by C. M. Hayden
“In the instant someone dies the reach between worlds thins enough to pull something through. With the deaths of a million people you could pull anything through. Or everything through.”
“How do we stop her?”
Aris knocked Taro on the head. “Weren’t you listening? It’s over. She’s won.”
“We have to try.”
“No, we certainly don’t.”
Taro glared at him. “How can you live with yourself?”
Aris waved the elixir. “That’s the point. I can’t live with myself, but dying isn’t an option. This little vial is all I have. This is my only reprieve. So sit there, shut the hell up, and let me do what I do best: run away.”
There was a long, uncomfortable moment of deep silence.
“I finally understand you,” Taro said. “You act like people annoy you, yet you seek out crowds and cities. When you’re alone, you talk to your wagon or to yourself. A thousand years trapped...you’re afraid to be alone again.”
Aris stepped away from the controls and knelt down in front of Taro. “Let me tell you one last little secret, kid. Let me shatter your naïveté. The disease spreading through Endra, the one that’s killing your mother and father, I helped Dr. Halric create it.”
For a moment, Taro couldn’t bring himself to breathe. In seconds, it boiled over. He piled every ounce of templar into his fist and drove it at Aris’ face.
“That’s it,” Aris said. “Get it all out.”
Taro punctuated each of his hits with a word. “I. Hate. You.”
Aris grabbed both of his wrists. “I think you need a time-out.”
He pressed his hand against Taro’s forehead, and Taro felt a jolt ripple through his body. His limbs went limp, and he tumbled to the floor. He remained conscious and could see, hear, and feel everything around him.
Aris set him on the sleeping cot in the corner. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is a fight I’m not strong enough to face.”
Chapter Forty
The Back-Alley Meeting
Aris leaned over Taro and prodded him with the heel of his foot. “We’re nearly there. If you behave, I’ll remove the binding. Sound good? Drool once for yes, twice for no.”
Taro gained some feeling back in his face, enough to glare up at the despicable man. Aris tapped him on the forehead and Taro’s body released. The moment he was free, Taro tried to strike him again.
Aris seized him by the wrists. “Settle down. A few more minutes and you’ll never have to see me again. Hit me again and you won’t wake up for a month.”
Taro resisted the urge to try again and looked out of the cracked wagon window. The snow was gone and colorful autumn trees rolled by. The wagon rumbled over the bumpy earth and trembled as it neared Ashwick.
Smoke rose in the distance, bristled with the smell of death and burning ash. It choked the air and overwhelmed the senses as they entered town. The wagon crept along on the cobblestone toward the source in the market row.
What Taro saw sent a sliver of ice through his heart. Beside the old fountain were great piles of bodies, wrapped in linen and twine, and arranged in heaps beside a pyre. Warders with cloth wrapped tight around their faces tossed the bodies, one by one, into the flames.
There was a momentary kink in Aris’ armor, and for the span of a full minute, he had no quip or comment, just a grim disgust that seemed to settle in his throat.
“It’s just like Endra Edûn,” he said.
“Are my mom and dad in there?” Taro asked.
Aris didn’t answer.
The streets were filled with Helians, all thin and sickly. They pattered at the sides of the wagon, pushed toward Walder’s Lane.
Warders barricaded the street, preventing the hordes from entering uncorrupted residential areas. They stopped the wagon and asked their business.
Taro showed the constable his stamped aurom. “I’m from the Magisterium, home on holiday to see my family.”
The warder grazed the aurom with his knuckle. “I suggest you take your family with you and get as far from here as possible.”
Walder’s Lane was as Taro left it, except that the houses had their windows boarded up. He retrieved the spare key (always kept in the loose brick under the stoop) and entered.
It was dark inside and dead silent but for the creaking of the floorboards as he ascended the stairs. The place looked as though it had been cleaned recently; the floors were bare, and there wasn’t so much as a toy in sight.
