Maker's Curse

by Trudi Canavan

  Pelli’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Restorers, aren’t you?” He looked at each of them in turn.

  “Yes,” Rielle replied.

  “No,” Dahli said firmly.

  “Yes and no.” Tyen sighed. “I am working with them, but I am not a Restorer.”

  “Who are you?” Pelli asked. “Why should I trust you?”

  “I am Tyen Ironsmelter.”

  Pelli’s eyes widened. “The first… but you want to destroy all machines. And all machine makers, so nobody can replace them.”

  Tyen opened his mouth to deny it, but Dahli spoke before he could.

  “Make up your mind, Pelli. Give up your magic or fight us. Stay here or come with us. What will it be?”

  Pelli looked down. “I’ll stay here.”

  “Then let all your magic go, so we know you won’t follow us.”

  The sorcerer’s shoulders hunched. He said nothing, resentment spilling from him as he released all the magic he had been holding. It spilled outwards, then vanished as Rielle and Dahli drew it in. When the man was powerless, Dahli placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at Rielle and Tyen.

  “Wait here. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  “Where…?” Rielle said, but Dahli and Pelli’s figures faded and flashed away. She looked at Tyen. “I don’t like the beginning of the thought Dahli was having as he left.”

  “I didn’t catch it, but I think we should follow. We must stay together.”

  Rielle took Tyen’s hand, pushed out of the world and skimmed in pursuit. They did not have to travel far. Dahli had returned to the world within the city, in the ruins of a house. He was crouched over a prone Pelli, and as they arrived he straightened and frowned.

  “I told you to wait,” he said.

  “You can’t hide your thoughts from us,” Rielle reminded him. She knelt beside Pelli and placed a hand on the man’s forehead. “Dead.” She shook her head. “You didn’t have to kill him, Dahli.”

  Tyen’s stomach sank. He looked at Dahli. “Why did you?”

  “He was a risk,” Dahli said. “Someone might check on him. If he was alive they’d learn who we are and what we’re looking for.”

  “Only when they found him.” Rielle sighed and stood up. “We could have hidden him halfway around the world.”

  “He’d have found a way to signal to searchers,” Dahli argued. “Maybe rig a machine to do it.”

  Anger flared within Tyen. “Or we’d have found a way to ensure he didn’t. Could you not have given us the opportunity to try?”

  “And if you did not find a way?” Dahli’s voice was strained. “We can’t risk it. We can’t.”

  Rielle winced, then glanced at Tyen. Shaking his head, Tyen moved forward to stand by her side. “And what if it was Rielle or I who lowered your chances of rescuing him? How are we to trust you, Dahli?”

  Dahli looked up, his gaze hard as they met Tyen’s. “You can’t. You can only trust that I will do whatever is necessary to free and protect Zeke.”

  “And when you have him, what then?” Rielle asked. “Will you tell him you killed another person? For him?”

  Dahli’s gaze slid away. Looking into the man’s mind, Tyen saw that Dahli was remembering a promise he’d made Zeke. Not to never kill again, but to at least try not to.

  “Will you abandon the worlds to the machines?” Rielle asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dahli admitted in a low voice, lowering his gaze. “I’d rather take Zeke far away, to somewhere safe. But it is likely he will insist on joining the Restorers.” He smiled grimly. “You probably haven’t seen the last of me yet.”

  Rielle looked down at Pelli, then glanced at Tyen and extended a hand to him. “Let’s get this rescue over with.”

  Dahli took her other hand without looking up.

  Taking a deep breath, Rielle took them into the place between worlds. She headed back the way they had come, as quickly as she could travel without suffocating, passing through worlds defeated longer and longer ago. When they had reached the world in which they had started their journey, she did not pause, but continued on. Tyen silently counted. They passed through another ten worlds. Rielle stopped for a short time to catch her breath. They said nothing to each other. Rielle did not even look at Dahli. Dahli showed no sign of discomfort at this.

