by Rabia Gale
“You. Are. Not. Real.” The boy spoke through clenched teeth. Four jointed arms above his head pointed their nozzles at Pyotr. The whips at his side shivered all over with indefinable emotion.
Even Pyotr had changed, Rafe saw. His illusion now wore gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose and a rust-red waistcoat. His hair was neatly-combed and his beard neatly-trimmed. His worn shoes were carefully buffed.
Despite himself, Alik fed the illusions. In fact, he sustained the spellwork more than Rafe did at the moment.
That left Rafe free to cast another spell.
Pyotr walked forward. “Alik,” he said, stern but also sad. “It is time to stop this.”
“No! Stay away!” A nozzle spat a bullet at Pyotr, blasting a purple-edged hole in his side. The illusion paused, then came on. His side filled again, this time with a blood-soaked jacket.
“Do not listen to the Shadow,” said Pyotr softly. “He is evil. He leads you astray.”
“He’s strong!” shouted the boy. “Stronger than you… and Papa… and everybody else! No one cares about goodness… or what is right. Only strength matters in this world.”
Pyotr shook his head. “No, my grandson. Love matters more.” He opened his arms to embrace the boy.
“What use is love?” shouted Alik. “Love didn’t prevent Karzov from taking me away! Love didn’t protect me from him, or the rest!” He aimed all his power at his grandfather. “Why didn’t you come for me?” he yelled and blasted everything he had into the illusion.
Pyotr’s body exploded in sparks. For a moment, just his head remained, face twisted in grief. “I’m sorry, my boy…” he whispered. “I’m… sorry…” And then the rest, too, vanished, his last words hanging in the air.
Moon Alley collapsed into motes around Alik.
Now! Rafe sprung his trap, a stasis net that wrapped around the boy.
Alik stood there, his ka constructs dissolved into wisps. Rafe was back in a dark, featureless world, lit only by a few last currents of ka. He was startled to find how little was left—either he and Alik had been over-generous with their magic, or else it had dissipated quickly once released from the Tors.
Sobs, each wrenched from deep inside the boy, filled the air. Alik didn’t even fight Rafe’s spell—he just stood there, shaking all over. Rafe felt the suppressed violence in each movement as a tremble through his magic.
His own soul felt wrung out, his body husk-like. He should go to the boy… but there was Isabella, too… Rafe shook his head.
Alik spoke, words forced out between sobs. “Why… didn’t you… come… for… me? Why… didn’t… anyone… come?”
“You’re wrong.” The hoarse voice came from behind Rafe. He turned his head, frowning. Furin?
“You’re wrong,” said Furin again. “I did come. I couldn’t get you out then, but I looked for you. For over two years, I looked for you. Believe it, Aliki.”
Rafe felt the man brush past him. He squinted with his kyra-sight. Armor peeled off Furin’s solid shape and thudded onto the ground. Alik drooped, arms limp against his side, not resisting as his father embraced him.
A voice tickled the edge of Rafe’s hearing. “… coming… do your job… I’ll do mine…”
Isabella! Their bond came to life, rippling silver. He was already moving as heat seared through her into him. A slit opened in the air. Rafe reached out on instinct, wrenching ka into a shield around them. A wave of heat and pressure parted around him, funneled into empty caverns beyond. He collapsed under a tumble of warm bodies.
One of them was Isabella. The top of her head hit him in the jaw. He bit his lip. “Ow.”
“Sorry.” She didn’t sound it. She lay with her face buried in his chest and began to laugh, breathlessly. “What an inelegant landing.”
“And how unlike you,” agreed Rafe. He sprawled on his back with debris poking him everywhere and the combined weight of several people pressing down on him. He’d just fought a pitched kayan battle and barely won. Karzov was still headed down to the underside of the disc to steal all the world’s magic for himself.
But for one blissful, short-lived moment he was happy. Isabella was back and the world sprang back into light, color, and focus.
“Who did you bring back with you?” he asked as she scrambled up.
“Some children who could use a good bath.” Isabella lifted the twin kayan up by their arms and stood them on their own two feet. She dusted them off, though Rafe thought it had little effect on their grubby state.
