Immortal Architects
Page 37
Then something caught at his awareness. A faint thread, a distant richness: a strangely familiar feeling, old regret and older dread with the consistency of a fine bitter chocolate. And… something else. Something ancient. Something that drew all fears into itself, crushing them into empty space.
It couldn’t be.
Istvan tumbled from the ceiling. Motes of light danced around him. He spread flayed wings, gasping in a breath by habit.
A man in black whirled to look up at him.
Istvan faltered. “Edmund?”
The motes blazed into flame.
* * *
The specter’s empty eye sockets stared down at Edmund. Istvan had no face – not right now, not always – but the agape jaw was enough.
What was he doing here? How had he known?
What did this look like?
“Wait,” Edmund called. “I–”
The lights closed on the other man, swarming, piranha-like. A knife flashed. No use. Istvan dove down, twisted across the chamber, beat at the assailants with wings set aflame, scattering phantom feathers across the granite–
No. No, no, no.
Edmund chased after him, waving both arms. “Istvan, wait!”
The specter cast one last glance at him – at Shokat Anoushak – and shot back up through the roof.
Edmund slipped on a too-smooth rock. Spent a moment to catch himself – couldn’t halt his momentum – and ended up stumbling into one of the grooved canals, soaked up to one knee in frigid water. He stumbled back out of it with a curse.
“Istvan!” he called again, though he knew it was no use. His fingers searched again for his pocket watch; it had vanished from its place, and its chain with it. “Oh, hell,” he added. “Oh, hell.”
The congregation scattered, some up the tunnel and others spilling over the canals and toward him. The crawling lizard-like creature. The spearing bird and its razor wings. A beast with stars sparkling among its antlers. Signs and signals he couldn’t read passed back and forth between them, in scraped hooves and blinking glances: their own silent language, invented out of necessity.
“Wait,” Edmund said, holding up his hands, “I had nothing to do with this.”
The water rose from the canal before him. Murky shapes swam in its sudden depths. A molten glow glimmered around ribbed and angular darkness, coming closer.
Edmund backpedaled. “I didn’t!” Where had he dropped his watch? He needed his watch. It was so much harder to focus without his watch. “Istvan wasn’t supposed to be here! He shouldn’t have known! Listen, I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. You can have your swarm up there attest to that. This was personal. I never said a word. I don’t know why he’s here!”
“He’s not a collection,” Edmund snapped. Istvan was a friend. His best friend. The only friend he could keep.
A friend he’d abandoned without warning, and who had just caught him with the enemy.
The glass guardian drew closer, water from the falls running across the ceiling and congealing into its mirror-bright surface as the rest of its bones emerged from wherever it kept itself. Far too many arms swept outwards and hardened into scythes.
Edmund swallowed. “I didn’t lie to you,” he repeated. One of the buttons on his jacket was missing. The one that normally held his watch chain.
He couldn’t leave now. This was maybe the only chance he’d get. He had so many questions. He’d studied Shokat Anoushak for so long, and now she was right here: alive, trapped, and willing to talk. Maybe the cult was onto something. It would have been fine if Istvan hadn’t showed up. It would have all been fine!
Rock cracked. Dust showered from the ceiling.
The guardian paused.
A new tributary spouted from the waterfall. A thud came from above, and then a strange, scouring rush, like wind. New seams crackled across the stone.
Edmund covered his head.
The ceiling came apart with a roar. Shards of rock showered across the remaining congregation. Sun and snow and biting cold poured into the cavern–
–along with an entire river’s worth of water.
It crashed against the granite. Edmund bolted for the tunnel entrance. The guardian flared molten and dissolved, melting into the advancing wave, a sheen rippling across its surface. Cult members struggled within it, swept away.
Shokat Anoushak merely laughed.
The river slowed – hardened – halted. Ton after ton of stone spun upwards, hurled into the air. What had been a cavern was now a sinkhole, coated in ice.
