“
Lad?” I cried. “Are you alright?” I struggled against the Other’s presence as he tried to lock me out of the missile launcher. I flailed and smacked at him, sending my Flare-strengthened code against his solid wall, chipping him down one symbol at a time.
Why would you lie to me, Tan from the light world
?
“
I know you,” I spat through gritted teeth. “And I know what you’re asking. How can you think we would have agreed to your terms?”
“
Now,” Adrian sidled up close to me, gun pointed at my head. “Just get away from the wall.”
What makes you think you had a choice in the first place
?
A fine thread of my Flare made its way through the Other
’s blockade, and reconnected with the launcher. Dimly, I felt a gentle sense of disapproval. My son, apparently, wasn’t that fond of violence. I decided he just didn’t understand what was at stake, and switched the weapon on.
“
Shoot her and we’ll all die!” Lad gasped, his voice raspy and muffled as Meta held him down.
Crust
’s thin and traumatised skin shuddered as the launcher loosened a series of explosives to clear precise track to the surface. Up from the ruins of the bunker that once housed the men who cared for and controlled it, through the rock and steel of the people who came after, and finally to the surface. Then with a screech that tore the very air, it fired.
The missile was large, dark and sleek, and I was watching as it slid out of the earth. It soared up into the darkly torn sky on a tail of pale smoke, then shuddered, stuttered, and started to fall.
Cute plan. Get out of Core, use your strength on the network to overwhelm your guards. Unfortunately, I’ve been here a lot longer than you have. And I’m hardy going to let that happen, am I
?
The weapons system sent data at me that I didn
’t understand, then informed me that it was in desperate need of maintenance, and ammunition had lost effectiveness over time, so it was sorry its offensive capabilities were somewhat reduced. If I cared to initiate a repair regime it would be very happy continue working with me.
The missile smacked down right where it had been launched, and Crust rolled. The launcher vanished from the network in an instant as a fierce energy like white-hot fire tore down through the tunnel it had made. Its robots were incinerated, and the remaining weapons caught and exploded, one after the other. The ground shook and spewed forth all kinds of rubble, burning and hot, cement and metal, layer upon layer of the history of Crust thrown into the air.
“Down!” Adrian grabbed my shoulder and pushed me into the corner. I squeezed my eyes closed but I could still see it, still feel it, through the wires and the hubs that melted or shattered, as Crust exploded.
Finally, the world grew quiet, and still.
A hard swallow, a shallow breath, and I sat up. Bright sparks like falling stars were settling around us, winking out and stinging as they touched my skin.
You will come to me, Tanyana. Whether you like it or not
.
“
This cannot be good for us,” Adrian said, as he glanced around and the faint rain of light. He brushed it off his shoulders with a thickly gloved hand.
Where the missile had fallen, Crust was gone. Just gone. A blackened scar, a mess of melted metal and a deep crater, were all that remained.
Meta dragged Lad to his feet, gun still firmly pressed against his skull. “Then let’s make sure she can’t do that again,” she growled.
Adrian nodded, grabbed my wrist, and physically tore me out of the network. The world lurched, suddenly confined to my own skull, and light burst out of my every crystal vein, struggling against the prison of my body. Everything titled sideways, doors at the edges, as exhaustion and pain rolled over me.
I’ll be waiting for you
.
Kichlan didn
’t quite notice when ruined corridors gave way to ancient streets. The usual distinctions—between ground and underground, old and new—had been shattered along with most of the city. One moment he was walking on tiles, and the next he stepped on decrepit paving stones worn down by time.
It was so dark he wouldn
’t have been able to see, if not for the faint silver-blue light emanating from his left elbow and Devich’s entire body.
“
Helpful, that,” Mizra said. He did not seem to be disturbed by the darkness. Instead, he glanced away from Kichlan’s light as though something so faint could hurt his eyes. “We got used to feeling our way around.”
Kichlan did not know what to say, so kept quiet.
They had been walking for bells, descending deeper and deeper beneath the city. Pressure built up above them, the weight of ages, of rubble, of the battle being played out and lost where they could no longer see or hear it. He was certain they were far beneath the old Unbound street now, even though that had been built so long ago, at a time before people who could see debris were shackled with silver and forced to collect it. How deep did the earth beneath Movoc-under-Keeper go?