“I see you won,” Isabella continued over her shoulder. “Karzov?”
“Still on his way. “ Rafe grimaced.
“Then let’s get going.” Isabella ran her fingers through both children’s hair and tut-tutted at the snarls.
“Are you all right, though?” Rafe noted how her left sleeve was torn to shreds, the skin underneath red and shiny.
“I am.”
Rafe didn’t think so, but neither was he. They had no choice but to keep on. He got up. “We need to find someone to take custody of these two.”
“Furin?” Isabella turned towards the father-and-son pair.
Rafe grinned and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I hear Coop.”
“Hellloooo!” called Coop. “That you, Rafe? And Furin?” He came into sight, leaning against a smaller, slighter man.
It was Wil. Rafe’s mouth hardened.
Wil saw Rafe, and his expression became more guarded and wary. He straightened.
Coop looked from one to the other. “Now, listen here, you two…” he began.
“Rafe,” interrupted Wil. “You’d better go after Karzov.”
Rafe made an impatient gesture. “I’m on it. Once Isabella can tear herself away from her charges.”
Isabella stopped fussing with the girl’s hair. “Take care of them, Coop. They’re just children.”
“Aye, we have two more back there.” Coop jerked his head in that direction. “How are you going to go after Karzov, you two? We don’t have any boring machinery and the buggies won’t work.”
“Don’t worry. I have a fast way to travel.” Isabella smiled, cat-like. “Rafe?” She held out her hand.
“Yes.” He took it. It fit snugly into his own. It felt right.
“Rafe!” Wil again.
Isabella and Rafe both looked over their shoulders, and through her sight he saw how wan he looked.
“Be careful,” said Wil.
“I will.”
Isabella tugged at his hand. This will be weird. Don’t panic on me, Grenfeld.
Haven’t yet, he responded tersely. Then Max’s inky black substance surged through their kyra bond and took them both into krin-space.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Rafe
RAFE’S DISORIENTATION IN KRIN-SPACE was sudden and total. His stomach clenched. Only Isabella’s reassuring presence and the squeeze of her hand kept him from retching what little food he had choked down in the flying machine.
He thought that being used to his lack of sight would prepare him, but he had not counted on the confusing and competing sensory inputs all around him. His right cheek felt hot and peppered with specks while the left side of his face was cool and waxy. There was roughness against his lips and the odor of mint in his nose.
Worst of all was the ka. Rafe was used to seeing the world through ka-sight. But the ka here was buried deep and almost black, twisted in shapes that Rafe could not make out at all. He had only an instant’s impression of this, with not even enough time to gasp, before Max yanked them back into their reality.
They fell in a suffocating darkness. Lurid ropes of ka snapped into focus as Rafe’s ka-sight caught up. He reached out and grabbed them. They seared down his mind and skin, and he cried out. Painful heat blossomed in his limbs. Still, he hung on, Isabella clinging to his hand, stopping their plunge down a bottomless channel.
He felt her absorb some of his pain, sharing it. Coolness replaced the burn in his muscles and veins. But the
air still wrapped around them, wicking moisture. They panted from the heat, sweat evaporating from their skin, their tongues dry in their mouths.
Max! Isabella scolded.
Sorry. Chagrin suffused the krin’s mental tone. If it had feet, it would’ve shuffled them.
Rafe gritted his teeth and said nothing. He forced ka through his purification spell, wishing he had his walking stick. As soon as ka came out the other side, free of taint and thorns, he wove it into a web around Isabella and him.
The temperature plummeted. The terrible leaching of moisture stopped. Rafe formed a platform under their feet; the weight on his arm ceased. They both gasped in relief, taking in long breaths of air.
Isabella recovered first. “This place wasn’t just bored by Karzov’s drilling machine.”
No. It’s existed for centuries, the krin said.
The shaft was circular and huge, full of deformed and shredded ka-systems. They hung ragged on frameworks that were an inch away from crumbling to motes altogether. The walls were glassy smooth under Rafe’s hand. He could think of no current technology that would create such a surface. An updraft stirred his hair.
