Immortal Architects

by Paige Orwin

  “Should have brought better gloves,” grumbled Edmund.

  Istvan wished he could lend anyone his own coat. If not for the lights that yet kept pace, like tiny embers, both Edmund and Kyra would have frozen long ago.

  The Greater Great Lakes fracture did have a glacier, after all.

  The mockery sped towards its advancing edge, dropping lower and lower. The cityscape that led up to it swept into a sinuous collection of hills and towers, none of them matching, most of them ruined. It seemed to be mostly new construction: rows of identical houses, box stores, church spires here and there, a sprawl rather than the dense skyscrapers of a city center.

  One of the rubble-strewn hills shifted, rising like a crocodile peering out of water. Snow banks tumbled. It opened an eye that sputtered green lightning.

  “Does Big East have those?” whispered Kyra.

  Istvan winced as their mockery let out another scream. “We did.”

  “What happened?”

  “We killed all of them.”

  “You did?”

  “Me? No.” Istvan thought of Lucy, reciting titles like “the star-tower beast of dread Chicago,” and sighed. “Well, some of them. With help. What did you think those great bloody skeletons were around Providence?”

  “Oh,” said Kyra.

  The city-beast closed its eye again, and relaxed back down under the earth. Istvan had seen them erupt from nowhere, burrowing through solid rock as though it were air, always seeking more structures to add to their form. Were all of the ones in Toronto so… docile? Save the one in the lake, of course.

  “Watch the sky,” murmured Edmund.

  Istvan squinted. Dark shapes moved against the clouds.

  The glacier rose towards them. It wasn’t a wall so much as a mountain, its slope gradual but inevitable, cut through with fissures. The mockery angled towards one of them: a gash in white, other lights glinting in the advancing darkness. There didn’t seem to be anywhere to land.

  He tried to peer over the side, but the mockery’s wings were too broad. It was almost all wing. There was no side to peer over.

  “These weren’t the ones who took you?” Edmund asked Kyra.

  The Conduit shook her head.

  “They all look the same to me,” said Istvan, pulling himself back upright. “How would you know?”

  “That,” Kyra replied, pointing at the glacier. “I don’t remember that, and I probably would, right?”

  Istvan looked to Edmund.

  The wizard shrugged. “Just thought I’d ask.”

  Istvan thought of the sigil again. Mockeries weren’t bright enough to fake hostility, were they? Its reaction to the mention of Shokat Anoushak had seemed quite genuine, for a wholly unnatural creature, but…

  They slowed. The roar of engines quieted, then petered out. The mockery’s wings fanned, their strange angles and sharp edges stark against the onrushing ice. They were gliding – gliding directly towards a steep cliff riddled with holes, from which light poured like a multitude of stars. Mantis-like shapes scuttled across its surface.

  They weren’t going to land. Not the way the others were likely expecting.

  “Hold on,” Istvan called. “Hold on tightly!”

  The ice sped towards them. The mockery tilted upwards, wings flaring, stalling just before it struck the surface. Its claws connected with a jarring crack. Flecks of ice showered down, cascading into the glacial canyon below.

  Istvan realized he was hovering rather than staying seated like he ought. “All right?” he asked.

  Edmund clung to the barred saddle horn, digging in his heels to keep from slipping off. He was missing his hat. No – it was crushed down and folded between his arms, evidently not worth the trouble to keep on his head. “Great,” he said, which was a lie.

  “I’m OK,” said Kyra, in the same predicament.

  The mockery loosed a low hiss and began pulling itself across the cliff face.

  Edmund was done with flying. He didn’t care how it was done: if he didn’t have to fly ever again, anywhere, he’d be happy. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. None of them were. His job was at Niagara, not deep in a foreign fracture zone that still crawled with monsters.

  And did it crawl. Did it ever.

  The mockery took them to the nearest opening in the cliff face, clambering halfway inside and then pausing just long enough for Edmund to pry his fingers off the saddle horn and get both himself and Kyra to what passed for solid ground. The roar as it took off again shook the cave. The lights – and their heat – went with it.

