Palace of glass, p.51
Palace of Glass, page 51
“Right. Well, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know. It sucks.” She hesitated, putting a hand to McKay’s shoulder. “It’ll get better.”
McKay snorted. “Yeah, but until then, you might want to stay out of firing range.” She patted the rifle she’d recently acquired. Moving slowly, she leaned out to look out over the remains of the lab. “Man, what a mess. Any idea what caused it?”
She shook her head. “Eric said something about Electricity. I came through some kind of energy wave shooting through here, but I have no idea what caused it. Did you guys see it? I—”
She halted and frowned back down at the lab, searching both with her eyes and a touch of her Element. She repositioned the Elemental energy map she’d been using from before.
“The Electric crystal is gone,” she said.
“What? Someone stole it?” McKay glanced around. “Is there another exit to this room? Push your light out a bit, maybe we can find—”
As she leaned out further, metal wrenched, and the railing lurched down. McKay jumped back as if she’d been bit.
In the place where she’d been leaning, two identical dips in the metal warped its upper rail. They kind of looked like they’d been melded in place rather than bent.
Mieshka’s eyes widened. “Did you just—”
“No?” McKay stared down at the place. “Maybe it was rusty?”
She didn’t need to bring her flames closer to know that the railing had been pristine before. She’d been leaning on it, after all. Slowly, her stare rounded on McKay. In her peripheral vision, she could see Buck, Uncle Alex, and her dad staring through the window at them.
“Let’s pretend it was rusty,” McKay said, then pointed over Mieshka’s shoulder. “Hey, look, Gobardon’s moving. Let’s go down and see.”
Mieshka didn’t move for a second, surveying both McKay and the railing with an arched eyebrow. Then, obediently, she turned and made her slow way down the stairs, thinking about what, exactly, the cat had done to McKay.
Chapter 66
Gobardon was moving, albeit stiffly. As Mieshka approached, glass crunching under her feet, he shook off Aeryn’s supportive grip and made to move back toward Kitty.
“It wasn’t just an explosion. The crystal did something. I—” He spotted Mieshka, and seemed to instinctively wheel toward her. He staggered, swaying on his feet, a half-mad, half-desperate look on his normally clean, composed face. “Meese, I, you—it’s Kitty. She…”
“Pissed off the Electric spirit,” Aeryn finished. Glass crunched under her feet as she shifted, flicking her gaze briefly over Kitty’s limp body before turning it across the room. “Eric? How is she?”
Eric had squatted down to the other woman’s side—the blonde who had supposedly been part of Ivern’s Resistance. A few runes flashed on the back of his hand as he felt for a pulse.
“Alive,” he said. “Whatever hit the others hit her worse. Definitely Electricity.” He caught Gobardon’s gaze. “You said she is Water?”
“She is. But Kitty—”
“That would make sense, then. Water and Electric. You would have gotten the least charge, being Earth.”
“No kidding, detective,” Gobardon said. By the sharp tone of his voice, and the irritated look on his face, he seemed to be coming back to his normal self. “Though I would argue that Kitty got the worst of it, since she was holding the crystal when the spirit decided to combust itself.”
“He’s right. She’s got crystal in her hands.” Aiden, squatting next to Kitty, reached over to pick a few shards from her hand. He held them up to the light where they glinted like fragments of frost. “Thought they were glass at first.”
“Which one was that, anyway?” Gobardon asked. “We didn’t get a name before it blew up.”
“Menathesemane,” Aiden said. “An old spirit from Lür’s north. Used to be part of the defense systems.”
“Looks like it’s part of Kitty now,” Gobardon said.
A wrenching of metal made them glance up. McKay, still on her way down the stairs, lifted her hands in apology. “Sorry. Just me.”
Gobardon narrowed his eyes on McKay, but Mieshka missed the rest of it. A whisper of power drew her attention toward the darkness that led to the rest of the room. She squinted into it with a frown, and, with a thought, sent the Phoenix seeking an energy query into it.
