MudMan (The Golem Chronicles Book 1) (28 page)

“During an exploratory trip to Outworld, a party of magi discovered the Spine and in it a rare earth alloy essential to their workings. The ruling body, realizing the profit to be made, wanted to set up a huge mining operation, but couldn’t find a way to make it sustainable since Outworld was so inaccessible at the time. So they developed a machine, one they didn’t fully understand, to punch a permanent hole in reality and create a temporal bridge between the Sprawl and Atlantis.

“Instead of creating a stable bridge”—he gave an apologetic shrug—“they created an unstable dimensional wormhole, which tore the entire city through the fabric of reality and dropped it right in the heart of the Sprawl. The whole island disappeared in a blink, leaving behind a massive crater, which, in turn, created an unprecedented tsunami that filled in the void: the sinking of Atlantis. The Cataclysm.”

“Stop,” Levi said, pushing himself to his feet, then pressing fat palms against the sides of his head, trying to hold his thoughts in place. “You’re overwhelming me with all this.” Levi wasn’t dumb precisely, but neither was he quick-witted. “I’m not a scholar. This is too big for me. It’s over my head. Can’t you simplify it?”

“I’m sorry, but believe me, I
am
simplifying it.”

Levi grunted and paced, huge legs carrying him across the room in a handful of steps, then back again.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Thoughts slugged along while his legs moved. “Okay, okay,” Levi said after a beat. “So Cain is real and trapped in this prison, cut off from the rest of the world, right?”

“Right.”

“Then a couple of thousand years later, Atlantis gets sucked through a rift into Outworld, correct?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain how we got to here.” He jabbed a finger at the floor. “How does Atlantis Correction Systems come into the picture?”

“I’m getting there, but the story isn’t short. I’m trying to cram seven thousand years’ worth of history, a hundred text books worth of ancient mythology, and one of the greatest civilizations that’s ever existed into a cohesive story a layman can understand. It’s not bloody easy.” He cleared his throat and readjusted his glasses. “Now, Atlantis wasn’t destroyed. The city survived, damaged but intact. They landed in the Sprawl—though in those days it was a lush, beautiful paradise—and spread throughout the region. Some ancient texts even suggest a party made it across the Spine.

“Those were far from peaceful years, however. After the Cataclysm, the country broke into a bloody civil war, which eventually wiped out the civilization—the whole thing imploded in a thermo-nuclear war, which turned the Sprawl into the desolate wasteland you see today. A tragedy of the greatest magnitude.” He fell silent for a moment, as though he were watching those events unfold before him. “During those tumultuous years, a group of civic minded Atlanteans discovered this temple and realized the potential danger it possessed.

“If one of the warring Atlantean factions unleashed Cain as a weapon to use in the war, the damage would’ve been unthinkable. So a neutral third party, Atlantis Correction Systems, was contracted to outfit the facility in an attempt to ensure Cain was never released by either side. The security protocols they put in place were impressive, though sadly many of the defensive mechanisms are now inoperative. The effects of age I’m afraid. I can quite sympathize—these old bones of mine don’t work half so well as they used to.”

Levi paced in silence for a time, his mind spinning and whirling, processing the torrent of new information. This place was a prison designed to keep one inmate incarcerated. If the security system flagged Ryder—and the homunculus inside her—as a threat, it could only mean the homunculus was somehow key in letting Cain, the living incarnation of murder, slip free from his bonds.

But what did that mean about his own past? He too was a homunculus of sorts, and he too had been fashioned under similar circumstances—the strange altar, the massacred bodies, all of it—so how did he fit into the equation? A deeply disturbing thought, that. A question he had no answers for. He turned his attention back toward the professor, who looked equally lost in his own mind.

“Professor,” Levi said.

No answer.

“Professor.” The Mudman snapped the fat fingers of his good hand,
pop, pop, pop
.

“Hmm, what’s that now?”

