The Forgotten City (31 page)

C
roy fought a savage upblast of windstorm to bring her dragger down on the landing pad of the Crematorium. Instead of leaving it parked outside, as she and Darius had done earlier, she dismounted and wheeled it toward the entrance door of the main building. She couldn’t risk a cyclonic wind sweeping away her only method of escape. Despite the hum of the I-Sect’s signal-pending in her ear, she felt profoundly alone. She could barely move around the fear, dragged forward only by the insistent buzzing sensation in her head, which had grown stronger the closer she’d flown to the Crematorium. Now that she had arrived, the sensation had changed again, the buzzing lessening, becoming more a feeling like someone had hold of her wrists and was hauling her in. Her instincts told her to run, yet the touch felt so familiar, and there was such a sense of great urgency behind it. Every time she hesitated the grip tightened, so she limped on, leaning heavily on her dragger, bracing against the freezing winds. As she neared the gate Croy drew her Firestorm and prepared for a Mortician to step into her path, but she reached the entrance without interception.

Keeping the dragger in front of her as a shield, she pushed the door open and wheeled the vehicle inside the building. She paused, holding her breath, listening, waiting, staring down the length of the long, hollow corridor. Nothing. She kicked out the parking stand and primed her weapon, then started down toward the records room. Thick chemical clouds of the itchem-poly-magmylate saturated the air, but she could still smell an undercurrent of decay, like a puff of Klinsman’s breath on every gust of wind. The flame torches flickered wildly.

A door banged shut behind her and Croy whipped around, aiming her Firestorm at an empty corridor. A heavy silence filled every space.

She turned back and kept moving, gritting her teeth, struggling to keep her breathing slow and hands steady, as she retraced their steps from a dayturn earlier. She found the records room empty and passed through it, heading for the cool rooms. There were no signs of Morticians anywhere until she neared the storage room that opened directly to the coolers, then she heard the grinding shriek of metal striking metal.

Croy kept low and ran to the closed door of the storage room. She slammed her back into the wall beside it, first clearing behind her, then inching the door open to peer inside. The first thing she saw was red. Red on the walls, on the ceiling, on the floor, then all the gore of cut-up Morticians strewn everywhere. Masses more of the hairless, white-cloaked death mongers stood surrounding a person, a man, trapped in the center of the chaos. He was swinging an axe, fighting them back. He sidestepped a stabbing knife, grabbing the attacker by the arm and flinging him aside. Through the throng of bodies, Croy caught sight of the man’s face. His features and body structure seemed human, but his skin was different, darker and marked with a pattern across his arms, and the shine of his clothes was unlike any fabric she’d seen. It blended with the shadows. A cage-like device had been attached around the stranger’s head and face. He swung the axe with brutal force and split a Mortician clean in half. As he swung again, another Mortician stabbed a scalpel into his side repeatedly. Each time Croy felt the pain as though she were the one being stabbed.

More of the death mongers grabbed the man around the chest, legs and waist, trying to drag him down to the ground. His muscles strained, clearly powerful, but the sheer number of Morticians was overwhelming him. Croy felt a sense of being suffocated and crushed, and panic shot through her. The man’s dark eyes raised to door and he looked straight at her. She felt a buzzing in her head, and heard words that echoed through her mind …
to me … to me …

Strength rushed through her. She charged into the room. One Mortician whipped around and threw a knife at her head. She dived sideways out of the way as it struck exactly where she’d stood. More were turning to her, all their eyes strange, staring but unseeing. Some of them started to move toward her. Croy raised her Firestorm and shot without hesitation – blasting through them row after row until the only two people left standing were herself and the stranger. Fire and gun smoke saturated the air. Croy kept her aim on the man, her eyes locked with his. Breathing heavily and bleeding profusely, red blood like a human, he lowered the heavy axe to the ground with a clunk. Croy felt more pulses of buzzing and pain seared through her leg, sharp enough to make her cry out and stumble. Shadows flickered over the ceiling.

Clattering came from the cold room behind the stranger. Croy’s first thought was of victims and survivors trapped inside there. Still keeping the man in the Firestorm’s sights she backed to the cold room door and shot a glance through the transparent panel. It was a moment before she registered what she was seeing – all the bodies, the corpses, were twitching, rising, standing and starting to stagger to the door where she stood.

Impossible, but it was happening before her eyes.

Croy looked back at the stranger. All around him dead Morticians were starting to stir. Soon they’d be swallowed by a mass of reanimated dead, and her Firestorm was all but out of flint. Sparks from one of the burning bodies ignited a puddle of itchem on the ground from a punctured barrel. The fire spread fast to the rest of the barrels – enough to make the whole place explode. They had to get out – now.

