by Isaac Hooke
Ari smiled. She didn't know what to say to that.
"So how are you anyway? Married now I hope?" Cora was apparently one of those people who judged a woman by whether or not she'd pledged her life to a man, in sickness and in health.
Ari pressed her lips together. "No ma, I'm not married."
"Why not? It would bring me a smile, knowing I got me some grandkids somewhere. Besides, a man would do you good."
"Why aren't you with Hoodwink then?"
The smile left her mother's face and Cora busied herself cutting. "You should be married. It's a bad bad thing to be a woman of your age and still spinning threads. You've waited too long. Any longer and you'll wait yourself right out of the marketplace."
"If marriage is so good, how come every time I mention Hoodwink you ignore me or change the subject?"
Cora chose the ignore option once again. "I know a few able men, about your age. There's the son of the tailor, up the street. A fine lad. And Billee, the dyer's son. Though you might prefer Graff, the smith's boy. Face like a beat-up pail, but strong arms. You always had a liking for boys with strong arms."
"Ma, I don't need you to play matchmaker. And our tastes in men are obviously different. A smith's son? Seriously?"
"Bah." Cora tossed the carrot in, stem and all, and fetched another to chop.
"I'll think about it," Ari said. No use deepening the rift between them. "There's something I have to do first. But I'll come back and you can set me up with as many of these boys as you like. I can't promise I'll fall for any of them though."
Cora grinned. "Well! Now that's the spirit. A little bit of my old Ari come back to me. I knew you were still inside there somewhere."
Ari ignored the disturbingly casual reference to her revisioning. "Ma, can I ask you something? Why are you punishing yourself by living here?"
Cora's smile was thin, and fleeting. "Moved here to get away from the snow, I did. It's funny, but I guess I thought the cold would be gone with it. But it's frigid as ever. More-so, even." Cora pulled her cloak tight. She finished with the carrot, then grabbed a potato and started peeling it. "So what brings you to the grand City of Darkness? You need my help? Are you in trouble? Surely you didn't come just to visit?"
"Maybe I did. Maybe I finally wanted to make peace with my ma before too late."
Cora blinked a few times, then her gaze steadied. "We're at peace already, far as I'm concerning. No matter what you've done. No matter what you've become. You're still a User?"
Ari almost said yes. "No. I left them a long time ago." She was glad now that she hadn't brought a sword, and that she wore a fake bronze bitch.
"Good." Cora gave her a warm smile. "I knew you wouldn't be associating with those bad people anymore. I knew you were smarter than that. Better." Her eyes became distant. "I still remember when you were just a girl of seventeen. Come back from your first User execution. You were so bright-eyed back then. But after that day, a bit of the twinkle had gone from your eyes."
Ari frowned. "I don't remember."
A shadow passed over her mother's face. "No. You wouldn't, would you?" She tossed the potato in the pot and began peeling another. "You hounded me about the Users that day. Who are they? What do they stand for? Why do we have to wear collars? Got me so worried that I yelled at you and sent you to your room. I thought that would be the end of it. But you began bringing home strange propaganda, and stranger friends. We were convinced you were going to join the Users, we were. And we did what we did because we thought we were saving you. Imagine my shock and surprise when I found out you'd gone and become a User anyway, despite it all."
Ari was confused. "What do you mean, you did what you did because you thought you were saving me?"
But Cora didn't hear. She was lost in memory. "I still remember the day Jeremy came. You used the electricity for the first time, that day. We hadn't collared you before then, because we hadn't seen the signs. You'd kept them a secret. Kept your power from the world. But you erupted when Jeremy came. Nearly messed-up him and your father real good with the lightning. Maybe it would have been for the best if you had. We tried to buy you back a month after. Too late by then. Too late."
Cora slumped, and her head came dangerously close to the boiling water in the pot. But ma didn't seem to notice.
Ari wasn't sure why Cora was telling her all this, nor that she wanted to hear any more of it.
