by C. M. Hayden
“But I—” Sullen said.
“Do it,” Ross said coldly.
Sullen stood ridged. “Imperator, I can’t follow that order.”
Ross’ glare could’ve melted steel. “You will do as I command, or you will lose your commission.”
“It’s an immoral order, and I will not obey it.”
Ross shoved him. “Move aside.”
She scratched an enchantment into the stone archway of the entrance and raised her voice over the crowd. “For your own protection these ramps are being sealed. You have thirty sec—”
Someone in the crowd hurled a chunk of stone and struck her in the face. She stumbled back and her inscriber struck the ground.
“Get it!” someone shouted.
The crowd rushed past the warders, like water against rock. Ross tried, in vain, to reach her inscriber while being pummeled and crushed. The mob didn’t stop with her; they charged at the others like rabid dogs.
The younger artificers made a run for it. Suri, Ven, and Pipes tried to get away, but they were pulled to the ground and beaten mercilessly. The masses were so thick, Taro couldn’t get close enough to help them.
Ross spat and cursed. “You will stand your ground,” she shouted. “You are soldiers of the Sun King.”
“What a joke.” The voice cut through the violence like a sharpened knife. Vexis strolled into the riot, stepping over the bloody bodies. Dr. Halric followed closely behind her, looking exceptionally pleased.
Those holding Ross let her go and she staggered to her feet, desperately searching for her inscriber. Vexis sauntered over and wiped some of the blood off Ross’ lip. “How does it feel, knowing that you lost?”
“I haven’t lost.”
“Oh, that’s right, you couldn’t possibly know this, but the Magisterium—” She gestured toward the tower in the distance and then to herself. “—is mine. The lower city, as you can see, is mine. Crissom Foundry is mine. Even many of your warders are now mine. And just wait until you see this bit.” Vexis motioned Dr. Halric closer, and he removed two identical vials from his coat.
“The Sun King is dead,” Vexis said loudly. The crowd erupted into murmurs.
“You admit you killed him,” Ross said accusingly. When her glance fell onto the vial, a twinge of fear passed over her face.
Vexis grabbed both sides of Ross’ collar and pulled her closer. “Now, you know what this is, don’t you? Go ahead, it’s okay. Tell everyone. It’ll make you feel so much better.”
Ross pulled away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Vexis stretched her arms, pressed her hands to the back of her head, and addressed the crowd. “The Sun King suffered from the same Corruption that afflicts us. This was his medicine.” She grabbed one vial from Halric with her left hand and the other with her right hand. “But this is what he’s been taking for the last month. It’s a placebo, about as useful as herbal tea on a plague.”
Magister Sullen had two of his teeth knocked out and was cradling his jaw. It was difficult for him to speak, but he managed it. “Nobody in the Magisterium would do such a thing.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong. See, here’s the fun part: we found his actual medicine tucked away deep inside of the Imperator’s office.”
Every magister’s and artificer’s eyes were now on Ross, who looked as though she was trying to formulate her next words.
Vexis’ smile widened. “I can almost hear the wheels in your head turning. Go ahead, deny it. Every moment you stand in silence makes another magister realize exactly what you are.”
Ross’ eyes darkened. “I wasn’t trying to kill him. I just needed him sick enough to stay out of my way.”
Her fellow magisters looked at her in horror.
“Amelia...no,” Briego said.
“He was weak,” Ross said. “If I’d left it up to him, he would’ve destroyed us.”
Vexis had never looked so triumphant. “I rest my case. There remains only one thing to do. We have to fix the damage you’ve done to this once great city.” She pointed two fingers at Ross, and her arms constricted to her sides. “Break her hands.”
The people seized Ross by the arms and legs and pulled her to the ground. Two men held her arms down and bashed her fingers with a cinderblock until they were a bloody mess. Ross’ anguished cries were the only noise in the square, juxtaposed with Vexis’ incipit smiling.
