The Keeper's Shadow (45 page)

But if all fails, there is the detonator in Lumpy's hand.

Last night, disguised as Gunthers, she and Petra had entered the Pyramid. While they'd seemingly gone about maintenance work on the central elevator shaft, they'd covertly completed their mission. Swinging down from ropes attached to a pulley at the Pyramid's apex, they'd positioned the explosive gum along the entire length of the central pylon.

“Look, Mab, no hands!” Petra had whispered, flipping as she let herself down another story, her harness bearing all her weight. Mabatan had followed, but slowly, hand over hand, carefully pressing the explosive into place.

“It's not good, being so serious before battle,” Petra'd said, slipping alongside. “It's bad luck. Come on, Mab. Roan will be here. The Hhroxhi sent word the battle at the gorge went as planned. It will all turn out right.”

“I am not worried about myself, Petra. But…hundreds of people dwell in this building. People who are not Masters—”

“Every war has a price,” Petra'd said, her manner matter-of-fact. “They're killers, Mab.”

“I know that. But if Roan fails, the Dreamfield will collapse… and it will only be a matter of time before—”

“Blast the prophecies, Mab! We fight till the bitter end, no matter what, because even if we lose the battle, even if we lose our lives, maybe someone else will win the war. That's who you fight for. The ones who come after.”

Mabatan had managed a weary smile, and the young Apsara had grinned content, flicking her wrist and rappelling down to the next level.

Still, Mabatan had been unable to sleep, and the sun had been barely over the horizon when the Gunther had guided her and Lumpy onto this platform just beneath the top floor at the apex of the Pyramid. She has had all morning to inspect the site and determine where an attack might come. But Lumpy is still nervous, and she cannot blame him. Watching him inspect the detonator for the hundredth time, she hopes against hope that Petra is right. That there will be an after.

“Are you sure they can't see us?” Lumpy stares at the glass above and below them suspiciously.

“I believe Eighty-Four answered that question many times last night.”

“Yeah. He said stuff about alignment of girders and light refraction and depth of field and I didn't understand a word of it.”

“If they come, I'll be ready,” Mabatan says, patting the quiver of Nethervine-dipped darts that's mounted to her blowgun. Then, lifting a hand to shield her eyes, she looks up at the sky. “The moon's disk has just touched the sun. Is Ende in position?”

“Nearly. See them? There, at the edge of the ghetto.” Lumpy frowns. “It's a weak position, Mabatan. Once they're in the square, they'll be hemmed in—”

“There was no other choice.”

Kamyar's news about the giant Apogee had altered their plans. Disguised as Absent, the Gunthers had ventured out for a closer look. Their news hadn't been good. The silver encasing the Apogee masked a shield that rendered their Allayers useless. The engravings of Stowe disguised doors set to open when and only if the Apogee was activated. The only way to destroy it would be to topple the monument before the weapon was put into use.

An Apogee surrounded by Clerics meant there would be a bit of a fight. So Ende had decided to take it on. With twelve of her best, the matter would be easily dispatched—they'd infiltrate the crowd, getting close enough to take down the Blue Robes quickly, without warning, then, together, topple and destroy Darius's disguised weapon. Kamyar had come forward to commit his Storytellers to replace Ende and her twelve at their appointed installations, sabotage and subterfuge being very closely linked, he'd said with a wink. Still, he'd spent most of the night sharpening his needles.

“If Ende'd seen it from here, she might have changed her mind.” Lumpy lets the binoculars drop and looks helplessly at Mabatan.

“Ende can take care of herself.”

“I'm aware of that.”

Mabatan can see she's offended him, but she is so sick with worry herself that she feels incapable of offering any calming words.

“I hope they do it quickly,” Lumpy mutters anxiously. “And get out fast.”

A flash of light draws their attention from the square to the refinery. Over the percussive blast that follows, Mabatan cries out, “It begins.”

The mines ignite one after another around the rim of the great pit, and within seconds, it collapses inside itself. The concrete bunker blasts apart, sending a black cloud into the sky. The ground around it caves in, and soon the entire site is one huge hollow, the Dirt within buried under thousands of tons of concrete and earth.