  A bare tunnel awaited them.

  Istvan alighted beside him, the thunder of his presence probably doing the ice no favors. It was so cold that Edmund could barely make out the smell of poison. Not that the ghost had to worry about anything like that: Istvan didn’t care about cold, didn’t care about heights, and didn’t care about hunger or exhaustion. Istvan was probably having a grand old time.

  “Cheater,” Edmund muttered.

  Istvan turned empty eye sockets on him. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Edmund looked to Kyra, who was standing some distance off, shivering. She’d managed to hold on to that bag, through everything. “Kid. You wouldn’t happen to have any of those snack bars still on you, by any chance?”

  The Conduit blinked at him. Her breath steamed before her. “The food?”

  “The food,” Edmund confirmed. “Good idea, by the way.”

  She looked away, seeming embarrassed. She set the bag on the ground and began rummaging through it, still shivering.

  Edmund unbuttoned his cape and shrugged off his overcoat. He offered it to her. “Here.”

  “What? No, no. I’m good.”

  “It’ll make me feel better,” Edmund said.

  “Well…” She pulled out a snack bar, looked at it, then held it up. “Trade?”

  “Deal.”

  Edmund took a bite as Kyra put on his coat. Almonds and chocolate. He hadn’t had chocolate since…

  He checked the packaging. Far too many sixteen-letter words for his liking.

  He shrugged and took another bite. Preservatives were a wonderful thing.

  Istvan heaved a sigh. “Shall I go on ahead?”

  Edmund pretended that the cold wasn’t bothering him. “No. We’re right behind you. Kyra, how’s the coat?”

  The Conduit finished buttoning up the front. It seemed to fit, more or less, except for the fact that the kid was almost a foot taller than Edmund and the hem didn’t reach as far as it should. “It’s OK. Pretty warm.”

  Edmund nodded. “Good.”

  Istvan sighed again and started for the tunnel. He was wearing his military greatcoat, now – an elaborate number with embroidered hems and the same flower insignia along the collar as his usual jacket. After all his time in the Alps, the glacier had to almost feel like home to him.

  The tunnel wound down, gently, curving side to side as if it had been bored by a giant worm, slippery in the center where other feet must have trod. Edmund held up his telephone for light, however faint. The bluish glow of the screen did nothing to make the place seem warmer.

  “No welcoming party,” muttered Istvan.

  Edmund didn’t answer. One procession to a throne room had been enough.

  His screen blinked. He checked it. Power low. Great.

  “Hey,” said Kyra. The yellow beam of a pocket flashlight blazed before them – then sputtered, and died. Kyra frowned, and shook it. The light didn’t return.

  “You tried,” said Edmund. “Working batteries are a trick.”

  “What else do you have in there?” asked Istvan.

  Kyra shoved the dead flashlight back into the bag. “Took everything I could find. It’s the end of the world, right? It’s what you’re supposed to do. Why didn’t you guys pack anything?”

  Edmund didn’t have the heart to tell her that every journey, when you could teleport, wasn’t far from safety and resupply. He hadn’t packed extra anything in years
. Come to think of it, he hadn’t gone on any kind of long-term mission for as long as he could remember. That had been more Istvan’s field, and a ghost wouldn’t remember to bring food.

  “Overconfidence,” he said.

  Kyra slung the bag back over her shoulders with a huff.

  Edmund wondered if he shouldn’t head back to get another coat… but a bare tunnel wasn’t the best marker, and he didn’t want to miss a return teleport in the middle of enemy territory. He didn’t usually mean to stick around when things took a turn for the worse. Always easier to leave, regroup, and come back later. Always easier to run.

  Istvan was right.

  They pressed on as the glacier cracked and shifted around them. Edmund’s battery power fell lower and lower. The cold settled into his limbs and stayed there. He couldn’t feel his nose.

  Finally, firelight flickered across the ice.

  The tunnel opened into a broad, low-roofed chamber with rounded walls. A bonfire burned in the center of it, propped atop a slab of concrete. Water dropped from the ceiling. Heaps of plastic tubs and packing crates lay stacked atop each other, coated in frost, numbers scrawled clumsily across their sides.

