Mal left the hatch open when he passed through, and Vlad counted again silently before he followed.
Behemoth’s mouth gaped open now, and faint light filtered in the massive pool it created. At the edge of it, near a row of metal teeth the height of a man, Mal paced and looked for a place to climb. Vlad moved slowly through pockets of shadow, eyes never leaving his prey, and when the young man scrambled up over the teeth and into the dim light beyond, Vlad moved faster, the sound of his feet in the water masked by the grinding and clanking of the mechanical, though even now those noises were subsiding.
He reached the edge of the mouth and leaped to catch the top of a massive tooth, and despite the scout powders, he felt the exertion in his muscles and in his chest. Pulling himself up with a muffled groan, he stretched himself out over the top of the teeth and held himself in place so he could look around.
Behemoth rested now in a dim lagoon lit poorly by more of the red jewels, casting the dark water in a rust-colored light. It had brought itself to a stop, open mouth pressed close against a stone pier.
This is the basement of the ladder.
The sound of footsteps echoing through the chamber turned his head, and he saw Mal climbing a staircase cut into the far wall. Sighing, Vlad pushed himself up and scrambled onto the pier, trying to control his breathing as he went.
He pulled himself up and turned back to Behemoth where it lay stretched out. The size of it daunted him, and even as he watched, he saw steam venting from it as its gears wound down, and he imagined it sleeping here, waiting for the appointed time for its appearance.
Called forth by blood.
Shivering suddenly, Vlad set off at a brisk walk toward the stairs and soon found himself climbing. He slowed when his ascent stitched his side and threatened his breathing, pausing here and there to listen for the bare slap of Mal’s feet on the steps above him. When he reached the top, he saw another open hatch and found himself reeling from a kind of vertigo when he passed through it and found himself surrounded by water, above and below and around him. It was a corridor of crystal that stretched out across an expanse to end at another hatch.
Mal Li Tam worked the wheel of it and then slipped inside. Vlad followed carefully and quickly after.
He followed his grandson for what seemed hours, up stairs and down ladders, through crystal corridors and red-lit chambers with purposes now lost to time. Finally, as his scout powders showed their first sign of guttering and burning out, he passed through another hatch and came to a sudden stop.
This chamber was also crystalline-vast and round-and hanging in the center of it, suspended by silver wires thick as palm trees, was a massive and dark orb. A circular staircase led up from the bottom of the round chamber, stopping at a platform just beneath the stone, and already Mal was taking those steps two at a time.
This is what he seeks.
And Vlad knew that it must be the same for him, though he did not comprehend what it was exactly. Still, with the younger man’s sudden burst of energy he felt his own sense of urgency grow.
He felt heat just beneath his skin as the scout magicks guttered again, and he tightened his grip upon the handle of the knife. He moved as quickly as he could without making sound or wind, his feet whispering across the floor and then upon the stairs.
Mal had reached the platform now, and from Vlad’s new vantage point, he could better see the orb that hung above them. At first, he thought it was fractured, but as he drew closer he saw that the glass was shot through with silver veins. Already, his grandson had dropped his knife and was climbing up into the thick wires that supported it, moving along the dark surface of the orb.
Vlad reached the platform, scooped up the knife, and leaned back to watch the young man climb.
What is he doing?
Mal Li Tam stood upon the top of the orb now and laid both of his hands upon something that protruded from it. Vlad heard the youth grunting as he tugged on it, and when it began to give, it slid out of the stone with a sound that was nearly music. As he withdrew it, the veins of silver dissipated, and even below on the platform, Vlad felt a tickling in his ears as something, somewhere stirred to life with the faintest vibration.
It built, and he realized that as it did, the light in the room grew. When the long, slender staff was completely free of the stone, Mal Li Tam extended it upward with both hands with a loud cry. The light radiating from the stone’s core reflected white and hot from the surface of the silver staff, but an even greater light, from beyond the crystal room, rose to cast its eerie reflection.
The room itself began to move, the stone rotating with it as the wires that supported it whispered and sang. Vlad placed his back to the railing and crouched, trying to keep his focus on the movements of his grandson as Mal made his way down, the silver rod clenched tightly in one hand.
When his feet are on the platform I will strike.
But the rising light pulled at his eyes, and as it did, he found tears welling up again at the beauty of what he saw. Blue-green light from all sides drove away the shadows as d’jin filled the sea beyond the crystal vault. Writhing and twisting, they danced through the waters, and the vibration in his ears became a familiar song even as the knife within his hands became an antiphon of its own-a response to that song that he would soon give.
One d’jin, larger than the others and moving with a fluid grace he knew very well, separated itself from the others and descended into the silver veins, flooding the glass stone and transforming it into a blinding moon.
Mal’s feet dangled over the platform now, and Vlad held his breath.
When those feet touched down, Vlad Li Tam smiled and let loose his fury, bathed in the light of a love he could not comprehend, knife-dancing to a song that required his response.
Petronus
They moved through the caves at a rapid walk, often reduced to single file as they followed their metal guide. Petronus walked at the front with Grymlis and Rafe Merrique, while the others spread out behind them.
The metal man had said little since admitting them, despite Petronus’s attempts to engage it, and now he’d left the mechanical to its secrets, focusing instead on his unexpected encounter with Neb in a waking dream that left his nose bleeding and his skull pounding. The boy was nothing like the orphan he’d found in Sethbert’s camp two years ago. There was a confidence and strength about him even beyond what he’d attained in the grave-digging of Windwir, and along with that confidence and strength, there was a hard edge and a sadness. It didn’t take much Franci behaviorist training to see it or to speculate as to what kinds of events might have brought it forth in him.
Just his time under their knives would be enough to change him forever. But Petronus suspected more than that had altered the boy. Beyond the cutting, there was the reason behind it-his role as the Marsher Homeseeker, something that until a few weeks ago Petronus had disbelieved.
Until I was pulled into the mythology myself.
And now, he could not help but believe that he stood upon the precipice of something of vital importance, though he had no real information to prove it was so. And equally, he believed that it was likely he and this ragged group of men he led would not survive to see the antiphon do what it was made for.
Still, he knew they would give their lives for it.
Ahead of them, a dim light grew, and when they spilled out into the open, Petronus saw that it was the moon, high and full above the mountain. It washed the valley with blue-green light, reflecting off a large metal mass he saw there.