Isabella thrust something hard and metal into his hand. It made a sloshing noise. A canteen. “Here. Slowly, but drink up.”
“You remembered this time.” Rafe couldn’t get the cap untwisted fast enough, smiling as he thought of their first excursion in the tunnels under Blackstone. He took mouthfuls of cool water, with a few blessed slivers of ice still floating inside. There was a tang to it from being in the canteen so long.
It was the best water he’d ever tasted. It wrenched him to hand it back to Isabella before he’d had his fill. “You should’ve gone first,” he said, realizing she hadn’t. “You can’t help others if you’re collapsing.”
He heard her swallow. “I can handle it. You’re more—”
“Don’t!” he said, out loud, suddenly angry. “Don’t say I’m more important.”
He knew she arched her eyebrows at his vehemence. “All right, then, I won’t,” she said equably.
But you’re thinking it still, Rafe thought fiercely at her.
So what if I am? You can’t control what other people think. She wasn’t combative or defensive, just surprised and curious.
You put everyone before yourself. That’s what gets me.
Amusement spiked her tone. And you don’t? This is a funny conversation to be having when we’re on the way to save the world.
He didn’t answer, so she addressed Max. A little more warning about transitions next time, please. And can you find us some hand-holds or ledges? Unlike krin, we humans don’t fly so well.
I’m not used to a material body. I’m sor—
And you need to quit apologizing so much, too, Isabella interrupted. Before Rafe gets on your case about it.
Was she perhaps, ever so subtly, needling him? He thought it was prudent to ignore her and focused his efforts on a portable life-support spell for the two of them.
Done, he said when he finished.
All right. Take us back in, Max.
Between one blink and the next, they were in krin-space. This time, Rafe was braced for the dizziness and nausea that accompanied its haywire effect on his senses. He even had time for a moment’s look into the deep blue gloom with its darker clots and sapphire gleams, courtesy of Isabella.
And then another gut-wrenching yank back into the shaft that bored straight through the disc. Toxic ka attacked Rafe’s spell with teeth and suckers, leaving bite marks and pocks all over it. He had barely time to patch it before another jerk took them into krin-space.
In this way, making short leaps through krin-space, they made their way down the shaft. What Rafe had not expected was the sheer malignancy of the ka they encountered. It dripped in acid streams and rained sharp blades. Thick muscular strands of it, all colors twisted tortuously together, squeezed around the deteriorating spell. Deformed bodies, features melted into each other, ambushed their life-support shell. Their half-heard high-pitched chittering set his teeth on edge.
Isabella had his hand wrapped around Eya, using the dagger to feed Rafe cleansed ka. The dagger itself grew hot, emitting a crystalline whine. Voya, still in her belt, muttered restlessly.
I’m about ready to use Voya on all this ka. Even Isabella sounded frustrated. Rafe registered it dimly, just like he was distantly aware that Max had bleached to a dirty gray, signaling his tiredness. Dragging the two of them in and out of krin-space could not be easy.
But Rafe’s own focus had narrowed to the garish ka, formed into taunting shapes and malicious expressions. Its desire to maim, cut, destroy, and overwhelm was a constant jeer, battering his psyche as surely as it attacked his spell.
Their time in krin-space became more and more of a respite, stretched longer and longer.
Max, we need a way station, Isabella warned. Can you find something?
In two leaps, perhaps three. The krin’s voice was thin and dry like withered leaves.
Rafe staggered, even though there was nothing in krin-space to trip over. His hand flew out to steady himself and flailed in the gelatinous medium. Isabella let go his hand to put an arm firmly around his waist and draw him close, supporting him. His head sank onto her shoulder before he realized it.
He shook himself with a start. He had missed several lines of conversation. Sorry, what? He spoke the word into gloom; he had no interest in sharing Isabella’s sight right now.
Make it one, Isabella told the krin. Stretch for it.
Max did.
Rafe wasn’t expecting to land somewhere with a floor. He hit metal, hard, the shock jarring his knees. Isabella steadied him while Rafe tensed, expecting to do battle with aggressive ka constructs.