“I need you to focus for me. There’s still a lot of ground to cover and not near enough time. I need to know why this is all happening
now
. I mean this place has been around for seven thousand years?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because of my discovery. I told you, up until ten months ago, no one could read the glyphs in this temple. At the height of their technological prowess, even the Atlanteans weren’t able to translate them. Several years ago, however, I found a cipher while excavating a long-abandoned Kobock temple in the Deep Downs. Like the Rosetta Stone that allowed Jean-François Champollion to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs for the first time, the cipher enabled me to literally read the writings on the wall. It also disclosed the location of this temple. A remarkable breakthrough.” He paused, wistful. “Truly the find of a lifetime.”

“You found this cipher in a Kobock temple?” Levi asked, voice flat and numb, a queasiness growing in his stomach. “Why would Kobocks have something like that? What connection could they possibly have to all this?”

The professor turned away, brow creased, one eyebrow quirked in thought while he ran a hand through his hair. “The Kobocks have long worshiped Cain. I can’t prove anything definitively, but my theory is that the Kobocks are the lost progeny of Cain. I think they settled in the Sprawl after Cain was imprisoned, and remained until the Atlanteans arrived. There
is
evidence to suggest a primitive group of humanoids lived here, but were driven out around the time of the Cataclysm. I think those were the Kobos, and I believe that after being driven out, they wandered for a while before eventually resettling in the Deep Downs.”

Levi sped up his pacing. Things were falling into place now, piece after piece coming together to form a picture—and not a pretty one.

“At any rate,” the professor continued, “ten months ago I published a small portion of my findings, hoping to secure a backer for this expedition. That’s when Hogg approached me, with money and a wealth of new information. For a while things were going well, right up until I managed to decipher the markings in the inner sanctum. Those writings, they tell Cain’s story, but more importantly, they also offer a manner for releasing him. Not intentionally, mind you, but by leaving a record of how he was imprisoned—in case he ever needed to be imprisoned again—the writers unwittingly divulged the formula to reverse engineer his release.

“That formula is what Hogg was after all along. I have no idea how Hogg knows what he does, but I believe he’s been collaborating with the Kobocks to release Cain for a very long time. Unsuccessfully, obviously. When I refused to give him my findings, he tortured Simon—I barely escaped by the skin on my teeth, and fled to the temple, hoping Hogg wouldn’t be able to pursue me inside. I was right on that score, but I haven’t been able to leave either since Hogg and his goons are camped out at the only exit. Waiting for me to break.”

“How’d Hogg get to the emergency exit if he can’t access the temple?” Levi asked.

“The emergency exit is well concealed, but it can be accessed from the outside. It appears that so long as Hogg doesn’t breach the door to the inner sanctum, Siphonei is content to let him be.”

Levi grunted in reply. “I’ve got another question for you,” Levi said, mind racing along like a fighter jet determined to break the sound barrier. “What use would Hogg have for a homunculus? Like from alchemy.”

Wilkie was quiet for a long beat, face growing noticeably more ashen. “Why?” he whispered.

“One detail I might’ve left out. The girl I’m travelling with. I think she has one growing inside of her. Implanted by a Kobock shaman and Hogg.”

“My God,” the old mage replied, then clasped one hand over his mouth, face pensive, worried. “The ritual is quite complicated. It’s not like baking a cake, you understand. It must be carried out precisely on the autumnal equinox, which would be”—he canted his wrist and glanced at his watch—“Wednesday, September 22 at 8:21 Coordinated Universal Time. Roughly two days from now. In addition, the incantation must be spoken in the mother tongue and a sacrificial murder—a reenactment of Cain’s mythos—must be committed.”

“Sacrificial murder?”

“One blood sibling must willingly kill another, just as Cain killed Abel.” The professor threw up both hands in exasperation. “It’s quite complicated and we haven’t the time for me to explain. The most important part, though, is the
vessel
. This temple binds Cain’s body, but not his
essence
, his
soul
. So, if a suitable form could be constructed—like an empty homunculus—it’s distinctly possible Cain’s essence could invade that body. He’d be free to roam the world again.”

A wave of dizziness washed over Levi as his frantic pacing sped up further still. Hogg meant to free Cain, Ryder was the key, and, since she would undoubtedly be searching for the exit, she would be heading right for him.

The professor sprang to his feet, a tightly coiled spring ready to explode. “It’s imperative we find your friends. Absolutely
imperative
. If Siphonei doesn’t kill them, they’re bound to blunder right into Hogg and his men.”