A tall and lanky figure floated high above, clad in bright armor and a bulky backpack, right arm outstretched. Around her flowed a scarlet cape. Beside her hovered Istvan, cloaked in poison and thunder. Grace orbited with the wind, flailing, armed with a pair of duffel bags and sheer bravado. It couldn’t be anyone else.
The eye of the storm.
Kyra.
* * *
“Gently,” Istvan advised. “Gently!”
Kyra wavered in the air, barely balancing one-armed. “I’m trying. I can’t go any lower.” Her eyes darted from the exposed cavern to the rim of the new crater and back again. More earth tore from below and spiraled up around them. “I… I don’t think I can land down there without ripping it up.”
“How did you land before?” Istvan asked.
“I never landed anywhere before!”
Grace Wu shouted something about a grappling hook – it was difficult to make out her voice over the wind.
Istvan looked down again. Edmund was safely in the cavern mouth, holding onto his hat. Good. The cult seemed to be having trouble regrouping. The statue of Shokat Anoushak was partially submerged in the now-frozen river. How such a thing had happened, he had no idea, but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about Edmund drowning.
Captured. This whole time, the man had been captured! That was the only explanation for his absence – surely he would have returned to Niagara, if he were able. Had they taken his telephone? Could the cult somehow block his teleport?
Never mind that he hadn’t seemed relieved to see Istvan. There… there had to be a good reason. Perhaps they had tortured him. Perhaps he was drugged, or…
Istvan shook his head. No, first they had to get down there. Put an end to this.
Kyra dipped lower again. A new layer of rock disintegrated. She pinwheeled, trying to regain altitude. “Hey! Hey – what if I just dropped us? Could we float down?”
“What?” shouted Grace.
“What about the rocks?” asked Istvan.
Kyra gritted her teeth. “I guess they’d get dropped, too. Uh. Miss Wu!”
“What?”
“Can you punch rocks?”
“What?”
Istvan tried to gauge the distance to the cavern floor. It was much too far to fall safely, but not far enough to open a parachute. Unless…
The river shifted. Strange reflections rippled across its frozen surface.
He blinked.
Kyra yelled. She whirled about and punched down with her good arm. The wind twisted crazily, shearing sideways, gouging the frozen waterfall out of the cavern wall. Ice turned to spray. Molten droplets flew past and through him, some striking Kyra’s armor.
Glass? The river was glass?
“On the edge,” Grace called, zipping past overhead. “Land on the edge! I’ll rappel…” She waved a grappling hook, partly removed from one of the bags, as she sped out of earshot again.
Kyra steadied herself again, looking around wildly. “Did I get it?”
The rest of the river rose up behind her. It had a skull.
Istvan shouted a warning. He lunged. His blade struck water. He couldn’t cut water. How was it water again? “Kyra!”
It snapped her up. Mirror-brightness rippled along the cr
eature’s length as it twisted, falling back towards a now-liquid lake where the ice had been.
It was turning back to glass, with Kyra inside.
Istvan dove after it as the storm disintegrated. Dust, rock, parts of cars, and building foundations tumbled around him. Grace Wu plummeted past with a yell. Istvan couldn’t catch her. Istvan couldn’t catch anyone. “Kyra!”
The young Conduit kicked ineffectually. Bubbles streamed from her mouth. She grabbed hold of strange black bone, and kicked again. New storm winds ripped through its length, severing it in three places, and it collapsed.
They fell together, in sudden rain.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Edmund appeared.
Istvan gaped at him. “I–”
The man grabbed for Kyra as she fought with her parachute – and missed. He tumbled past at a precarious angle, with a barely audible curse, and then vanished again. He hadn’t had his pocket watch with him.
He could teleport. He wasn’t trapped here at all.
Istvan looked around for Grace Wu and caught a glimpse of Edmund flickering in and out of existence near her, as well. Her parachute was starting to… no, it was unfurling already, it was…
Her odd snake-like kite coil floated over to them, the lens of a camera glinting at its end. She shouted.
