Wraiths and Raiders, page 11
Andalynn picks up a wireless heart rate monitor and attaches it to her necklace. Jeiah grabs a touch watch. Koglim has already been waiting with his phone, and my mom grabs an identical one, which she tucks away. We all watch as she takes the golden ring box from her pocket, with its royal velvet inside. She lets a golden candy dissolve in her mouth.
Koglim begins his pre-mission jig. “I know this is just another side mission to hopefully lead to actually attacking Vor, but spit and bones, this is exciting. The fallen cities always remind me of old times surveying for Quimdem with Rugnus.”
Rugnus takes out Icho with a flourish.
I catch one last glare from Brig, and then we budge.
The second we arrive, I feel my body pulled forward by the floor. We’re inside a dark tunnel, firelight reflecting off the grimy metallic walls. The floor moves all of us in a single direction toward the only light source—a wall of flame.
“Not good,” Koglim says, backpedaling... or no, striving to stay in one place on the moving conveyor belt of a floor.
Within a few seconds, we all set a pace moving us toward the back wall, but it feels like an uphill walk. What we assume to be a wall ends up being more darkness. This whole hallway is a treadmill nightmare.
“What now?” Mom says. “We won’t be able to keep walking like this forever. Hold it. Something is there.” She points down the corridor into the darkness. I squint in that direction but see nothing.
“You sure?” I ask.
Koglim points to her eyes. They have a golden color mixed with green. “Bloodcraft.”
“Attunes my physical senses,” she says. “The thing I’m looking at is getting closer. I think... yeah, whatever it is, it’s alive. It’s small, but wait...”
“Through the firewall,” Rugnus shouts.
All of us but Mom immediately stopped walking. We know to trust Rugnus. But she calls out again. “Wait! It’s—”
As the thing emerges from the darkness, more details appear. The figure on the floor is not some unholy creature made of mithrium fallout. It’s a person struggling to get his feet under him.
Brig.
“You little brittle-boned latcher,” Jeiah charges over to her brother, hoisting him to his feet. But he can barely stand.
Koglim asks, “How did you—”
Brig is breathing heavily. His eyelids keep closing. “...used... Icho’s... signature.”
Andalynn shakes her head, confused. “Can he even do that?”
Rugnus can’t take his eyes off Icho. “New one to me.”
“I used... Blueweb... knew you wouldn’t... let me come with you.”
“Well, whatever you did, it cost you,” Mom says. “You can barely breathe.”
Brig nudges Jeiah’s hands away. His feet find a steady rhythm. His breathing normalizes, not without effort, but we all know he’s trying to prove he can hold his own.
“Just as easy to send you back,” Rugnus says, leveling Icho. The second he frowns, Brig smiles, holding up his digital watch.
“Ho, nope. I slaved this to Icho’s signature. Send me away, and it will just bounce me back.”
Still walking in place, I move diagonally to intercept Brig. “Then turn it off. We’re sending you home.”
“No,” Jeiah says, grabbing my arm when I reach for him. “That’s not how this works. The devices offer protection from the effects of the fallout. If you take it off, the city will see him, and Vor might too.” She whirls back to Brig. “Wipe that smug look off your face, you idiot. You just made our mission more difficult. Now we have to take care of you.”
He takes another step back, the flames at the end of the hallway reflecting in his eyes. “I can take care of myself. In fact, back there’s a dead end. I’m gonna lead us through that hologram over there.” He points to the wall of flames.
“Hologram?” I ask.
“Oh,” Koglim says. “Yeah, that’s probably true. Hadn’t thought about that.”
“Getting old, raider,” Brig says, letting Koglim catch him on the moving floor.
“Get melted.”
“Is he right?” Mom asks.
But as we all draw closer to the fire, we realize it’s not giving off heat. Brig smiles as we allow the floor to move us through the flames. He’s right. It’s just a hologram.