“Move – toward the door!” Croy instructed the stranger, gesturing with her weapon. He tried to comply, but could only shuffle, his ankles chained together. Blood gushed from the wound in his side, fast saturating his clothes. He looked up at her, and she felt what could only be described as love – like seeing someone she’d been missing for a very long time standing in front of her. It completely overtook her, and even as she realized with distant horror that this man wasn’t human, she found herself running to him as burning corpses rose all around them and the door to the cold room started to dent inward. The man was trying to swing the axe down on the chains around his legs, but couldn’t get the angle right. Croy holstered her Firestorm and grabbed the axe from him, freeing him with one hit. She grabbed him around the waist and he leaned against her as they broke for the door. One of the dead Morticians grabbed Croy around the ankle but she kicked free and they fled, running to keep ahead of the shambling dead and the roar of fire gathering strength behind them. The place was about to go up like one big cremation oven.

Finally they reached the last corridor and Croy saw her dragger up ahead. They ran for it, almost there, when the Mortician leader, Baraway Westor, flew out of the shadows and smashed the stranger onto the ground. He tried to stab a scalpel through the man’s head. Croy drew her Firestorm and blasted him off but even though he was burning and hanging in bits, he still staggered up and tried to rush them again. Croy lunged onto her dragger and the stranger swung on behind her. She grabbed her knife and threw it, taking out Westor’s legs, then kicked the dragger to life. They crashed through the door, zooming across the landing pad, into the open air.

Croy looked back to see the dead spewing out the front gates, staggering over the strip and tumbling over the edges, falling soundlessly into black nothing below. It was the most hideous and disturbing thing she’d ever seen. She sped up, and they had already reached the lower edge of Saint Smithy Borough by the time she felt the tremor of the Crematorium exploding.

Croy flew toward her house with the Dray’s arms wrapped around her waist and his hot breath on her neck – this beautiful monster.

T
he slow swishes of the boatman’s oar arms lulled Eli into a half-sleep haze where he drifted for an unknown time, finally to wake with a jolt, tasting the tang of dried salt water on his lips. His sudden movement disturbed Ismail, who was sprawled out beside him. The scullion’s eyes blinked open and he pushed himself up, a growl rattling in his throat before his military composure overcame his wild side. They both stared into the wide, flat face of the marine-breed who had come to their rescue, and now rowed them through calmer river waters. The boatman had a puckered mouth, and skin that matched the blue-brown of the water with yellow flecks the same color as his eyes, sharp and shrewd. He was watching them intently.

 Ismail squinted and Eli felt the telepathic itch of the scullion trying to break into the boatman’s mind, but his head suddenly tilted sideways as though he’d been physically rebuffed. Eli’s first thought was that a mind would have to be enormously powerful to keep Ismail’s skills out.

“Identify yourself,” Ismail demanded.

“I’m Imrad the Twibowl, aren’t I,” the boatman replied, blinking transparent eyelids in and out. He gave a shrill whistle, then added, “And you?”

Ismail just stared him down.

Eli said, “Eli Anklebiter and Ismail Ohavor.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the boatman. According to the current research literature, Twibowls had become extinct year-cycles ago after a natural disaster poisoned their home waters. Eli had seen the horrendous images of the dead and hadn’t been able to get them out of his head ever since, but clearly the research was wrong. This was truly one of the most amazing beings Eli had seen, ancient, brilliant and perhaps the last of his kind.

“Many thanks for rescuing us,” Eli said.

“Rescue?” Imrad chuckled. “Rescue, indeed. You whistled me in, didn’t you, so mayhaps you saved yourself, mayhaps true?” He smiled.

“Mayhaps – I mean maybe,” Eli said. He realized the Twibowl must have heard Ismail whistling to the seahorses. His mind returned to the destroyed portal. It left them only one other option – LaNoria. He closed his eyes and lowered his head. Their realistic chances of getting into the sealed-off level, finding the portal and then getting out were zero – but they couldn’t just abandon the others. That wasn’t an option.

Eli looked up at the Twibowl, who was watching him closely with interest, while Ismail watched the Twibowl closely with suspicion.

“I wonder … well, we’re looking for —” Eli started.

“Don’t tell him anything!” Ismail cut in.

“It’s okay. You can speak,” Imrad said, with a long, slow swish of his paddle arms.

“Can we?” Ismail responded coldly. “How generous of you.”

“We have to ask. What else can we do? The portal is destroyed.” Eli said.

“Portal?” Imrad repeated.

Eli rushed in before Ismail could stop him, “We’re trying to get to another realm, to rescue our friends, and there’s a portal in LaNoria. It’s the last in the city. It’s just getting there and getting out that’s going to be the issue.”

“Well to LaNoria I can help you with,” Imrad said. “I can take you to an entrance, but out … that I don’t know.”

