I clamped down on my panic. "It will notice us soon, whether we move or not."
"So what do we do?" Mizra asked, muffled behind Kichlan's hand. Gradually, Kichlan released his grip.
"We contain it," I replied. This was like the other times, wasn't it? The mass of grains and planes clinging like a parasite to the building's wall. The surging muck that had shut down a factory. The mad planes that had destroyed the technicians' offices and nearly killed Devich. This was another form, another surprise, just another test.
"Any ideas on how we would do that?" Sofia asked and edged closer, Uzdal at her side.
We stood in a line, a team, missing one.
"Can't," Lad jittered. "Should run."
I looked at him. The Keeper was being less than helpful. "Can you tell him something for me, Lad?"
Lad looked at me, surprised, and his shaking arms stilled. "He can hear you, Tan. Told me to say he can hear you."
"Right." Where do you look to talk to the invisible? "Well, then." I drew a breath and focused on a spot beside Lad's ear. "If you're going to stay here and talk you might as well help. Dire warnings aren't going to make us run. So stop it."
"Speak for yourself," Mizra muttered as wind blew and Lad listened.
I realised, with a low sickness in my gut, that I could hear the collector's skin being torn away.
Lad said, "Says you should have run, but if it's too late, he will try."
"Right," I murmured. What exactly was I supposed to be asking?
"How do we collect it?" Kichlan asked for me.
"Says you can't," Lad said. "Says it's not normal, won't go into the jars like normal."
"Other's balls," Uzdal growled.
I said, "Why is it different? Why have we been able to-"
A terrible scream sliced through my words. Lad added a scream of his own, wrapped his hands around his head and sank to his knees. Kichlan dropped to his side. Mizra and Uzdal stood to the spot like the steel beam rammed into the earth.
"It's seen us!" Sofia yelled. She grabbed at Kichlan's elbow. But Lad was sinking lower, and I knew Kichlan wouldn't move unless he did. We had to hold it off.
"Come on!" I yelled at Mizra and his brother. "A shield!"
The debris shifted. It didn't float like grains or lance through the sky like planes. It compressed, became thin, transparent, and disappeared. The body against the beam sagged into a shapeless mess of blood and skin.
"It's gone," Mizra whispered. But he knew, I knew, we all could feel it like taint in the air. The debris was here, somewhere.
"Shield them!" I screamed at him. "Quickly!" I spread my suit out over Kichlan, Lad and Sofia like a ceiling of silver. Uzdal joined me a moment later. Mizra stared at the body, lips moving silently.
"Mizra!" Uzdal yelled at his brother.
Then the debris attacked. It slammed itself against the shield and Uzdal fell, a gurgled cry on his lips. I gritted my teeth as shock travelled through the suit and into my bones, but held steady.
"Uz!" Mizra snapped from his distraction and wrapped his own suit over Uzdal's as the debris attacked again.
"Not Lad." I ground my teeth, spat blood and saliva at a flitter of shadow. "You can't have him."
…you soon. Careful…
As suddenly as I heard him the Keeper was gone.
"Hold it up!" I told Uzdal and Mizra. "Can you?"
Pale faces nodded. They could, yes, but not for long.
I withdrew my suit from the shield and began stalking, ringing a wide circle around them. "Where are you? Come on, you dirty Other-skinned bastard! I'm here, try it."
Darkness on my left. I spun, suit up and still oval, and the debris glanced against me. A sword on a shield.
I chuckled. "This is old. I've been here before!"
Something crashed into my lower back. I waited for skin to peel, for bones to crush like all the bodies I had seen. But my suit was too fast. It shot out from neck and waist, and wrapped my torso in silver that knocked the debris aside. Still, I was thrown into the air. Even as I realised I was alive, and whole, I shot stilts into the ground and held myself up.
You are the biggest threat. It hasn't realised that yet. It is still going for the Half.
I replied, "You could tell me something I can't see for myself and that would be more useful."
It is coming for you.
Heat around my thigh. I withdrew one arm, lowered the other and swiped at the apparently thin air with a sharp suit. Something screamed, then crashed against my supporting arm. I folded with a cry, fell to the earth. Stone cut into my cheeks.
Roll.
I coughed out dust, saw tiny splotches of red wet the grass.
Left.
I rolled.
Wait. Right. Again. Faster.
Not fast enough. Slices in my arms, over my neck and down to my back.
Suit! Quickly!
I didn't know what that meant. My suit did. It wrapped me again in silver, fingertips to toes to jaw. Where it touched my open skin metal seeped into my wounds, into muscle and nerve. I screamed my throat raw, kicked against the ground, but could not shake the invasion of my body.
Head!
I saw the flicker this time, rolled of my own volition. But something heavy and solid smacked into my temple. A different darkness spotted against the ruddy, dull sky, lit by pinpricks of stars.
The suit moved. It crawled over my jaw, up over the back of my head like creeping hands. Dazed, I couldn't stop it. I was hit again, this time something sharp. It cut my ear, tore hair and grazed scalp. Then my suit was there. It soaked into my ear, into the spaces between my skin and skull. I clamped my lips closed, it sealed them. I squeezed my eyes shut and it was a heavy blindfold. Over my nose, it grew, into my nostrils.
I couldn't breathe. Something was hitting me, clashing with my suit in a sound like a battle of silverware and crockery. But I couldn't breathe. Nothing else mattered, I fought my body, struggled with my addled mind for control.
Just to breathe.
I only wanted to breathe!
Be still.
Sounds in my ears, clamouring and rushing, a cacophony. A smell like burning flesh. Great exhaustion pressed down until I couldn't move anything any more, even if I'd wanted to. My chest burned fit to burst, I was seeing colours on the back of my eyes.
It has gone for the Half. You can breathe now.
Breathe? With silver shoved up my nose?
Listen to me, Tanyana, and breathe. I have waited this long to meet you. If you die now, you will make me mad.
I laughed despite myself and in that involuntary explosion of air discovered I could suck it in as well. Suit or none.
I breathed so deeply it rushed to my head like wine. I wanted to laugh long, loud and hard.
Lie still, catch your breath. Don't let it think you're alive.
The air smelled stale, like body odour and humidity.
And when you're ready, open your eyes.
No point arguing. I could breathe, why not see. Why not talk.
I opened my eyes to a very different world. Gone was Grandeur's graveyard. Gone were the bodies, the chaos. It was a dark world of empty planes and doors. Nothing but doors.
Well, nothing but doors and a man.
He was bent over me, concerned face close to mine.
Pale as limestone, skin translucent, eyes dark and seeming to float in his face. There was nothing inside him one would normally associate with a man, no bones or pumping blood. Just thin veins of darkness like patterns in marble.
He had no hair, I realised, and was naked. Naked and anatomically accurate.
"Are you the Keeper?" I whispered, half expecting my mouth to fill with silver. It did not.
He smiled. The inside of his mouth was black. "I have more than one name. But yes, that is one of them."
I tried to sit up, but he placed a hand on my chest and kept me down.
"Do not move until you are ready to fight it."