The walls fall away, and we let our feet rest. The floor still moves, but we are high on top of a mechanical structure, the world alive with machines around us. Sparks rain down over half the city from the cavern ceiling. Two brightstorms—balls of molten power—orbit each other in the sky, moving like clockwork. Swarms of what look like truck-sized light bulbs hover nearby, filaments glowing. A forest of mechanical stalagmites drip chunks of copper upward, defying gravity. They form on the ceiling into rust-green stalactites.
“You weren't kidding about this place,” I say.
Jeiah scans the horizon, the keycard in her hand. “Follow the darkness. Does anyone see a darker spot than that hole?” She extends her finger down to the base of the cavern, but I don’t see anything until I take out my key.
I follow where she’s pointing into the depths where the darkness seems to be a living thing.
“What hole?” Rugnus says. “The darkest place I see is near the base of that massive building.” The others glance where he indicates. The whole base of the building opens into a ravine, but it’s not dark—not like the other place.
“Clayson?” Andalynn says.
“I see what Jeiah’s seeing. We go there.”
Rugnus hands her Icho. “Lead the way.”
Together we budge the whole group into what I assumed would be darkness, but we arrive in a stark world of contrast. Bright swaths of UV black light cut columns through a maze of pure midnight. Here and there, the UV lights shift in the shadows, revealing stone walls.
A scream strikes out from my left. Rugnus clutches his hand.
“Rugnus?”
“Get back!” He yells. “Stay out of the light!”
The closest UV spotlight dances toward me languidly, but I step out of the way, moving toward Rugnus in the dark. When I get to him, he doesn’t appear hurt or in pain, but he holds up his hand. His thumb has been transformed into metal, glass, and gears. He wiggles and bends it, making sure it still works like a thumb.
“Keep Ide,” Koglim says. “That looks... permanent.”
I try to heal it using my bracelet.
“Don’t bother,” Jeiah says. “Koglim’s right. It’s permanent.”
Andalynn takes Rugnus’ hand and looks it over. “I thought the electronics were supposed to protect us!”
“Oh, they do,” Brig says. “But there’s still the innate mechcraft from the fallout. The city has learned to harness other crafts by itself. And if the city could see us, it might do that to all of us—on purpose.”
Koglim takes another large step away from the closest column of light. “Trollbrick.”
“Let’s move,” Jeiah says. “I think we can avoid the lights for the most part. I can see the darker spots.”
“We’re lucky one of us didn’t budge straight into the light,” Koglim says.
“I don’t want to think about it,” Andalynn says as Rugnus tucks his hand out of sight.
Jeiah and I lead the others through a maze of darkness and stone, wall-by-wall, light-by-light, holding back in a few places but more often rushing through a gap in the lights. No one else tries to take charge. No one argues. Brig is the most close-lipped I’ve ever seen him.
“Just beyond this light,” Jeiah says.
Once it passes, we move quickly. Halfway there, the light changes pattern, heading back for us. Koglim notices the same time I do, but he’s closer to the light, Brig’s in front of him. Koglim grabs the back of Brig’s shirt and tosses him forward. Then Koglim’s simply gone, a column of light in his place.
Rugnus stands ten feet away, Icho in his grip.
Andalynn searches for Koglim “Where’s—”
Rugnus breathes out slowly. “Budged him.”
“Spit and bones I—” Koglim, another few steps ahead of us, pats his hair. A few ends have become gold wiring. “That was too close.”
“Down the stairs,” Jeiah says.
Andalynn pats Koglim’s back. “Maybe you can just cut it.”
“Oh, it won’t grow back like hair,” Brig offers. Andalynn throws him a warning look, but he continues. “It will be wire forever. A new look for Koglim Felsight—golden-haired professional raider.”
Koglim considers this. “I suppose that could work.”
At the end of the stairway, it opens into a hallway of yellow neon. To our right, pulses of purple light lead up another stairway.
“Is that music?” Koglim asks.
“Unmistakably,” Brig says. “But I heard those who find the source of the music in Kalisserl never stop hearing it.”
“This way,” Jeiah points down the yellow hallway. An unnatural black cloud hangs against the far end of the long corridor.
We follow Jeiah down another stairway. At the bottom, an ominous wall of mirrors waits. No, that’s not quite right. They’re not mirrors.
