Chapter 27
Jesamin
Iheld up the chthonium coin, measuring it with my eyes against that octagonal void within the heart of the Thing, the small cavity that required an occult ingredient.
With the chthonium knife, moving slowly and carefully, I had shaved away slivers of the coin until it could fit within the Thing.
It was a strange element, unlike any I had worked with before. The slivers came free in layers as thin as onion-skin, yet perfectly opaque, and they clicked with audible weight as they fell onto each other.
I had focused on nothing but the chthonium, shaving a slice, comparing, shaving another. Over and over and over.
My hands eventually cramped. I sat upright, my back muscles screaming, and wiped my forehead on my sleeve. Líadan was curled up nearby, a chunk of jerky still clutched in her hand as she slept.
I glanced at the half-eaten jerky, mildly aware of a rumble in my empty stomach, and turned back to the Thing.
A thing no longer really, as I fit the inky octagon into the waiting lacuna. It was Artifice now, an amplifier, designed to suck the miasma towards its core through hair-thin lenses, where it would bounce off the chthonium plate, radiating outward with force that would build with every wave.
It was not quite perfect. I levered it back out, barely breathing as I avoided touching the tiny lacework of gears, and brought the knife to it again.
Eventually the octagon was flawless, my wrist was aching savagely, and I tucked it into its place before setting to work on adjusting the gears and rods, the speed at which they would need to shift to accommodate the energy radiating from a crystcore, ensuring each drove another in a flawlessly synchronized harmony.
Somewhere beyond me, Líadan woke up. The earth still groaned. Talos whirred, and eventually I beheld the thing I had made, a blend of human and Fae Artifice, infused with occult direction and purpose.
I shivered, so tired I wanted to vomit, but there was nothing in my stomach and eating would only make it worse. Or it was the effects of the crystcore, and I would eventually shed my entire body and die in agony. There was no way to know.
Rubbing my gritty eyes, I carefully placed the amplifier on the velvet and looked at its innocently-glimmering face.
“It’s done,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Now I shall move it into the vault, remove the shielding from the walls, and position it to reflect the crystcore’s miasma upward into the city. Líadan, you will be the one to operate the fulmen orbs. I will handle the positioning.”
I knew she had no idea what I was saying, but I hoped she understood. Those dark eyes were unreadable, but she looked from the amplifier to the vault, and I thought she might have some concept of what I intended. After all, she had lived among this machina. Mine might even seem primitive to her.
“We get one shot at this. As soon as it’s in place, we run.
If it works, we need to outrun each wave as they begin to build.
And if it doesn’t…well, we either die down here in a terrible explosion of occult energy, or we die under a few miles of collapsing earth.
” I rubbed my eyes again, my head aching.
Dehydration and stress, or the miasma setting in?
“I have to believe they’re all out of here by now. I have to.”
I muttered the last to myself, trying to remember how long I’d been awake. How long I’d spent carving out that octagon and slotting each new component just so.
I had the sense that many, many hours had passed, perhaps a full day. The passage of time was as slow as syrup, yet slipping through my fingers. But if that staircase was truly a straight shot to the surface, Wroth had almost certainly gathered Marrion and the survivors and made it to safety.
The amplifier glittered. I stared at it, sensing the pulses emanating from the crystcore, calculating the amplification, and knowing that while I would never set the terrible orchards of Liuridar alight, neither would they survive.
Any living thing in the vicinity of the city, human or not, would be gone.
I picked my favorite tools from the scatter around me; the wrench I’d brought with me to the Collegium, an awl with a well-worn ash handle, my favorite loupe that had been a gift from a mentor.
Everything else was replaceable, or unnecessary weight.
I put them in my pack, along with the oil-wrapped packages that contained my looted Fae Artifice.
My remaining food, waterskins, toiletries, tools…
all of it would lay here forever. I was surprised to find myself staring at my bedroll, a strange sensation of regret and grief rising in me.
Wroth and I had slept together on it. It was where I had dreamed deeply in his arms. And without it, I would never again have a soft bed to lie on that we had once shared, because for him, the rules had already reverted.
He was in the sun. He belonged to Esteri now. And deep within, the rusted iron wall I thought gone had once again encircled my heart.