Mabatan allows herself a moment of quiet satisfaction and fixes an image of Khutumi firmly in her mind.
Father, today we see an end to the Dirt.

Sirens blare from the east side of the Absents' ghetto. “How many do you see?” Lumpy shouts.

Her heart starts to pound as she tries to count the racing vehicles. “Seven—no nine, ten. Ten. Ten trucks, perhaps twenty Clerics in each. All headed for the Quarry. It is working! Only skeleton defenses at the gates, as we hoped. Look! The Brothers. Can you see them?”

With the Allayers positioned before them, Wolf and his warriors are spilling out onto the plain by the dozens and there are virtually no Clerics left to stop their incursion.

Mabatan cannot help but feel hope bursting in her chest, filling her with purpose and pride. “Light the flare, Lumpy! Light it!” But when she turns to Lumpy, she sees a tear roll down his cheek. “What's wrong?”

Lumpy does not answer. He lights the flare and watches it explode over the ghetto. Then, setting his crossbow down, he leans in close and speaks quietly into her ear. “Over the last few weeks, those Apsara have become my friends, Mabatan. Up here, giving the signal…I feel like their executioner.” Turning his face away, he stares down at the square below. “They're friends, Mabatan,” he calls out. “Friends.”

When Stowe enters the Grand Travel Room two steps behind the Archbishop, the Masters stand by their glass chairs in deference. Darius glides to the only Master still sitting, but Stowe can read his anxiety and rage in the tiny red sparks that fly from his shoulders. Willum had said the Mad Masters would destroy all they could, in the hopes of weakening Darius's defenses and clearing the way for Roan—how much they had managed to accomplish with Kordan and his cronies on their tail, she's about to find out.

As the Keeper touches his servant's sagging face, Kordan's eye opens and he bolts forward. “Archbishop, the Mad Masters are defeated.”

“Yes, my dear Kordan? But at what cost?”

“The Ramparts, the Antlia, the Gyre and Ocellus…all destroyed.”

“You said defeated. Are they dead, Kordan? I want them dead.”

“We maneuvered them into the Spiracal's influence. They were swallowed up. They must be dead. They must be…Keeper—”

At that moment, the door bursts open and Querin enters, the Clerics behind him delivering the desiccated corpses of the three Mad Masters. “The code to their quarters had been altered.” The Master of Inculcation seems to scrutinize every face in the room simultaneously. “Presumably by the same individual who provided them with Dirt.”

The Masters all begin to talk at once, trying to make sense out of what's happened.

“Get them out of my sight,” Darius hisses.

But Querin only moves closer to the Eldest, his voice rising above the clamor. “Theirs,” he says, pointing to the bodies of the Mad Masters, “is not the only act of sabotage. The Quarry and its contents have been destroyed.”

The room is deathly quiet, but the terror in the Masters' faces is fleeting and is rapidly replaced by doubt and disbelief.

A grin spreads across Darius's face. “It matters not. Dirt is obsolete! Not required!”

Terror's back now. And suspicion.

“Not required?” simpers Master Fortin. “How can that be, Eldest?”

“Come, my friends. I will show you. The Mad Ones did not succeed in harming my greatest achievement. Join me now and I will show you power beyond anything we had thought possible. Kordan, distribute the Dirt. It will be the last time you need to use it, my friends. The power of my Throne has made Dirt an anachronism.”

But not one of the Masters accepts. Not one sits down.

“Do you dare to doubt me, Masters?”

Stowe wants to take a step back. Distance herself from him. But she must not. One wrong move and he'll try to kill her.

“Explain, Fortin.”

Master Fortin opens his mouth but he cannot speak. He blubbers and drools.

She can feel Darius gripping Fortin's little mind. To Stowe, Fortin appears glazed in a slippery putrid green that squeezes him relentlessly. But she can also see what the other Masters witness. The manager's arms tightening against his body, his hands in fists, his face frozen, the gasps, the blood gushing from his eyes. Fortin convulses on his feet for minutes, a sickening recreation of the puppet he has always been, before he collapses in a motionless heap.

“I created you,” snarls the Eldest, hand outstretched, searching for his next victim. “I redeemed your rotting flesh, rejuvenated you in the Gyre. If it were not for me, you would all be long in the grave. Masters! I have defeated death itself! Your last chance,” he calls out. “Take your Dirt and immortality shall be yours.”