"Ma, this is a great little talk we're having, but you're right, I actually came here for a reason. I want to tell you something." Ari bit her lip. Would she be able to go through with this? Sharing her deepest thoughts and emotions could be so hard sometimes. She'd built up shields to protect herself, but sometimes those shields needed to come crashing down if she wanted to get through to those she cared about the most. "I wish I'd never been revised, all those years ago. I wish I'd never been taken away from you. But it's not your fault. And it's certainly not Hoodwink's. I want you to stop blaming him and yourself. Especially yourself. I want you to live again. Return to humanity, ma. Go back to Uncle Briar's house. Don't punish yourself by living in this shithole. You deserve better, ma. You always did. You can still be the singer you dreamed of. It's never too late."
Cora straightened and grabbed another potato. She began peeling it, though her hands were shaking visibly. Cora suddenly raised the knife and stabbed it into the heart of the potato she held. She withdrew the knife and stabbed again.
"Ma stop it!" Ari rose. "You'll cut yourself!"
"Get out," Cora said. "Get out. Get out!" She tossed the potato, knife and all, into the boiling water. "You don't get it do you? You don't get it at all. I wanted Jeremy to take you. He paid me. Paid me and Hoodwink both." She was cackling now. "We let him have you! We made money off you! We're not your mother and father! How could we be, after doing something like that? Get out! GET OUT!"
The words hardly registered. Ari was too stunned. Mother had accepted money ten years ago to give her up? Jeremy had paid Cora and Hoodwink so that he could take Ari and shape her into his personal bitch?
Ari found her satchel and staggered backward to the door. None of this made sense. None of it. No. It wasn't possible. Hoodwink would never do that to her. Ma was just trying to drive a wedge between them.
No. No. No!
This is why she built up shields. This is why she never let anyone get close. They always hurt you, those closest to you. Always.
She fumbled with the door knob and wrenched the door open, nearly ripping it from its hinges.
The seven guards lay in various pieces on the cave floor. Above them towered the four-armed Direwalker she'd encountered at Jeremy's mansion.
There was a wild grin on its face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ari stared dumbly at the Direwalker. The symbol of a curved tooth, dripping blood, was stamped into its chest, and its long black coat was swept back so that all its hands were revealed.
Fourarms lifted one of those hands and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
The hand inched toward her forehead. Light glinted from a shiny, metallic disk in the palm.
Ari gaped at the hand, and the disk, too shocked to respond. Closer and closer the disk came. In a moment the shiny object would touch her.
It was her mother who saved her.
A blur shot past on Ari's left—the pot hurtling by, boiling water sloshing over the rim as the handle pinwheeled. The pot collided with the gol's face and dumped the scalding contents all over it. The lip of the pot managed to snag on its head, and covered the Direwalker's eyes like a cap pulled too low. A lucky shot.
It was enough.
Ari snapped back to the present. She ducked beneath that swinging palm and its disk. She bounded onto Fourarms while the Direwalker was still off balance and blinded, but it was like leaping into a concrete pillar.
Those four arms started to enwrap her—
She squirmed downward, dodging that crushing grip.
She scooped a sword from one o
f the fallen guards and plunged the blade into the Direwalker's chest. But the tip skidded and sparked as though she'd struck rock. The vibration passed up the sword into her arm and jolted her teeth.
Fourarms ripped the pot free. The boiling water had no apparent effect. Its face hadn't even reddened. The Direwalker opened its mouth in a sickening grin, its long fangs bared, and it came at her.
Ari sidestepped, bashing the hilt of the sword into the back of its neck with everything she had. Again her arms hurt as if she'd struck stone, but the blow helped—the Direwalker took two unnecessary steps to recover its balance.
Ari seized the opportunity to run.
She glanced back down the cave, and saw the Direwalker pursuing her on all six limbs like some kind of giant centipede.
It was gaining on her.
The cave widened ahead, and branched three ways. She took the rightmost branch, following the city map in her head.