Alarm spiked in her mind as she located the source. “Aiden. Over here.”
Glass crunched as she half-jogged around, and she almost slipped as she turned around the jut of the stairs and into a dark part of the building. Her light whooshed past her shoulder. Vaguely, she felt Aeryn light a second Fire where hers had vanished.
This was where the cat had been last time, she remembered. Where it had come around the stairs to… greet her? Was that what it had done? She searched with her eyes, frowning when she didn’t immediately see it. Her Fire flickered over the walls like a cave torch. Above, the glass windows reflected it like water.
Her eyes narrowed on a wired box near the edge of the space.
“Oh, God.” She picked up her pace. “Aiden, the crystal.”
She fell to her knees when she got to the box, fingers looking for a way around it. Panic rose in her as they stubbed uselessly against its surface.
Aiden pushed her aside gently. “Here. Let me. It’s an elchri case.”
He fiddled for a few seconds, leaning over to work the catch on the other side. A Fire rune slipped from his fingers. A second later, the box clicked open.
Inside, the Fire crystal shivered like a dying ember.
Aiden paused. The muscles in his jaw worked, then stiffened. He leaned forward. Fire runes shivered onto the back of his hands as he picked it up, quickly darting inside. The crystal’s light sparked, shifting. Small fractals of orange glow scattered across his skin. “Meese, I’m going to need your help on this one.”
She perked up. “What do I need to do?”
He put the crystal on the floor, the swept the elchri box out of the way. “Put your hands here and make sure the Phoenix is paying attention. We’re going to link its power, try to give its sibling a bit of a boost.”
She frowned. “Like jumper cables on a car?”
“Well, more like a fuel line, but with magic. Ready?”
She placed her hands on either side, smoothing her fingers over the concrete floor. Dirt and dust grit into her skin. Aiden put his hands over hers, both of them leaning over the crystal.
Then, Fire runes sparked on his fingers. They darted into the back of her hand and dropped to the floor beneath. A thread of energy anchored her in place like a pin—except, it didn’t feel much like a binding.
It felt like, if she wanted to, she could still move—but that would break the connection.
More runes shivered into being, crowding down around Aiden’s wrist, then forming twin symbols on the backs of his hands. When she glanced up to his face, the soft orange glow flickered across his skin. His mouth moved, as if he were remembering the old words to the spell as he worked.
After a few seconds, a circle appeared on the floor, its lines spider-web thin and glowing like magma. They cast off a little bit of heat.
Inside, the Phoenix stirred. It had been watching through her eyes, but now, it seemed to know what to do. Its power tapped into Aiden’s spell.
The lines brightened as if someone had flicked a switch.
The crystal, too, brightened.
Aiden murmured another word, and two symbols slipped from his hands, through hers, and darted into the crystal.
Something locked into place.
Then, he pulled back, a frown deepening his brow as he surveyed his work.
“You feel that?” he asked. “The connection?”
“Yes.”
“She’ll take energy from you periodically. Not much. You probably won’t even notice it, but—” He shook his head. “Well, let’s not think of that. Pretend you’re like an I.V. drip. She’ll recover, hopefully.”
Mieshka nodded. “Can I move now?”
“Yeah.” He picked up the crystal and, after a second, put it into his pocket and made to stand. “I’ll keep her for now. If we run into Amerand…”
“Kick his ass?” she suggested.
“At least that.” He offered her a hand. “Come on. I think they’re doing something over there.”
A sudden thunk thudded across the room. As if to punctuate itself, there was a screech of rending metal. Mieshka raised an eyebrow, then took his offered hand. “You don’t say.”
When they got back, the crystal safe had righted itself—except for the fact that it was still lopsided and bent—and Gobardon had turned back to Kitty. He met Mieshka’s eyes as she rejoined them, then carefully pushed his hands under Kitty’s legs and shoulders and picked her up.
“I don’t know what kind of war you guys are doing in here, but I think I’ll be taking her out of it.” He adjusted it so that she was cradled in his arms like a child.
