Chapter 8 #3
“Father.” When Nyx had been sent Gleipnir to help with the Council’s order to apprehend Morgen, he’d been shocked they’d given it to her.
Now it made sense. The Council as such hadn’t sent her Gleipnir at all.
Jevryn had, when he’d learned who had become the new Guardian of Earth’s Station.
Nyx valued it too much to give it up for nothing.
The same way Mary valued the contents of her shop.
An idea came to Nyx. A foolish idea, but it was there, and it wasn’t going away. Because Mary was right—neither she nor Evra was going to torture her for information. Which meant all Mary had to do was keep her mouth shut and eventually they would go away.
“You should have taken her offer,” Nyx said, indicating Evra. “Because you’re going to like mine even less.”
Taking a deep breath, Nyx reached for the chain around her neck.
She hit the leather string holding Seth’s rock first, forced herself to ignore it, and drew the metal necklace chain from beneath her shirt instead.
It bore two items: Jevryn’s ring, that in truth belonged to Griff, and the Harvester of Worlds.
It was the latter item Nyx took in her hand.
“I am not sure that is the best idea,” Evra said.
“Ordinarily, I would agree with you. But given what I’m going to have to do if we find Tristen?
I think I should probably get some practice in first.” Practice, because the one and only time she’d used the Harvester before, she’d barely kept control of it.
At least here, in Dead Earth, its abilities would be blunted. She hoped.
The Harvester vibrated against her hand, energetic and eager.
Like a hunting dog waiting impatiently to be released.
When she’d used it against the Kumir in her Station, she’d had a focused, defined goal: eliminate the Kumir.
Even then, it had wanted to go beyond that directive, had reached past the Kumir for her friends.
It warmed against her palm now, clearly wanting the release she contemplated.
Against Nyx’s hip, Alihana rattled, a vibration that was almost akin to panic.
Perhaps was panic. They had been absorbed by the Harvester once before, had informed Nyx in no uncertain terms that they would not be contained within it again until she could prove she had gained the knowledge necessary to set them free.
To ensure they were not trapped forever within the Harvester’s confines.
She ignored the rattling, giving her focus to the Harvester.
It didn’t speak to her, as Alihana did, but she felt its intentions—its desires—all the same.
It was hungry. Riven, the Dwarf whose ancestor had created the Harvester, had called it the Devourer.
It was an apt name, in Nyx’s opinion, because all she felt from it was an endless hunger.
You can have one, she thought at it, uncertain if it could hear or understand her, but certain that it was her will that had allowed it the freedom to act before.
Nyx looked through the store, cataloging the various items. She wanted to start with something valuable, but not the most valuable.
She settled on a set of antique coasters and held the Harvester out towards them. Go ahead.
The Harvester pulsed, rippled, grew—and opened.
The same light she remembered from its last temporary freedom spilled out in harsh beams. When she had used it in the Station, the light had been so bright it nearly blinded her.
But when Laiveran had activated it on Amentia Furor, the light had been more contained.
Can you kill the lights show? The beams, which had been starting to break from all areas of the sphere, retracted, giving the Harvester itself a golden glow, but not a damaging one. It spun in her hand, slowly at first, then picking up speed.
“Is she unwell?” Mary asked, and Nyx realized that, with her Hiding over the Harvester, the woman couldn’t see what she was doing.
To her, it would look like Nyx stood cupping empty air.
Nyx felt a light pinging against her Hiding, but since the shopkeeper had already decided Nyx was a little touched in the head, she wasn’t actively trying to see through it, so the Hiding remained firmly in place with little effort.
Mary didn’t need to see the Harvester to see the end result of its work.
The sphere spun and spun, the rings comprising it blurring together as it gained momentum, hitting a zenith Nyx felt in her bones.
Rather than light spilling out this time, she felt force.
An inexorable wave of attractive power, like a gravitational pull.
It latched on to the coasters Nyx had selected.
They moved, caught in the tug, rising from their place on a nearby display counter and floating to Nyx.
They hovered before the Harvester for the span of a second. Then they began to dissolve.
When the Harvester had taken the Kumir, they had seemed to disintegrate in steps: first flesh, then tissue, then bones.