He caught glimpses of strange wonders. More statues in crystalline stone: the Keeper, the veil and something he could only describe as the Other—twisted, half-formed features with cruel, disjointed hands. They arched over him like buttresses, holding up the layers of city above. Great shards of crystal lanced out of the walls, the ceiling, even the floor. They reflected his light back at him—caught it, gave it a variety of rainbow-like colours, and seemed to make it brighter. Mizra and the Unbound skirted around these, keeping their distance.
“What is that?” Kichlan whispered. Only whispers felt right here, felt safe.
“
No idea,” one of the Unbound answered. Kichlan could not see his face, and wouldn’t have known his name even if he could. “But I wouldn’t touch them, if I were you.”
“
Why?” Natasha asked. She rested her cheek against his shoulder, but Kichlan hadn’t thought for a moment that she was sleeping.
A pause.
“Wait until we get there.”
“
You’ll see,” Mizra said.
They kept walking. Behind them, Devich whimpered. Lost and animal-like. Kichlan glanced over his shoulder and Devich hurried forward, sniffing and rubbing against Kichlan
’s fingers like a reassured dog.
A new, fresh light filtered into the tunnel so faintly, so steadily, that Kichlan did not notice it at first. It emanated up from the floors below them, creeping through gaps in the pressed-earth and statue-supported floor. The temperature increased with it. At first, just a light flush of warm air rising from the ground. Then Kichlan started sweating, and even Natasha grew clammy where he held her.
“Where’s that coming from?” she whispered.
Nowhere in Movoc-under-Keeper was as hot as this.
And then the tunnel opened up, and Kichlan could only stop, and stare. Natasha gasped, and Devich pressed his body against Kichlan’s heels, shivering.
There had once been a city here, far, far below ground. Or, perhaps a town. A single straight street led off from where they stood. Paved with the same glittering stone the Keeper and Other statues had been built with, and edged with lines of glowing crystal. That crystal was everywhere. It burned softly from deposits in the walls of domed buildings that looked like they had been hollowed out of the deep earth itself. It hung over doorways with the rusted-clump remains of bells, it shone from the eyes of faces chiselled into the homes, the floor, even the ceiling so low Kichlan could have touched it if he stretched, only a little.
The single street and the chiselled houses stretched on, farther than Kichlan could see. While it was long, the town was only wide enough for one house on either side. So the earth pressed in from above, and from either side. The heat and humidity hung heavily in the tight space, generating a mist-like haze.
Mizra and the Unbound continued down the street. Kichlan followed, with Devich close behind.
“What is this place?” Natasha whispered.
“
Deeper than the Unbound street.” Mizra did not turn around as he answered. “Older. But connected to it, somehow, and for some reason. A labyrinth led us here, with the world caving in behind us and the Tear flood following.”
Doors flickered on either side of the street. Thin and transparent, but looming, far taller than the low room should allow. Kichlan tried not to look at them.
“Thin,” Devich slobbered, voice almost lost in his saliva and malformed jaw. “Here. Thin.”
The street was not as long as Kichlan had thought. Perhaps it was the crystal light, or the ever-hugging mist, that had made this place look timeless, stretching on forever. But it ended, suddenly, at a great semicircle hollowed out in the rock. The curving wall was riddled with crystal all bound up with a tangle of bronze wire long gone to green. Strange devices filled the recess—like the ones he and Tan had found inside the Keeper Mountain. Dark, poly-looking slabs that could have been pion screens, but were coated with a fine layer of debris instead. Symbols chiselled in crystal—similar to those on his collecting suit—glowed and floated on the surface of this debris.
In the middle of all these, Uzdal lay in a crystal coffin. “To cross the veil?” Kichlan whispered, to himself. He’d seen one of those before.
<
There is still a signal coming through from the other side
> The voice of Kichlan’s suit was little more than a murmur. <
But all communication back has been severed. Upload inoperative. Maintenance required
>
“
Our people belong here.”
Kichlan glanced to the side. Fedor emerged from one of the houses. His right arm was bound, the right side of his face heavily bruised. But, apart from that, he did not seem much changed. If anything, he had a smug, vindicated look to him that Kichlan knew—just knew—would have set Tan
’s teeth on edge. If she was alive to see it.
He gestured to his Unbound, and three of them came to collect Natasha. She groaned as Kichlan eased her weight between them.