“Interesting,” Jeiah says. “They’re screens.”
“Are we still going in the right direction?” Mom asks.
Jeiah purses her lips. “I think so, but here I don’t see anything dark. Not like before. Clay?”
Even as she says my name, I sense something through the key. Dread. I know it’s not a feeling that belongs to me. It's something the key is pumping into my nervous system. A sense of darkness and evil. “It's more of a feeling. Can that be right?”
Brig mulls this over. “Could be. Jeiah was seeing darkness. You might be feeling it.”
“Great,” I mutter.
“There,” Koglim says. “A break in the screens. Maybe an entrance.”
We follow him cautiously toward a break in the mirrored screens. He’s right, but the opening leads to another hallway filled with screens on every side.
Koglim waves an indifferent hand. “If we can handle the mirror market, we can deal with a little maze.”
“Mazes have a clear path to a clear end,” I say. “Somehow, I doubt the city is built like that.” I squeeze the keeper’s key. There is a spot on the far side of the maze. It’s trying to draw me toward it. “But this feeling... I can almost pinpoint it. It's maybe a block or two that way.”
“There could be multiple paths,” Jeiah says.
“Or none at all,” I say. “Are we sure we can’t go around it?”
For the next ten minutes, we search for another way forward, but the wall of screens dead-ends on both sides. Eventually, we gather again at the only entrance. As Rugnus moves forward, my mom stops his movement with an outstretched arm. She unweaves a needle from the hem of her shirt and holds it up. When she pokes her finger, everyone gathers around to watch the result. She pools golden blood into her hand, perhaps an ounce total.
Koglim and Brig are the only ones who act squeamish when she dips her finger into her palm and then traces a line across everyone’s chin.
“So, this makes us... what?” Rugnus asks.
“My blood should allow everyone to pass through the walls. But hold on to each other. Do not let go. We’ll form a rough circle, Clayson at the head.” She holds out a hand to the screen, and it mirrors her. When she presses it to the wall, it sinks to her wrist.
“Okay, then,” Koglim grins. “We can walk through walls. I love goldcraft.”
“Stay together,” Jeiah says. “I—” She blinks, and I see something cross her face. Her usually investigative pupils swim in uncertainty. “Do you see that?”
She points to the bottom of a screen. Her reflection stares back at me, but there’s something else in the bottom corner. A number and the symbol for ferrum, Loamin money.
Rugnus slides next to us. Points to his reflection and the number beneath it. “I think that’s my account balance. How does it know how much ferrum I have?”
Mom urges us closer. “We need to move before the goldcraft wears off.”
Rugnus grunts, and we huddle back together.
We hold fast to each other as we slip through the first wall. The next room is filled with screens, half of them simply mirroring us, but the other half runs video of a host of other people. The videos loop, but each has the same stamp at the bottom corner. This time the number next to the ferrum symbol slowly ticks downward.
Koglim glances at his reflection, admiring himself, but I watch the number under his video tick down by two ferrum, then two more.
“What is this place? Brigs says. “It's not taking ferrum from my account... is it?”
Rugnus pushes closer to me, ignoring his reflection and the number ticking away. “Move. Faster.”
We cross through another wall into an even larger section of screens, the walls towering a few stories. A billion holographic ferrum signs dance above us like rain. My reflection appears before me. At the bottom of the screen, the number drops by multiples of twenty. Understanding slowly dawns on Koglim’s face. “Wraithspit. Something’s collecting our ferrum?”
“Not just ours,” Jeiah says. I think it might be anyone who’s ever been here. Or who had ever lived in Kalisserl.”
Brig whistles. “That’s a lot of ferrum.”
“It’s a trick,” Mom says. “Remember, the city is alive with mechcraft. It can automate everything. It must have bluelink access.”
“Bricks and bones, that’s greedy,” Koglim says with a low whistle. “Keep Ide. What does a living city need with my ferrum?”
The number beneath my mirror picture continues to count down. But we keep running. Before we cross through the next wall, I glimpse a video I know must be impossible.
