directly to the flesh.
Crane must be trying to get his hands on the angel's heart. To apply it to his flesh. To become something else. But what? And more importantly, how to stop him? I didn't even know where he was. Camilla was relatively free, powered by the foetal metal provided by Crane's murder of crows, surrounded by his cog-dead Wrights, and intent on disassembling the Church of the Algorithm. What was he waiting for? Was the pattern of the heart somehow incomplete, from having been separated from Camilla for so many years? Or was he simply waiting to strike when she was distracted with other tasks?
Whatever happened, it was going to happen at the Church of the Algorithm. I had a vague sense of what was going on, and what it implied. I imagined that if I could get this information to Wilson, or that mad bitch Veronica, they could do more with it than merely speculate. But I was trapped here. The suit was fried, and even if I could get it to work again, I had no way to fight my way against the current.
I put the papers down and rubbed my eyes. The Mother was looming over me.
'Don't you have something else you could be doing?' I asked. 'Something not quite so creepy?'
'Restate.'
I sighed and stood up. How long had I been sitting there, reading? How bad had things gotten up top, while I hid in an underwater bunker with a room full of slugs and made up stories about what might be happening?
'I think Crane is trying to make himself into a god. Or a reasonable pattern of one.'
'Your superstitions are of interest to me. Would you like to sit and record them for me?'
'No, I wouldn't. I don't want to add to your archive, any more than I already have.' I tried to walk around it, but the Mother had placed itself in an awkward place in the room, so I couldn't get past without stepping on its rubbery carpet of slugs. 'You don't get many guests here, do you?'
'Very few who are still cognizant of their situation.' The globe followed me as I tip-toed around it. 'You are done with the record?'
'Unless you have something that can get me up to the Church,' I said.
'You are lost. Recommended actions include retracing your steps. Alternatively, shelter where you are and wait for help to arrive.'
'There are people up there, sheltering, waiting for me to arrive. I'm the help, get it?'
'Confirm. Recommend return via previous path.'
I laughed. Like I was getting in that suit after it had been covered in slugs, even if it worked. I gave the helmet a kick.
'Suit's busted,' I said.
'Assessment incomplete. Scanning. Evaluation negative due to primitive condition of the sample set. Do you require an analog?'
'You can fix the suit?'
'No. Archival samples must remain pristine, for future reference.'
'You can't fix the suit, so what the hell can you do?'
The globe passed its gaze over me a dozen times in half a breath.
'There are many broken things. All of them can be repaired.'
I rubbed my face. I was beginning to regret not drifting off in the pleasant blackness of oxygen deprivation, out there on the river floor. That seemed so much simpler.
'Whatever. Fix what you have to. Just get me up to the Church.'
'Disambiguation. Do you want to go to the Church of the Algorithm, or do you want the suit to go to the Church of the Algorithm.'
'I haven't seen the suit in a fight, but I'm willing to bet I could lick it. I need to get up there, Mother.'
'Clarified. Please remain still.'
The whole pillar of slugs shifted toward me. I took a step back.
'Clarification. Any movement on your part could result in severe and permanent damage, including but not limited to death.' The globe paused for half a breath, then repeated. 'Please remain still.'
'What the fuck?' I yelped. The next time it slithered forward, I practically ran away. Not a lot of room to run, but I made up for the lack of distance with speed. 'Get away from me.'
'Clarification. Do. Not. Move.'
The globe pulsed, the plates and pipes that clasped the core of light rattling like a windchime, and then the room was pure light and heat. And then blackness, and I was gone.
Twice in a row. I got in here with my lights out. I was getting out the same way.
Chapter Nineteen
I felt alive. Alive like I'd never been, alive like a star falling out of the sky. Burning alive. My lungs were on fire, and my blood was glowing in my veins. The rational part of my mind said this was all very bad, but I didn't care. Everything felt good.
I rode a column of wriggling black slugs up out of the river. They got me to the shore, miles downriver of the city's gate and within sight of the waterfall that had nearly claimed my life. The far horizon was filled with the broad fields of the Arbarra Rare, the distant land that we had seen for generations but never reached until the invention of the zepliner. I pulled myself onto the muddy bank of the Reine and turned my face to Veridon. And ran.
I don't know what the Mother Fehn did to me, but it was amazing. Didn't get tired, didn't hurt. My hands were clean and new, like she had washed them clean of a lifetime of scabs and calluses and work. That's how I felt, all the way down to my bones. New. Clean. I trotted down the river road toward Veridon, and my legs ate up the distance. In no time at all I was passing through the scattered homes leading up to the city, and then the city gate itself. The broad gate was closed. Rare enough, in these days of zepliners and automated carriages, long years since siegecraft was even practiced. The gate was no challenge. I took it hand over hand, scaling the iron grating and hauling myself over the unmanned gatehouse. Didn't stop to think how unlikely that was, how it was a good ten feet from the top of the gate to the top of the wall, and that I had just swung myself up there like it was nothing. Of course I could manage that. Feeling as good as I did, I could manage anything.
From the gatehouse I could see the city laid out in front of me, the streets still empty in the wake of the curfew. All of my fatigue was gone, all my doubt. Three things caught my eye: the column of smoke that rose from the Manor Burn; the black, circling bands of crows around the Church of the Algorithm on the far side of the city; and, finally, the cracked husk of the Manor Tomb. A grand tree was growing out of it, wretched and knobbly, poking through the windows and shrugging aside walls like a giant. The tree was bare, and stood half again as tall as the Manor itself. It looked like a seed pod that had burst its shell.
I knew instinctively. That was the Patron, or what was left of him. Not dying, but living in such a way that he couldn't really be called alive. Crane had eradicated the Family Tomb, their lineage, their place on the Council, and their holdings. All in one blow.
Trouble for later. I turned my face to the Church of the Algorithm, and hopped from the gatehouse down to the street below. Thirty feet, and I landed without a bruise. Pushed that into the back of my mind, and just ran.
Everything seemed brighter. Clouds still hung low and heavy across the city, but the frictionlamps that lined the streets burned sharp in my mind. I lost myself in the smooth effort of running, the cobblestone streets passing under my feet like a dream. I breathed, and the city breathed with me. Faces peered out at me from closed houses, eyes wide, as I rushed past. I thought about waving, to reassure them, but I wasn't sure that would help. Wasn't sure what I looked like. A madman running through the streets, faster than thought.
Valentine had given me a revolver. I had forgotten. As I crested the last terrace and began my descent to the Church, I unholstered the piece and checked the load. Looked good. There were additional rounds in my belt, shiny against the dark leather. Worry about their time in the river vanished under the all-consuming optimism of whatever was flowing through my veins. My clothes weren't wet. Why would my shells be damaged?
