comrades struck them like a hammer, so fast their forms were lost in movement. Four’s hands burned with green flame as she punched through a Tzimet’s abdomen; Seven tossed a silver ball down the catwalk, and the ball shed thin rays of light that shredded shadow and black water.
This is what we’re good for, Four had said across the campfire. Last-ditch action, and violence.
They carved a hole in the horde, and running, Caleb and Mal followed.
The world warped: a phantom of Sansilva Boulevard lay under Caleb’s feet, broad and pyramid-flanked, and he would have run down that road into the lake had he not fixed his eyes on Mal and followed her instead. He fell a thousand feet from a sky-castle onto a blasted desert, but he followed Mal and the desert melted.
The dreams that nipped at Caleb’s mind turned ugly as he neared the dome. Demons gnawed his entrails, and peeled Mal’s skin in long strips that unraveled as she ran.
Footsteps rang on steel.
Light scattered Caleb’s illusions. Overhead, Wardens loosed lances of flame, spinning discuses of silver, and brilliant hooks against Allie’s tentacles. The dome’s surface twisted the firefight into a funhouse hell.
Four reached the dome and rushed through without pause, leaving only a ripple in reflected flames—the walls were not made of glass or chrome, but water.
Caleb grabbed Mal’s hand, and they stepped inside together.
Water enclosed him, and let him pass. When he opened his eyes, he was dry, and alone.
Darkness illuminated a wrecked room: broken tables, upturned chairs, scattered consoles and implements of Craft. A web of twisted wire and bent pipe filled the chamber, and a woman sat in the center of that web, cradled like an idol in an old priest’s hand. Caleb recognized her.
At their last meeting Allesandre had been clipped and precise, level as a frozen river. Her ice had thawed into a flood. Glyphs burned from her skin, marred her face with talon patterns, ringed her brow like a crown of knives. Tatters of a dark wool suit hung from her body. Eternities wrapped around themselves in her eyes.
Misshapen lumps of human flesh hung from her metal web, and corpses sprawled beneath her on the floor.
His gut turned, and he almost turned with it, almost fled back through the water curtain. Fear, more than bravery, prevented him. She would not spare him just because he tried to run. His only chance at survival lay ahead.
Her mocking smile cracked open. Blue light sparked between dagger teeth. “It’s been a long time.”
“Allesandre,” Caleb said. “Stop this.”
“Why?” the Craftswoman said pleasantly. “You put me here, asked me for this. You and your master.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t ask you for anything. I’ve only seen you once.” She did not answer. “Where are the others?”
“Your companions are dead. I let you live.”
Caleb heard flesh crisp to ash. Mal screamed. Craft-born hallucinations. Witchcraft. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“I’m here to fix the water. Don’t try to stop me.”
Fire burned in her eyes. “Come, if you dare. Wrap your hands around my neck and kill me.”
A trick. Of course. Yet he felt her throat in his right hand, flesh and tendon and bone. Squeeze. Kill. No. He hadn’t moved. His hand was empty. He was alone in the dark.
“Come,” she said. “I’m waiting.” A flash of lightning cast her and the web of wire and the corpses in chiaroscuro. Four silhouettes hovered in the air about her, shadow cutouts contorted in pain.
Four shadows. Why four? Why did those silhouettes seem familiar?
“Where’s Mal?” he asked. He tried to look away from Allesandre, but his eyes remained fixed on her.
“You have no power here,” she said.
He ignored her, and focused instead on the feeling in his right hand. Skin, yes, but too hard and calloused for a throat, bones too thin for a spine. He recognized the meat of a palm, and slender strong fingers wrapped around his own.
“Mal,” he said, louder this time.
“No one can help you. We two are alone, the only human beings for miles. Face me and fight, or I will destroy you as you look away.”
Look away. His nerves locked against him. Air froze in his chest. Waves of blood beat on the shore of his body. His scars ran cold.
The foundation of the world shook, or he did, or both. Cords bound his mind. He gripped them, and they fell loose.
Mal stood beside him, holding his right hand, her gaze fixed on Allesandre. Glyphs burned from the open collar of her shirt. “You presume to dictate terms to me?” Her voice was sharp and fearsome. “He was no part of this. I will end you for killing him.”
She thought he was dead. Overhead he heard a rustle of motion, smelled ozone as claws of Craft ripped through empty space. He recognized the Wardens by their speed. They darted between pipes and wires; one leapt at Allesandre only to be swept aside by an invisible force. Their attacks were out of joint, uncoordinated. A pair struck at once and a single wave of fire threw them back. A tangle of black arms snared Seven, who fought free, and the same trap caught Three seconds later.
They fought with courage and desperation. They fought as if each one, alone, was the last bulwark between Dresediel Lex and doom.
Caleb closed his eyes, and saw the barbs of Craft sunk into the Wardens’ minds, and Mal’s.
Mal stepped forward and became inhuman, tall and lean and sharp, an eidolon of smooth spiked bone. Her fingers almost slipped from his grasp.
Almost.
He pulled against her with his scars. Allesandre’s illusion bent. Mal fought him, her hand a knife’s blade that cut his palm, a flame caged in his grip, but he pressed harder. The pain grew. He cried out, but before he could let go, the illusion broke.
Mal froze. Blood dripped from the cuts in Caleb’s hand. A drop at the curve of his smallest finger welled, swelled, fell.
She turned to him. Her eyes had been open, but now she saw.
“Caleb,” she whispered, and the bone and crystal melted from her. Her look of surprise changed first to joy, then to predatory confidence. Her skin chilled to his touch. She closed her eyes, and turned on Allesandre.
“Allie,” she said, “that was clever. But not clever enough.”
She advanced, and Caleb followed her.
A hissing serpent of frozen flames encircled them, but it shattered at a wave of Mal’s hand. Sweat and condensation gleamed on her forehead. Her slow and shallow breath turned the air to fog. They walked into the jaws of a shark with jagged crystal teeth the size of men. Mal frowned, and, closing, the teeth melted to raindrops and splashed cool on his face.
Skewering thorns blossomed into roses, which fell upon them heavy and suffocating only to take wing and rise as butterflies, which became a swarm of bees swept away in a rush of wind.
The world ran taut as a violin string.
Lightning-haloed Allesandre blazed with hidden fire.
The night before, Caleb sat in Mal’s tent naked to the waist. Her brush tickled the back of his neck.
“Duels of the Craft,” she said, “are fought on many levels. Mind and soul are two battlefields, the body another, time a fourth, and most of the others make little sense if you’re not a Craftsman. The world is an argument, and like any argument there are many ways to win or lose. You can force your opponent to contradict herself. You can point out her fallacies, her false dichotomies, her exaggerations and distortions of reality. Our authority from the King in Red threatens Allie’s control over the station. She’ll attack the bond between Seven Leaf and RKC, claiming independence. The contracts between the station and RKC are strong, though. I can turn them against her.”
“And once you do that, you win.”
“Ordinarily.” Her brush slid silver along his neck. “If this were a case before a judge, in a Court of Craft, supported by precedent and dread command. Out here…” She trailed off, and drew a spiral at the base of his