  Near one of three other entrances crouched a blue-furred cross between tiger and bear. It was sorting a collection of scrap wood into two piles.

  “William?” asked Edmund.

  The beast turned, crouching with a growl. One of its ears was torn off. Icicles dripped from its muzzle. Not William. Kyra hadn’t been kidding about seeing his kind before. It seemed William was from up north, after all.

  Edmund held up his hands, shifting unobtrusively closer to the bonfire. “Sorry. We’ve lost a friend.”

  Yellow eyes shifted to Istvan.

  Edmund glanced over. The ghost had killed who knew how many of Shokat Anoushak’s creatures during the Wizard War. Had word of him made it all the way here?

  Istvan removed his hand from his knife handle. “We should like to talk,” he said. “One of the fliers brought us here. The great angled black one. We’re from Niagara.” He glanced back up the tunnel. “We… have some questions.”

  “We’re here to stop Shokat Anoushak,” Kyra chimed in.

  “Quiet,” Istvan hissed.

  The beast paused a moment, tilting its head. It looked back and forth between Istvan and Kyra. Then, it bared its teeth. It reached out a great paw, flexing its claws to full extension.

  K, it scratched into the floor.

  Friendly. Not disturbed by the notion of stopping its creator. All good signs. It was about time anything started looking up.

  Edmund rubbed his hands together. Maybe soon he’d be able to feel them again. “Is there someone we can talk to?”

  y

  “Thanks.”

  np

  The beast shoved aside one of its piles of wood and ambled towards one of the other entrances, jerking its head.

  “What did that last one mean?” whispered Istvan.

  Edmund shrugged.

  “They’re rebels,” breathed Kyra. “Monster rebels.”

  “We’ll see,” Edmund told her, trying not to sniffle as his nose defrosted. He called after the departing beast, “Mind if we warm up a little, first?”

  A shrug.

  Edmund edged as close to the fire as he dared. Maybe he could make himself a torch. Anything was better than nothing. Were all the northern monsters cold-loving? Or, if they were hiding here against their will… did that mean this was one side of a civil war, or a band of refugees?

  Was Shokat Anoushak back already?

  He shook his head as the bottom dropped out of his stomach, fighting back fluttering terror. Later. Find out what they knew. Don’t get ahead of himself. Besides, if the Immortal was back already, it would be a damn sight more obvious.

  Wouldn’t it?

  “All right?” he asked Kyra.

  “They’ll help us get William back,” she replied. She gave a firm nod, moving closer to the fire. “If he’s one of them, they’ll definitely help us.”

  “We don’t know who he was,” said Istvan, keeping his voice low. He gripped his bandolier, watching the waiting beast with narrowed eyes. “He doesn’t know who he was.”

  Edmund looked around for a length of wood he could use. “Maybe they will.”

  * * *

  A mansion lay buried beneath the ice.

  Edmund cringed as they emerged beneath the vast dome that sheltered it, ton after ton of glacier pressing down over their heads. The building was Victorian, enormous, a sprawling estate of narrow windows and long halls. Fires burned along the advancing edge of the ice, set along what had likely once been magnificent gardens and was now nothing more than a collection of dry hedge remnants and the glittering skeletons of trees. What was keeping it all up, he couldn’t imagine.

  Swarms of glittering lights milled in the air, drifting like stars beneath the dome.

  asked Istvan, in German, casting a glance at the beast padding before them.

  Edmund shrugged, unknowing. This was a more elaborate refuge than most. He didn’t think the Twelfth Hour could have pulled off something like this.

  Their guide paused before the mansion stairs. It jerked its head at the doors above them, then sat. A fine sheen of frost crackled across the ground.

  “Thanks,” said Edmund.

  The beast shook its head.

  “Can you use the lights?” asked Kyra, pointing at the motes drifting above them.

  Another shake of the head. A claw scraped a word into the frost:

  go

  Edmund glanced at Istvan. This was about as deep into enemy territory as they could get, if this went bad. And getting back… well, they’d already left William floating for over four hours. He hadn’t seemed worried about suffocating, but the less time he spent in the harbor, the better. If only it hadn’t started to get dark. If only it wasn’t so cold.

