20 – Clockwork

Lisa practically ran to where Ward knelt, peering into the chest. When she saw the pile of glittering gemstones at the bottom of the container, she blew out a breath and gave his shoulder a shove. “I thought there might be refinements in there!”

Ward chuckled, shaking his head. “No, but these aren’t low-grade stones—look!” He held up a handful of pebble-sized rubies and sapphires. “Maybe you’re not low on funds, but I sure as hell am. I owe Haley a—”

“No, you don’t!” Haley sighed, joining Lisa in the physical abuse by tweaking Ward’s ear.

“Hey!” He winced and brushed her hand off, scooping more gems from the ceramic container. “If you two don’t want any of these, then by all means—”

“I didn’t say that!” Lisa laughed.

“Well, help me get these out! We should move away from these, um, lightning rods before the ancients play a cruel joke and they turn back on.” That got the two women into gear, and soon, they were all hurrying back to where Ward had piled his equipment, their fists clutching handfuls of gemstones. Standing safely outside the line of the rods, Ward sat with his back to the door and put his gems into a pile. Lisa and Haley followed suit, and Ward started shifting them into piles.

“Those are sapphires, and they’re quite valuable,” Lisa confirmed, picking up one of the blue stones. She pointed to the red ones. “Not nearly as valuable, however; they’re carnelians.”

Haley pointed to the third pile. “Agates—I know because when I bought my first set of riding tack, Wind Queen’s bridle was set with some polished agates.”

“Yes, another gemstone of lesser value.” Lisa smiled at Haley. “Despite how pretty they can be.”

Ward divided the gemstones into thirds and gave the single, extra agate to Haley. When he was finished, he scooped up his pile of five sapphires, nine carnelians, and ten agates. He was eager to see how much he’d get for the sapphires, remembering his haul from the catacombs. “We’re not ready to leave yet, though, right?”

Lisa shook her head. “Not I!”

“No!” Haley started toward the far door. “We haven’t even had a real fight or seen any…magic.”

“You mean treasure?” Ward pointed to the copper rods running from the floor to the ceiling. “Because those things were definitely magic; normal electricity wouldn’t behave that way.”

“Yes. You know what I mean! We haven’t found any spells, no artifacts, no potions. The ancients owe me, Ward. We need to dig further.”

Ward didn’t argue, but as he readied Blazewitch, shifting the weapon’s strap to smooth out a lump in his armor, Lisa asked, “Why do they owe you, Haley?”

“Because…” Haley frowned and glanced at Ward as though checking to see if her response would be okay. Ward gave her a quick nod, and she continued, “Because I lost my anima in the catacombs. There was a puzzle…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, but yes, the catacombs tricked me out of my anima.”

“And she got jack and squat otherwise.” Ward nodded to the door. “Open.” Haley pulled open the door, and, just as before, it opened onto a new landing with more stairs leading up. Ward led the way this time.

“That’s awful, Haley. I remember my tutor making offhanded comments about that when we covered the subject of anima leeches—creatures that prey on a person’s anima. The reasons they do so vary, but it’s widely understood that anima is like a concentrated form of mana. I wonder if the ancients didn’t build the challenges with the ability to use anima as well as mana to power their various tricks—spatial magic, teleportation, and all that.”

“Yeah,” Ward called back, several steps ahead of Lisa and Haley, “but did he tell you how to get it back?”

“No, but he indicated that there were, indeed, mages who could work greater magics using anima. I doubt they’d burn up their own, so it only makes sense that there’s a way to cultivate it.” Ward heard her move and realized she was leaning closer to Haley when she spoke in a softer voice. “Don’t lose heart, Haley. Perhaps when you go to Springsea, you’ll learn more.”

“I hope so.”

Ward stopped before the door and turned to his companions. “You two ready?”

Haley put her hand on the door’s intricately carved lever and nodded.

Lisa stepped close. “I’m ready. I think the odds are good that we’ll have an encounter.”