“You read my mind,” Levi mumbled.

“Perhaps,” Wilkie said, “it would be best for everyone if Siphonei simply killed this girl and the thing inside her.”

“No,” Levi spat. “I don’t want to think about that. She’s … important to me.” And he meant it. It wasn’t just a matter of doing the right thing. He would genuinely be upset to see Ryder die.

Wilkie’s features softened a touch. “She’s your friend. Like my Simon.” After a moment, his face hardened with resolve. “Then we should get a move on it,” he said, brushing the grit from his palms. “I’ve studied Cain for a long time—longer than most. And trust me when I say he’s locked up for a good reason. Best we keep it that way.”

TWENTY-ONE:

Lesser Guardians

Ryder stood on frozen legs, arms stiff, mouth agape, eyes wide as the encroaching thing padded nearer. She had no frame of reference for the thing in the hallway, no category to file it under. Whatever part of her rational brain remained intact seemed to rebel, to throw its hands into the air, as though to say,
Screw this shit three ways from Sunday. I can’t do it anymore, I’m out.

The creature crept forward on sinuous limbs of woven vines: eight arachnoid appendages, covered in cruel thorns and undulating purple flowers, protruded from a bulbous blood-red sac shaped like a spider’s abdomen. A vaguely humanoid torso—all ropy green muscle and slouched shoulders covered with wicked spikes of black bone—perched atop the spidery-thorax, swaying lazily with each step.

A gargantuan replica of the small flowers dotting the creature’s insectile legs served for its head. Directly in the center of the creature’s face, nestled snugly between its drooping petals, sat a dull onyx beak, built for rending flesh or tearing meat. Looked like some kinda freaky-ass monster squid. A trio of ropy arms, one from each shoulder and a third sprouting from its chest, waved and wobbled through the air as it moved, snaking first this way, then that. Crustacean pincers, black as midnight and covered in more barbed hooks, large and small, adorned each arm.

Those claws flexed as it scuttled.

Open,
snick
. Close,
snap
.

Open,
snick
. Close,
snap
.

Ryder couldn’t move.

She willed her legs to move, but the mutinous limbs refused—the equivalent of flashing her the bird. Deep down, she knew her survival hinged on putting as much distance between her and that … well,
whatever-the-hell-it-was
as fast as possible. Unfortunately, the urge to turn and flee wrestled with the urge to curl into the fetal position and pull a blanket over her head. To hide from the monster like she’d done as a little girl when the drug dealers would pay her folks a late-night visit. Ultimately, indecision made the choice for her.

She did nothing.

Stood there watching as the horror inched closer.

Chuck—the world’s worst tour guide, but apparently a keen fan of not dying—had no such reservation. Without a word, he hefted his beefy pistol and aimed in with practice and ease, which offered Ryder a glimpse past Chuck’s smart mouth and easygoing façade.

She was good at reading body language—a necessary survival trait growing up. In the circles her parents had moved in, violence was as common as the rain was wet, and often the only hint of impending danger lay in the subtle, subconscious movements of the body: clenching fists, a trickle of sweat on the brow, biceps tightening or teeth grinding. For all Chuck’s talk of pastries and baking, he was damn confident with the piece in his palm, comfortable in a way that said,
This ain’t my first rodeo. I’ve been around a time or two and I intend to stay around
.

“Get ready to move that ass,” he whispered, hands steady, eyes never leaving the flower-covered creature.

Chuck’s words loosened something inside her chest, lifting away the paralyzing dread. Ryder nodded and leveled her petite revolver, the grip slick in her palm. This was nothing like shooting at milk cartons filled with sand, but she’d put rounds into those Sprawl wolves—saved Levi, even if it’d been an accident—and she could do this, too.

Chuck broke the momentary lull with a single twitch of his finger. The gun blared,
crack-boom
, followed by a bloom of light, harsh in the purple illumination, which temporarily burned a white afterimage across her eyes. The round tore into the creature’s torso, ripping a hole in its chest cavity, a wound as large as a softball. Chuck fired another round, a wet
thwack
, and one of the creature’s pincers blew apart, pinwheeling end over end into the hallway behind.