“You will never hold an inscriber again,” Vexis said, then addressed the crowd. “Bring them.”
Vexis marched them to the city gates in the freezing cold. It was only now that Taro realized the control Vexis now exerted over the city. None of the warders tried to stop her, whether through fear of her or the thousands following her.
They reached the long, icy causeway leading into the tundra. “The magisters will be dealt with as Ross has been. As for the artificers among you, I’ll give you a choice. Stay here and we’ll relieve you of your ability to ever inscribe again.”
“Or?” Kyra said, staring into the flurry of snow.
“Or, you can go. Leave this city and never return.”
Ross was in tears. Her bloody hands were limp at her sides, and she spat and cursed everyone around her.
Taro approached Vexis and pleaded with her. “They’ll never survive out there.”
“I don’t expect you to,” she said pointedly.
“Me? But I...”
“You’re what? Speak up.” Vexis guided him aside and spoke so only he could hear. “Taro, you’re so predictably treacherous.”
“I’m on your side.”
“I hate it when people lie.”
“Me and Mathan had a deal.”
“And he’s honored it. Your family is safe, the money will be delivered. You’ve completed your work.” She nodded into the blizzard. “Head home. It’s quite a long walk.”
“My family...my sister needs me. I can’t die here.”
At the mention of his sister, Vexis softened a bit. “I’ll tell you what. Prove to me that you’re on my side. Go and tell your friends that you’ve been working for me this whole time, and we’ll get you transportation back to Ashwick.”
Taro looked back at the others. Kyra, Ven, Suri, Sig, Yoresh, all of them looked back puzzled. “Please...don’t make me do it.”
“It’s about time you started telling the truth,” Vexis said.
“I...I can’t.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Veins of Ice
There was nothing but frozen wasteland as far as the eye could see. It was then that he realized just how cold it was. Sure, it was cold inside the city; but out here, he was exposed: there were no walls or towers to block the cutting wind.
Taro focused his templar and tried to warm himself as best he could. Without this, he’d be dead in a matter of minutes. With the immediate concern of hypothermia aside, he sought out Kyra and the others amongst the flurry.
Kyra conjured a warm ball of light. The artificers huddled around and warmed their hands.
“We need to find shelter,” Kyra said.
Taro cupped his eyes with his hands and scanned the snow-capped hills. “I think I see a barn over that way,” he said, and pointed off to some blurry shapes with pointed tips.
He was right, it was a barn, or at least what was left of one. Drudging a half-mile through two feet of snow was bad enough, but once they arrived they found the roofs caved in, and what little interior left was littered with ice and the frozen carcasses of long-dead animals. They scraped wood from the collapsed ceiling and piled it into three fire pits.
Kyra sat on an icy hay bale beside Taro. “Suri, Ven, get a headcount.”
“We must avoid panic,” Yoresh said. He was leaning beside a fire and touching up the cuts on his knuckles.
Taro prodded the fire with a stick. “I’d say it’s a pretty good time to panic. What are we going to do for food?”
“The cold will kill us before starvation,” Yoresh said.
Suri an
d Ven soon returned.
“Forty-two on my side,” Suri said.
“Ninety-six on mine,” Ven said.
“With us that’s one hundred forty-three,” Kyra said. “Less than two thirds what we started with.”
“The others are still in the snow,” Pipes said, with grim realization. “We can’t leave them out there.”
“We have to trust that they’ll see the light from the fires and make it here,” Kyra said. “If there’s a break in the snow, we’ll organize some search parties; but for now, we’re staying right here.”
Pipes started toward an opening in the wall.
“That was an order,” Kyra said.
Pipes pulled up his hood. “Who’s with me?”
Fourteen artificers followed him into the blizzard. Taro grabbed him by the wrist. “You won’t survive out there.”
Pipes pulled away. “I’m not leaving my friends.”
_____
Every hour of that night was filled with misery. Cold cut through to the bone and the stump of Taro’s leg burned from the icy steel of his prosthetic.
