no exception. Perhaps she had designed all of her creatures to carry a rider if need be.

  “I hope you realize how lucky it was that you pulled that stunt with a marker,” Edmund told Kyra, leaning forward to be heard. The cloud of lights that followed them lit his face with a red-orange glow, keeping the cold at bay and even melting some of the snow as it fell; Istvan imagined even that concession to comfort was welcome.

  “All I had was a marker,” came the reply. “I thought it would be OK.”

  “If you’d used something else, and been a little more precise, it wouldn’t have been,” said Edmund. “You can’t go sketching things like that on a whim.”

  The Conduit hunched in her seat. “It worked.”

  “There’s power in language, Kyra, and symbols are a kind of language in themselves. They say things. The right ones can even draw down attention from things. The next time you see a building with a fleur-de-lis or some other decoration, think about that.”

  “Lots of buildings have decorations,” Kyra pointed out.

  “Exactly,” said Edmund.

  Kyra glanced back over her shoulder. “You’re not saying they’re all magic, are you?”

  “No.” The wizard crossed his arms. “But they could be.”

  Istvan sighed. All he’d been able to glean about the symbol was that it had something to do with renewal, life, perhaps immortality – Edmund was vague; he said that he’d only found parts of it in his books, that it was only ever depicted in part – and that it, was of course, one of Shokat Anoushak’s magics. Sometimes Istvan wished he knew more about all this, but whenever he said anything, Edmund only ever told him that such wishes were dangerous.

  Istvan still didn’t know what exactly the other man had done to receive his own abilities. Only that it had involved a blood sacrifice, and something had come from a lake, and that the rest was so awful that somehow even trying to recall the details could send Edmund into a panic. Something about gods.

  And now Kyra, evidently, had produced concrete proof that the Shattering had translated some of Shokat Anoushak’s knowledge to her intact. It was no wonder that the cults were getting worse.

  “Edmund,” he said, “while this is all very interesting, I should go back and look for William. This is why we brought him. You and Kyra can see to whatever this is; I’ll notify you once I’ve located him.”

  The wizard looked back at him. “We’re not splitting up.”

  Istvan thought of the Tyger, abandoned so near to the tower, drifting about with that enormous monster still in the bay. “We already have.”

  “Let’s not make it worse.”

  “That’s a rule,” called Kyra. “Never split the party.”

  “What do you know?” Istvan called back. “I don’t like lea
ving a man behind, is what I don’t like, and you’re the one who lost him in the first place.”

  “Well… it’s a rule,” Kyra replied. “That’s all. I didn’t make it. We don’t have to follow it, either, it’s just there.”

  “We’ll get him back,” said Edmund.

  “How?” asked Istvan.

  “Not by you going out yourself. I’m not…” The wizard drew a steadying breath. “Listen, Istvan, you can’t move him. If we’re doing anything, I’m the one who will have to go out there.”

  Of course he would. Him or Kyra, though Istvan doubted Kyra had the precision to pick up a living being from outside the funnel without hurting him. They had told the Tyger that they would get him across. No matter what was happening now, they still had an obligation. “Edmund, I don’t see how–”

  “Istvan, I can’t fly. It’s a big lake. It’s snowing. It’s starting to get dark. I don’t like leaving him there any more than you do, but I’m not equipped for this. Maybe we should have looked for a boat.” The wizard sat back in his saddle, exhaustion seeping from every pore. He sighed. “If you’re right about this monster war thing, maybe we can ask for help.”

  “I’d go if you let me,” grumbled Kyra.

  “You’re not going,” said Edmund.

  She patted the mockery’s broad back. “We could ask the airplane monster.”

  “It’s not as smart as you think it is.”

  The mockery let out a grating shriek.

  Kyra leaned over further to stroke the beast near its cockpit. “It’s plenty smart. You’re hurting its feelings, Mr Temp–”

  They pitched forward. Edmund grabbed at the strap of Kyra’s bag, slung over her shoulder, to keep her from falling off. Istvan held on tighter to the bar before him. He wasn’t sure that he liked aerial riding at all: he could do all of this much more easily himself, and more comfortably besides. He was probably faster, too.

  But it had seemed rude to refuse when the mockery produced three saddles…

  The icy ground rushed towards them. The snow had piled so high it was difficult to make out what lay beneath it: buildings, certainly, but split by great flat barriers, a sheet of white pressing forward to crush all in its path.