Ward lifted Blazewitch. “Open it.” Haley pulled the door wide, and Ward put a foot over the threshold, scanning the room. It was just like the previous two in shape and lighting, but the far wall was lined with not one but five doors. The intervening space was empty. Ward moved to his right, his back to the wall, keeping Blazewitch trained on the far doors as Haley and Lisa came in.

Lisa shrugged out of her backpack, setting it against the wall, then drew her rapier with a metallic ring that echoed off the room’s metal walls. Ward liked her idea of removing her pack before a fight and followed suit, wondering why they hadn’t done it in the other rooms. Haley did the same. When everyone stood ready, Haley pulled the door toward the latch but stopped short of fully closing it. “Should I?”

Ward nodded. “Do it.” As the door clicked shut, four matching clicks echoed hollowly through the empty room, and then the two doors on the left and right swung open. The rooms beyond were dark, but something was there—Ward could see faint red lights, and he heard a ticking sound that reminded him of an old-fashioned stopwatch but a hundred times louder.

“Clockworks!” Lisa cried, and then Ward saw what she meant. Brass, pointy legs extended from the open doors, and close behind were the bulbous metallic bodies of giant, mechanical spiders. Blazewitch thundered as Ward’s instincts took over. The report echoed off the walls, instantly setting Ward’s ears ringing. The gun spewed forth a gout of fiery shrapnel that impacted the left-most spider, sending it skittering back over the metal floor. It squatted down, folding its legs close like it was turtling up, protecting itself as two magnesium pellets flared brightly against its metal carapace.

Meanwhile, three more of the mastiff-sized spiders sprang forward, and before Ward could crank the lever on his gun or swing the barrel to a new target, Haley engaged one, and Lisa darted to the left, avoiding a flurry of stabbing spear-like feet and gnashing bladed mandibles. Ward tried to get a clear shot, but Blazewitch wasn’t a precision weapon, and the damn clockwork spiders were quick, leaping and skittering forward and backward while Haley kicked at hers, and Lisa fended the other two off with her rapier.

Ward darted forward, skirting Haley and her spider. With his left hand, he snatched the rearmost leg of one of Lisa’s antagonists and yanked it with all his might, hurling the spider back. Or, he tried to hurl it back, but the thing drove its pointy metal legs into the floor, easily finding purchase in the rough, patterned metal tiles. Ward’s hand slipped along the leg down to the bladed tip, slicing a deep gash in his hand. “Goddammit!” he roared, releasing the spider and shaking his hand in agony.

The spider ignored him, renewing its assault on Lisa, and then something heavy impacted Ward’s back. He staggered forward as something repeatedly pounded into his wool jacket, stabbing through but stopping as the chain links in his armor did their job. Ward didn’t have to look behind him to know one of the spiders was on his back. Was it the one he’d shot? “Fuck!” he roared again, whirling and trying to get a clear shot on any of the damn things with Blazewitch.

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Haley had hers up against the wall, her fists glowing red hot and leaving trails of smoke as she slapped its attempts to stab her aside. Ward could see she’d already given it a good hit—half of its brass carapace was blackened and dented in, and some of its legs hung limply, whatever hidden gears they depended upon bent or damaged. No longer worried about her, he turned his focus on his own problem.

The spider’s legs were pounding repeatedly, but it didn’t seem to understand why it couldn’t penetrate his back. Nonetheless, Ward didn’t want to leave it there; what if it aimed its blows up a few inches and started trying to stab his neck or skull? He released Blazewitch to hang by his hip and grabbed his sword hilt in his right hand, yanking it free. To his surprise, the runes were aglow—not blindingly bright like when they’d absorbed Nevkin’s magic, but glowing with a baleful, red warning.

He tried futilely to hack at the spider on his back, but he couldn’t get any leverage, and the sword just clanged limply against its metal legs and bulbous carapace. Meanwhile, the spider had shredded the middle of Ward’s coat and was trying to burrow through the metal links in his armored shirt. What if it found purchase? What if it did snip some of those rings? Ward growled, thinking he might slam his back against the wall, but then Lisa screamed.