The scuttle of those pursuing claws reflected from the cave walls so that the sound seemed to come at her from all sides, and she couldn't gauge the distance by hearing alone. She kept glancing back, feeling for all the world that the thing would be on her in moments.
She rounded a bend and nearly ran into three gol guards on patrol.
"Help!" she shouted as she tore past.
She glanced askance. Fourarms hadn't slowed. Its mouth was open, its fangs anticipating the kill. Behind it, the three guards gave chase. Though they were fast, they weren't fast enough. Four paces separated them from the Direwalker. Not close enough to save her life.
Ahead, the floor seemed darker somehow...
She realized too late what it was—a smooth patch of black ice.
She slipped and fell the instant she touched that ice. Momentum carried her forward. She heard frantic clawing as the Direwalker struggled to stay upright, then the floor shook as it crashed onto the ice behind her. The two slid onward, separated only by a pace.
The passageway opened out into a smallish cavern. Stalagmites raced past. Passageways branched off to the left and right.
The floor fell away—
She wrapped her arms around a stalagmite right on the edge of the drop, and momentum swung her one-eighty degrees around it.
Fourarms careened over the ledge beside her, but also managed to grab hold of the stalagmite.
The formation broke.
Ari swung herself back onto the floor just as the stalagmite toppled over. Fourarms clawed at the empty air and vanished into the murky depths with the stalagmite.
The three pursuing guards had slipped on the ice as well, and they went over the edge an instant later.
The Direwalker would have some company.
For a little while, anyway.
Ari carefully made her way across the slippery surface. Black Market was only two streets away. Already she could see the bustle of activity. She doubted Fourarms would attack her now, with so many people about.
She'd won.
For the moment.
***
Brute stood in the dark above the tattered remains of the three guardsmen.
Current traffic density of transit center and outlying area—15%. Probability that subject would escape through the portal before Brute could reach her—95%.
Brute scaled the smooth slope, digging its long claws into the ice like hooks. When Brute reached the street, it hid its extra appendages in its cloak, and cast its gaze down the tunnel. The city map overlaid its vision, and Brute zeroed in on the home the subject had visited moments before.
Probability that the subject's biological mother would prove useful in the coming days—100%.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ari crept through a dim room lit by a lone candle on the far end. A black curtain draped over a trestle by the window prevented the candlelight from being seen by anyone outside.
A floorboard creaked beneath her.
"Who's there?" Briar glanced up from the desk, where he sat reading a book or journal in the candlelight.
The curtain over the trestle parted, and Tanner stepped out. "Ari."
"Good to see you too," she said, and meant it.
Tanner let the curtain fall behind him. "Did you get it?"
She held up the jar. The white substance jiggled inside. "One Poultice of White, as requested."
Briar dashed forward greedily and snatched the jar, cradling it. "We could sell this spittle-jar for a fortune. A fortune!"
Ari squeezed her fingers between Briar's thick arms and wrenched the jar back. "It's not for selling."
"But Ari," Briar said. "Dear niece. Why not just sell a little? A speck! We don't need all of it."
"I think we might need it all yet," she said. "And don't call me dear." She hated it when people called her dear. It reminded her of a certain patronizing caregiver named Richard she'd employed what seemed a lifetime ago.
"You followed the plan?" Tanner said.
Ari laughed. "I followed the plan, Tanner."
Tanner gave her a sharp, searching look. "Any problems?"
She'd had to face a poisoned crossbow, run from a four-armed Direwalker, escape the city guards that waited for her at the transit center, and take a roundabout route back to this place. Oh, and she'd had to come to terms with the fact that Hoodwink and Cora had sold her to Jeremy. Actually she was still coming to terms with that, and wasn't sure she believed it. But other than all that... "No problems I couldn't handle."
She set the jar on the table beside Briar, gave the fat man a warning look, and ducked beneath the curtain.