Nyx did not know if this was because there had been so many more of them, or because the Harvester had been savoring the experience.
Regardless, the process happened far more quickly this time.
The coasters broke apart into infinitesimally small pieces, as if being reverted to their base molecular components.
Then that thin trail of matter streamed into the Harvester and vanished, as if it had never been.
“Hey!” Mary lunged forward, but Gleipnir held her back. “That was mine.”
The Harvester in Nyx’s hand felt no heavier than it had before. It felt no less hungry than it had before. Another two items from the display counter rose in the air, streaking to a halt before her. She clamped down on the Harvester with all her will.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mary snapped.
“Destroying your shit,” Nyx answered. “Because you’re right—neither of us is going to torture you for information.
But since Evra says all of this”—she gestured to indicate the totality of the shop’s contents—“is dangerous, I don’t really feel bad about obliterating things in it until you feel like talking. ”
Nyx released her tight rein on the Harvester and it gulped the other two items down.
This time, she was ready for the surge as it finished consuming them, and she held it at bay.
Scanning the store carefully, she selected ten more items and let the Harvester call them to rise from their resting places and come to hover near it.
“Feel like talking yet?” Nyx asked. When Mary didn’t answer, Nyx let another item flow into the Harvester. Then another, and another, and—
“You can’t keep this up for long. No magic is infinite.”
Nyx laughed, because keeping on wasn’t the problem—stopping was. Since nothing had the ring of derangement quite like the truth, Nyx gave it to her. “I could swallow this whole planet and keep going. So what’s it going to be?”
Mary blanched. But she didn’t speak. Nyx relaxed her grip and the Harvester ingested the other shop pieces hanging before it.
Stopping it from inhaling more was like trying to hold on to the lead of a horse that had decided to bolt—if their training kicked in and they halted when the lead rope pulled tight, great.
If they decided “fuck training” and you were determined to hold on anyway, you better be wearing a good pair of gloves and be prepared to get dragged.
The Harvester pulled tight, stopped, bolted again, pulled tight, stopped. Nyx felt its indecision and gave it a hard mental yank. Its spin slowed as it sullenly acquiesced, but not before another twenty items rose off their shelves.
“Fine,” Mary spat. “What do you want to know?”
“We are looking for a Shaman,” Evra said.
Mary gave a derisive snort. “What? An Indian shaman? Smoke and chanting, that kind of shaman? Why the hell are you in Manhattan?”
“No,” Nyx said, “not an indigenous spirit communicator.” She thought the word for Tobi and others like him probably translated to Shaman in English because they were healers, and because talking with the Congregation could probably be classified as talking with spirits.
Mary rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry, was I not politically correct enough for you?”
Just for that, Nyx let the Harvester eat another two shop pieces. “You would think of this person as a miracle healer. I’m talking about the sort of person who can heal a gut wound in a matter of minutes and fix your great aunt Celia’s incurable cancer.”
“You’re talking about a pipe dream,” Mary answered, but she didn’t sound particularly surprised by the request. As if someone else had made it of her before.
Nyx fed another piece of inventory to the Harvester.
“Would you quit that?” Mary snapped. “Fine. I know who you’re talking about, but it won’t do you any good. He doesn’t help people like you.”
“People like me, meaning?”
“You don’t look like you’re dying.”
Nyx shrugged. “That’s not your problem. Where do I find him?”
“You don’t. You find his people, and if they think you’re deserving, they’ll take you to him.”
“And how do we find his people?” Evra asked coolly.
Mary ground her teeth. “There’s usually a flyer. It’ll be for something else—music lessons, a craft clinic, anything—and somewhere buried in it will be a modified caduceus.”
“A what?” Evra asked, at the same time Nyx asked, “Modified how?”
Mary smiled. “The top of the staff is a skull and crossbones. Rumor has it, he might heal you…but he might kill you, too. Find the flyer and call the number on it.”
“Anything else we should know?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“Then there’s just one final thing.” Nyx used the blade of Veritas to scrape a little blood from the cut on Mary’s neck. “Did you lie to me about anything?”
“Why would I lie? You’ve already destroyed six months’ worth of my income.”
“Yes or no answers only please—did you lie to me about anything?”
“No.”