There were none here. Rafe let his life-support spell slip a little. The air outside was merely warm, though musty. The clank of his feet hitting the floor still echoed tinnily in the space. The ka here was well-behaved and buried so deep in the walls, it was mostly inert.
Isabella gasped. Her shock shivered through him like a good dousing with ice-cold water.
“What is it?” He frowned. His kyra-sight crawled about, picking up blocky shapes and shadowy pedestals.
“It’s outside this room.” Isabella’s voice was tight. “You’d better see for yourself, Rafe.”
A blink and he could see normally. Isabella had turned him towards a full-length window.
Looking down, he got the full impact of Salerus, Selene’s twin luminary which had caused the Scorching over five centuries ago.
Only Isabella’s hand on the small of his back kept Rafe from involuntarily backing away.
It was worse than he had ever imagined.
This was no icy barren world like Selene.
Salerus was fury and fire. Angry swirls of red and orange roiled within its bubbling yellow. As Rafe and Isabella watched, plumes fountained from its surface, sent jets reaching up for the disc, flames licking greedily at the world’s underside. They fell back in a spray of fiery specks, only to be dragged deep underneath Salerus’ ever-restless surface.
The glass—or whatever transparent substance comprised the window—had to be tinted and the whole compartment insulated. Rafe knew with a bone-deep certainty that no spell that he could construct would’ve shielded them from Salerus’ all-encompassing fury.
“Look there. Behind it and lower down.” Isabella pointed, even though he could only see what she did. Her focus was on the dark shape beyond Salerus, a solid bulk that stretched away from the sun. It was so huge, Rafe had trouble making out what it was.
Then it hit him. It was the immense arm holding Salerus in place, clear through the aether. This had malfunctioned several hundred years ago, bringing Salerus too close to the world it illuminated, causing the Scorching. The kayan had stopped the arm under the disc, but Rafe could see it shudder noticeably, trying to burst through the magical restraints. Even at this distance, Rafe felt the ka that surged through it, wild and will
ful and worse than any other he had yet encountered. It didn’t stream so much as pulse, hitting the luminary in bursts. The ka fueled Salerus’ boiling wrath, a rage that threatened to overflow the sun.
No doubt the flares they had experienced on the disc were caused by this.
“If Salerus explodes…” breathed Isabella.
Rafe did not finish her sentence. He didn’t need to. They both knew what that would do to their world.
“Is that where Karzov went?” His voice rasped in his dry throat.
There is another control room, at the place Salerus’ arm joins with the disc’s support, said Max slowly. I… remember all this now! I remember… riding in streams of ka… leaping through them with my brethren. I remember how glad we were. How full of life and joy. Wonder colored its voice. I remember.
“Good,” said Isabella, “because that’s where we need to go. But can you take us through krin-space?”
Max was silent, and Rafe guessed why. Salerus blocked their way. If it miscalculated its leap, they could all end up inside the burning sun.
“Isabella, what are these?” Rafe directed her attention to the shapes strewn around the room. She looked and he saw with her that they were mysterious panels and consoles of all sorts, similar in style to the ones in the Machine Room of Oakhaven. Isabella wiped dust off a display panel with her sleeve and peered at the schematic picked out in green lines on it. She waited until Rafe shook his head—it didn’t make any sense to him, either.
Rafe reached for some large, smooth buttons that resembled the ones Roland had shown him so long ago. He pressed one, but it resisted all the way, culminating in a crunch that did nothing. The others were jammed in place.
“No good,” he reported. “Max, can you feel any krin here?”
A pause. Then, No. The light and the toxic ka nearby make it hard for my kind to survive this.
“They’d explode, no doubt,” Isabella put in. She brushed her fingers over what looked to be a nest of crystal wires. “What’s this? Looks like a bad stage prop.” She snatched her hand away and looked ruefully at the blood beading on her finger. “I’ll get lockjaw from this, I expect.” She sucked her thumb, and because they were still connected, Rafe felt the tang of her blood on his tongue.