Through the window, she could see Jeremy's manor grounds across the dark street. A spyglass was set on a tripod, and she peered into it. Jeremy's bedroom came into focus. The mayor had three naked gols in bed with him. Well, as naked as gols could get, all of them wearing that irremovable, thin layer of clothing over their torsos. Two of the gols were fashioned into women, and the third was shaped as a boy barely out of adolescence.
Tanner ducked under the trestle beside her.
"I see you've been entertaining yourself in my absence," she said.
"Was that comment directed at me, or the mayor?" Tanner said.
"The both of you."
Tanner cleared his throat, and changed the subject. "Still no sign of the Direwalker army."
"That's good, right?" Ari didn't really think so.
"Good for us, anyway."
Ari slid her eye from the spyglass and took in the entire mansion. She'd be going into that heart of darkness again.
Alone this time.
She didn't feel ready.
She glanced at Tanner. "Sometimes I—"
"What is it?"
She sighed. "I'm afraid."
He rested a hand on her upper arm. "I am too. Are you sure you're up to this?"
She felt like falling into an embrace, but she brushed his hand away, pretending to be annoyed. She hardened her voice. "Of course I'm up to it. I didn't become leader of the New Users for my cowardice."
"Speaking of the New Users," Tanner said. "They're having some trouble with the Dwarf. He's not as cooperative as we thought he'd be."
Ari tapped her lips with one finger. "We need the Control Room."
"We need the Control Room," Tanner agreed. "Though the New Users are planning to revise the Dwarf as well."
She searched his eyes, wondering how she should propose the changes she wanted to make to the plan.
"I met Fourarms," she said. "Brute." The spy in Jeremy's mansion had discovered the Direwalker's name.
"What? When?" Tanner tensed beside her.
"I stopped by my mother's place in Dhenn. The Direwalker was there when I left. It was tracking me, I think."
"Tracking?" Tanner parted the curtain in alarm and glanced back at the doorway.
She rested a hand on his knee. "Fourarms didn't follow me here. I was careful. They're using ravens."
Tanner shook his head. "This operation is getting more dangerous by the minute. If Jeremy knew just how
close we really were..." His eyes drifted to the house across the street. "I can't believe you stopped by your mother's. What happened to following the plan to the letter?"
Ari exhaled a long breath. "I just wanted to see her." But how painful it had been. Hoodwink would never sell me to Jeremy!
Tanner seemed about to say something, then he backed down. "Yes, of course. Nothing wrong with that." He steepled his fingers and tapped his chin. "How did you get away? From Fourarms."
She was about to brag about her peerless agility and unmatched quickness or some such nonsense, but then she bowed her head.
"Luck," she admitted.
Tanner glanced at her lips. "Well I'm glad you're all right."
"Sure." She hastily looked away, and let her gaze rest on the distant mansion instead. She was far from all right. "Do you think Hoodwink would have sold me to Jeremy?"
Tanner wrinkled his brow. "What? What are you talking about?"
"My mother told me that she and Hoodwink accepted money from Jeremy, so that the mayor would take me away and have me revised. Something about trying to save me from the Users."
Tanner stared at her for a few seconds. "No. It doesn't strike me as something Hoodwink would do. Not at all."
Ari nodded, though she had the feeling that he was simply telling her what she wanted to hear. "You're right. I don't know why I believed her. She just wants to drive a wedge between me and Hoodwink, for whatever reason. Hates him that much I guess."
She studied Jeremy's mansion, not wanting to meet Tanner's eye.
"It's not too late to steal the Control Room from another mayor, in a different city," Tanner said.
"Actually it is too late," she said. "It's already taken us a week on the Inside to plan this heist. And it will be another day or two before we pull it off. By the time we're done, we'll only have an hour of air left on the Outside. Maybe less."
Briar could hear everything they said beyond the curtain, but he couldn't have any idea what they were talking about. He probably still thought the Outside was the land beyond the cities.
Tanner didn't seem convinced. "But if we went to a different city, and confronted its mayor with our fire swords, I'm sure we could take the Control Room without any problems. Not every mayor has an army of Direwalkers. Nor a living carpet."
