Blightcross: A Novel (33 page)

“Do you really think this is not what he intended?”

Vasi's digging became frantic. “I know Sevari better than most.” She looked away. “I know him well enough to know that he does not enjoy... this chaos. Even if the shadows promised that it was related to some higher order that would become apparent, he is too stubborn to change his mystical views. He will think that these shadows are the antithesis of the worldspirits he believes in, and are trying to stop the world from turning or some such ludicrous thought.”

He glanced at Capra again. Perhaps Vasi's help had aided her in staving off further damage, but nobody ought to be that shade of pale when labouring in the heat. No healthy person, anyway.

“You truly believe these vaults are protected from the Hex?”

“I know they are. And when we run into shadow men down there, you will believe me.”

Helverliss had sensed the presence there for some time, but only now could he gather enough strength to raise his head and open his eyes. At his feet was a pen and the piece of paper, and he vaguely recognized his complex drawing as his sore eyes focused.

In front of him stood another man in black. “Good evening, Noro.”

“Have you come to end my suffering?”

“I am here to gain information, Noro. Things you are hiding from us.”

“I cannot hide anything from you.”

“Come now. You have uncovered secrets to the human mind. Secrets to your own peculiar way of relating to the world around you. I know you have learned how to bury your knowledge.”

He thought for a moment. “Ah. Things have changed over the millennia, haven't they? You're no longer satisfied with the primitive order you began to create.”

“Very astute. The boy is fascinating, but we do not understand him. His desires are strange. For example, he does not copulate with the girls he has seized, but orders them around. He does not kill his subordinates, but asks favours of them. He is more interested in gazing into the mirror than any real act of fulfilment or dominance. This is all new to us.”

There was something odd about the situation. The shadows should not be asking these questions, and he should be dead or turned into one of their pawns by now.

Could they really be confused by the current state of humanity? In the end, all of his philosophical advances and those of his colleagues amounted to little. How much had really changed since the last time the shadow beings roamed the earth? Perhaps it was not understanding they lacked, but context...

He drew just enough breath to speak. “You cannot properly exist without your enemy.”

“The town is teeming with humans, and they are performing admirably. The lack of plant life makes things much easier for us, as well. Less to transmute, you see.”

“No—not humanity.” He did some quick mental figuring, using logical formulae he had devised in defining the relation of objects, substances, and subject. “You are un-life.”

“That is right. And humanity is life.”

“Humanity is not life.”

The shadow man gave an inquisitive motion with his head.

“Not in this equation.” Helverliss laughed. The impotent fools—let them run themselves into oblivion. He might even come out of it alive, whether or not that was a good thing. “You are missing something.”

“And this is?”

“You'll love this, shadow man. You're missing the fire giants.”

The shadow man drew back, face wrenched with disgust. “We killed them all. Their remains have become your people's fuel.”

“You are the same, shadow man. The fire giants are the wild, untamed force of nature, and you wretches are their negative, not humanity's. You wanted to change their natural order, of the jungles and oceans, into cold precision.” He chuckled more, relishing his revelation. It would make a great lecture, and the thought of actually living to complete it for once made him happy, rather than depressed. “And so, my friend, that is why things are not quite right with you. You have denied yourselves the very thing upon which you depend for your continued existence. Your other half.”

“This cannot be true. We wish to destroy each other. The same does not destroy itself.”

“But your mistake is in thinking it destruction. There are mediating circumstances, after all.”

“Such as?”

“Man.”

The shadow man looked even more disgusted. “Man is but a thing to be directed by his betters. You need direction and plans. You need confidence in yourselves, you need the seduction of individuality to coax you out of bed.”

“Do you not remember the legend of Akhli? What do you think that was about?”

“He tricked us.” The shadow gazed at the painting, or what was left of it. “And we learned from it. That is why rather than talking to you humans and letting you push us into our own traps, we force you to enjoy yourselves.”

“Is that what is going on out there? You have it wrong. You see, Akhli was the mediating circumstance between the two opposing forces. In the end, they were... subsumed, and mankind began to flourish. It was a way to deal with the ultimate impotence of the two monolithic forces, of this primordial yet divine lie...”

Now his weak heart began to thud. There were so many avenues of thought opening to him after this realization, and he could barely scribble on the paper scraps at his feet.

Were these shadows, along with the giants, actually man himself? A kind of dream image? A universal delusion or hallucination?

Perhaps reality itself possessed a psychology, and this could give rise to such hysteria...

How would he reconcile the relationship between the three? It could take years to work out.

“What you speak of is impossible. If that were true, our return would also bring about the return of the giants.”

Helverliss grinned. “I do believe you're getting it, friend.”

Of all the oversights regarding the mechanical golem project, Lieutenant Baq Gorvanian never would have guessed that talking to his crew while the damned thing was running would be one of them. Engine noise drowned out everything, even the sound of his own heartbeat. His legs felt like chutney after standing atop the bloody machine for twenty minutes.

He waved at the technician standing on the other shoulder of the mechanical beast, and after minutes of futile flailing at a man too deep in his work to notice, stepped within smacking distance.

He shouted to the technician as loudly as he could. “Those first steps were far too shaky. I believe one of the gyroscopes is faulty. Do you have another?”

The technician grimaced as he wrenched tight another bolt, then wiped his brow. “Gyroscope is fine, Sir. I just had the thing's head opened up, ain't nothing wrong in there. The first few steps are bound to be a bit wobbly anyway.”

They had only a few more minutes before the golem would finish its warm-up and they would have to either scramble down from it, or find some crevice to hide in once it engaged the shadows.

“I want to be damned sure that this machine is in order before it grows up and wanders into the world.” He ran through the golem's schematic in his mind, searching for any system his team might have missed. “Maybe the bloody fuckers put a drunkard's brains into it.”