The second we enter another room, I spin around to face everyone. They nearly run into me. I gasp out the name. “Hardkeeper. In one of the videos.”
“What?” Rugnus says.
“It was him. I saw him in that golden mask. I think—”
“They found us!” Koglim shouts.
Figures burst from around the corner, Grimflail at their head. He laughs, satisfied. “Hello, Rugnus!”
I push to the front of the narrow hallway and ignite a shield using my bracelet. It spills between the walls and rises through the ceiling. Grimflail launches himself at it. His golden nails scrape into the shield, sending sparks flying outward at Hardkeeper and the others.
Rugnus is beside himself, his face contorted. “Mom!” He growls, throwing fire at this side of the shield.
“Stop!” I yell. “You’ll weaken it!”
“I’ll kill him!” Rugnus screams. He charges forward, but Koglim grabs him.
Grimflail’s nails scrape deeper into the shield, and he bellows with joy. “You’ll wear a mask!” he yells. “I swear it, Rugnus. You and everyone you love will wear my masks.”
Beside him, Hardkeeper produces a cast iron ball. The small figure among them, Brude, steps next to him. With a click of something on the ball, Brude disintegrates into sparkling smoke. Hardkeeper gathers the smoke into the ball.
“Now!” Grimflail shouts.
Hardkeeper slams the ball into the shield. The white energy flickers and the cast iron globe drops to the ground, rolling toward us. In a billow of smoke, Brude reappears, his face covered in the same scratched golden mask. He lurches toward us, grabbing Brig. Jeiah sweeps Brude’s leg out from under him and pulls her brother away as Brude comes crashing to the ground.
“Through the next wall,” she shouts. “Clayson, what are you waiting for?”
I snap to attention as Koglim drags Rugnus back into our reformed circle. We move through. I half expect the goldcraft to fail, but we charge through wall after wall.
Ten walls later, we emerge from the maze of screens into an identical hallway to the entrance, and for a moment, I think we’ve only come back around. Down a new set of stairs, a dim red light waits.
Jeiah points in that direction. “The darkness is back.”
Rugnus kicks a screen. “We have to face him!”
My mom shakes her head. “No. We go on. The bloodcraft worked. They can’t hope to catch us. We need to move forward.”
Andalynn touches Rugnus’ arm, and more tears swell around his eyes. “She’s right, Rugnus. Hey, look at me. She’s right. And we will find a way to face him. But not on his terms.”
“Yeah,” Rugnus whispers. “Okay.”
Koglim takes one more look at the screens where Grimflail’s image flashes. “Well, at least the city is taking their ferrum too.”
As we spiral down the stairs, the red light grows deeper and deeper. We follow a series of long ramps winding back and forth on the side of a ravine of rotting metal and slime-wet stone.
In the near dark, Brig whispers, “I can’t stop thinking about how much ferrum the city has collected. Where does it keep it all?”
“If I had access to that vault account...” Koglim says, but he leaves it to our imagination how he might spend the ferrum. Probably food.
Around the next corner, I stumble into ankle-deep water. I’ve been following Jeiah, but I draw the key out to check. Dread immediately washes over me. “We’re definitely going the right way.”
“Through here,” Jeiah says.
The next room is vast, like a great cathedral or the inside of a grand train station. The bright red light gleams off clusters of metallic surfaces. It takes me a few seconds to translate the metal walls, tables, and the hilly floor into something I can understand.
“I think we found all the ferrum,” Mom says.
The spacious chamber is filled with piles and piles of glimmering ferrum. The small rectangular coins form great towers and mounds, as far as I can see. One massive hoard of coins.
“What’s that?” Koglim points to the center of the room, where the red light emanates.
I recognize the towering, glowing gemstone. It’s a mindhive. Similar to what Jeiah showed me in Tungsten City months ago when we spoke with the soul of one of the ancient azdeth. This one is peppered with various rocks and metal shards and rests on a gunmetal base.
“A mindhive?” Brig asks. “Here?”
Jeiah continues. “I’ve heard of this one. The Gem of Worms. The minds of all dragonkind—or many—are contained in this thing.”