Mizra knelt by the crystal coffin. Face impassive, he reached inside and smoothed his brother’s hair. When he withdrew them, his fingers were encrusted with ice. He did not even seem to notice.
“
We found this place because we were meant to use its power,” Fedor continued. He held Kichlan’s gaze, and his eyes burned with fanatical fire. “It saved us. And we used it to save you. This is an ancient home for the Unbound. It has kept us safe while the world above us collapses. And we are learning how to use its gifts. To find allies, and to defend ourselves. It makes us stronger than we have ever been, stronger than the pion-binders above. Soon, they will have no choice but to listen to us. Do you see—” he pointed to Uzdal “—it even keeps us alive.”
Feeling numb, Kichlan approached the coffin. Devich dogged his steps and he almost tripped.
“Stay here,” he commanded. Devich pressed his stomach to the stone, and whimpered.
Kichlan knelt beside Mizra, who looked up, but did not seem to see him.
“I tried to save him,” Mizra said. Kichlan started to shake, for the grief in his voice. A grief he was trying so hard not to feel. “But I wasn’t fast enough. It all came down, on him. On others too. The Unbound. Eugeny. Then Fedor brought us here. So I went back. I dug and dug, and I found him. But he was dead. But still, I carried him all the way here, and the magic of the Unbound started him breathing again, and his heart beating. But it couldn’t bring him back, Kichlan. Not all of him. I think—” his voice hitched. He lowered his head to the edge of the coffin, and ice crystals germinated in his hair “—I think my brother is gone.”
Uzdal was pale. Most of his body was encased in ice so thick it resembled the crystal in the wall above him. Only his face and his head were free, which was terrible, in its way, because it allowed Kichlan a clear view of hole in the top of Uzdal
’s skull.
Dark red coagulated blood. Grey, fleshy brain. Skull, white, shattered. Not Uzdal, none of it. Just a body. Just meat. Dead and frozen, yet breathing, somehow, blue vein and red capillaries pumping to an impossible beat.
Kichlan rested the stub of his elbow on the coffin lid. The ice played with his silver, unable to gain purchase. “Eugeny is dead?” he said.
Mizra nodded.
“I looked for him under all the stones and all the earth. I did, I promise I did, but I only found Uz.”
Kichlan bowed his head. He and Lad had lived in Eugeny
’s house for so long, it should have been harder to imagine that the old man was gone. He’d loved Lad, he’d cared for him, and he had grieved so hard when Lad died. But everything was fading now, and he’d lost so much already. “It is more than I have left of Lad,” he breathed. “And Tan.”
Behind him, Devich howled.
When I woke I was lying against Lad’s chest. I listened, for a moment, to the sound of his breath and the beating of his heart. Too ragged, too fast, too much worry and fear. But he was alive, and warm, and solid against me.
“
It was the Other,” I whispered. “He’s on the network, always on the network, and he took it back from me. I’m sorry. I tried.”
Lad
’s breath hitched, and his hand on my shoulder tightened.
“
So nice to see you coming round,” a voice chimed beside me, above me, all around. Friendly, faintly feminine and altogether artificial. “I was worried I hurt you there, for a second.”
I opened my eyes and sat up with a groan. Lad balanced me carefully. There were dark bruises and fresh scratches on his face that hurt to look at. I touched shaking fingers to his cheek, and he winced, but didn
’t pull away. I felt empty, my Flare stuttering and weak. We were sitting in something that looked like an elongated pod, and we were moving. Metal squealed against metal below us, lights embedded in the walls flashed in an uneven pattern. There were chairs welded into the curving walls, cushions long rotted away. Everything was rusted, and slightly damp with clumps of dark mould.
Meta, Adrian and Kasen sat opposite. Meta and Adrian still had their guns drawn, and were both watching me with sharp attention, deeply suspicious. Kasen wasn
’t looking so good. He lay back on the rusted old chair, and the front of his uniform was soaked with blood. He’d been bandaged, and he seemed to be sleeping, his breath coming quickly and shallow.
“
All that effort would have been for nothing if you’d left us,” that voice chimed again.
I frowned, glanced around. Where was it coming from?
Silently, Lad tapped at a small screen embedded in the wall beside him. I shuffled closer. It was dim, difficult to see, but slowly a simulated face resolved there. “Other,” I hissed.
