His Ancient Heart (36 page)

Now he would do the same.

He made one more push forward, putting himself beneath the light. He looked up, seeing the top of the building high above, with dozens of clear crystals hanging from it and giving off a strong, natural light. They had been created over a thousand years ago and were still resonating.

There was a ladder at the far end of the tub. Talon swam to it and took hold of the rungs, pulling himself up and out of the water. He finally opened his mouth and took in a massive breath of air, feeling his lungs begin to burn anew as the power of his ebocite heart waned. He heaved and coughed for a few minutes, trying to survey his surroundings at the same time he recovered from the swim.
 

He was in the bellows room. The huge contraption was positioned a dozen feet away, exposed gears and pistons silent and still, though it looked like it could be restarted at any time. The disconnected import pipe was on one side, the export on the other. Behind it was a huge tank where the desalinated water would pool and then filter through even more pipes that ran everywhere along the walls of the Hospice.
 

It was all so clean, as though the wizards who created it were still present, keeping it all in perfect order.

He knew that meant he wasn't there alone.

He took one more strong breath and shifted his grip on Delia's knife, holding it against his wrist so he could use it to slash. If there were more juggernauts here, more Four Zeros, he could deactivate them without difficulty. If there was something else...
 

There was no way in that any human could survive. If there were another living thing here, it would have to be one of his brothers. One of the Nine.

A simple door rested at the far end of the room. Talon walked to it and pulled it open, and then peered out into the hall. The bellows was in the basement of the place, below the hundreds of rooms where they had brought patients for treatment, below the living quarters and dining halls and kitchens. The ceiling was low now, barely a foot over his head. The hanging crystals were replaced with the same phosphorescent moss that was prevalent in Genesia. It was groomed and tended.
 

There was definitely something else in here with him.

He walked along the corridor, keeping his steps as silent as possible, ready to leap at anything that appeared. He was starting to feel cold now, his body reacting to the frigid water that still clung to his clothes. He shivered as he reached the end of the hallway and turned the corner, following it towards a stairwell at the end.
 

He stopped before he reached the stairs, when he came to a door he recognized. He put his hand to it, remembering. The workshop. He pushed the door open.

He looked into the room. A long table with a row of tools laid out along it. A small furnace near the back where he could melt the ore. All kinds of molds and sample devices arranged on shelves in the corner. Things he had made, and things others had made after him. Inventions that helped the wizards of the Hospice cure even the worst afflictions. Inventions that could still help heal the sick today, if the Cursed were given the cure, and allowed to survive.

The cure. He had to find it. He had to take whatever there was and bring it back out of this place, back to Delia and Wilem, and then to Eryn. He needed to return with an army large enough to take the Refinery and hold it, and watch his wizards reveal it to the world once more.
 

Jeremiah would know he had been here.
He
would find out about the Carriers. Too late. Half
his
army was still in Elling, and half
his
Mediators were dead. Without the cure, the rest would die soon enough.

He left the room, and went back towards the stairs. He climbed quickly, up and out into a back corridor, a maintenance tunnel that ran the perimeter of the main building. From what he knew, the blood was brought here, the prozoa were removed, and it was sent back out. He could only assume that if the process was happening here in the Hospice, it was due to some kind of ancient magic, some kind of ancient machine, or perhaps a combination of both.

He chose one of the doors along the maintenance hallway and pushed it slowly open, leading with the dagger. The room he exited into was dark, devoid of crystals or vegetation. He could only barely make out the shapes of furniture in the dim glow that filtered from the access corridor.
 

Something moved in the darkness. Talon turned his eyes to it.
 

Red eyes looked back at him.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Talon

The juggernaut was silent as it moved in earnest, charging towards Talon, reaching out for him with giant hands. Talon stepped back, returning to the maintenance tunnel behind him while trying to get a good look at the creature.

Sharp hands. Red eyes. No mouth. A Three Six.
 

He threw the door closed behind him and took off down the hallway at a run. The juggernaut's fists pounded the door, smashing it to splinters. It entered the corridor behind him.

The Three Six had no entry point. It was sealed to make it completely immune to Shifter attacks, sealed because it was never intended to be maintained. The model was brought to the front line, expected to punch through the armies and destroy the generals. It had failed because it was too weighted in ircidium to cross the time distortion. The generals had torn them apart, even as the Three Six had torn the orcs and goblins and even the occasional dragon apart.

He may have been the First of Nine, the Champion of Ares'Nor, but without a blade that could punch through the juggernaut's armor... if it caught up to him, he would die.

It was almost a mile to the far end of the corridor, a testament to the grandiosity of both the size and mission of the Hospice. Talon sprinted, his bare feet slapping on the cold stone floor, his heart ramping up in speed with each stride. The juggernaut was big for the space, and it had to hold itself in a crouch to give chase, giving him a chance to put some distance between them.
 

He turned the corner, reaching the first door and pushing himself through, slamming it closed behind him and hoping the creature wouldn't know which way he had gone. He pushed his back against it and took hold of his breathing, focusing and slowing himself down. He was in another dark room, long and wide. A light filtered in from beneath the door at the other end.

Talon waited. He could hear the echoing of the juggernaut's footsteps in the corridor. They drew close and then moved on, bypassing him and continuing the hunt. The Three Six was unmatched on an open field. It hadn't been designed to understand being fooled.

His eyes adjusted while he stood there. He was in one of the healing chambers. An ircidium platform rested in the center of the room at a slight angle, with a gutter running along the bottom, draining out into a pipe that vanished into the ground. There were counters against the wall, laden with instruments the wizards had used in their healing. A small chair next to the platform allowed the wizard to sit while they did their work.

