“They’re here.”
“What?” Rosabella heard as if through water. Her muscles were like jelly from being forced to stand upright in the sarcophagus for days on end; woozy, her mind wandered ponderously through the possibilities.
“Your Dux. He has come.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Do you love him?”
Rosabella moved her lips, but no sound came out.
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you love me?”
“Eztli. I have loved so many.”
“Have you ever loved me?”
Rosabella shut her eyes and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I have.”
There was a long pause. Then the vines and the moss released her. She tumbled forward into Eztli’s arms; the floor was cool and soothing against her skin.
Something clunked to the ground next to her. A flask. Rosabella clenched at it and twisted the top off, pouring the contents down her throat as quickly as she dared.
Eztli’s voice floated in from far away. “Don’t leave this room until you hear the chaos.”
The door opened and closed, and Rosabella was alone.
***
“Bile!” Senrii swept the bike to the right just in time as a Nxtlu hellbeast collided with a Chimera in the streets, its hundred razorblade teeth ripping at the grotesque flesh of the malformed monster. “I don’t know who to root for.”
“How about us?”
“Oh, yeah. Why didn’t I think of that?” The bike jerked into the air and glided over a pile of rubble in the middle of the road. “Are they still back there?”
“Chimera and the gengineered dog things, both.”
“Hellbeasts!”
“Well, that’s a dramatic name. Isn’t Gehenn some Adonist doctrine —”
A pressive mine exploded nearby. The top of a building began to crumble. “Watch your head!” Senrii gave the bike more power; it whined with exertion as it jerked forward, carrying them out of the way of the collapsing rubble. A deafening crash assaulted their ears, but they were through.
A straight path was visible from here to the enormous cannon in the center of the city. Layers and layers of roadblocks manned by hundreds of Nxtlu guards barred the way. Senrii growled. “All right, kid, things are about to get—”
The men at the roadblock ahead of them screamed as the building-sized chimera broke through down a side street. Dust and rubble tumbled everywhere, and smaller chimeras poured through the gap. Senrii hit the wings, lifting the bike off the ground so that it sailed over the rubble and descended on the other side.
Right into a gunfight.
***
As their feet left what remained of the Jormungandr, the wind framed Oralie’s face with her pale hair. Her beatific smile, her pale skin; it all gave her the appearance of an Adonist angel. Dorsin’s angel.
It was so easy for Dorsin to forget that they were even now picking up speed, tumbling toward—
CRACK! Dorsin grunted in pain as his back crunched against a hard surface. Oralie crumpled against his chest. He lay still for a moment, catching his breath, then turned his gaze from the sky to take in his surroundings.
Ferghall grinned— or grimaced; it was hard to tell— at him from a few feet away.
“Erus,” Piotr rumbled from the helm.
“What,” Dorsin gasped, “are you doing?”
“Saving your life, Erus.”
Ferghall chuckled.
“Erus,” Piotr continued, “the assault seems to have fallen apart.”
Oralie’s eyes fluttered open. “Are we—”
“Not today, darling.” Dorsin stood, lifting her to the seats, and sat next to her so that she could lean against him. “Yes, Piotr. The capital ships are no more use to us. We must go further in.”
“Their point defenses are better than intelligence suggested, Erus.”
“I know, but there is no other way. That cannon is more than a match for us. Take us in. Take us to the end.”
“As you command, Erus.” Piotr pulled the lungboat into a dive, and they plummeted toward the city. From here Dorsin could see every artillery emplacement loosing, every ground movement of his troops, every--
“Pair of Nxtlu lungboats, ten o’clock!” Ferghall shouted, snatching up a rifle from the floor of the vessel and taking aim. The mantis-shrimp striker cracked again and again, lancing bone bullets upward at the enemy.
They were charging in from above, using the sun as cover. One of the boats was already spinning out of control; Ferghall was a masterful shot.
Dorsin held out a hand toward the nearest vessel, ignoring the bullets whizzing past his ears, and called on his SOPHIOS. Narrow branches burst from his hand and rushed the vessel, wrapping it completely. The vines crawled into the fleshy esophagi of the boat, choking its breaths; it heaved and tumbled, taking its crew with it.
