Suited (41 page)

We are here
.

Kichlan and I stepped out of the constricted passageways to what must have once been a grand room. Domed, like the Unbound’s hidden building, though twice as large. A wide opening had been carved in the side of the mountain on one wall. Snow dusted in around it, and now some ash, though most of the space was clear and dry.

Tiles still clung to the walls. I recognised the Keeper Mountain in white-topped mosaic. The river, and what looked to be the beginnings of Movoc-under-Keeper around a tiny bridge.

On the wall opposite the opening in the mountain stood an enormous statue. Time had done its work, and some of the smooth crystalline stone had eroded, but I knew it instantly. A large version of those Keepers I had found beneath the city. Larger, and more complete.

He was emerging from the mountain rock, reaching out with one outstretched hand from waves etched into the stone.

I helped Kichlan sit. He stared at the statue with awe, and I rather felt the same. I approached it slowly. It was several times taller than a person. I stood beneath that outstretched hand and touched the undulating wall. It looked like a sheer curtain with stars on the other side.

“The veil,” I breathed.

They knew me, once. Everyone, not just the Unbound. They could hear me. They loved me. Because I had defended them when they needed it most. And then, after we rescued them, I had my Halves help them repair. We remade their cities and they made beautiful statues like this one in return. But that was so long ago, and those cities are buried deep now
.

Defended them? “From the Other?” I whispered. That, originally, was what the Keeper was. In children’s books and ancient tales, even in paintings adorning the most important veche buildings. He guided us, and defended us, from the unknown faces in the darkness, from frailty, death and fear. The Other. “The puppet men are the Other, aren’t they?” I was certain of it.

But the Keeper hesitated.
The thing you call the Other is much older than they are
. Not really an answer, but I was growing accustomed to that.

I stepped away from the wall, tracing fingers along the carefully crafted lines of his arm.

It all changes. I do what I can do, but it all changes
.

“Time does that, I suppose.” I left the statue, and approached the opening. Movoc-under-Keeper was a ruin of fire and steam below us. We had to be about half way up the mountain, though it did not feel like we had climbed so far. I glanced over my shoulder to Kichlan, so exhausted he could barely sit upright. The climb had probably felt much further to him.

I placed a hand on my belly as I stared out over the city. Nothing stirred beneath my touch, not even my suit. What hope did the tiny life inside me really have? What child could survive everything I had put it through? From a suit that had tried to kill it, from a heart that pumped metallic blood and stopped, at times, entirely, to the stabbings and the bloodloss, the fire and the falling? The child that could have been a Half – a programmer – small and helpless in this world.

“I’m sorry,” I mouthed the words, because I could think of nothing more to say.

I let my hand fall back by my side, and concentrated on the city instead. The Keeper’s Tear Bridge was gone, and with it most of the city centre. My gallery. The veche chambers. Grandeur’s graveyard.

In their place, a hole. A terrible and deep scar that I feared to look at. The Tear River ran wild into it like the unchecked flow of blood, and steam rose from it in a struggling, final breath. The destruction, however, was far more widespread than that this crater. Even from the mountain I could see sections of collapsed buildings and gashes in the roads. A northerly portion of the wall had collapsed, and more fires than I could count burned unchecked across the city.

“At least the national veche had already brought in the military,” I said, to no one in particular. “They will calm things down, won’t they? Help those who need it, shelter those who have none.” I swallowed on an ash-sore throat. “They will rebuild.” To a point. The city would never be the same.

More doors will open
.

“I know.”

Because the puppet men – my so-called brothers – still remain
.

“I know.” I hesitated. “I might have set it off, but they created and stored the power that destroyed so much of Movoc-under-Keeper. We can’t let them do that again.”

More than just one city is at stake
.

“The puppet men come from the other world, don’t they? They were created by programmers, the same people that created you.”

Yes
.

“And Halves are programmers too, sent across the veil – through the doors – into this world, to help you.”

Yes. Even if they don’t know who they are any more
.

Lad had remembered though, hadn’t he? Well, the traces of his blood inside me, the ghost that rode my suit of silver, had. “If the programmers created the puppet men, then maybe they will know how to stop them. Once and for all. Maybe we need to ask the programmers how to defeat the puppet men.”

But without my Halves, I have no way to ask them
.

“Then maybe I should.” I’d opened doors, and closed them. How hard could it be to walk through one?

Tanyana, that is impossible. The two worlds are anathema to each other. You belong in this world, the light world. You can’t even exist in the dark
.

“But it is possible to cross between them, isn’t it?” I glanced down at the suit spinning on my wrist. “That’s what Lad did. That’s what every Half does.”

Only in one direction. And it changes you
.

“I am already changing.” If the Keeper was a so-called
program
, then debris was a program too. Wasn’t that how Lad’s ghost had described it? And I was so much debris now, so much suit. When Lad had died, his blood had been absorbed by my suit – my debris, my
program
. Even the Keeper said I looked like a Half, now. If Lad could cross between worlds, then why couldn’t I?

If you do that, Tanyana, you will risk everything. Your life. Your world
.

I turned my back on Movoc-under-Keeper and returned to Kichlan, slumped on the floor. “I know.”

He looked up at me, so desolate, more like his brother than himself. I thought of all I had done to hurt him, how I had used him and the secrets I had kept from him. Kichlan wasn’t Devich and didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I should have seen that from the beginning. His loyalty to his brother, the strength with which he led his collecting team – he had offered all of that to me, and more. It was too late to accept now, but at least he was here, with me.

And I would do what ever I could to make sure he stayed that way. I knew that now, with absolute certainty. No matter what the risks.

“Why did you come for me?” he whispered. “You should have let me die with my brother.”

I crouched beside him, bent forward and kissed his forehead. He tasted of dirt and sweat.

“Lad is still with us,” I whispered. “He will never be truly gone.” I did not explain blood, and programs, and the strength of his presence within my suit. Not now. “And I know he would have asked me to look after you, the way he looked after me. He would have said it was my turn. So that is what I will do. That is why I did not, and could never let you die. For your brother, because he would have wanted me to.” I tipped Kichlan’s face back toward me, and this time I kissed his lips. He did not pull away, he did not turn his head. And faintly, ever so softly, he kissed me back.

“And for me, because I need you too.”

Jo Anderton lives in Sydney, Australia, with her patient husband, faithful dog, one megalomaniac cat and one dumb-as-a-post cat. She’d rather be living on a big block of land in the country, so she can adopt more pets.

By day she is a mild-mannered marketing coordinator for an Australian book distributor. By night, weekends and lunchtimes she writes dark fantasy and horror.

Her short fiction has appeared in
Aurealis
,
Midnight Echo
,
Kaleidotrope
,
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
, and been reprinted in
Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror Vol 3
.

She was shortlisted for the 2009 Aurealis Award for best young adult short story, the 2011 Aurealis Award for best science fiction short story, and her debut novel
Debris
was shortlisted for the 2011 Aurealis Award for best novel.

joanneanderton.com