Unlike the bellows below, this room was unkept, untouched by anything but time. There were cobwebs everywhere, the tools were rusted, and a musty, sickly smell permeated the air. Talon knew the things that had occurred in rooms such as these. Amazing things. Amputations, removals, knitting and sewing of muscle and bone. Lives saved. Enough to account for the millions taken?
 

He went to the door, listening before opening it. If there was one Three Six, there were probably more, roaming these halls, protecting the Refinery from intruders. If there were enough of them, it would make it quite a challenge to take it from
him
.

Silence.
 

He opened the door and stepped out.

A juggernaut was standing in the hallway. It started to move as soon as it saw him, eyes burning red and hands tightening to fists. Talon looked back the way he had come. He didn't want to get caught in the maintenance corridor, with two of the metal men drawing in from both sides. The other direction was clear.
 

He ran again.

The juggernaut trailed behind him, following him as he maneuvered through the hallways, searching for a way to lose the creature. The corridors were shorter here, too short to fool this one the way he had fooled the first. He cursed himself for not being better prepared.

He reached a new passage. A juggernaut stood in the center of it. It came to life, moving towards him even as he backed away and found another direction.

He could hear them behind him, giving chase. He turned more corners, discovered more of the creatures. He ran from these as well, each contact closing off another path, another option. Even so, they never seemed to be able to catch him, or get him completely boxed in. There was always another corridor, another way to escape.

He was being led.

He realized it long before he finally reached a corner that didn't split, the perfect place to close the noose around him. Only there was no juggernaut. Instead, there was a straight, open line to a large doorway at the end. The great hall waited beyond it, he knew. They had chased him there, brought him there with a purpose and guile that defied their creation.
 

There was only one way that was possible.
 

He slowed to a walk. The juggernauts approached his rear, but they didn't close in for the kill. Instead, they too slowed, staying a dozen feet behind him, forming up three across and three deep, marching at his back like perfect soldiers.

He reached the door. It swung inward ahead of him.

"Talon," General Kwille said. "How good of you to come."

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Talon

Talon smiled. "Kwille. I should have known it would be you."

The Second of the Nine, Kwille was a diminutive man with features that better suited a woman. Long, blonde hair, a soft, heart-shaped face that sported only the barest of stubble, a narrow frame that left his uniform ill-fitted and loose.
 

He was the least suited for war of all of the Nine. A spineless man who scared at his own shadow, whose only claim to the brotherhood was his compatibility and their desperation. It was no wonder Jeremiah had installed him at the Refinery, keeping him out of the greater fight and leaving him with the squad of juggernauts.
 

"I never liked killing," Kwille said.

"You won't like being killed either."

Kwille laughed softly. "Oh, come now, Talon. Not even you can fight nine juggernauts and survive. Besides, I'm not here to see you dead."

"You're not?"

Kwille shook his head. "No. Those aren't my orders. That you've made it here is impressive. Beyond impressive. We were certain that diverting the Carriers from Edgewater would be enough to keep you away, and yet you knew where they would be. We never guessed that you had access to a scrying stone. There are only four of them after all."
 

"Three," Talon said. "It was destroyed." He didn't care if Kwille knew. Either the General wasn't going to survive to make another report or Talon would be too dead for it to matter.

"A pity. So difficult to make. The tourmaline is rarer than ebocite."

"Where is
he
?" Talon asked.

"Who?"

"You know who, Kwille. Where is
he
?" Talon's voice rose sharply as his anger grew.

"Not here. Not out there." He waved his hand towards the ceiling, at least a hundred feet above them. There were so many of the glowing crystals there that it resembled the night sky. "I don't know exactly where. None of us do. No one does. It's better that way."

"Better? How?"

"Less... personal?"

"I assure you, Kwille. It's personal."

"You misunderstand me. The promise, Talon. You've broken it."

"It needed to be broken."

"You don't even know why it exists, how can you claim that it shouldn't?"

"I know why it exists. Control. Power."

Kwille waved a hand at him. "Please. You're smarter than that. The best parts of us all. That's why you were First."

"You have the cure right here. The Shifters are gone, or at least so weak that we can destroy whatever is left. What other reason is there?"

"I need to show you something," Kwille said. "Those are my orders. To show you. Not to fight you. Please don't make me use the juggernauts."

"What do you want to show me?"

"You won't believe me if I tell you. That's not the kind of man you are. You need to see if for yourself." He pointed to a doorway on his left. "It's through there. The truth about the Refinery. Let me show it to you."

Talon's eyes followed Kwille's hand to the door. How could he be sure he was telling him the truth? Showing him the truth? Perhaps Jeremiah still didn't want to kill Talon. There was a dragon on the loose, and Shifters had destroyed Fulton.
He
had kept him alive after Aren, made him forget so that
he
wouldn't lose one of
his
Nine. Perhaps
he
just wanted to bring him back under control, and this was
his
means to do it?

"I don't trust you," Talon said.

The juggernauts shifted behind him.

"I've been here for over nine hundred years, Talon. Nine hundred. I don't remember what the sun looks like. The sky, the grass, the rain. The ocean pools into this building, and yet I can't describe it to you. I know nothing about the outside world, except what I am told. Why would anyone let that happen? Why would anyone put themselves through that?"

He paused, waiting for Talon to answer. After a few breaths of silence, he continued.

"The promise, brother. I gave up everything for the promise."

"You would have died long ago."

"A death I welcome. All of this, it is sacrifice. What I have given of myself for the sake of the promise. Nine hundred years of caretaking and maintenance, of collection and disbursal. All I ask is for you to come and see what
he
wants me to show you, come and hear what
he
wants me to say.
He
never wanted you to find this place. It would have been easier for all of us if you hadn't. Since you did, perhaps there is another way out of this. Perhaps it isn't too late."