“Why would you be so eager to help us?” Ismail said.

“Just so.” The Twibowl smiled. “Just will.”

“No one helps anyone without wanting something in return – what do you want?” Ismail demanded, echoing his previous sentiments.

“I want to sing.” Imrad pursed his lips and started singing, with the most beautiful, haunting voice, the saddest song about a soldier trying to find his way home. It brought tears to Eli’s eyes and as he wiped them away, he noticed Ismail glaring at him.

“Why did you swim back for me?” the scullion asked with a lowered voice, while Imrad kept singing and whistling. “You should have kept going. You jeopardized the entire mission!” 
He clutched at his chest, cursing. 

Eli heard a muffled beep beneath Ismail’s shirt and said, “Your vials are getting low. Here —” He took the refills, which he had tried to give Ismail earlier, out of his belt.

The scullion hesitated, but then took the vials. He opened his shirt and checked over the He-Ro until he found the vial chamber.

“I swam back for you because soldiers never leave soldiers behind,” Eli told him as Ismail removed the emptying vials and replaced them.

“Illogical romanticism gets you nowhere except dead, soldier,” Ismail responded. “Your heart is bigger than your brain. Besides it’s not the truth anyway, your mind just told me so – and I want to know the real reason.”

Eli considered his words – he was right – military honor had nothing to do with him not leaving Ismail behind.

“I’m not going to abandon you because Ev’r loves you,” he said.

“You don’t know anything about her or me,” Ismail dismissed him.

“I know … her journal … when you were alive her writing was full of hope and future and promise, and after you died – that all vanished. You meant everything to her.”

Ismail’s face contorted with pain and he looked away. When he spoke, his voice was shaky. He’d switched or been jolted out of military mode back to the man. Unsurprisingly, the mention of Ev’r seemed to be a consistent trigger of the shift.

“And do you think I didn’t care for her?”

“I’m sure you did.”

“No!” He clenched his fists. “We were going to get married. Her father had me captured. He sold me to the Militia.”

“I’m sorry,” Eli whispered.

“There was no way out,” Ismail emphasized the words. “I tried
everything
. And no matter what they did to me, the worst torture was knowing that she would think that I had left her – that I didn’t love her. They threatened to kill her if I ran. Do you understand what it’s like to have to hear that, and not be able to do anything about it?”

Eli gulped and shook his head.

Ismail’s eyes were starting to blank out as the memories became too painful. He said in a monotone, “I heard she wasn’t doing well. Her father was going to marry her off to a boy – I knew he was cruel. I heard there was a witch granting wishes. They called her the Mocking Witch of O’Tenery Asylum. One soldier had gone bald – she gave him a head full of hair. Another wanted a girl who didn’t want him – next thing she was madly in love. What I wanted … was for Zara to be safe, happy and free. The witch told me everything came with a price. She said I’d have to give my life … and I said,
take it
.” Ismail closed his eyes. “I thought she meant to kill me, but instead she enslaved me, so I stabbed myself, not realizing that would break her spell over Zara and make everything worse for her.”

“Dark magics twist everything,” Eli said. “Even the greatest acts of love.”

“If me dying now, this second, could bring her back, I would. I wouldn’t hesitate. Do you understand now how much I love her?” Ismail looked up at him.

“I understand you love her so much you’re willing to die for her – but do you love her enough to live for her?” Eli said.

Anger flickered into Ismail’s dulled eyes, the man still just below the surface. “What are you talking about, imp-breed?”

“That’s one part of your journey together that I understand – I mean –
don’t
understand,” Eli said. “Why did you let yourself die out there in the desert after you’d been reunited with Ev’r, why didn’t you come to the city to get treatment? I know you were a fair way out, but you must have known you were sick for a while … and with your skills and hers, you would have been able to make it back – you would have survived.”

Ismail’s face had paled and his eyes were burning, and Eli thought that this time he might not have just accidentally stepped over the line, but leaped over it with both feet. He expected the beast to emerge any moment, but Ismail managed to restrain himself; he even surprised Eli by responding.

“I knew it wouldn’t last.” He stared out to the river, looking into the past. “We were happy, but I knew it was only a matter of time before it changed. The witch would never let us be. I thought … with me gone, she would finally be free of her …”

The logic of if was so damaged that Eli’s mind ached. He understood what sort of life had brought Ismail to this thinking, but still, it made him want to cry.

“I’m only telling you all this, imp-breed, so that you can explain to her …” he said, his stare boring holes into Eli’s face. “I saw in your mind the lengths you’ve gone to to revive her. It’s beyond my understanding why you’d care for strangers, but I’m … grateful … that you do.”

“I think it would be better if you explained it to her yourself, because you’ll be there too,” Eli said, stubbornly. “Hero-complex, remember.”