He searched through the living room and found an oil lamp, resting beside his father’s armchair. Before he could light it, Taro felt something hard smack the back of his head.
“Out! Get out!” Decker’s voice screamed from the darkness. He swung a broom handle again at Taro’s head.
Taro grabbed Decker by the arm. “It’s me!”
Decker’s cheeks were slick with tears. He dropped the broom and squinted, and his face practically lit up the room when he saw it was his older brother.
Taro squeezed him tight. “Where’s your brother?”
Decker wiped the tears from his cheek. “In his room.”
“Mom and Dad?” Taro didn’t wait for a response. He pushed the door to his parent’s room open. His mother and father lay, worn, weary, but still breathing.
Taro dropped to their bedside. When he ran his hand along his mother’s forehead, her eyes cracked open at his touch.
“Taro.” Her voice was so weak, he wasn’t even sure he’d heard it. Dry tears caked the skin around her eyes, and she looked like she’d lost another ten pounds.
“It’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” Taro said as he stroked her hair.
Somehow, she managed to put her hand onto his. “I knew you’d come back.”
Aris appeared in the doorway. Taro looked at his mother’s frail, pale hand set against his own. There was almost nothing left. The tears came despite his best attempt to stifle them, and he wept like the entire cruel world had finally caught up with him.
“Help them,” Taro said, completely choked with tears.
Aris was shaking. “I can’t.”
“Liar!” Taro beat on Aris’ chest with his fist. “You made it, you can cure it.”
“There is no cure.”
“You have to do something. You can’t just let them die.”
Aris reached into his pocket and pulled out the memory elixir.
“You can’t bury this forever, Aris.” Taro pushed him toward the bedside. “You can do something. Here. Now. Look at them.”
Aris backed away.
“Look at them,” Taro repeated more forcefully.
The commotion brought Enam to the doorway.
“Fine. Go ahead, you coward,” Taro said.
Aris lowered the vial. He clenched his shaking fist and took in a deep lung full of air. “What do you want me to do?”
“I just want you to try.”
Enam called from the doorway. “Is the man gonna help Mommy and Daddy?”
Aris composed himself and stepped toward the boys. He knelt down, and rubbed his hand through Enam’s hair. “Yes, little one. I am.”
The table beside the bed had an assortment of medicines and unused syringes scattered across it. Aris took one of the caps off a needle and drew blood from his arm. There was a sizzle and flash as the tiny hole in his skin disappeared.
Aris injected his blood directly into both parent’s veins. Almost immediately they shifted in their beds, groaned, and stretched out their arms and legs. Their skin softened and color returned to their cheeks, but they remained asleep.
“This will stabilize them for a week or two,” Aris said. “The Corruption was forged with magic, only the Arclight can eradicate it.”
Taro wiped the tears onto his sleeve. “So there is a chance?”
“Our odds would increase substantially, if we had some help.”
“The artificers might be searching Mathan’s mansion.”
“Then we’ll start there,” Aris said
resolutely.
“I don’t think they’ll help you, if I’m around. We didn’t part on the best of terms.”
“They have no choice. We’ll offer them the one thing that no army can buy—proof that Vexis orchestrated this whole thing.”
“Taro,” Decker said, from the doorway. “Is Nima coming back soon, too?”
Nima’s absence hadn’t gone unnoticed by Taro. He’d expected she was asleep, considering the hour.
“Coming back?” Taro’s voice crackled.
“She left with you, right?” Decker said.
Despite the icy shudder ripping through him, Taro managed to maintain his composure. “She’ll be back soon,” he said cheerfully. “Go ahead into the living room for me, I need to speak with my friend, alone.”
“I thought you said you sent your sister back here,” Aris said, when the boys were out.
“Mathan told me he would.” He glanced sideways at Aris. “If she’s still in the city, we have to get her out.”
“Mathan may have dealt with her already. Don’t trust hope, it will only disappoint you.”