Dorsin breathed deeply at the expenditure of mass-energy, centered himself, and looked back toward the ground. “Take us in low, Piotr.”
They zoomed down the narrow streets, dodging bullets and detritus alike, as they cut a circle toward the mountains. Air-burst flak boomed above them. They wove between buildings to lose their pursuers; they ducked beneath bridges and took hard turns.
The city cleared before them. They raced toward the Sodality Chapterhouse. Gens Nxtlu had it surrounded and were trading gunshots with the Sodalites.
What was Nxtlu thinking, attacking the Sodality? Their access to the Symbiont would be cut off for certain. Ferghall had apparently had the same thought. He leaned out over the side of the boat as they passed above the Chapterhouse. “What in Gehe—”
An air-burst exploded just beneath them, rocking the boat and tossing Ferghall over the side, straight down through the skylight in the Chapterhouse’s receiving room.
***
Tvorh fought like a wolverine, dodging and stabbing for all he was worth. His vision didn’t matter. Here, in the noisy chaos, he heard the flow of the fight, understood every move of the dance. He ducked beneath blows and took cover behind his enemies; he sliced, slashed, stabbed, leapt, his muscles smooth, oiled, perfect in their motion. He entangled his victims in webbings, electrified them with darts from his fingertips. He stood back to back with Senrii, forgebone blades and armor and shields against regular bone guns. Bullets whizzed past; he didn’t care. All there was was the fight.
The last Nxtlu warrior toppled to the ground. Tvorh looked up at the Nethress legionnaires he had been fighting alongside.
Except they weren’t Nethress at all. They were men and women alike, bedraggled and well-dressed alike, awkwardly holding vicious-built weapons of unknown make and staring warily at the two interlopers. Tvorh whooped for joy.
“What?” Senrii asked.
“You there!” Tvorh pointed at a boy not much younger than him. “Where’d you get that?”
The boy hefted the gun and stared daggers at Tvorh. “Sodality.”
“See, Senrii! What’d I tell you? Aoife came through.”
“The underground caches?”
Only a few of the thousand chambers Tvorh had heard beneath Acerbia when he’d knelt before the Sodality, screaming Aoife’s name. “Yeah. I didn’t think she’d manage to arm enough people in time, but look at that.” He nodded and grinned. “We’re not the only ones fighting for Acerbia.”
“Of course not.” A Sodality youth stepped forward out of the crowd. “They’re holding our Magistrix.”
“Who’re you?” Senrii asked.
“Harold. You must be the blind boy who took Aoife into the Labyrinth and showed her the Last Era armory.”
“Call me Tvorh.”
“Well, Tvorh, we’ve got to get going.” Harold rested the gun against his shoulder. “Aoife put me in charge of getting this crowd down into the labs.”
“You know how to get there?”
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“Well, there’s the elevator. But I was thinking the more traditional approach. Aoife gave us the maps.”
“All right.” Tvorh smacked his hand into his palm. “Let’s get going.”
“Not yet, kid,” Senrii said, climbing back on the bike. “We’ve got one stop before we go to the Libraratory. Good hunting, Harold.”
“What’s that?”
“Our old Chamber of Inquiry. There’s some data we’ve gotta get.”
***
FAILSAFE.
With one press, Eztli could end this insanity. The genophage, the assault on the Sodality, all of it. It would be betrayal, of course. It would make her a traitor for life.
But it would end the madness.
Her hand hovered over the button. It would be so easy.
“My dear sister.”
Eztli whirled. Ilhicamina stood in the doorway, the insufferably smug grin that she knew so well plastered across his face. “Why, you wouldn’t be thinking of turning on me, would you?” He came down the steps into the room.
“This has to stop, Ilhicamina.”
“It has to?” He blinked, cocked his head, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Where, my loving sister, is it so written?”
“You’ve created an abomination. You’re attacking the Sodality. Grand-uncle will have your head once he discovers what you have done.”