“Where will you go?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll find a medical station. Maybe we’ll just leave and walk back to the city.” He turned his gaze down. “I can use her phone to call someone. They’ll come get us.”
“We’re about to head back to the ship,” Aiden said. “You could come with us, if you like.”
Gobardon paused. He seemed to consider, studying Kitty with a frown, then turning his gaze to the upper hallway. He nodded.
“That might be better for us. Thank you.”
But, before anyone could take more than a step, movement caught their attention toward the door.
Allish stared down at them from the top of the stairs. From this distance, Mieshka couldn’t see the expression on her face. It looked dark. She wasn’t smiling. A low warning crept into the back of her head.
One by one, all of the hairs on her arms began to stand up.
“Did something happen?” Aeryn stepped back from the base of the stairs, craning her neck to get a good look at the Elemental. “Are you okay?”
Allish didn’t answer her. Instead, she moved her stare through the room, her gaze fixing on each person for a few seconds, as if she were taking stock. There was something blank about her—and also something loose, wild, disjointed.
A draft slipped by her cheek. Mieshka became hyper-aware of it, and more than a little suspicious. Inside, the Phoenix moved a little closer to the surface.
“Allish?” Aeryn waved to get her attention. “Are you all right?”
After a few more moments, Allish finally fixed her gaze on Aeryn. “We need your help.”
Chapter 67
Mieshka froze stiff, staring. For several long, stunned seconds, she didn’t believe what she was seeing.
The room looked straight out of a science fiction movie. Pods lined every spare portion of space, containing people that floated in a bubbling, yellow-tinged liquid. With a few exceptions, every single person was naked—very naked, which made her eyes widen even further when she noticed. The color, and the dull, eerily-positioned light that filtered through the pods’ liquid and spilled faintly into the room beyond, cast the people in a stark outline. A tumble of tubes and wires came down from the top of the pod, connecting to a solid metal mask that wrapped around each person’s nose and mouth like a muzzle.
Except for the slight shift in the current that made them sway, they didn’t move.
Cold fear gripped her blood. Were they dead?
No, she thought, re-examining the tubes and wires that went to their heads as the logical part of her brain started working again. Those were probably breathing tubes. Dead people didn’t need to breathe.
Sleeping, then? She glanced to the closest—a woman in her late fifties. Eyes closed, her purple-streaked hair floated gently in the tank. The rest of her was loose and relaxed. She did look asleep. If it weren’t for the presence of the god-awful metal mask around her face, she could even be mistaken for peaceful.
She watched the woman’s face, searching for any sign of movement. Her stomach churned.
Beside her, Jo let out a slow breath. “Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Are they—Who are they?” Mieshka asked.
“Political prisoners, we think.” Allish stepped out from the middle of the group, her careful face growing more concerned as she scanned the room. “Cris?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” came the reply from near the back. “Wanted to make sure it was you.” The Mage wobbled out from between two pods on the back row, their yellow light glowing against her sides as she squeezed through. “I’m not quite up to my old speed yet.”
Allish took a half-step forward. “I shouldn’t have left you.”
Cris ignored her, instead leaning forward as if she were squinting. “You brought Earth people?”
Gobardon stepped forward. “Just one Earth person. I think we know each other.”
Cris studied him for a long moment. “Yes. We do.”
Mieshka glanced quickly at Gobardon’s face. From what she’d gathered, most Mages who knew him expressed a dislike—whether that dislike was specifically aimed at him or attributed to his father, who had been a veritable asshole, she wasn’t sure. Cris’ neutral tone made it hard to gauge where her opinions lay.
“Who are these people?” Dad said behind her. “And what—what is this?”
Of all the things that she had been involved in—magic, nearly dying, more magic, more nearly dying—she had to admit: this was pretty horrific.