Most of the Masters are old, decrepit. They are exhausted and habit has reduced their talents to the intrigue of maintaining their positions. Direct confrontation is foreign to them and they stand paralyzed, incapable of action. What now?

“Shall I kill you all?”
Sit
.

The command is felt, like a compulsion, and is obeyed instantaneously, the Masters' eyes glazing over.

Take the Dirt at your sides
.

Stowe's heart sinks as she watches the Masters' fingers dipping into pots, sliding over lips. Darius pivots slowly to face her and Querin, the only two who remain standing. “Ah, Master Querin. This is not a surprise, but tell me anyway, why you do not sit?”
Sit
. “You disappoint me.”

“I serve the Conurbation as I have always.”

“And when exactly did you stop serving me?”

Stowe gasps as wave after wave of serpentine green issues from Darius's mouth.

But Querin was obviously aware of the Keeper's destructive capabilities and has prepared a defense. A helix of purple filaments unfurls from his feet to the crown of his head. One layer after another, they protectively weave around him. Darius's furious assault loops harmlessly along these threads until the deadly energy is dissipated.

Undaunted, Darius grins at his betrayer. “Their deaths will be quick. Not so with you. You, I will roast over the fires of hell. You ignorant prophecy whore.” But just as Stowe feels a lethal power building within Darius, he collapses, writhing, to the floor.

Querin looks coldly down at him. “Roan of Longlight found a way to simultaneously shut down a great number of the clergy's enablers. Without their support, you are nothing but a pathetic mad old fool.”

“You dare! You dare!?”

Crawling to the closest seated master, Darius reaches for his Dirt. He smells it, then his head snaps back to Querin. “Orgeine powder to induce sleep.”

“Archbishop, you issued the command. You forced them to take the Dirt. It was you who sealed their lips. Your servant, Kordan, surely would have warned you if he could have.”

As Darius's head swivels in her direction, Stowe trembles, tears flowing down her cheeks. “Father,” she whimpers.

Darius's gaze narrows. The bulge of his eyes beneath his drooping lids rolls madly from her to Querin. But Stowe remains steadfast in her performance, Querin's promise helping her to overcome a rising panic: “He will expect me to protect you because of my faith. When I do not, he will assume it is because I believe you corrupted. He will see you as his only possible power source, an ally. He will not harm you.” That was what Querin had said; Stowe hopes he was right.

Rallying his strength, Darius rises and reaches out a hand. “Come, Daughter. Help me. Hurry!”

The moon has halved the sun and its waning life drains across the eastern sky like blood in a pool of water. At its side, Mabatan can see the bull's horns clearly traced by the now visible stars.
We have until the bull rises in the east. After that comes the end of all possibility.
The prophecy spoke of
this
day. It was not just Darius rushing things forward—everything that had happened had moved them all toward this moment.

“The Hhroxhi are coming up behind the gates!” shouts Mabatan over the harsh, whistling wind. She and Lumpy have found a position on the edge of the platform where, leaning back to back, they can each easily follow their respective engagements; but even this close the relentless howl of winter makes it necessary to yell. She's surprised at the release shouting gives her, as if this was what she'd needed all along. “No opposition. The Brothers eliminated all the perimeter guards in the field. The Hhroxhi are opening the gates! The Brothers are pouring in!”

“Ende's almost made her way through the crowd,” Lumpy calls out, his voice ragged with tension. Mabatan can feel it in the tightness of his back, in the strong thumping of his heart. And without warning, it takes her over, it takes her over and she's back in the box with Kira, with the smell of blood and the fear and the pain. The terrible pain. She longs to close her eyes, leave this place, this battle, ride the wind to her father. Not since she was a small child has she so longed to be encased in his arms, still and empty.

“The Apsara are throwing off their robes. One Cleric down. Two. Three. Almost there—” Lumpy jolts forward, throwing Mabatan off balance. Falling to his knees, he screams helplessly into the raging winds. “Look out!”

Mabatan edges closer, placing a hand on Lumpy's shoulder. He twists his head so she can hear him and shouts, “Four battalions. They're coming from all sides. Send up a red flare.”