The First Book of Ore: The Foundry's Edge (37 page)

icah stood by the shimmering gold curtain, Dervish rifle at the ready. His legs were killing him, but he wasn't about to rest. Not until Phoebe did. She had been in the back room for hours now.

He'd stand guard forever if that's what he had to do.

They were in a huge gray tent, big enough to hold all the warriors in the Covenant camp, but Orei had shooed everyone out. Just he and Dollop remained. The little mehkie sat nearby, praying beside a giant dynamo carved into the floor. Splotches of sun spilled through the patchy hide ceiling, mixing with the pale blue light of lantern bags stuck to the tent posts.

Micah kept hearing the Doc's last words. He repeated them to himself again and again. They were all he had to hold on to. That and his empty gun. He adjusted his grip on it, feeling the scrape of his calluses along the handle—finally, after building it up for so long, there was a hardness in his hands.

The flap on the far side of the tent flashed open, and Orei strode in with two mehkies. One of them was lumpy and old and barely came up to Micah's waist. The other was the same kind of crane-claw creature that had nearly broken his arms back in the Gauge Pit, an orange-skinned brute with shoulders like the front of a Cargoliner. He looked like he could have given that Titan back in the Citadel a run for its money.

As the trio got closer, Micah saw that Orei was no longer covered in black camouflage. She was all midnight blue lined with silver. Cracks in the rings on her arm and chest had been fixed with something that looked like gray solder.

Dollop was too caught up in his prayers to notice them at first. When the little old mehkie spoke to him in creaky Rattletrap, Dollop squeaked and flopped onto his knees in sudden devotion. The ancient creature was buried in layers of frilly gold veils, and her wrinkled face was barely visible beneath a dynamo headpiece draped in delicate chains. She reached out sticklike arms that ended in two knotty claws and laid them on Dollop's head. The two prayed in unison.

Micah wondered what the big to-do was.

He noticed that the crane-claw mehkie's eyes were fixed on his rifle. Micah returned the stare. The scarred warrior nodded his head respectfully.

Now Orei spoke to Dollop, the wobbly chords of her voice sounding far away. He looked up at her, astonished. Tears shimmered in his eyes. Micah had never seen him so excited. It felt so out-of-place on this sad, gray morning.

“What?” Micah asked.

“A-A-A-A-Axial Ph-Phy s-s-s-said…” he blubbered, unable to speak clearly.

The orange giant raised his rippling I-beam arm and opened a six-fingered crane claw. With shaking hands, Dollop took something from his grip.

A bloodred dynamo.

Axial Phy retrieved the emblem and placed it over the splash of silver scars on his chest. Dollop winced as she twisted the dynamo to lock it in place.

“O-O-Overguard Orei says I—I have a place now,” Dollop chirped. “I f-f-found my function, and—and now have a cl-clan, too. Th-th-the Covenant!”

Micah smiled at him. “You done good, chum.”

“I'm in the C-C-Covenant!”

Dollop leaped up in a confetti of parts, limbs and digits scattering in celebration, then snapping back together. The crane-claw mehkie rumbled a deep laugh, spoke a few words to Dollop, and headed for the door.

“I—I have to go now,” he whispered giddily to Micah. “O-Overguard Treth needs me. C-can you believe it? He—he really said he needs
me
.”

Dollop followed the giant. As he was silhouetted in the open flap, framed by the soft dawn outside, he looked back.

“I can't w-w-wait to tell Phoebe!”

Micah's face fell as he watched the little warrior bounce out of the tent and disappear from sight. How quickly his friend had forgotten.

He was jealous of Dollop for that.

Orei and Axial Phy didn't move. They stood staring at Micah. He stiffened and adjusted his grip on the rifle.

“You, too, are needed,” Orei said in a low flutter.

Everything was gray.

Except the cemetery grass, damp and vivid green.

So many people in black. Family she had never met. Friends of her mother she had never heard of.

Goodwin was there, too, head bowed in respectful silence.

In the days leading up to her mother's funeral, Phoebe had cried a lifetime of tears. She was inconsolable. They were all so worried about her. Talking in hushed tones. Staring. Even her father couldn't get through to her.

Everyone mourned, all of these people Phoebe didn't know. One by one, the strangers placed flowers in the open casket. They gave their condolences.

We are so sorry.

She's in a better place now.

If there is anything we can do…

She will always be watching over you.

Then they all left, and she never saw any of them again.

When Phoebe finally approached the grave, she was scared at what she would see inside.

But her mother was beautiful—more beautiful than ever. There was a hint of a smile on her lips, as if she were amused by all this pomp and fuss. As Phoebe studied her mother's expression, she had the fleeting thought that this might all be an elaborate hoax.

And then, all of a sudden, she had stopped crying.

That smile on her mother's face, that coy little dimple, was her final gift. It was like she was consoling Phoebe. Telling her not to worry, not to grieve, that somehow and in some way, everything was going to be all right.

Phoebe's last tear fell onto her mother's porcelain cheek.

For three years, she had kept herself from crying. Through sheer force of will, she had held back every tear.

Until now. They came in a flood.

Phoebe knelt at her father's side. The Covenant had laid his body out ceremoniously on a prayer mat woven from bands of red metal. She had folded the mat around his chest so as to not have to see his terrible wound.