  By now all the worlds they passed through were in ruins. A few had been recolonised, and contained a little magic. They had not paused long when Rielle indicated she was ready to move on.

  “I’ll move us from here,” Dahli said.

  He drew them back into the place between worlds. They had not travelled far when Tyen sensed the presence of another person.

  “We have company,” Tyen warned, nodding in the direction of the stranger.

  Dahli stopped and looked the way Tyen had indicated, then shook his head. “I can’t sense them.”

  “Further along the path, but coming this way.”

  Dahli moved them off the path, his brow creased in concentration. Looking back the way they’d come, Tyen sensed the substance of the place between worlds smoothing. He raised an eyebrow at Dahli.

  “You’re hiding our tracks,” Tyen said.

  “What if they detect the traces?” Rielle asked. “That’s as good as telling them someone is sneaking around.”

  “They won’t detect anything,” Dahli said. He began moving them faster, no longer hiding their path. When they were far enough away that they could no longer sense the other traveller, he turned to Rielle. “Your attempts at concealing your path back when you were hiding from me were crude and unskilled. Did you think that something only Valhan and his most loyal servants knew how to do was so easy that anyone could learn to do it perfectly in a few cycles?”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. As she looked at Tyen, he shrugged. It was good to know, at least, that they might one day be able to hide their tracks effectively.

  Rielle looked back in the direction of the stranger. “There. He is gone. We can return to the path.”

  As Dahli drew them through the area he had smoothed, Tyen concentrated and found no tell-tale sign of the man’s work. Dahli hurried them along the established path. To Tyen’s relief, they arrived in the next world without having to detour again, as he suspected Rielle would have run out of breath if they had. When they did arrive, he began healing her and she recovered quickly.

  They moved on. Traffic between worlds was definitely heavier here. As they passed through three more worlds, they had to evade several more strangers. Dahli began travelling in parallel to the established path, using the other presences to orientate them. This meant they were going to arrive high in the sky in the fourth world.

  “Machines in the air!” Rielle warned.

  Tyen looked around. Dark shapes hovered, forming lines that curved in all directions, to the horizon. All were the same – a disc about the size of a human head with a propeller spinning above. The closest machines were revolving, a dark elliptical space in their shell coming to face Rielle, Tyen and Dahli. Guessing that this was where an attack would come from, Tyen quickly stilled a layer of air to form a spherical shield as soon as he felt them enter the world.

  An instant later, the machines began to attack.

  CHAPTER 15

  The impacts set Tyen’s shield vibrating, but he was well able to resist them. None of the blasts were particularly strong. The closest of the machines soon stopped their assault and dove downwards through the hovering network, most likely having used up their small store of magic. He enjoyed a brief respite, then the world appeared to twist and shift as the next rows of machines moved to fill the empty positions and the closest turned to attack.

  “Tyen, keep focused on the machines in case their strategy changes,” Dahli ordered. He turned to Rielle. “Search for minds.”

  That means there’s magic here, Tyen realised. He didn’t bother to look, keeping his attention on the machines. Row after row of them were replacing their fellows, spending the
ir stored magic and falling away.

  “Has anyone noticed us?” Tyen asked.

  “Yes,” Rielle replied. “People in a town below have noticed the spent machines arriving.”

  “Should we leave?”

  “They don’t seem too concerned—”

  “No, because they believe Kettin’s defences will deal with us quickly,” Dahli injected. “We’ve reached her base world.”

  Rielle hummed in interest. “People are restoring the fallen machines, which are coming back up to rejoin the attack.”

  Tyen frowned. “They weren’t smashed by the fall?”

  “It appears they retain enough magic to land safely.”

  “I could break the machines so they can’t be recharged,” Tyen said, “but that will use up more magic than simply shielding.” He glanced at Dahli. “I can see how this would quickly deplete a sorcerer’s strength, if he or she was alone and hadn’t prepared for it. It’s like being attacked by an army of weak sorcerers.”