He whirled toward her and saw that one of the spiders had gotten through her guard and was wrapped around her leg, gnashing at her waist and abdomen with its bladed mandibles. Her robes were thick and tough, but Ward was sure he already saw blood spreading through the fabric. He charged toward her, and before the second spider could leap on her, he hacked his broadsword down into the center of its brass carapace.

The heavy, sharp blade bit through the brass far more easily than he would have imagined. Sparks flew, gears crunched, and the spider fell to the ground, its legs twitching and jerking. Lisa screamed again, and Ward heard the consonants of a word of power in the sound, but if she was trying to cast a spell, she failed; the spider’s assault on her flesh made it impossible. Ward yanked his sword free and raised it high, aiming to relieve her of the clinging clockwork monstrosity, but then something sharp and cold pierced the back of his neck, and blinding pain whited out his vision.

He fell to his knees, screaming some garbled mixture of cuss words. Haley cried, “Ward!” and suddenly, the weight on his back was simply gone. The foreign object—likely a spider’s leg—was yanked from his neck, and Ward’s mouth filled with blood as he shook his head and coughed. He fell forward, gagging on his blood, coughing out a great mouthful of the stuff as his wounded hand slipped on the metal floor and he crashed, jarringly onto his elbow.

Lisa screamed again. Something crashed off to his left, and Ward sucked in a ragged breath, coughing on the blood that flowed into his windpipe. Suddenly, he felt a warm hand on his neck, pressing against his wound, and Grace spoke, an inch from his ear, “Come on, big guy. Come on, you got this. I’ll hold this cut—keep your blood inside. Come on! Get up!”

“Right,” he choked, spitting blood, but he lifted his sword and, using it like a crutch, stood up, shaky on his feet but more pissed than scared. He saw Lisa, her face white, her eyes wide with pain, gasping, crying, pushing against the spider that still clung to her leg, cutting and slashing at her robes, the big red stains on the material making it clear that it had cut through more than once.

Ward glanced to his left and saw Haley beating the shit out of the spider that had been on his back, and he lifted his sword, staggering toward Lisa. Somehow, Grace moved with him, her hand pressing against his neck, continuously whispering encouragement: “Come on, Ward. Come on! You’ve got this!”

Ward didn’t need further direction; he went to work on the spider clinging to Lisa. His many hours of practice with the sword made it comfortable in his hand and accurate despite his fatigue, adrenaline, and blood loss. The blade with its red-tinged runes parted the brass legs with little resistance, and when he got a good, clean hack into the clockwork spider’s carapace, Ward twisted the blade, ripping and dislodging gears. By the time he’d pried the ruined automaton off Lisa’s leg, Haley was there to help, grasping it by a truncated leg and hurling it to smash against the wall.

Ward fell to his butt, exhausted, and only then did he realize Grace was gone. She’d done enough, though—somehow, she’d staunched his bleeding, sufficient for his mana-infused “vessel” to clot up and his “minor enhanced healing” to kick in. Haley started probing at his neck and back, but Ward shook her off. “Lisa,” he nodded to the woman, eyes closed, face pale, sitting against the wall in a disturbingly large pool of blood.

“You’ll be all right?” Haley asked.

“Yeah. Help her.” He coughed, still tasting blood with every swallow. Haley ran back to the entrance door, retrieving her pack. Ward watched her while she dug out some healing tonics and a tin of wound salve. She jogged toward Ward and tossed him a tonic before he could wave her off. He caught it and nodded his thanks as she turned to help Lisa.

While he unscrewed the metal flask, he heard Grace in his ear. “You did it! You were great, Ward! How many people could put up a fight like that after being stabbed through the neck?”

Ward whirled to face her, ready to tell her to hide in case Lisa opened her eyes, but she wasn’t there. “Are you talking to me right now, or am I nuts?” he whispered hoarsely before chugging the healing tonic.

Warm tingles spread through his throat as Grace’s voice came to him again, “I am! Our bond is growing stronger! Even so, I had to manifest to put pressure on your wound. She might have seen me.”