Unlike her mother, he was not smiling. His face was locked in a visage of pain.

“Daddy.”

She petted his thin hair, brushing it back the way he had always done to her. Phoebe took his glasses off and held them to her chest. She stroked his cool face, wishing those wrinkles were framing his smile instead of this terrible death mask.

If only she could have died there, right by his side.

“What do I do now?” she whispered.

She heard movement behind her and turned to look.

Micah was standing there, pale and wide-eyed.

“I-I'll go,” he said backing away.

Phoebe ran at him, wrapping him up in her arms. He dropped his heavy rifle, letting it swing loose on its strap as he held his hands wide, unsure of where to put them. Her tears flowed onto his shoulder. She had to stoop a little, and she knew how terribly awkward it was, but she didn't care.

Hesitantly, his arms closed around her.

“He…he told me…” Micah's voice was choked. “He said to protect you with my life. That was the last thing he said.”

He pulled away and looked her in the eyes.

“And I will. I swear I will.”

He fought back tears and for a moment, through her blurry vision, she saw the man that he would someday become.

She hugged him again, even tighter.

He was all she had left.

“They're waiting for us,” he whispered.

Phoebe and Micah emerged from the back, hand in hand.

Orei and Axial Phy were waiting for them in the middle of the cavernous tent. As they approached, the giant dynamo carved into the floor began to open with a rumbling scrape. The two interlocking gears parted down the middle, revealing a steep staircase that descended out of sight.

“I was to kill Plumm,” Orei said harshly.

Phoebe was stunned by the commander's cruelty.

“Last phase, I was granted the blessing. Went to end his life.” She paused thoughtfully. “But he did not resist. Told me that to aid the Covenant, he would gladly die, but could do more. He wanted to help. Called him liar, bleeder filth. He was not of the ore, was the enemy.”

Her ticking, turning apparatus swayed gently.

“To measure is my function, to know all. Never have I so miscalculated. I was…wrong.” This realization seemed to take Orei a moment to fully absorb. “Because of your father, the Citadel is no more. I am unworthy to speak his name.”

Phoebe reached up and touched the dynamo on Orei's chest. Her twirling scythes came to an abrupt halt, and she glanced at Phoebe's hand. The Covenant commander wavered unsteadily. Then her body began to move again, and she recovered her balance.

“Will prepare rusting rites,” she fluttered softly, “while you are below.”

Micah eyed the hole in the floor warily. “What's down there?” he asked.

Orei's shifting form inverted, and she strode for the exit.

“The Hearth,” was all she said, and then was gone.

With a light shuffling sound, Axial Phy hobbled down the steps, her veils and shawls scratching the ground in her wake. Micah held his rifle at the ready as he followed, and Phoebe descended into the dark behind him.

The ore was obsidian black, and the passage was illuminated by lantern bags on the walls. Micah swept aside a shimmering golden veil with his gun and held it for Phoebe. She was trembling, and she didn't know why.

The way ended at a plain wall dulled by layers of tarnish and soot. At its base was a trough, and beside it sat a decanter filled with a glowing, brick-red liquid. Axial Phy lifted a ladle from the pot, chanting in Rattletrap. She stirred and scooped the fluid, then without spilling so much as a drop, she poured it into the trough, sweeping gently from left to right to spread it evenly. This done, she bowed to them and departed.

“Hey,” Micah called out. “What are we supposed to—”

Phoebe clutched his shoulder.

The red liquid in the trough was moving. It crept up the wall like tendrils of glowing ivy, curling and reaching toward the ceiling. The molten lace heated and steamed with a pungent aroma of incense, making her feel light-headed. Liquid metal merged and bled together to form a luminous sheet. Dark currents swirled on the surface, bubbles grew and sank.

“Little. Embers.”

The voice was both low and high, old and young, mixed in a harmony that filled Phoebe's body with warmth. Though they watched the shifting metal intently, they didn't see the face emerge—they just realized it was there.

Golden veils obscured its features, flowing like silk underwater. Fins drifted in a hypnotic dance. And then they saw eyes staring at them, unfathomably old. Penetrating, but kindly.

“Plumm. Is not gone,” consoled the voice. “He is exalted.”

Phoebe's breath stopped.

“But he is,” she insisted. “He's dead. He's…dead.”

“He blazes. Within you both. As does the Way.”

Phoebe stared at the golden face, the pulsating heat stinging her eyes. She looked at her hands, still clutching her father's broken, bloody glasses.

“What are you talkin' about?” Micah said to the shifting liquid image. “Who are you anyway?”

“Why did. You. Come to Mehk?”

“To find my father,” Phoebe replied. “To save him.”

“Why?”

“I…I had to.”

“You were. Called.”

Phoebe stammered, digging through her dark mind.

“Called,” the figure repeated in a trancelike whisper.

Then she understood. It materialized before her just as the ethereal face had, as if it had been there all along. In the tunnel back in Foundry Central, when she had fallen from the train, something quiet had beckoned to her.

In the Vo-Pykarons, that same something had refused to let the liodim suffer—it had compelled her to stand up and fight—something deep and ineffable.

Phoebe breathed, “I heard a voice.”

“Yes,” the phantom face sang. “Plumm was. Not yet done.”

“I don't understand.”

“His function was. To save Mehk. Now it is. Yours.”