“Eztli. Eztli, Eztli, Eztli. Not all of Gens Nethress can take this city.” He leaned in so close she could smell his perfumed breath. “Nor could all of Gens Nxtlu, now. Do you not know what has been written? I am holy, my darling, as are you, and my whims are divine.” His hand crept up her arm. “We could turn on them. Turn on them all. We could destroy everyone who stood against us. Even the rest of the Gens, until they bowed down and proclaimed us their Teixiptla. And we could rule.” His mouth crept to her ear. “Rule together.”
She clenched her eyes and tried to ignore the hand creeping up her breast. “This is what you have decided?”
“It is, beloved sister. Oh, how long I have wanted you.”
His tongue tasted her neck.
“Dear brother,” Eztli said, struggling to hold her voice steady, “do you know what I have decided?”
“Tell me, Eztli…”
Eztli rammed her shin upward into Ilhicamina’s groin. He doubled over in pain, and before he could recover, she spun and slammed on the FAILSAFE button.
The earth groaned again. There was an audible change as the high-pitched whine from the Xipe Totec cannon disappeared, and the chordal units released the sound of a woman moaning in pain.
“Bitch!” Ilhicamina screamed, staggering backward. “Victory was within our grasp.”
“Within your grasp, dear brother. Never within mine.”
In a flash, one of his studded clubs was in his hand, and the end of it caressed Eztli’s chin. “You will pay,” he spat, “for what you have—”
There was a crack, and Ilhicamina’s eyes rolled up into his head. He tumbled forward. “Rosabella,” Eztli gasped.
Rosabella dropped the golden statue. “‘Render to others the honor they render unto you.’ General Principles of Nethress.” She smiled. “And since you saved my life…”
Eztli grabbed her arm. “Come. We have to leave, now.”
***
That voice was so familiar…
Ferghall groaned as hands gripped him, dragged him. The SOPHIIS was terrified; its fear crawled up and down his spine. It gibbered inside him, on the brink of lashing out.
But that voice…
He found his sight through a red and watery world that swam across his eyeballs. Ferghall managed to stand, shrugging off the hands of his captors/aides and eyeing the silken drapes, the gold-encrusted coffee table, the gleaming obsidian statues.
Now this was a beautiful room. Except for the dead bodies, the blood, the shattered glass in the middle of the floor, a man could get used to a place like this. Homey. Homelike.
If you were used to homes like palaces, that was.
Ferghall was not.
The Sodalitatis were all armed and were trading shots with the Nxtlu outside. They took cover by the side of the door, leaned out to take a few shots, ducked back inside.
Ferghall staggered toward the exterior door. There was something that he just couldn’t place niggling at his brain.
“Shoot for center mass!” that voice said. “Don’t think, just do it!”
A red-golden blur in front of him resolved to a pretty young girl who leaned to the side, squeezed off a few rounds from her evil-looking gun, popped back in. “Like shooting deer in a thorn-trap,” she murmured.
Ferghall’s mouth went dry. “Aoife?”
She started at the name, turned and looked at him. Her jaw dropped. “Daddy?”
A whistling sound from up above dragged their attention away from one another. A spiked circular ball tumbled through the broken skylight.
They looked at each other again. “Run!” they shouted.
The receiving room emptied as all of the Acolytes fled for the inner hallways. Somehow, Ferghall managed to grab for Aoife’s hand; together, they staggered down the hallway.
Until the pressive mine exploded.
A shockwave ripped through the hallway, shattering the glass doors, shaking the ceiling, sending Aoife and Ferghall tumbling down.
Ferghall sat up, dazed. Aoife was already shaking the dust from her hair. Aoife. His darling baby girl. Ferghall hollered, caught her up in his arms, and danced madly down the hallway.
“Daddy! Daddy! I’m all right! It’s okay! Yesh, I’m all right!” Aoife laughed as he set her down. She slung the rifle over her shoulder.