Cris turned her attention to the closest tank, the disgusted curl of her lip visible even at the distance. “Political prisoners, I believe. People who didn’t like what Amerand was serving up. As to what, I think this is—”
“It’s a very modern attempt at a very old concept,” Aiden said. “Assuming these people are all Mages.”
“I recognize a few of them,” Cris said. “They, at least, are Mages.”
“It might be fiorin trienpliet, then.” He hesitated, a hand curled under his chin as his steady gaze roved across the rows of pods. The people continued to float listlessly, their bodies swaying slowly in the bubbling liquid. Their hair spread around them, making them look like drowning victims. After a few seconds, he made a gesture to the tops of the tanks, his hand stiff and hesitant. “It’s hard to explain, but think of these as human-powered batteries. Is that Maanai in the masks?”
He lifted his head inquiringly at Cris.
“It is,” she said. “There’s more in the tubes, plus some in the underside of the tops and a line going down the backsides.”
“That could make a circuit.” Like Cris’, Aiden’s upper lip curled back as he turned his attention to the nearest pod. He hesitated, then strode forward. After a brief glance around the back, he squatted down in front of the machine, studied the small computer interface for a second, then pressed a button below it.
A small drawer popped out of the bottom, its wheels scraping along its tracks like the disc tray in her dad’s old computer. A blue glow shifted over the front of the machine. Aiden moved aside so that everyone could see the tiny, glowing crystal that rested in what looked like a bed of circuits.
“Yeah, they’re harvesting magic,” he called over to Cris.
Cris glanced up at the pod beside her, appraising it anew. “Any idea how to stop it? You’re a crystal engineer, right?”
“Maybe. I don’t have my tools, but…” He glanced up. “Gobardon? Think you can give me a hand? I need to see inside.”
Metal ripped. A second later, the lining of the bottom machine peeled back like the top of a tuna can.
“Thanks,” Aiden said.
“Sure.” Gobardon glanced up to the top of the pod next to Aiden. “Let’s find out how to get them out, too.”
As they worked, Mieshka wandered down into the rows. Scrapes and clanks sounded behind her, along with the occasional mutter or half-heard swear from Aiden—he’d pried the computer interface away from the base—and, despite the circumstance, she had a brief flash of memory from Ryarne, when he’d been down under his shield engine, tinkering with fittings and the misused parts he’d had to rely on. In the months she’d known him, he’d only alluded to his degree in crystal engineering. She’d thought he was more of a self-taught magical mechanic.
The pods glowed softly around her, and a hush fell as she went deeper. Her eyes skimmed over their nudity as she walked, trying to see around it and to the machine itself. Closer, the yellow of the water had a hint of green tinged through it. The pod lights, illuminating from both the top and the bottom, looked like a rippled grid. The masks, though made from a metal frame that gleamed as its host slowly swayed, had a strong, flat core of Maanai crystal that curved around and pressed into their faces. A black cord coiled loosely around the ribbed breathing tube that descended from the top of the tank.
She realized that she had been staring at the same woman for several minutes, unseeing her body in favor of the contraption. She forced herself to study her face, to memorize each dip and line, the way her hair spread around her, the eerie way her arms seemed to half-float ahead of her, stiff.
Movement shifted in the glass reflection as someone joined her.
“Mieshka?” Uncle Alex paused about a foot from her. “Or do you go by Meese, now?”
“Whichever.”
She glanced over at him. The soft glow from the pods cast his skin in a stark light, making the shadows on his dark jacket stand out. Like Aeryn and Jo, he had re-armed himself from their encounter with the Mageguard, though the handgun he carried was a little more discreet than the assault rifle Jo had taken. As he glanced to the pod behind her, tipping his head back, the yellow light flashed across his eyes.
After a few seconds, he turned his gaze down again. “Your father’s getting antsy.”
She looked beyond him, spotting her father somewhat apart from the main group near the first pod, his shoulders hunched and arms crossed over his abdomen as he watched Aiden and Gobardon—and now McKay—work.
“I don’t blame him,” she said. “This is not an ideal situation to be in.”
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