Istvan wasn’t certain what happened after that, precisely. Kyra took hold of the coil, he knew. Grace Wu’s parachute seemed to have opened remarkably quickly. Kyra did something with the wind. It all happened when he wasn’t looking: he glanced back and forth between one and then the other, and then somehow, they had managed to get both parachutes open before they struck the cavern floor, and had reached the shelter of the entrance tunnel before the storm detritus smashed down where they had been.
Just in time.
Just enough time.
Istvan clawed his way out of the rubble. Dust and snow whirled around him. Rivulets of water and molten glass trickled down into the ground. Shouting and flashes of light came from somewhere close by. Edmund must have given Grace time enough to get both her and Kyra out of danger, trusting that she would do something useful. Of course he couldn’t do the same with Istvan. Granting time to the dead would be resurrection, and that was beyond his powers.
The fighting, wherever it was, died down. A voice – a woman’s voice, one Istvan didn’t recognize – called out. He turned, squinting. He didn’t know that language.
Shokat Anoushak rose from the wreckage. Her once-fine garments were torn, her crown missing. A web of cracks split her face. She had no hands. Her presence was a well. A pit. A pool so deep and so pure that it fell away, bottomless, bitter as ash.
Istvan backed up, knowing that barbed wire and artillery would give him away. Kyra was right. Kyra had been right about everything.
Shokat Anoushak knelt down and plunged the stumps of her wrists into the wreckage. Green lightning sparked around them. She smiled.
“You,” shouted Kyra.
The Conduit staggered through the dust. She looked very much worse for wear, her armor scorched and dented. Her boots slipped on loose stones. She had only one good arm to steady herself – and yet she struggled on anyhow, glaring at the risen Immortal with hate in her eyes. “You ain’t going nowhere!”
The wind followed her. She raised her hands.
Edmund hurtled himself at her, tackling her to the ground. “No! You can’t!”
Istvan flinched away from the scuffle, glancing back at Shokat Anoushak. What was Edmund doing? Was he enthralled? Why was he here, after all? If he could escape, this entire time, and hadn’t…
Why hadn’t he told them? Why had he gone alone?
Kyra yelled. A sudden blast knocked Edmund away – and then he wasn’t there. He stood behind her. He wavered, unsteady on the rubble. The young Conduit turned to face him instead, fist raised. “Mr Templeton, what are you doing?”
“Edmund,” said Istvan, unable to articulate much else.
Oh, he wasn’t. He couldn’t have. He was better than that.
He had to be better than that.
Edmund closed his eyes, then opened them again. “I need her,” he said. He held out his hands. They shook. “I’m sorry.”
* * *
His only chance. The only way. He couldn’t let this go. He couldn’t let Kyra finish what she’d come to do. He couldn’t let Istvan stop him. He couldn’t let anyone stop him. Grace was already out of the way.
Shokat Anoushak had to live.
She had to live, so the Hour Thief could live forever. No matter what it took.
It hurt to look at Istvan.
“I’m sorry,” Edmund repeated.
“Why?” Istvan asked. Flesh crept back over bare bone, his face a mask of horror. “We expected you. We thought that you were lost, or hurt, or captured. I thought…” His wings drooped. “Edmund, why?”
Edmund swallowed. “Counterbalance,” he said, his own voice sounding alien. “It’s what Mercedes would want. Someone who can threaten Barrio Libertad.” Numb. He’d gone numb. “Politics, like the Cold War. It’s just politics.”
Good reasons. Logical reasons.
Shokat Anoushak straightened, flexing hands of loose rock and scrap held together by sheet lightning. A layer of water flowed up her stone form, rippled, and solidified over it, mirror-bright: a second coating, a skin that covered the cracks. Dozens of silvery braids cascaded down her back. She cast her gaze over those assembled, a molten glow flickering behind the emeralds of her eyes.