He stepped back to the golem's head and removed a panel. Inside was a human brain, and next to it, an obsidian tube. Golden wires connected them.

It all looked as it was supposed to, and he snapped that one shut. The final task was to test fire the cannons and flame-guns, so he opened an auxiliary panel next to the main one. Inside were several studs and a few gauges and counting mechanisms.

He fiddled with them, and the sixteen engines responsible for the arms growled to raise them. He pointed them away from the city, hesitated for a moment, and pressed a stud.

The thing shook with a thunder that rose above the engine noise, and the special cannon shot trailed smoke as it arced towards the desert. Next, he tried the flame-guns. There was a hiss, and a spark. Flames leaped into the air, a distance that seemed half the length of the main road through the city. Flaming dust ran down the golem's arm—more of the ore from the Hex mixed into the fuel for extra damage, like the cannon shot.

Where the flame bit into the sky, the shadows parted. Gorvanian didn't know if the fire was damaging them, but at least he could be sure that it made them uneasy.

After shutting the panel and returning the golem to its own devices, he reached into his satchel for the signalling horn he had brought. He blew it, and began to climb down the golem's side.

There was one technician below him, climbing down the ladder. This was the worst part—no matter how precise their casting, the exhaust pipes were not perfectly sealed, and climbing down the side of the golem was an exercise in holding his breath for as long as he could. Also, his head was a hand's length away from the multitude of engines.

His foot met with the technician's hand. But the man below did not look up or say anything. He seemed transfixed by something in the distance.

Great—they must have forgotten about something. Someone always remembers when it's time to finish up and everyone thinks the work is done. It was probably the gyroscope, just as he had mentioned—

And he caught in the distance a jet of flame, not unlike the one he had just seen leap from the golem's arm. There was a creature nearly the size of the golem itself, stomping through the oilfields and heading towards the city.

He hollered several expletives, knowing fully that nobody would hear him.

At the sound of the bell tone under his former desk, Sevari sailed towards the panel of studs by sheer habit. Rovan rolled to block him.

“What if I don't want to answer the door right now?”

“Forgive me, Rovan.”

He stepped aside, and Rovan rolled the chair back in front of the desk. “So how do I let them in?”

“I would not dream of directing you, Leader.”

“Just tell me how to do it, Till.”

He pointed to the correct stud, and Rovan slammed his thumb on it.

In walked Lieutenant Gorvanian, whose haggard eyes hardly so much as flickered over Rovan behind the desk. His hair was plastered to his head and greasy. His uniform was black and his skin did not escape this trend, either.

He was panting and trying to speak.

“What is it, man?” Sevari asked.

“Fire giants.”

Sevari darted to the window and gazed to the city's outer reaches.

It had to be an illusion. No human since the time of Akhli had seen one of these creatures.

The spiked tail, the hardened back. Fire spewing from their mouths, a look of utter savagery in their eyes, which he would expect should not be visible from this distance but eerily, they were.

Gorvanian shook his head. “How is this possible? They were all destroyed. We have their remains in our museums and in our engines.”

Sevari clapped and sneered at Rovan. “You see that, my boy? Hm? Will your friends be able to drive them away this time?”

Rovan spun round in the chair, and a bearing squealed. “There's no Akhli this time. That's what is different. A few overgrown turtles don't worry me.”

“They look more like lizards to me,” Gorvanian said.

“Whatever they are,” Sevari said, “they are forcing the shadows to retreat.” He pointed out the window, where a dozen giants swatted and belched fire into the shadows circling the city. Some of the shadows veered away from the giants, only to careen squarely into the path of the mechanical golem's attacks.

He held his breath while the golem moved to fire. What a perfect test of the weapon—now the city would see the golem in action and when this was all over, no army would dare invade.

The golem raised its arms and Sevari could make out the minute adjustments as Section Three's artificial mind thought and aimed just like any ordinary soldier. The engines blared with each movement, and when the automatic cannons boomed, Sevari felt a thrill spread through his body.

“Look, the golem's fire is just as potent as the giants'.”

Rovan jumped from his seat, shoved Sevari from the window with his shoulder. “No. How can fire hurt a shadow? It makes no sense.” He growled. “Well, this is shit. I want someone to tell me how this can happen.”

Rovan grabbed Sevari's lapel, and this time Sevari had no desire to appease the boy.

“Tell me, Till. What's going on here? Where did these giants come from?”

“Perhaps if you would let me out of this damned office, I could find that out!” He snatched Rovan's hand from his jacket. “Helverliss must have called upon them after realizing what a fool he had been to try to keep these secrets from me by unleashing them.”

For the first time, Rovan looked as though he could cry. At least the little bastard knew when he was beaten.

It would only be a matter of time before the giants and the golem forced the shadows to surrender.

No amount of slow breathing and exercises in calmness could bring Capra's heartbeat to a reasonable level. She walked with her hands against either side of the tunnel, keeping herself steady and simultaneously reminding her of the tunnel's cramped size.

Also, the last time she had come into these smooth, metal tunnels, Vasi had turned on them.

The one good thing about the tunnels was that after Dannac had dispatched two black-suited men with his hand-cannon, they were reasonably sure that the Hex no longer posed any danger.

“You still look ill,” Vasi said. “I wonder if the Hex got to you more than you realize.”

“Ah, no. I don't do well in tight spaces. Once we get out of here, I'll be fine.”

“Until you have to climb through the clock.”

“Well yes, that goes without saying.” She cringed. But that was different.

Wasn't it?

It took them another hour to cross under the river. Vasi used her skills to place them as close to the refinery as possible, and according to her, that was in the workers' camps surrounding it.