“It’s okay.” Ward coughed again and spat out a glob of dark blood. “Goddamn! I’m lucky that thing missed my carotid.”

“Very lucky! It missed your spine, too.”

Lisa coughed weakly, and Ward turned to see Haley administering a tonic to her, tilting her head back and gently drizzling the liquid between her lips. “How bad?” he asked.

Haley glanced his way, frowning. “Pretty bad. It bit deep into her stomach.”

“I’ll—” Lisa sputtered, coughing weakly. “I’ll be all right. I can feel the tonic…” She trailed off, groaning.

Haley looked at Ward again, shaking her head. “I don’t think so, Ward. These tonics aren’t meant to repair this kind of damage. I think it bit into her, you know, innards!”

“Her intestines?” Ward shifted, aiming to get to his feet, but then one of Lisa’s bright green eyes parted, and she locked it onto his.

“Check the chest. Maybe we earned a h-healing…” She trailed off again, her voice listless. Ward whirled, scanning the room. Chest? He almost didn’t see it, but then he realized one of the clockwork spider corpses was crumpled against it—the one Haley had flung against the wall.

“Shit,” he grunted, standing up. “She’s right. There’s a chest by the door.”

Haley rolled up the hem of Lisa’s robes and pressed the wad of fabric into her abdomen. “Check it!”

“I am.” Ward grabbed the spider by one of its hinged joins and dragged it off the chest, then bent and lifted the lid. It was burnished copper, not pottery, and when he looked inside, he felt his heart begin to beat with excitement. There were half a dozen vials nestled in a silky black nest of fabric. They ranged in size from a tiny silvery one the size of his thumb to a much larger one that had to hold ten or twelve ounces of cloudy orange liquid. Ward ignored most of them, picking up one that looked very familiar.

It was about the size of a typical test tube and filled with sparkling red liquid. He tilted it into the light, turning it slowly until he found the inscription on the glass: Restorative. Ward jogged over to Lisa, pulling the cork out of the vial with his teeth. “Drink this.”

Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked at him listlessly but perked up noticeably when he poured the first tiny drizzle of the liquid between her lips. She swallowed reflexively, and Ward saw her eyes focus and brighten, the clouds fading away. He poured more into her mouth, and she swallowed it down. Her wan cheeks flushed with color, and she sighed heavily, taking a deep, clear breath.

“Oh, thank the gods. Thank you, Ward. Thank you, Haley. I thought I might die for a moment there.”

Haley pulled the bunched fabric of Lisa’s robes away from her stomach, carefully pulling them down over the woman’s exposed legs, and Ward watched as Lisa pulled the rips apart to examine her stomach. Her wounds were still there, but they looked shallow and much older than they were, tender, pink flesh already starting to fill in the gashes. She smiled and gently pressed her hands to her stomach, smoothing out the torn, blood-soaked fabric. “Nothing compares to the healing elixirs from the challenges.”

“I’m glad you’ll be all right.” Ward stood and stretched, then jerked his thumb at the chest. “There’s more in there. We should look together.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Allow me a moment to gather myself.” She sat up a little straighter on the wall. “Haley, would you retrieve my pack?”

“Sure—”

“I’ll get it.” Ward had already turned toward the door. “I gotta get mine, too.” A moment later, he set Lisa’s bag beside her, then turned back to the chest, shrugging his arms into the straps of his pack. He studied his left palm, glad to see the gash was scabbed from the tonic, but it was still swollen and red and hurt like hell if he tried to make a fist. He was about to ask Haley for the wound salve when she spoke.

“You’re going to need a new coat.”

He sighed, nodding. “Yeah. I should’ve just packed it. Not like it’s cold in here.”

“You were due a new one anyhow. The stitchwork I did after the trogs wasn’t—”

“You kidding me? I could barely see the repair when you were done!” A loud click sounded—a sound Ward was far too familiar with, even considering the different style of the guns on Cinder as opposed to Earth, and he whirled to see Lisa pointing her pistol his way, her hand deadly steady. “What the fu—”

Lisa shook her head. “Ward, we need to talk about your passenger.”