From the maw at the base of the gantries, the passages and veins of the dead city corkscrewed away like the inside of a nautilus's shell. From the first long curving chamber--like the inside of a hollow horn--large openings like the maws of great arteries branched away. Other smaller ways branched and rebranched into impossible complexity like some system of capillaries. All the open spaces were crisscrossed by cables that one could swing or jump from. Doors and windows were scattered over the walls in patterns; great dark lamps hung like dead jellyfish in the open air.
And everywhere, there was debris. It clotted the dark air, flicking into visibility as the lantern's light found it: chairs, books, picture frames, wicker storage balls full of china plates--the whole inventory of a living city, vomited into these spaces and left to drift and assemble in strange clouds. Spiderwebs and skeins of fungi held some of the collections together.
They moved in, casting their lights in side passages as they went, but keeping to the main way. This corkscrewed but maintained a steady direction, heading toward Virga's outer wall.
"I saw no town wheels," said Mauven after a long silence. "Nothing to spin at all. What did these people do for gravity?... Sir? What's that?"
He looked to where the first mate had aimed his lantern. At first this artery seemed like the others they'd come through--but no, Mauven had spotted something affixed to one wall. It looked like nothing so much as a great fist, made of a substance disturbingly like cuticle or horn. The thing was eight feet across, and it clenched the wall so strongly that the ancient metal surface was furled and torn.
Jacoby swung his own lantern around and looked back the way they had come. His heart sank as he saw that they'd already passed a number of the things, but had missed them in the jumble of junk that choked the round corridor.
"I hate to say this," said Antaea, "but those look like eggs."
One of Jacoby's men swore suddenly and loudly. Jacoby followed the light of another lantern and felt a prickle of shock down his spine.
The lamplight played across a galaxy of corpses, all hanging in perfect stillness in the center of the passage ahead of them.
The sight was paralyzing, but as soon as Jacoby saw how it had stunned everyone else into silence, he shook himself and forced himself to take a more dispassionate look at what they'd discovered. The bodies were frozen, many showing huge and distressing cuts and slashes; beads of frozen blood hung in the air next to them. They were dressed like airmen, in a style he hadn't seen since he last visited some of the more backward nations of Spyre.
"So now we know why no one comes here," he said heavily. "But who did this? I don't like it; we'd better get back."
They had been drifting down the middle of the corridor, but now they all tried to stop themselves by grabbing ancient pedestrian ropes or wall rings. Mauven, however, was in the middle of the way and had nothing to grab on to; he kicked his feet into the stirrups of the spring-loaded wings mounted on his back, and they flapped once. The burst of wind caught the cloud of bodies, and the corpses began to move languidly. Less massive, the frozen beads and balls of blood began colliding and spinning away. The passageway filled with a strange, rapid-fire clicking sound as a wave of movement spread through the blood cloud.
Jacoby heard himself say, "Let's get out of here," and there was no disagreement. But as they turned to go back the way they'd come, the clicking sound was suddenly drowned out by a dry crackling noise.
One of the ominous growths that lined the wall was rocking. It was thirty feet up the corridor--in between them and the way out--and just a gray outline in the penumbra of their lanterns' light. It shook again, and then with a shattering sound it burst, and bright metal and splintering crystal flew through the air. Something scrabbled out of the wrecked cocoon and in seconds the passageway was filled with screaming and the sound of gunfire.
8
MAERTA WAS WAITING in the glass-walled gallery. Both her bodies were here, and six other large multi-armed shapes hovered in the dimness behind her. "Keir, what are you doing?" she asked.
The Virgans all stopped, looking around uneasily. Keir stepped up, meeting Maerta's gaze with a level look of his own. "This is their only way out," he said defiantly. "If they can break through the cordon on the other side, they'll be home-free. The guard bots won't be able to follow them into Candesce's field."
"I understand that," she said gently. "That's not what I asked. What are you doing?"
He swallowed, feeling the panic starting to return. "I'm leaving," he said; then, realizing that he hadn't yet talked to the Virgans about it, he turned to them. "If you'll have me."
Leal and Piero glanced at one another. "We would," said Leal, "but it's not for us to decide."
Maerta shook her head. "It's too soon, Keir. There's no telling what will happen to you if you enter Candesce's influence before the process is complete."
"What process?" He wanted to tear at his hair in frustrated anger. "What's happening to me," he demanded, "and who did it?"
Maerta opened her mouth, closed it, and for the first time, looked genuinely distressed. "Keir," she said hesitantly. "You're ... Dear, you're de-indexing. And ... you did it to yourself."
De-indexing? He polled scry, but the data was inaccessible--doubtless one of Maerta's "child-proofing" locks. He shook his head in confusion.
"I don't understand! None of this is making any sense." He backed toward the glass passage that led out of the city. "But you can't keep me here. I won't stay."
"It's suicide!" Maerta appealed to the Virgans. "Hasn't he told you what's waiting on the other side of the door? Stay here, we'll keep you safe until we come up with a better option."
To Keir's relief, Leal shook her head with a frown. "I have to deliver my message. I'm overdue."
Maerta took an angry step in Keir's direction; he backed away. "What message could be so important that you'll risk your own lives to bring it back to Virga?"
Leal just stared at her in disbelief. From the look on her face, Keir expected some outburst from her, but what she said was "I've been wondering something ever since we arrived here, Maerta.
"How is that you and your people are still human?"
Maerta said nothing.
"You're not from Virga," Leal went on. "Keir said he's from a planet named Revelation. Are you as well?" Guardedly, Maerta nodded. "And is Revelation within Artificial Nature?"
Another nod.
"Yet you fled here. You're hiding here. From what? What happened on Revelation?"
Maerta looked at Keir, then away. Finally she said, "Revelation was ... a little bubble of humanity in the larger universe. Outside of the arena, you understand, where truces hold between the various forces that contend inside A.N. Then ... the balance of power shifted, several years ago. Revelation's protection evaporated. The planet ... fell.
"We came here because Brink was an obscure place, a secret place, and right next to Virga."
"You came to study Candesce," said Leal.
"Yes. To try to find a way to defend ourselves."
"Then let us go," Leal commanded, "because you are not the only ones with this goal. And if I succeed, I may be able to give you direct access to Candesce, to study it from the inside. --And besides," she added, "if you can rescue the rest of our people from the plains below the city, they can stop this assault. Half of them are Home Guard people, anyway; if the others try to land they'll put a stop to whatever lies Loll's told to incite them. Take care of them, and I promise you, we will take care of Keir Chen."
Maerta looked at Keir. Again he held her gaze defiantly. Her shoulders slumped. "Then go," she said. "And yes, Leal, we'll find your men."
Keir turned and, without a look back, raced up the crystal passage that led from Aethyr, Brink, and Complication Hall to Virga.