Enam was waiting in the living room for Taro and tugged at the seam of his pants.
“Tar! We missed you,” Enam said.
Taro planted a kiss on Enam’s forehead. “You’ve been so brave. Can you be brave just a little bit longer?”
Enam nodded and hugged Taro around his neck.
Taro retrieved one of the spare wooden prosthetics from his bedroom. It didn’t have the mobility of the mechanical leg, and the soft flesh of his limb felt like it was being pressed against broken glass, but it was a relief to be able to walk again.
He and Aris returned to the wagon. It tottered down the muddy road toward Mathan’s back-alley mansion. The streets were bare, and most other houses in the area had boarded their windows and reinforced their doors to protect themselves against the corrupted.
The lampposts flickered against the slick streets, and Taro slowed as he came to the mouth of the alleyway. He and Aris tipped over trash cans and skidded through puddles, until they came to the painted door. It was torn from the brick wall and tossed aside. The frame hung off the building, covered in scorch marks.
Inside, the mansion was a dump. Every cabinet was emptied, every rug was pulled up, and every door was opened. Banging and shouting came from the corridor leading to the basement, and they followed it down the creaking stairwell.
The cellar laboratory was trashed and Mort was on his knees surrounded by Kyra and four other artificers.
The void apparition on the table had been rotting so long, it was barely even recognizable. Flies and maggots swarmed the corpse, and black blood dripped onto the concrete. The stench was like nothing Taro had ever experienced.
“You expect us to believe that?” Kyra shouted at Mort. His suit was tattered and torn, and his cheek was bruised. “You’ve worked for Mathan for what? Years?”
Mort glanced at the corpse on the table. “I wasn’t permitted down here. It’s not my job to ask questions.”
“And what about the smell?”
Kyra grabbed him by the collar and pressed his face into the putrid slime. “You’ve been playing house here for months, and you never smelled this? Do you think we’re idiots? I want to know what they were doing down here, and I want to know NOW.”
Ven, Suri, and the others looked at Kyra like she’d lost her mind, but they were too afraid to stop her.
“I don’t think he knows anything,” Taro said.
When Kyra looked up at him, her face went white. She dropped Mort, and he slid to the floor.
“Taro?” she said, sounding more surprised than angry. But when she moved within arm’s reach, she slapped him with the back of her hand.
Taro rubbed his jaw. “You don’t think leaving me to die is punishment enough.”
“Not when it doesn’t work. How in the ever-living hell did you get here?”
“I’ll explain later. We need to put this aside for a moment. There’s not much time,” Taro said.
“Put your betraying us aside? Are you that dense?”
Ven spoke up. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”
“Can we maybe move this to another room first?” Aris said, grimacing at the corpse.
That, at least, they could agree on. They met back outside in the alleyway. Aris laid out the books and parchment he’d gotten from the cellar onto an overturned trash bin. Every margin was filled to the edge with his scribbled handwriting.
“I pulled these from this mansion, months ago,” Aris said. “It’s taken some time, but I believe I finally understand what Vexis is trying to do.” He pointed to an image of an upside down tower. “I believe she wants to thin the reach between worlds. Doing that, she’ll be able to pull something through.”
“I’ve seen her do it before,” Taro said.
“But only on a small scale, one death, one apparition,” Aris said. “Imagine if she killed a million. Using the Arclight, she could do just that—kill every man, woman, and child in Endra Edûn.”
“Where does it say that?” Kyra said, glancing at the notes.
“It doesn’t specifically.”
“Then how do you know?”
“I have an intimate understanding of the Arclight. That’s hard to explain,” Aris said.
“Well, then you’d better get started, because we’re not budging until you do.”
Aris looked like he had a headache. He bowed his head on his closed fist before he spoke. “So...every living thing has a templar, right?”
“Right,” Kyra said.