He propped it close to the fire and Kyra examined it. “The fluids inside are turning to slush,” she said. “If they freeze solid, you might as well have a hunk of lead attached to you.”
Kyra was the one thing that made it almost bearable. Taro felt like fate really had it out for him: the closest he’d ever get to her would be only a prelude to his death.
Taro was surprised to wake up the next morning. The artificers were sprawled throughout the barn, and Kyra’s head rested on his shoulder. The snow had stopped, and rays of sunlight broke through the holes in the ceiling.
Two artificers, a girl and a boy, did not wake up. Their skin was pale blue. And when Taro nudged them with his foot, they felt like ice blocks.
Suri yelped when she saw them and buried her face into her sleeve. “Vali and Cassidy. Second-year artificers,” she said bitterly.
A rack of pitchforks, shovels, and other farming equipment was near the wall. Taro yanked off a shovel and tried to dig a hole. “We should at least bury them.” The shovel struck the hard ground with a clang. Frozen solid.
As Taro stared at the poor souls, he felt his stomach drop. “Pipes?” he called. “Did anyone see him come back?”
Nobody said a thing.
“The storm’s passed,” Taro continued. “We’ll start near the main gate and—”
Kyra spoke gently. “There’s not much of a chance of—” She stopped herself. “Just be prepared.”
It didn’t take long to find Pipes’ frozen body buried beneath an inch of snow. There was movement inside Pipes’ uniform pocket, one of his mechanical birds was trying to flutter, but its wings were frosted-over.
Taro clenched it in his palm. “He loved these things.”
Ven patted Taro on the shoulder. “I never could figure out why.”
Taro backed away slowly, then ran, kicking up snow. The two followed. A few yards in, an overwhelming pain stabbed through his leg, like shards of glass were being pushed through his veins.
He collapsed into the snow. Kyra unlatched the side of his prosthetic and tried to sever the nerve connections, but the lever wouldn’t turn.
“The gears are frozen,” she said.
Taro could barely form words. “Why does it hurt so much?”
“The liquid inside is expanding and pushing ice crystals into your nervous system.”
“Get it off me!” Taro wailed.
“It can’t be torn off.”
“Oh, God. GET IT OFF ME!” He dug his nails into his leg and thrashed.
“Hold him still.” Kyra tore a piece of cloth from her sleeve and tossed it to Ven. “Make him bite down.”
Ven grabbed Taro around the shoulders and forced him to sit still, then wrapped the cloth between his teeth.
Kyra removed the prosthetic’s chasse, exposing its clicking inner mechanisms. Tubes led from the base to the heel pivot, and back to the top where a drum with pins pressed into Taro’s leg.
Kyra sat on his thigh and grabbed hold of the pin-cylinder. “I’m so sorry,” she said, and ripped it out.
Taro screamed, so hard, he almost swallowed his tongue. Every muscle in his body clenched and his heart beat out of control. He didn’t lose consciousness; in fact, he had an almost heightened sense of things—being moved back to the barn; being placed by the fire; someone bandaging his leg.
Ven propped him up and waved his hands in front of his eyes. “Yoo-hoo.”
“His nervous system is in shock,” Kyra said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You didn’t have a choice,” Ven said.
“He’ll never be able to use a mechanical prosthetic again. The nerves are ruined.”
Three hours passed and Taro sat still, watching the others scour for food. They picked frozen pieces from cattle and cooked them. The animals had been dead for over a year, but there wasn’t much of a choice.
Taro felt movement in his palm. He loosened his grasp and Pipes’ mechanical bird squeezed out. Even in death, Pipes’ templary didn’t fade. The construct trotted along his hand, up his arm, and nibbled at his cheek before fluttering off.
“If only we could just fly away,” Ven said, tossing some wood into the fire.
Lights went on in Taro’s mind. The answer flooded into his mind all at once, and he leaned up with some difficulty.
“I was wondering when you’d join us,” Ven said.