Edmund wiped his hands on his jacket, trying to hide the shaking.
“That’s stupid,” announced Kyra. “You’re stupid.” She brought her fist back up, snow spinning around her in a sudden flurry. “I’m taking her out.”
Istvan stared at him a moment longer, then looked away. The memory of artillery thundered. “Harbor is attacking Niagara,” he said.
Edmund froze. Harbor? The Harbor?
Something hit him in the back. Sparks lanced up his spine. His muscles seized. He tried to teleport, tried to reach for the coordinate-offerings that would get him out of the vice grip that closed around him, but lights popped before his eyes and he was almost positive he was having a heart attack. It wouldn’t kill him.
“A parachute, Eddie?” yelled Grace. She pushed him down. “Really? You’re going to try to tangle me in a parachute?”
He couldn’t form any words that weren’t garbled.
“I did not resign for this,” she added. “I did not come all the way out here just so you could join Team Evil. Kid, take it away.”
said Shokat Anoushak.
Gravel slithered. It sounded like someone stumbling.
“What?” demanded Kyra.
A pause. The wind whistled in his ears.
“Don’t listen,” called Istvan. “Whatever she’s saying, it isn’t true.”
Kyra answered him, after another long moment, “I dunno. Makes sense to me.”
Edmund tried to make his lungs work again. Kyra understood Scythian. Great. He twisted in an attempt to get a better view of something that wasn’t the ground, but Grace held him in a headlock, and only clamped down tighter. She was inhumanly strong; he wasn’t going to win this by force.
“Listen to me,” he managed to wheeze. “This is a new being you’re talking to. She didn’t do what you think she did.”
Grace snorted. “Bullshit.”
“She doesn’t even remember the Wizard War, Grace!”
“Why do you need her?” asked Istvan.
Edmund faltered. He’d said that, hadn’t he. He shouldn’t have said that. He shouldn’t have come. He already knew too much. He had to get out of this headlock before they did anything else. Get out, get the others away, and then go from there. It was too late to turn back now.
If they didn’t forgive him, fine. He didn’t deserve it.
“OK, Miss Anoushak,” said Kyra, finally, “what do you
want?”
Edmund closed his eyes. He didn’t need his pocket watch. It made things easier, was all. He could still win this.
Shokat Anoushak continued,
Edmund teleported.
* * *
Kyra stared, free hand creeping up to clasp at the sling across her chest. The snow fell around but never on her.
What the Immortal was saying to her, Istvan had no idea, but he was certain it was nothing good. Why would anyone like that bother speaking, unless there were some motive? Why deal with lessers at all, if she were so beyond them? The Susurration had wielded words like a weapon; surely Shokat Anoushak was no different.
He held his knife at the ready. “Kyra, don’t listen. She can’t be–”
Grace Wu struck the rubble with a curse. Edmund was gone.
Oh, no.
Istvan leapt to protect Kyra. Edmund was fast: too fast. If the wizard tried to get at her, it would be almost impossible to stop him. Istvan couldn’t touch him if he didn’t want to be touched.
Edmund got there first. So did Grace.
They struck with a flash. Stones flew. Grace lunged, gauntlets crackling; Edmund flickered, sliding just past the edge of vision. Charged punches never reached him. Istvan couldn’t make out the motion between: both of them seemed to maneuver in bursts, one with uncanny deftness and the other with explosive energy.
Istvan landed beside Kyra, who was doing her best to cover her face. Gravel skittered off her armor.
“Shatterer,” she repeated to herself. “Breaker of prisons.”
Oh, she was losing herself already.
Istvan folded his wings around her. Lightning cracked. Edmund and Grace Wu vanished, golden light dissipating where they had been–
–and only Edmund returned.
Shokat Anoushak said something in her ancient language. The man flinched. She gestured to the sky. Glowing motes, like those of Marat, descended in the snow. An odd skittering came from the cavern entrance; a whine, like rotors, came from above. Glass crept up the cavern walls.