The Reach Between Worlds (The Arclight Saga, Book 1) (23 page)

“Or?” Kyra said, staring into the flurry of snow.

“Or, you can go. Leave this city and never return.”

Ross’ was in tears. Her bloody hands were limp at her sides, and she spat and cursed everyone around her.

Taro approached Vexis and pleaded with her. “They’ll never survive out there.”

“I don’t expect you to,” she said pointedly.

“Me? But I...”

“You’re what? Speak up.” Vexis guided him aside and spoke so only he could hear. “Taro, you’re so predictably treacherous.”

“I’m on your side.”

“I hate it when people lie.”

“Me and Mathan had a deal.”

“And he’s honored it. Your family is safe, the money will be delivered. You’ve completed your work.” She nodded into the blizzard. “Head home. It’s quite a long walk.”

“My family... my sister needs me. I can’t die here.”

At the mention of his sister, Vexis softened a bit. “I’ll tell you what. Prove to me that you’re on my side. Go and tell your friends that you’ve been working for me this whole time, and we’ll get you transportation back to Ashwick.”

Taro looked back at the others. Kyra, Ven, Suri, Sig, Yoresh, all of them looked back puzzled. “Please... don’t make me do it.”

“It’s about time you started telling the truth,” Vexis said.

“I... I can’t.”

Veins of Ice

There was nothing but frozen wasteland as far as the eye could see. It was then that he realized just how cold it was. Sure, it was cold inside the city, but out here he was exposed: there were no walls or towers to block the cutting wind.

Taro focused his templar and tried to warm himself as best he could. Without this, he’d be dead in a matter of minutes. With the immediate concern of hypothermia aside, he sought out Kyra and the others amongst the flurry.

Kyra conjured a warm ball of light. The artificers huddled around and warmed their hands.

“We need to find shelter,” Kyra said.

Taro cupped his eyes with his hands and scanned the snow-capped hills. “I think I see a barn over that way,” he said, and pointed off to some blurry shapes with pointed tips.

He was right, it was a barn, or at least what was left of one. Drudging a half-mile through two feet of snow was bad enough, but once they arrived they found the roofs caved in, and what little interior left was littered with ice and the frozen carcasses of long-dead animals. They scraped wood from the collapsed ceiling and piled it into three fire pits.

Kyra sat on an icy hay bale beside Taro. “Suri, Ven, get a headcount.”

“We must avoid panic,” Yoresh said. He was leaning beside a fire and touching up the cuts on his knuckles.

Taro prodded the fire with a stick. “I’d say it’s a pretty good time to panic. What are we going to do for food?”

“The cold will kill us before starvation,” Yoresh said.

Suri and Ven soon returned.

“Forty-two on my side,” Suri said.

“Ninety-six on mine,” Ven said.

“With us that’s one hundred forty-three,” Kyra said. “Less than two thirds what we started with.”

“There others are still in the snow,” Pipes said with grim realization. “We can’t leave them out there.”

“We have to trust that they’ll see the light from the fires and make it here,” Kyra said. “If there’s a break in the snow we’ll organize some search parties, but for now, we’re staying right here.”

Pipes started towards an opening in the wall.

“That was an order,” Kyra said.

Pipes pulled up his hood. “Who’s with me?”

Fourteen artificers followed him into the blizzard. Taro grabbed him by the wrist. “You won’t survive out there.”

Pipes pulled away. “I’m not leaving my friends.”

_____

Every hour of that night was filled with misery. Cold cut through to the bone and the stump of Taro’s leg burned from the icy steel of his prosthetic.

He sat propped it close to the fire and Kyra examined it. “The fluids inside are turning to slush,” she said. “If they freeze solid, you might as well have a hunk of lead attached to you.”

Kyra was the one thing that made it almost bearable. Taro felt like fate really had it out for him: the closest he’d ever get to her would be only a prelude to his death.

Taro was surprised to wake up the next morning. The artificers were sprawled throughout the barn, and Kyra’s head rested on his shoulder. The snow had stopped, and rays of sunlight broke through the holes in the ceiling.

Two artificers, a girl and a boy, did not wake up. Their skin was pale blue, and when Taro nudged them with his foot, they felt like ice blocks.

Suri yelped when she saw them and buried her face into her sleeve. “Vali and Cassidy. Second-year artificers,” she said bitterly.

A rack of pitch forks, shovels, and other farming equipment was near the wall. Taro yanked off a shovel and tried to dig a hole. “We should at least bury them.” The shovel struck the hard ground with a clang. Frozen solid.

As Taro stared at the poor souls, he felt his stomach drop. “Pipes?” he called. “Did anyone see him come back?”