“We can,” Taro said.
“Can what?”
“Fly away.” Taro pointed to a rack of farming tools, hanging on the wall. “I need something to walk with.”
Ven grabbed one of the pitchforks and wedged it between two boards until the handle broke off.
Taro used it to hobble toward Kyra. “Kyra, we can fly out of here.”
“You should be lying down,” she said, in a slightly patronizing tone.
“Just listen. The Waystation is not far from here, is it?”
Yoresh thought about it. “Fifteen miles away.”
“It might as well be a thousand miles. We can’t go fifteen miles in this hell,” Edrin said.
“We can,” Taro said. “If we can make just one-and-a-half miles an hour, we’ll get there by nightfall. When we flew there during the trial, we saw a bunch of airships in—”
Kyra shook her head. “I see where you’re going with this. But it’s just not possible. Those ships are abandoned for a reason.”
“We’ve got the best and brightest minds in the entire world. We can cannibalize the airship for parts, repair one of them, and fly it out of here.”
Yoresh rubbed his chin. “That’s an interesting idea.”
“It’s an impossible idea,” Edrin said. “Let’s say we somehow made it there, then somehow found every part we need. Even if we did all of that, the reactor’s going to be stone-dead.”
“We could recharge them,” Ven said. He’d been sitting idle, listening intently.
“With what, exactly?”
Taro patted the ground. “It’s all right here. The roots of the Magisterium run right past the ships. We can charge power cells down there, and use it to fly the hell out of this godforsaken place.”
The artificers were silent for a moment, while they considered it.
“There’s no way this’ll work,” Edrin said.
“Do you have a better idea?” Ven said.
“I could design a converter that would help charge the cells. Someone would have to get dangerously close to one of the conduits,” Kyra said.
“I’ll go,” Taro said, trying to stay balanced on his walking stick.
“You’re not in the best shape to go hopping over lava pools,” Kyra said.
“Lava?”
“That’s where the conduits are.”
“I’ll go,” Ven said.
“I’m not sure either of you will get the chance. We’ll all be dead long before we get there,” Edrin said flatly. “Though I suppose, if the
choices are die sitting on my ass, or die fighting to survive, there’s not much of a choice.”
Ven clapped his hands together. “So, we’re walking fifteen miles through sub-zero weather to fix one of the most sophisticated war-machines in the world without so much as a screwdriver. Then, assuming the engines don’t explode in our faces, we’re going to fly the rickety hunk out of here. That about right?”
Taro shrugged. “Sums it up pretty well.”
Ven crossed his arms. “Awesome. What are we waiting for?”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Power Trip
Taro fought to keep up with the rear of the group. Kyra and Ven stayed close; they said it was to make sure that none of the younger artificers fell behind, but he knew that they were really just concerned about him.
He’d long ago lost the feeling in his fingers and toes. They trotted through the long snaking wastelands with nothing but rolling white hills as far as the eye could see. Fierce wind whipped snow from the ground into flurries. Peppered through the frozen countryside were barns and stables that offered a moment of reprieve from the wind, but they dared not stay too long.
Suri was the first to break. With every step she took, her tiny, frail body trembled. Her hair was so full of ice crystals, it was practically white.
She stared up at the sky, in a daze. “I can’t do it.”
Ven lifted her up and put his shoulder under her arm. “Oh, yes you can. C’mon, one step at a time.”
After eleven grueling hours, they climbed over one last hill. Enormous gears, steel girders, and wheels were strewn through pools of boiling oil and airship hulls. Steam rose from natural thermal vents in the ground, and the artificers rushed to warm themselves. The snow around the vents was melted, and they scooted in as close as they could without burning themselves.
Four had severe frostbite and cradled their frozen, black toes and fingers.
Once they’d rested, Taro, Kyra, and the others were already scoping out crumbling airships around the yard for one that might be fixable.
Suri pointed to a large airship on its side. “Most of the fuselage is intact.”