  “Who are wasting your magic,” Rielle said. “We should find somewhere not guarded by machines so we can read minds without growing weaker.”

  “I suspect there isn’t anywhere,” Tyen told her. He squinted into the distance, then adjusted his sight again. The network stretched in every direction, all the way to the horizon. He shuddered, both chilled and amazed at the defensive strategy. “Considering the numbers of machines Kettin is capable of producing, I wouldn’t be surprised if these cover the entire world.”

  “Then we stay put,” Dahli decided. “Moving, only to emerge among machines again, will waste time we should be spending reading minds.”

  He and Rielle fell silent, their attention elsewhere. Restored machines began to swarm upwards to rejoin the attack on Tyen’s shield. A thick, constantly shifting sphere of them had begun to form, holes appearing whenever one fell, only to be plugged with a freshly powered machine.

  “The people below are growing concerned,” Dahli said. “They didn’t expect us to last this long. A few people have thought about warning Kettin but they don’t know where she is. The town’s leader is sending a messenger to report the presence of strangers to his superior in another city.” He took Tyen and Rielle’s hands. “I suggest we follow the messenger.”

  Tyen and Rielle nodded in agreement. The machine sphere faded as Dahli took them out of the world a little. They flashed out of it and through the network of machines, more of the metallic forms detecting them and beginning to follow. Quickening his pace, Dahli left the swarm behind. Wondering how the man knew where to go, Tyen searched the place between worlds and felt the presence of another sorcerer, positioned closer to the ground and following a road. Likely to be a weaker magician, the messenger did not appear to detect them. He stopped a few times to breathe, allowing time for Rielle to also do so.

  Eventually the messenger reached a small city. Dahli stopped and brought them into the world. Tyen immediately created a shield again as air surrounded them and the closest machines in the network began to attack.

  Breathing heavily, Rielle stared down. “These machines detect our movement, but they don’t attack the people below. Would they ignore us if we, too, were on the ground?”

  Dahli shook his head. “When we descend the machines will follow us. The people will know where we land.”

  “Yes, but not where we emerge again, if we skim beneath the ground for a distance,” Rielle pointed out. “Of course, we’ll have to hope we’re lucky enough to emerge somewhere nobody sees us, and they’ll be looking everywhere for us.”

  “Not if they think there’s only one of us occupied up here.” Dahli looked at Tyen. “If they’re paying attention to one of us, they may pay none to the other two.”

  “You want me to stay here,” Tyen guessed.

  “Yes. Or move if that proves a better distraction.”

  “Or you could stay here and Rielle and I could go.”

  Dahli’s eyebrows rose. “Rielle can read my mind, so we can communicate silently at least in one direction. She also has the greater store of magic now. And Zeke… I don’t know what state his mind is in. He may see you or Rielle as an enemy, but perhaps he will know me. If not, I am better able to change my appearance to one he will trust, or at least obey.”

  Rielle looked at Tyen, then back at Dahli. “But if we part, how will we find each other again?”

  “Return to the last world,” Dahli suggested. “Remember the lake with the crescent-shaped island? Wait there, or nearby.”

  Rielle nodded. Tyen met her gaze. “Are you sure about this?”

  She shrugged. “It does seem the best plan.”

  He looked from her to Dahli, quashing his misgivings. “Be careful. Both of you.”

  “You, too,” Rielle replied. She let go of his hand and turned to Dahli. “I’ll take us down.”

  The pair faded until he could barely make them out, then blurred and vanished. He looked down, but a swarm of black metal obscured his view of the ground. Once again, the machines had encircled him, battering his shield with blasts of power.

  Seeking minds below, he found some people watching the machines above them swarming around and obscuring a target that was too distant to see anyway. The rest continued their daily tasks, confident that Kettin’s defences would deal with any threat from outside. He stayed still, keeping his shield strong. Machines crowded ever closer. It was hard to resist the urge to push them away, or strike at them, but he did not want to use magic any faster than necessary. Though he, Rielle and Dahli had strengthened themselves far beyond what they expected to need in a battle, he was not about to forget that Dahli had barely escaped last time he’d faced a machine army, and Dahli was not a weak sorcerer by any means.