Nobody said a thing.

“The storm’s passed,” Taro continued. “We’ll start near the main gate and—”

Kyra spoke gently. “There’s not much of a chance of—”She stopped herself. “Just be prepared.”

It didn’t take long to find Pipes frozen body buried beneath an inch of snow. There was movement inside Pipes’ uniform pocket, one of his mechanical birds was trying to flutter, but its wings were frosted-over.

Taro clenched it in his palm. “He loved these things.”

Ven patted Taro on the shoulder. “I never could figure out why.”

Taro backed away slowly, then ran, kicking up snow. The two followed. A few yards in an overwhelming pain stabbed through his leg, like shards of glass were being pushed through his veins.

He collapsed into the snow. Kyra unlatched side of his prosthetic and tried to sever the nerve connections, but the lever wouldn’t turn.

“The gears are frozen,” she said.

Taro could barely form words. “Why does it hurt so much?”

“The liquid inside is expanding and pushing ice crystals into your nervous system.”

“Get it off me!” Taro wailed.

“It can’t be torn off.”

“Oh, God. GET IT OFF ME!” He dug his nails into his leg and thrashed.

“Hold him still. Kyra tore a piece of cloth from her sleeve and tossed it to Ven. “Make him bite down.”

Ven grabbed Taro around the shoulders and forced him to sit still, then wrapped the cloth between his teeth.

Kyra removed the prosthetic’s chasse, exposing its clicking inner mechanisms. Tubes lead from the base to the heel pivot, and back to the top where a drum with pins pressed into Taro’s leg.

Kyra sat on his thigh and grabbed hold of the pin-cylinder. “I’m so sorry,” she said, and ripped it out.

Taro screamed so hard he almost swallowed his tongue. Every muscle in his body clenched and his heart beat out of control. He didn’t lose consciousness, in fact he had an almost heightened sense of things. Being moved back to the barn. Being placed by the fire. Someone bandaging his leg.

Ven propped him up and waved his hands in front of his eyes. “Yoo-hoo.”

“His nervous system is in shock,” Kyra said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You didn’t have a choice,” Ven said.

“He’ll never be able to use a mechanical prosthetic again. The nerves are ruined.”

Three hours passed and Taro sat still, watching the others scour for food. They pick frozen pieces from cattle and cooked them. The animals had been dead for over a year, but there wasn’t much of a choice.

Taro felt movement in his palm. He loosened his grasp and Pipes’ mechanical bird squeezed out. Even in death, Pipes’ templary didn’t fade. The construct trotted along his hand, up his arm, and nibbled at his cheek before fluttering off.

“If only we could just fly away,” Ven said, tossing some wood into the fire.

Lights went on in Taro’s mind. The answer flooded into his mind all at once, and he leaned up with some difficulty.

“I was wondering when you’d join us,” Ven said.

“We can,” Taro said.

“Can what?”

“Fly away.” Taro pointed to a rack of farming tools hanging on the wall. “I need something to walk with.”

Ven grabbed one of the pitchforks and wedged between two boards until the handle broke off.

Taro used it to hobble toward Kyra. “Kyra, we can fly out of here.”

“You should be lying down,” she said in a slightly patronizing tone.

“Just listen. The Waystation is not far from here, is it?”

Yoresh thought about it. “Fifteen miles away.”

“It might as well be a thousand miles. We can’t go fifteen miles in this hell,” Edrin said.

“We can,” Taro said. “If we can make just one and a half miles an hour, we’ll get there by nightfall. When we flew there during the trial we saw a bunch of airships in—”

Kyra shook her head. “I see where you’re going with this. But it’s just not possible. Those ships are abandoned for a reason.”

“We’ve got the best and brightest minds in the entire world. We can cannibalize the airship for parts, repair one of them, and fly it out of here.”

Yoresh rubbed his chin. “That’s an interesting idea.”

“It’s an impossible idea,” Edrin said. “Let’s say we somehow made it there, then somehow found every part we need. Even if we did all of that, the reactor’s going to be stone-dead.”

“We could recharge them,” Ven said. He’d been sitting idle, listening intently.

“With what, exactly?”

Taro patted the ground. “It’s all right here. The roots of the Magisterium run right past the ships. We can charge a power cells down there, and use to fly the hell out of this godforsaken place.”

The artificers were silent for a moment while they considered it.

“There’s no way this’ll work,” Edrin said.

“Do you have a better idea?” Ven said.

“I could design a converter that would help charge the cells. Someone would have to get dangerously close to one of the conduits,” Kyra said.

“I’ll go,” Taro said, trying to stay balanced on his walking stick.

