Once I’m dead, he won’t have to worry about my sword taking off his damned head!
The thought poisoned Ōbhin. He held Avena tighter. He rounded a corner, carrying her limp form from the charging monstrosities. Something crashed and boomed. The road shook beneath his feet. Fingers cursed.
“The one chasing us is barreling through the building!” he shouted.
“What’s one more?” Ōbhin asked with flippancy.
A dreaded certainty that he would die filled him. If he could just save Avena. If he could do one bright thing with his life and help her to find stability, he would gladly die down here. It was only fitting. He shouldn’t have walked away from the mines beneath Gunya. Not alone. He’d killed the man who’d helped him escape.
No, I never escaped. I’ve been wandering lost in those mines ever since.
He felt so close to the light. The surface was near. He pushed through the fatigue not for himself but for Avena cradled in his arms. The strained tendon in his ankle burned, growing weaker with every step. It was one more pain he embraced. He could take it.
He took another turn, lost in the maze of buildings. If he couldn’t lose the crystalmen, he had to find a place to set down her body where they wouldn’t see her but lumber past chasing him. She’d be alone, but she’d wake up and be out of danger. His eyes scanned the rubble of the streets.
Everything looked so obvious. He didn’t have time to do more than drop her. The crystalmen were close. He threw a look over his shoulder to see them already rounding the corner. Three of them marched with an implacable gait.
“Next left!” Fingers shouted. “Maybe we can duck into a building.”
Ōbhin went right instead. He darted down the road. It was opening up. There was less debris. He passed a rusting horseless carriage and leaped over a corroded streetlamp. His feet landed hard, steps echoing around him.
“Why not left?” Fingers growled.
“Liked right better,” he panted and then took the next left.
There was something familiar about this street. The light from his lantern spilled before him. The crystalmen thudded behind him. Their steps all merged together. The buildings ended as the street opened up onto a large plaza.
He’d run back to where he’d started his mad distraction. Maybe with more space, he could split off from Fingers. Then the impostor could do some good by leading a few of the automatons away so he could get Avena to safety.
Miguil and Dajouth will look out for her. Dualayn will probably shut off the machines before she’s killed. He still cares for her in his own demented away.
Lights gleamed at the far end. Diamond lights. The others had turned their lanterns on, illuminating the shape of an impressive building looming behind them. Walls smooth. There was a frieze over their heads, choked with dirt and too far away for Ōbhin to make out the details. He ran towards them.
And if Dualayn doesn’t care about Avena, he’ll care about his own life.
Fingers thundered behind Ōbhin, puffing and wheezing. The run was taxing Ōbhin, too. He was fighting for breaths. The metallic flavor of blood filled the back of his mouth. Muscle fatigue consumed his thigh muscles. His healing ankle burst with pain. His gait became an uneven limp, but he couldn’t stop. His fear for Avena dragged him along like a panicked horse dragging its cart.
Halfway across the plaza, Avena burst into squirming activity in his arms. Her sudden movement threw him off-balance. He gasped and pitched forward. He failed to arrest their fall. The diamond lantern spilled from his grasp and crashed on the ground.
Went out.
He landed a moment later. They tumbled in a heap, rolling across the cracked and worn pavement. She cried out as the world spun. Then she ended up on top of him, her knee in his face, her elbow digging through his leather jerkin into his guts.
“Ōbhin?” she gasped.
“Yes,” he groaned, bruises throbbing across his back and buttocks while his left arm burned from abrasions. “You’re okay?”
“I know what I have to do!” She rolled off of him.
“What?” he called, shocked that she was acting without any confusion. “Avena!”
“Distract them!” she cried as she broke into a run for Dajouth and Miguil. The pair were on the steps, both holding binders.
“Come on,” Fingers growled and seized Ōbhin’s arm. The impostor hauled the Qothian to his feet. “Any idea on how to distract them?”
*
Avena could feel the four crystalmen sending status updates through her mind. Now that she understood what the signals were and how they were interfering with her brain’s connection to her body, she’d adapted to them. Like how a one-handed man could re-learn how to dress himself and do other activities. Her mind, it seemed, had capacities to mold itself to new circumstances and forge new paths.
There were eight other crystalmen also sending reports. All their impulses converged on the building before her. The signals blaring from it were so strong this close they screamed through her mind. It was sending out boisterous commands demanding help. It had been penetrated.
A demon had intruded the building.
She could see Dualayn in the alarmed shouts the jewelchine mind broadcasted. In them, he frantically sought to utilize some sort of interface. It was made of light, like the letters projected by the Recorder into the air. They were command options he was struggling to navigate, but he didn’t know which ones to press. He flailed at them.
“Avena!” Miguil shouted as she raced up the steps towards her friends, focusing her awareness back on the real world.
Dajouth grinned at her.
“Help Ōbhin!” she shouted. “Just keep them busy and please, please don’t die. Not even you, Dajouth.”
Dajouth knuckled his forehead. “I’d never die when