  If only it hadn’t had anything to do with the lake.

  “I’m going back if they aren’t helping,” said Istvan. He started up the stairs.

  “Sorry,” muttered Kyra.

  Edmund didn’t respond. There wasn’t anything left to say that he hadn’t said already. He followed Istvan up and got the door open.

  A swarm of lights met them, glowing with welcome heat. The mansion’s furnishings seemed intact, aside from some upholstery damaged by water, and if he didn’t look out of any of the windows, Edmund wouldn’t have known it sat under a glacier in the first place. There was even a fire lit.

  “This is even nicer than your house, Mr Templeton,” said Kyra.

  Edmund squinted at a china cabinet. “It’s much nicer than my house.”

  “Hello?” Istvan called.

  The lights whirled around the three of them and then darted off through a far doorway, down a broad hall.

  “Well,” said Istvan. “You’d think that they could come to us.”

  Edmund shrugged. He didn’t even know what “they” were. Finding a community of Shokat Anoushak’s creatures was strange enough. Expecting anything seemed ungracious.

  The mansion was, despite first appearances, far from deserted. A stag paced down one of the halls. Stone lions guarded a conservatory. A trio of golden birds, with sparkling trains like a peacock, stood on a dining table, pulling apart a chunk of oily meat. The lights darted everywhere, in and out open windows, turning slow circles around chandeliers. Footsteps sounded on the floors above them. Snorting and scuffling came from behind closed doors.

  No speech. None of the beasts could form so much as a single word.

  It was eerie. Big East had no surviving creatures from the Wizard War: anything that appeared came from outside, or arose from the influence of the surrounding spellscars. All of the originals – those not already killed in the fighting – had died at Providence with their master, leaving nothing but ash and glass.

  Would they have formed a society of their own, given the chance?


  The lights led them up a spiral staircase, funneled into a thin stream, and sped through a pair of tall double doors, one of them cracked slightly open.

  Oh, boy. Edmund took a breath and led the way inside.

  The room must have been a study, once. Across the back stretched a full wall of glass, looking over the gardens and the ice looming above. In the center, the lights danced around a larger-than-life sculpture of an owl, stiff and crude, carved from dark wood, its eyes blank and staring circles of mother-of-pearl. Ash and shavings lay heaped on the floor around it.

  Edmund looked closer. No, there were bones in there, too. Most of them much smaller than human. Most of them.

  Istvan drew up to one side of him, warily. Kyra hung back: the abundance of strange beasts was making her more and more nervous, despite her initial enthusiasm, and Edmund couldn’t blame her.

  Neither one said anything, so Edmund broke the silence first. He was the wizard here, after all. He faced the owl and took off his hat. “Evening.”

  The owl stared at him, the oily sheen of its eyes seeming to shift color.

  He tried a smile. “I’m Edmund Templeton, the Hour Thief. We’re from the Twelfth Hour, down south, and we’re here to investigate rumor of a cult. We were hoping you could help us.”

  “Ain’t a rumor,” Kyra muttered.

  “Isn’t.”

  “Edmund,” Istvan huffed as the lights drew closer.

  Edmund wasn’t sorry. The kid had to learn proper grammar someday. Best to start sooner rather than later. “These are my friends,” he continued. “Dr Istvan Czernin and–”

  Glowing motes met wooden feathers. The owl blazed into a pillar of fire.

  “Woah,” Edmund shouted, instinctively, jerking backwards and holding out a hand to shield Kyra. The heat seared his eyes. The ash billowed into a white cloud, settling on every surface. He blinked through fogged goggles as skeletal wings beat against the fire… which then spread wings of its own.

  “You are the storm that bypassed harbor,” came a crackling voice, neither male nor female, harsh and rasping.

  “Harbor?” Istvan demanded. “We weren’t looking for–”

  The owl’s eyes glowed within the flames. “None brave the north so long as harbor remains. This is our defense, and our prison.”