“I’m dead,” Ismail told him. “There is no hope for me.” He lowered his eyes to the cursed shackle locked around his ankle.

“Hope is infinite,” the boatman spoke up, “and time not always a traitor.” He gave a long whistle that echoed into the silence around them – and was answered by a chorus of other Twibowl whistles. He wasn’t the last one left, there were others who had survived. Despite everything, Eli smiled, his spirits lifted by the thought of it.

When he looked back at Ismail, he jolted. The scullion’s eyes were completely white and his body was shaking.

“Ismail!” He lunged over to him. He grabbed his arm and Ismail snapped out of the trance, his eyes rolling down to normal.

“What was that?” Eli asked. “A vision?”

Ismail looked genuinely shocked as well and lost for words. Finally he managed to say, “I haven’t seen the future for year-cycles.”

“That’s because, as you said, you felt there wasn’t a future – but now that you’re —”

“I saw Silho,” Ismail cut in. “She’s somewhere near fire.”

“The Omarian realm,” Eli said, his heart picking up pace at the mention of Silho. “Is she…is she okay?”

Ismail ran an exhausted hand over his face and murmured, more to himself than Eli, “We should have tried to help her, but we just left…”

“What do you mean,” Eli said, not understanding. 

Ismail snarled his lips, “Hammersmith – that Blue-Ten addict – that selfish, weak trutt. I saw into his mind. He sold her out to that –
Lecivion
. He planted something in her back so that the Omarians would always be able to find her wherever she went … and now they’ve come and taken her, and … she’s dead. I saw her dying in a sea of flames.”

The words shook Eli, but he refused to believe them and muted his grief. “After everything that’s happened to you – you’re still affected by a girl who you met briefly in the desert so many year-cycles ago. Maybe I’m not alone in caring?”

“Silho wasn’t just a girl … She was …” He shook his head, unable to explain. “
Consan
,” he said in scullion-tongue, and Eli understood it to mean a stranger who is family – kindred. It was a complicated scullion belief where people were linked through time and rebirth.

“Well, I know Silho well,” Eli said, trying to sound positive. “And I know she’ll fight to the last, so I’m going to keep searching for her until I find her or I die … these are not just my work colleagues, or even just friends – they’re my family – Silho, Copernicus, Diega, Jude, Ev’r.”

“They’re all dead. I saw it.” Ismail told him, flatly, all the fire and feeling in his eyes burning out to a blank stare as he switched back to soldier mode.

“No,” Eli refused. “I don’t believe it.”

He closed his eyes, needing to zone out for a while to regather his control.

When he opened them again, he saw they had left the inhabited areas of Adliden and had entered murkier waters, where coral trees grew along the banks beside abandoned homes made of shell and rock. A thick, brown silt covered everything as though it had all recently been flooded. Eli sensed they were coming close to the end of their journey and he still had no plan for their escape from LaNoria. He blinked open his front-core menu and called Diamond.

“I wasn’t asleep – just resting my eyes,” she said immediately.

It put a flicker of a smile on his lips. “It’s okay, you’re allowed to sleep,” he said. “But I need some information. What do you know about entries and exits from LaNoria? The short version.”

After a moment of silence, in which Eli wondered if they’d actually found one topic that Diamond didn’t know about, she said, “There are several ways in, but they all require magics and there’s only one way out that won’t get you killed. There’s an old elevator – an antique, really – that used to run between the old asylum, which was the Galleria Majora before it was destroyed, and Level 4 – remember, they were trialing it as the new asylum before the contamination?”

“No, I didn’t realize,” Eli admitted.

“Well – the elevator is shut down and sealed off, but if you could get inside it and hack in, you could get it started, and then it looks like there’s a clear run up, based on the grids I’m looking at.”

“Excellent,” Eli said, feeling his spirits lifting. “Can you send me through the location of the elevator?”

“I can do one better, I can send you through the location, with the quickest route from the portal.”

“Brilliant, Diamond – I keep saying it, but really brilliant. You’re amazing.”

“So will you marry me?” she responded brightly.

“Ah … well,” Eli said, struggling for words. “I’m going to see if we can live through this first and then … reassess afterward.”

The plans started loading into his front-core and he saw the route maps flashing up in front of his eyes. The distance between the portal and the elevator really wasn’t that far.

“You know that LaNoria is a white-out zone, don’t you?” Diamond said. “We’ll be completely cut off.”

“I know,” Eli responded, trying to sound upbeat. “But we’ll be out soon. Don’t worry.”

After a pause Diamond said in a small voice, “Eli?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t forget to fly.”

It was a complex imp-breed saying that at the core of it meant something like “keep breathing because I love you”. His gran’pa use to say it to him. He missed him.

“You too,” he whispered and ended the transmission.