“The Arclight is a templar, in a manner of speaking. It’s the fire that lights all others. But a templar cannot exist without a soul. That’s why the Arclight doesn’t work.”
Ven, Suri, and Kyra all tried to object at the same time. Ven won out. “The Arclight worked for a long time without a soul.”
Aris looked like he was trying to explain trigonometry to cattle farmers. “It did, in fact. It had mine.”
“You are the Arclight,” Taro muttered to himself.
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
Suri scoffed. “The Arclight is thousands of years old. You’d have to be—”
“One thousand two hundred and forty-seven. My birthday’s next week. If you’re planning a cake, anything but vanilla.”
“Bollocks,” Ven said.
“I’d prefer chocolate.”
“You’re twenty five, at the worst,” Kyra said.
Aris muttered to himself. “Nobody can just take my word; no, everyone needs proof.” He swiped the sword from Kyra’s sheath.
“If this doesn’t convince you, I swear.” Aris plunged the blade into his neck. To the other’s horror, blood spilled out by the pint.
“Holy shit,” Ven said.
Aris collapsed, face-first, onto the wet cobblestone in a pool of blood.
Kyra was shaking. “Why would he kill himself?”
“Just wait,” Taro said.
A soft glimmer consumed Aris’ wounds, and his body sewed itself back together. He stood, cracked his neck, and shook off death.
“You should be dead,” Kyra said, completely bewildered.
“I can see they’re letting only the best and brightest into the Magisterium these days.” He handed her back her bloodied sword. “Tell me that was enough to get through to you.”
Kyra looked over the blade. “I’m all ears.”
“Good, because I’ve got something resembling a plan.”
They returned to Taro’s house to discuss their next move. The living room was a bit cramped, with at least fourteen people squeezed inside of it.
Aris continued. “If the Arclight was active, we’d know. I suspect Vexis is stuck.”
“But I thought you were the Arclight,” Taro said, much to Aris’ annoyance.
“I was dumbing it down for your convenience.”
Ven spoke up. “It’s like Pipes’ birds, I think. Even after he died, his templary didn’
t disappear. The constructs stayed alive.”
Aris nodded. “There are safeguards designed to keep people out of the Arclight chamber, but they won’t hold Vexis off forever. We need to get there first. A small group could get into the Magisterium undetected.”
“But how will we get into the city?” Kyra said.
“We won’t be,” Aris said. “Your place, princess, is Tyrithia. It’s the largest city in the country outside of Endra Edûn.”
“My place is taking back the capital,” Kyra said.
“The Imperator is finished and the Sun King is dead. You’re the only person with the authority to command anyone. If by some miracle we kill Vexis, restoring order is going to take a significant force. You need to gather that force.”
“I agree with Aris,” Taro said. “If you were killed, it would be a disaster.”
Kyra looked as though she was going to disagree, but her expression dissolved into a begrudging acceptance. “All right.”
“Me and Taro should go alone,” Aris said. “The fewer, the better.”
“You’re not going without me,” Suri said.
Aris shook his head. “This isn’t a vote.”
“And this isn’t a request,” Suri said. “My dad is still in the city, and I’m not going to leave him to die.”
Aris rubbed his temples. “I’m not slowing down for you. Fall behind, you’re left behind.”
“And how exactly do you plan to get into the city?” Ven said.
“We fly, of course,” Taro said.
“There are artillery cannons along the walls. Any one of them is strong enough to blow the Eventide out of the sky,” Kyra said.
“If we can’t fly,” Aris said, “then we’ll fall.”
Chapter Forty-one
Something Resembling a Plan
Taro wasn’t sure what he was expecting to happen between him and Kyra. Some sort of reconciliation? Some small inkling that the rift between them wasn’t irreparable? It didn’t materialize. The only words she spoke to him were in passing, just as she left for the Eventide.
“The ship leaves at oh one hundred,” she said as the door slammed shut.
Suri and Ven followed, and Aris soon after.
