Chapter Eighteen #3
of his breath. At certain angles, it glinted almost metallically. Slowly, it
began to swirl on its own, as if attempting to catch his attention. When Isaac
focused, the dust shot itself down through the air like the trail of a comet,
pointing towards a bed of pipework below, which hung horizontally across the
circular expanse, forming a half-broken net.
Around
him, the souls leaking from the cracked pillar were spreading themselves along through the dust, transmitting their energy
across its medium, as if they were made of similar substance. The dust sparkled
like stars within a nebula.
What
was this dust made of?
Had the
necromancers bound their souls to solid objects? This dust, this same substance
which had repeatedly attempted to guide him through the tomb, clearly possessed
some manner of intelligence. Were the extracted souls actually bound to an
infinitesimal substrate, something too small for the eye to see? Had the
process of time eroded the oldest souls into dust?
Did
these people still exist as specks in the air?
Why did
it look like metal?
He had
no answers. A moment later, his thoughts were interrupted as a clattering of
bone sounded above his head. Caine crawled down the obelisk wall, his film of
corpses having grown noticeably thin. He now possessed half as many bones as
before. Isaac did not need to guess that a sizable fraction of his mass had
been destroyed by Berith.
“Well,”
Zaria said, joining Isaac at the edge of the stairs. “No way down.”
“Do you
see that?”
“What?”
He
gestured at the stream of glinting dust, which was still pointing down to the
pipework below. Zaria squinted, giving a few cautious sniffs.
“Just
dust,” she said.
“No. It
can’t be. The pattern is too consistent. They’re trying to tell me something.
If only I could. . . .”
His
voice trailed away. Zaria glanced at him. After a moment, she turned to Caine.
“Oi, bones.”
Caine
focused a dozen skulls.
“Can
you make a bridge of sorts?” Zaria asked, flicking her head to the broken
stairway. “Something sturdy enough to carry us?”
Caine
extended a skull stalk, gazed eyelessly down the length of the obelisk. He
shook the stalk hard. On the wall, bones snapped into letters.
brITTLE
YOU
HEAVY
“I
can’t fuckin’ read.”
The
skull shook in place, gasping at her.
Isaac
felt Zaria twist and turn behind him, searching for an escape. “Isaac. Pull
your ropes. The wall’s cracked open here. Don’t know how sturdy it’ll be, but
if I can tie some knots, we’ll dangle the length—”
“I’m
going to jump,” Isaac said.
She
looked at him, bewildered.
“The
souls are telling me to jump.”
“What
in the fuck are you babblin’ about?”
The
dust swirled faster, urging him ahead. Around the pipework, the souls begged
and screamed, their wispy arms rising like steam from a bowl.
“I’ll
be fine,” he said, leaping into the air.
He
slammed into the pipework after barely a second of flight. The ancient metal
heaved. Sharp, jagged edges cut into his skin as the pipework only barely held
to its frame. By the end, he was nestled into the apex of an elongated V,
staring down the vanishing length of the obelisk. Rusted metal whined in his
ear. He scrambled over to a thick junction of pipes, which offered stronger
support. The groans fell to a softer volume.
When he
looked up, Zaria and Caine were watching from the edge of the stairs. He gave
them a thumbs up.
“You
stupid bastard!” Zaria shouted.
“Follow
me!” he yelled.
With
obvious displeasure, Zaria turned to Caine, whispering something. The bones
squirmed in reply. After a moment, she sheathed her poleaxe, looked down, and
leaped into the air.
Her
impact was violent. She was much heavier than Isaac, which was enough to send
the metal screaming in protest, her leather armor and spotted fur sinking
through the lattice of pipework like a foot stomping through twigs. He grabbed
at her flailing arm as the last of the pipes snapped from the frame, sending
her tearing straight through the net. Just barely, he managed to catch her by
the wrist.
He was
wrenched flat. She was too heavy. He struggled, straining to lift her body, his
muscles nearly ripping from the ligament. Zaria grabbed at the sleeve of his
robes, her legs kicking over naked air.
Her
fingers slipped through his palm.
The
pipework shuddered.
Just as
he was about to lose his grip, the souls broke free from their cage.
All at
once, there was an ethereal fog surrounding them, full of fingers and limbs and
a soft, lilting voice. The soul entered his skin. Suddenly, Isaac felt a surge
of energy, like all the power of his magic had been transfused directly into
strength. He pulled Zaria again, and she felt as light as a toddler. When she
rose through the broken hole of pipes, a fog of souls surrounded her, lifting
her body like a warm thermal of air. As she cleared the edge, and they
collapsed back onto the pipes, the souls were already grasping at the broken
sections of metal, holding them together with a moaning grip.
