bottom.”
Without waiting for their confusion, he pushed through the soil, chill and soft, damp against his skin. He spat it from between his lips, felt the roots tail softly over his face.
He heard Tarvi whisper, “Careful!” felt her hand almost touch him as he scrabbled to make the hole larger.
He knew what the light was – had an idea of what he’d...
His anti-daz flick-flashed.
Halfway in the wall like he was Malice through the Looking Glass, he stopped to stare.
Behind him, the others were forgotten. Maugrim, his stone beasties and his pomegranate grenades, his bike and his washers, forgotten. The Wanderer, forgotten. Eliza, Lugan, the Bike Lodge, the Virtual Rorschach, forgotten.
The light made his skin blanch to jaundice. He blinked his black eyes and he didn’t care.
Pushing himself fully through the hole, he righted himself to stand, breathless, upon the edge of a void. A wide and plummeting shaft, a bottomless drop his telescopics could not penetrate: the very brink of nothing. In the walls, spasms of light flickered downwards, sparking electricity like faulty cables they deepened in hue as they were lost in the darkness.
It was a movie set, a tableau for an epic fight scene – impossible.
Before him, a wide balcony, ancient stone grown with pale creeper that snapped, dry, under his touch. The balcony ringed the wall – it threw jerky and random shadows. It didn’t quite surprise him that three other entranceways were blocked with old rockfall and the open-mouthed, light-seeking lichens.
The light shaft was carved into an almighty and continuous mural – prehistoric figures dancing or fucking in celebration or anguish, caressed by the current that ran through them. The creeper covered them, crawling with a dead lover’s hands – they danced away, the light making them restlessly carouse until they were lost, down, down in the dark.
Compelled, he picked up a loose pebble.
But before he let it go, he looked up.
And over him was the underside of the Monument.
A flat, stone ceiling, cracked as though under great impact. Upon it was engraved some sort of spiral, gradually winding outwards – but it was roughly, randomly penetrated by the undersides of the stones.
Thrust through the ceiling, splitting it in places to the edge, they were jags of rock, juts of stone, edges and corners.
And they
And the light spiralled out to the walls.
And bled through the figures and down.
Leaning on the balcony’s edge, holding the pebble out over the massive drop –
He let the pebble go.
And watched it, tracking it with his telescopics until he could see it only in the flashes of the wall light... until the darkness swallowed it whole.
Waited there for a moment, listening for the monsters, the drums in the deep.
When they didn’t stir, he contemplated the rough stone stairway that turned about the shaft’s wall, spiralling down into the very belly of the Powerflux.
* * *
When he kissed her, she tasted ashes.
The brazier was fierce at her back, his hands and lips were hot, but she was closed to him. The rock of her resentment was still in her heart. She wished she could hear the stone.
She remembered Feren: she remembered their ride, the Monument, the creature. She remembered the sunset, the rising shadow of the Kartiah. She remembered Vilsara, a world away, still safe behind Xenotian church walls. Had she ever wondered what had become of them?
Like Maugrim’s touch, the stone blade in her belly was hot, it burned her soul. She gasped, a tiny sound of shock – he was kissing her still, letting her fold in his arms and lowering her to the stone spiral beneath his odd, black boots.
“Sorry sweetheart,” he said, his voice deep and soft in her ear. His fingers stroked her jaw. “Seems time’s caught us up.”
Thick fluid welled over hands she couldn’t remember moving – she looked down at them, uncomprehending. Her own blood between her fingers, soaking her garments, seeping slowly, slowly, into the runnels of the carved- stone floor.
And inwards.
Vaguely, she thought there should be pain. Belly wounded, she should be screaming, but she only looked at him, confused.
She heard herself say, “Why?” and already knew the answer.
He said, “This world is rotting, dying from the inside. Complacent, lazy, self-absorbed – when I came here, he showed me how to fix it. How to burn it all down so it can begin again! He showed me
She could see the brazier’s light behind him and the bright eyes of the Sical, watching her, wanting...
He stroked her hair away from her face.
“I’m sorry – genuinely sorry, Amethea.” On some level, he seemed to mean it. “I’d’ve taken you all the way with me. But betrayal, cowardice – they’re low. You’ve hurt me – and I have to fight now. Roviarath is mine – and from there, we will grow...”
Over her, the almighty twists of the stalactite pillar flickered with the Sical’s hunger. She could hear it, a voice like fire crystal, eager and coquettish and charming.
She struggled to one elbow, blood pulsing from her belly. The blade was still in her flesh and the blood was slow – so slow. A part of her wanted to wrap one hand round the handle, yank it free, spend her last breath ramming it through his bearded throat, but he still compelled her, even after everything.
Instead she said, “Who’s ‘he’?”
He leaned forwards, pressed lips of fire to her forehead. She felt like she’d been branded.
“Who else?” he told her softly. “Kas Vahl Zaxaar, cast down by Samiel just like his brother Rhan. He sleeps – mostly – but there are those who understand his soul.”
“Like you?”
“Vahl brings
In the darkness of the shattered naves, the eyes of the stone army started to glow.
24: FIGMENT
THE MONUMENT
She was small, feminine curves carried confidently by tight, agile fitness. She had dark eyes, a turned-up nose, sunburn and a tension about her that spoke of great fear – and great bravery. She was smart, knew tales even the Bard hadn’t told him. She had watched her patrol destroyed around her, had cried for them and lain in his arms, gasping and wanting, needing to remember to