“You’re not in the best shape to go hopping over lava pools,” Kyra said.

“Lava?”

“That’s where the conduits are.”

“I’ll go,” Ven said.

“I’m not sure either of you will get the chance. We’ll all be dead long before we get there,” Edrin said flatly. “Though I suppose if the choices are die sitting on my ass, or die fighting to survive, there’s not much of a choice.”

Ven clapped his hands together. “So we’re walking fifteen miles through sub-zero weather to fix one of the most sophisticated war-machines in the world without so much as a screwdriver. Then, assuming the engines don’t explode in our faces, we’re going to fly the rickety hunk out of here. That about right?”

Taro shrugged. “Sums it up pretty well.”

Ven crossed his arms. “Awesome. What are we waiting for?”

Power Trip

Taro fought to keep up with the rear of the group. Kyra and Ven stayed close; they said it was to make sure that none of the younger artificers fell behind, but he knew that they were really just concerned about him.

He’d long lost the feeling in his fingers and toes. They trotted through the long snaking wastelands with nothing but rolling white hills as far as the eye could see. Fierce wind whipped snow from the ground into flurries. Peppered through the frozen countryside were barns and stables that offered a moment of reprieve from the wind, but they dared not stay too long.

Suri was the first to break. With every step she took, her tiny, frail body trembled. Her hair was so full of ice crystals it was practically white.

She stared up at the sky in a daze. “I can’t do it.”

Ven lifted her up and put his shoulder under her arm. “Oh, yes you can. C’mon, one step at a time.”

After eleven grueling hours, they climbed over one last hill. Enormous gears, steel girders, and wheels were strewn through pools of boiling oil and airship hulls. Steam rose from natural thermal vents in the ground and the artificers rushed to warm themselves. The snow around the vents was melted, and they scooted in as close as they could without burning themselves.

Four had severe frostbite and cradled their frozen, black toes and fingers.

Once they’d rested, Taro, Kyra, and the others were already scoping out crumbling airships around the yard for one that might be fixable.

Suri pointed to a large airship on its side. “Most of the fuselage is in-tact.”

“We’ll never be able to get it right-side up,” Ven said. “The one next to it is a better bet.”

“Maybe, but that left engine is going to take weeks to repair,” Kyra said.

“Do we have weeks?” Ven said. “Food, for instance...”

“We should scour these wreckages farthest from the heat vents, they should have food stores,” Yoresh said. “In these temperatures, plenty should be preserved.”

“We’ll break into teams.” Kyra pointed to four artificers. “You four follow Yoresh and find food. I’ll get a better look at that airship.”

Taro accompanied her. They looked through four until they found one that was acceptable. The first one was too small, the second had its entire ventral hull torn to shreds, the third was looked like it had been scavenged and was missing its reactor. The last one was by far the most intact. Long icicles hung down from the name ‘
EVENTIDE
’ on the side of its hull.

The engine room was the only real concern. Pieces were missing: the shaft connecting the rudder to the steering controls, the door to the reactor chamber, not to mention the coolant injection system.

All three power cells were intact, but completely dead. Kyra pulled them out and held them under her arm, then stripped two chords with copper prongs on the ends and wrapped them around her elbow and shoulder.

“Well?” Ven asked when they returned.

“The
Eventide
is our best bet,” Taro said.

Kyra nodded. “It’s going to take some serious work, but it might be doable. All three power cells are dead.”

Taro looked up at Magisterium root running past the junkyard and into the Waystation. “Is there a way into that thing without going through the Waystation?”

“You should be able to cut through the side,” Kyra said.

“That might trigger a defensive construct,” Suri said.

“Taro handled it on his last visit. There shouldn’t be a problem,” Kyra said.

“I do.”

“With respect to Taro,” Yoresh said with his thick Sahaalan accent. Taro wasn’t sure if he was trying to be tactful, or if he just didn’t know the proper words to use. “Perhaps we should have someone more able bodied.

“I’m perfectly able,” Taro said. “Besides, Ven will be with me.” He shoved one of the power cells into Ven’s hands.

“We’re all gonna die,” Ven said.

Kyra handed the power converters to Ven as well, then lifted an aluminum rod from a pile and used it to draw a map in the oily soil. She pointed down one of the drawn corridors. “This is where you need to get.”

Taro burned the image into his mind. He’d seen it before in Ross’ office, but he never expected to have to use it again.

Kyra pointed to two copper clips on the end of the power cells. “Connect it to the relay until this arrow touches this notch.” Kyra raised her voice to the others. “If you’re able to work, we’ll assign you to a group. Main priorities are patching the hull, repairing the rudders, scouring other ships for parts.”