“It’s been a long time, Sunset.” He frowned at her. Frontier clothing was practical; he wasn’t bothered by the breeches. But the way they clung to her legs, and the way her scarlet blouse was cut in a circle low enough to display the beginnings of cleavage… “This is what they have you wearing?”
“It’s part of being an Acolyte, Daddy.”
“What is Adon going to say when you stand before His throne—”
“Hopefully, He’ll say, ‘Well, Aoife, I’m sure glad you didn’t die young by standing there and letting your dad talk your ear off while the Sodality was under siege. I enjoyed watching your nice long life.’”
“All right, all right! I’s only saying. But what would your mother—”
“Daddy! Not now!”
The Sodality shook again, and the ceiling trembled. They stood stock still for a second until it settled.
“Aoife, where’s the highest place in the building?”
“The Ambassatrix’s room. Why?”
“I said where, not what. Take me there.”
She grabbed his hand and ran.
“You know,” he panted as they climbed the spiral stairwell, “I’ve seen a blind boy wearing your mother’s hairsilk scarf.”
“Tvorh? You know Tvorh?”
“Wait? You know Tvorh?”
“I gave him the scarf!”
“Isn’t he supposed to pay you for… services rendered?”
Aoife stopped mid-step and turned around. “I never rendered any services, daddy. Not to him and not to anybody else. That’s not what we do.” She started up the staircase again. “And besides, even if I had, he still paid me.”
“With what?”
“Weapons. Lots and lots of weapons. He’s got echolocation, you know. Really loud echolocation. ”
“So?”
“So, he somehow managed to map out the whole Labyrinth. There’s not just one Last Era place down there, Daddy. There’s so much more. And one of those hidden places was an armory.” Aoife leaned forward and grinned madly as the building shook again. “The whole city’s armed, Daddy. The whole city wants the Ambassatrix back.”
And then she was leaping up the stairs again.
“Whole city?”
“Well, a lot of people. A few thousand, maybe. And it’s all Last Era tech.” They emerged on the fifth floor landing. Aoife pushed open a set of ornate double-doors.
The Ambassatrix’s room was a mess. Papers, carvings, recordings, and a whole mess of what Ferghall could only assume to be sex toys littered the floor. Perverse. The shattered windows looked westward over the mountains. Aoife turned. “So why are we here?”
“To fly.”
“Hey, I bet that would have been useful when you fell through the skylight.”
“Don’t you sass me, girl, or you’ll be in for it once I — never mind. You hang on tight.” Aoife wrapped her arms around Ferghall, gripping her rifle tightly; for the first time in a long time, he murmured a brief prayer to Yesh and raced toward the window.
Wings snapped out from Ferghall’s glidepack, and he sailed toward the mountain. Immediately he dipped into a turn, heading back toward the city. They sailed out over the courtyard, watching as the Nxtlu soldiers bombarded what remained of the Sodality; they soared past the wall and over the street—
Shots tore through the wings, and they tumbled toward the ground. Ferghall clenched Aoife against him and prayed.
The impact sounded as bad as it felt. Ferghall limped to his feet, dragging Aoife up after him and trying to ignore the pounding pain in his right leg. A group of three Nxtlu soldiers surrounding an artillery piece grinned and shouldered their guns.
“Aoife, baby,” Ferghall said, feeling the SOPHIIS begin to pound at the walls of his mind, “close your eyes.”
Shots rang out. The soldiers dropped dead.
“Like shooting deer in a thorn-trap,” Aoife said, lowering her rifle.
***
Tvorh left the hellbeast’s throat gushing blood behind him and kept on running down the marble hallway. Senrii kept pace in front of him, her long legs propelling her gracefully into the air and down onto the soldier who had just emerged from a door in the side of the hall.
“How much farther?” Tvorh panted.
“Close now,” she replied, casually crushing a purple-blood’s jaw with her fist as she passed by.
No more stairs, Tvorh thought. No more stairs. No, no more stairs. More brutes bearing chain-guns, though. “Look out!” he cried.