My hand twitched towards the bedroll, but I forced myself to leave it behind. It was deadweight. I had my good memories, and couldn’t afford a bittersweet memento that could twist into pain—or worse, regret—later. All I allowed myself to keep was a single loose thread, tied around my finger.
I slid my much-lightened pack over my shoulders, barely noticing its weight, and rose on shaky, painful legs before staggering to Talos.
My golem looked down at me, his fulmen flaring once more before dying out. I reached up to touch his cold iron cheek, smiling at him tiredly. “I hope you’re up to this.”
His metal hand rose to touch mine, and I felt his head incline.
I slipped my fingers around his throat, finding the indentations on either side of his neck, and pressed my fingertips in deep until I heard them click, followed by a soft hum.
“Talos, activate Destrier Protocol.”
I released him and stood back, joining Líadan where she hovered next to the pod.
Talos’s eyes flashed sapphire and went black, his body stiff and arms held down at his sides.
The gears inside him clicked over, the occult cascade of commands beginning in his core and spilling outwards, moving parts almost too tiny to be seen with the naked eye.
He began to shift, the iron and brass thorns withdrawing into his body to form the tendons and ligaments of his legs.
The golem dropped forward onto all fours, shoulder and hip joints reconfiguring themselves in smooth tandem movements, his neck extending from his shoulders to rise in a horse’s proud arch even as his face folded and lengthened, forming a long muzzle.
Plates slid and shivered over his surface, re-armoring the delicate clockwork exposed during his conversion.
Long fingers, with serrated fingertips designed for grip, extended from what should’ve been hooves.
He was an amalgamation of iron and steed, both awful and beautiful, an immaculate feat of engineering.
And one I had never tested. I had designed the Destrier prototype with escape in mind—if my father or I should ever need to flee—but until now, I’d not had a reason to activate it.
And I prayed to every god I’d ever heard of that the function matched the beauty of his form. If his limbs were mismatched, or the weight of us on his back cost speed, we’d all be dead regardless.
Líadan was watching me sidelong, but I thought I caught a hint of approval in her eyes.
She caught me looking at her, and said something quietly, in that rolling language, before touching my hand.
I hoped she hadn’t just asked me what the hell I was thinking, because I was nearly drunk with terror and exhaustion, and couldn’t have explained my plan for anything.
“Talos will bring us right up those stairs. Be prepared. Every second will count.” I carefully picked up the amplifier, cradling it in my fingers like a black powder fuse waiting to go off.
Now to get it beneath the crystcore.
I nodded to the fulmen orbs. “I need you to power them.”
Líadan set her lips, settled into the pod, and raised her hands to hover over the orbs. A strange word from her, and she flexed her fingers, nodding at me to indicate she was ready.
I tapped the terminal open and carefully lowered the amplifier into the empty space. Waving chthonium tendrils reached out to cradle it, and my stomach churned as the door spun shut again.
The chthonium gauntlets were icy cold, clunky and uncomfortable, as I slotted my fingers into them. I was about to look over my shoulder to see if Líadan was powering the orbs, when a tingle, followed by a jolting shock, went through my hands.
The chthonium warmed almost immediately, molding to my fingers and growing flexible. I squinted at the spider legs dangling from the ceiling of the vault, focusing on them as I flexed my hands.
The legs snapped outwards, quivering and straight, and I nearly ripped my hands right out of those gloves to get away. There was something horrifically insectile about them, their biomachina form imitating life to a disturbing extent.
With a deep breath and nervous sweat dripping down my spine, I moved my fingers again, noting which ones corresponded to each spider leg.
For practice, I ripped thin layers of lead and chthonium from the vault’s interior walls, dropping the ribbed sheets on the floor within.
Beyond the shielding was smooth stone, the natural earth they had terraformed to fit their machina.
And when I felt I had a sense of control over the spiders, I began to slowly move the nearest leg to the open door beneath the console.
Even knowing I was the operator, it was terrible to watch that leg coming towards me through the glass. The thin, needle-like tip of the leg tapped against the console on the opposite side of the glass, and I moved it with painful slowness towards the amplifier waiting in the terminal.