Ven tied the power cells and cables into a pack and flung it over his back and started towards the root. Taro started to follow, but Kyra stopped him. She glanced around nervously, then placed her hand on his arm. “You really are in no condition to do this.”

“I’ll be fine. Like you said, there are no constructs down there. It’s just a walk in the park, right?”

“Just be safe.”

“I’m always safe,” Taro said with a boyish grin.

Ven called from the other side of the clearing. “C’mon Taro, priorities.”

Taro caught up with him. There was a waft of steam coming from the warm metal of the root. Taro tapped it with his knuckle; it sounded hallow. “I guess this is as good a place as any.”

Ven took out his inscriber and etched a long rectangular doorway into the metal and a pressed his hand to it. The edges crackled like a firework and the metal fell inward.

They stood in complete silence for a full minute, waiting to see if something would come charging at them from inside. When they were sure it was clear, they entered. The inner parts of the root were lined with black rock like a cave. The frame of the tremendous construct was lying in the ash, and looked as though it had been picked clean of parts.

They made their way to a broken metal walkway that extended over a pool of hot molten rock. On the ceiling and ledges were rumbling cylinders that seemed to be soaking up the incredible heat coming from below. Taro was used to it from his time at Crissom Foundry, but  Ven was having trouble breathing.

They cautiously approached the gap in the walkway.

“There’s no way I can jump that,” Taro said, leaning against his walking stick.

“I can... maybe,” Ven said, though his eyes looked positively terrified.

“Are you sure?”

Ven tightened his pack and took a deep breath. “Is there another way around?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then I’m sure.” Ven exhaled hard. “Okay, okay. It’s nothing. It’s just like any other jump... just, over a pool of instant death.”

“I wouldn’t say instant. It’d probably take at least a few seconds for the heat to melt through to your organs.”

“Not helping.” Ven stretched his legs, crouched, and leaped over the gap. The tips of his feet touched the rail and he leaned forward, struggling to stay on, but couldn’t quite make it. Just as he slipped, he grabbed the edge of the walkway with his fingertips.

Ven’s fingers sizzle as he pulled himself up, and it left cross-hatch burns all over his hands. He made a tight fist and winced, but continued toward the power conduit. It was a large, rounded stone pillar with steel ridges along the sides. On the cave walls were silver prongs, and every few seconds electricity arced from the prong to nodes in the walls.

Ven approached the conduit with his head down.

“Do you see the relay?” Taro shouted.

“I don’t know, there’s a lot of writing here. Cordaveron vale is the one, right?”

“Your Deific’s better than mine.”

Ven unpacked the equipment, dug each of the power cells into the dirt and connected one end to the capacitor. The wires sparked and crackled.

“Is it working?” Taro shouted.

“I think so. I just need a few more seconds.”

When one cell was full, Ven moved the cables to the next. But when he was on the last one, an arc of electricity shot out and blasted him through the chest.

His body shook and flew underneath the arcing power nodes. When the current faded, his body went from violent convulsions to completely still.

Taro didn’t even think it over: he got a head start and pushed his walking stick onto the edge of the grate, and vaulted to other side. He wobbled for a second and fell face-first onto the burning-hot walkway.

He recovered quickly and pulled Ven from the conduit. There was a gash across Ven’s torso, and his heart wasn’t beating. Taro knelt over him and pressed his hands into his chest. After a dozen compressions, Ven coughed and stirred.

Ven groaned and turned onto his side. He was clearly in a great deal of pain; his fingers were burned, his chest was bleeding, but a goofy smile appeared on his face. “That was shocking.”

“I save your life and the first thing you have to say is a stupid pun?”

Ven wobbled to his feet. “What about ‘electrifying?’”

“I’m starting to regret saving you.”

“But it was quite a power trip, am I right?”

“One more word and I’m shoving you in.”

Taro gathered the power cells together into the pack, and they used his walking stick to vault back over the gap. When they were outside, they slumped to the ground and took a moment to cool down.

Taro beat out his shirt. It stuck to his skin and drenched in sweat. “We did it.”

“Just wait ‘till I tell your girlfriend. Leaping to my rescue like the hero in some crappy Celosan play.” Ven feigned a swoon. “My hero!”

Taro pushed him away. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Uh huh. Yeah. Sure.”

“Can we not talk about this?” Taro said, exasperated.

“Taro, as your friend it’s my solemn duty to make fun of you at all opportunities. Don’t worry, your incredibly obvious secret is safe with me.”

Taro pulled himself up. For a moment, he lost himself staring into the snow. “You know, she really is something else.”

Ven patted Taro on the back and they walked back to the others. “I know, I know.”