  As time passed, most of the watchers below grew bored and turned back to whatever task they’d paused in the middle of. Catching the mind of a sorcerer wondering if any other invaders had arrived, Tyen realised his error. He was supposed to be a distraction. He had to keep their attention.

  As long as the machines encircled him and hid him from view, he could move a little without revealing that he was alone. He began to push forward. The swarm followed like a malignant black cloud. He turned and moved in another direction. The locals began to watch again, wondering if this was a last desperate act before the stranger fell out of the sky. When he didn’t fall, some began to wonder if this latest invader might be stronger and more dangerous than the usual Restorer scout. Surely the investigators would arrive soon.

  Uh-oh! Tyen thought. Dumb machines can’t follow me into the place between, but sorcerers can.

  And yet as soon as he left, he would no longer be the distraction Rielle and Dahli needed. Moving in a wide circle, he searched more minds below. All too soon he found the thoughts of a sorcerer receiving orders to find out what or who the machines were targeting, and deal with it.

  Time to go.

  Tyen pushed out of the world. At once, he sensed something new in the place between. Focusing on it, he detected numerous other presences coming towards him. He pushed directly away from the world, realising as he did so that he could not be sure the next world was the one he, Rielle and Dahli had left, as they had travelled quite a distance from their place of arrival. He was also not sure how much magic he had left. For a brief moment he regretted that he hadn’t thought to take all the magic from Kettin’s world, but then that would have left Dahli and Rielle unable to read minds, and alerted all sorcerers that someone of his strength had attacked their world.

  He remembered Tarren once warning him about the danger of using magic quickly. “It is like pumping water through a hose. If the flow is slow, you have time to detect when you’re about to run out. If it is fast, you can come to the end of your store so quickly that your mind is unable to sense the end of it before it has arrived.” Thanks to the vast number of machines attacking him, Tyen knew he had been draining his store of magic as fast as if he’d faced an army of sorcerers. He should make sure he was on the ground and s
afe, not levitating and in the middle of a battle with several sorcerers, when he came to the end.

  At least he could move faster than most between worlds. The strangers fell behind as he travelled past the midpoint between Kettin’s world and the next. Which meant he was drawing these sorcerers’ attention away from Rielle and Dahli. Unless he was heading for the world of the meeting place. For all that he knew, Rielle and Dahli were already waiting there, and he was bringing trouble straight to them.

  To his relief, the landscape that emerged was very different. At first, he thought he was arriving above a sprawl of dead tree trunks, but as details emerged he realised they were columns of stone. Their angular surfaces suggested immense crystalline forms, softened by an age of weathering. While many of the columns had fallen, creating a jumble of them propped up against or lying on each other, others still stood in clusters, projecting towards the sky.

  He arrived and created a sphere of stilled air to support and protect himself, and immediately sent himself flying across the sky. The world was empty of magic. Nothing below looked like an arrival place. If he pushed out of this world again, would he find a way to the next world, or reverse back into his pursuer’s path? He had to hope it would be the former. At least he knew that, in the place between worlds, he was still the stronger sorcerer. They could not stop him moving there.

  Hearing a shout, he glanced back to see the figures had materialised in the world. More than twenty of them.

  He stopped, drew upon his store of magic to push out of the world… and realised he did not have enough.

  Fear lanced through him. He pushed himself back into motion, hoping to keep enough distance between himself and his pursuers that he would be a difficult target. The air around him sizzled and hissed as the sorcerers missed him. Then an impact struck his shield. He glanced back at his pursuers. One was much closer. As he watched, another suddenly streaked closer, then abruptly slowed, again.

  They were pushing out of the worlds and skimming to get closer to him, since there was no air resistance in the place between. He cursed. They would all catch up soon. Defending himself would take up more magic. So would levitating. How long before he ran out and fell from the sky?