Senrii bore right at the T-intersection, and Tvorh followed as the autoloose bullets sliced the air behind him. His breath came in short, quick bursts; the SOPHIOS was strong in him, but he could only take so much. He focused on Senrii’s feet slapping the floor in front of him, one-two, one-two, one-two. All he could hear was those feet. He couldn’t fight like this.
A small relief in the wall down the curve of the hall caught his attention. Wolf’s head, with a trio of guards standing by it. That had to be it. Senrii had her gun up, was shooting; forgebone shields caught forgebone bullets. The guards lifted their guns, wicked with bayonets, and returned shot.
Shield! No sooner had the forgebone barrier emerged from Tvorh’s hand than the bullets impacted it. He heard the slick sound of a blade unsheathing, felt Senrii whirling in front of him; Tvorh charged forward and smashed the shield into the helmet of one of the guards.
The man went down. Senrii sheathed her weapon, stepped over the other two warriors’ corpses to the wolf’s head alcove, and put her finger inside the mouth. The door dilated open.
They rushed down the ramp to the central kernel of the giant pinecone. “What are we looking for?” Tvorh asked, as Senrii began to pull vials from the alcoves at random.
“Proof. Doesn’t matter. Anything. Just grab them!”
Tvorh commenced grabbing, shoving the vials into the makeshift pockets within the softpoints of the suit. A whirring noise, too faint for normal hearing, caught his attention; he paused.
“What is it?”
“Something moving underneath us.”
Senrii whirled. “They’re gonna gas the chamber. Get out!”
“But—”
“Go! I’ll finish this!” Senrii shoved him up the ramp.
Girl had a powerful push, he had to give her that.
Walls extruded from beneath the platform, extended a roof to make it one long tunnel. The door was squeezing shut. Full strength, legs! He raced toward the exit and leapt, hands out vertically in front of him, through the opening. As he tucked and rolled, he heard one final frozen image of Senrii, still grabbing vials from the central kiosk.
Then the door closed. Tvorh rolled to his feet and found himself facing a dozen guns.
He groped for a STIGMOS, and his SOPHIOS answered. Bone, muscle, the iron of his hemoglobin, and who-knew-what-else within rededicated themselves without, reformatted and pressed through his skin. Tvorh screamed in pain and fear as the bullets began to fly, but none of them struck home.
No. That wasn’t right. They all struck home. But they were all bone, and therefore worthless against the bonesteel cocoon that encased him.
They loosed and loosed , but nothing penetrated. Tvorh brought his will to bear, pushed through the agony, and listened for the sound of their guns’ rest.
Pierce them.
The cocoon shifted. Some of it melted back into Tvorh’s body, refilling the mass that it had consumed; some of it blasted outward violently in horrible spines. In an instant, he went from armadillo to porcupine, and on the end of his quills, a dozen Nxtlu soldiers twitched.
He listened up and down the hall. Nothing. Nothing yet. He retracted the spines, reabsorbing their mass; soldiers dropped to the ground. Then he turned to the door and put his finger in the wolf’s mouth. There was a prick of blood.
Nothing. The door stayed shut.
“Come on.” He tried again, harder, pouring more blood onto the genelock.
Nothing.
“You have to open.” He smacked around the door, seeking a button, a lever. Maybe Senrii’s blood was still on the lock. Maybe he just had to find the right thing to press or pull.
Nothing.
He stepped back from the door and held out his hand. He would drill his way through. He commanded the SOPHIOS to form a spike of forgebone. He lanced it at the door just as it opened, revealing Senrii standing on the other side. She ducked out of the way as the force of the shot pulled Tvorh forward into the room.
Senrii grabbed his hand and whirled him about before he could go tumbling down the ramp. “You trying to kill me, Tvorh?”
“What? How did you—”
“Survive?” She fluttered her eyelids at him. “A girl’s got to have her secrets. But it’s got something to do with a little rat that can withstand vacuum. Compared to that, gas is nothing. Let’s go. We’re done here.” She popped out into the hallway and placed a shot between the eyes of the chain-gunner brute who had just emerged at the end of the hallway. “Libraratory, here we come.”