“
Hero
,” Meta said, tone grim.
I glanced up at Lad.
“What happened?”
“
You tried to betray me,” the Other said. “Don’t you remember that?”
I ignored him, and held Lad
’s gaze instead. “The missile opened up access to an old set of mass transit pods,” he answered, after a moment, and there was such a sense of regret in his words. “It seems the Other has enough influence on the network to get them moving again.”
“
Hero
,” Meta said, again.
“
Don’t you think you should listen to the woman with the gun?” the Other asked, lightly.
“
They’re ancient, dangerous,” Lad continued, ignoring them both. “Listen to that noise, they could fall off the tracks at any minute.”
“
They won’t,” the Other said. “I know how delicate Tanyana here is. I’ll be careful.”
Lad shook his head.
“Tan, he’s taking us to the Legate heart.”
My stomach dropped, and before I could stop myself I placed a hand on the bulge across my abdomen.
“No,” I said. “But Lad, no. We can’t.”
“
You will fulfil your promise to the Hero,” Adrian said. He lifted his tablet and turned it around to show us something that looked like a map. A small red dot was speeding across it. I realised, with a sinking feeling, that the dot was probably us. “Nothing can stop that now.”
“
So just calm down,” the Other said in the pod’s too-bright, too-friendly female voice. “And enjoy the ride.”
The pod rattled, swayed and dipped furiously as the Other dragged us forward. Sometimes underground, the darkness pressing in on me with all the weight of Crust and the ruins I had seen. It was hard to breathe, and I tensed with every bump, expecting to crash into the inevitable rubble across the track.
The ground shook and something rumbled, off into the distance. Adrian leaned forward. “The Hero clears the way,” he said, but he was sweating heavily, and I could just feel the fear emanating from his skin.
Lad held me tighter. Only Meta and Kasen didn
’t seem concerned, and Kasen was still unconscious.
But the trip wasn
’t entirely in the dark. Sometimes we slowed and chugged through to the surface.
There were small windows in the metal wall beside Lad
’s head, plugged with glass. I peered out of one. Crust flew past us at jerking, rattling speed. So much of the landscape was that same, colourless rubble, skeletal buildings, and flickering silex lights in the distance.
Crust was a corpse, I thought to myself. Dead and rotting, but hosting countless, struggling forms of life. The Legate and the programmers, the junkies and the mutants, the bosses and their guards, were all part of Crust
’s terrible afterlife. Even the Other. They were maggots burrowing, fungus growing, and scavengers tearing pieces away.
“
Now what?” I breathed into Lad’s shoulder. “How can we stop this?”
He didn
’t reply.
Time became meaningless, a mesh of darkness and long-dead earth. Then something large and dark rose out of Crust ahead of us. Another great building, or a mountain? I had not seen any mountains on Crust, nor rivers nor valleys nor sea. The whole place seemed dry, and flat, sanded down by time.
“I’m sorry, Tan,” Lad said, at one point. “I’m sorry.”
On the other side of the window the mountain was coming closer, and becoming clearer. I couldn
’t quite decide what it was. As tall and piercing as the Keeper Mountain, far greater than any building could be, it even put
Grandeur
to shame. But where it should have been rock, and scrub, and brushed faintly with high altitude snow, I saw only metal. And lights, great hubs and Shards embedded it its sides. It moved, as if ants swarmed over its surface.
“
What is that?” I asked. Lad turned in his rickety seat, to peer out the window with me.
There
were
ants on the mountain. Well, Drones, and many more creatures of metal and silex and flesh that I could not describe, let alone identify. They rolled over each other, bodies and limbs and wire and cable all tangling, all surging, in a thoughtless communal hive.
“
That is the Legate.” Lad tapped on the glass. “All of it. All of them. All sharing one great mind, all linked on one enormous network. Greater and larger than anything you can imagine, tapped into every single Shard littering this world, drawing on all of their power.”
We closed in on the mountain, dipping back below ground just before reaching its crawling walls. My heart beat so hard and so quickly I
could feel it pounding in my skull. We shouldn’t be here. Not me, not my baby, and not Lad. This was the very last place on Crust we should be. But the Other—damn the Other—wasn’t giving us any choice.
“
And this. This is the heart.”
“
No,” I whispered, and doors flickered at the edges of my vision.