The
metal stopped bending. All at once, it felt as solid as steel.
They
were safe.
It had
actually worked.
“Gods
above,” Isaac said, watching a fog of souls leak from his skin.
Around
them, the mist swirled and danced, streaming with dust. Eventually, a single
cloud of light rose to Isaac’s face. He saw the vague suggestion of human
features. A mouth formed like a gash. Underneath the moaning of the souls, the
face began to speak in the language of the necromancers. Isaac had spent
multiple days interpreting their language, which allowed him to guess at the
meaning of the words.
“Save
us.”
He was
stunned. All he could do was nod. The soul dissipated, wafting like smoke in a
breeze. The two of them were still surrounded by a purple, grasping crowd, all
of them glinting and sparkling with unknown substance. He was convinced, more
than ever, that the dust in the air was the true essence of the soul.
The
necromancers had trusted him. They were begging him for help. He felt, all at
once, as if he had been imbued with a noble purpose.
Zaria
slapped him across the face.
“You
fucking codpiece!”
“What?”
he asked, smarting.
Her
teeth glinted purple as she snarled. “You tryin’ to leap to your death?”
“I was
following the souls!” He gestured at the surrounding fog, sweeping a hand
through the trails of dust. “They told me to. The necromancers. The dust—”
“Some
fucking dead people beckoned you into a chasm? Is that your defense?”
“Well,
yes.”
She
slapped him again.
Around
them, Caine rolled a film of bones down the masonry of the tower. He paused at
their level, unleashed a crop field of vertebral stalks, and shook the skulls
incredibly hard. On the wall, bones festered into words.
BAD
BAD
BAD
“Sorry,
father,” Isaac said.
The
field of skulls gave him a pointed, eyeless look. Moments later, they bent
themselves downward, gazing along the remaining length of the obelisk.
“We’re
fine,” Isaac said, gesturing over to the spiral staircase across from them.
“Keep harassing Berith. Don’t let him gain a lead.”
The
skulls nodded, and the bones split into crawling formations as they raced and
spat down the walls of the tower. Slowly, Isaac and Zaria rose to their feet,
making sure their stance was steady on the nest of pipes. It was tricky
footing. Many of the ducts were thin, brittle, and horribly rent by necrotic
scars. Still, despite the obvious damage, the souls managed to hold the metal
netting in place. Their wispy limbs drifted toward the opposite stairway, like
wind bending the plume of a campfire’s smoke.
Close
to them, the glass pillar of souls still teemed with thousands of souls. Isaac
felt very certain that he was being watched. Faces blurred into a fog.
He took
a moment to flex his arm, the one the souls had entered.
“Did
you see that?” he asked.
Zaria
stepped carefully over a jagged valve. “Not now, love.”
“The soul
entered through my skin, like sand through a sieve. It. . . .” He flexed his
limb again. “It gave me a burst of strength. How is that possible?”
“Isaac,
quit faffin’ about.”
He
flinched. He knew he had to increase his pace. Uneasily, he began to step and
lurch across the pipes, sometimes crawling with his hands to ensure a steady
balance. As he moved, he suddenly remembered a mural he had seen in the
necropolis, where a god bearing the emblem of the stripes and stars had infused
his worshippers with a swarm of insects, which had burrowed readily through the
skin.
Burrowed
through the skin. . . .
The
dust.
The
dust made of souls.
Isaac
looked around him again, startled. The purple fog seemed to linger and twist.
The air sparkled like a precious metal.
“Isaac!”
Zaria hissed, gripping the vertical shaft of a threshing duct. “Stop grabbin’
ass, I swear to gods!”
There
wasn’t time to investigate this discovery. Perhaps, with the danger imposed by
the Diet, the pirates of the desert, and the dwindling nature of their
supplies, there never would be again. Even still, he
became very aware that he had just brushed, unknowingly, against a monumental
revelation, one that would change a fundamental understanding of life, if only
he possessed the time to study.
Isaac
sighed, crawling on his hands and knees.
“Where
we goin’, squire?” Zaria asked, waiting at the edge of the pipes. The spiral
stairway was only a few feet below. “Need some direction.”
He
picked his way carefully over a broken fan. “This is all conjecture, but I
imagine there must be some mechanical device, similar to the one we saw in the
factory, sitting at the bottom of the tomb, which would act as a control
station for the conducting of souls. From there, Berith could direct all the
energy directly into the colossus.”
“What
happens if he does?”
“It
will crush us like ants, and likely the nine kingdoms, and then also the
world.”
“Lovely,”