I stopped him. 'No, no, not worth it. Trust me, it's not worth getting on my bad side. You're a tough guy, I get it. They don't give this kind of duty to a softie. But I'm the last Paladin of Morgan, and for now that's the highest authority you've got.' I pointed at the water and then jerked my thumb in the air. 'Up. Now.'
He sighed, gave his partner a bitch look, then pulled the raft ashore and clomped up the stairs. The other guy looked at me for a while, then shrugged and lit a cigarette.
'I was tired of dragging up bodies,' he said. 'This is fine with me.'
'Glad to be of service.'
He laughed and nodded, then leaned back in the boat and closed his eyes.
'Anything's better than fishing for your friends, lady. Don't mind us.
* * *
It wasn't what I expected. They sent a couple divers down, hooked the machine, and then dragged it up onto a temporary platform of rafts, lashed together and anchored next to the ruined hatch. Owen must have heard my name going through the static of the communication rigs because he came down just as they were dragging it out of the water. The impellor waves kept fouling the lines, pushing the whole load into the wall. I stood on the slowly bobbing platform with my arms crossed, waiting.
'You cause a lot of trouble,' Owen said.
I nodded. 'I get things done, though. Covers for a lot of bad manners.'
'If you say so. But listen, maybe next time give me a call when you're going to change people's orders and requisition Alexian equipment,' he said, standing next to me on the platform and watching the work. 'I can get this stuff done without so many ruffled feathers.'
'Is that your job, now? Make sure Eva doesn't piss off too many of your fellow Healers?'
He shrugged, and then we were quiet for a while as the machine was finally pulled free of the water. It spun crazily on the lines, like a bottle rocket on a string. With a little effort and a little luck, they got it down on the platform. The rafts immediately began tugging at their anchor. I stepped away from the stream of force echoing out from its side and moved closer for a better look. The impellor wave was rippling the air like a heat mirage.
Several things. I had never seen an impellor this small. The enormous devices that ran the monotrains were as big as houses, where this one was maybe fifteen feet long and half that in width. They were also immensely complicated machines, sprouting conduit and gears and various… flashing things. Machinery wasn't my strong point. But they looked like big machines.
This did not. This didn't look anything like what I expected. It was almost organic, like a smooth seashell, rippled and furled, with whorled apertures of some glossy, fluted material that was colored with the deepest blues and reds I had ever seen. It was a beautiful engine, if it was an engine at all.
I put my hand against its side. The surface was cool and soft to the touch, denting slightly from the pressure. My skin began to vibrate in time with the waves of impellor force.
'Is there a control panel somewhere?' Owen asked.
I blinked and turned to him, then looked around the smooth shell of the impellor.
'No, nothing I can see. It looks alive, doesn't it?'
'It started talking to you, Eva?' He smirked, circling carefully around the artifact. He paused and then put his hand against it, standing opposite me. 'Here we go.'
I felt a momentary surge of panic along my spine, and then the impellor waves fell out of rhythm and subsided. The artifact lay there on the platform, inert, like an instrument just put aside by a master. I stepped back and crossed my arms, fighting a chill.
'Any idea what it is?' I asked.
'An impellor, isn't it? Sure felt like one.' Owen rubbed the hand he'd touched to the device. I walked around and saw what he'd activated. It was some kind of indentation in the side of the artifact, almost like a handprint but somehow wrong. Too small, and the fingers were… strange.
'Maybe some kind of new design,' I said. 'Might be these runaway Scholars have more resources than I thought, if they're cooking up stuff like this.'
'It is the oldest design,' a voice said behind me. I turned and saw that a couple of Owen's boys were bringing an Amonite onto the platform. It was the same guy who had sealed the hatch for us.
'You survived,' I said. 'Hope you didn't have to fight or anything inconvenient like that. Or did your dogs know not to bite one of their master's boys?'
He ignored me and went to the artifact. His hands trailed along the flutes of the apertures like an artist tracing a line in a painting. When he was done communing with the thing, he turned to Owen, sparing me the briefest look.
'It is not a made thing. Or at least, not made by the Scholar's Cant.'
'So it's something they found?' I asked. 'Or something they stole?'
'Something they stole,' he answered, still not looking at me. 'Or perhaps something they bought. This is a Feyr device.'
'The Feyr make impellors?' Owen asked.
'The Feyr can make anything, if they decide to. Or they could. The time of the great Feyr fabricators ended when the Brothers Immortal destroyed this city and cast down their gods. But yes, at one time, this was made by the Feyr.'
'So it's old. Maybe something they dug up out of the city. Any ideas where they would have found a thing like this?' I asked, walking to stand in front of the Amonite. I plucked the hem of his hood, so he couldn't avoid looking at me.
'That is not what you are asking. You are asking if I have any ideas about where they might have gone, or where you might find others of their kind. In this, you know as much as I do,' he said. His eyes were lined with dark concern, and he nodded up toward the abandoned hideout, far above. 'You have seen that place, as have I. Where do you think they might be, now that you have turned them out of their home?'
I grimaced, and put my hand on the artifact. It was cold now, the skin stiff. I paced around it, examining it, running my hand across it.
'The Feyr, huh? It's an interesting lead. Can't imagine it has anything to do with the Fratriarch, though.' I looked up to see the Amonite's eyes still following me. Creepy bastard. I shrugged at him, then motioned Owen's people over. 'He's not being helpful. Get him out of here.'
They led him away, leaving me alone with Owen and the artifact.
'This mean anything to you?' I asked him. 'That they had a Feyr device like this?'
'Like you said-probably something they just found. What do you want me to do with it?'
'You guys probably have some kind of warehouse for stuff like this, huh? Why don't you put it there?'
I paused as I heard footsteps hammering down the stairs behind me. Some problem with the Amonite? Turning, I saw one of the whiteshirts push aside the barrier tape and jump down onto the platform. When he saw me, the guy's face went white and he averted his eyes, then made a beeline to the Justicar.
'Something to report?' Owen asked. The man nodded, then looked back at me. 'Something private?'
'No, sir. Not private. Just… she's not going to like it.'
'You think you can possibly tell me something that's going to make my day any worse than it already is, son?' I asked.
Owen held up a hand. From the stairs there was a quiet peal of sound, a clamoring that echoed down the steel and stone from the street above.
Sirens. To hear it down here, the world must be screaming with sirens.
8
has was a gardener. A strange enough thing in the Cult of Morgan the Warrior, and stranger because he had practiced this art since childhood. On campaign as a sergeant in the god's army, the
